Glossary of common acronyms and terms used on this site

[Niko]

Glossary, Acronyms and/or common abbreviations used at FluTrackers.com

Discussion forum "speak"
AFAIK	As Far As I Know
DH or DW	Dear Husband, Dear Wife, etc. for various family members: DS for Dear Son; DD for Dear Daughter; DSIL for Dear Son In Law.
HTH	Hope This Helps
IMHO	In My Honest Opinion or In My Humble Opinion
IMO	In My Opinion
LOL	Laughing Out Loud
MSM	Main Stream Media
PM	Private Message (sent from one member to another within the site)
ROTFLOL	Rolling On The Floor Laughing Out Loud; and other combinations: ROFL, ROFLMAO
SWAG	Stupid Wild A** Guess
TIFWIW	Take It For What It's Worth
TPTB	The Powers That Be (leaders in the world of government, commerce, etc.)
YMMV	Your Mileage May Vary, literally, "your experience may differ".
~ ~ ~
Flu and/or disaster preparation forum "speak"
ABBF	Anything But Bird Flu
AI	Avian Influenza
B2H	Bird to Human
BF	Bird Flu (nickname for avian influenza)
BOB	Bug-Out Bag (72 hour emergency kit to take if evacuating your home)
FT	FluTrackers
FW	FluWiki (a compilation site of news, preparation advice, discussion, etc.)
H2H or H-H or H-to-H	Human to Human Transmission
H5N1	A deadly influenza A virus subtype found in birds ( bird flu) and can infect humans
HxNx	An influenza A virus subtype: H=hemaglutinin and N=neuraminidase (more info HERE)
HCW	Health Care Worker
P4P	Website PlanForPandemic.com
PFI	Website for Pandemic Flu Information forum
SIP	Shelter In Place (self imposed quarantine, usually in your own home)
TEOTWAWKI	The End Of The World As We Know It
YOYO	You're on your own
~ ~ ~
Clinical Terms
CAR	Clinical Attack Rate. It is the percentage of the population that has been infected. For example, if one out of every 4 people become infected, the CAR would be .25 or 25%
CFR	Case Fatality Rate. This refers the rate of death among people who already have a condition. It is usually measured as a decimal or as a percent. For example, if one out of every five people with a condition died, the case fatality would be 0.2, or 20%.
HPAI	High Pathogenic Avian Influenza
ILI	Influenza-Like Illness
LPAI	Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza. The difference between LPAI and HPAI is the severity of disease/death it causes.
NPI	Non Pharmaceutical Intervention (i.e. social distancing; isolation)
P&I	Pneumonia & Influenza
R0	Reproductive number. The reproduction or transmissibility rate refers to the average number of cases infected by the primary case. For Example, a RO rate of 1.0 or less would indicate transmission is not high enough to sustain pandemic. More HERE.
SARS	Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
VAX	Vaccine or Vaccination
VHF	Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
~ ~ ~
Organizations
CDC	Center of Disease Control (usually referring to the USA federal agency, although some other countries use the same name)
CERT	Community emergency response teams (not the breath mint)
CIDRAP	Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota
DEFRA	Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
DEPKES	Ministry of Health, Indonesia
ECDC	European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
FAO	Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FDA	Food and Drug Administration (USA)
MSF	Medecins Sans Frontieres - Doctors without Borders
NGO	Non-Governmental Organization
NIH	National Institute of Health
NW	Neighborhood Watch
OIE	Office International des Epizooties OR World Organization for Animal Health (division of the UN)
USDA	United States Department of Agriculture
WB	World Bank
WHO	World Health Organization (Division of the United Nations)
~ ~ ~
Business and Economy
CPI	Consumer Price Index
GDP	Gross Domestic Product
RE	Real Estate
~ ~ ~
Organization of Information on FluTrackers
The site is broken into forums
Forums are broken into Rooms
Rooms contain a list of threads
Threads are arranged with the most recent post at the top
"Sticky" threads remain at the top of the list for a period of time for various reasons - "hot" issue, information on changes to the site, etc.
~ ~ ~
Link for acronym explanations - http://www.acronymsearch.com/index.php

[teederkee]

How does "read" the sequences that are frequently posted?

[JJackson]

Hi teederkee not quite sure what you are asking? Are you are enquiring how to interpret sequence data?
If you could link to an example I will try and explain (if I can).

[JJackson]

Here are a couple more links - both by Mingus.
The first begins looking at Recombination with sequence examples and the second goes into more detail including an introduction to DIY sequence analysis.
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11738

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7736

If you are not clear on the relevance of sequence changes try searching on Transcription and Translation in Wikipedia or there is a section introducing some of these things in the appendix to a more general introduction to BF I wrote a while ago which can be found here
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5757
I hope this is what you are looking for - if not post back.

P.S. The second link is in Mingus' Lab area and I am very happy to recommend anything in there.

[Amish Country]

Thanks Niko.

This will be a fantastic help to visitors trying to find info, new flubies and visitors without a med back ground. This board has a tremendous amount of information on it. Unfortunately it will not help people if they cannot understand it. Acronyms can be great short hand for the experienced and the knowledgeable. For the beginning prepper, reporters/press personnel, elected officials (all without or with limited medical backgrounds) etc new to the idea of pandemic preparation this will be a great asset. I hope that the administrators see fit to expand on this list, make it a more permanent and readily accessible fixture.

[teederkee]

That's exactly what I was looking for (now to sit down and do some studying...). Could I suggest that a link to these threads be placed in the "Read this first" section for newbies?

Thanks very much for taking the time.

T

[Shadmin]

What is CAR? I am acquainted with CFR as well as some other acronyms commonly used to describe statistical data in relation to disease trends, but CAR is not something I have heard before, then again maybe I have simply forgot?

[Niko]

Originally Posted by Shadmin

What is CAR? I am acquainted with CFR as well as some other acronyms commonly used to describe statistical data in relation to disease trends, but CAR is not something I have heard before, then again maybe I have simply forgot?

Sorry! I just noticed your question. I've added CAR under the "Clinical Terms" section.

[alert]

I can think of two more that should be added as clinical terms: HCW and VHF. I've used them both on here a lot without realizing that to someone new to the site, they might be puzzling.

[JJackson]

and ILI Influenza Like Illness

[Ronan Kelly]

P&I = Pneumonia and Influenza