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The evolution of knowledge management theory and the special emphasis on human and social capital sets new challenges for knowledge-driven and technology-enabled innovation. Emerging technologies including big data and analytics have significant implications for sustainability, policy making, and competitiveness. This edited volume promotes scientific research into the potential contributions knowledge management can make to the new era of innovation and social inclusive economic growth. We are grateful to all the contributors of this edition for their intellectual work. The organization of the relevant debate is aligned around three pillars: SECTION A. DATA, KNOWLEDGE, HUMAN AND SOCIAL CAPITAL FOR INNOVATIONWe elaborate on the new era of knowledge types and the emerging forms of social capital and their impact on technology-driven innovation. Topics include:Social NetworksSmart EducationSocial CapitalCorporate InnovationDisruptive InnovationKnowledge integrationEnhanced Decision-Making. SECTION B. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT & BIG DATA ENABLED INNOVATIONIn this section, knowledge management and big data applications and systems are presented. Selective topic include:Crowdsourcing AnalysisNatural Language ProcessingData GovernanceKnowledge ExtractionOntology Design Semantic ModelingSECTION C. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTIn the section, the debate on the impact of knowledge management and big data research to sustainability is promoted with integrative discussion of complementary social and technological factors including:Big Social Networks on Sustainable Economic DevelopmentBusiness Intelligence

This book covers applied research on smart energy systems, smart grids, smart energy homes, smart energy products and services, and the advanced applications thereof, in the context of demand response and grid interactions. In particular, this book is focused on interdisciplinary research results that combine technical, social, environmental, and economic aspects of smart energy systems and smart energy products. Moreover, several chapters are based on the evaluation of real life cases, energy pilots, prototypes of smart energy products, and end user surveys and interviews. 

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.

Blindness and visual impairment impact significantly on an individual’s physical and mental well-being. Loss of vision is a global health problem, with approximately 250 million of the world’s population currently living with vision loss, of which 36 million are classified as blind. Visual impairment is more frequent in the elderly, with cataract and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) accounting for over 50% of cases globally. Oxidative stress has been strongly implicated in the pathogenesis of both conditions, and consequently the role of nutritional factors, in particular carotenoids and micronutrient antioxidants, have been investigated as possible preventative or therapeutic strategies.Dry eye syndrome (DES) is one of the most common ophthalmic conditions in the world. DES occurs where the eye does not produce enough tears and/or the tears evaporate too quicklyleading to discomfort and varying degrees of visual disturbance. There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential for oral or topical supplementation with essential fatty acids (EFAs), specifically omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, as an adjunct to conventional treatments for DES.The objective of this Special Issue on ‘Nutrition and Eye Health’ is to publish papers describing the role of nutrition in maintaining eye health and the use of nutritional interventions to prevent or treat ocular disease. A particular (but not exclusive) emphasis will be on papers (reviews and/or clinical or experimental studies) relating to cataract, AMD and DES.

The bioeconomy initially focused on resource substitution, including the production of biomass from various resources; its conversion, fractionation, and processing by means of biotechnology; and chemistry and process engineering towards the production and marketing of food, feed, fuel, and fibre. Nevertheless, although resource substitution is still considered important, the emphasis has been recently shifted to the biotechnological innovation perspective of the bioeconomy, in terms that ensure environmental sustainability.It is estimated that around one-third of the food produced for human consumption is wasted throughout the world, posing not only a sustainability problem related to food security but also a significant environmental problem. Food waste streams, mainly derived from fruits and vegetables, cereals, oilseeds, meat, dairy, and fish processing, have unavoidably attracted the interest of the scientific community as an abundant reservoir of complex carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and functional compounds, which can be utilized as raw materials for added-value product formulations.This Special Issue focuses on innovative and emerging food and by-products processing methods for the sustainable transition to a bioeconomy era. Contributions addressing valorisation, the bioprocessing and biorefining of food industry-based streams, the isolation of high-added-value compounds, applications of resulting bio-based chemicals to food products, novel food formulations, economic policies for food waste management, and sustainability or technoeconomic analyses of the proposed processing methods are welcome in this Special Issue.

The results presented in this volume highlight some of the most recent advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology studies, from both the physical and chemical point of view, with an eye also to possible engineering applications.These studies demonstrate directly how effective, and at the same time stimulating is implementing the “cross-fertilization” procedure. Indeed, multidisciplinary research allows one to catch more easily the analogies inherent different areas of science, as well as to take advantage and optimize different methods and techniques, often borrowed from other research areas.In the present Special Issue, we included six published papers. The latter contributions, on the one hand, are developed at the theory level and, on the other hand, show experimental results on the realization and experimental characterization of nanostructured systems, suitable for yielding progress towards the realization of systems and devices, that can ultimately lead to industrial applications. The results show that recent scientific research advances in these areas may provide important steps in the direction of fostering innovation and technological development.

