BACKGROUND Social network analysis (SNA) is an innovative approach to the collection and analysis of infectious disease transmission data. We studied whether this approach can detect patterns of Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission and play a helpful role in the complex process of prioritizing tuberculosis (TB) contact investigations. METHODS We abstracted routine demographic and clinical ...

Patterns of social contact between individuals are important for the transmission of many pathogens and shaping patterns of immunity at the population scale. To refine our understanding of how human social behaviour may change over time, we conducted a longitudinal study of Hong Kong residents. We recorded the social contact patterns for 1450 individuals, up to four times each between May 2012 ...

BACKGROUND Stigma and discrimination associated with mental health problems is an important public health issue, and interventions aimed at reducing exposure to stigma and discrimination can improve the lives of people with mental health problems. Social contact has long been considered to be one of the most effective strategies for improving inter-group relations. For this study, we assess the...

The present study examined the socio-demographic, clinical, cognitive, social behaviour and social network characteristics of the 97 patients in contact with the COSTAR programme--a mobile treatment and case management service for the long-term mentally ill in inner-city Baltimore. Compared with shorter-contact patients, those in contact for more than one year showed no change in symptoms, or i...

    World Health Organization (WHO) data show higher vulnerable rates of COVID-19 among older adults especially in those with underlying diseases. WHO recommended particularly limitations of social communications for older adults so that control virus transmission among these vulnerable populations. Recommended restrictions included social distancing and stay at home (1). Social distancing is a...

We develop a theoretical framework for the study of epidemiclike social contagion in large scale social systems. We consider the most general setting in which different communication platforms or categories form multiplex networks. Specifically, we propose a contact-based information spreading model, and show that the critical point of the multiplex system associated with the active phase is de...

Understanding the nature of human contact patterns is crucial for predicting the impact of future pandemics and devising effective control measures. However, few studies provide a quantitative description of the aspects of social interactions that are most relevant to disease transmission. Here, we present the results from a detailed diary-based survey of casual (conversational) and close conta...

In this paper I focus on finding new solutions to usability issues with contact book of a mobile phone, as it is one of the most text intensive features of a mobile phone. The paper attempts to provide a totally new look to the contact book by using visual experience and minimizing the usage of text in the interaction (hence making it usable to nonliterates). Some of the new features are transf...