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Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems
How complex systems theory sheds new light on the adaptive dynamics of viral populations
Viruses are everywhere, infecting all sorts of living organisms, from the tiniest bacteria to the largest mammals. Many are harmful parasites, but viruses also play a major role as drivers of our evolution as a species and are essential regulators of the composition and complexity of ecosystems on a global scale. This concise book draws on complex systems theory to provide a fresh look at viral origins, populations, and evolution, and the coevolutionary dynamics of viruses and their hosts.
New viruses continue to emerge that threaten people, crops, and farm animals. Viruses constantly evade our immune systems, and antiviral therapies and vaccination campaigns can be powerless against them. These unique characteristics of virus biology are a consequence of their tremendous evolutionary potential, which enables viruses to quickly adapt to any environmental challenge. Ricard Sol� and Santiago Elena present a unified framework for understanding viruses as complex adaptive systems. They show how the application of complex systems theory to viral dynamics has provided new insights into the development of AIDS in patients infected with HIV-1, the emergence of new antigenic variants of the influenza A virus, and other cutting-edge advances.
Essential reading for biologists, physicists, and mathematicians interested in complexity, Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems also extends the analogy of viruses to the evolution of other replicators such as computer viruses, cancer, and languages.
Viruses are everywhere, infecting all sorts of living organisms, from the tiniest bacteria to the largest mammals. Many are harmful parasites, but viruses also play a major role as drivers of our evolution as a species and are essential regulators of the composition and complexity of ecosystems on a global scale. This concise book draws on complex systems theory to provide a fresh look at viral origins, populations, and evolution, and the coevolutionary dynamics of viruses and their hosts.
New viruses continue to emerge that threaten people, crops, and farm animals. Viruses constantly evade our immune systems, and antiviral therapies and vaccination campaigns can be powerless against them. These unique characteristics of virus biology are a consequence of their tremendous evolutionary potential, which enables viruses to quickly adapt to any environmental challenge. Ricard Sol� and Santiago Elena present a unified framework for understanding viruses as complex adaptive systems. They show how the application of complex systems theory to viral dynamics has provided new insights into the development of AIDS in patients infected with HIV-1, the emergence of new antigenic variants of the influenza A virus, and other cutting-edge advances.
Essential reading for biologists, physicists, and mathematicians interested in complexity, Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems also extends the analogy of viruses to the evolution of other replicators such as computer viruses, cancer, and languages.
240 pages, Paperback
Published December 11, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 25, 2020
Borrowed this book in the midst of the pandemic in order to try to understand more about viruses. This book tries to use mathematical equations to explain how viruses come up with the strategies they do in order to evolve and survive.
Every chapter contains pages and pages and pages of mathematical workings, which are very poorly summarised and explained, so I was mostly unsure of what the authors were trying to demonstrate, and whether they had indeed managed to successfully prove their point. It's almost as if the authors were rambling among themselves as they scribbled fervently on their blackboard, completely oblivious to whether their students were understanding or even absorbing anything at all.
Pair the poor explanations with very badly edited English (e.g. the authors keep using "associated to" as opposed to "associated with", which should be the correct preposition) and you get a book that's almost incomprehensible.
Every chapter contains pages and pages and pages of mathematical workings, which are very poorly summarised and explained, so I was mostly unsure of what the authors were trying to demonstrate, and whether they had indeed managed to successfully prove their point. It's almost as if the authors were rambling among themselves as they scribbled fervently on their blackboard, completely oblivious to whether their students were understanding or even absorbing anything at all.
Pair the poor explanations with very badly edited English (e.g. the authors keep using "associated to" as opposed to "associated with", which should be the correct preposition) and you get a book that's almost incomprehensible.
May 17, 2019
So this review needs to start with a major caveat - I'm not exactly the target audience for this. I'm always interested in following the frontiers of evolutionary biology, but I am not myself an evolutionary biologist, just an interested person. This is an extremely technical book, and while I kept up with the broad themes, I couldn't reliably walk you through all of the equations in it. So this review is from that perspective, not the perspective of a research peer to the authors.
With that out of the way, how good was this from the perspective of an interested non-scientist? The answer is -- fairly! Solé and Elena do a good job of summarizing existing findings and noting controversies where they exist, while also not being afraid to say their own opinions and why. I actually find the beginning and end of the chapters to be the most helpful. Oftentimes, in the middle of the chapters, they get bogged down in the math and (at least in my opinion) don't do as good as a job mapping the math back to the concepts being covered.
If you're interested in evolution and have some background in math (differential equations especially), there's some fascinating stuff in here. But be prepared for a fight - easy reading this ain't.
With that out of the way, how good was this from the perspective of an interested non-scientist? The answer is -- fairly! Solé and Elena do a good job of summarizing existing findings and noting controversies where they exist, while also not being afraid to say their own opinions and why. I actually find the beginning and end of the chapters to be the most helpful. Oftentimes, in the middle of the chapters, they get bogged down in the math and (at least in my opinion) don't do as good as a job mapping the math back to the concepts being covered.
If you're interested in evolution and have some background in math (differential equations especially), there's some fascinating stuff in here. But be prepared for a fight - easy reading this ain't.
August 21, 2019
Entertaining and educational
The authors introduce very well the concepts developed throughout the book. This helps to understand the extensive information presented. The way in which the book is structured and written facilitates its reading. The models are accompanied by very well integrated mathematical formulas, which complement the explanation without difficulting the reading. Fantastic both for people with experience in the field but also for amateurs who want to get informed in a serious way.
The authors introduce very well the concepts developed throughout the book. This helps to understand the extensive information presented. The way in which the book is structured and written facilitates its reading. The models are accompanied by very well integrated mathematical formulas, which complement the explanation without difficulting the reading. Fantastic both for people with experience in the field but also for amateurs who want to get informed in a serious way.
July 23, 2024
An interesting book. The mathematical models aren't described with enough detail to be particularly useful, but they're nice as references or suggestions for further reading. Decent primer for those with only the basics in biology.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews