Shifting the paradigm - Applying universal standards of care to Ebola virus disease

As the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC’s) 10th outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) rages in this resource-limited, wartorn region, advances in the delivery of supportive care and the introduction of investigational therapies provide a glimmer of hope amid the mounting infections. In the absence of effective therapies or vaccines, EVD outbreak response has centered around the most basic of public health principles — identification and isolation of patients with suspected and confirmed EVD and tracking of all the contacts of the confirmed patients, who are then rapidly isolated if they show signs of disease. This strategy of “identify, isolate, and track” allows public health responders to curtail and eventually eliminate virus transmission in the community and has been the foundation of EVD outbreakcontrol efforts since the disease was first described in 1976

Field Measurements of Terrestrial and Martian Dust Devils

Surface-based measurements of terrestrial and martian dust devils/convective vortices provided from mobile and stationary platforms are discussed. Imaging of terrestrial dust devils has quantified their rotational and vertical wind speeds, translation speeds, dimensions, dust load, and frequency of occurrence. Imaging of martian dust devils has provided translation speeds and constraints on dimensions, but only limited constraints on vertical motion within a vortex. The longer mission durations on Mars afforded by long operating robotic landers and rovers have provided statistical quantification of vortex occurrence (time-of-sol, and recently seasonal) that has until recently not been a primary outcome of more temporally limited terrestrial dust devil measurement campaigns. Terrestrial measurement campaigns have included a more extensive range of measured vortex parameters (pressure, wind, morphology, etc.) than have martian opportunities, with electric field and direct measure of dust abundance not yet obtained on Mars. No martian robotic mission has yet provided contemporaneous high frequency wind and pressure measurements. Comparison of measured terrestrial and martian dust devil characteristics suggests that martian dust devils are larger and possess faster maximum rotational wind speeds, that the absolute magnitude of the pressure deficit within a terrestrial dust devil is an order of magnitude greater than a martian dust devil, and that the time-of-day variation in vortex frequency is similar. Recent terrestrial investigations have demonstrated the presence of diagnostic dust devil signals within seismic and infrasound measurements; an upcoming Mars robotic mission will obtain similar measurement types

Statistical Outliers and Dragon-Kings as Bose-Condensed Droplets

A theory of exceptional extreme events, characterized by their abnormal sizes compared with the rest of the distribution, is presented. Such outliers, called "dragon-kings", have been reported in the distribution of financial drawdowns, city-size distributions (e.g., Paris in France and London in the UK), in material failure, epileptic seizure intensities, and other systems. Within our theory, the large outliers are interpreted as droplets of Bose-Einstein condensate: the appearance of outliers is a natural consequence of the occurrence of Bose-Einstein condensation controlled by the relative degree of attraction, or utility, of the largest entities. For large populations, Zipf's law is recovered (except for the dragon-king outliers). The theory thus provides a parsimonious description of the possible coexistence of a power law distribution of event sizes (Zipf's law) and dragon-king outliers.Comment: Latex file, 16 pages, 1 figur

Applications of electrified dust and dust devil electrodynamics to Martian atmospheric electricity

Atmospheric transport and suspension of dust frequently brings electrification, which may be substantial. Electric fields of 10 kVm-1 to 100 kVm-1 have been observed at the surface beneath suspended dust in the terrestrial atmosphere, and some electrification has been observed to persist in dust at levels to 5 km, as well as in volcanic plumes. The interaction between individual particles which causes the electrification is incompletely understood, and multiple processes are thought to be acting. A variation in particle charge with particle size, and the effect of gravitational separation explains to, some extent, the charge structures observed in terrestrial dust storms. More extensive flow-based modelling demonstrates that bulk electric fields in excess of 10 kV m-1 can be obtained rapidly (in less than 10 s) from rotating dust systems (dust devils) and that terrestrial breakdown fields can be obtained. Modelled profiles of electrical conductivity in the Martian atmosphere suggest the possibility of dust electrification, and dust devils have been suggested as a mechanism of charge separation able to maintain current flow between one region of the atmosphere and another, through a global circuit. Fundamental new understanding of Martian atmospheric electricity will result from the ExoMars mission, which carries the DREAMS (Dust characterization, Risk Assessment, and Environment Analyser on the Martian Surface)-MicroARES (Atmospheric Radiation and Electricity Sensor) instrumentation to Mars in 2016 for the first in situ measurements

New filovirus disease classification and nomenclature

Filoviruses, the members of the family Filoviridae, are currently classified into one proposed and five established genera (Supplementary Table 1). Of the twelve described filoviruses, six have been identified as aetiological agents of naturally occurring human disease outbreaks