Population Biology and Criticality

Population Biology and Criticality
Author: Nico Stollenwerk
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2011
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1848164017

The present book describes novel theories of mutation pathogen systems showing critical fluctuations, as a paradigmatic example of an application of the mathematics of critical phenomena to the life sciences. It will enable the reader to understand the implications and future impact of these findings, yet at same time allow him to actively follow the mathematical tools and scientific origins of critical phenomena. This book also seeks to pave the way to further fruitful applications of the mathematics of critical phenomena in other fields of the life sciences.

Predicting Pandemics in a Globally Connected World, Volume 1

Predicting Pandemics in a Globally Connected World, Volume 1
Author: Nicola Bellomo
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2022-09-22
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3030965627

This contributed volume investigates several mathematical techniques for the modeling and simulation of viral pandemics, with a special focus on COVID-19. Modeling a pandemic requires an interdisciplinary approach with other fields such as epidemiology, virology, immunology, and biology in general. Spatial dynamics and interactions are also important features to be considered, and a multiscale framework is needed at the level of individuals and the level of virus particles and the immune system. Chapters in this volume address these items, as well as offer perspectives for the future.

Complex Population Dynamics

Complex Population Dynamics
Author: Bernd Blasius
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2007
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9812771581

This collection of review articles is devoted to the modeling of ecological, epidemiological and evolutionary systems. Theoretical mathematical models are perhaps one of the most powerful approaches available for increasing our understanding of the complex population dynamics in these natural systems. Exciting new techniques are currently being developed to meet this challenge, such as generalized or structural modeling, adaptive dynamics or multiplicative processes. Many of these new techniques stem from the field of nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory, where even the simplest mathematical rule can generate a rich variety of dynamical behaviors that bear a strong analogy to biological populations.

River Networks as Ecological Corridors

River Networks as Ecological Corridors
Author: Andrea Rinaldo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2020-10-22
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1108477828

A summary of state-of-the-art research on how the river environment impacts biodiversity, species invasions, population dynamics, and the spread of waterborne disease. Blending laboratory, field and theoretical studies, it is the go-to reference for graduate students and researchers in river ecology, hydrology, and epidemiology.

Mathematical Biology

Mathematical Biology
Author: James D. Murray
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 551
Release: 2007-06-12
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0387224378

Mathematical Biology is a richly illustrated textbook in an exciting and fast growing field. Providing an in-depth look at the practical use of math modeling, it features exercises throughout that are drawn from a variety of bioscientific disciplines - population biology, developmental biology, physiology, epidemiology, and evolution, among others. It maintains a consistent level throughout so that graduate students can use it to gain a foothold into this dynamic research area.

Ecosystems and Human Well-being

Ecosystems and Human Well-being
Author: Joseph Alcamo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2003
Genre: Biodiversity
ISBN:

Ecosystems and Human Well-Being is the first product of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year international work program designed to meet the needs of decisionmakers for scientific information on the links between ecosystem change and human well-being. The book offers an overview of the project, describing the conceptual framework that is being used, defining its scope, and providing a baseline of understanding that all participants need to move forward. The Millennium Assessment focuses on how humans have altered ecosystems, and how changes in ecosystem services have affected human well-being, how ecosystem changes may affect people in future decades, and what types of responses can be adopted at local, national, or global scales to improve ecosystem management and thereby contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation. The program was launched by United National Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June 2001, and the primary assessment reports will be released by Island Press in 2005. Leading scientists from more than 100 nations are conducting the assessment, which can aid countries, regions, or companies by: providing a clear, scientific picture of the current sta

Complexity and Criticality

Complexity and Criticality
Author: Kim Christensen
Publisher: Imperial College Press
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2005
Genre: Science
ISBN: 186094504X

