GeoComputation and Public Health is fundamentally a multi-disciplinary book, which presents an overview and case studies to exemplify numerous methods and solicitations in addressing vectors borne diseases (e.g, Visceral leishmaniasis, Malaria, Filaria). This book includes a practical coverage of the use of spatial analysis techniques in vector-borne disease using open source software solutions. Environmental factors (relief characters, climatology, ecology, vegetation, water bodies etc.) and socio-economic issues (housing type & pattern, education level, economic status, income level, domestics' animals, census data, etc) are investigated at micro -level and large scale in addressing the various vector-borne disease. This book will also generate a framework for interdisciplinary discussion, latest innovations, and discoveries on public health. The first section of the book highlights the basic and principal aspects of advanced computational practices. Other sections of the book contain geo-simulation, agent-based modeling, spatio-temporal analysis, geospatial data mining, various geocomputational applications, accuracy and uncertainty of geospatial models, applications in environmental, ecological, and biological modeling and analysis in public health research. This book will be useful to the postgraduate students of geography, remote sensing, ecology, environmental sciences and research scholars, along with health professionals looking to solve grand challenges and management on public health.

This book is about the theory of Hot and Cold, a mutual fundamental base of traditional medicines all around the world. The theory describes the dynamic balance state of the body on the axis of hot and cold for each individual and proposes the fact that deviation from this equilibrium is a predisposing factor for diseases. Such an approach helps practitioners to provide treatments tailored to the patient's condition, not the disease. This book, for the first time, has gathered native descriptions of Hot and Cold theory in different traditional medicines, including traditional Chinese medicine, Persian (Humoral, Unani) medicine, Ayurvedic medicine and Latin American and Caribbean medicines. After defining the common ground, contemporary research - in nutrition, pharmacology, physiology and systems biology - has been explored using scientific methodology. This work is the result of an international collaboration of more than 30 scientists and scholars with high reputations in their fields. Hot and Cold theory, as a holistic individualized approach in prevention, diagnosis and treatment, can be merged into the novel fast-paced concepts in systems biology and precision medicine. Through this bridge, the authors propose that the Hot and Cold theory should be revisited more deeply by medical scientists, who are the main audience of this book, to pave the way towards integrated holistic personalized medicine.

It is now forty years since the discovery of AIDS, but its origins continue to puzzle doctors, scientists and patients. Inspired by his own experiences working as a physician in a bush hospital in Zaire, Jacques Pepin looks back to the early twentieth-century events in central Africa that triggered the emergence of HIV/AIDS and traces its subsequent development into the most dramatic and destructive epidemic of modern times. He shows how the disease was first transmitted from chimpanzees to man and then how military campaigns, urbanisation, prostitution and large-scale colonial medical interventions intended to eradicate tropical diseases combined to disastrous effect to fuel the spread of the virus from its origins in Leopoldville to the rest of Africa, the Caribbean and ultimately worldwide. This is an essential perspective on HIV/AIDS and on the lessons that must be learned as the world faces another pandemic.

Every year, droughts, floods, and fires impact hundreds of millions of people and cause massive economic losses. Climate change is making these catastrophes more dangerous. Now. Not in the future: NOW. This book describes how and why climate change is already fomenting dire consequences, and will certainly make climate disasters worse in the near future. Chris C. Funk combines the latest science with compelling stories, providing a timely, accessible, and beautifully-written synopsis of this critical topic. The book describes our unique and fragile Earth system, and the negative impacts humans are having on our support systems. It then examines recent disasters, including heat waves, extreme precipitation, hurricanes, fires, El Ninos and La Ninas, and their human consequences. By clearly describing the dangerous impacts that are already occurring, Funk provides a clarion call for social change, yet also conveys the beauty and wonder of our planet, and hope for our collective future.

Simulating for a crisis is far more than creating a simulation of a crisis situation. In order for a simulation to be useful during a crisis, it should be created within the space of a few days to allow decision makers to use it as quickly as possible. Furthermore, during a crisis the aim is not to optimize just one factor, but to balance various, interdependent aspects of life. In the COVID-19 crisis, decisions had to be made concerning e.g. whether to close schools and restaurants, and the (economic) consequences of a 3 or 4-week lock-down had to be considered. As such, rather than one simulation focusing on a very limited aspect, a framework allowing the simulation of several different scenarios focusing on different aspects of the crisis was required. Moreover, the results of the simulations needed to be easily understandable and explainable: if a simulation indicates that closing schools has no effect, this can only be used if the decision makers can explain why this is the case. This book describes how a simulation framework was created for the COVID-19 crisis, and demonstrates how it was used to simulate a wide range of scenarios that were relevant for decision makers at the time. It also discusses the usefulness of the approach, and explains the decisions that had to be made along the way as well as the trade-offs. Lastly, the book examines the lessons learned and the directions for the further development of social simulation frameworks to make them better suited to crisis situations, and to foster a more resilient society.