The combination of functional polymers with inorganic nanostructured compounds has become a major area of research and technological development owing to the remarkable properties and multifunctionalities deriving from their nano and hybrid structures. In this context, polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSSs) have increasing importance and a dominant position with respect to the reinforcement of polymeric materials. Although POSSs were first described in 1946 by Scott, these materials, however, have not immediately been successful if we consider that, starting from 1946 and up to 1995, we find in the literature 85 manuscripts regarding POSSs; which means that less than two papers per year were published over 50 years. Since 1995, we observe an exponential growth of scientific manuscripts concerning POSSs. It is changing from an annual average of 20 manuscripts for the period 1995–2000 to an annual average of about 400 manuscripts, with an increase of 2800%. The introduction of POSSs inorganic nanostructures into polymers gives rise to polymer nanostructured materials (PNMs) with interesting mechanical and physical properties, thus representing a radical alternative to the traditional filled polymers or polymer compositions.

Entropies and entropy-like quantities play an increasing role in modern non-linear data analysis. Fields that benefit from this application range from biosignal analysis to econophysics and engineering. This issue is a collection of papers touching on different aspects of entropy measures in data analysis, as well as theoretical and computational analyses.The relevant topics include the difficulty to achieve adequate application of entropy measures and the acceptable parameter choices for those entropy measures, entropy-based coupling, and similarity analysis, along with the utilization of entropy measures as features in automatic learning and classification. Various real data applications are given.

Christianity in China has a history dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), when Allopen—the first Nestorian missionary—arrived there in 635. In the late sixteenth century, Matteo Ricci together with other Jesuit missionaries commenced the Catholic missions to China. Protestant Christianity in China began with Robert Morrison, of London Missionary Society, who first set foot in Canton in 1807. Over the centuries, the Western missionaries and Chinese believers were engaged in the enterprise of the translation, publication, and distribution of a large corpus of Christian literature in Chinese. While the extensive distribution of Chinese publications facilitated the propagation of Christianity, the Christian messages have been subtly re-presented, re-appropriated, and transformed by these works of Chinese Christian literature. This Special Issue entitled “Christian Literature in Chinese Contexts” examines the multifarious dimensions of the production, translation, circulation, and reception of Christian literature (with “Christian” and “literature” in their broadest sense) against the cultural and sociopolitical contexts from the Tang period to modern China. The eight articles in this volume cover a variety of intriguing topics, including the literary/translation endeavors of Western missionaries in Chinese, the indigenous works of the Chinese Christians, the interaction between the Christian and Chinese literary traditions, Chinese reception of the Bible, and numerous other relevant concepts.

This book contains 37 papers by 73 renowned experts from 13 countries around the world, on following topics:neutrosophic set; neutrosophic rings; neutrosophic quadruple rings; idempotents; neutrosophic extended triplet group; hypergroup; semihypergroup; neutrosophic extended triplet group; neutrosophic extended triplet semihypergroup and hypergroup; neutrosophic offset; uninorm; neutrosophic offuninorm and offnorm; neutrosophic offconorm; implicator; prospector; n-person cooperative game; ordinary single-valued neutrosophic (co)topology; ordinary single-valued neutrosophic subspace; α-level; ordinary single-valued neutrosophic neighborhood system; ordinary single-valued neutrosophic base and subbase; fuzzy numbers; neutrosophic numbers; neutrosophic symmetric scenarios; performance indicators; financial assets; neutrosophic extended triplet group; neutrosophic quadruple numbers; refined neutrosophic numbers; refined neutrosophic quadruple numbers; multigranulation neutrosophic rough set; nondual; two universes; multiattribute group decision making; nonstandard analysis; extended nonstandard analysis; monad; binad; left monad closed to the right; right monad closed to the left; pierced binad; unpierced binad; nonstandard neutrosophic mobinad set; neutrosophic topology; nonstandard neutrosophic topology; visual tracking; neutrosophic weight; objectness; weighted multiple instance learning; neutrosophic triangular norms; residuated lattices; representable neutrosophic t-norms; De Morgan neutrosophic triples; neutrosophic residual implications; infinitely ∨-distributive; probabilistic neutrosophic hesitant fuzzy set; decision-making; Choquet integral; e-marketing; Internet of Things; neutrosophic set; multicriteria decision making techniques; uncertainty modeling; neutrosophic goal programming approach; shale gas water management system.

