title: Immunocompromised Patients

text: The ominous prognosis of cancer patients with or without neutropenia in need of critical care has led to reservations with regard to admission of cancer patients to the ICU. However, significant improvements in ICU and in-hospital survival of cancer patients in ICU have been demonstrated in studies in recent years [1–4]. Risk factors for mortality have shifted from those related to the underlying condition to those related to the severity of acute illness similar to other critically-ill patients. Neutropenia per se and the underlying malignancy (solid and hematological) do not have an impact on the outcome of patients in ICU. Recent chemotherapy is associated rather with improved survival [3, 5–7], while organ dysfunction, severity of disease scores, need for vasopressor treatment, need for mechanical ventilation immediately or after noninvasive ventilation, no definite diagnosis and a non-infectious diagnosis are associated with mortality [1–3, 8]. Invasive aspergillosis is also associated with very high mortality rates in ICU (see below). In several studies, admission to ICU in the early stages of sepsis or other acute event was associated with better survival than admission later, after development of organ dysfunction. Performance status is perhaps the most important and only variable relating to the underlying condition that is correlated with ICU death. The prognosis remains guarded for certain cancer patients, including patients after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) with active uncontrolled graft versus host disease, those with relapse of the primary disease after allogeneic HSCT and special cases of solid cancer including pulmonary carcinomatous lymphangitis and carcinomatous meningitis with coma [9].


Echinacea purpurea


Radix Scutellariae — Huangqin


title: Lung Transplantation

text: The first human lung transplantation (LuTX) was performed by Dr James Hardy (Hardy et al. 1963) in June 1960 at the University of Mississippi in a patient with unresectable lung cancer and obstructive pneumonitis. The patient received immunosuppression with azathioprine (Aza) and irradiation, but he died due to renal failure after 17 days.


title: Technical Advances in Veterinary Diagnostic Microbiology

text: Forming a significant part of biomass on earth, microorganisms are renowned for their abundance and diversity. From submicroscopic infectious particles (viruses), small unicellular cells (bacteria and yeasts) to multinucleate and multicellular organisms (filamentous fungi, protozoa, and helminths), microorganisms have found their way into virtually every environmental niche, and show little restrain in making their presence felt. While a majority of microorganisms are free-living and involved in the degradation of plant debris and other organic materials, others lead a symbiotic, mutually beneficial life within their hosts. In addition, some microorganisms have the capacity to take advantage of temporary weaknesses in animal and human hosts, causing notable morbidity and mortality. Because clinical manifestations in animals and humans resulting from infections with various microorganisms are often nonspecific (e.g., general malaise and fever), it is necessary to apply laboratory diagnostic means to identify the culprit organisms for treatment and prevention purposes.


title: Viral Genome Compression

text: Viruses compress their genome to reduce space. One of the main techniques is overlapping genes. We model this process by the shortest common superstring problem, that is, we look for the shortest genome which still contains all genes. We give an algorithm for computing optimal solutions which is slow in the number of strings but fast (linear) in their total length. This algorithm is used for a number of viruses with relatively few genes. When the number of genes is larger, we compute approximate solutions using the greedy algorithm which gives an upper bound for the optimal solution. We give also a lower bound for the shortest common superstring problem. The results obtained are then compared with what happens in nature. Remarkably, the compression obtained by viruses is quite high and also very close to the one achieved by modern computers.


title: Community-Acquired Respiratory Complications in the Intensive Care Unit: Pneumonia and Acute Exacerbations of COPD

text: This chapter will review the two most common lower respiratory tract infections in the intensive care unit (ICU), community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD). In addition we will provide an overview of the topics including recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment.


title: Resurrections

text: Several of Edelman’s illustrious interlocutors have had some criticism for him that is similar to mine. De Lauretis (2010: 87), for example, took her distance from the prescriptive meaning of the death drive in No Future. While Dean has maintained that Edelman is conditioned by a restricted and static vision of the symbolic, which impedes him from imagining the kinds of relationality that challenge the Oedipal law of reproductive futurism. In his opinion, Hocquenghem and Bersani have instead shown themselves capable of a larger imaginative force(1) and a greater contact with reality. In fact, in the concreteness of gay existences, the breaking of the Oedipal social tie generally follows the construction of a new relationality, of which barebacking is only one example:


Promoting Health for Working Women—Communicable Diseases


title: Study of Infectious Agents in Respiratory Diseases

text: Viruses and bacteria are the main agents that cause respiratory infections in the pediatric population, although, in some circumstances, any pathogenic agent may cause disease. Diagnosis of several pathogens has improved recently. There have been major advances in microbiological diagnosis, particularly in viral detection.


title: The Science of Wildlife Disease Management

text: In its widest sense disease can be regarded as any impairment of normal functions. However, for the purposes of this book we will mostly restrict our discussion to infectious diseases, the agents of which are often described as parasites or pathogens. For convenience, these organisms are often split into two categories that reflect their broad characteristics, and their relative size. The macroparasites are multi-cellular organisms that live in or on the host, such as helminths and arthropods, while microparasites include viruses, bacteria, fungi and protozoa. The main functional differences between the two relate to their generation times, with microparasites exhibiting relatively higher within-host reproductive rates and shorter generation times than macroparasites. As a result microparasites are frequently associated with acute disease, although they can induce long-lived immunity to re-infection in recovered hosts. Macroparasites by contrast are more likely to produce chronic infections often characterised by short-lived immunity in heavily infected hosts, and re-infection. Macroparasites may also have distinct life stages that can survive outside the host (e.g. eggs or larvae) and sometimes require other host species to complete their life cycle. Two important groups of pathogens fall outside this classification: rogue proteins (prions) implicated in transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) and infectious cancers, of which Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease is a well known example. However, in broad respects these are most usefully considered as microparasites, often producing acute clinical signs without host immunity. Disease can affect individual hosts by reducing growth rates or fecundity, increasing metabolic requirements, changing patterns of behaviour and ultimately may cause death. Sub-lethal effects of pathogens may also enhance mortality rates by for example, increasing the susceptibility of the infected host to predation. However, the intimate relationships between hosts and parasites have in many instances evolved over time into subtle and potentially complex interactions, such that infection does not in itself necessarily lead to disease. Many parasites have little detrimental effect on their hosts for most of the time, only causing pathological damage if this delicate balance is upset, for example when the parasites become too numerous or when the immunological capability of the host is impaired. This balance could be influenced by many factors including nutrition, concomitant infections and a variety of physiological stressors.


title: Micro and Nanopatterning for Bacteria- and Virus-Based Biosensing Applications

text: Current technologies capable of rapidly and accurately detecting the presence of infectious diseases and toxic compounds in the human body and the environment are inadequate and new, novel techniques are required to ensure the safety of the general population. To develop these technologies, researchers must broaden their scope of interest and investigate scientific areas that have yet to be fully explored. Lithography is a common name given to technologies designed to print materials onto smooth surfaces. More specifically, micropatterning encompasses the selective binding of materials to surfaces in organized microscale arrays. The selective micropatterning of bacteria and viruses is currently an exciting area of research in the field of biomedical engineering and can potentially offer attractive qualities to biosensing applications in terms of increased sensing accuracy and reliability. This chapter focuses on briefly introducing the reader to the fundamentals of bacterial and viral surface interactions and describing several different micropatterning techniques and their advantages and disadvantages in the field of biosensing. The application of these techniques in healthcare and environmental settings is also discussed.


title: Humanviren

text: Die Viren in diesem Abschnitt werden als Humanviren bezeichnet, da man bei ihrer Erforschung von Infektionen des Menschen ausging. Jedoch infizieren Humanviren häufig auch Tiere, und manchmal auch die zugehörigen Vektorinsekten. Bei einigen Viren sind höhere Tiere oder Insekten die primären Wirte und die Infektion von Menschen ist für sie eine „Sackgasse“. Das heißt, sie können nicht von Mensch zu Mensch übertragen werden. Aber auch diese zählen wir zu den Humanviren, da man sie hier am besten kennt.


title: Noninvasive Mechanical Ventilation for Hypoxemic Respiratory Failure-Related Infectious Diseases

text: The strict range of applicability of noninvasive ventilation (NIV)—which had been applied only to patients with an exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema (ACPO)—has been extended during the last two decades.


title: Whither the Research Anticommons?

text: Fifteen years ago, the “tragedy of the anticommons” article warned that excessive patenting of biotech products and research methods could deter rather than stimulate invention, but little evidence was offered. Here, subsequent changes in patent law, public research support, and surveys of researchers are summarized. Results indicate the anticipated anticommons has not materialized significantly, and while ongoing monitoring is warranted, declining public research funding may necessitate more patenting to stimulate private investment.


title: The History of Zhongguancun: Building a Park and Establishing a Benchmark

text: The Zhongguancun area was formerly an old river way for the Yongding River, which was known to Beijing residents as “Zhong Wan er (or Middle Bay).” As early as the Ming Dynasty, the area’s picturesque scenery attracted palace eunuchs looking for the perfect burial grounds, thus becoming a sought-after eunuch cemetery. As eunuchs were called “Zhong Guan er (or Chinese officials),” the modern-day innovation hub derived its name, dropping the ‘er’ and becoming “Zhong Guan Cun.”


title: Molecular Characterization of Canine Coronavirus

text: Canine coronavirus (CCoV) is usually the cause of mild gastroenteritis in dogs and is known to have spread worldwide. In the last decade, as a consequence of the extraordinary large RNA genome, novel recombinant variants of CCoV have been found that are closely related to feline and porcine strains. Moreover highly virulent pantropic CCoV strains were recently identified in dogs. The molecular characterization of the CCoV circulating in canine population is essential for understanding viral evolution.


