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Oral, periodontal diseases, chewing disorders, and many destructive inflammatory diseases of the supporting tissues of the teeth are caused by an imbalance between the host defense and environmental factors like bacteria, smoking, and poor nutrition. For these reasons, the focus should not only be on plaque control and removal of bacteria but also on improving host resistance through smoking abstention, stress reduction, and a healthy diet. The importance of micronutrients has been extensively reviewed, and it was concluded that prevention and treatment of periodontitis daily nutrition should include sufficient antioxidants, probiotics, natural agents, vitamin D, and calcium. Regarding antioxidants, vitamin C has attracted the attention of periodontal researchers. To date, there is limited available research investigating the effect of diet supplementation on the oral and periodontal condition.

The synergy between artificial intelligence and power and energy systems is providing promising solutions to deal with the increasing complexity of the energy sector. Multi-agent systems, in particular, are widely used to simulate complex problems in the power and energy domain as they enable modeling dynamic environments and studying the interactions between the involved players. Multi-agent systems are suitable for dealing not only with problems related to the upper levels of the system, such as the transmission grid and wholesale electricity markets, but also to address challenges associated with the management of distributed generation, renewables, large-scale integration of electric vehicles, and consumption flexibility. Agent-based approaches are also being increasingly used for control and to combine simulation and emulation by enabling modeling of the details of buildings'' electrical devices, microgrids, and smart grid components. This book discusses and highlights the latest advances and trends in multi-agent energy systems simulation. The addressed application topics include the design, modeling, and simulation of electricity markets operation, the management and scheduling of energy resources, the definition of dynamic energy tariffs for consumption and electrical vehicles charging, the large-scale integration of variable renewable energy sources, and mitigation of the associated power network issues.

This Special Issue presents high-quality research papers as well as review articles addressing recent advances in the use of marine bioactives in animal nutrition. The marine environment constitutes a relatively untapped source of biologically active compounds that can be applied in various areas, such as improvement of animal performance, health maintenance, and disease prevention. Numerous marine-based compounds isolated from marine organisms (especially seaweeds) have diverse biological activities, including antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral activities that can be beneficial to animal health. Additionally, the application of marine bioactives as feed additives can increase the nutritional value of products of animal origin. In this Special Issue, the main attention was focused on seaweeds and their application in poultry (laying hen and broiler chickens) and pig feed. The suitable processing of marine resources required for their optimal use as feed/feed additives was underlined. The contained publications present scientific evidence for the use of various seaweeds as feed additives that improve health (enhanced immunity, prebiotic effect), growth performance, and production. Inclusion of this unconventional material in animal nutrition can enrich products with active compounds, such as micro- and macroelements, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and pigments which are beneficial for consumers.

Cyanobacterial blooms are a water quality problem that is widely acknowledged to have detrimental ecological and economic effects in drinking and recreational water supplies and fisheries. There is increasing evidence that cyanobacterial blooms have increased globally and are likely to expand in water resources as a result of climate change. Of most concern are cyanotoxins, along with the mechanisms that induce their release and determine their fate in the aquatic environment. These secondary metabolites pose a potential hazard to human health and agricultural and aquaculture products that are intended for animal and human consumption; therefore, strict and reliable control of cyanotoxins is crucial for assessing risk. In this direction, a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that determine cyanobacterial bloom structure and toxin production has become the target of management practices. This Special Issue, entitled "Advancing Knowledge on Cyanobacterial Blooms in Freshwaters", aims to bring together recent multi- and interdisciplinary research, from the field to the laboratory and back again, driven by working hypotheses based on any aspect of mitigating cyanobacterial blooms, from ecological theory to applied research.

In all spheres of life, relationships among public and private organizations are built in order to deal with complex societal problems and to address economic challenges that cannot be dealt with by single organizations. Because of the interdependencies, interorganizational collaboration is essential, yet working across organizational boundaries is far from simple. It involves a multitude of different organizations, each having its own interests, perspectives, and identities while also varying in power and size. Further, the societal problems that are dealt with are often severe. This volume focuses on the relational complexities of interorganizational collaboration, captured by the term dynamics, referring to: (a) the social and psychological processes that occur when organizations and their representatives interact to engage in cross-boundary or collaborative work (e.g., trust and distrust, intergroup stereotyping and conflict, conflict avoidance, inclusion and exclusion of stakeholders, power dynamics), as well as (b) the development of these processes over time, in view of external and internal events and/or as a consequence of deliberate interventions to enhance collaborative success. The perspective put forward is largely psychological and sociological, both in terms of understanding the group and intergroup processes as well as efforts to intervene to develop collaborative relationships, based on action research and an organizational development approach.

