Summary: December 1, 2006 17:26 World Scientific Review Volume - 9in x 6in main
Chapter 5
The scaling law of human travel - A message from George
Dirk Brockmann and Lars Hufnagel
Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organziation
Bunsenstr.10
37073 G¨ottingen, Germany
E-mail: brockmann@ds.mpg.de
The dispersal of individuals of a species is the key driving force of var-
ious spatiotemporal phenomena which occur on geographical scales. It
can synchronize populations of interacting species, stabilize them, and
diversify gene pools.1­3
The geographic spread of human infectious dis-
eases such as influenza, measles and the recent severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS) is essentially promoted by human travel which occurs
on many length scales and is sustained by a variety of means of trans-
portation4­8
. In the light of increasing international trade, intensified
human traffic, and an imminent influenza A pandemic the knowledge
of dynamical and statistical properties of human dispersal is of funda-

Source: Amaral, Luis A.N. - Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University

Collections: Physics; Biology and Medicine