Böcker utgivna av Morgan & Claypool Publishers

Examines the forces of nature, and what investigations of these forces can tell us about the world we see about us. The intention of this book is to introduce ideas of how the visible world, and those parts of it that we cannot observe, either because they are too small or too large for our scale of perception, can be understood by consideration of only a few fundamental forces.

This book is a concise introduction to the key concepts of classical field theory for beginning graduate students and advanced undergraduate students who wish to study the unifying structures and physical insights provided by classical field theory without dealing with the additional complication of quantization. In that regard, there are many important aspects of field theory that can be understood without quantizing the fields. These include the action formulation, Galilean and relativistic invariance, traveling and standing waves, spin angular momentum, gauge invariance, subsidiary conditions, fluctuations, spinor and vector fields, conservation laws and symmetries, and the Higgs mechanism, all of which are often treated briefly in a course on quantum field theory.

This book describes modern focused ion beam microscopes and techniques and how they can be used to aid materials metrology and as tools for the fabrication of devices that in turn are used in many other aspects of fundamental metrology. Beginning with a description of the currently available instruments including the new addition to the field of plasma-based sources, it then gives an overview of ion solid interactions and how the different types of instrument can be applied. Chapters then describe how these machines can be applied to the field of materials science and device fabrication giving examples of recent and current activity in both these areas.

Examines the role of two well-characterized opsonic receptors, the Fc? receptor and the complement receptor, CR3 in macrophages. In particular, it focuses on the different mechanisms employed by these receptors during particle recognition and phagocytic uptake.

Bacteria have lived in and on animal hosts since multicellular life evolved about 1 billion years ago. Hosts provide habitat and nutrition to the microbial communities and derive many benefits from their guests that contribute with metabolic (recovery of energy and nutrients), defensive (barrier effect against invaders) and trophic (immune regulation, neuro-endocrine development) functions.

Adiabatic quantum computation (AQC) is an alternative to the better-known gate model of quantum computation. This monograph presents an introductory overview of this unusual and rapidly developing approach to computation. The discussion throughout is aimed at an audience of computer scientists with little background in quantum computation or in physics.

The prohormone convertases (PC) 1/3 and 2 are calcium-activated eukaryotic subtilisins with low pH optima which accomplish the limited proteolysis of peptide hormone precursors within neurons and endocrine cells. This title reviews the biochemistry, regulation, and roles of PC1/3 and 2 in disease, with an emphasis on the work published in the last 10 years.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) influence various physiological processes including host defense, hormone biosynthesis, and cellular signaling. Increased ROS production (oxidative stress) is implicated in many diseases of the cardiovascular system, including hypertension, atherosclerosis, cardiac failure, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease.

The corpus callosum is the largest fibre tract in the human brain and subserves many of the brain's higher-order functions. Disconnection syndromes resulting from surgical ablation, developmental absence (agenesis of the corpus callosum), disease, or injury of the corpus callosum can have profound consequences on cognition.

Describes the important role of the immune system, including microglia, during brain development, and discusses some of the many ways in which immune activation during early brain development can affect the later-life outcomes of neural function, immune function, and cognition.

Highlights the important role that HO enzymes and their related metabolites, bilirubin and CO, play in the regulation of renal function and in the response of the kidney to both acute and chronic pathologies.

In the intestine, a unique immunological system that is different from the systemic immune system exists to provide adaptive immunity in response to luminal bacteria and dietary antigens. There are many lymphoid cell aggregates called gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) including Peyer's patches (PPs), which function as important induction sites for the mucosal immune response.

Describes the development of placodes and their derivatives and summarizes recent advances in the characterization of the repertoire of transcription factors underlying their development. The text also reviews recent studies that have started to address the role of several classes of signalling molecules in placode induction and segregation.

Provides an overview of fundamental aspects of oocyte and early embryonic development and the interference and genetic approaches that have provided access to maternally regulated aspects of vertebrate development. Some of the pathways and molecules highlighted in this review are well known and are essential regulators of multiple aspects of animal development.

The microcirculation of the gastrointestinal tract is under the control of both myogenic and metabolic regulatory systems. The myogenic mechanism contributes to basal vascular tone and the regulation of transmural pressure, while the metabolic mechanism is responsible for maintaining an appropriate balance between O2 demand and O2 delivery.

Histologically, muscle is conveniently divided into two groups, striated and nonstriated, based on whether the cells exhibit cross-striations in the light microscope. Smooth muscle is involuntary: its contraction is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. Striated muscle includes both cardiac (involuntary) and skeletal (voluntary).

Reviews the evidence supporting the concept that intrinsic cell survival programmes can be activated by a variety of mildly noxious stimuli or pharmacologic agents to confer protection against the deleterious effects of ischemia/reperfusion.

Vascular smooth muscle (VSM) constitutes most of the tunica media in blood vessels and plays an important role in the control of vascular tone. Ca2+ is a major regulator of VSM contraction and is strictly regulated by an intricate system of Ca2+ mobilization and Ca2+ homeostatic mechanisms.

In this book, Clarisse de Souza and Carla Leitao discuss how the semiotic inspection method and communicability evaluation method, which are both qualitative methods, can also be used in scientific contexts to generate new knowledge about HCI. The discussion goes into deep considerations about scientific methodology, calling the reader's attention to the essence of qualitative methods in research.

Pattern formation has fascinated biologists since the time of Aristotle, but only recently have new tools begun to reveal the underlying mechanisms that create these patterns during development. This title focuses on pattern formation in the developing cerebellum.