Böcker utgivna av Mdpi AG

Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine is a rapidly evolving research field which effectively combines stem cells and biologic scaffolds in order to replace damaged tissues. Biologic scaffolds can be produced through the removal of resident cellular populations using several tissue engineering approaches, such as the decellularization method. Indeed, the decellularization method aims to develop a cell-free biologic scaffold while keeping the extracellular matrix (ECM) intact. Furthermore, biologic scaffolds have been investigated for their in vitro potential for whole organ development. Currently, clinical products composed of decellularized matrices, such as pericardium, urinary bladder, small intestine, heart valves, nerve conduits, trachea, and vessels, are being evaluated for use in human clinical trials. Tissue engineering strategies require the interaction of biologic scaffolds with cellular populations. Among them, stem cells are characterized by unlimited cell division, self-renewal, and differentiation potential, distinguishing themselves as a frontline source for the repopulation of decellularized matrices and scaffolds. Under this scheme, stem cells can be isolated from patients, expanded under good manufacturing practices (GMPs), used for the repopulation of biologic scaffolds and, finally, returned to the patient. The interaction between scaffolds and stem cells is thought to be crucial for their infiltration, adhesion, and differentiation into specific cell types. In addition, biomedical devices such as bioreactors contribute to the uniform repopulation of scaffolds. Until now, remarkable efforts have been made by the scientific society in order to establish the proper repopulation conditions of decellularized matrices and scaffolds. However, parameters such as stem cell number, in vitro cultivation conditions, and specific growth media composition need further evaluation. The ultimate goal is the development of “artificial” tissues similar to native ones, which is achieved by properly combining stem cells and biologic scaffolds and thus bringing them one step closer to personalized medicine. The original research articles and comprehensive reviews in this Special Issue deal with the use of stem cells and biologic scaffolds that utilize state-of-the-art tissue engineering and regenerative medicine approaches.

Ultrasound medical imaging stands out among the other diagnostic imaging modalities for its patient-friendliness, high temporal resolution, low cost, and absence of ionizing radiation. On the other hand, it may still suffer from limited detail level, low signal-to-noise ratio, and narrow field-of-view. In the last decade, new beamforming and image reconstruction techniques have emerged which aim at improving resolution, contrast, and clutter suppression, especially in difficult-to-image patients. Nevertheless, achieving a higher image quality is of the utmost importance in diagnostic ultrasound medical imaging, and further developments are still indispensable. From this point of view, a crucial role can be played by novel beamforming techniques as well as by non-conventional image formation techniques (e.g., advanced transmission strategies, and compounding, coded, and harmonic imaging). This Special Issue includes novel contributions on both ultrasound beamforming and image formation techniques, particularly addressed at improving B-mode image quality and related diagnostic content. This indeed represents a hot topic in the ultrasound imaging community, and further active research in this field is expected, where many challenges still persist.

Growing evidence shows that a dietary pattern inspired by Mediterranean dietprinciples is associated with numerous health benefits. A Mediterranean-typediet has been demonstrated to exert a preventive effect toward cardiovasculardiseases, in both Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean populations. Part ofthese properties may depend on a positive action toward healthier metabolism,decreasing the risk of diabetes and metabolic-syndrome-related conditions.Some studies also suggested a potential role in preventing certain cancers. Finally,newer research has showed that a higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet isassociated with a lower risk of cognitive decline, depression, and other mentaldisorders. Overall, a better understanding of the key elements of this dietarypattern, the underlying mechanisms, and targets, are needed to corroboratecurrent evidence and provide insights on new and potential outcomes.ThisSpecial Issue welcomes original research and reviews of literature concerningthe Mediterranean diet and various health outcomes:Observational studies onestablished nutritional cohorts (preferred), case-control studies, or populationsample on the association with non-communicable diseases;Level of evidenceon the association with human health, including systematic reviews and metaanalyses;Evaluation of application of Mediterranean diet principles in non-Mediterranean countries;Description of mechanisms of action, pathways, andtargets at the molecular level, including interaction with gut microbiota.

