In the previous chapters we have considered the ‘nuts and bolts’ of epidemiology. In this and the next few chapters we look at how epidemiology is used in practice to improve public health. We start with ‘surveillance’ because without timely information on emerging and changing health problems, public health action can be paralysed or, at best, inefficient. In this chapter we discuss the design and use of surveillance systems that enable health officials to detect new risks and diseases such as mpox promptly, track known diseases and health problems, and generate data needed for effective health planning and resource allocation.

Chapter 5 considers the surveillance of potential terrorists and their arrest, including the force that may be employed to do so. Once in custody, criminal suspects should be interviewed without the threat or use of physical coercion in order to gather evidence to decide whether or not it is right to engage a prosecution for terrorism (or other criminal offences). In certain circumstances, control orders or similar judicial decisions may limit the actions at large of an individual suspect with a view to protecting the public. Most controversial of all, preventive detention by the State may sometimes be made where an individual has been convicted of no crime and is not being held on remand with a view to future prosecution. The chapter addresses these issues in turn considering the treatment of terrorist suspects in accordance with fundamental human rights.

John D. Lyons examines some of the most canonical works of the seventeenth-century Golden Age: Corneille’s Le Cid (1637) and Rodogune (1644–45), and Racine’s Britannicus (1669) and Phèdre (1677), proposing that the decisive actions of these plays often hinge on what women say, or do not say. This is far from surprising since these works are contemporaneous with two important interrelated cultural developments in the public lives of women: increasingly, they hosted Parisian salons and gaining increased importance in the political, cultural and social spheres; and in a century that witnessed attempts to standardize and refine the French language, these salons run by women became virtual workshops for formulating rules of discourse for a worldly, non-pedantic society. Tragedies from this period, perceived as the dramatic representation of the lives of kings, queens and princes, simultaneously display the sharp contrast between what can women say in public, what they conceal owing to the constraints on what they are allowed to say, and their awareness that what they say in public can have fatal consequences. These tragedies enable an appreciation of the aptness of Roland Barthes’ assertion that language, more than death, is the core of the tragic.

Vulvar melanoma is a rare malignant tumor of the female genital tract that affects mostly women in the 5th−8th decade of life. A histopathological evaluation and immunohistochemical analysis are paramount to confirm the diagnosis. Treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach. Secondary to a high metastatic potential as well as late diagnosis due to non-specific clinical signs, the prognosis is typically poor. Close monitoring, patient education regarding self-skin examination and screening are necessary for all atypical lesions and to identify local recurrences.

Thyroid cancer is one of the most prevalent endocrine malignancies worldwide, with increasing incidence rates over the past few decades. Thyroid cancer has a higher prevalence in women, and therefore, careful consideration of gynecologic factors is crucial aspect of its management and care. We discuss the epidemiology, risk factors, and management strategies for common types of thyroid cancer generally and particularly in women. Comprehensive care that integrates oncological and gynecologic management is crucial to optimize outcomes for women with thyroid cancer. Further research is needed to better understand the interplay between thyroid cancer and gynecologic health, and to develop tailored approaches to address the specific needs of this patient population.

Before gays and lesbians could claim their full rights as Americans, they needed to overcome a host of laws and legal practices that created an imposing barrier to reform. This chapter provides a brief overview of the antiqueer world of mid-century America, detailing the myriad laws and policies that kept gays and lesbians out of public life. It then examines how and why lawmakers began decriminalizing homosexuality, detailing the demise of sexual psychopath, consensual sodomy, and vagrancy laws. It argues that the key to these changes was not lawyers, legislators, or judges, but rather sociologists – more specifically, Alfred Kinsey. His research revealed that same-sex intimacy was far from aberrant, which undermined the assumption on which the laws were based. His work influenced the thinking of leading legal scholars and advocates, who pressed for law reform.

