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Mathematical modeling is critical to our understanding of how infectious diseases spread at the individual and population levels. This book gives readers the necessary skills to correctly formulate and analyze mathematical models in infectious disease epidemiology, and is the first treatment of the subject to integrate deterministic and stochastic models and methods. Mathematical Tools for Understanding Infectious Disease Dynamicsfully explains how to translate biological assumptions into mathematics to construct useful and consistent models, and how to use the biological interpretation and mathematical reasoning to analyze these models. It shows how to relate models to data through statistical inference, and how to gain important insights into infectious disease dynamics by translating mathematical results back to biology. This comprehensive and accessible book also features numerous detailed exercises throughout; full elaborations to all exercises are provided. Covers the latest research in mathematical modeling of infectious disease epidemiologyIntegrates deterministic and stochastic approachesTeaches skills in model construction, analysis, inference, and interpretationFeatures numerous exercises and their detailed elaborationsMotivated by real-world applications throughout

Intellectually rich, intensely personal, and beautifully written, Tracks and Shadows is both an absorbing autobiography of a celebrated field biologist and a celebration of beauty in nature. Harry W. Greene, award-winning author of Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature, delves into the poetry of field biology, showing how nature eases our existential quandaries. More than a memoir, the book is about the wonder of snakes, the beauty of studying and understanding natural history, and the importance of sharing the love of nature with humanity. Greene begins with his youthful curiosity about the natural world and moves to his stints as a mortician's assistant, ambulance driver, and army medic. In detailing his academic career, he describes how his work led him to believe that nature’s most profound lessons lurk in hard-won details. He discusses the nuts and bolts of field research and teaching, contrasts the emotional impact of hot dry habitats with hot wet ones, imparts the basics of snake biology, and introduces the great explorers Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. He reflects on friendship and happiness, tackles notions like anthropomorphism and wilderness, and argues that organisms remain the core of biology, science plays key roles in conservation, and natural history offers an enlightened form of contentment.

Optics--a field of physics focusing on the study of light--is also central to many areas of biology, including vision, ecology, botany, animal behavior, neurobiology, and molecular biology. The Optics of Life introduces the fundamentals of optics to biologists and nonphysicists, giving them the tools they need to successfully incorporate optical measurements and principles into their research. Sönke Johnsen starts with the basics, describing the properties of light and the units and geometry of measurement. He then explores how light is created and propagates and how it interacts with matter, covering topics such as absorption, scattering, fluorescence, and polarization. Johnsen also provides a tutorial on how to measure light as well as an informative discussion of quantum mechanics.

The Middle East plays a major role in the history of genetic science. Early in the twentieth century, technological breakthroughs in human genetics coincided with the birth of modern Middle Eastern nation-states, who proclaimed that the region's ancient history—as a cradle of civilizations and crossroads of humankind—was preserved in the bones and blood of their citizens. Using letters and publications from the 1920s to the present, Elise K. Burton follows the field expeditions and hospital surveys that scrutinized the bodies of tribal nomads and religious minorities. These studies, geneticists claim, not only detect the living descendants of biblical civilizations but also reveal the deeper past of human evolution. Genetic Crossroads is an unprecedented history of human genetics in the Middle East, from its roots in colonial anthropology and medicine to recent genome sequencing projects. It illuminates how scientists from Turkey to Yemen, Egypt to Iran, transformed genetic data into territorial claims and national origin myths. Burton shows why such nationalist appropriations of genetics are not local or temporary aberrations, but rather the enduring foundations of international scientific interest in Middle Eastern populations to this day.

Understanding Mammalian Locomotion will formally introduce the emerging perspective of collision dynamics in mammalian terrestrial locomotion and explain how it influences the interpretation of form and functional capabilities. The objective is to bring the reader interested in the function and mechanics of mammalian terrestrial locomotion to a sophisticated conceptual understanding of the relevant mechanics and the current debate ongoing in the field.

All organisms and species are transitory, yet life endures. The origin, extinction, and evolution of species—interconnected in the web of life as \"eternal ephemera\"—are the concern of evolutionary biology. In this riveting work, renowned paleontologist Niles Eldredge follows leading thinkers as they have wrestled for more than two hundred years with the eternal skein of life composed of ephemeral beings, revitalizing evolutionary science with their own, more resilient findings. Eldredge begins in France with the naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who in 1801 first framed the overarching question about the emergence of new species. The Italian geologist Giambattista Brocchi followed, bringing in geology and paleontology to expand the question. In 1825, at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Grant and Robert Jameson introduced the astounding ideas formulated by Lamarck and Brocchi to a young medical student named Charles Darwin. Who can doubt that Darwin left for his voyage on the Beagle in 1831 filled with thoughts about these daring new explanations for the \"transmutation\" of species. Eldredge revisits Darwin's early insights into evolution in South America and his later synthesis of knowledge into a theory of the origin of species. He then considers the ideas of more recent evolutionary thinkers, such as George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as the young and brash Niles Eldredge and Steven Jay Gould, who set science afire with their concept of punctuated equilibria. Filled with insights into evolutionary biology and told with a rich affection for the scientific arena, this book celebrates the organic, vital relationship between scientific thinking and its subjects.