While international efforts in the development of short rotation woody crops (SRWCs) have historically focused on the production of biomass for bioenergy, biofuels, and bioproducts, research and deployment over the past decade has expanded to include broader objectives of achieving multiple ecosystem services. In particular, silvicultural prescriptions developed for SRWCs have been refined to include woody crop production systems for environmental benefits such as carbon sequestration, water quality and quantity, and soil health. In addition, current systems have been expanded beyond traditional fiber production to other environmental technologies that incorporate SRWCs as vital components for phytotechnologies, urban afforestation, ecological restoration, and mine reclamation. In this Special Issue of the journal Forests, we explore the broad range of current research dedicated to our topic: International Short Rotation Woody Crop Production Systems for Ecosystem Services and Phytotechnologies

The development of micro- and nanodevices for blood analysis is an interdisciplinary subject that demands the integration of several research fields, such as biotechnology, medicine, chemistry, informatics, optics, electronics, mechanics, and micro/nanotechnologies.Over the last few decades, there has been a notably fast development in the miniaturization of mechanical microdevices, later known as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), which combine electrical and mechanical components at a microscale level. The integration of microflow and optical components in MEMS microdevices, as well as the development of micropumps and microvalves, have promoted the interest of several research fields dealing with fluid flow and transport phenomena happening in microscale devices. Microfluidic systems have many advantages over their macroscale counterparts, offering the ability to work with small sample volumes, providing good manipulation and control of samples, decreasing reaction times, and allowing parallel operations in one single step. As a consequence, microdevices offer great potential for the development of portable and point-of-care diagnostic devices, particularly for blood analysis. Moreover, the recent progress in nanotechnology has contributed to its increasing popularity, and has expanded the areas of application of microfluidic devices, including in the manipulation and analysis of flows on the scale of DNA, proteins, and nanoparticles (nanoflows).In this Special Issue, we invited contributions (original research papers, review articles, and brief communications) that focus on the latest advances and challenges in micro- and nanodevices for diagnostics and blood analysis, micro- and nanofluidics, technologies for flow visualization, MEMS, biochips, and lab-on-a-chip devices and their application to research and industry. We hope to provide an opportunity to the engineering and biomedical community to exchange knowledge and information and to bring together researchers who are interested in the general field of MEMS and micro/nanofluidics and, especially, in its applications to biomedical areas.

Canada continues to have a rich history of ground-breaking research in drug delivery within academic institutions, pharmaceutical industry and the biotechnology community. Over the past 30 years, numerous Canadian-based biotechnology companies have been formed from the inventions conceived and developed within academic institutions that have led to the development of important drug delivery products that have enhanced the landscape of drug therapy in the treatment of cancer to infectious diseases. This Special Issue serves to highlight and capture the contemporary progress of drug delivery within the prevailing Canadian context. We invite articles on all aspects of drug delivery sciences from pre-clinical formulation development to human clinical trials that bring to light the world-class research currently undertaken in Canada for this Special Issue.

Mobile Mapping technologies have seen a rapid growth of research activity and interest in the last years, due to the increased demand of accurate, dense and geo-referenced 3D data. Their main characteristic is the ability of acquiring 3D information of large areas dynamically. This versatility has expanded their application fields from the civil engineering to a broader range (industry, emergency response, cultural heritage...), which is constantly widening. This increased number of needs, some of them specially challenging, is pushing the Scientific Community, as well as companies, towards the development of innovative solutions, ranging from new hardware / open source software approaches and integration with other devices, up to the adoption of artificial intelligence methods for the automatic extraction of salient features and quality assessment for performance verificationThe aim of the present book is to cover the most relevant topics and trends in Mobile Mapping Technology, and also to introduce the new tendencies of this new paradigm of geospatial science.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have already become an affordable and cost-efficient tool to quickly map a targeted area for many emerging applications in the arena of ecological monitoring and biodiversity conservation. Managers, owners, companies, and scientists are using professional drones equipped with high-resolution visible, multispectral, or thermal cameras to assess the state of ecosystems, the effect of disturbances, or the dynamics and changes within biological communities inter alia. We are now at a tipping point on the use of drones for these type of applications over natural areas. UAV missions are increasing but most of them are testing applicability. It is time now to move to frequent revisiting missions, aiding in the retrieval of important biophysical parameters in ecosystems or mapping species distributions. This Special Issue shows UAV applications contributing to a better understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem status, threats, changes, and trends. It documents the enhancement of knowledge in ecological integrity parameters mapping, long-term ecological monitoring based on drones, mapping of alien species spread and distribution, upscaling ecological variables from drone to satellite images: methods and approaches, rapid risk and disturbance assessment using drones, mapping albedo with UAVs, wildlife tracking, bird colony and chimpanzee nest mapping, habitat mapping and monitoring, and a review on drones for conservation in protected areas.

