Pigs have a strong motivation to explore and root. In conventional pig husbandry systems, this need is difficult to fulfil, unless adequate enrichment materials are provided. This book summarises how enrichment strategies for pigs have evolved over the last few decades in different countries and provides a vast array of possibilities to enhance the exploratory needs of pigs. The role of enrichment material on avoidance of tail biting outbreaks or as an element triggering positive emotions in pigs is also discussed.
Iron is an essential element for almost all organisms, a cofactor playing a crucial role in a number of vital functions, including oxygen transport, DNA synthesis, and respiration. However, its ability to exchange electrons renders excess iron potentially toxic, since it is capable of catalyzing the formation of highly poisonous free radicals. As a consequence, iron homeostasis is tightly controlled by sophisticated mechanisms that have been partially elucidated. Because of its biological importance, numerous disorders have been recently linked to the deregulation of iron homeostasis, which include not only the typical disorders of iron overload and deficiency but also cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. This leads iron metabolism to become an interesting therapeutic target for novel pharmacological treatments against these diseases. Several therapies are currently under development for hematological disorders, while other are being considered for different pathologies. The therapeutic targeting under study includes the hepcidin/ferroportin axis for the regulation of systemic iron homeostasis, complex cytosolic machineries for the regulation of the intracellular iron status and its association with oxidative damage, and reagents exploiting proteins of iron metabolism such as ferritin and transferrin receptor. A promising potential target is a recently described form of programmed cell death named ferroptosis, in which the role of iron is essential but not completely clarified. This Special Issue has the aim to summarize the state-of-the-art, and the latest findings published in the iron field, as well as to elucidate future directions.
The Special Issue, “Nanomaterials for Environmental Purification and Energy Conversion”, describes the significant and increasing role of nanomaterials in catalysis. It is believed that the most important factor for future human development could be to use nanomaterials (nanotechnology) to solve such critical issues facing humanity such as environment, water and energy. It should be also pointed out that properties of nanomaterials differ substantially from that of bulk materials of the same composition, resulting in high reactivity. Therefore, it creates new perspectives for the catalytic processes in the broad sense. This issue was mainly dedicated as a platform for the contributions from The Symposium on Nanomaterials for Environmental Purification and Energy Conversion (SNEPEC), which was held in Sapporo, Japan in winter 2018. Accordingly, this book compiles the current state-of-the-art of research in the area of novel photocatalysts and highlights current research directions in the fields of advanced oxidation technologies, material science and nanotechnology. Written by leading experts in the field of photochemistry and chemical engineering, a collection of 17 papers, including 16 research papers and one review, covers a broad range of topics focusing on the exceptional role of catalytic nanomaterials in solving environmental and energy problems of modern societies. The majority of papers present the importance of photocatalytic nanomaterials, especially for degradation of organic pollutants and inactivation of microorganisms, but there is also a strong representation of conventional catalysis, based on nanomaterials for important processes such as catalytic hydrogen production and organic synthesis.
With the growing interest in electrical machines in recent times, the multiphase machine field has developed into a fascinating research area. Their intrinsic features (power splitting, better fault tolerance, or lower torque ripple) make them an appealing competitor to conventional three-phase machines. Multiphase electric drives have been recently used in applications where fault tolerance and continuous operation of the drive are required. However, the difficulties in extending the three-phase conventional current regulation and control structure to multiphase systems still limit their broad applicability in industry solutions. The main objective of this book is to illustrate new advances, developments, and applications in the field of multiphase machines and drives, while exposing these advances, developments, and applications to the scientific community and industry.
The present Special Issue of Symmetry is devoted to two important areas of global Riemannian geometry, namely submanifold theory and the geometry of Lie groups and homogeneous spaces. Submanifold theory originated from the classical geometry of curves and surfaces. Homogeneous spaces are manifolds that admit a transitive Lie group action, historically related to F. Klein's Erlangen Program and S. Lie's idea to use continuous symmetries in studying differential equations.In this Special Issue, we provide a collection of papers that not only reflect some of the latest advancements in both areas, but also highlight relations between them and the use of common techniques. Applications to other areas of mathematics are also considered.
With their helical structure, cholesteric liquid crystals figure prominently in liquid crystal science. The selective reflection of light is their flagship property, and they offer a myriad of applications as advanced optical materials with multiscale properties. The cholesteric structure is also a ubiquitous design in the animal and plant kingdoms. This book contains eight contributions on fundamental investigations about defects, textures and structures of cholesteric materials, and experimental studies aimed at applications such as temperature sensors, head-up displays for improving automobile driving safety, or smart windows.
