Bücher veröffentlicht von IntechOpen

Autonomous vehicles, despite their relatively short history, have already found practical application in many areas of human activity. Such vehicles are usually replacing people in performing tasks that require long operating time and are held in inaccessible or hazardous environments. Nevertheless, autonomous robotics is probably the area that is being developed the most because of the great demand for such devices in different areas of our lives. This book is a collection of experiences shared by scientists from different parts of the world doing researches and daily exploiting autonomous systems. Giving this book in the hands of the reader, we hope that it will be a treasure trove of knowledge and inspiration for further research in the field of autonomous vehicles.

This book is a comprehensive overview of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). MDS are a heterogeneous group of clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorders characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis, peripheral cytopenias, frequent karyotypic abnormalities, and risk of transformation to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Median age of patients with MDS is about 70 years. Various immune abnormalities occur in MDS patients, and the relationship between autoimmune disorders and MDS is described. Accurate prognostication and risk stratification for individual patients with MDS are important for clinical treatment decisions. Patients with MDS are classified into two broad prognostic categories: lower risk and higher risk. The approval of lenalidomide, azacitidine, and decitabine in last 10 years helped to diminish the clinical impact of MDS and delayed its progression to AML.

This book collects recent results about research activities on zeolites, from synthesis to application. It is composed of two sections. The first is devoted to articles and brief review articles on the synthesis of zeolite from fly ash and final application of these newly formed minerals to solve environmental problems. The second part of the book provides useful information on different applications both of natural and synthetic zeolites ranging from environmental pollution to industrial and commercial applications. The performance of zeolite molecular sieves, hollow titanium zeolites and luminescent zeolites is interesting considering the new frontiers reached by the research on zeolites.This book is a useful instrument for researchers, teachers and students who are interested in investigating innovative aspects of the studies on zeolite.

The aim of this book has been to explore the variety of phenomena associated with the major forms of the material, while laying the foundation for a clear and detailed working and understanding of the materials. We tried to present new types of advanced materials, which are currently a hot topic, and provide readers with a selective review of important improvements in the field. I believe that every chapter in this book presents the progress in the subject and describes the latest advances in microporous and mesoporous materials.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), despite a long and troubled history, is very rapidly evolving into a therapy that can be safely and effectively applied across the world in patients experiencing acute cardiac and/or pulmonary failure. As experiences grow, there is a better understanding of nuances of the importance of teamwork, therapy guidelines and protocols, patient selection, and understanding the functional aspects of pump-circuit technology as it interfaces with human biology. The challenges in managing these very sick and complex patients cannot be understated. The goal of this text is to provide a framework for the development and successful growth of a program. Authors from Centers of Excellence Worldwide have shared their experiences in the full spectrum in dealing with this evolving field.

Nowadays mathematical modeling and numerical simulations play an important role in life and natural science. Numerous researchers are working in developing different methods and techniques to help understand the behavior of very complex systems, from the brain activity with real importance in medicine to the turbulent flows with important applications in physics and engineering. This book presents an overview of some models, methods, and numerical computations that are useful for the applied research scientists and mathematicians, fluid tech engineers, and postgraduate students.

This book highlights the impact of genital tract infections on female infertility, male infertility, and even veterinary infertility. A comprehensive source on genital infections essential for all infertility specialists is now at your hands.

Flow cytometry - Select Topics is a collection of chapters that illustrate the constantly evolving application of flow cytometry to diverse areas of research or clinical investigations. It includes chapters on the utilization of flow cytometry in the fields of human reproduction and fertility, platelet function, apoptosis, inflammation research, leukemia immunophenotyping, and transplantation.

Plant genomics aims to sequence, characterize, and study the genetic compositions, structures, organizations, functions, and interactions/networks of an entire plant genome. Its development and advances are tightly interconnected with proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, transgenomics, genomic selection, bioinformatics, epigenomics, phenomics, system biology, modern instrumentation, and robotics sciences. Plant genomics has significantly advanced over the past three decades in the land of inexpensive, high-throughput sequencing technologies and fully sequenced over 100 plant genomes. These advances have broad implications in every aspect of plant biology and breeding, powered with novel genomic selection and manipulation tools while generating many grand challenges and tasks ahead. This Plant genomics provides some updated discussions on current advances, challenges, and future perspectives of plant genome studies and applications.

