Plasma decontamination is a rapidly expanding area of modern science and engineering. An increasing number of engineers are using plasma methods for decontamination of chemical and biological agents. Plasma decontamination is effectively applied today to clean and sterilize different surfaces, high volume air and water streams, industrial exhausts, and even living tissue of animals and humans. This book provides a fundamental introduction to virtually all aspects of modern plasma decontamination, as well as the most recent technological achievements in the area.

The book is segmented into four specific sections of modern plasma decontamination: (1) plasma bio-decontamination, including disinfection and sterilization of surfaces, water and air streams; (2) plasma decontamination of chemical agents, including cleaning of air, water, and industrial exhaust gases from different pollutants and especially volatile organic compounds VOC; (3) plasma treatment of living tissue, including different subjects of plasma medicine from skin sterilization to tissue engineering; (4) major electric discharges applied for the plasma-assisted decontamination of chemical and biological agents.

In recent decades radiobiologists' efforts have been directed at identifying the mechanisms of radiation effects; the general mechanisms have since been studied extensively. This book describes and analyzes radiation-induced adaptation as processes produced in cells, tissues, and populations. This viewpoint helps to understand the nature and factors of induced processes, to determine the characteristics of observed radiation effects and their limitations. The investigations presented here were founded on proper lab experiments, ecological studies of plant population growth near an operating nuclear power plant and a thorough epidemiological examination of human populations living in territories polluted fifty years ago, as well as on relevant published data. This research demonstrates the radiation-induced adaptation processes that continue even when the radiation itself is no longer at a critical background level. The investigations utilized the method of statistical modeling on the basis of distributions on the number of abnormalities. This method allows us to investigate the processes induced by low-dose factors when accompanied by Darwinian selection in different systems; the distribution parameters can then be used to study the characteristics of adaptation processes and system resistance. The consequences of background-level radiation continue to provoke debate, and the mathematical bases of the adaptation model are shown, while due consideration is paid to the components of adaptation: instability, selection, and proliferation. The book will be especially useful to specialists in radiation pollution, ecology, epidemiology, and radiology for studies of radiation-induced processes; the method presented here can also be adapted to investigate low-dose effects in other fields. In addition, the book presents a number of reviews in the fields of radiation biology, including pioneering investigations in Russia which were previously unavailable to Western scientists.

Outbreaks, Epidemics, and Health Security: Ensuring Future Preparedness for Small Island Nations and the World reviews the many lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Topics include epidemic preparedness, the politics of epidemics, health security, anti-vaccine campaigns, vaccine preparedness, the need for detailed information sharing and infection tracking versus protected health information, the effects on international relations, the need for intelligence assets to contribute to global health, and the development of biodefense shields.

When plague broke out in Manchuria in 1910 as a result of transmission from marmots to humans, it struck a region struggling with the introduction of Western medicine, as well as with the interactions of three different national powers: Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. In this fascinating case history, William Summers relates how this plague killed as many as 60,000 people in less than a year, and uses the analysis to examine the actions and interactions of the multinational doctors, politicians, and ordinary residents who responded to it. Summers covers the complex political and economic background of early twentieth-century Manchuria and then moves on to the plague itself, addressing the various contested stories of the plague's origins, development, and ecological ties. Ultimately, Summers shows how, because of Manchuria's importance to the world powers of its day, the plague brought together resources, knowledge, and people in ways that enacted in miniature the triumphs and challenges of transnational medical projects such as the World Health Organization.

Statistical Methods for Dynamic Treatment Regimes shares state of the art of statistical methods developed to address questions of estimation and inference for dynamic treatment regimes, a branch of personalized medicine. This volume demonstrates these methods with their conceptual underpinnings and illustration through analysis of real and simulated data. These methods are immediately applicable to the practice of personalized medicine, which is a medical paradigm that emphasizes the systematic use of individual patient information to optimize patient health care. This is the first single source to provide an overview of methodology and results gathered from journals, proceedings, and technical reports with the goal of orienting researchers to the field. The first chapter establishes context for the statistical reader in the landscape of personalized medicine. Readers need only have familiarity with elementary calculus, linear algebra, and basic large-sample theory to use this text. Throughout the text, authors direct readers to available code or packages in different statistical languages to facilitate implementation. In cases where code does not already exist, the authors provide analytic approaches in sufficient detail that any researcher with knowledge of statistical programming could implement the methods from scratch. This will be an important volume for a wide range of researchers, including statisticians, epidemiologists, medical researchers, and machine learning researchers interested in medical applications. Advanced graduate students in statistics and biostatistics will also find material in Statistical Methods for Dynamic Treatment Regimes to be a critical part of their studies.