Changes in land use and land cover can have many drivers, including population growth, urbanization, agriculture, demand for food, evolution of socio-economic structure, policy regulations, and climate variability. The impacts of these changes on water resources range from changes in water availability (due to changes in losses of water to evapotranspiration and recharge) to degradation of water quality (increased erosion, salinity, chemical loadings, and pathogens). The impacts are manifested through complex hydro-bio-geo-climate characteristics, which underscore the need for integrated scientific approaches to understand the impacts of landscape change on water resources. Several techniques, such as field studies, long-term monitoring, remote sensing technologies, and advanced modeling studies, have contributed to better understanding the modes and mechanisms by which landscape changes impact water resources. Such research studies can help unlock the complex interconnected influences of landscape on water resources in terms of quantity and quality at multiple spatial and temporal scales. In this Special Issue, we published a set of eight peer-reviewed articles elaborating on some of the specific topics of landscape changes and associated impacts on water resources.

ΓÇóThe aim of this Special Issue is to examine the current major topics concerning the use of social media and big data in sustainable tourism practices and to encourage interdisciplinary discussion among researchers regarding these issues. ΓÇóThis Special Issue covers all relevant areas of the debate, including 15 selected papers based on the following core ideas: smart tourism and big data, social media in the tourism industry, and online reviews and tourist behaviors. ΓÇóThis Special Issue discusses wide-ranging topics and research questions with regard to the smart tourism city, the impact of social media, online reviews, and tourist behaviors, and it represents a call to action for scholars to engage with broader social issues.

Food safety is a major problem around the world, both with regard to human suffering and with respect to economic costs. Scientific advances have increased our knowledge surrounding the nutritional characteristics of foods and their effects on health. This means that a large proportion of consumers are much more conscious with respect to what they eat and their demands for quality food. Food quality is a complex term that includes, in addition to safety, other intrinsic characteristics, such as appearance, color, texture and flavor, and also extrinsic characteristics, such as perception or involvement.

One of the most significant of the many challenges we face is how to sustain the production of food for a growing population without compromising the health of our planet. This book addresses the growing challenges of the interrelated issues of food security, social stability, and the increasing scarcity of the planet''s resources to propose sophisticated modeling innovations leading to practical approaches and solutions to multiple facets of these challenges.

Remote sensing data and techniques have been widely used for disaster monitoring and assessment. In particular, recent advances in sensor technologies and artificial intelligence-based modeling are very promising for disaster monitoring and readying responses aimed at reducing the damage caused by disasters. This book contains eleven scientific papers that have studied novel approaches applied to a range of natural disasters such as forest fire, urban land subsidence, flood, and tropical cyclones.

The appearance of the new generation in higher plants is ensured by the presence of viable seeds in the mother plant. A good number of signaling networks is necessary to provoke germination. Phytohormones play a key role in all stages of seed development, maturation, and dormancy acquisition. The dormancy of some seeds can be relieved through a tightly regulated process called after-ripening (AR) that occurs in viable seeds stored in a dry environment. Although ABA is directly involved in dormancy, recent data suggest that auxin also plays a preponderant role. On the other hand, the participation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the life of the seed is becoming increasingly confirmed. ROS accumulate at different stages of the seed''s life and are correlated with a low degree of dormancy. Thus, ROS increase upon AR and dormancy release. In the last decade, the advances in the knowledge of seed life have been noteworthy. In this Special Issue, those processes regulated by DOG1, auxin, and nucleic acid modifications are updated. Likewise, new data on the effect of alternating temperatures (AT) on dormancy release are here present. On the one hand, the transcriptome patterns stimulated at AT that encompasses ethylene and ROS signaling and metabolism together with ABA degradation were also discussed. Finally, it was also suggested that changes in endogenous ╬│-aminobutyric acid (GABA) may prevent seed germination.