This Special Issue covers a wide range of areas—including building orientation, service life, use of photocatalytically active structures and PV facades, implications of transportation system, building types (i.e., high rise, multilevel, commercial, residential), life cycle assessment, and structural engineering—that need to be considered in the environmental impact assessment of buildings, and the chapters include case studies across the globe. Consideration of these strategies would help reduce energy and material consumption, environmental emissions, and waste generation associated with all phases of a building’s life cycle. Chapter 1 demonstrates that green star concrete exhibits the same structural properties as conventional concrete in Australia. Chapter 2 showed that the use of TiO2 as a photocatalyst on the surface of construction materials with a suitable stable binding agent, such as aggregates, would enable building walls to absorb NOx from air. This study found that TiO2 has the potential to reduce ambient concentrations of NOx from areas where this pollutant becomes concentrated under solar irradiation. Chapter 3 presents the life cycle assessment of architecturally integrated glass–glass photovoltaics in building facades to find the appropriate material composition for a multicolored PV façade offering improved environmental performance. Chapter 4 shows that urban office buildings lacking appropriate orientation experienced indoor overheating. Chapter 5 details four modeling approaches that were implemented to estimate buildings’ response towards load shedding. Chapter 6 covers the life cycle GHG emissions of high-rise residential housing block to discover opportunities for environmental improvement. Chapter 7 discusses an LCA framework that took into account variation in the service life of buildings associated with the use of different types of materials. Chapter 8 presents a useful data mining algorithm to conduct life cycle asset management in residential developments built on transport systems.
The many technical and computational problems that appear to be constantly emerging in various branches of physics and engineering beg for a more detailed understanding of the fundamental mathematics that serves as the cornerstone of our way of understanding natural phenomena. The purpose of this Special Issue was to establish a brief collection of carefully selected articles authored by promising young scientists and the world's leading experts in pure and applied mathematics, highlighting the state-of-the-art of the various research lines focusing on the study of analytical and numerical mathematical methods for pure and applied sciences.
This Special Issue scrutinizes the use of ultrasonic-cavitation melt treatment in technology of high-quality metallic alloys with improved mechanical properties, and assesses the driving mechanisms of cavitation-induced effects, such as grain refinement, degassing, wetting, and particle distribution. In this context, the research published in this Special Issue considers the interaction between the cavitation field and acoustic streaming with the melt flow and the suspended solid/liquid phases, the characterization and mapping of cavitation activity in a melt volume, and the possibility of achieving high efficiency in processing large melt volumes through technological approaches for the commercial implementation of ultrasonic processing technology.
Turbulent transport is currently a prominent and ongoing investigation subject at the interface of methodologies from theory to numerical simulations and experiments, and it covers several spatiotemporal scales. Mathematical analysis, physical modelling, and engineering applications represent different facets of a classical, long-standing problem that is still far from being thoroughly comprehended. The goal of this Special Issue is to outline recent advances of such subjects as multiscale analysis in turbulent transport processes, Lagrangian and Eulerian descriptions of turbulence, advection of particles and fields in turbulent flows, ideal or nonideal turbulence (unstationary/inhomogeneous/anisotropic/compressible), turbulent flows in biofluid mechanics and magnetohydrodynamics, and the control and optimization of turbulent transport. The SI is open to regular articles, review papers focused on the state of the art and the progress made over the last few years, and new research trends.
The electrospinning method has the unique ability to produce structured polymeric fibers on the micro or nano scale and to generate novel materials for food and healthcare purposes. The potential of electrospun nanofibers for human healthcare applications is promising, for example, in tissue/organ repair and regeneration, in medical diagnostics and instrumentation, and as vectors to deliver drugs and therapeutics, as biocompatible and biodegradable medical implant devices, as protective fabrics against environmental and infectious agents in hospitals and general surroundings. Furthermore, considerable effort has been directed toward developing scaffolds using biodegradable and biocompatible synthetic, natural polymers or renewable materials that enhance in vitro cell growth, while killing pathogenic bacteria cells. This Special Issue "Electrospun Polymer Nanofibers for Food and Health Applications” will cover the latest research of electrospun nanofibres in this field including shape-memory electrospun fibre meshes with programmable cell orientation, water-absorbing nano∩¼über meshes for e∩¼âcient removal of excess water from kidney failure patients, and hydrogel nano∩¼übers which can be used as a drug carrier for methylene blue.
