Seasonal fluctuations in mortality are a persistent phenomenon, but variations from culture to culture pose fascinating questions. This book investigates whether sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors play a role as important for seasonal mortality as they do for mortality in general. Using modern statistical methods, the book shows, for example, that in the United States the fluctuations between winter and summer mortality are smaller the more years someone has spent in school.

Population studies and epidemiology facilitate the discovery of genetic and environmental determinants of cancer and the development of new approaches to cancer control and prevention, therefore they play a central role in the creation of health policies. Cancer Epidemiology compiles areas of research which cover etiological factors or determinants that contribute to the development of cancer and describe the latest technologies in cancer epidemiology. In Volume 1, Host Susceptibility Factors, leading experts provide chapters on cancer incidence, prevalence, mortality and surveillance, methods, technologies and study design in cancer epidemiology as well as host susceptibility factors in cancer epidemiology. Although a non-standard volume of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, this comprehensive text retains the commitment of the series to collecting the kind of detailed, up-to-date information and implementation advice that is crucial for getting optimal results.

Cutting-edge and essential, Cancer Epidemiology allows readers to get the maximum advantage of the methods involved in this exciting and important field."

Clinical epidemiology provides the scientific basis for the practice of medicine due to its focus on the diagnosis, prognosis and management of human disease using appropriate research design, measurement and evaluation. In Clinical Epidemiology: Practice and Methods, leading experts contribute selections intended to educate researchers on how best to undertake clinical research. Divided into two categories, the volume first covers issues of design, measurement and analysis associated with various research designs, then continues with methods to better inform medical decision-making, including aggregation of multiple studies using meta-analysis, health economics, clinical practice guidelines and health technology assessment. As a part of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology (TM) series, this comprehensive text collects the kind of detailed, up-to-date information and implementation advice that is crucial for getting optimal results. Essential and advantageous, Clinical Epidemiology: Practice and Methods is an ideal reference for medical practitioners, basic scientists and allied health professionals who desire to improve clinical outcomes.

The book features many figures and tables illustrating longitudinal data and numerous homework problems.

The associated web site contains many longitudinal data sets, examples of computer code, and labs to re-enforce the material.

Weiss emphasizes continuous data rather than discrete data, graphical and covariance methods, and generalizations of regression rather than generalizations of analysis of variance.

In addition to its central role in blood coagulation, it has become increasingly apparent that thrombin and thrombin receptors are involved in many other physiological processes and can contribute to a variety of disease states such as tumor progression and metastasis, inflammation, neurological disorders and cardiovascular complications. This book is a collection of reviews of up-to-date information on the above topics by leaders in these fields.

This book will be of value to researchers and academic professionals both in basic and clinical science who are interested in the fields of biochemistry, biophysics, cell biology, pharmacology, cancer, inflammation, angiogenesis, cardiovascular system and neuronal system. These areas of research are prime target areas for drug development by many pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

SIDNEY CALLAHAN AND DANIEL CALLAHAN This book, like many other things to do with abortion, is a product of long controversy. Though carried out with cooperation, it was conceived in conflict. The conflict between the coeditors has per sisted for years-in fact, for at least half of their thirty-year marriage. One, Sidney, is prolife; the other, Daniel, is prochoice. Ever since the topic of abortion became of professional interest to us, in the 1960s, we have disagreed. At one time, while Daniel was writing a book on the subject, Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality (1970), we talked about the subject every day for the four years of the book's gestation. On many occasions during the 1970s, prolife articles writ ten by Sidney were passed out at Daniel's lectures in order to refute his pro choice views. Over the years, every argument, every statistic, every historical example cited in the literature has been discussed by the two of us. As Eliza Doolittle says about "words" in My Fair Lady, "There's nota one I haven't heard. " And yet we still disagree. How can it be, we ask ourselves, that intelligent people of goodwill who know all the same facts and all the same arguments still come down on different sides of the con troversy? As we well know, it is possible to agree about many things and have great love and respect for an opponent, and still differ."