This book shows the recent advances of the applications of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), in particular, the polymer functionalized carbon nanotubes. It also includes a comprehensive description of carbon nanotubes' preparation, properties, and characterization. Therefore, we have attempted to provide detailed information about the polymer-carbon nanotube composites. With regard to the unique structure and properties of carbon nanotubes, a series of important findings have been reported. The unique properties of carbon nanotubes, including thermal, mechanical, and electrical properties, after polymer functionalization have been documented in detail.This book comprises 18 chapters. The chapters include different applications of polymer functionalization CNTs, e.g. photovoltaic, biomedical, drug delivery, gene delivery, stem cell therapy, thermal therapy, biological detection and imaging, electroanalytical, energy, supercapacitor, and gas sensor applications.

This book, Organic Fertilizers - From Basic Concepts to Applied Outcomes, is intended to provide an overview of emerging researchable issues related to the use of organic fertilizers that highlight recent research activities in applied organic fertilizers toward a sustainable agriculture and environment. We aimed to compile information from a diversity of sources into a single volume to give some real examples extending the concepts in organic fertilizers that may stimulate new research ideas and trends in the relevant fields.

In the book Microbial Biofilms: Importance and applications, eminent scientists provide an up-to-date review of the present and future trends on biofilm-related research. This book is divided with four subdivisions as biofilm fundamentals, applications, health aspects, and their control. Moreover, this book also provides a comprehensive account on microbial interactions in biofilms, pyocyanin, and extracellular DNA in facilitating Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation, atomic force microscopic studies of biofilms, and biofilms in beverage industry. The book comprises a total of 21 chapters from valued contributions from world leading experts in Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Serbia, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, and Turkey. This book may be used as a text or reference for everyone interested in biofilms and their applications. It is also highly recommended for environmental microbiologists, soil scientists, medical microbiologists, bioremediation experts, and microbiologists working in biocorrosion, biofouling, biodegradation, water microbiology, quorum sensing, and many other related areas. Scientists in academia, research laboratories, and industry will also find it of interest.

Assessing and improving nuclear material performance is a crucial subject for the sustainability of the nuclear energy and radioactive isotope supplies. This book aims to present research efforts used to identify nuclear materials performances in different areas. The contributions of esteemed international experts have covered important research aspects in fission and fusion technologies and naturally occurring radioactive materials management. The authors introduced current and anticipated trends toward better performances and mitigating challenges for commercial application of innovative technologies, biological remediation of mine effluents, nuclear fuel performance in power and research fission reactors, gamma ray spectrometer calibration, and recent advances in understanding the performance of tungsten composite in fusion reactor environment.

Beekeeping and Bee Conservation - Advances in Research presents currentissues in the field of bees in multiple contexts and ties together experimentsconducted by some of the world's most renowned researchers. The authors'point-of-view and own research results are described in a clear and objective way,which is very useful for beginners in the study of the subject and is likewise valuablefor the more experienced on the subject, who may find new hypotheses to betested and broaden their future prospects in the field. The book is wide in scope,focusing largely on Apis mellifera. Topics range from genetics, to pollination studies,to the conservation of bees. It includes a chapter dedicated to stingless beesand another for bumble bees.

The present text book contains a collection of six high-quality articles. In particular, this book is devoted to Linear Mathematics by presenting problems in Applied Linear Algebra of general or special interest.

This book is specially written for researchers at various levels, for example, in forestry, agriculture, industry, university and college laboratories. It describes the fungal pathogenicity; resistance behavior of fungal biofilms and its mechanisms; different categories of fungal infection and colonization patterns with example relevant to soybean; characteristics of white rob of corncob and head smut of maize such as cycle, pathogenicity factors, control methods, the abilities of chitosan and its derivatives to elicit resistance reactions in plants and its action in the production and viability of fungal spores; and the mode of actions of single constituents of different essential oils depending on different case studies. In addition, this book also describes the importance of synthetic peptides as an alternative tool for the diagnosis of cryptococcosis. Finally, a survey of fungal diseases occurring on trees of Namibia is described. This survey is the first dedicated step to find ways of protecting them from disease-causing agents.

This book, Environmental Health Risk - Hazardous Factors to Living Species, is intended to provide a set of practical discussions and relevant tools for making risky decisions that require actions to reduce environmental health risk against environmental factors that may adversely impact human health or ecological balances. We aimed to compile information from diverse sources into a single volume to give some real examples extending concepts of those hazardous factors to living species that may stimulate new research ideas and trends in the relevant fields.

Non-woven Fabrics is differentiated text which covers overall stream from raw fibers to final products and includes features of manufacturing and finish process with specialized application end use. Application range of non-woven fabrics is extended to all the industrial fields needless to say apparel, such as ICT (information and communication technology), bio- and medicals, automobiles, architectures, construction and environmental. Every chapter is related to the important and convergent fields with the technical application purpose from downstream to upstream fields. Also, applicability of non-woven fabrics is introduced to be based on the structural analysis of dimensional concept and various non-woven fabrics as a state-of-art embedded convergent material are emphasized in all industry fields by using nanofibers and carbon fibers.