 The focus of this Special Issue is aimed at enhancing the discussion of Engineering Education, particularly related to technological and professional learning. In the 21st century, students face a challenging demand: they are expected to have the best scientific expertise, but also highly developed social skills and qualities like teamwork, creativity, communication, or leadership. Even though students and teachers are becoming more aware of this necessity, there is still a gap between academic life and the professional world.In this Special Edition Book, the reader can find works tackling interesting topics such as educational resources addressing students’ development of competencies, the importance of final year projects linked to professional environments, and multicultural or interdisciplinary challenges.

The importance of viticulture and the winemaking socio-economic sector is acknowledged worldwide. The most renowned winemaking regions show very specific environmental characteristics, where climate usually plays a central role. Considering the strong influence of weather and climatic factors on grapevine yields and berry quality attributes, climate change may indeed significantly impact this crop. Recent trends already point to a pronounced increase in growing season mean temperatures, as well as changes in precipitation regimes, which have been influencing wine typicity across some of the most renowned winemaking regions worldwide. Moreover, several climate scenarios give evidence of enhanced stress conditions for grapevine growth until the end of the century. Although grapevines have high resilience, the clear evidence for significant climate change in the upcoming decades urges adaptation and mitigation measures to be taken by sector stakeholders. To provide hints on the abovementioned issues, we have edited a Special Issue entitled “Viticulture and Winemaking under Climate Change”. Contributions from different fields were considered, including crop and climate modeling, and potential adaptation measures against these threats. The current Special Issue allows for the expansion of scientific knowledge in these particular fields of research, as well as providing a path for future research.

Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) have attracted a large amount of interest in research laboratories worldwide in recent decades, motivated by the gap between a growing interest in developing novel mixed matrix membranes by various research groups and the lack of large-scale implementation. This Special Issue contains six publications dealing with the current opportunities and challenges of mixed matrix membranes development and applications to solve environmental and health challenges of the society of 21st century.

This book considers how adults attempt to socialise young children into the adults it aspires to produce, from a number of diverse perspectives. The evolution of storytelling and its impact upon child development is initially explored, followed by the consideration of how social class, ethnicity, culture, and colonialism impact upon the ways that societies ‘school’ children about what to expect from adulthood. Different perspectives of early years education and growing up within a British/British colonial perspective are discussed and analysed. There is a focus throughout upon the way that children are constructed by the society in question, particularly those who are considered to be of lower status in terms of being poor, orphaned, or from ethnic groups against which the dominant culture discriminates. Topics covered by the chapters include topics covered by this Special Issue: current and historical constructions of childhood; the development of linguistic and ‘storying’ skills in childhood; childhood play and recreation; childhood and ‘folk’ narratives; philosophies of childhood; childhood and industrialisation; childhood and post-industrialisation; childhood education; childhood health; and cultures of childcare.

Natural products have been a source of inspiration for chemists and chemical biologists for many years, and have a special relevance in the chemical space. In recent years, several novel synthetic strategies have appeared, such as diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS), biological-oriented synthesis (BiOS), and function-oriented synthesis (FOS), for accessing complex and functionally diverse molecules. In this manner, the synthesis of natural products has evolved towards simpler and ecological methods using biotransformation, combinatorial chemistry, or organocatalysts. In this issue, Prof. Chojnacka shows demonstrates the use of immobilized lipases as catalysts to aid in the synthesis of phosphatidylcholine enriched with myristic acid. Profs. Vila and Pedro used catalysts derived from (S)-mandelic acid to achieve the catalytic enantioselective addition of dimethylzinc to isatins. Prof. Diez shows the possibility of the obtention of 7,8-carvone epoxides in a diastereoselective manner using proline, quinidine, and diphenylprolinol as organocatalysts. A cheap, simple, clean, and scalable method involves the use of deep eutectic mixtures as reaction media, and Profs. Alonso and Guillena describe the use of this methodology for the enantioselective, organocatalyzed -amination of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds. Biotransformations have been one of the methodologies for more efficient synthesis of natural products. Prof. Wu transforms ergostane triterpenoid antcin K using Psychrobacillus sp. Ak 187. Finally, Prof. Kovayashi reviews the total synthesis and biological evaluation of phaeosphaerides. The reader, through this issue, could gain an idea of the new directions that the synthesis of natural products using catalysts will have in the years to come.

