Böcker utgivna av Mdpi AG

This reprint contains contributions focusing on recent developments in the design, synthesis, and characterization of nanocatalysts intended for applications in environmental protection and low carbon footprint power generation processes thanks to the overall effort of scientists and researchers for a cleaner and more sustainable future. New synthetic approaches to the production and in-depth characterization of innovative nanostructured composites and hybrid materials with well-controlled textural and surface chemistry properties that give performance advantages in a variety of important environmental and energy applications such as CO2 utilization/recycling, hydrogen and syngas production, biosensing, and biocatalysis as well as in ways to obtain useful materials from waste are included, among others. This reprint is the result of one of the cutting-edge Special Issues in the field of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology organized by Nanomaterials to celebrate its 10th anniversary.

Northern forested landscapes are important habitats for many boreal birds. This Special Issue portrays the current state of knowledge on boreal bird diversity, ecology, management, and conservation. Humans have diverse impacts on boreal habitats worldwide, and knowledge of the avian community associated with these northern forests is key to conservation measures.

The book proposes extensive and varied design strategies for bone tissue engineering. The design process of materials for bone tissue scaffolds presently represents an issue of crucial importance and is being studied by many researchers throughout the world. A number of studies have been conducted, aimed at identifying the optimal material, geometry, and surface that the scaffold must possess to stimulate the formation of the largest amounts of bone in the shortest time possible.

The present collection of articles focuses on different aspects of topological-materials studies. Recent progress in both, theoretical and experimental, studies is covered in this Special Issue. A particular stress is given on different optical investigations, as well as on recent band-structure calculations. Besides, neutron scattering experiments, crystal growth, and a number of theoretical models for different topological systems are discussed.

One of the most promising developments in modelling knowledge is cognitive network science, which aims to investigate cognitive phenomena driven by the networked, associative organization of knowledge. For example, investigating the structure of semantic memory via semantic networks has illuminated how memory recall patterns influence phenomena such as creativity, memory search, learning, and more generally, knowledge acquisition, exploration, and exploitation. In parallel, neural network models for artificial intelligence (AI) are also becoming more widespread as inferential models for understanding which features drive language-related phenomena such as meaning reconstruction, stance detection, and emotional profiling. Whereas cognitive networks map explicitly which entities engage in associative relationships, neural networks perform an implicit mapping of correlations in cognitive data as weights, obtained after training over labelled data and whose interpretation is not immediately evident to the experimenter. This book aims to bring together quantitative, innovative research that focuses on modelling knowledge through cognitive and neural networks to gain insight into mechanisms driving cognitive processes related to knowledge structuring, exploration, and learning. The book comprises a variety of publication types, including reviews and theoretical papers, empirical research, computational modelling, and big data analysis. All papers here share a commonality: they demonstrate how the application of network science and AI can extend and broaden cognitive science in ways that traditional approaches cannot.

These proceedings represent the scientific outcome of the 13th EFITA International Conference held on May 2021, which was organized by the European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food, and the Environment (EFITA). EFITA, for more than 20 years, has presented and disseminated cutting-edge research on advances in ICT systems in agriculture. The content of these proceedings brings together the efforts of engineers, scientists, technicians, academics and the industry through the exchange of knowledge and ideas, the presentation of innovations, and by discussing the state of the art and future use of ICT in the agri-food and bio-resources production sectors, under the theme of "Digital Agriculture".

In this new book, we present a collection of the advanced developments in reconfigurable antennas and metasurfaces. It begins with a review of reconfigurability technologies, and proceeds to the presentation of a series of reconfigurable antennas, UWB MIMO antennas and reconfigurable arrays. Then, reconfigurable metasurfaces are introduced and the latest advances are presented and discussed.

This book focuses on the tools and methods used for tackling the complexity of the different hydrological and hydrogeological set-ups, the hydrodynamic patterns, the site specifications, and the wide variability of internal and external factors and/or processes on the catchment-scale level that impose the need for combined integrated approaches of robust methods. This Special Issue aims to provide successful applications or new insights on the stand-alone or joint considerations of groundwater resources assessment and characterization methods and explore new state-of-the-art methodological concepts in light of a rapidly changing environment.

Biosensing and bioimaging techniques largely promote the accurate diagnosis of intractable diseases, such as cancers, on the basis of specific molecular targets, or as-called biomarkers. To realize the assays with ultrahigh sensitivity and selectivity, the wide application of molecular biology and nanotechnology are of great necessity. Both directions may offer effective signal amplification strategies, as well as inhibition of cross-reaction interference. Therefore, this Special Issue, "Biosensing and Bioimaging: Trends and Perspective", highlights the recent developments in intelligent biomolecule/nanostructure-based probes for bioimaging and biosensing applications. It consists of five peer-reviewed papers that cover current hot topics, such as biodegradable materials, DNA assembly, shRNA delivery and chimeric proteins, which will provide a unique perspective of advanced biosensing and bioimaging techniques.