Environmental problems derived from the massive use of conventional energy resources are one of the main issues that our society has been facing in recent decades. Renewable energies (and particularly solar energy) have become a highly competitive means to meet the world’s increasing energy demands in a sustainable and clean manner. One of the key research challenges for the commercial deployment of several solar energy technologies is focused on the development of feasible and durable coatings that withstand appropriate optical and thermal performance over the lifetime of the solar facilities. This book addresses a number of relevant aspects related to coatings for renewable energies, including a deep survey of coatings used in photovoltaic solar energy, the development of a superhydrophobic and thermal stable silica coating that is potentially suitable for various industrial applications related to renewable technologies, the development of coatings to improve the resistance of structural materials used in concentrating solar thermal technologies with molten salts, and several research works related to solar reflectors for concentrating solar thermal technologies (such us the advanced analysis of the corrosion, the suitability of anti-soiling coatings, and the development of top protective coatings for high-temperature secondary concentrators).
Advances in materials are crucial to the development of sports equipment, from tennis rackets to skis to running shoes. Materials-driven improvements in equipment have helped athletes perform better, while enhancing safety and making sport more accessible and enjoyable. This book brings together a collection of 10 papers on the topic of sports materials, as published in a Special Issue of Applied Sciences. The papers within this book cover a range of sports, including golf, tennis, table tennis and baseball. State-of-the-art engineering techniques, such as finite element modelling, impact testing and full-field strain measurement, are applied to help further our understanding of sports equipment mechanics and the role of materials, with a view to improving performance, enhancing safety and facilitating informed regulatory decision making. The book also includes papers that describe emerging and novel materials, including auxetic materials with their negative Poisson’s ratio (fattening when stretched) and knits made of bamboo charcoal. This collection of papers should serve as a useful resource for sports engineers working in both academia and industry, as well as engineering students who are interested in sports equipment and materials.
Energy markets are already undergoing considerable transitions to accommodate new (renewable) energy forms, new (decentral) energy players, and new system requirements, e.g. flexibility and resilience. Traditional energy markets for fossil fuels are therefore under pressure, while not-yet-mature (renewable) energy markets are emerging. As a consequence, investments in large-scale and capital intensive (traditional) energy production projects are surrounded by high uncertainty, and are difficult to hedge by private entities. Traditional energy production companies are transforming into energy service suppliers and companies aggregating numerous potential market players are emerging, while regulation and system management are playing an increasing role. To address these increasing uncertainties and complexities, economic analysis, forecasting, modeling and investment assessment require fresh approaches and views. Novel research is thus required to simulate multiple actor interplays and idiosyncratic behavior. The required approaches cannot deal only with energy supply, but need to include active demand and cover systemic aspects. Energy market transitions challenge policy-making. Market coordination failure, the removal of barriers hindering restructuring and the combination of market signals with command-and-control policy measures are some of the new aims of policies. The aim of this Special Issue is to collect research papers that address the above issues using novel methods from any adequate perspective, including economic analysis, modeling of systems, behavioral forecasting, and policy assessment.The issue will include, but is not be limited to: Local control schemes and algorithms for distributed generation systems Centralized and decentralized sustainable energy management strategies Communication architectures, protocols and properties of practical applications Topologies of distributed generation systems improving flexibility, efficiency and power quality Practical issues in the control design and implementation of distributed generation systems Energy transition studies for optimized pathway options aiming for high levels of sustainability
Research without statistics is like water in the sand; the latter is necessary to reap the benefits of the former. This collection of articles is designed to bring together different approaches to applied statistics. The studies presented in this book are a tiny piece of what applied statistics means and how statistical methods find their usefulness in different fields of research from theoretical frames to practical applications such as genetics, computational chemistry, and experimental design.This book presents several applications of the statistics: A new continuous distribution with five parameters-the modified beta Gompertz distribution; A method to calculate the p-value associated with the Anderson-Darling statistic; An approach of repeated measurement designs; A validated model to predict statement mutations score; A new family of structural descriptors, called the extending characteristic polynomial (EChP) family, used to express the link between the structure of a compound and its properties.This collection brings together authors from Europe and Asia with a specific contribution to the knowledge in regards to theoretical and applied statistics.
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