As the population ages and healthcare costs continue to soar, the focus of the nation and the healthcare industry turns to reducing costs and making the delivery process more efficient. Demonstrating how improvements in information systems can lead to improved patient care, Information and Communication Technologies in Healthcare explains how to cr

Keeping abreast of the latest techniques and applications, this new edition of the standard reference and graduate text on laser spectroscopy has been completely revised and expanded. While the general concept is unchanged, the new edition features a broad array of new material, e.g., frequency doubling in external cavities, reliable cw-parametric oscillators, tunable narrow-band UV sources, more sensitive detection techniques, tunable femtosecond and sub-femtosecond lasers (X-ray region and the attosecond range), control of atomic and molecular excitations, frequency combs able to synchronize independent femtosecond lasers, coherent matter waves, and still more applications in chemical analysis, medical diagnostics, and engineering.

The history, philosophy, ethics, and science behind the placebo and nocebo effects. Placebos are the most widely used treatments in the history of medicine. Thousands of studies show that they can be effective and make us happier and healthier. Yet confusion about what placebos are and how to measure their effects prevents some doctors from using them to help patients. Meanwhile, damage caused by the nocebo effect—the negative effect of expecting something bad—is not widely recognized. In The Power of Placebos, Jeremy Howick provides an interdisciplinary perspective on placebos and nocebos based on more than twenty years of research and data from over 300,000 patients. This book, the culmination of that research, offers practical ways for researchers, policymakers, and doctors to put placebo and nocebo research into practice to improve health outcomes. In addition to providing an overview of placebos and nocebos and explaining how belief systems and context can create physiological effects in the body, Howick advocates for a number of controversial positions, including why it may be unethical to include placebos in most clinical trials in which there are already established therapies and why physicians should consider using placebos regularly in their practices. Howick also underscores the importance of the therapeutic effects of interactions between health care practitioners and patients, in the context of care. The Power of Placebos dispels the confusion surrounding placebos and paves the way for doctors to help patients by enhancing placebo effects and avoiding the pitfalls of nocebos.

Overview of biomedical data science -- Spreadsheet tools and tips -- Biostatistics primer -- Data visualization -- Introduction to databases -- Big data -- Bioinformatics and precision medicine -- Programming languages for data analysis -- Machine learning -- Artificial intelligence -- Biomedical data science resources -- Appendix A: Glossary -- Appendix B: Using data.world -- Appendix C: Chapter exercises.