Some of the most pressing contemporary issues (ecological crisis, migration and integration, fragmented worldviews, social media, fake news, extremist politics and terrorism) can be understood more profoundly through how they interact with both individual and collective forces of nostalgia. Nostalgia is politics, but these politics are also interwoven with media and culture. Notwithstanding how nostalgia is used or contextualized in terms of politics and social practices, commodification or personal development, its power is primarily situated within its efficacy as a governing, influential human emotion. The vast and luminous contributions to this special issue on contemporary nostalgia are all investigating the role different aesthetic media formats (film, music, literature, computer games) plays in nostalgic negotiations with style, history, migration, love, nationalism, diaspora, irony, modernity, colonial and postcolonial discourses, and adoption. Mutually, these essays stand out as important, original, critical contributions to the expanding field of nostalgia studies and offer a valued insight on our world.

Recently, new wide-band energy gap semiconductors can be grown by ALD, PLD, sputtering, or MOCVD. They have great potential for the fabrication and application to TFTs. Inorganic semiconductors have good stability against environmental degradation over their organic counterparts, whereas organic materials are usually flexible, transparent, and when solution-processed at low temperatures, are prone to degradation when exposed to heat, moisture, and oxygen.For this Special Issue, we invited researchers to submit papers discussing the development of new functional and smart materials, and inorganic as well as organic semiconductor materials, such as ZnO, InZnO, GaO, AlGaO, AnGaO, AlN/GaN, conducting polymers, molecular semiconductors, perovskite-based materials, carbon nanotubes, carbon nanotubes/polymer composites, and 2D materials (e.g., graphene, MoS2) and their potential applications in display drivers, radio frequency identification tags, e-paper, gas, chemical and biosensors, to name but a few.

This book is made up of contributions dealing with heritage stones from different countries around the world. The stones are described, as well as their use in vernacular and contemporaneous architecture. Heritage stones are those stones that have special significance in human culture. Examples include some very important stones that have been either neglected because they are no longer extracted, or stones that have great significance in commercial terms but knowledge of their national and/or international heritage has not been well documented. In this collection of articles, we have tried to spread awareness of architectural heritage around the world, the natural stones that have been used in its construction, and the need to preserve historical quarries that once provided the source of such stones. Historical quarries are linked to regional culture and tradition. Because of the specific technical and aesthetical characteristics of heritage stones, which have lasted for centuries, these historical quarries should be preserved to be able to use the stones for the proper restoration of monuments and historical buildings to avoid negative actions that can be observed in many places in the restoration of buildings, which are some times part of World Heritage sites. The final intention of this book is to continuosly grow the interest on this fascinating subject of heritage stones.

Since process models are nowadays ubiquitous in many applications, the challenges and alternatives related to their development, validation, and efficient use have become more apparent. In addition, the massive amounts of both offline and online data available today open the door for new applications and solutions. However, transforming data into useful models and information in the context of the process industry or of bio-systems requires specific approaches and considerations such as new modelling methodologies incorporating the complex, stochastic, hybrid and distributed nature of many processes in particular. The same can be said about the tools and software environments used to describe, code, and solve such models for their further exploitation. Going well beyond mere simulation tools, these advanced tools offer a software suite built around the models, facilitating tasks such as experiment design, parameter estimation, model initialization, validation, analysis, size reduction, discretization, optimization, distributed computation, co-simulation, etc. This Special Issue collects novel developments in these topics in order to address the challenges brought by the use of models in their different facets, and to reflect state of the art developments in methods, tools and industrial applications.

After the successful conclusion of the Joint Meeting of IUFRO’s 7.03.05 & 7.03.10 working parties and given the exciting and novel studies that have been presented in the framework of this meeting, we decided to present some of these studies in the current Special Issue of Forests. To make this issue more appealing and interesting to everyone in the field of Forest Protection, studies that cover a wide range of topics were selected, ranging from ecology and phylogeography to forest management and protection. More importantly, as these studies refer to pests and pathogens from different parts of the world, it is expected that the knowledge gained can be further used in the protection of natural environment worldwide.