The Rio Declaration of 1992 and its agenda for action in the twenty first century-Agenda 21-were bold attempts at steering the nations in the world in the direction of ecologically sustainable development, a direction including social and environmental justice on a global scale. It did not take long, however, when the meaning of the word 'sustainable' became diluted, sometimes even in the direction of an empty 'sustainababble¿. Thus, what we see today is a huge variety of more or less scholarly based 'sustainability' imaginaries stating what the major problems facing humanity are represented to be and how they should be acted upon by science, economy, politics, and in everyday life. In other words, 'sustainability' is not enough. To evade the impression that the word may simply encourage the sustaining of an unjust status quo and that everyone has common interests in 'sustainable urban development' research and policy practice have to unmask the real conflicts of interest hidden behind the use of slippery language.

This Special Issue brings together some interconnected topics related to fungi and plants such as biodiversity, taxonomy, conservation, molecular phylogeny, ecology, and plant-fungal interactions. Additionally, some applied aspects are covered, such as phytoremediation, the improvement of spinach growth by biochar and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, bio-friendly solutions for waste reduction, the accumulation of rare-earth elements by wild edible mushrooms, etc.

In recent years, the implementation of sustainable concrete systems has been a topic of great interest in the field of construction engineering worldwide, as a result of the large and rapid increase in carbon emissions and environmental problems resulting from traditional concrete production and industry. For example, the uses of supplementary cementitious materials, geopolymer binder, recycled aggregate and industrial/agricultural wastes in concrete are all approaches to building a sustainable concrete system. However, such materials have inherent flaws due to their variety of sources, and exhibit very different properties compared with traditional concrete. Therefore, they require specific modifications in preprocessing, design, and evaluation before use in concrete. This reprint, entitled "Advances in Sustainable Concrete System", covers a broad range of advanced concrete research in environmentally friendly concretes, cost-effective admixtures, and waste recycling, specifically including the design methods, mechanical properties, durability, microstructure, various models, hydration mechanisms, and practical applications of solid wastes in concrete systems.

Food waste is becoming an important and growing concern at both local and global levels. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), one-third of all food production is wasted globally, and in particular, 1.3 billion tons of food produced for human consumption is wasted per year, representing an economic loss of EUR 800 billion. The main foods wasted are represented by vegetables, fruits, meat, and fish. Considering the high availability and the composition of food waste, there is an increasing interest in their bio-valorization. Moreover, according to the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 12 and 13), an appropriate waste management represents an essential prerequisite for the sustainable development. This reprint collects interesting manuscripts regarding innovative research focused on food waste valorization through fermentation processes for obtaining value-added products such as enzymes, feed additives, biofuels, animal feeds as well as other useful chemicals or products, food-grade pigments, and single-cell protein (SCP), enhancing food security and environmentally sustainable development.

Digital Twins in Industry is a compilation of works by authors with specific emphasis on industrial applications.Much of the research on digital twins has been conducted by the academia in both theoretical considerations and laboratory-based prototypes. Industry, while taking the lead on larger scale implementations of Digital Twins (DT) using sophisticated software, is concentrating on dedicated solutions that are not within the reach of the average-sized industries.This book covers 11 chapters of various implementations of DT. It provides an insight for companies who are contemplating the adaption of the DT technology, as well as researchers and senior students in exploring the potential of DT and its associated technologies.

This book, titled "Nanofiltration Membranes: Recent Advances and Environmental Applications", aims to assess the recent developments and advances in all the aspects related to nanofiltration (NF) technology and its environmental applications. This book has ten articles, including eight research articles and two reviews. Various topics are discussed, including fabrication of organic and inorganic NF membranes, tailoring NF membranes' surface properties, the application of NF in side-stream valorization, using NF technology in combination with other membrane technologies such as ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO), wide-range applications of NF for removing organic and inorganic pollutants and viruses, and a detailed sustainability assessment of the use of NF technology via life cycle assessment (LCA).

The built environment has a vast impact on the natural environment, human health, and the economy. Sustainable built environment is circular, designed for longevity, flexibility, adaptability, assembly, disassembly, reuse and recoverability, and considers future climate risks. It uses low-carbon, low-impact, non-toxic materials and it recovers used resources (materials and products on-site or from other sites). This book consists of original research articles, as well as scoping reviews where the theoretical approaches, and practical solutions needed to support decision-making for sustainable built environment are discussed. Current solutions that address the complex challenges facing developed and developing country-specific contexts were demonstrated to define the appropriate formal and informal education needed to support the journey to achieve sustainable Built Environment and United Nation Development Goals in 21th Century, where depletion of energy sources, and climate change are the key challenges.This book makes a contribution on sustainable built environment by presenting case studies on various aspects of the sustainability, from education to managing cities, energy, construction, and considerations for climate change. The papers gathered here offer a vital resource for government policymakers, educators, and current and future professionals, equipping them with the knowledge and expertise they need in order to overcome today's complex challenges in the built environment.

