This pioneering study of the geography of influenza during the twentieth century explores how geographical factors contribute to the periodic diffusion of influenza epidemics in the United States, adding a spatial dimension to national efforts to control the disease. Pyle brings together findings from history, virology, epidemiology, and demographics to develop a geographic model of influenza transmission.
THE PLAGUE YEARS Mankind has always been fascinated by "origins," and biologists are no exception. Darwin is our most famous example. What is the origin of mankind, of species, of infectious diseases? In the last few years we have seen the emergence and spread of some apparently "new" viruses, such as HIV -1 and the virus causing bovine spongiform encephalomyelopathy. But are these, in fact, entirely new agents, or mutated forms of "old" viruses that have evolved along with us for eons? Edgar Hope-Simpson could not have written this book at a more opportune moment. He is a firm believer in gradual evolution, rather than the sudden arrival of new agents. I suspect that he would also have a naturalist's Darwinian approach for the origin of AIDS. It has been a source of some amazement to me over the years how even the most innovative scientists conform to a current hypothesis. Pioneer thinking comes more easily to persons outside the scientific mainstream. Edgar Hope Simpson has always struck me as a modem-day naturalist of the classic style, observant and perhaps a little maverick in line of thought. Certainly, the central hypothesis propounded in this book will be controversial to many scientists. From his unique citadel, the Epidemiological Research Unit in Cirencester, he has carefully reexamined mortality data from old records as well as new.
In 1918, the Italian-Americans of New York, the Yupik of Alaska, and the Persians of Mashed had almost nothing in common except for a virus -- one that triggered the worst pandemic of modern times and had a decisive effect on twentieth-century history. The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth -- from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi, and Woodrow Wilson. But despite a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people, it exists in our memory as an afterthought to World War I. In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted -- and often permanently altered -- global politics, race relations and family structures, while spurring innovation in medicine, religion and the arts. It was partly responsible, Spinney argues, for pushing India to independence, South Africa to apartheid, and Switzerland to the brink of civil war. It also created the true "lost generation." Drawing on the latest research in history, virology, epidemiology, psychology and economics, Pale Rider masterfully recounts the little-known catastrophe that forever changed humanity.
Diffusion processes are a promising instrument for realistically modelling the time-continuous evolution of phenomena not only in the natural sciences but also in finance and economics. Their mathematical theory, however, is challenging, and hence diffusion modelling is often carried out incorrectly, and the according statistical inference is considered almost exclusively by theoreticians. This book explains both topics in an illustrative way which also addresses practitioners. It provides a complete overview of the current state of research and presents important, novel insights. The theory is demonstrated using real data applications.
This book will contain a series of solicited chapters that concern with the molecular machines required by viruses to perform various essential functions of virus life cycle. The first three chapters (Introduction, Molecular Machines and Virus Architecture) introduce the reader to the best known molecular machines and to the structure of viruses. The remainder of the book will examine in detail various stages of the viral life cycle. Beginning with the viral entry into a host cell, the book takes the reader through replication of the genome, synthesis and assembly of viral structural components, genome packaging and maturation into an infectious virion. Each chapter will describe the components of the respective machine in molecular or atomic detail, genetic and biochemical analyses, and mechanism. Topics are carefully selected so that the reader is exposed to systems where there is a substantial infusion of new knowledge in recent years, which greatly elevated the fundamental mechanistic understanding of the respective molecular machine. The authors will be encouraged to simplify the detailed knowledge to basic concepts, include provocative new ideas, as well as design colorful graphics, thus making the cutting-edge information accessible to broad audience.
The book lies at the interface of mathematics, social media analysis, and data science. Its authors aim to introduce a new dynamic modeling approach to the use of partial differential equations for describing information diffusion over online social networks. The eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the Laplacian matrix for the underlying social network are used to find communities (clusters) of online users. Once these clusters are embedded in a Euclidean space, the mathematical models, which are reaction-diffusion equations, are developed based on intuitive social distances between clusters within the Euclidean space. The models are validated with data from major social media such as Twitter. In addition, mathematical analysis of these models is applied, revealing insights into information flow on social media. Two applications with geocoded Twitter data are included in the book: one describing the social movement in Twitter during the Egyptian revolution in 2011 and another predicting influenza prevalence. The new approach advocates a paradigm shift for modeling information diffusion in online social networks and lays the theoretical groundwork for many spatio-temporal modeling problems in the big-data era.
Between August 1918 and March 1919 the Spanish influenza spread worldwide, claiming over 25 million lives - more people than perished in the fighting of the First World War. It proved fatal to at least a half-million Americans. Yet, the Spanish flu pandemic is largely forgotten today. In this vivid narrative, Alfred W. Crosby recounts the course of the pandemic during the panic-stricken months of 1918 and 1919, measures its impact on American society, and probes the curious loss of national memory of this cataclysmic event. This 2003 edition includes a preface discussing the then recent outbreaks of diseases, including the Asian flu and the SARS epidemic.