Cancer remains one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although many pharmacological and clinical advances have been made, there is a constant need for new molecules to improve the overall options for treatment. Natural compounds from animal, microbial, vegetal, or fungal origin represent countless sources of new compounds that can be used as anticancer drugs, provided their activity, bioavailability, and toxicity are adequate. This book aims to compile both original articles and reviews that cover the most recent advances in the use of natural compounds for cancer treatment, and provide new objectives and advice for future research in the field of biological activity of natural compounds.

The need to reduce the ecological footprint of water/land/air vehicles in this era of climate change requires pushing the limits regarding the development of lightweight structures and materials. This requires a thorough understanding of their thermomechanical behavior at several stages of the production chain. Moreover, during service, the response of lightweight alloys under the simultaneous influence of mechanical loads and temperature can determine the lifetime and performance of a multitude of structural components.The present Special Issue, comprising eight original research articles, is dedicated to disseminating current efforts around the globe aimed at advancing understanding of the thermomechanical behavior of structural lightweight alloys under processing or service conditions.

For at least six hundred million years, life has been a fascinating laboratory of crystallization, referred to as biomineralization. During this huge lapse of time, many organisms from diverse phyla have developed the capability to precipitate various types of minerals, exploring distinctive pathways for building sophisticated structural architectures for different purposes. The Darwinian exploration was performed by trial and error, but the success in terms of complexity and efficiency is evident. Understanding the strategies that those organisms employ for regulating the nucleation, growth, and assembly of nanocrystals to build these sophisticated devices is an intellectual challenge and a source of inspiration in fields as diverse as materials science, nanotechnology, and biomedicine. However, “Biological Crystallization” is a broader topic that includes biomineralization, but also the laboratory crystallization of biological compounds such as macromolecules, carbohydrates, or lipids, and the synthesis and fabrication of biomimetic materials by different routes. This Special Issue collects 15 contributions ranging from biological and biomimetic crystallization of calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, and silica-carbonate self-assembled materials to the crystallization of biological macromolecules. Special attention has been paid to the fundamental phenomena of crystallization (nucleation and growth), and the applications of the crystals in biomedicine, environment, and materials science.

The representation of the Earth's surface in global monitoring and forecasting applications is moving towards capturing more of the relevant processes, while maintaining elevated computational efficiency and therefore a moderate complexity. These schemes are developed and continuously improved thanks to well instrumented field-sites that can observe coupled processes occurring at the surface–atmosphere interface (e.g., forest, grassland, cropland areas and diverse climate zones). Approaching global kilometer-scale resolutions, in situ observations alone cannot fulfil the modelling needs, and the use of satellite observation becomes essential to guide modelling innovation and to calibrate and validate new parameterization schemes that can support data assimilation applications. In this book, we review some of the recent contributions, highlighting how satellite data are used to inform Earth surface model development (vegetation state and seasonality, soil moisture conditions, surface temperature and turbulent fluxes, land-use change detection, agricultural indicators and irrigation) when moving towards global km-scale resolutions.

Loyalty is one of the main assets of a brand. In today’s markets, achieving and maintaining loyal customers has become an increasingly complex challenge for brands due to the widespread acceptance and adoption of diverse technologies by which customers communicate with brands. Customers use different channels (physical, web, apps, social media) to seek information about a brand, communicate with it, chat about the brand and purchase its products. Firms are thus continuously changing and adapting their processes to provide customers with agile communication channels and coherent, integrated brand experiences through the different channels in which customers are present. In this context, understanding how brand management can improve value co-creation and multichannel experience—among other issues—and contribute to improving a brand’s portfolio of loyal customers constitutes an area of special interest for academics and marketing professionals. This Special Issue explores new areas of customer loyalty and brand management, providing new insights into the field. Both concepts have evolved over the last decade to encompass such concepts and practices as brand image, experiences, multichannel context, multimedia platforms and value co-creation, as well as relational variables such as trust, engagement and identification (among others).

Beer is a beverage with more than 8000 years of history, and the process of brewing has not changed much over the centuries. However, important technical advances have allowed us to produce beer in a more sophisticated and efficient way. The proliferation of specialty hop varieties has been behind the popularity of craft beers seen in the past few years around the world. Craft brewers interpret historic beer with unique styles. Craft beers are undergoing an unprecedented period of growth, and more than 150 beer styles are currently recognized.

