Supercourse Newsletter, April 1, 2002
-------------------------------------
Dear Friends,
Lots of News:
It has been an exciting few weeks, and we have greatly expanded our
efforts. We originally thought that things would start to calm down,
but more and more, and more lectures are pouring in. It is amazing
that no one before our supercourse ever thought of the really simple
concept of sharing PowerPoint lectures to improve global health. It
is not rocket science, but it works.
Lectures:
Since January 1, 2002 we have almost had 1 lecture a day flowing in.
We currently have 670 lectures, with over 55 lectures submitted since
Jan. 1. It has been an incredible flow for information. Eugene and
Julia Shubnikov from Siberia are busy keeping up with the lectures.
It has been hectic, but most fun.
Terrorism and the Epidemiology of Fear:
We completed lecture on the epidemiology of fear, that you might want
to use if you are presenting on terrorism. As part of the lecture we
recruited "Mr. H", to provide his input. "Mr. H" is probably the
world's expert on terrorism. We cannot reveal the name of "Mr. H" be-
cause of security reasons. The lecture gives broad hints as to who
"Mr. H" is, and we would like to see if you can figure it out. We
guarantee that after you see the lecture you will never view terror-
ism in the same way. Please take a look at our lecture on terrorism,
come listen to the world's expert on terrorism. Please send to us
your opinions:
www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec5041/index.htm
The Star of 500 lectures:
Sherine Shewky from Saudi Arabia, but originally from Egypt wrote to
us a great note: "I have 6 lectures ready since January for super-
course but I have no time to write the notes page. I promise to try
to finish them by May 29th and wish you happy birthday. In Egypt we
always wish on that day "a long happy life with the family and be-
loved friends" and I add to that "with plenty of lectures and success
for supercourse". I forgot to tell you, when I was in the Inclen
meeting, all members knew of supercourse and loved its lectures. Do
you imagine many people knew my name from the 2 lectures I made and
your newsletter when I won the lecture number 500. Isn't that great!
Wish you best of luck and more success and "long live Supercourse"
Reaching everyone in Epidemiology and Public Health:
During the past few months we have been on a mission to reach every-
one involved in epidemiology and public health to tell them about the
Supercourse. Kiran Kalyan Turaga from India will be working with us
next year. He had the brilliant idea of reaching people through the
Community of Science. This is a listing of many of the scientists in
academia worldwide. We sent out a note to those people in the commu-
nity of science concerning the Supercourse, and the response was fan-
tastic. We went up from 5,000 members of the Supercourse to now over
7,600. He just recently did a search to find those people who listed
public health, and there were over 9,000. We shall be contacting them
in the next few weeks. We want to everyone in public health worldwide
to know of us. It is very important that you help, as "word-of-mouth"
is the best advertisement. Tell all your colleagues.
Arab Heritage:
Rania Saad, and Abed Husseini are working to develop an Arabic ver-
sion of the Supercourse. We think we can use Machine Translation with
the translation programs enriched with the language of Epidemiology.
We have asked John Last to build in the Dictionary of Epidemiology.
Also, as part of this we plan to build a site for Arabic Women's
Health. There are 600 million Arabic women, but few sites on Women's
health, which take into consideration the customs.
Japan:
Health Policy and Epidemiology: Professor R.A. Spasoff was invited to
the annual meeting of the Japan Epidemiological Association, January
2002, to give a presentation on health policy and epidemiology. He
kindly provided his lecture on this topic to the Supercourse and its
global audience. Akira Sekikawa has been networking and coordinating
efforts in Japan.
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec5151/index.htm
Former Soviet Union Update:
National Supercourses: Eugene Shubnikov has been working to develop
the National Supercourses.
FSU (Former Soviet Union) National Supercourse:
FSU National Supercourse is moving quickly - FSU Website created by
Faina Linkov - is already available:
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/national/
It includes a FSU Calendar and about 20 Supercourse lectures from
Russian and foreign authors. The Total number of lectures including
"Health in Russia: Internet Application" by Eugene Subnikov
(http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec5071/index.htm) is 30 now!
There are four Country's Health profiles already available: Russian,
Ukranian, Kazakhstan and Armenian. For all other 11 countries we have
representatives who will lead Health Indicators project for their
countries.
* Moreover a set of 12 lectures which represent the Russian-language.
* Evidence-based chronic diseases prevention (EBCDP) course adapted
from the English original will be soon available for Russian/FSU
auditorium.
Supercourse History:
The origins of the supercourse were in the early 1990s. We were lucky
to meet with Tony Villasenor, the head of the NASA scientific Inter-
net who funded the initial effort. One might ask why NASA would be
involved with this. NASA had an enormous problem. If an astronaut be-
came sick in space, they would immediately have to bring him or her
to earth. It was extremely difficult to determine where the capsule
was coming down. Tony and others at NASA had the concept that if we
could create a global health network before an event like this hap-
pened then if the space craft came down in Mongolia, Mali, Missouri,
or Moscow, there would people from the global health network on the
ground to rapidly respond for medical and health. In addition, a goal
of NASA is to translate the scientific results from space flight to
improve life on earth. NASA considered the concept of a Human Preven-
tion Network tied together by the Internet as a noble achievement for
all of human kind, as do we. We thank Tony Villasenor and NASA for
all their help.
Supercourse experiences a wonderful movement in the Ukraine. Faina
recently went to Ukraine and met with the key players in the Ukrain-
ian Supercourse: Boris Ledoshuk, Konstantyn Atoev, and Yevgeniy Laty-
shev. 6 New Supercourse lectures came from Donetsk City Hospital, 25
where Yevgeniy Latyshev works. Ukrainian National Supercourse lec-
ture, created by Konstantyn Atoev is currently available at:
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/ns0021
Updated versions of Boris Ledoshuk's lectures on epidemiology and ra-
diation will be arriving in May. Future collaboration in Ukraine may
include the creation of short training course of epidemiology in
Kiev.
60 Days and Counting!!! Yes friends there are only 60 days left of
his birthday (REL). He is a swell guy, whose only pleasure in life is
feeding upon your wonderful lectures. On May 29, well will declare a
global lecture day. You all can have a day off work and from school
(tell your boss that REL gave you permission). Those who submit a
lecture by May 29 will be given the title a "ron-lecturer", a very,
very distinguished honor, much better than publishing in Nature, much
better than being knighted, and even better then getting a Noble
prize.. You too can be a ron-lecturer.
Best regards on Apr 1...April Fools day!!
Ron, Akira, Faina, EunRyoung, Mita, Fan, Luciza, Beatriz, Fred,
Kiran, Raina, Abed, Tom, Deb.
mailto:super2+@pitt.edu
--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: afro-nets-help@usa.healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org