Hardly a day goes by without news headlines concerning infectious disease threats. Currently the spectre of a pandemic of influenza A-H1N1 is raising its head, and heated debates are taking place about the pro s and con s of vaccinating young girls against human papilloma virus. For an evidence-based and responsible communication of infectious disease topics to avoid misunderstandings and overreaction of the public, we need solid scientific knowledge and an understanding of all aspects of infectious diseases and their control.

The aim of our book is to present the reader with the general picture and the main ideas of the subject. The book introduces the reader to methodological aspects of epidemiology that are specific for infectious diseases and provides insight into the epidemiology of some classes of infectious diseases characterized by their main modes of transmission. This choice of topics bridges the gap between scientific research on the clinical, biological, mathematical, social and economic aspects of infectious diseases and their applications in public health.

The book will help the reader to understand the impact of infectious diseases on modern society and the instruments that policy makers have at their disposal to deal with these challenges. It is written for students of the health sciences, both of curative medicine and public health, and for experts that are active in these and related domains, and it may be of interest for the educated layman since the technical level is kept relatively low."

Reactions to pandemics are unlike any other global emergency; with an emphasis on withdrawal and containment of the sight of the infected. Dealing with the historical and conceptual background of diseases in politics and international relations, this volume investigates the global political reaction to pandemic scares. By evaluating anxiety and the political response to pandemics as a legitimisation of the modern state and its ability to protect its citizens from infectious disease, Understanding the Politics of Pandemic Scares examines the connection between international health governance and the emerging Western liberal world order. The case studies, including SARS, Bird Flu and Swine Flu, provide an understanding of how the world order, global health governance and people's bodies interact to produce scares and panics. Aaltola introduces an innovative new concept of politosomatics' based on the relationship that links individual stress, strain, and fear with global circulations of power to evaluate increasingly global bio-political environments in which pandemics exist. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of International Relations, Global Health, International Public Health and Global Health governance.

The World Health Organization states that depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and predicts that by 2030 the epidemic of depression raging across the world will be the single biggest contributor to the overall burden of disease of all health conditions. Yet this gloomy picture masks a number of paradoxes concerning the diagnosis and cultural interpretation of depression that appear to challenge the claimed prevalence rates on which it is based. This book's essays by some of the world's leading researchers and scholars on depression explores these anomalies in detail from multidisciplinary and multicultural perspectives, and in doing so reshapes the debate on the nature of depression that is currently under way in the US and abroad. At the book's core is the exploration from the multiple perspectives of a key dilemma: is the epidemic of depression real or is it just apparent? In particular, could it be the result of criteria laid down in the official American classification system of mental disorders, the DSM, interacting with cultural changes to reshape our view of melancholy, pathologizing what were formerly normal symptoms of grief or intense sadness? The debate over the DSM's conception of depression has an international relevance, with the WHO's upcoming revisions to its International Classification of Diseases requiring coordination with the DSM. This collection of perspectives has an unprecedented international dimension, as scholars from Europe and around the world join US academics to explore a central and controversial element of contemporary psychiatric diagnosis - and one that has enormous practical implications for the future of mental health care and how we view our emotions. The book's accessible essays will make it useful to scholars, practitioners, and students across a wide range of disciplines.

In the 1970s it seemed infectious diseases had been conquered, but today global epidemics seem to pose a new, more sinister, threat. This fascinating study explores these new infectious diseases, such as Swine Flu, SARS and AIDS, and the re-emergence of old threats, and discusses their role in society.

