Martin F. Bach

Volker ter Meulen

Measles, also called the greatest killer of children in history, still annually affects about 50 million individuals and causes close to a million deaths primarily in developing countries. Before the advent of measles vaccine some 30 years ago, these figures were roughly three times higher. Attenuated measles virus (MV) strains, all quite closely related to the original Edmonston isolate, have a very good record as a safe and highly efficacious vaccine and have brought down the measles toll in industrialized countries to almost negligible levels. However, recent outbreaks in the USA and Europe have again brought the measles problem to public attention. Sadly enough, these outbreaks were more instrumental in inducing activities to drastically reduce and hopefully finally eradicate measles than were the ten thousand times higher number of victims in developing countries. To reach this goal, as detailed in this volume, apparently it is not enough to of the existing vaccine as was the rigorously enforce use case with smallpox eradication: the intricacies of measles disease phenomena, in particular the generalized immune suppression which favors secondary infections, require more basic knowledge of the virus-host interactions and probably the development of new vaccines for special applications such as first immunizations of very young infants in developing countries.

Measles Virus

Gerhard Heldmaier

Susanne Klaus

This book contains the proceedings of the 11 'h international symposium dedicated to the understanding of animal "Life in the Cold", held at Jungholz (Austria), August 13-18, 2000. In 55 chapters contributed by researchers from 16 countries the current state of knowledge is reviewed, and the most recent developments and discussions in this field are highlighted. The first symposium on hibernation and life in the cold was held in 1959, and from then on they continued to occur every 3-5 years. The regular occurrence of these meetings became almost a tradition. A tradition which is entirely based on the enthusiasm of participants, and was nourished by scientific progress in this area during the past decades. The first symposium in 1959 was organised by Charles P. Lyman and Albert R. Dawe and was almost entirely dedicated to hibernation and torpor. This has been a backbone topic of the following symposia, although other aspects of animal energetics, thermal physiology and biochemistry were included in later meetings.

Eleventh International Hibernation Symposium

Life in the Cold

Judit Padisák

Luigi Naselli-Flores

This volume summarises the outcome of the 13th Workshop of the International Association of Phytoplankton Taxonomy and Ecology (IAP) on if, and if so under what conditions phytoplankton assemblages reach equilibrium in natural environments. Quite a number of ecological concepts use terms such as: ecological equilibrium, stability, steady-state, climax, stable state, etc. However, these ecological concepts often have been "translations" of scientific theories developed in physics or chemistry but they almost always lack scientific corroboration, the problem being that often these concepts remain vague and they are not formally defined. Here an attempt to formally recognize what "equilibrium" is in phytoplankton ecology is traced. The book also contains papers by leading scientists on the taxonomy of two selected key groups: cryptomonads and filamentous cyanoprokaryotes. This volume is addressed to all those involved in phytoplankton taxonomy and ecology and in ecology itself.

Proceedings of the 13th Workshop of the International Association of Phytoplankton Taxonomy and Ecology (IAP), held in Castelbuono, Italy, 1–8 September 2002

Phytoplankton and Equilibrium Concept: The Ecology of Steady-State Assemblages

Continuing the (neo-)classical tradition of von Thünen, Launhardt, Weber, Palander, and Lösch this book offers a fresh approach to the location of industries and other economic activities, of market areas, spatial price distribution, locational specialization, urban and transportation systems, and spatial interaction in general. It uses elementary economic reasoning supported by simple mathematical models, some classical, some new. The mathematical methods are presented in numbered Mathematical Notes. The author has been active in this field since 1950.

Martin F. Bach

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