The Special Issue of the journal Materials, entitled "Novel Material and Technological Solutions in Foundry Engineering", contains very interesting papers from the field of material science concerning topics such as cast composites, layered castings, selected aspects of the crystallisation of alloys and the technology of cast and heat treatment of Al alloys and cast iron, the properties of moulding sands, properties of Ni-base superalloys, the technology of repairing castings using welding.

This Special Issue introduces recent research results on MEMS packaging and 3D integration whose subjects can be divided as follow; three papers on biocompatible implantable packaging, three papers on interconnect, three papers on bonding technologies, one paper on vacuum packaging, and three papers on modeling and simulation.

Data science, information theory, probability theory, statistical learning and other related disciplines greatly benefit from non-negative measures of dissimilarity between pairs of probability measures. These are known as divergence measures, and exploring their mathematical foundations and diverse applications is of significant interest. The present Special Issue, entitled "Divergence Measures: Mathematical Foundations and Applications in Information-Theoretic and Statistical Problems", includes eight original contributions, and it is focused on the study of the mathematical properties and applications of classical and generalized divergence measures from an information-theoretic perspective. It mainly deals with two key generalizations of the relative entropy: namely, the Rényi divergence and the important class of f -divergences. It is our hope that the readers will find interest in this Special Issue, which will stimulate further research in the study of the mathematical foundations and applications of divergence measures.

Essential oils (EOs) and microbial/plant-based volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are being used in an increasing number of sectors such as health, cosmetics, the food industry and, more recently, agronomy. In agronomy, they are employed as bio-herbicides and bio-pesticides due to their their insecticidal, antifungal, and bactericidal effects. Several EO-based bio-pesticides are already registered. Essential oils and other VOCs are 100% bio-based and present numerous additional advantages. They contain a great number of structurally diverse compounds that frequently act in synergy; they are thus less subject to resistance. As highly volatile compounds are found in EOs and VOCs, they typically cause no residue problems in food products or in soils. Indeed, the supply of EOs can be really challenging because they are frequently produced in restricted areas of the world with prices and chemical composition fluctuations. Besides, while the high volatility of EOs and VOCs is interesting for some specific applications, it can be a problem when developing a bio-pesticide with long lasting effects. Finally, EOs are frequently phytotoxic, which is perfect for herbicide formulations, but not for other applications. In both cases, the development of a proper formulation is essential. Owing to the current attraction for natural products, a better understanding of their modes of biological action is of importance for the development of new and optimal applications.

Although flight is often considered one of the most salient characteristics of birds, in the course of their evolution, various avian lineages have lost the ability to fly. This books explores various aspects of the multifaceted evolutionary processes that have led to loss of flight in several groups of birds. The nine papers in this collection deal with flightless birds belonging to widely different extinct and extant groups, from many parts of the world and from various time periods, from the Late Cretaceous to the Quaternary. They illustrate both the diversity of flightless birds and the multifarious approaches that can be used to study them, from stratigraphy and functional anatomy to phylogenetic analysis and bone histology.

Cancer of the urological sphere is a disease continuously increasing in numbers in the statistics of tumor malignancies in Western countries. Although this fact is mainly due to the contemporary increase of life expectancy of the people in these geographic areas, many other factors do contribute as well to this growth. Urological cancer is a complex and varied disease of different organs and mainly affects the male population. In fact, kidney, prostate, and bladder cancer are regularly included in the top-ten list of the most frequent neoplasms in males in most statistics. The female population, however, has also increasingly found itself affected by renal and bladder cancer in the last decade. Considering these altogether, urological cancer is a problem of major concern in developed societies. This Topic Issue of Cancers intends to shed some light into the complexity of this field and will consider all useful and appropriate contributions that scientists and clinicians may provide to improve urological cancer knowledge for patients' benefit. The precise identification of the molecular routes involved, the diagnostic pathological criteria in the grey zones, the dilemma of T1G3 management, and the possible treatment options between superficial, nonmuscle-invasive and muscle-invasive diseases will be particularly welcomed in this Issue.

Electrical machines are one of the most important components of the industrial world. They are at the heart of the new industrial revolution, brought forth by the development of electromobility and renewable energy systems. Electric motors must meet the most stringent requirements of reliability, availability, and high efficiency in order, among other things, to match the useful lifetime of power electronics in complex system applications and compete in the market under ever-increasing pressure to deliver the highest performance criteria.Today, thanks to the application of highly efficient numerical algorithms running on high-performance computers, it is possible to design electric machines and very complex drive systems faster and at a lower cost. At the same time, progress in the field of material science and technology enables the development of increasingly complex motor designs and topologies. The purpose of this Special Issue is to contribute to this development of electric machines. The publication of this collection of scientific articles, dedicated to the topic of electric machine design and application, contributes to the dissemination of the above information among professionals dealing with electrical machines.