title: B-Cells and Antibodies in Old Humans

text: It has been well established that the efficiency of the immune system declines with increasing age. Immunosenescence causes increased susceptibility to infectious diseases, and infection is, in fact, the third leading cause of mortality in people aged 65 and over [1]. As is clearly apparent from the other chapters of this book, there are many components of the immune system that can change with age, and are crucial to maintaining an effective immune system. The humoral immune system interacts with the other components, both as part of its own development and via its effector mechanisms. The most important function of B-cells is to produce antibodies, the indispensable soluble effectors of many functions. There are a number of different stages of development for B-cells and their antibodies (Fig. 1).


title: Kawasaki Disease

text: To learn about the epidemiology, aetiopathogenesis, clinical features and differential diagnosis of Kawasaki disease (KD)


title: Responses to Natural Disasters in the Greek and Roman World

text: Ancient Greek and Roman records contain many references to natural disasters. Analyzing the immediate reactions to the events, as well as the ensuing responses, is only possible where there is dependable evidence. Two case studies offer eyewitness accounts of disaster, as well as archaeological and scientific studies. These are the plague that struck Athens in 430 BCE during the Peloponnesian War, described by Thucydides who witnessed and suffered from it, and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, recorded in letters by Pliny the Younger, who saw it and fled from it during its height. The victims of these disasters were plunged into confusion and uncertainty about what to do to survive. In many cases, social cohesion dissolved, and individuals broke norms and traditions. Some sought help from the gods, and others felt there were no gods. In the aftermath, leaders responded with measures intended to help people, restore the body politic, and rebuild. Although frustrated by physical and social barriers, they achieved a degree of success.


title: Barriers of the Human Organism and Their Achilles’ Heels

text: The human body is covered by barriers separating it from the external and internal surroundings. The “milieu enterieur” has to be stabilised in spite of the variable external and internal conditions of toxic, osmotic, microbial and climatic environmental circumstances. This first line of barriers is composed of skin and mucous membranes of complicated structures. A second line of barrier system is present in our organisms. Certain organs have to be separated from the immune system and other parts of the body because of evolutionary reasons (eye-bulb and testicles) because of unique proteins “unknown” for the acquired immune system. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is providing enhanced safety circumstances for the central nervous system. The second line of barriers is represented by the special properties of the capillary endothelial system. The maternal-fetal barrier is the most complex. At the maternal fetal interface two individuals of two different haplotypes has to be live 9 months separated by a very complicated dynamic barrier. The placenta is the organ, which is separating the maternal and fetal tissues. Similar to others the bidirectional transport of gasses, metabolites, cells, proteins, regulatory substances, are transported by active or passive transcellular and intercellular mechanisms. The fetal immune system develops immunotolerance to all maternal cells and antigens transferred transplacentally. The problem is to mitigate the maternal immune system to tolerate the paternal haplotype of the fetus. In the case of normal pregnancy a complex series of physiological modifications can solve the problem without harmful consequences to the mother and fetus. The outermost contact cells of trophoblasts express instead of HLA-class Ia and class II antigens non-variable HLA-C, HLA-E, HLA-F and HLA-G antigens. The first consequence of this is reduction of the activity of maternal natural killer cells and maternal dendritic cells; Progesteron, micro-RNA and mediators influence the development of T effector-cells. The production of soluble HLA-G(5 and 6) and IL-10 supports the differentiation of Th-2 CD4(+) helper cells, reducing the ability of maternal cells to kill fetal cells. Series of receptors and costimulators are expressed by the different lines of semi-allogenic trophoblast cells to bind HLA-G and mitigate maternal immune response; The maternal immunotolerance is further facilitated by the activation of CD4(+)CD25(bright)Foxp3(+) regulatory T (T(REG)) cells. Infections have to be prevented during pregnancy. The cells of placenta express 10 Toll-like receptors a group of pattern recognition receptors responsible for innate immunity. The interferon level is also higher in the placental tissues than in the somatic fetal or maternal cells. The complement system is also adapted to the requirements of the pregnancy and fetal damage is inhibited by the production of “assymmetric IgG antibodies” under hormonal and placental-regulation. These modifications prevent the activation of complement, cytotoxic activity, opsonising ability, antigen clearance and precipitating activity of the molecules. The Achilles’ heels of the different barriers are regularly found by virus infections. Lamina cribrosa of the blood-brain barrier, optical nerve of the eyes, etc. the risk factors of the maternal-fetal barrier has been summarised in Table 1.1.


title: Alphabetic Listing of Diseases and Conditions

text: Part II begins with a list of special histologic stains, their for use and their corresponding references. At the end of this list is a procedure for removal of formalin precipitate from tissue sections.


title: Seasonal and Pandemic Influenza Surveillance and Disease Severity

text: Continuous investments in influenza research, surveillance, and prevention efforts are critical to mitigate the consequences of annual influenza epidemics and pandemics. New influenza viruses emerge due to antigenic drift and antigenic shift evading human immune system and causing annual epidemics and pandemics. Three pandemics with varying disease severity occurred in the last 100 years. The disease burden and determinants of influenza severity depend on circulating viral strains and individual demographic and clinical factors. Surveillance is the most effective strategy for appropriate public health response. Active and passive surveillance methods are utilized to monitor influenza epidemics and emergence of novel viruses. Meaningful use of electronic health records could be a cost-effective approach to improved influenza surveillance


title: A Novel Approach to Retrieval of Similar Patterns in Biological Images

text: Novel descriptors of keypoints are proposed for matching (primarily) biological images. The descriptors incorporate characteristics of limited-size neighborhoods of keypoints. Descriptors are quantized into small vocabularies representing photometry of images (SIFT words) and geometry of their neighborhoods, so that significant distortions can be tolerated. In order to keep precision at a high level, Harris-Affine and Hessian-Affine detectors are independently applied. The retrieval results are accepted only if confirmed by both techniques. Using several test datasets, we preliminarily show that the method can retrieve semantically meaningful data from unknown and unpredictable images without any training or supervision. Low computational complexity of the method makes it a good candidate for scalable analysis of biological (e.g. zoological or botanical) visual databases.


title: Asia Federation Report on International Symposium on Grid Computing (ISGC) 2010

text: This report provides an overview of developments in the Asia-Pacific region, based on presentations made at the International Symposium on Grid Computing 2010 (ISGC 2010), held 5-12 March at Academia Sinica, Taipei. The document includes a brief overview of the EUAsiaGrid project as well as progress reports by representatives of 13 Asian countries presented at ISGC 2010. In alphabetical order, these are: Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.


title: Pneumonia

text: Respiratory diagnoses continue to make up a large number of admissions to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), most notably lower respiratory infections including pneumonia. This chapter will focus on pediatric community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), immunocompromised pneumonia, and aspiration pneumonia. The pathogenesis for developing pneumonia varies; it can occur by direct inhalation of infectious particles in the air or aspiration, direct extension from the upper airways, and hematogenous spread. There are multiple levels of defense against pathogen invasion including anatomic barriers, as well as innate and adaptive immunity, which may be compromised in PICU patients. The etiologies of pediatric pneumonia vary depending on age, host condition, and environmental factors like time of year and location. Viruses remain the most common form of lower respiratory tract infection in children, especially in neonates. Community-acquired bacterial pneumonia continues to be most prevalent in younger children as well, most often affecting children less than 5 years of age who are otherwise healthy. Despite immunizations and public health initiatives, the most common bacterial causes of CAP have remained largely unchanged over the last several decades and include: Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus influenzae (including non-typable strains) and Moraxella catarrhalis. Pulmonary infection in an immunocompromised host provides a much broader differential and must be aggressively treated without delay. This chapter will also address various imaging modalities and typical findings with pediatric pneumonia. Methods for pathogen identification are broad and range from non-specific markers of illness to invasive techniques for culture. The mainstay of therapy continues to be antibiotics tailored to the patient and presumed etiology; more novel therapies may include corticosteroids or macrolide antibiotics for immune modulation. In those patients with pneumonia with effusion or empyema, drainage therapies with thoracostomy tubes or a VATS procedure may be indicated.


title: Pediatric Lung Transplantation

text: Lung transplantation is considered the last therapeutic resource for children with life threatening end-stage lung disease, but it is also a lifelong commitment to a complex clinical follow-up. The main indications in childhood are pulmonary hypertension in infancy and cystic fibrosis in children and adolescents. Contraindications are absolute and relative and often vary from one to another transplant program. Multi-organ disorders, active malignancy, and specific active infection are general agreed upon contraindications. Only 21% of organ donors had suitable lungs for transplant. Although immunosuppressive regimens vary, most lung transplant centers use induction to avoid early acute rejection. The postoperative period is not only crucial for early detection of complications, such as infections and rejection, but also in the long term when gastrointestinal and neurological complications may compromise up to 50% of the patients. One year survival rate is around 85%, and 3 year survival is around 65%. Long-term survival is determined primarily by the development of bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS), so it is important to plan better therapeutic regimes to preserve graft function.


title: Using Spatial Prediction Model to Analyze Driving Forces of the Beijing 2008 HFMD Epidemic

text: Based on the spatial units of community, village and town in Beijing, the relationship betweent HFMD morbidity and the potential risk factors has been examined. According to the 6 selected risk factors (namely population density, disposable income of urban residents, the number of medical and health institutions, the number of hospital beds, average annual temperature and average annual relative humidity) significantly related to HFMD morbidity, the prediction performance of Classical Linear Regression Model(CLRM) and Spatial Lag Model(SLM) has been compared. The results showed that SLM achieved better effect and R square reached 0.82. It was showed that spatial effect played the crucial role in the HFMD morbidity prediction and its contribution attained 88%. However, CLRM showed low prediction accuracy and bias estimation. It was demonstrated that including spatial effect item into CLRM could greatly improve the performance of HFMD morbidity prediciton model.