This Special Issue looks forward as well as backward to best analyze the forest conservation challenges of the Caribbean. This is made possible by 75 years of research and applications by the United States Department of Agriculture, International Institute of Tropical Forestry (the Institute) of Puerto Rico. It transforms Holocene-based scientific paradigms of the tropics into Anthropocene applications and outlooks of wilderness, managed forests, and urban environments. This volume showcases how the focus of the Institute’s programs is evolving to support sustainable tropical forest conservation despite uncertain conditions. The manuscripts showcased here highlight the importance of shared stewardship and a long-term, hands-on approach to conservation, research programs, and novel organizations intended to meet contemporary conservation challenges. Policies relevant to the Anthropocene, as well as the use of experiments to anticipate future responses of tropical forests to global warming, are reexamined in these pages. Urban topics include how cities can co-produce new knowledge to spark sustainable and resilient transformations. Long-term results and research applications of topics such as soil biota, migratory birds, tropical vegetation, substrate chemistry, and the tropical carbon cycle are also described in the volume. Moreover, the question of how to best use land on a tropical island is addressed. This volume is intended to be of interest to all actors involved in long-term sustainable forest management and research in light of the historical lessons and future directions that may come out of a better understanding of tropical cities and forests in the Anthropocene epoch.

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is an emerging zoonotic coronavirus. First identified in 2012, MERS-CoV has caused over 2460 infections and a fatality rate of about 35% in humans. Similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), MERS-CoV likely originated from bats; however, different from SARS-CoV, which potentially utilized palm civets as its intermediate hosts, MERS-CoV likely transmits to humans through dromedary camels. Animal models, such as humanized mice and nonhuman primates, have been developed for studying MERS-CoV infection. Currently, there are no vaccines and therapeutics approved for the prevention and treatment of MERS-CoV infection, although a number of them have been developed preclinically or tested clinically. This book covers one editorial and 16 articles (including seven review articles and nine original research papers) written by researchers working in the field of MERS-CoV. It describes the following three main aspects: (1) MERS-CoV epidemiology, transmission, and pathogenesis; (2) current progress on MERS-CoV animal models, vaccines, and therapeutics; and (3) challenges and future prospects for MERS-CoV research. Overall, this book will help researchers in the MERS-CoV field to further advance their work on the virus. It also has important implications for other coronaviruses as well as viruses outside the coronavirus family with pandemic potentials.

This Special Issue on “Blood-Derived Products for Tissue Repair and Regeneration” reveals the evolution and diversity of platelet rich plasma (PRP) technologies, which includes experimental research on novel formulations, the creation of combination therapies, and the exploration of potential modifiers of PRPs, as well as efficacy of PRP therapies in clinical veterinary and human applications. Scientist and clinicians are now starting to develop different treatments based on their reinterpretation of the traditional roles of platelets and plasma, and the current Issue has provided a forum for sharing research and ways of understanding the associated medicinal benefits from different points of view. The research interest in this area has covered different medical disciplines, such as ophthalmology, dentistry, orthopedics, and sports medicine.

Rivers are an excellent witness of the dynamics affecting Earth’s surface due to their sedimentary products and morphological expression, which may be considered as fluvial archives. Until now, the focus has been on evaluating the general impact of individual external factors. However, the importance of the specific environmental characteristics of these factors has become increasingly recognized, as highlighted in recent case studies. For example, the effects of regional climate, differentiated topography and vegetation, and frozen ground appear to play an essential role in the evolution of the fluvial system. Integration of such environmental conditions in the processes that were active within the complex fluvial system will open new perspectives in our progressive understanding of the evolution of landscape form, ecology, sediment fluxes, and hydrology of the system within the framework of the external drivers such as tectonics, general climate, and human activity. This is an appealing challenge that we wish to address in the present Special Issue under the aegis of the Fluvial Archives Group (FLAG).