A "health disparity" refers to a higher burden of illness, injury, disability, or mortality experienced by one group relative to another. These disparities may be due to many factors including age, income, race, etc. This book will focus on their estimation, ranging from classical approaches including the quantification of a disparity, to more formal modelling, to modern approaches involving more flexible computational approaches. Features: * Presents an overview of methods and applications of health disparity estimation * First book to synthesize research in this field in a unified statistical framework * Covers classical approaches, and builds to more modern computational techniques * Includes many worked examples and case studies using real data * Discusses available software for estimation The book is designed primarily for researchers and graduate students in biostatistics, data science, and computer science. It will also be useful to many quantitative modelers in genetics, biology, sociology, and epidemiology.

Medically unexplained somatic symptoms are problematic in psychiatry, primary care settings, and other clinical areas. The burden they impose on health-care systems constitutes a significant public health problem. At the international symposium "Rethinking Somatoform Disorders," this problem was addressed by specialists working in somatoform disorders, psychiatric nosology, epidemiology, and biological and cross-cultural psychiatry. The meeting was the third of the Keio University International Symposia for Life Sciences and Medicine, in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the World Psychiatric Association.

The increasing importance of sickness and disability data across health-related disciplines is the focus of this concise but comprehensive resource. It reviews the basics of morbidity at the population level by defining core concepts, analyzing why morbidity has overtaken mortality as central to demographic study, and surveying ways these data are generated, accessed, and measured. Subsequent chapters demonstrate how this knowledge can be used to better understand-and potentially solve-critical public health issues, benefitting not only populations served, but also areas such as health services planning, resource allocation, and health policy-setting. To make this material useful to the most readers, this reference: Explains why and how morbidity data are categorized by health professionals and other data users. Examines various methods of identifying and measuring morbidity data. Identifies demographic and non-demographic factors associated with morbidity. Describes and evaluates sources of U.S. morbidity data. Reviews the current state of morbidity in the U.S., and what it means for healthcare and society in general. Suggests future uses of morbidity data in reducing health disparities and improving population health. In Sickness and In Health is uniquely relevant to demographers and demography students, public health professionals, and epidemiologists. Its presentation of concepts and applications makes the book a valuable classroom text and a useful guide for those addressing challenges facing U.S. healthcare.

Examining the principles and methods of research on the evaluation of factors affecting the outcome of illness, this book emphasizes diagnostic and therapeutic interventions--the factors most readily modified by health care providers. The author discusses various ways of structuring observations on patient groups, and appraises the nature and strength of inferences drawn from those observations. He also demonstrates how the results of this type of research--clinical epidemiologic research--can be incorporated into the decision-making process utilized in clinical medicine.
This book contains a concise account of topics such as the assessment of the use of diagnostics and screening tests and their role in improving the outcome of illness, the evaluation of therapeutic efficacy through experimental and nonexperimental studies, and a particularly useful chapter on assessment of therapeutic safety. It is an essential reference and guide to the quantitative assessment of the consequences of illness for clinicians in training or in practice.The new edition of Clinical Epidemiology greatly expands the chapter on randomized control trials, and includes a whole new chapter on meta-analysis, authored by Peter Cummings. Meta-analysis, the statistical synthesis of data from comparable studies, was unheard of 30 years ago, but with the advent of increased computer technology, the method has been steadily growing in importance in the epidemiology community.