title: 24 Infectieziekten

text: Belangrijkste bacteriële verwekkers bij kinderen < 1 maand: Escherichia coli, groep-B-streptokokken en Listeria monocytogenes ; belangrijkste bacteriële verwekkers bij kinderen > 1 maand: meningokokken en pneumokokken. H a emophilus influenzae type B is als gevolg van vaccinatie vrijwel verdwenen; belangrijkste virale verwekkers: enterovirus en herpessimplexvirus (hsv); predisponerende factoren: leeftijd < 5 jaar, patiënten met liquorshunts, afweerstoornissen, schedeltrauma.


title: Inflammatory Diseases of the Meninges

text: Neuroimaging is of major importance in all cases of suspected infectious meningitis in order to get quick information about the extent of the disease, typical lesion patterns, and potential complications, such as hydrocephalus, involvement of the underlying brain parenchyma, or vasculitis. In bacterial meningitis, abnormal and asymmetrical enhancement of the leptomeninges and the subarachnoid space is typical. Initial neuroimaging has to rule out infectious foci of the skull base such as purulent sinusitis or mastoiditis. In patients with focal deficits or seizures, MRI is the tool of choice to diagnose vascular or septic complications. Neoplastic, viral, or fungal infections of the CNS may present with similar changes of the meninges; however, fungal meningitis normally causes a thicker and more nodular enhancement. In case of basal accentuation of the leptomeningeal contrast enhancement and conspicuous signal changes in the basal cisterns, one has to consider tuberculous meningitis for differential diagnosis, especially in patients with HIV infection. Non-infectious causes of meningeal enhancement comprise several primary and secondary tumors (e.g., CNS lymphoma, medulloblastoma, or breast cancer), granulomatous diseases, intracranial hypotension, and post-operative changes.


title: The Emergence of an Asia-Pacific Diplomacy of Counter-Terrorism in Tackling the Islamic State Threat

text: The militaries in the Asia-Pacific region have been largely established to respond to specific threats to national security. While most of the ASEAN countries have been modernising their force structures for conventional conflict since the waning years of the Cold War, many still retain doctrines and equipment geared for internal security needs. The advent of non-traditional security threats ranging from natural disasters to transnational terrorism may challenge this state of affairs. Against this backdrop, how can one analyse and conceptualise the Asia-Pacific’s diplomacy of counter-terrorism in tackling the threat posed by the Islamic State? This chapter will examine the counter-terrorism policies of Asia-Pacific states and analyse how non-traditional threats such as that posed by terrorism have been managed by the armed forces of the region. A short case study of Indonesia will be included.


title: C-Type Lectin Receptors

text: C-type lectins, originally defined as proteins binding carbohydrates in a Ca(2+)-dependent manner, form a large family containing soluble and membrane-bound proteins. Among them, those expressed on phagocytes and working as pathogen pattern-recognition receptors were designated as C-type lectin receptors (CLRs), in accordance with Toll-like receptors (TLRs), NOD-like receptors (NLRs), and RIG-I–like receptors (RLRs). Most of the genes for CLRs are clustered in human chromosome 12 close to the natural killer gene complex. Similar to the killer lectin-like receptors whose genes are clustered in this complex, most of the CLRs induce activating or regulatory signal cascades in response to distinct pathogen- or self-derived components, through the immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activating or inhibitory motif, respectively. In this chapter, some representative CLRs are picked up and their structural features leading to the functional consequences are discussed, especially on the signaling cascades and pathogen interactions, including some impacts on cutaneous pathophysiology. These CLRs should provide targets to develop effective vaccination and therapeutics for distinct infectious and autoimmune/inflammatory diseases.


title: Avvelenamenti da pesticidi

text: Il declino degli impollinatori selvatici e, in particolare, la mortalità delle api domestiche registrata negli ultimi anni hanno messo in evidenza il fondamentale ruolo delle api e degli altri insetti pronubi nell’impollinazione delle piante. L’accertamento delle cause di questi fenomeni non è di facile realizzazione, perché i fattori implicati possono variare e combinarsi fra loro. L’esposizione ai pesticidi, insieme alle patologie, ai parassiti, alle pratiche apistiche e alle condizioni nutrizionali, agroambientali e climatiche contribuiscono, secondo la teoria del vaso traboccante (Fig. 11.1), a causare, in proporzioni differenti, l’indebolimento e il successivo collasso degli alveari. I pesticidi, in particolare gli insetticidi, oltre alle mortalità provocate da grossolani errori durante il loro impiego (interventi fitoiatrici eseguiti in fioritura, durante i flussi di melata, in presenza di vento, contaminazione della flora spontanea, ecc.), sono anche sospettati di abbassare, in dosi sub-letali, le difese immunitarie e di indurre alterazioni sul comportamento, sull’orientamento e sull’attività sociale delle api [1, 2].


title: Immunological Aspects of Systemic Vasculitis

text: Primary vasculitis are commonly multifactorial disorders involving environmental, genetic and immunological factors. Several immune-based effector mechanisms are implicated in the vascular wall damage. These effector mechanisms commonly imply auto-antibodies or immune complexes - mediated cytotoxicity but the contribution of a T-cell mediated immune response has also been described, particularly in large vascular vasculitis. Despite advances in understanding the pathophysiological mechanisms of vasculitis, the triggering events initiating the disease remain largely undefined in most cases. This review highlights the recent advances in the etiopathogenesis of primary vasculitis. A better understanding of the immunological aspects of these disorders may provide insight into the development of novel therapeutical strategies.


title: Nanowire BioFETs: An Overview

text: In this chapter, the biosensing as a key element of nanotechnology and commanding a wide range of applications is discussed, e.g., fast and efficient clinical diagnostics, health care, security, environmental monitoring, etc. The operation and sensing mechanism of BioFETs and ion-sensitive FETs are elaborated on a molecular level, based upon the molecular recognition between target and probe molecules and the input gate voltage and output ON current of the conventional FETs. In particular, the extended roles of the gate electrode of BioFETs as the probing surface are highlighted, in comparison with the conventional gate electrode, together with the physical and biological processes for detecting target molecules. Moreover, the bottom-up syntheses of vertical and horizontal nanowires are presented and the ensuing nanowires are characterized. Also, the top-down and bottom-up approaches for processing nanowires are compared by taking as criteria the process complexity and quality of the nanowires produced. Finally, the future prospects of bio-sensing are presented.


title: Re-Bordering State Responsibilities and Human Rights

text: This chapter explores the relationship between human security and borders, specifically the borders of sovereign States. Seen through the lens of human security, it argues that on the one hand the right of migrants to move across borders is fundamental, and on the other hand, the human rights and human security of both sedentary and migrant populations across borders are paramount to the security of both the States on either side of any border. It asks the questions: Whose rights are met with responsibilities? What options are there? Answering these questions sheds light on the tensions between State-citizen security and (non-)citizen security and human security, all of which are likely to become more acute; accentuated as they are by political instabilities and exacerbated by climate change, among other co-factors.


title: Online samenwerken in teams

text: Wat kunnen sociale media betekenen voor leren en samenwerken in organisaties en teams? Sociale media maken het mogelijk om virtueel samen te werken in een team, met collega’s uit je eigen organisatie maar ook uit andere organisaties; je hoeft niet langer bij elkaar op kantoor te zitten om te ‘overleggen’. Hoe doe je dit? Is het nodig dat je duidelijk afspraken maakt over hoe je tools gebruikt? We zullen in dit hoofdstuk eerst aandacht besteden aan virtuele teams, maar ook aangeven hoe je met webtools het leren en samenwerken in teams die wel op dezelfde locatie zitten kunt ondersteunen. We introduceren de rol van een technology steward en het begrip ‘de grenzeloze facilitator’. We presenteren een stappenplan om tools te introduceren bij teams die op afstand samenwerken. Vervolgens besteden we aandacht aan leren in teams en specifieke interventies om met sociale media het teamwerk te versterken. Wat kun je met sociale media bij teams die niet goed functioneren?


title: Ida: A link to human evolution

text: Year 2009 is being celebrated as the bicentenary of British naturalist Charles Robert Darwin’s birth as well as 150 years of his book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life” in short “On the Origin of Species”. Darwin is hailed as one of the greatest scientist who put forth the theory of gradual evolution and branching of all life forms. Unfortunately, then fossil records were incomplete to produce evidence of human evolution. For 200 years paleobiologists were looking for any evidence of a transitional fossil to showcase the evolution of monkeys, apes and human. The story of Ida began in 1983 when she was collected from Messel pit in Germany by an unknown collector, and displayed in his home for 20 years before deciding to sell. The fossil Ida was preserved in nature for ages in the Germany’s Messel pit, a crater rich in Eocene Epoch fossils. Ida lived when major changes were taking place on earth, the dinosaurs had become extinct, the Himalayas were forming and a range of mammals thrived in vast jungles all over the world. Prof. Jørn Hurum of the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway bought the fossil for 1 million USD, assembled top international team of experts, studied the fossil secretly for 2 years, and satisfied themselves as to the genuineness of the fossil. Finally Prof. Jørn Hurum announced the discovery of 47 million years old fossil — a link in the evolution of monkeys, apes and man. He named the fossil “Ida” and her scientific name is Darwinius masillae (named in honor of Charles Darwin’s bicentenary). Ida will remain for long a subject of intense research and discussion almost throughout the world. The fact that all life forms have common ancestors at some point of time is a well established universal reality as unfolded by research on DNA.


title: Generating Fake but Realistic Headlines Using Deep Neural Networks

text: Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook implement filters to detect fake news as they foresee their transition from social media platform to primary sources of news. The robustness of such filters lies in the variety and the quality of the data used to train them. There is, therefore, a need for a tool that automatically generates fake but realistic news. In this paper, we propose a deep learning model that automatically generates news headlines. The model is trained with a corpus of existing headlines from different topics. Once trained, the model generates a fake but realistic headline given a seed and a topic. For example, given the seed “Kim Jong Un” and the topic “Business”, the model generates the headline “kim jong un says climate change is already making money”. In order to better capture and leverage the syntactic structure of the headlines for the task of synthetic headline generation, we extend the architecture - Contextual Long Short Term Memory, proposed by Ghosh et al. - to also learn a part-of-speech model. We empirically and comparatively evaluate the performance of the proposed model on a real corpora of headlines. We compare our proposed approach and its variants using Long Short Term Memory and Gated Recurrent Units as the building blocks. We evaluate and compare the topical coherence of the generated headlines using a state-of-the-art classifier. We, also, evaluate the quality of the generated headline using a machine translation quality metric and its novelty using a metric we propose for this purpose. We show that the proposed model is practical and competitively efficient and effective.