Dual specificity phosphatases (DUSPs) constitute a heterogeneous group of protein tyrosine phosphatases with the ability to dephosphorylate Ser/Thr and Tyr residues from proteins, as well as from other non-proteinaceous substrates including signaling lipids. DUSPs include, among others, MAP kinase (MAPK) phosphatases (MKPs) and small-size atypical DUSPs. MKPs are enzymes specialized in regulating the activity and subcellular location of MAPKs, whereas the function of small-size atypical DUSPs seems to be more diverse. DUSPs have emerged as key players in the regulation of cell growth, differentiation, stress response, and apoptosis. DUSPs regulate essential physiological processes, including immunity, neurobiology and metabolic homeostasis, and have been implicated in tumorigenesis, pathological inflammation and metabolic disorders. Accordingly, alterations in the expression or function of MKPs and small-size atypical DUSPs have consequences essential to human disease, making these enzymes potential biological markers and therapeutic targets. This Special Issue covers recent advances in the molecular mechanisms and biological functions of MKPs and small-size atypical DUSPs, and their relevance in human disease.

Acquiring knowledge is a life-long process; we constantly need to keep abreast of developments and progress in science and other disciplines. Embracing a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) means practicing constant self-reflection, involving evaluation of the academic career and the ways in which strategies are designed to examine, interpret, and share learning about teaching. This practice not only yields benefits to the lecturer but also enriches the scholarly community in the discipline. In general, SoTL is regarded as a vibrant practice of ongoing self-criticism and sharing, which results in accumulated teaching experiences for teachers, students, and the teaching community at large.This book is a contribution from authors sharing their experiences, how their teaching portfolios reflect their personal development as teachers, and how their teaching experiences are embedded in the scholarship of teaching and learning.

The combination of distinct materials is a key issue in modern industry, whereas the driving concept is to design parts with the right material in the right place. In this framework, a great deal of attention is directed towards dissimilar welding and joining technologies. In the automotive sector, for instance, the concept of “tailored blanks”, introduced in the last decade, has further highlighted the necessity to weld dissimilar materials. As far as the aeronautic field is concerned, most structures are built combining very different materials and alloys, in order to match lightweight and structural performance requirements. In this framework, the application of fusion welding techniques, namely, tungsten inert gas or laser welding, is quite challenging due to the difference in physical properties, in particular the melting point, between adjoining materials. On the other hand, solid-state welding methods, such as the friction stir welding as well as linear friction welding processes, have already proved to be capable of manufacturing sound Al-Cu, Al-Ti, Al-SS, and Al-Mg joints, to cite but a few. Recently, promising results have also been obtained using hybrid methods. Considering the novelty of the topic, many relevant issues are still open, and many research groups are continuously publishing valuable results. The aim of this book is to finalize the latest contributions on this topic.

The practical importance of economic valuation information can hardly be overstated. Coastal and marine resource policy planning and management benefit from complete information on the impact of policy decisions.  In addition, proper accounting of the impacts of these policy decisions is necessary for benefit-cost analyses and measurements of economic growth over time. This special issue focuses on economic valuation of coastal and marine ecosystem services. Economic valuation provides methods and techniques to determine how changes in coastal and marine ecosystem services can be translated into benefits and costs to society. Economic values play an important role in everyday life and provide useful information about human welfare and happiness. Valuation provides a consistent framework to understand human-nature interactions across a broad range of coastal and marine resources, and to evaluate the costs and benefits of these interactions. The focus on ecosystem services provides new research on this perspective of human-nature interactions that has profoundly changed the academic dialogue on natural systems, but has had limited impact on public dialogue and the policy process.

A screenshot of some the most rapidly evolving fields in Neonatology and Pediatrics with articles reviewing some metabolic dysregulations as well as non-oncologic diseases that may occur in infancy, childhood, youth. The illustrative material with original photographs and drawings highlighting some pathogenetic concepts are keystones of this book.

This book comprises ten articles covering different aspects of power quality issues in microgrids and distributed generation (DG) systems, including 1) Detection and estimation of power quality; 2) Modeling; 3) Harmonic control for DG systems and microgrids; 4) Stability improvements for microgrids. Different power quality phenomena and solution were studied in the included papers, such as harmonics, resonance, frequency deviation, voltage sag, and fluctuation. From a network point of view, some papers studied the harmonic and stability issues in standalone microgrids which are more likely to cause power quality problems. Other papers discussed the power quality problems in microgrids which are weakly interconnected with the main distribution grid. In view of the published papers, there is a trend that increasingly advanced modeling, analysis, and control schemes were applied in the studies. Moreover, the latest works focus not only on single-unit problems but also multiple units or network issues. Although some of the hot topics are not included, this book covers multiple aspects of the current power quality research frontier, and represents a particularly useful reference book for frontier researchers in this field.