When Pascal James Imperato, MD, assumed the edi * Exclusion by the New York State Departm~nt of Health of qualified laboratories from HIV testmg torship of the New York State Journal of Medicine in 198~, the acquired immunodeficiency syndro. me (AIDS) epI * Protection of health care workers * Responsibilities of physicians and other health care demic in the United States was already SIX years old. Dur ing the time of his editorship, two thematic issues of the workers Journal have been devoted to AIDS. In addition, a large * Public education number of original communications have been regularly * AIDS confidentiality published on the subje~t. This volume ?rings together The Symposium on AIDS in Washington, DC, had important articles published on AIDS m the Journal been so successful that the MSSNY, under the auspices of during 1987 and 1988. . . the task force and the Division of Governmental Affairs, In the early years of the epidemic the Medical Society of held two informational symposia for state senators and the State of New York (MSSNY) was aware that it had a assemblymen and their staffs in Albany, New York. Thes. e responsibility to both the professi?~ an~ the public to add were presented in February 1988 and. March. 1989. ,!,hIS its efforts to those already mobIlized m the attempt to effort has convinced the MSSNY that It has given legisla understand and control this tragic disease. Early on, the tors a better understanding of the overall AIDS problem.

The knowledge of lysosomal biology and the consequences of its dysfunction have increased dramatically in the past 60 years. This book describes the nature of the lysosomal dysfunction and diseases as well as potential future treatments and therapies. Disease specific chapters provide thorough reviews of the clinical features of lysosomal storage disorders, their molecular basis and the commercial or experimental therapeutic approaches sought in this area. This is an invaluable resource for researchers in biochemical and molecular genetics, enzyme therapy, and gene transfer.

Reasons for Writing This Book The published literature on the economic appraisal of healthcare acquired infection (HAI) is described by phrases such as: "With so many virtues of the cost-benefit approach identified, it is perhaps puzzling why greater use of economic appraisal has not been made in the area of infection control" [1] "Clinicians should partner with economists and policy analysts to expand and improve the economic evidence available" [2] "the quality of economic evaluations should be increased to inform decision makers and clinicians" [3] "The economics of preventing hospital-acquired infections is most often described in general terms. The underlying concepts and mechanisms are rarely made explicit but should be understood for research and policy-making" [4] The aim of this book is to describe how economics should be used to inform decisi- making about infection control. Our motivation stems from the previous quotes which show economics is being used within the infection control community, but not to its full potential. Our expectation is that you do not have any formal training in economic analyses. Economic analyses have been used for many decades to argue for increased funding for hospital infection-control. In 1957, Clarke [5] investigated bed wastage in British hospitals due to Staphylococcus aureus in patient's wounds. She concluded .... "the average length of stay in hospital of patients whose wounds were infected with Staph.

As interest in social capital has grown over the past decade-particularly in public health -so has the lack of consensus on exactly what it is and what makes it worth studying. Ichiro Kawachi, a widely respected leader in the field, and 21 contributors (including physicians, economists, and public health experts) discuss the theoretical origins of social capital, the strengths and limitations of current methodologies of measuring it, and salient examples of social capital concepts informing public health practice. Among the highlights: Measurement methods: survey, sociometric, ethnographic, experimental The relationship between social capital and physical health and health behaviors: smoking, substance abuse, physical activity, sexual activity Social capital and mental health: early findings Social capital and the aging community Social capital and disaster preparedness Social Capital and Health is certain to inspire a new generation of research on this topic, and will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in public health, health behavior, and social epidemiology.

Social differences in health and mortality constitute a persistent finding in epidemiological, demographic, and sociological research. It is a topic that is much discussed in the current political debate and it is among the most urgent public health issues. However, we still do not know whether socioeconomic mortality differences increase or decrease with age.

This book provides a comprehensive, critical discussion of all aspects involved in the relationship between socioeconomic status, health and mortality. It synthesizes the sociological theory of social inequality and an empirical study of mortality differences that has been conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Rostock, Germany). This study is the most comprehensive analysis of socioeconomic mortality differences in the literature, both in terms of quantity and quality of data, and in terms of the statistical method used: that of event-history modeling.

Congenital malformations are worldwide occurrences striking in every condition of society. These severe physical abnormalities which are present at birth and affecting every part of the body happen more often than usually realized, once in every 33 births. The most common, after heart defects, are those of the neural tube (the brain and spinal cord) which happen in as many as one in every 350 births. They have been noted as curiousities in man and beast throughout recorded history and received great attention in our time by various fields of study, for example, their faulty prenatal development by embryologists, familial patterns by geneticists, causation by environmentalists and variability by population scientists.