In Pursuit of Precision Medicine in the Critically Ill


title: Mikrobiologische Diagnostik und Infektiologie

text: Die erfolgreiche Therapie von Infektionskrankheiten setzt in vielen Fällen eine sachgerecht durchgeführte mikrobiologische Diagnostik voraus. Dabei werden die diagnostischen Möglichkeiten im klinisch-mikrobiologischen Labor entscheidend von der Präanalytik beeinflusst. Sie wird ergänzt durch die Bestimmung klinisch-chemischer Parameter, die häufig erst den Anlass für eine entsprechende weitere Diagnostik geben. Im Rahmen der Infektionsprävention und zur Dokumentation einer einwandfreien Medizinprodukteaufbereitung werden Untersuchungen von unbelebten Materialien wie Wasser, Luft, Oberflächen oder kontaminierten Prüfkörpern durchgeführt. In allen Fällen sollte auf eine standardisierte Probenentnahme geachtet werden. Dies beginnt mit der Auswahl geeigneter Abstrichtupfer und Transportgefäße, setzt sich fort in der korrekten Entnahme und – falls notwendig – Lagerung des Materials und endet mit dem möglichst raschen Transport in das Labor.


title: Mechanical Ventilation in Infection, Sepsis and Organ Failure

text: Each day thousands of children across the world die as a result of infection. Sepsis, severe sepsis and septic shock represent a continuum of increasing severity for which present definitions are not wholly satisfactory (Levy et al. 2003; Brilli and Goldstein 2005). The term sepsis refers to the presence of an infection caused by a microbe that invades tissue, fluid or a body cavity that is normally sterile, plus the presence of clinical and/or laboratory evidence of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS, temperature or leucocyte abnormalities and abnormal vital signs) (Goldstein et al. 2005). When sepsis is complicated by multi-organ failure, it is regarded as severe, while septic shock is diagnosed when sepsis coexists with a state of acute circulatory failure (Levy et al. 2003).


The Case Study Approach


title: Taking “The Promise” Seriously: Medical Sociology’s Role in Health, Illness, and Healing in a Time of Social Change

text: In 1959, C.W. Mills published his now famous treatise on what sociology uniquely brings to understanding the world and the people in it. Every sociologist, of whatever ilk, has had at least a brush with the “sociological imagination,” and nearly everyone who has taken a sociology course has encountered some version of it. As Mills argued, the link between the individual and society, between personal troubles and social issues, between biography and history, or between individual crises and institutional contradictions represents the core vision of the discipline of sociology. While reminding ourselves of the “promise” may be a bit trite, its mention raises the critical question: Why do we have to continually remind ourselves of the unique contribution that we, as sociologists, bring to understanding health, illness, and healing?


title: The Fear of Ebola: A Tale of Two Cities in China

text: Emerging social issues have often led to rumors breeding and propagation in social media in China. Public health-related rumors will harm social stability, and such noise negatively affects the quality of disease outbreak detection and prediction. In this chapter, we use the diffusion of Ebola rumors in social media networks as a case study. The topic of rumors is identified based on latent Dirichlet allocation method, and the diffusion process is explored using the space-time methods. By comparing Ebola rumors in the two cities, the chapter explores the relationship between the spread of rumors, user factors, and contents. The results show that: (1) rumors have a self-verification process; (2) rumors have strong aggregation characteristics, and similar rumors in different regions at the same period of time will lead to a synergistic effect; (3) non-authenticated users are more inclined to believe the rumors, while the official users play a major role in stopping rumors as they pay more attention to the fact; (4) the spread and elimination of rumors largely depend on the users who have more followers and friends; and (5) the topics of rumors are closely related to the local event.


title: Health Impact of Urban Physicochemical Environment Considering the Mobility of the People

text: Most of the current environmental health researches assumes that exposure to the environmental agents occurs either in the residence or workplace, neglecting the mobility of the people due to commuting and daily activities. Mobility of the people varies in terms of spatial and temporal range, that is, from momentary short ones to generation-scale long ones. Focusing on the daily movement of the people, various methods for grasping the mobility, which also range from simple observational methods like time allocation to methods with advanced technology like global navigation satellite systems, will be reviewed. Referring environmental health studies examining the health effects of either air pollution or heat, importance of the mobility of the people is discussed. Assessing the mobility will open a new research avenue for the study of infectious diseases as well as noncommunicable diseases.


title: Dynamic Pattern Mining: An Incremental Data Clustering Approach

text: We propose a mining framework that supports the identification of useful patterns based on incremental data clustering. Given the popularity of Web news services, we focus our attention on news streams mining. News articles are retrieved from Web news services, and processed by data mining tools to produce useful higher-level knowledge, which is stored in a content description database. Instead of interacting with a Web news service directly, by exploiting the knowledge in the database, an information delivery agent can present an answer in response to a user request. A key challenging issue within news repository management is the high rate of document insertion. To address this problem, we present a sophisticated incremental hierarchical document clustering algorithm using a neighborhood search. The novelty of the proposed algorithm is the ability to identify meaningful patterns (e.g., news events, and news topics) while reducing the amount of computations by maintaining cluster structure incrementally. In addition, to overcome the lack of topical relations in conceptual ontologies, we propose a topic ontology learning framework that utilizes the obtained document hierarchy. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed clustering algorithm produces high-quality clusters, and a topic ontology provides interpretations of news topics at different levels of abstraction.


Schwimmbadamöbiasis


title: Kindergeneeskunde

text: In het eerste deel van dit hoofdstuk worden de ziektebeelden op het gebied van de kindergeneeskunde op een beknopte, heldere wijze behandeld door een vakexpert, huisarts en apotheker; de beste combinatie om de klinische relevantie voor de huisartsenpraktijk te waarborgen. De volgorde van de paragrafen is alfabetisch. In het tweede deel volgt een bespreking van de belangrijkste verschijnselen/ klachten in de kindergeneeskunde, die bij verschillende ziekten kunnen horen, zoals diarree, hoesten, melaena. In het derde deel worden nog enkele specifieke therapeutische technieken besproken, zoals voeding bij zuigelingen en voorschrijven van geneesmiddelen aan kinderen.


title: Einführung

text: Das Wort „Viren“ lässt uns an einen grausamen Tod denken, der unsichtbar heranfliegt. Man sieht Bilder von überfüllten Krankenstationen, in denen während der Spanischen Grippe reihenweise Patienten starben, von Poliomyelitis-Patienten in der Eisernen Lunge, von medizinischen Helfern, die in Schutz an zügen das tödliche Ebolavirus bekämpfen, oder von Säuglingen mit zu kleinen Köpfen, hervor gerufen durch das Zikavirus. Das alles sind schreckliche Erkrankungen, aber sie bilden nur einen sehr kleinen Teil des Ganzen. Viren infizieren alle Lebensformen – nicht nur Menschen –, und die meisten Viren sind keine Krankheitserreger. Viren gehören zur Geschichte des irdischen Lebens. Welche Rolle sie genau spielen, ist ein Rätsel, das aber langsam gelöst wird.


title: The Effective Reproduction Number as a Prelude to Statistical Estimation of Time-Dependent Epidemic Trends

text: Although the basic reproduction number, R (0), is useful for understanding the transmissibility of a disease and designing various intervention strategies, the classic threshold quantity theoretically assumes that the epidemic first occurs in a fully susceptible population, and hence, R (0) is essentially a mathematically defined quantity. In many instances, it is of practical importance to evaluate time-dependent variations in the transmission potential of infectious diseases. Explanation of the time course of an epidemic can be partly achieved by estimating the effective reproduction number, R(t), defined as the actual average number of secondary cases per primary case at calendar time t (for t >0). R(t) shows time-dependent variation due to the decline in susceptible individuals (intrinsic factors) and the implementation of control measures (extrinsic factors). If R(t)<1, it suggests that the epidemic is in decline and may be regarded as being under control at time t (vice versa, if R(t)>1). This chapter describes the primer of mathematics and statistics of R(t) and discusses other similar markers of transmissibility as a function of time.


title: Management of Autoimmune Systemic Diseases in the Intensive Care Unit

text: The diagnosis of an autoimmune systemic disease (SD) and/or its management in the intensive care unit (ICU) is dependent on dialogue between the intensivist and specialists in these diseases. However, some clinical (syndromic associations) or biological signs should lead the intensivist to suspect these diseases. Several biological or histological investigations can be rapidly performed in the ICU to confirm the diagnosis. Both treatments of a potential flare-up of the suspected disease and a concurrent infectious complication need often to be started simultaneously. While waiting for the effects of these specific treatments, supportive treatment may include the initiation of non-invasive ventilation or, in severe specified cases, invasive mechanical ventilation with extra-corporeal supports like Renal Replacement Therapy (RRT) and extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Referent centers should be asked for validation of the therapeutic options, especially when some drugs are used off-label for these severe patients. An integrative diagnostic and therapeutic approach is proposed to guide the intensivist in this complex management.