Whoever coined the adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" could not have known how important this adage would become. The challenge of altering the health trajectories of poor lifestyle decisions for such behaviors as smoking, drinking and using illicit drugs, violence, dropping out of school, engagement in risky sexual behaviors and crime through prevention research has led to a new discipline, prevention science. Defining Prevention Science covers this emerging field of science: its goals, its conceptual and theoretical foundations, its methods and especially its utility. Not content to simply differentiate the field from its close allies: epidemiology, psychology, neuroscience, sociology, economics, the text explains how these many disciplines enhance each other at both research and intervention levels and how prevention science draws on these biological, behavioral and social sciences to create an innovative knowledge base that has provided cost-effective, evidence-based prevention interventions and policies. To this end, familiar developmental benchmarks are recast in prevention/health promotion context, from the crucial importance of adolescence in encountering and deterring high-risk behaviors to the risks and resiliencies of single-mother families. An international group of contributors offers current findings, up-to-date methods for effective evidence-based interventions and improvements in research technologies in these key areas: Physical, cognitive and emotional vulnerability across the life course. The roles of developmental influences in prevention. Intervention development, delivery and implementation. Bringing the intervention approach to research design. New directions in analytic methods. Cost analysis and policy implications. Advances in Prevention Science: Defining Prevention Science aims to inspire further refinements in the field and encourage communication among researchers in its own and related disciplines, including public health, epidemiology, psychology, and criminology. This is the first volume in the series, Advances in Prevention Science, that provides the framework for other volume that will focus on such issues as: Prevention Science in School Settings: Complex Relationships and Processes; Preventing Crime and Violence and The Prevention of Substance Use.

One Health: Challenges for the 21st Century is a transdisciplinary approach to health, considering the interdependency of human, animal, and environmental health. This approach to health promotion and disease prevention calls for integrative and interdisciplinary cooperation. From zoonotic diseases to environmental degradation, this book introduces core concepts of the One Health approach by presenting focal key challenges. The objective of this book is not centered solely on epidemiologic interactions of infectious diseases but also on the environmental and ecological implications of current major threats. Written by international experts, the ten chapters provide a comprehensive approach consisting of core concepts, practical examples, and applications that align with key challenges to public health. Therefore, this book is a valuable resource for public health professionals, veterinarians, physicians, environmental researchers, policymakers, and other professionals who seek to understand the overarching complexities of health.

Hans-Werner Wahl, Hermann Brenner, Heidrun Mollenkopf, Dietrich Rothenbacher and Christoph Rott Ageing research has been identi?ed as a prototypical ?eld of inquiry deserving the full exploitation of single discipline approaches and interdisciplinary synergies amongst these single perspectives. Although this is a generally accepted insight, there still is a strong need to provide models of how this global and most fundamental challenge can be dealt with. It seems in any case necessary to narrow down the wide scope of ageing research issues to sets of key constructs most promising in terms of interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation. Againstthis,themajoraimofthebookistoprovideacomprehensive treatment of one well-selected set of key issues of recent ageing research, i. e. health, competence and well-being. In addition, the book's ambition is to identify priorities for future ageing research and to further new avenues for interdisciplinary approaches and social policy applications. The substance of the book is based on an international conference which took place on June 18 and 19, 2004 in Heidelberg, Germany. Framed within the array of health, competence and well-being perspectives in ageing research, the idea of the conf- ence was to provide an integrated presentation of ?ndings generated in the German Centre for Research on Ageing at the University of Heidelberg (Deutsches Zentrum f. ur Alternsforschung, DZFA). The centre's three departments, i. e.

"Corynebacterium diphtheriae" is the classical etiological agent of diphtheria and the type strain of the genus "Corynebacterium." While diphtheria of the respiratory tract became rare with the introduction of vaccination programs in industrialized countries, even today several thousand cases per year are reported to the World Health Organization. This shows that diphtheria is not completely eradicated and that reservoirs exist. The book summarizes the latest advances made in understanding "C. diphtheriae" and the closely related species "Corynebacterium ulcerans" and" Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis." Topics addressed are genomics of toxigenic corynebacteria, host-pathogen-interaction, detection, surveillance and treatment as well as application aspects.

Pandemics, Science and Policy analyses the World Health Organisation's (WHO) management of the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic. Abeysinghe illustrates the ways in which the WHO's account was vulnerable to contestation, and ultimately how uncertain risks can affect policy and action on the global level.