Attention turned much in recent years to the relation of these malformations to deficiency of a particular dietary ingredient, folic acid, a subject this book analyzes in depth. The greatest conundrum of all, which this latest matter like so much else hinges on, is the amazing fact of the tremendous, almost universal decrease in the frequency of these anomalies since early in the 20th century. The puzzle is 'What can this downward trend possibly mean?' and at bottom 'Whether it is part of a long-term cyclical pattern'. This fascinating biological phenomenon is explored in the book together with various other topics.

The truth is, few people know the first thing about clinical research. The public reads about a medical research project that announces unbelievable results for a miraculous drug. Some years later, another investigation completely wipes out those initial favorable findings. Hormones Cut Women's Risk of Heart Disease (San Francisco Chronicle, 1994) Hormones Don't Protect Women from Heart Disease, Study Says (Washington Post, 2001) The people are confused because we do not understand the process behind these conflicting results. Our health, and in fact, our very lives are dependent on clinical trials, but we know little about them. This book explains the issues the public needs to be aware of when it comes to clinical research. It uncovers the problems in medical investigations that can not be overcome no matter how much care and diligence medical researchers bring to a research project. The basic premise that drives the writing is that it is impossible for medical researchers to guarantee that they can get all the right answers from a single study. No matter how good the investigators are, no matter how well a study is planned, no matter how carefully the plans are executed and no matter how conscientiously the results are analyzed and interpreted - the answer may still be wrong. The deck is stacked against medical researchers and the public - you - should be skeptical of the results no matter how impressive they seem on the surface.

Dynamic optimization is rocket science - and more. This volume teaches researchers and students alike to harness the modern theory of dynamic optimization to solve practical problems. These problems not only cover those in space flight, but also in emerging social applications such as the control of drugs, corruption, and terror. This volume is designed to be a lively introduction to the mathematics and a bridge to these hot topics in the economics of crime for current scholars. The authors celebrate Pontryagin's Maximum Principle - that crowning intellectual achievement of human understanding. The rich theory explored here is complemented by numerical methods available through a companion web site.

This book provides a broad introduction to the subject of environmental space-time processes, addressing the role of uncertainty. It covers a spectrum of technical matters from measurement to environmental epidemiology to risk assessment. It showcases non-stationary vector-valued processes, while treating stationarity as a special case. In particular, with members of their research group the authors developed within a hierarchical Bayesian framework, the new statistical approaches presented in the book for analyzing, modeling, and monitoring environmental spatio-temporal processes. Furthermore they indicate new directions for development.

Refugees and displaced populations are a highly relevant, controversial topic of the modern socio-political landscape, with images of people fleeing conflicts and natural disasters a regular occurrence in the media. They flee to perceived safe havens, but are often accompanied by sickness, starvation, poor sanitation, close contact and reduced healthcare. Infection frequently spreads among camps, and sometimes, onwards into the local population. Epidemics develop. What are these diseases, and can they be controlled? What are the health consequences for the migrating and resident populations? What might the demographic impact be? The Atlas of refugees, displaced populations, and epidemic diseases examines the globally changing geographical patterns of communicable diseases among refugees and other displaced persons - in flight, in camps, and resettled in local communities - since the beginning of the twentieth century. The book explores historical and contemporary case studies, including the First World War and its aftermath, the impact of genocides across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Mozambican refugees traversing Central Africa in the late 1980's, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the 2014 Ebola virus crisis. The book integrates theory, qualitative and quantitative data, and spatial analysis, locating examples in the context of global demographics and summarising information in an approachable way. Illustrated with over 400 maps and diagrams, case studies are presented in regional and thematic contexts to guide the reader through the displaced populations and communicable diseases over the last 116 years. The discussion covers epidemiological determinants of outbreaks, including overviews of social and political factors that motivate displacement of populations. Important information on epidemic control and the results of these actions is also provided. The Atlas of refugees, displaced populations, and epidemic diseases is an essential resource for all those interested in public health, epidemiology, demography, ecology, economic history, and the history of medicine. This rich and detailed text is ideal for both specialists and students to deepen their understanding of the topic.