title: Hybridizations of Metaheuristics With Branch & Bound Derivates

text: An important branch of hybrid metaheuristics concerns the hybridization with branch & bound derivatives. In this chapter we present examples for two different types of hybridization. The first one concerns the use of branch & bound features within construction-based metaheuristics in order to increase their efficiancy. The second example deals with the use of a metaheuristic, in our case a memetic algorithm, in order to increase the efficiancy of branch & bound, respectively branch & bound derivatives such as beam search. The quality of the resulting hybrid techniques is demonstrated by means of the application to classical string problems: the longest common subsequence problem and the shortest common supersequence problem.


title: Multifaceted Antiviral Actions of Interferon-stimulated Gene Products

text: Interferons (IFNs) are extremely powerful cytokines for the host defence against viral infections. Binding of IFNs to their receptors activates the JAK/STAT signalling pathway with the Janus kinases JAK1, 2 and TYK2 and the signal transducer and activators of transcription (STAT) 1 and STAT2. Depending on the cellular setting, additional STATs (STAT3-6) and additional signalling pathways are activated. The actions of IFNs on infected cells and the surrounding tissue are mediated by the induction of several hundred IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs). Since the cloning of the first ISGs, considerable progress has been made in describing antiviral effector proteins and their many modes of action. Effector proteins individually target distinct steps in the viral life cycle, including blocking virus entry, inhibition of viral transcription and translation, modification of viral nucleic acids and proteins and, interference with virus assembly and budding. Novel pathways of viral inhibition are constantly being elucidated and, additionally, unanticipated functions of known antiviral effector proteins are discovered. Herein, we outline IFN-induced antiviral pathways and review recent developments in this fascinating area of research.


title: Hospital Institutional Context and Funding

text: This chapter focuses on hospital ownership and supervision. Public hospitals are mostly, but not always, under the supervision of the Health Ministry. There are a certain number of other governing bodies that are directly involved in the management of hospitals. A cross-ministry group was set up in 2006 to facilitate the implementation of hospital reforms. Apart from the organizational structure, the funding of hospitals and its evolution is studied. Between 1979 and 1991, the government introduced a co-payment system in healthcare establishments. In 1992, the Ministry of Health officially granted greater autonomy to public hospitals. They were authorized to deliver paid services and to make profits, but were made responsible for their losses and debts. By 2003, central government funding had fallen to 8% of the hospital budget. As a result, public hospitals in China behave very similarly to for-profit firms, while being governed as any traditional public structure. The next step is the current experiment of a Diagnostics Related Group-based payment in China. Along with the financial autonomy of public hospitals, different reforms have been directed at developing private hospitals, even though many obstacles still remain.


title: Pneumonia

text: Pneumonia is a common cause of hospital admission and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a growing health problem in developed country and worldwide. Elderly patients suffer from more severe disease, require intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and exhibit higher mortality compared with their younger counterparts. The immunological changes that occur with age called “immunosenescence” (decreased efficiency of the adaptive and innate immune systems) are known to be responsible for the increased susceptibility of elderly persons to infectious diseases and for their limited response to vaccines [1].


title: Medical Ethics in Disasters

text: Disasters frequently create demands that outstrip available existing medical and societal resources. This may be particularly problematic for giving medical care, because disasters may destroy the infrastructures necessary to both provide patients care and keep new health problems from emerging. Disaster may, for example, not only strike care providers and hospital facilities directly; they may decimate communities’ capacities to provide food to the population and carry out critical waste disposal services. All these effects may be most important to policymakers and care providers deciding triage priorities during disasters. Referring to just these two examples, food and waste disposal services, for instance, care providers should treat first not only other care providers, who can, then, take care of others, but food preparers and waste disposal personnel, likewise, to save the most lives. These two examples are just a few among many that warrant priority for this same reason.


title: Coronavirus-Induced Demyelination and Spontaneous Remyelination: Growth factor expression and function

text: MHV-A59 coronavirus infection produces a transient episode of demyelination that is followed by spontaneous remyelination. This paradigm provides a complex lesion environment to examine cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in successful CNS remyelination. Our work in this model has focused on the roles of platelet-derived growth factor and fibroblast growth factor 2 in regulating oligodendrocyte progenitor responses required for remyelination.


Erkrankungen von Bronchien, Lunge, Pleura


title: Alternative Distance Metrics for Enhanced Reliability of Spatial Regression Analysis of Health Data

text: We present a spatial autoregressive model (SAR) to investigate the relationship between the incidence of heart disease and a pool of selected socio-economic factors in Calgary (Canada). Our goal is to provide decision makers with a reliable model, which can guide locational decisions to address current disease occurrence and mitigate its future occurrence and severity. To this end, the applied model rests on a quantitative definition of neighbourhood relationships in the city of Calgary. Our proposition is that such relationships, usually described by Euclidean distance, can be more effectively described by alternative distance metrics. The use of the most appropriate metric can improve the regression model by reducing the uncertainty of its estimates, ultimately providing a more reliable analytical tool for management and policy decision making.


title: Survival of Enteric Viruses in the Environment and Food

text: Enteric viruses are those human viruses that are primarily transmitted by the fecal-oral route, either by person-to-person contact or by ingestion of contaminated food or water. The importance of viral foodborne diseases is increasingly being recognized, and several international organizations have found that there is an upward trend in their incidence. Thus, in this review, state-of-the-art information regarding virus persistence in food and the environment is compiled.


title: Epidemiology: Grappling with the Concept

text: Public health as a segment of healthcare naturally is healthcare in the public domain, as distinct from healthcare outside of society’s purview; and the care naturally is paramedical care together with medical care – hence the term ‘health,’ rather than ‘medicine,’ in ‘public health.’ Medicine encompasses community medicine in addition to clinical medicine. This segment of medicine inherently is public-health medicine, whereas clinical medicine falls under public health only to the extent that national health insurance has been introduced. Community medicine used to be focused on epidemics of communicable diseases; and a natural term for this segment of medicine thus was epidemiology. As the concerns in community medicine were extended to encompass endemic occurrence of communicable – and also of non-communicable – illnesses, ‘endemology’ could have been introduced as a term for this extension; but instead, the concept of epidemiology was expanded to community medicine in the thus-expanded meaning of it. Epidemiological research naturally is research to advance (the practice of) community medicine – of epidemiology, that is. This research includes ‘bench’ or ‘basic’ research aimed at the development of vaccines, for example; and it falls under various medical sciences instead of constituting a science unto itself. All of this presumably is natural and quite obviously true in the judgements of beginning students of epidemiological research, but it is here said for the troubling reason that concepts of epidemiology and epidemiological research different from these are endemic in today’s epidemiologic academia. The purpose of this chapter is to help the beginning student to find proper orientation in this academia.


title: Reverse Genetics of Avian Coronavirus Infectious Bronchitis Virus

text: We have developed a reverse genetics system for the avian coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) in which a full-length cDNA corresponding to the IBV genome is inserted into the vaccinia virus genome under the control of a T7 promoter sequence. Vaccinia virus as a vector for the full-length IBV cDNA has the advantage that modifications can be introduced into the IBV cDNA using homologous recombination, a method frequently used to insert and delete sequences from the vaccinia virus genome. Here, we describe the use of transient dominant selection as a method for introducing modifications into the IBV cDNA; that has been successfully used for the substitution of specific nucleotides, deletion of genomic regions, and the exchange of complete genes. Infectious recombinant IBVs are generated in situ following the transfection of vaccinia virus DNA, containing the modified IBV cDNA, into cells infected with a recombinant fowlpox virus expressing T7 DNA dependant RNA polymerase.


title: Affordances in Conversational Interactions with Multimodal QA Systems

text: Implementation of adequate conversational structures is a key issue in developing successful interactive user interfaces. A way of testing the adequacy of the structures is to prove the correct orientation of each communicative action towards a preceding action. We refer to this orientation leading to a certain response as the affordance of the communicative action. In this paper we present a case study where affordances of implemented conversational structures (including verbal and graphical elements) in a multimodal medical QA system are identified applying Conversation Analysis (CA) tools and tested using the Cognitive Walkthrough (CW) method. The CW method was modified to fit the conversational approach and tested with five expert evaluators. Results showed that the affordance analysis helps detecting inefficient constructions leading to disruptions in the dialog flow, spots unnecessary functions and provides important insights on systems easy-of-use.


title: Influenza

text: Influenza is one of the commonest infections in human populations, and causing substantial morbidity and mortality globally. The influenza virus is divided into different types and subtypes, three of which are currently circulating widely in humans: influenza A(H3N2) and influenza B. The virus undergoes constant evolution, leading to annual seasonal winter epidemics in temperate countries and necessitating annual updates to the vaccine. Rarely, completely new influenza viruses can emerge in human populations, giving rise to influenza pandemics. Children aged <5 years (especially those <2 years) and those with underlying illness such as cardiac, respiratory and severe neurologic disease have an increased risk of severe outcomes associated with influenza. Pregnant women have an increased risk of severe influenza. Complications may involve the respiratory tract (e.g. otitis media or pneumonia) or, less commonly, other organ systems (e.g. encephalitis or myocarditis). Specific antiviral treatment should be offered as soon as possible for hospitalized children with presumed or confirmed influenza and for influenza of any severity for children at high risk of severe complications of influenza without waiting for laboratory confirmation. Antiviral treatment is usually not warranted for uncomplicated influenza as this is usually self-limiting. Annual influenza vaccination should be offered to all individuals at increased risk for complications of influenza. Vaccine cannot be given to children aged <6 months but maternal influenza immunization during pregnancy is recommended and can confer protection to the young infant.


title: Nanoformulations: A Valuable Tool in the Therapy of Viral Diseases Attacking Humans and Animals

text: Various viruses can be considered as one of the most frequent causes of human diseases, from mild illnesses to really serious sicknesses that end fatally. Numerous viruses are also pathogenic to animals and plants, and many of them, mutating, become pathogenic also to humans. Several cases of affecting humans by originally animal viruses have been confirmed. Viral infections cause significant morbidity and mortality in humans, the increase of which is caused by general immunosuppression of the world population, changes in climate, and overall globalization. In spite of the fact that the pharmaceutical industry pays great attention to human viral infections, many of clinically used antivirals demonstrate also increased toxicity against human cells, limited bioavailability, and thus, not entirely suitable therapeutic profile. In addition, due to resistance, a combination of antivirals is needed for life-threatening infections. Thus, the development of new antiviral agents is of great importance for the control of virus spread. On the other hand, the discovery and development of structurally new antivirals represent risks. Therefore, another strategy is being developed, namely the reformulation of existing antivirals into nanoformulations and investigation of various metal and metalloid nanoparticles with respect to their diagnostic, prophylactic, and therapeutic antiviral applications. This chapter is focused on nanoscale materials/formulations with the potential to be used for the treatment or inhibition of the spread of viral diseases caused by human immunodeficiency virus, influenza A viruses (subtypes H3N2 and H1N1), avian influenza and swine influenza viruses, respiratory syncytial virus, herpes simplex virus, hepatitis B and C viruses, Ebola and Marburg viruses, Newcastle disease virus, dengue and Zika viruses, and pseudorabies virus. Effective antiviral long-lasting and target-selective nanoformulations developed for oral, intravenous, intramuscular, intranasal, intrarectal, intravaginal, and intradermal applications are discussed. Benefits of nanoparticle-based vaccination formulations with the potential to secure cross protection against divergent viruses are outlined as well.


title: Pathology of the Respiratory Tract

text: This chapter discusses six common entities of respiratory disease: obstructive and restrictive disorders of gas exchange, infectious and inflammatory diseases, immunologic disorders, vascular diseases of the lung, tumors of the lung and pleura, and miscellaneous other diseases of the respiratory tract.


title: The Safety and Efficiency of Addressing ARDS Using Stem Cell Therapies in Clinical Trials

text: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) is a complex and debilitating disease of the lungs, which continues to have a high mortality rate and huge disease burden on patients. Incidence is rising, possibly due to greater awareness leading to more diagnoses rather than a change in the underlying rate. It arises from multiple etiologies, though pathogenic infection, termed pneumonia, is the most prevalent and widely studied. The distinct pathophysiology and rapid evolution of ARDS makes it uniquely challenging with regard to therapeutics development and, to date, no medicines are licensed for specific therapy. Antibiotics, ventilation, and other organ support remain intervention standards.


title: Pathology of the Gastrointestinal Tract

text: This chapter presents representative photographs of common diseases in the esophagus, stomach, small and large intestines, appendix, and rectum. Most of the diseases discussed here are infectious or neoplastic; a few others appear that students should be able to identify. A few microscopic photographs are added to support the understanding of gross lesions.


Particular Treatment Procedures


title: Viral Helicases

text: Helicases are motor proteins that use the free energy of NTP hydrolysis to catalyze the unwinding of duplex nucleic acids. Helicases participate in almost all processes involving nucleic acids. Their action is critical for replication, recombination, repair, transcription, translation, splicing, mRNA editing, chromatin remodeling, transport, and degradation (Matson and Kaiser-Rogers 1990; Matson et al. 1994; Mendonca et al. 1995; Luking et al. 1998).


title: Cleavage of the Glycoprotein of Arenaviruses

text: The arenaviruses are a large family of emerging negative-stranded RNA viruses that include several severe human pathogens causing hemorrhagic fevers with high mortality. During the arenavirus life cycle, processing of the viral envelope glycoprotein precursor (GPC) by the cellular subtilisin kexin isozyme-1 (SKI-1)/site-1 protease (S1P) is crucial for productive infection. The ability of newly emerging arenaviruses to hijack human SKI-1/S1P is a key factor for zoonotic transmission and human disease potential. Apart from being an essential host factor for arenavirus infection, SKI-1/S1P is involved in the regulation of important physiological processes and linked to major human diseases. This chapter provides an overview of the mechanisms of arenavirus GPC processing by SKI-1/S1P including recent findings. We will highlight to what extent the molecular mechanisms of SKI-1/S1P cleavage of viral GPC differ from processing of SKI-1/S1P’s cellular substrates and discuss the implications for virus-host interaction and coevolution. Moreover, we will show how the use of the viral GPC as a “molecular probe” uncovered novel and unusual aspects of SKI-1/S1P biosynthesis and maturation. The crucial role of SKI-1/S1P in arenavirus infection and other major human diseases combined with its nature as an enzyme makes SKI-1/S1P further an attractive target for therapeutic intervention. In the last part, we will therefore cover past and present efforts to identify specific SKI-1/S1P inhibitors.


title: Sinusitis, Rhinitis, Asthma, and the Single Airway Hypothesis

text: The one airway, one disease hypothesis proposes that the upper and lower airways share the same physiology and histomorphology. Epidemiological clinical studies support a link between rhinosinusitis and asthma. The relationship can occur in both directions, with nasal allergen challenge leading to inflammatory changes in the lower airway and bronchoprovocation studies of the lower airway leading to inflammatory changes in the upper airway. In addition, both similarities and differences exist in the pathogenesis of nasal polyps and asthma. The mechanism for the connection between the upper and lower airways is a matter of great debate. It has been proposed that inflammatory changes in the lower airway may lead to systemic inflammatory effects that play a role in increased bronchial hyperresponsiveness. Similarly, lower airway inflammatory changes may affect nasal airway patency via systemic effects. Moreover, nasopharyngeal-bronchial reflexes may play a non-immunologic role in the interaction between the lower and upper airways. An example of the connection between the upper and lower airways is found in aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease whereby leukotrienes play a role in the pathology of chronic rhinosinusitis with polyps and asthma. It is also been observed that the treatment of asthma is hindered by untreated rhinosinusitis.


title: Application of Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery and Targeting

text: Lipidic nanoparticulate self-assembled structures are effective carriers for drug delivery. This chapter describes the most famous nanotechnological drug delivery systems that are already used in clinical practice and clinical evaluation or in academic research. Liposomes are nanocolloidal lyotropic liquid crystals that are able to deliver bioactive molecules. Their membrane biophysics and thermodynamic properties reflect to the creation of metastable phases that affect their functionality and physicochemical behavior. Thermo- and pH-responsive liposomes are innovative nanotechnological platforms for drug delivery and targeting. Polymeric micelles and polymersomes are nanostructures that are promising drug carriers, while dendrimeric structures are considered as real nanoparticulate systems that are used in drug delivery and as nonviral vectors as well as in prevention of serious infections leading to diseases. Vaccines based on nanoparticles such as liposomes are an emerging technology and liposomes seem to meet the requirement criteria of adjuvanicity.


title: Virology and Immunology of Bats

text: Bats harbor many pathogens of veterinary and human health concern, including several emerging and reemerging viruses such as lyssaviruses, filoviruses, henipaviruses, and SARS-like coronaviruses. Despite immune responses to these viruses, many bats remain infected without disease and likely shed virus to other bats and mammals. Little is known about bat immune systems or how the immune responses of bats control infections. The recent characterization of genome and transcriptome sequences of several bat species suggests they are similar to other mammals. These data indicate that bats possess orthologous genes, antibodies, and cells involved in innate and adaptive immune responses as do other mammals, but bats likely evolved unique mechanisms for controlling viruses that cause disease in other species. It is unclear how these diseases affect bat ecology, and thus, a greater understanding of immunology and infection is needed to understand health impact on bats.


title: ICU Complications of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant, Including Graft vs Host Disease

text: Hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) is an essential treatment modality for many malignant and non-malignant hematologic diseases. Advances in HSCT techniques have dramatically decreased peri-transplant morbidity and mortality, but it remains a high-risk procedure, and a significant number of patients will require critical care during the transplant process. Complications of HSCT are both infectious and non-infectious, and the intensivist must be familiar with common infections, the management of neutropenic sepsis and septic shock, the management of respiratory failure in the immunocompromised host, and a plethora of HSCT-specific complications. Survival from critical illness after HSCT is improving, but the mortality rate remains unacceptably high. Continued research and optimization of critical care provision in this population should continue to improve outcomes.


title: Kindergeneeskunde

text: Ieder kind maakt tijdens zijn of haar groei en ontwikkeling ziekten door. Veelal betreft het onschuldige aandoeningen, vaak van infectieuze aard. Meestal zijn deze aandoeningen ‘self-limiting’ en horen ze bij een normale ontwikkeling.De toediening van medicijnen heeft zin als onderdeel van een gerichte behandeling. Het voorschrijven van geneesmiddelen aan kinderen is helaas (nog steeds) zelden onderbouwd door goed wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar de effectiviteit en veiligheid ervan bij kinderen. Veelal zijn het soort en de dosering van geneesmiddelen afgeleid van bekende toepassingen en doseringen bij volwassenen. Een dosering wordt daarbij veelal omgerekend op grond van het lichaamsgewicht. Hoewel dit bij jonge kinderen over het algemeen een goed uitgangspunt is voor het berekenen van de juiste dosering, moet er bij oudere kinderen (globaal boven de acht jaar) rekening worden gehouden met de maximale dosering voor volwassenen, omdat men deze onbedoeld kan overschrijden bij het berekenen van de dosering per kg lichaamsgewicht bij deze (oudere) leeftijdsgroep. Voor pasgeborenen en zuigelingen bestaan vaak aparte doseringsvoorschriften. Het therapeutisch effect en bijwerkingen van veel medicamenten zijn bij zuigelingen vaak anders dan bij kinderen en volwassenen.


