Main description:

Beginning his work on the monograph to be published in English, this author tried to present more or less general notions of the possibilities of mathematics in the new and rapidly developing science of infectious immunology, describing the processes of an organism's defence against antigen invasions. The results presented in this monograph are based on the construc tion and application of closed models of immune response to infections which makes it possible to approach problems of optimizing the treat ment of chronic and hypertoxic forms of diseases. The author, being a mathematician, had creative long-Iasting con tacts with immunologists, geneticist, biologists, and clinicians. As far back as 1976 it resulted in the organization of a special seminar in the Computing Center of Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sci ences on mathematical models in immunology. The seminar attracted the attention of a wide circle of leading specialists in various fields of science. All these made it possible to approach, from a more or less united stand point, the construction of models of immune response, the mathematical description of the models, and interpretation of results.

Contents:

Preface. Introduction. Part I: Fundamental Problems in Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases. 1. General Knowledge, Hypotheses, and Problems. 2. Survey of Mathematical Models in Immunology. 3. Simple Mathematical Model of Infectious Disease. 4. Mathematical Modeling of Antiviral and Antibacterial Immune Responses. 5. Identification of Parameters of Models. 6. Numerical Realization Algorithms for Mathematical Models. Part II: Models of Viral and Bacterial Infections. 7. Viral Hepatitis B. 8. Viral and Bacterial Infections of Respiratory Organs. 9. Model of Experimental Influenza Infection. 10. Adjoint Equation and Sensitivity Study for Mathematical Models of Infectious Diseases. Bibliography. Index.