The management of natural resources can be approached using different data sources and techniques, from images registered by sensors of onboard satellites to UAV platforms, using remote sensing techniques and geographic information systems, among others. The variability of problems and projects to be analyzed, studied, and solved is very wide. This book presents a collection of different experiences, ranging from the location of areas of interest to the simulation of future scenarios of a territory at local and regional scales, considering spatial resolutions ranging from centimeters to hundreds of meters. The common objective of all the works compiled in this book is to support decision-making in environmental management.

This book collects 25 scientific articles from laboratories around the world, all of which use botulinum neurotoxins as the main protagonists of their studies. The use of botulinum neurotoxin in medicine, following its ability to inhibit the effects of various disorders of different etiology on the human organism, constitutes the main topic of each article presented here. This book, which is aimed at both students and medical professionals, attempts to summarize current knowledge about the use of botulinum toxin as a therapeutic agent in many diseases, ranging from spasticity to tremor, form motor dysfunction after stroke to neuropathic pain, from hyperactive muscle to migraine, and so on. Thanks to its simplified writing, accessible to an audience who may not be familiar with the mysteries of science, readers will get new insights into this biological toxin and its multiple applications, not simply relegated to its historical use to correct of face wrinkles. Both review and research articles are presented, not only concerning animal studies, but also clinical reports. This book will provide an up-to-date picture of the state-of-the-art of the possible development of novel applications of botulinum neurotoxins for future therapeutic purposes.

Climate change and land use transformations have induced an increased flood risk worldwide. These phenomena are dramatically impacting ordinary life and the economy. Research and technology offer a new strategy to quantify and predict such phenomena and also mitigate the impact of flooding. In particular, the growing computational power is offering new strategies for a more detailed description of the flooding over large scales. This book offers an overview of the most recent outcomes of the research on this argument.

This book is a collection of several unique articles on the current state of research on complex concentrated alloys, as well as their compelling future opportunities in wide ranging applications. Complex concentrated alloys consist of multiple principal elements and represent a new paradigm in structural alloy design. They show a range of exceptional properties that are unachievable in conventional alloys, including high strength-ductility combination, resistance to oxidation, corrosion/wear resistance, and excellent high-temperature properties. The research articles, reviews, and perspectives are intended to provide a wholistic view of this multidisciplinary subject of interest to scientists and engineers.

Wood composites have shown very good performance and substantial service lives when correctly specified for the exposure risks present. The selection of an appropriate product for the job should be accompanied by decisions about the appropriate protection, whether this is by design, by preservative treatment, or by wood modification techniques. This Special Issue, "Advances in Wood Composites II", presents recent progress in enhancing and refining the performance and properties of wood composites by chemical and thermal modification and the application of smart nanomaterials. Such enhancements and refinements have made wood composites a particular area of interest for researchers. In addition, this Special Issue reviews some important aspects in the field of wood composites, with particular focus on their materials, applications, and engineering and scientific advances, including solutions inspired biomimetically by the structure of wood and wood composites. This Special Issue, as a collection of 14 original contributions, provides selected examples of recent advances in wood composites.

The first quantum revolution started in the early 20th century and gave us new rules that govern physical reality. Accordingly, many devices that changed dramatically our lifestyle, such as transistors, medical scanners and lasers, appeared in the market. This was the origin of quantum technology, which allows us to organize and control the components of a complex system governed by the laws of quantum physics. This is in sharp contrast to conventional technology, which can only be understood within the framework of classical mechanics. We are now in the middle of a second quantum revolution. Although quantum mechanics is nowadays a mature discipline, quantum engineering as a technology is now emerging in its own right. We are about to manipulate and sense individual particles, measuring and exploiting their quantum properties. This is bringing major technical advances in many different areas, including computing, sensors, simulations, cryptography and telecommunications. The present collection of selected papers is a clear demonstration of the tremendous vitality of the field. The issue is composed of contributions from world leading researchers in quantum optics and quantum information, and presents viewpoints, both theoretical and experimental, on a variety of modern problems.

Steel has become the most requested material all over the world during the rapid technological evolution of recent centuries. As our civilization grows and its technological development becomes connected with more demanding processes, it is more and more challenging to fit the required physical and mechanical properties for steel in its huge portfolio of grades for each steel producer. It is necessary to improve the refining and casting processes continuously to meet customer requirements and to lower the production costs to remain competitive. New challenges related to both the precise design of steel properties and reduction in production costs are combined with paying special attention to environmental protection. These contradictory demands are the theme of this book.