Basic Biostatistics presents a multidisciplinary survey of biostatics methods, each illustrated with hands-on examples. Methods range from the elementary, including descriptive statistics, study design, statistical interference, categorical variables, evaluation of diagnostic tests, comparison of means, linear regression, and logistic regression. These introductory methods create a portfolio of biostatistical techniques for both novice and expert researchers. More complicated statistical methods are introduced as well, including those requiring either collaboration with a biostatistician or the use of a statistical package. Specific topics of interest include microarray analysis, missing data techniques, power and sample size, statistical methods in genetics. Expert advice is given on when to seek statistical help, and how to conduct a meeting with the statistical collaborator or consultant. Basic Biostatistics is an essential resource for researchers at every level of their career.

In this thesis two variants of the fast variable elimination method are developed. They are intuitive, simple to implement and give results which are in very good agreement with those found from numerical simulations. The relative simplicity of the techniques makes them ideal for applying to problems featuring demographic stochasticity, for experts and non-experts alike. Within the context of mathematical modelling, fast variable elimination is one of the central tools with which one can simplify a multivariate problem. When used in the context of of deterministic systems, the theory is quite standard, but when stochastic effects are present, it becomes less straightforward to apply. While the introductory and background chapters form an excellent primer to the theory of stochastic population dynamics, the techniques developed can be applied to systems exhibiting a separation of timescales in a variety of fields including population genetics, ecology and epidemiology.

Although the spatial dimension of ecosystem dynamics is now widely recognized, the specific mechanisms behind species patterning in space are still poorly understood and the corresponding theoretical framework is underdeveloped. Going beyond the classical Turing scenario of pattern formation, Spatiotemporal Patterns in Ecology and Epidemiology: Theory, Models, and Simulation illustrates how mathematical modeling and numerical simulations can lead to greater understanding of these issues. It takes a unified approach to population dynamics and epidemiology by presenting several ecoepidemiological models where both the basic interspecies interactions of population dynamics and the impact of an infectious disease are explicitly considered. The book first describes relevant phenomena in ecology and epidemiology, provides examples of pattern formation in natural systems, and summarizes existing modeling approaches. The authors then explore nonspatial models of population dynamics and epidemiology. They present the main scenarios of spatial and spatiotemporal pattern formation in deterministic models of population dynamics. The book also addresses the interaction between deterministic and stochastic processes in ecosystem and epidemic dynamics, discusses the corresponding modeling approaches, and examines how noise and stochasticity affect pattern formation. Reviewing the significant progress made in understanding spatiotemporal patterning in ecological and epidemiological systems, this resource shows that mathematical modeling and numerical simulations are effective tools in the study of population ecology and epidemiology.

Cancer Epidemiology in Asian Americans is a comprehensive volume that provides the most current research on cancer etiology within this fast growing population sub-group in the United States. The book explores epidemiologic methods that are typically used in migrant studies, providing descriptive epidemiology of cancer patterns separately in Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and other Asian ethnic groups including Asian Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese, and other Southeast Asians. A major focus of the volume provides reviews of analytic risk factors for specific cancer sites including lung, colorectal, prostate, breast, liver and more. These chapters aim to explain the increases or decreases in incidence rates of various cancers upon migration, paying attention to changing risk factor prevalence, the importance of timing of exposures, and other co-factors important in the etiology of these cancers. Genetic determinants and gene-environment relationships associated with specific cancers are also discussed.. This first of its kind volume that is devoted to studies of cancer in Asian Americans provides a foundation to better understanding of environmental and lifestyle causes of cancer in this group, identifying gaps in our knowledge, and potential strategies for prevention.

Description of basic ROC methodology; R and STATA code Example Datasets Not too technical Many topics not included in other books

Pulmonary embolism is a common but vexing illness. This book provides a contemporary overview of the most important issues from a Western and a Japanese perspective, providing the reader with state-of-the-art knowledge of the epidemiology and molecular biology of the disease. In the Diagnosis section, the relationship between venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism is explored, and exciting new findings are presented in the fields of echocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging. The Management section focuses on surgical intervention with acute embolectomy as well as updating thromboendarterectomy for chronic pulmonary embolism. The importance of primary and secondary prevention is emphasized in chapters addressing low molecular weight heparin and the inferior vena cava filter. This cutting-edge book is a valuable resource for practicing physicians, researchers, and students in internal medicine, hematology, pulmonary critical care, and vascular medicine.