title: Sphingolipid Metabolism in Systemic Inflammation

text: The inflammatory response - induced and regulated by a variety of mediators such as cytokines, prostaglandins, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) - is the localized host’s response of the tissue to injury, irritation, or infection. In a very similar and stereotyped sequence, the mediators are thought to induce an acute phase response orchestrated by an array of substances produced locally or near the source or origin of the inflammatory response. Despite its basically protective function, the response can become inappropriate in intensity or duration damaging host tissues or interfering with normal metabolism. Thus, inflammation is the cause and/or consequence of a diversity of diseases and plays a major role in the development of remote organ failure. Better knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of these processes is, therefore, a fundamental pre-requisite fostering the molecular understanding of novel therapeutic targets or diagnostic variables.


title: Modification of Animal Products for Fat and Other Characteristics

text: This chapter includes information about modification of animal products using biotechnology and the importance of different modifications on the natural composition. The species considered for modified products include beef and dairy cattle, sheep, goats, poultry, and a wide variety of fishes. Moreover, the discussion includes the importance of animal food, nongenetically engineered animal modified food products, genetically engineered animal modified food items primarily for meat, milk, or egg and genetically engineered animal food along the transgenic approach for animal welfare. Modern biotechnology can improve productivity, consistency, and quality of alter animal food, fiber, and medical products. The transgenic technology is potentially valuable to alter characters of economic importance in a rapid and precise way. The food safety issue related to genetic engineering is also included in this chapter. The harm of such modified food and transgenic strategy should also be understood by the reader along with its advantages. In this context, transgenic approaches in animal biotechnology are under discussion that ranges from animal food production to their adverse effects.


title: Imaging of Pulmonary Infections

text: Pulmonary infection is one of the most frequent causes of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Many infections occur in individuals with concomitant intrapulmonary or extrathoracic diseases; however, they commonly develop in otherwise healthy people. In the non-immunocompromised population, pneumonia is the most prevalent community-acquired infection and the second most common nosocomial infectious disorder. In immunocompromised patients, in children, and in the elderly, pneumonia, as well as other pulmonary infections, may develop into a life-threatening condition.


title: Synopsis

text: Akute entzündliche Reaktionen bzw. der akute Infekt mit Restitutio ad integrum laufen in einer perfekt modulierten Kaskade ab, bei dem eine akute inflammatorische Einleitungsphase von einer antiinflammatorischen Phase und einer Entzündungsauflösungsphase abgelöst werden.


We as Food and Feeders


title: Selectins and Associated Adhesion Proteins in Inflammatory disorders

text: Inflammation is defined as the normal response of living tissue to injury or infection. It is important to emphasize two components of this definition. First, that inflammation is a normal response and, as such, is expected to occur when tissue is damaged. Infact, if injured tissue does not exhibit signs of inflammation this would be considered abnormal and wounds and infections would never heal without inflammation. Secondly, inflammation occurs in living tissue, hence there is need for an adequate blood supply to the tissues in order to exhibit an inflammatory response. The inflammatory response may be triggered by mechanical injury, chemical toxins, and invasion by microorganisms, and hypersensitivity reactions. Three major events occur during the inflammatory response: the blood supply to the affected area is increased substantially, capillary permeability is increased, and leucocytes migrate from the capillary vessels into the surrounding interstitial spaces to the site of inflammation or injury. The inflammatory response represents a complex biological and biochemical process involving cells of the immune system and a plethora of biological mediators. Cell-to-cell communication molecules such as cytokines play an extremely important role in mediating the process of inflammation. Inflammation and platelet activation are critical phenomena in the setting of acute coronary syndromes. An extensive exposition of this complex phenomenon is beyond the scope of this article (Rankin 2004).


title: Sindrome acuta da stress respiratorio (ARDS)

text: L’esatta incidenza dell’ ARDS non è nota, poiché nella maggior parte delle diagnosi non viene impiegata una definizione univoca. Si può, comunque, affermare che sussiste una frequenza di circa 2–8 casi di malattia per 100.000 abitanti.


title: Preventie

text: Het is een oude wijsheid dat voorkomen beter is dan genezen. Artsen hebben zich van oudsher beziggehouden met preventieve activiteiten. De hippocratische geschriften bijvoorbeeld bevatten tal van aanwijzingen voor een gezonde leefwijze. Ook hebben medici zich ingezet om het uitbreken en verspreiden van verwoestende epidemieën, zoals lepra in de vroege middeleeuwen, pest in de veertiende eeuw en cholera in de negentiende eeuw, tegen te gaan. Met name de overheden werden daarbij ingeschakeld. Door straffe maatregelen, zoals quarantaine en isolatie, poogde men het gevaar voor de gemeenschap af te wenden.


title: Online Public Health Intelligence: Ethical Considerations at the Big Data Era

text: Often times terms such as Big Data, increasing digital footprints in the Internet accompanied with advancing analytical techniques, represent a major opportunity to improve public health surveillance and delivery of interventions. However, early adaption of Big Data in other fields revealed ethical challenges that could undermine privacy and autonomy of individuals and cause stigmatization. This chapter aims to identify the benefits and risks associated with the public health application of Big Data through ethical lenses. In doing so, it highlights the need for ethical discussion and framework towards an effective utilization of technologies. We then discuss key strategies to mitigate potentially harmful aspects of Big Data to facilitate its safe and effective implementation.


title: Acoustic Wave (TSM) Biosensors: Weighing Bacteria

text: This chapter is focused on the development and use of acoustic wave biosensor platforms for the detection of bacteria, specifically those based on the thickness shear mode (TSM) resonator. We demonstrated the mechanical and electrical implications of bacterial positioning at the solid-liquid interface of a TSM biosensor and presented a model of the TSM with bacteria attached operating as coupled oscillators. The experiments and model provide an understanding of the nature of the signals produced by acoustic wave devices when they are used for testing bacteria. The paradox of “negative mass” could be a real threat to the interpretation of experimental results related to the detection of bacteria. The knowledge of the true nature of “negative mass” linked to the strength of bacteria attachment will contribute significantly to our understanding of the results of “weighing bacteria.” The results of this work can be used for bacterial detection and control of processes of bacterial settlement, bacterial colonization, biofilm formation, and bacterial infection in which bacterial attachment plays a role.


title: Novel and Recent Synthesis and Applications of β-Lactams

text: In this chapter, a comprehensive overview of the most significant and interesting contributions published from 2000 until now, concerning the preparation of novel β-lactam structures is presented. Among the different synthetic strategies available, either novel or already known but efficient and versatile methodologies are covered. The simple modifications of one or more substituents linked to the nitrogen N-1, the C-3, and the C-4 carbon atoms of the β-lactam nucleus were considered as an alternative synthetic protocol of more complex and polyfunctionalized molecules. Indeed, it is well known and extensively reviewed that the biological activity of this strained four-membered heterocycle is strictly dependent on the nature of the substituent groups that affect the reactivity towards the molecular active sites, increasing or lowering the possibility of interaction with the substrates. Finally, a synthetic survey of the most significant biological and pharmacological applications of the 2-azetidinones is reported.


title: From Urban Projects to Healthy City Policies

text: A definition of projectitis (also known as ‘projectism’) is proposed to describe a key barrier to full deployment of a Healthy City vision and values. This chapter argues that to put health high on local social and political agendas necessarily means to transcend project-based work, and move into lasting programme and policy development. The conditions for such approaches are favourable in Healthy Cities, as a number of glocal (global and local) developments invest and sustain longer term perspectives. These conditions include emphases on policy diffusion, social justice, a better understanding of complex systems, and global commitments to the development and implementation of Health in All Policies. These efforts, in turn, are grounded in renewed and tangible support from Universal Health Coverage and Primary Health Care, asset-based community health development, and better insights into what drives (health) equity and economic development. In describing these elements of policy development for value-based Healthy Cities the chapter also gives a firm argument for a broad range of stakeholders to engage successfully in longer term policy change.


Approaches to Modeling the Concentration Field for Adaptive Sampling of Contaminants during Site Decontamination


title: Understanding and Governing Public Health Risks by Modeling

text: Increase in the use and development of computational tools to govern public health risks invites us to study their benefits and limitations. To analyze how risk is perceived and expressed through these tools is relevant to risk theory. This chapter clarifies the different concepts of risk, contrasting especially the mathematically expressed ones with culturally informed notions, which address a broader view on risk. I will suggest that a fruitful way to contextualize computational tools, such mathematical models in risk assessment is “analytics of risk,” which ties together the technological, epistemological, and political dimensions of the process of governance of risk. I will clarify the development of mathematical modeling techniques through their use in infectious disease epidemiology. Epidemiological modeling functions as a form of “risk calculation,” which provides predictions of the infectious outbreak in question. These calculations help direct and design preventive actions toward the health outcomes of populations. This chapter analyzes two cases in which modeling methods are used for explanation-based and scenario-building predictions in order to anticipate the risks of infections caused by Haemophilus influenzae type b bacteria and A(H1N1) pandemic influenza virus. I will address an interesting tension that arises when model-based estimates exemplify the population-level reasoning of public health risks but has restricted capacity to address risks on individual level. Analyzing this tension will lead to a fuller account to understand the benefits and limitations of computational tools in the governance of public health risks.


title: Data Explosion, Data Nature and Dataology

text: The essence of computer applications is to store things in the real world into computer systems in the form of data, i.e., it is a process of producing data. Some data are the records related to culture and society, and others are the descriptions of phenomena of universe and life. The large scale of data is rapidly generated and stored in computer systems, which is called data explosion. Data explosion forms data nature in computer systems. To explore data nature, new theories and methods are required. In this paper, we present the concept of data nature and introduce the problems arising from data nature, and then we define a new discipline named dataology (also called data science or science of data), which is an umbrella of theories, methods and technologies for studying data nature. The research issues and framework of dataology are proposed.