This book provides a challenging and stimulating introduction to the contemporary topics of complexity and criticality, and explores their common basis of scale invariance, a central unifying theme of the book.Criticality refers to the behaviour of extended systems at a phase transition where scale invariance prevails. The many constituent microscopic parts bring about macroscopic phenomena that cannot be understood by considering a single part alone. The phenomenology of phase transitions is introduced by considering percolation, a simple model with a purely geometrical phase transition, thus enabling the reader to become intuitively familiar with concepts such as scale invariance and renormalisation. The Ising model is then introduced, which captures a thermodynamic phase transition from a disordered to an ordered system as the temperature is lowered in zero external field. By emphasising analogies between percolation and the Ising model, the reader's intuition of phase transitions is developed so that the underlying theoretical formalism may be appreciated fully. These equilibrium systems undergo a phase transition only if an external agent finely tunes certain external parameters to particular values.Besides fractals and phase transitions, there are many examples in Nature of the emergence of such complex behaviour in slowly driven non-equilibrium systems: earthquakes in seismic systems, avalanches in granular media and rainfall in the atmosphere. A class of non-equilibrium systems, not constrained by having to tune external parameters to obtain critical behaviour, is addressed in the framework of simple models, revealing that the repeated application of simple rules may spontaneously give rise to emergent complex behaviour not encoded in the rules themselves. The common basis of complexity and criticality is identified and applied to a range of non-equilibrium systems. Finally, the reader is invited to speculate whether self-organisation in non-equilibrium systems might be a unifying concept for disparate fields such as statistical mechanics, geophysics and atmospheric physics.Visit http: //www.complexityandcriticality.com for animations for the models in the book (available for Windows and Linux), solutions to exercises, as well as a list with corrections.

Modeling the Interplay Between Human Behavior and the Spread of Infectious Diseases

Modeling the Interplay Between Human Behavior and the Spread of Infectious Diseases
Author: Piero Manfredi
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2013-01-04
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1461454743

This volume summarizes the state-of-the-art in the fast growing research area of modeling the influence of information-driven human behavior on the spread and control of infectious diseases. In particular, it features the two main and inter-related “core” topics: behavioral changes in response to global threats, for example, pandemic influenza, and the pseudo-rational opposition to vaccines. In order to make realistic predictions, modelers need to go beyond classical mathematical epidemiology to take these dynamic effects into account. With contributions from experts in this field, the book fills a void in the literature. It goes beyond classical texts, yet preserves the rationale of many of them by sticking to the underlying biology without compromising on scientific rigor. Epidemiologists, theoretical biologists, biophysicists, applied mathematicians, and PhD students will benefit from this book. However, it is also written for Public Health professionals interested in understanding models, and to advanced undergraduate students, since it only requires a working knowledge of mathematical epidemiology.

Consilience

Consilience
Author: E. O. Wilson
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2014-11-26
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0804154066

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "A dazzling journey across the sciences and humanities in search of deep laws to unite them." —The Wall Street Journal One of our greatest scientists—and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for On Human Nature and The Ants—gives us a work of visionary importance that may be the crowning achievement of his career. In Consilience (a word that originally meant "jumping together"), Edward O. Wilson renews the Enlightenment's search for a unified theory of knowledge in disciplines that range from physics to biology, the social sciences and the humanities. Using the natural sciences as his model, Wilson forges dramatic links between fields. He explores the chemistry of the mind and the genetic bases of culture. He postulates the biological principles underlying works of art from cave-drawings to Lolita. Presenting the latest findings in prose of wonderful clarity and oratorical eloquence, and synthesizing it into a dazzling whole, Consilience is science in the path-clearing traditions of Newton, Einstein, and Richard Feynman.

Holistic Darwinism

Holistic Darwinism
Author: Peter Corning
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 555
Release: 2010-08-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0226116336

In recent years, evolutionary theorists have come to recognize that the reductionist, individualist, gene-centered approach to evolution cannot sufficiently account for the emergence of complex biological systems over time. Peter A. Corning has been at the forefront of a new generation of complexity theorists who have been working to reshape the foundations of evolutionary theory. Well known for his Synergism Hypothesis—a theory of complexity in evolution that assigns a key causal role to various forms of functional synergy—Corning puts this theory into a much broader framework in Holistic Darwinism, addressing many of the issues and concepts associated with the evolution of complex systems. Corning's paradigm embraces and integrates many related theoretical developments of recent years, from multilevel selection theory to niche construction theory, gene-culture coevolution theory, and theories of self-organization. Offering new approaches to thermodynamics, information theory, and economic analysis, Corning suggests how all of these domains can be brought firmly within what he characterizes as a post–neo-Darwinian evolutionary synthesis.