Finding and removing highly connected individuals using suboptimal vaccines.

Background: Social networks are often highly skewed, meaning that the vast majority of the population has only few contacts whereas a small minority has a large number of contacts. These highly connected individuals may play an important role in case of an infectious disease outbreak.

Methods: We propose a novel strategy of finding and immunizing highly connected individuals and evaluate this strategy by computer simulations, using a stochastic, individual-and network-based simulation approach.

Proprioceptive and sensorimotor performance in Parkinson's disease.

We explored the effects of random whole-body vibration on leg proprioception in Parkinson's disease (PD). In earlier studies it was found that this treatment leads to improved postural control in these patients. Thus, one could speculate that these effects result from modified proprioceptive capabilities.