As it has become easier and cheaper to determine the genome sequence of a pathogen, epidemiologists have increasingly made use of it to examine outbreaks, transmission patterns, and track the spread of individual strains of disease worldwide.
American-led globalization since the end of the Cold War has led to the convergence of patterns of growth and the spread of technology worldwide, enabling the rise of the emerging economies such as China, Russia, India and Turkey.
The potential of this approach in detecting and understanding past patterns based on whole-genome sequencing is evident from recent human studies on invasions and contractions of different cultural groups that provide new insights into patterns of relatedness and the spread of cultural practices (Sikora et al. 2014).
This gives them real-time data that can be used to analyze traffic and commuting patterns, track the spread of infectious disease, flag spikes in food or commodity prices, and more.
But a stint in Mozambique, treating cholera victims in a 1978 outbreak, planted the seed for more global pursuits and his growing suspicion: If weather patterns affect the spread of disease, and climate change is linked to warmer oceans and mountains, more wildfires, stronger hurricanes, and so on, would climate change lead to more disease?
Dr. Huillard's group used a statistical method called back calculation, which was developed to predict patterns for the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS.
Recent work has focused on developing theoretical and analytic tools to capture the construction of marginalization and privilege in patterns of student engagement, and the spread of ideas in student-led collaborative work.
That will remain one of the most buoyant markets in India, thanks to favourable demographics, changing cultural and consumption patterns, higher purchasing power and the spread of financial services outside the big cities.
Looking to refine such estimates, a team led by demographer Wolfgang Lutz of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, plugged into a computer model data on everything from fertility and mortality rates to patterns of food supply and the spread of infectious disease; the computer spit out probabilities for regional population growth.
Mossong, J. et al. Social contacts and mixing patterns relevant to the spread of infectious diseases.