The future of electric vehicles relies nearly entirely on the design, monitoring, and control of the vehicle battery and its associated systems. Along with an initial optimal design of the cell/pack-level structure, the runtime performance of the battery needs to be continuously monitored and optimized for a safe and reliable operation and prolonged life. Improved charging techniques need to be developed to protect and preserve the battery. The scope of this Special Issue is to address all the above issues by promoting innovative design concepts, modeling and state estimation techniques, charging/discharging management, and hybridization with other storage components.

This book seeks to support social science researchers who interact with vulnerability and/or sensitivity in the context of their research. Whilst there has been some important debate about the theoretical, methodological and ethical issues of conducting research on sensitive topics, and/or with vulnerable populations, the number of scholarly publications focused solely on these topics is limited and not up to date. The book intends to fill this gap by providing various research experiences, as well as the elements that characterize them. The articles selected for this book intend, first and foremost, to stimulate reflexivity amongst the use of the concepts of sensitive topics and vulnerable groups, and to provide tools that will allow researchers to improve their research practices The book integrates several articles that explore a wide range of dilemmas that, to a certain extent, might allow the reader to access the backstage of this type of research. The reader will find here a rich and fruitful space for theoretical and empirical reflection, where several social science researchers with different backgrounds share their experiences and research paths in a rigorous and creative way.

Adipose tissue is a rich, ubiquitous, and easily accessible source for multipotent mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs), so-called adipose-derived stromal/stem cells (ASCs). Primary isolated ASCs are a heterogeneous preparation consisting of several subpopulations of stromal/stem and precursor cells. Donor-specific differences in ASC isolations and the lack of culture standardization hinder the comparison of results from different studies. Nevertheless, ASCs are already being used in different in vivo models and clinical trials to investigate their ability to improve tissue and organ regeneration. Many questions concerning their counterparts and biology in situ, their differentiation potential in vitro and in vivo, and the mechanisms of regeneration (paracrine effects, including regeneration-promoting factors and extracellular vesicles, differentiation, and immunomodulation) are not completely understood or remain unanswered. This Special Issue covers research articles investigating various adipose tissues as a source for ASC isolation, specific cultures methods to enhance proliferation or viability, and the differentiation capacity. Furthermore, other studies highlight aspects of various diseases, the immunosuppressive potential of ASCs and their derivates, or the in vivo tracking of transplanted ASCs. This edition is complemented by a review that summarizes the current knowledge of spheroid culture system methods and applications for mesenchymal stem cells.

Multiscale entropy (MSE) measures to evaluate the complexity of time series by taking into account the multiple time scales in physical systems were proposed in the early 2000s. Since then, these approaches have received a great deal of attention and have been used in a wide range of applications. Multivariate approaches have also been developed. The algorithms for an MSE approach are composed of two main steps: (i) a coarse-graining procedure to represent the system''s dynamics on different scales and (ii) the entropy computation for the original signal and for the coarse-grained time series to evaluate the irregularity for each scale. Moreover, different entropy measures have been associated with the coarse-graining approach, each one having its advantages and drawbacks. In this Special Issue, we gathered 24 papers focusing on either the theory or applications of MSE approaches. These papers can be divided into two groups: papers that propose new developments in entropy-based measures or improve the understanding of existing ones (9 papers) and papers that propose new applications of existing entropy-based measures (14 papers). Moreover, one paper presents a review of cross-entropy methods and their multiscale approaches.

Novel technologies are playing an important role in the development of crop and livestock farming and have the potential to be the key drivers of sustainable intensification of agricultural systems. In particular, new sensors are now available with reduced dimensions, reduced costs, and increased performances, which can be implemented and integrated in production systems, providing more data and eventually an increase in information. It is of great importance to support the digital transformation, precision agriculture, and smart farming, and to eventually allow a revolution in the way food is produced. In order to exploit these results, authoritative studies from the research world are still needed to support the development and implementation of new solutions and best practices. This Special Issue is aimed at bringing together recent developments related to novel sensors and their proved or potential applications in agriculture.