This Special Issue contains selected papers from works presented at the 8th EASN–CEAS (European Aeronautics Science Network–Council of European Aerospace Societies) Workshop on Manufacturing for Growth and Innovation, which was held in Glasgow, UK, 4–7 September 2018. About 150 participants contributed to a high-level scientific gathering providing some of the latest research results on the topic, as well as some of the latest relevant technological advancements. Νine interesting articles, which cover a wide range of topics including characterization, analysis and design, as well as numerical simulation, are contained in this Special Issue.

This book will provide the most recent knowledge and advances in Sample Preparation Techniques for Separation Science. Everyone working in a laboratory must be familiar with the basis of these technologies, and they often involve elaborate and time-consuming procedures that can take up to 80% of the total analysis time. Sample preparation is an essential step in most of the analytical methods for environmental and biomedical analysis, since the target analytes are often not detected in their in-situ forms, or the results are distorted by interfering species. In the past decade, modern sample preparation techniques have aimed to comply with green analytical chemistry principles, leading to simplification, miniaturization, easy manipulation of the analytical devices, low costs, strong reduction or absence of toxic organic solvents, as well as low sample volume requirements.Modern Sample Preparation Approaches for Separation Science also provides an invaluable reference tool for analytical chemists in the chemical, biological, pharmaceutical, environmental, and forensic sciences.

Several species of Dinophysis produce one or two groups of lipophilic toxins: okadaic acid (OA) and its derivatives; or the dinophysistoxins (DTXs) (also known as diarrhetic shellfish poisons or DSP toxins) and pectenotoxins (PTXs). DSP toxins are potent inhibitors of protein phosphatases, causing gastrointestinal intoxication in consumers of contaminated seafood. Forty years after the identification of Dinophysis as the causative agent of DSP in Japan, contamination of filter feeding shellfish exposed to Dinophysis blooms is recognized as a problem worldwide. DSP events affect public health and cause considerable losses to the shellfish industry. Costly monitoring programs are implemented in regions with relevant shellfish production to prevent these socioeconomic impacts. Harvest closures are enforced whenever toxin levels exceed regulatory limits (RLs). Dinophysis species are kleptoplastidic dinoflagellates; they feed on ciliates (Mesodinium genus) that have previously acquired plastids from cryptophycean (genera Teleaulax, Plagioselmis, and Geminigera) nanoflagellates. The interactions of Dinophysis with different prey regulate their growth and toxin production. When Dinophysis cells are ingested by shellfish, their toxins are partially biotransformed and bioaccumulated, rendering the shellfish unsuitable for human consumption. DSP toxins may also affect shellfish metabolism. This book covers diverse aspects of the abovementioned topics—from the laboratory culture of Dinophysis and the kinetics of uptake, transformation, and depuration of DSP toxins in shellfish to Dinophysis population dynamics, the monitoring and regulation of DSP toxins, and their impact on the shellfish industry in some of the aquaculture regions that are traditionally most affected, namely, northeastern Japan, western Europe, southern Chile, and New Zealand.

With the recent advances in remote sensing technologies for Earth observation, many different remote sensors are collecting data with distinctive properties. The obtained data are so large and complex that analyzing them manually becomes impractical or even impossible. Therefore, understanding remote sensing images effectively, in connection with physics, has been the primary concern of the remote sensing research community in recent years. For this purpose, machine learning is thought to be a promising technique because it can make the system learn to improve itself. With this distinctive characteristic, the algorithms will be more adaptive, automatic, and intelligent. This book introduces some of the most challenging issues of machine learning in the field of remote sensing, and the latest advanced technologies developed for different applications. It integrates with multi-source/multi-temporal/multi-scale data, and mainly focuses on learning to understand remote sensing images. Particularly, it presents many more effective techniques based on the popular concepts of deep learning and big data to reach new heights of data understanding. Through reporting recent advances in the machine learning approaches towards analyzing and understanding remote sensing images, this book can help readers become more familiar with knowledge frontier and foster an increased interest in this field.