Over the last few decades, nanotechnology has gained huge interest due to its extensive application in various fields including catalysis, electronics, optics, energy, and environment. The design and controlled synthesis of advanced nanomaterials with unique properties make them highly attractive in these fields.Nanomaterials can be classified into one-, two-, and three-dimensional materials. The main characteristic of nanostructured materials is their surface reactivity due to their active surface functional groups. The control of the size, shape, and nature of nanoparticles is strongly influenced by the synthetic route applied during the preparation step (i.e. hydrothermal, solvothermal, combustion, sol-gel).The Special Issue of Nanomaterials, entitled, "Tuning the physicochemical properties of nanostructured materials through advanced preparation methods," contains the contribution of research groups from different fields and discuss the recent developments in nanomaterials with regard to the preparation method used.

This book is an effort to alert oceanographers to the remarkable predicting power of polymer physic laws to address the dynamics of marine biopolymers and gel formation in the ocean. It also aims to persuade polymer physicists that the ocean represents an urgent challenge for the survival of our planet, to convince them to respond not to the siren appeals from Mars, Jupiter, or distant galaxies, to which many countries remain invested, but to the urgent call of our own planet.This book is comprised of a short tutorial on the dynamics of polyelectrolytes, outlining the fundamental principles that govern marine polymer association, as a brief toolbox for oceanographers to approach macromolecular dynamics, as well as a set of minireviews that invite polymer physicists to tackle the many fundamental questions requiring urgent attention in marine macromolecular dynamics. This double aim of the book will certainly bring colleagues and students to a new frontier on marine gel chemistry, physics, microbiology, atmospheric science, and the still pending critical question of the role of gels on marine carbon cycling.

Mounting evidence suggests a bidirectional relationship between metabolism and inflammation. Molecular crosstalk between these processes occurs at different levels with the participation of nuclear receptors, including peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs). There are three PPAR isotypes, ¿, ¿/¿, and ¿, which modulate metabolic and inflammatory pathways, making them key for the control of cellular, organ, and systemic processes. PPAR activity is governed by fatty acids and fatty acid derivatives, and by drugs used in clinics (glitazones and fibrates). The study of PPAR action, also modulated by post-translational modifications, has enabled extraordinary advances in the understanding of the multifaceted roles of these receptors in metabolism, energy homeostasis, and inflammation both in health and disease. This Special Issue of IJMS includes a broad range of basic and translational article, both original research and reviews, focused on the latest developments in the regulation of metabolic and/or inflammatory processes by PPARs in all organs and the microbiomes of different vertebrate species.

The articles in this Special Issue of Genealogy titled "Focus of Family Historians: How Ancestor Research Affects Self-Understanding and Well-Being" cover topics including the psychosocial motivations that impel family history research, its therapeutic and healing aspects, and the emotional outcomes of dealing with unexpected findings. Broader issues, such as the ubiquity of ancestral acknowledgement and veneration throughout history and its links with religion are also explored. Papers include scholarly interpretations of case-based material, empirical research, and interpretive literature reviews emanating from a wide range of social science disciplines.

Constructed wetlands (CWs) are engineered phytoremediation ecotechnologies. Herein, the two main biotic components, namely, plants and the bacterial community, work synergistically to remove a wide range of pollutants from wastewater. CWs have been used as sole treatment systems or as integrated modules within other types of wastewater-treatment plants (WWTPs), e.g., as tertiary treatment units. This Special Issue and Book gathers and appraises recent research outcomes regarding natural wetlands (i.e., mangroves) and engineered wetlands (constructed/floating systems), and highlights the underlying pollutant-degradation pathways and mechanisms for a wide range of organic and inorganic contaminants.

Statistical methods have a long history in the analysis of hydrological data for de-signing, planning, infilling, forecasting, and specifying better models to assess scenarios of land use and climate change in catchments. The effectiveness of statistical descriptions of hydrological processes reflects the enormous complexity of hydrological systems, which makes a purely deterministic description ineffective. This book hosts 11 papers devoted to statistics in hydrology, summarizing the recent advancement in statistical methods for hydrological studies such as statistical analysis of changes in hydrometeorological variables, forecasting and prediction of hydrological elements, hydrological forecasting uncertainty analysis, the use of new statistical methodologies for engineering hydrological design under stationary/nonstationary conditions, and so on. In general, the book will contribute to the promotion of the application of statistical methods in hydrology.