Computational Immunology: Applications focuses on different mathematical models, statistical tools, techniques, and computational modelling that help in understanding complex phenomena of the immune system and its biological functions. The book also focuses on the latest developments in computational biology in the design of drugs, targets, biomarkers for early detection and prognosis of a disease. It highlights the applications of computational methods in deciphering the complex processes of the immune system and its role in health and disease. This book discusses the most essential topics, including Next generation sequencing (NGS) and computational immunology Computational modelling and biology of diseases Drug design Computation and identification of biomarkers Application in organ transplantation Application in disease detection and therapy Computational methods and applications in understanding of the invertebrate immune system

The immune system is highly complex system with large number of macromolecules, signaling pathways, protein-protein interactions, and gene expressions. Studies from genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics are generating huge high throughput data that needs to be analyzed for understanding the Immune system in Health and Disease. Computational approaches arehelping in understanding the study of complex biology of immunology and thereby enabling design of therapeutic strategies in diseases like infectious diseases, immunodeficiency, allergic, hypersensitive, autoimmune disorders and diseases like Cancer, HIV etc. Computational Immunology: Basics highlights the basics of the immune system and function in health and disease. This book offers comprehensive coverage of the most essential topics, including Overview of Immunology and computational Immunology Immune organs and cells, antigen, antibody, B, cell, T cell Antigen Processing and presentation Diseases due to abnormalities of the immune system Cancer Biology Shyamasree Ghosh (MSc, PhD, PGDHE, PGDBI) , is currently working in the School of Biological Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, DAE, Govt of India, graduated from the prestigious Presidency College Kolkata in 1998. She was awarded the prestigious National Scholarship from the Government of India. She has worked and published extensively in glycobiology, sialic acids, immunology, stem cells and nanotechnology. She has authored several publications that include books and encyclopedia chapters in reputed journals and books. Chapter 1 Overview of Immunology and Computational Immunology; Chapter 2 Immune Organs and Cells, Antigen, and Antibody, B-Cell, and T-Cell; Chapter 3 Antigen Processing and Presentation; Chapter 4 Innate Immunity; Chapter 5 Inflammation; Chapter 6 Infection and Immunity; Chapter 7 Transplantation Immunology; Chapter 8 Vaccines; Chapter 9 Diseases due to Abnormalities of the Immune System; Chapter 10 Cancer Biology Dr. Shyamasree Ghosh (MSc, PhD, PGDHE, PGDBI)　is currently working as the Scientific Officer (F), in the School of Biological Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, under Department of Atomic Energy, Govt of India currently located in Jatni, Orissa since 2016 dedicated to teaching and research. From 2009 she served as the Scientific Officer (E), in the SBS, NISER. She graduated from the prestigious Presidency College Kolkata in 1998 in Zoology with Chemistry and Physiology as the other subjects and was awarded the prestigious National Scholarship from the Govt. of India in the same year. She obtained post graduation degree in Biotechnology from Calcutta University ranking second in the University in the year 2000. She continued her PhD from Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, CSIR, Kolkata by qualifying for the National Eligibility Test conducted by Ministry of HRD, Govt of India. Her PhD work in the field of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) was accepted in various national and international journals of repute and is cited by the young researchers worldwide. She has worked and published extensively in glycobiology, biology of sialic acids, immunology, stem cells and nanotechnology. She has served as faculty in post graduate college affiliated to Bangalore University. She has authored several publications that include books and encyclopedia chapters in reputed journals and books. Research that tries to decode the complexity of life with hopes for a better living forms her research interest.

The research paper \"Extinction Risk from Climate Change\" published in the journal Nature in January 2004 created front-page headlines around the world. The notion that climate change could drive more than a million species to extinction captured both the popular imagination and the attention of policy-makers, and provoked an unprecedented round of scientific critique. Saving a Million Species reconsiders the central question of that paper: How many species may perish as a result of climate change and associated threats? Leaders from a range of disciplines synthesize the literature, refine the original estimates, and elaborate the conservation and policy implications. The book: * examines the initial extinction risk estimates of the original paper, subsequent critiques, and the media and policy impact of this unique study * presents evidence of extinctions from climate change from different time frames in the past * explores extinctions documented in the contemporary record * sets forth new risk estimates for future climate change * considers the conservation and policy implications of the estimates. Saving a Million Species offers a clear explanation of the science behind the headline-grabbing estimates for conservationists, researchers, teachers, students, and policy-makers. It is a critical resource for helping those working to conserve biodiversity take on the rapidly advancing and evolving global stressor of climate change-the most important issue in conservation biology today, and the one for which we are least prepared.

Nucleic Acid Sensors and Antiviral Immunity presents a timely and extensive account of the detection of nucleic acids in infection and inflammation. This book represents an unprecedented account of this important aspect of immunology, by a stellar cast of authors who have defined the field. We have a key resource which should act as a primary source of information. The chapters will inspire researchers to continue on their quest to provide mechanistic insights into anti-viral innate immunity. The discoveries provide us with new strategies in the never ending war between humanity and viral infection, and will help in the ultimate goal to provide treatments to use against viruses which continue to present a major threat to human health.