This collection represents successful invited submissions from the papers presented at the 8th Annual Conference of Energy Economics and Management held in Beijing, China, 22–24 September 2017. With over 500 participants, the conference was co-hosted by the Management Science Department of National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Society of Energy Economics and Management, and Renmin University of China on the subject area of “Energy Transition of China: Opportunities and Challenges”.The major strategies to transform the energy system of China to a sustainable model include energy/economic structure adjustment, resource conservation, and technology innovation. Accordingly, the conference and its associated publications encourage research to address the major issues faced in supporting the energy transition of China.Papers published in this collection cover the broad spectrum of energy economics issues, including building energy efficiency, industrial energy demand, public policies to promote new energy technologies, power system control technology, emission reduction policies in energy-intensive industries, emission measurements of cities, energy price movement, and the impact of new energy vehicle.

This is the fourth Special Issue in Pharmaceuticals within the last six years dealing with aspects of radiopharmaceutical sciences. It demonstrates the significant interest and increasing relevance to ameliorate nuclear medicine imaging with PET or SPECT, and also radiotherapeutical procedures.Numerous targets and mechanisms have been identified and have been under investigation over the previous years, covering many fields of medical and clinical research. This development is well illustrated by the articles in the present issue, including 13 original research papers and one review, covering a broad range of actual research topics in the field of radiopharmaceutical sciences.

Fluid flow and heat transfer processes play an important role in many areas of science and engineering, from the planetary scale (e.g., influencing weather and climate) to the microscopic scales of enhancing heat transfer by the use of nanofluids; understood in the broadest possible sense, they also underpin the performance of many energy systems. This topical Special Issue of Energies is dedicated to the recent advances in this very broad field. This book will be of interest to readers not only in the fields of mechanical, aerospace, chemical, process and petroleum, energy, earth, civil ,and flow instrumentation engineering but, equally, biological and medical sciences, as well as physics and mathematics; that is, anywhere that “fluid flow and heat transfer” phenomena may play an important role or be a subject of worthy research pursuits.

Optimization is considered as a decision-making process for getting the most out of available resources for the best attainable results. Many real-world problems are multi-objective or multi-attribute problems that naturally involve several competing objectives that need to be optimized simultaneously, while respecting some constraints or involving selection among feasible discrete alternatives. In this Reprint of the Special Issue, 19 research papers co-authored by 88 researchers from 14 different countries explore aspects of multi-objective or multi-attribute modeling and optimization in crisp or uncertain environments by suggesting multiple-attribute decision-making (MADM) and multi-objective decision-making (MODM) approaches. The papers elaborate upon the approaches of state-of-the-art case studies in selected areas of applications related to sustainable development decision aiding in engineering and management, including construction, transportation, infrastructure development, production, and organization management.

It has been more than 25 years since the identification of the FMR1 gene and the demonstration of the causative role of CGG-repeat expansion in the disease pathology of fragile X syndrome (FXS), but the underlying mechanisms involved in the expansion mutation and the resulting gene silencing still remain elusive. Our understanding of the pathways impacted by the loss of FMRP function has grown tremendously, and has opened new avenues for targeted treatments for FXS. However, the failure of recent clinical trials that were based on successful preclinical studies using the Fmr1 knockout mouse model has forced the scientific community to revisit clinical trial design and identify objective outcome measures. There has also been a renewed interest in restoring FMR1 gene expression as a possible treatment approach for FXS. This special issue of Brain Sciences highlights the progress that has been made towards understanding the disease mechanisms and how this has informed the development of treatment strategies that are being explored for FXS.

During the last several decades, Earth´s climate has undergone significant changes due to anthropogenic global warming, and feedbacks to the water cycle. Therefore, persistent efforts are required to improve our understanding of hydrological processes and to engage in efficient water management strategies that explicitly consider changing environmental conditions. The twenty-four contributions in this book have broadly addressed topics across four major research areas: (1) Climate and land-use change impacts on hydrological processes, (2) hydrological trends and causality analysis faced in hydrology, (3) hydrological model simulations and predictions, and (4) reviews on water prices and climate extremes. The broad spectrum of international contributions to the Special Issue indicates that climate change impacts on water resources analysis attracts global attention. We hope that the collection of articles presented here can provide scientists, policymakers and stakeholders alike with insights that support sustainable decision-making in the face of climate change and increasingly scarce environmental resources.