In recent decades, there have been extensive developments in science and technology. These advances provide new techniques to deposit coatings onto various substrates, thus, addressing the ever-increasing performance requirements of various applications. Moreover, as technology itself develops, there are new problems that require new solutions, some of which can be solved through the application of coatings. Thus, the demands from coatings are continually increasing and the field is growing. The collection of articles contained within this volume cover a wide range of different research approaches to coatings reflecting the expanding field of coatings. It covers examples from topics such as a cold spray of magnesium alloys onto steel substrates, mechanical coatings of Ti-based materials onto steel balls, electroless plating of Ni-P coating onto an Mg-based alloy, magnetron sputtering of Ru-Zr coatings onto a Si wafer, a review of ionic liquids that form surface layers, as corrosion inhibitors, nano-composite epoxy coatings containing exfoliated clay (montmorillonite) for steel protection, a coating based on plasma electrolytic oxidation of an aluminum alloy and inhibited epoxy primer for aerospace aluminum alloys. This volume provides a wide-angle snapshot of current coating technologies through the presentation of some specific studies.

Recent decades have brought to light the staggering ubiquity of human activity upon Earth and the startling fragility of our planet and its life systems. This is so momentous that many scientists and scholars now argue that we have left the relative climactic stability of the Holocene and have entered a new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene. This emerging epoch may prompt us not only to reconsider our understanding of Earth systems, but also to reimagine ourselves and what it means to be human. How does the Earth''s precarious state reveal our own? How does this vulnerable condition prompt new ways of thinking and being? The essays that are part of this collection consider how the transformative thinking demanded by our vulnerability inspires us to reconceive our place in the cosmos, alongside each other and, potentially, before God. Who are we "after" (the concept of) the Anthropocene? What forms of thought and structures of feeling might attend us in this state? How might we determine our values and to what do we orient our hopes? Faith, a conceptual apparatus for engaging the unseen, helps us weigh the implications of this massive, but in some ways, mysterious, force on the lives we lead; faith helps us visualize what it means to exist in this new and still emergent reality.

During the last decade, there has been an increased interest in fractional differential equations, inclusions, and inequalities, as they play a fundamental role in the modeling of numerous phenomena, in particular, in physics, biomathematics, blood flow phenomena, ecology, environmental issues, viscoelasticity, aerodynamics, electrodynamics of complex medium, electrical circuits, electron-analytical chemistry, control theory, etc. This book presents collective works published in the recent Special Issue (SI) entitled "Fractional Differential Equation, Inclusions and Inequalities with Applications" of the journal Mathematics. This Special Issue presents recent developments in the theory of fractional differential equations and inequalities. Topics include but are not limited to the existence and uniqueness results for boundary value problems for different types of fractional differential equations, a variety of fractional inequalities, impulsive fractional differential equations, and applications in sciences and engineering.

This special edition, Seafood Sustainability Series I, includes two articles on seafood consumption, four on sustainable capture fisheries, and four on sustainable aquaculture. The articles on consumption explore an alternative perspective on sustainable seafood movement governance to consumer- or retail/brand-driven logic and analyze fish tissues for human consumption to detect contaminants like flame retardant chemicals hazardous to human health sourced from microplastic pollutants. Articles on capture fisheries include: ΓÇóA study of harvest strategies to achieve ecological, economic, and social sustainability objectives; ΓÇóAn examination of the economic leverages and resources needed to sustain coastal artisanal fishing communities in Africa; ΓÇóA review of sustainability planning efforts to combat fishing community threats like declining participation, aging infrastructure and fleets, gentrification, reduced resource access, market competition, and environmental stresses; ΓÇóAn analysis of responsible fish consumption through a life-promoting sustainable food system for school-age children. Three of the articles on aquaculture focus on studying consumer preferences related to sustainable aquaculture based on the estimation of how the attributes of aquaculture products (including product labeling and perception) affect consumers'' purchase decisions. The other article questions the widely held assumption of sustainable substitutability of plant protein sources (e.g., soymeal) for fishmeal in aquaculture production.

The book is devoted to the fundamental aspects of the non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of many-particle systems. The concept of Zubarev''s approach, which generalizes the notion of Gibbs'' ensembles, and introduces a nonequilibrium statistical operator, providing an adequate basis for dealing with strongly correlated systems that are governed by nonperturbative phenomena, such as the formation of bound states, quantum condensates and the instability of the vacuum. Besides a general introduction to the formalism, this book contains contributions devoted to the applications of Zubarev''s method to the solution of modern problems in different fields of physics: transport theory, hydrodynamics, high-energy physics, quark-gluon plasma and hadron production in heavy-ion collisions. The book provides valuable information for researchers and students in these fields, requiring powerful concepts to solve fundamental problems of non-equilibrium phenomena in strongly