title: DRDO Herbal Technologies: Military and Civil Applications

text: The novel herbal technologies developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organization are discussed with a view to improving the lives of soldiers and civilians. The life sciences laboratories of DRDO are engaged in R&D with the aim to develop processes, products and technologies and effective strategies to protect and enhance the operational efficiency of the Indian Armed Forces. Over the last five decades, the endeavours have resulted in creating specialized human capital through selection and training; enhancing efficiency through customized nutrition; optimizing human efficiency through traditional systems; optimizing performance through human engineering approach; protecting against health hazards like CBRN and vectors; reducing combat stress by counselling, training and resilience building; reinforcing adaptation through acclimatization processes and saving lives through life support systems. Several technologies with holistic and pragmatic applications for defence and civil sector from a herbal perspective are presented.


title: Epidemiological Perspective in Managing Viral Diseases in Animals

text: Since the first report of a viral disease associated with plants, the fascinating field of virology has evolved and aided mankind altogether. Viral infections are known for inflicting colossal economic losses worldwide in food/work/companion animals. During the last few decades, emergence of a number of new viral diseases in animals, humans and plants has been visualized. Animal disease surveillance and monitoring is essential for the sustainability of healthy livestock production systems internationally. Preparedness for combating the emerging, re-emerging, exotic and transboundary diseases requires comprehensive monitoring and precision detection systems that are pliable under the field situations. With collective and concerted scientific interventions, a few of the animal viral diseases have been stamped out globally or regionally. Rinderpest, popularly called cattle plague, was eradicated from India in 2006 and globally in 2011. Notably, India achieved the disease-free status by OIE in 2014 for African horse sickness (peste equine), a deadly viral disease of equines. Likewise, equine infectious anaemia (EIA) and equine influenza (EI) have been controlled to a greater extent in India by adopting surveillance and monitoring along with zoo sanitary measures. Overall, there is a need for developing the ‘One World, One Health’ concept using multidisciplinary, regional and international networking to control major economically important emerging/re-emerging infectious diseases of humans and animals. This chapter describes various strategies for combating viral diseases of livestock.


title: Modeling and Simulation for the Spread of H1N1 Influenza in School Using Artificial Societies

text: According to the outbreak of H1N1 influenza on campus in Langfang city, Hebei province, at north of China in 2009, this paper constructed an artificial society model of the school, and simulated the spread of H1N1 influenza at the fifth floor in dormitory building. Firstly, it built the geographic environment model in accordance with the real dormitory building and a social relationship network model, including classmates, roommates and playmates. Secondly, it designed the behaviors and activities of students during a day, and built role based agent models of student. Each agent student had three roles, which were susceptible, infectious and recovered student. Finally, it conducted simulation experiments to compare the emergency measures of segregating non-classmates and segregating non-roommates.


title: Respiratory Failure in a Patient with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

text: The triggers as well as etiologies for Acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (AE-IPF) are not known. AE-IPF is defined as an “acute, clinically significant respiratory deterioration characterized by evidence of new widespread alveolar abnormality typically less than 1 month’s duration. The underlying pathologic insult is classically described as diffuse alveolar damage. Ideally, infection is excluded by BAL as in the case presentation, but the severity of hypoxemia and the desire to avoid endotracheal intubation may preclude the performance of this procedure. Supportive care is the mainstay of therapy as there are no proven therapies, although corticosteroids, cytotoxic agents and anti-coagulation have all been suggested as possible treatments. The mortality is high, particularly once invasive ventilation has been instituted.


title: Threats to Bats and Educational Challenges

text: Like most animals, bats are threatened by habitat loss and degradation. However, they are also uniquely threatened almost universally by humans. In this chapter, I will emphasize the educational issues I believe will be most important to the next generation of bat conservationists. Though threat levels and possible solutions vary widely, the importance of addressing unfounded fear cannot be ignored. Putting disease concerns in perspective has been essential throughout the history of bat conservation efforts and is currently a resurgent issue that threatens the educational progress that has been made in recent decades.


title: Balkan nephropathy

text: Balkan (or endemic) nephropathy is a chronic tubulointerstitial disease of unknown, presumably exotoxic etiology. It has been shown to exist only in some parts of the southeastern Europe. While there have been many meetings and papers [1, 2] concerning both cause and treatment of Balkan nephropathy, sociopolitical turmoil, including wars, and economical hardship prevented any meaningful research on the problem during the 1990’s. Thus, despite numerous proceedings and a large number of publications on the subject, many features of Balkan nephropathy, its etiology and natural history in particular, remained nearly as mysterious as when described in the mid-fifties. Meetings organized by international organizations [3-7] had a key role in informing the international scientific community on the disease. A recent source of information is a bilingual (in English and Serbian) monograph published in 2000 [8].


title: Major Events in the Evolution of Planet Earth: Some Origin Stories

text: With billions of years of evolution before the appearance of animals, prokaryotes shaped and continue to shape both the Earth’s biogeochemical landscape and the setting for animal existence (Fig. 2.1) (Knoll 2003).


title: Digesting Oneself and Digesting Microbes: Autophagy as a Host Response to Viral Infection

text: Although research in this area is still in a stage of infancy, it seems likely that the lysosomal degradation pathway of autophagy plays an evolutionarily conserved role in antiviral immunity. The interferon-inducible, antiviral PKR signaling pathway positively regulates autophagy, and both mammalian and plant autophagy genes restrict viral replication and protect against virus-induced cell death. Given this role of autophagy in innate immunity, it is not surprising that viruses have evolved numerous strategies to inhibit host autophagy. Different viral gene products can either modulate autophagy regulatory signals or directly interact with components of the autophagy execution machinery. Moreover, certain RNA viruses have managed to “co-apt” the autophagy pathway, selectively utilizing certain components of the dynamic membrane rearrangement system to promote their own replication inside the host cytoplasm. In addition to this newly emerging role of autophagy in innate immunity, autophagy plays an important role in many other fundamental biological processes, including tissue homeostasis, differentiation and development, cell growth control, and the prevention of aging. Accordingly, the inhibition of host autophagy by viral gene products has important implications not only for understanding mechanisms of immune evasion, but also for understanding novel mechanisms of viral pathogenesis. It will be interesting to dissect the role of viral inhibition of autophagy in acute, persistent, and latent viral replication, as well as in the pathogenesis of cancer and other medical diseases.


title: Risk Factors and Etiologies of Pediatric Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

text: The risk factors for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) have been a focus for clinicians and researchers from the original description in 1967 to the most recent Pediatric Acute Lung Injury Consensus Conference (PALICC). Indeed, there are many comorbidities and risk factors that predispose a patient to develop pediatric ARDS (PARDS) including, but not limited to, immunodeficiency, weight extremes, genetics, and environmental factors. These are particularly important to investigators because accurate prediction of which patients are at greatest risk of PARDS – both the development of PARDS and worse clinical outcomes after PARDS has been established – is key to identifying the next generation of diagnostic techniques and preventative strategies. In addition to those risk factors, there are specific disease processes that lead to the development of PARDS, often divided into direct or pulmonary insults and indirect or extrapulmonary insults. Finally, beyond the clinically visible risk factors, researchers are attempting to identify novel biomarkers to uncover hidden phenotypes of PARDS and enrich the prognostication and prediction of patient outcomes. This chapter delves into each of these concepts.


title: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Infection

text: This chapter discusses the unique problems associated with HIV and pregnancy. It discusses organ complications associated with HIV and vertical transmission.


title: A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Social-Ecological Models of Emerging Infectious Diseases

text: Unraveling mechanisms underlying new and reemerging infectious diseases (EID) requires exploring complex interactions within and among coupled natural and human (CNH) systems. To address this difficult scientific problem, we need to understand how transformations in social-ecological systems caused by multifaceted interactions with anthropogenic environmental changes such as urbanization, agricultural transformations, and natural habitat alterations, produce feedbacks that affect natural communities and ultimately their pathogens, animal host, and human populations. Focusing on the complex interactions among natural and human systems at diverse spatial, temporal, and organizational scales, we describe the development of a framework for analyzing social-ecological models, to understand how these systems function and the processes through which these systems interact with each other to influence disease outbreaks. To address multi-scale issues within the framework, we draw upon multiple social science theories and methods (e.g., environmental economics, geography, decision and risk science, urban and regional development, and spatial information science). We posit that the framework helps to identify potential vulnerabilities of CNH systems to disturbances, describing important elements as a starting point for the development and testing of more general CNH systems. We also posit that transformations in the elements and how they relate to each other are key in determining the robustness of CNH systems. Given the importance and difficulty of research on social-ecological systems, we recommend a carefully considered theoretical rationale and a model-guided methodological approach. We conclude that no single theory or method is sufficient to explain complex phenomena such as EID and the relationships between factors influencing disease outbreaks. Integrated approaches are arguably the best way to provide an in-depth description and analysis of a complex problem.


title: Acute and Chronic Infection Management in CF

text: CFTR protein malfunction results in thick, copious mucus, causes poor mucociliary clearance and, ultimately, structural lung damage such as bronchiectasis. All of these manifestations of cystic fibrosis contribute to a rich milieu for lower respiratory pathogens in patients affected by the disease. CF patients are, therefore, highly susceptible to chronic colonization with many pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. They are also uniquely prone to acute infections with respiratory pathogens, which tend to persist longer and cause more impairment in lung function than in patients without CF. Tailored strategies for managing infectious complications of CF patients include chronic prophylactic antibiotics, use of systemic as well as inhaled antibiotics, mechanical assistance with mucus clearance, and scrupulous infection control measures.