This multidisciplinary reference takes the reader through all four major phases of interdisciplinary inquiry: adequate conceptualization, rigorous formulation, substantive interpretation, and innovative implementation. The text introduces a novel synthetic paradigm of public health reasoning and epidemic modelling, and implements it with a study of the infamous 14th century AD Black Death disaster that killed at least one-fourth of the European population.

An authoritative work that provides a detailed review of the current status of cancer prevention and control practice and research. This volume is an essential reference guide and tool for primary care physicians, the research community and students.

Written as a collaborative work by the faculty of the nationally renowned Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Arizona Cancer Center, this book brings together the expertise of specialists in the field of cancer prevention and control to provide the medical and research community that does not specialize in this field with insight to the disciplines of cancer prevention and control.

This textbook is for graduate students and research workers in social statistics and related subject areas. It follows a novel curriculum developed around the basic statistical activities: sampling, measurement and inference. The monograph aims to prepare the reader for the career of an independent social statistician and to serve as a reference for methods, ideas for and ways of studying of human populations. Elementary linear algebra and calculus are prerequisites, although the exposition is quite forgiving. Familiarity with statistical software at the outset is an advantage, but it can be developed while reading the first few chapters.

This book presents models and statistical methods for the analysis of recurrent event data. The authors provide broad, detailed coverage of the major approaches to analysis, while emphasizing the modeling assumptions that they are based on. More general intensity-based models are also considered, as well as simpler models that focus on rate or mean functions. Parametric, nonparametric and semiparametric methodologies are all covered, with procedures for estimation, testing and model checking.

This volume is based on the 10th International Nidovirus Symposium: Towards Control of SARS and other Nidovirus Diseases. The volume includes articles by all of the major contributors to this burgeoning area of research which summarize the work presented at the meeting.

This represents the only comprehensive book to cover this field in the last five years.

Genetic susceptibility refers to how variations in a person 's genes increase or decrease his or her susceptibility to environmental factors, such as chemicals, radiation and lifestyle (diet and smoking). This volume will explore the latest findings in the area of genetic susceptibility to gastrointestinal cancers, focusing on molecular epidemiology, DNA repair, and gene-environment interactions to identify factors that affect the incidence of GI cancers. Topics will include germline susceptibility, including Mendelian patterns of inheritance and gene-environment interactions that lead to cancer etiology.

Farming Human Pathogens: Ecological Resilience and Evolutionary Process introduces a cutting-edge mathematical formalism based on the asymptotic limit theorems of information theory to describe how punctuated shifts in mesoscale ecosystems can entrain patterns of gene expression and organismal evolution. The authors apply the new formalism toward characterizing a number of infectious diseases that have evolved in response to the world as humans have made it. Many of the human pathogens that are emerging out from underneath epidemiological control are 'farmed' in the metaphorical sense, as the evolution of drug-resistant HIV makes clear, but also quite literally, as demonstrated by avian influenza's emergence from poultry farms in southern China. The most successful pathogens appear able to integrate selection pressures humans have imposed upon them from a variety of socioecological scales. The book also presents a related treatment of Eigen's Paradox and the RNA 'error catastrophe' that bedevils models of the origins of viruses and of biological life itself.

This book presents the state of the art in multilevel analysis, with an emphasis on more advanced topics. These topics are discussed conceptually, analyzed mathematically, and illustrated by empirical examples. Multilevel analysis is the statistical analysis of hierarchically and non-hierarchically nested data. The simplest example is clustered data, such as a sample of students clustered within schools. Multilevel data are especially prevalent in the social and behavioral sciences and in the biomedical sciences. The chapter authors are all leading experts in the field. Given the omnipresence of multilevel data in the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences, this book is essential for empirical researchers in these fields.

An earlier book by Rodrick Wallace entitled Consciousness: A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model, introduced a formal information-theoretic approach to individual consciousness implementing approaches developed previously by the cognitive scientist Bernard Baars and the philosopher Fred Dretske.

This book takes a more formal 'groupoid' perspective and generalizes the results of that book to processes of 'distributed cognition' characteristic of large institutions that can entertain several, sometimes many, simultaneous 'global workspaces' which must compete for resources while communicating and cooperating.

Equivalence classes of 'states' produce a network of language-analogs characterizing interacting cognitive modules which entertain multiple workspaces. Equivalence classes of these language-analogs produce dynamical manifolds describing temporal processes carried out by multiple-workspace institutions.