Supercourse Newsletter
16/9/11
www.pitt.edu/~super1/
SUPERCOURSE of Science at the Library of Alexandria
Friends we would like to announce the availability of the Library of Alexandria Supercourse of Science. http://ssc.bibalex.org. This magnificent site has been harvesting all the lectures of Health, Environment, Engineering, and Agriculture. It currently has over 150,000 PowerPoint lectures collected and classified. We plan to collect over 3 million. Dr. Ismail Serageldin at the Library of Alexandria has led this effort to capture all the PowerPoint lectures of science. This is destined to become one of the leading scientific sites on the web. The Library of Alexandria has produced a magnificent video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z_CsRVbBCI It is a powerful system where you can open multiple PowerPoint lectures and just point and click to drop slides into a lecture "basket". Please forward this to your friends and teachers that you know in Science. We would especially appreciate you informing your libraries about this. This will serve as an invaluable resource in the teaching of students now and future generations.
"A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." (Planck)
What is Health? Campaign: As you all know the last month has been an intensive campaign to teach the health students in the world the WHO Definition of Health (Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity). It became painfully obvious to me this was important as I taught a class of graduate students in Epidemiology. Of the 150 students only about 10 new the definition of health. Ask your students if they know the definition of health, and sadly you will likely find the same thing. The logic for our campaign is obvious. We feel that no medical, public health, nursing or other health student should graduate without knowing the definition of health. Health students should know what health is. As I indicated to you we have produced a poster that you can share with your students electronically, and print for free. I am personally making these into framed pictures and giving these to visitors, and I am thinking that it would make a very nice Christmas present for my family!! http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/globalhealth/What%20is%20Health.htm
We estimate that >200,000 students have seen the definition of health. We hope that all 6 million health students in the world learn this definition. Please join the campaign.
We would appreciate if you could put this in your blogs, and in Facebook, and share it with lists of faculty and students. We would like by the end of 2012, that 90% of the health students in the world would know what health is.
"Do not run a campaign that would embarrass your mother" (R. Byrd)
News from WHO
VOTE for the WHO Mother Baby mCheck Tool Project Proposal: An innovative
mobile phone patient safety solution. The WHO Mother Baby mCheck Tool is a finalist in the USAID Grand Challenge "Saving Lives at Birth" call for proposals. This exciting new project empowers mothers to identify danger signs in themselves or their babies immediately after birth using a checklist and a mobile phone. As part of this call, a People's Choice Award will be awarded based on the number of online votes received. So please vote for the WHO Mother Baby mCheck Tool in India and spread the word via Facebook, Linked in, etc.
http://www.savinglivesatbirth.net/innovation/summaries You can vote as many times as you wish.
12th symposium International Diabetes Epidemiology Group
http://www.bakeridi.edu.au/ideg
The IDEG diabetes epidemiology meeting is the premier meeting of diabetes epidemiology in the world. Over the past 30 years the numbers of diabetes epidemiologists has exploded, as had the rise in diabetes itself. Some of the greatest increases have been in the Gulf region. The IDEG meeting will be held 2-4 December 2011 at the University of Sharjah, UAE. Johathan.shaw@bakeridi.edu.au can be contacted to find out more about this wonderful event. Nabil Sulaiman is the local host, and he will most certainly make the event memorable. nsulaiman@sharjah.ac.ae.
International Epidemiology Meetings: Many of us went to the International Epidemiology association in Scotland. It was truly a memorable event with outstanding science, and wonderful time and friendship. Raj Bhopal, was a great host, and all at the meeting thank him. We had great fun learning about Single Malt Scotch! We tried also to find the Loch Ness monster. We are in the process of including some of the keynote lectures into the Supercourse as presented below
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/globalhealth/IEA2011.htm
The Supercourse is part of the future of Epidemiology.
Recently, Raj Bhopal and others wrote an exceptional editorial in the Lancet on the Future of Epidemiology. A particular focus was the need for global connectivity in Epidemiology. Congratulations Supercourse Members, we were identified as an example of the future of global epidemiologic connectivity. It is a great feeling for us to be considered to be the future.
The Lancet, Volume 378, Issue 9790, Pages 464 - 465, 6 August 2011
What is the future of epidemiology? Raj Bhopal a, Gary J Macfarlane b, William Cairns Smith c, Robert West d, on behalf of the Management Executive Committee for the XIX World Congress of Epidemiology
…"Supercourse (2) a dynamic repository of lectures on epidemiology and global health is an excellent example of global connectivity"
"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind to the present moment (Budda)
Earthquake and Hurricane: In the past few weeks in the eastern part of the United States there was an Earthquake, and Hurricane Irene. Because of the skills of Walter Hays we were able to create Just in Time Lectures, which became some of the leading disaster lectures on the web.
Faina's pick of the week
Supercourse group recently went to the Congress of Epidemiology in Edinburgh, Scotland, beautifully organized by Dr. Raj Bhopal. Among many wonderful presenters, Dr. Reddy from India presented about the problem of obesity. This lecture joined the Supercourse collection a couple of weeks ago and can be found at http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec42741/index.htm
Obesity is a problem affecting all age groups, including children. Dr. Reddy describes the problem in both developing and developed world and emphasized the need to attack the problem.
Best Regards,
Ron, Faina, Eugene, Francois, Nicholas, Gil, Mita, Ismail, Eric, Jesse, Kawkab, Vint, Ali, Meredith
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