This chapter theorizes how interventions employed by police and community safety advocates might promote cooperation. The evaluation focuses on two interventions that plausibly reverse cycles of silence: facilitating cooperator anonymity to reduce the risk involved in information sharing and creating awareness of support for cooperation to strengthen the perceived norms favoring information sharing. Given that these interventions do not address distrust in the police, which places a ceiling on cooperation support, the evaluation also includes the trust-based intervention of exposing citizens to police officers of the same race or ethnicity. The chapter concludes with enumerating principles that should be considered when evaluating the appropriateness of implementing interventions to promote cooperation.

Scholars have long understood Manuel Puig’s work as embedded in media history, as he reinvented the novel by adapting techniques from film, radio-novelas, and soap operas. Critics like Alan Pauls linked gossip to the media circuitry of Puig’s first novel, while Josefina Ludmer wrote of how radio-novelas pertain to the “justice of the kitchen knife” in Boquitas Pintadas, and Francine Masiello discussed the relationship between invertido and inversión that Puig plots in entangling sexuality, media, and neoliberal capital. This chapter deepens Puig’s media history with special attention to sound across Puig’s novels, but with a particular focus on El beso de la mujer araña (1976). That novel has been hailed for its cinematic flair, but critics have tended to ignore the importance of listening in the book: from Puig’s own tape-recorded interviews in preparing the manuscript to Molina’s listening as an agent of the state to the shared listening that brings the characters together. Drawing from work on “aurality” by Ana María Ochoa Gautier, Jonathan Sterne, and others, this chapter explains and analyzes how listening became Puig’s queer response to authoritarian power and the media technologies of his day.

This chapter deals with public health and pandemic preparedness. It recognises the five stages of a new pandemic (detection, assessment, treatment, escalation and recovery). The chapter also deals with the issue of laboratory preparedness and the need to maintain a critical mass of laboratory and skilled staff expertise at all times in order to be able to respond rapidly and effectively to a new emerging pandemic.

Facial recognition technology (FRT) has been actively deployed by both private and public sectors for a wide range of purposes in China. As the technology has become more prevalent, the laws governing FRT have developed rapidly in recent years. While the use of FRT is increasingly regulated in the country, the regulatory restrictions can be invariably lifted for the reason of public security. Government agencies have consistently claimed this regulatory exemption for their massive FRT deployment. Moreover, the liability for government’s abuse or misuse of personal data is relatively insignificant when compared with that for private parties. Based on recent laws and cases, this chapter explains China’s asymmetric regulatory framework and the factors shaping it.

Almost forty Brazilian cities have begun to deploy facial recognition technology (FRT) in a bid to automate the public safety, transportation, and border control sectors. Such initiatives are frequently introduced in the context of ‘Smart City’ programmes, which exist in a sort of legislative vacuum. Despite the numerous bills recently discussed in the Brazilian Parliament, there is still no legislation that addresses artificial intelligence in general or FRT use specifically. Only minimal and incomplete guidance can be found in general frameworks and sectoral legislation, such as the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD), the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, the Civil Code, and even the Federal Constitution. This chapter provides an overview of the current status of FRT regulation in Brazil, highlighting the existing deficiencies and risks. It discusses whether LGPD rules allowing the use of FRT for public safety, national defence, state security, investigative activities, and the repression of criminal activities are reasonable and justified.

Protest movements are gaining momentum across the world, with Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, and strong pro-democracy protests in Chile and Hong Kong taking centre stage. At the same time, many governments are increasing their surveillance capacities in the name of protecting the public and addressing emergencies. Irrespective of whether these events and/or political strategies relate to the war on terror, pro-democracy or anti-racism protests, state resort to technology and increased surveillance as a tool to control the masses and population has been similar. This chapter focusses on the chilling effect of facial recognition technology (FRT) use in public spaces on the right to peaceful assembly and political protest. Pointing to the absence of oversight and accountability mechanisms on government use of FRT, the chapter demonstrates that FRT has significantly strengthened state power. Attention is drawn to the crucial role of tech companies in assisting governments in public space surveillance and curtailing protests, and it is argued that hard human rights obligations should bind these companies and governments, to ensure that political movements and protests can flourish in the post-COVID-19 world.