Site-specific endonucleases create double-strand breaks within the genome and can be targeted to literally any genetic mutation. Together with a repair template, a correction of the defective locus becomes possible. This book offers insight into the modern tools of genome editing, their hurdles and their huge potential. A new era of in vivo genetic engineering has begun.

This book presents the state-of-the-art results of characterization of clays, clay minerals and ceramic materials based on clay minerals. The main goal of this work is to contribute to the rationalization of some important results obtained in the open area of clays and clay materials characterization. Moreover, this book also provides a comprehensive account on polymer and biopolymer-clay nanocomposites, use of clay as adsorption materials for industrial pollutants, ceramic materials in cultural heritage and physical-chemistry aspects of clay and clay minerals aqueous dispersions. This book will be beneficial for students, teachers and researchers of many areas who are interested to expand their knowledge about clays and its derivates in the fields of Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Environmental Science, Industrial Remediation, Cultural Heritage, etc.

The book summarizes the current state of the know-how in the field of perovskite materials: synthesis, characterization, properties, and applications. Most chapters include a review on the actual knowledge and cutting-edge research results. Thus, this book is an essential source of reference for scientists with research fields in energy, physics, chemistry and materials. It is also a suitable reading material for graduate students.

This book contains 20 chapters, which are divided into 5 sections. Section 1 covers different aspects of insecticide resistance of selected economically important plant insect pests, whereas section 2 includes chapters about the importance, development and insecticide resistance management in controlling malaria vectors. Section 3 is dedicated to some general questions in insecticide resistance, while the main topic of section 4 is biochemical approaches of insecticide resistance mechanisms. Section 5 covers ecologically acceptable approaches for overcoming insecticide resistance, such are the use of mycoinsecticides, and understanding the role of some plant chemical compounds, which are important in interactions between plants, their pests and biological control agents.

This book is aimed at giving an overview of the field of arthroplasty and covers arthroplasty of several regions starting from the cervical spine to the ankle. While the current trend is focusing on one particular joint, sometimes having an understanding of the entire subject and cross learning from various subspecialties play a key role in evolving the science. The book is precisely meant to do that, exposing the readers to various types of arthroplasties. It also touches on failures and complications like infections to ensure that the subject is dealt with in a comprehensive manner. Radiology and investigations form an important element for successful outcomes and so does being informed about the newer developments in the field. The chapters on 3D printing and PRP ensure that the all the subjects from the very basic to what can be expected on the horizon are well covered.

Todays chemical industry processes worldwide largely depend on catalytic reactions and the desirable future evolution of this industry toward more selective products, more environmentally friendly products, more energy-efficient processes, a smaller use of hazardous reagents, and a better use of raw materials also largely involves the development of better catalysts and, specifically, purposely designed catalytic materials. The careful study and development of the new-generation catalysts involve relatively large groups of specialists in universities, research centers, and industries, joining forces from different scientific and technical disciplines. This book has put together recent, state-of-the-art topics on current trends in catalytic materials and consists of 16 chapters.

With the explosion of information traffic, the role of optical amplifiers becomes very significant in fulfilling the demand of faster optical signals and data processing in the field of communication. This book covers different advanced functionalities of optical amplifiers as well as their emerging applications in optical communication networks. The first chapter deals with an efficient and validated time-domain numerical modelling of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) and SOA-based circuits, while the second chapter is based on the working of gallium nitride-based semiconductor optical amplifiers. The role of SOAs for the next generation of high-data-rate optical packet-switched network is presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 covers the all-optical semiconductor optical amplifier based on quantum dots (QD-SOA) and its function as an arithmetic processor. In Chapter 5, the authors have presented the role of SOAs in intensity modulation of the optical pulses and their use in deterministic timing jitter and peak pulse power equalization analysis. In Chapter 6, the investigation of broadband S-band to L-band erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) module is presented, and Chapter 7 includes the optimized design technique of Yb3+/Er3+-codoped phosphate microring resonator amplifiers.All selected chapters are very interesting and well organized, and I hope they will be of great value to postgraduate students, researchers, academics and anyone seeking to understand the advanced functionalities of optical amplifiers in the present scenario.

Geothermal energy means the natural heat energy from the Earth. The geothermal resources of the Earth are huge and unlike other conventional and renewable energy sources, geothermal energy has unique features; namely, it is available, stable at all times throughout the year, independent of weather conditions, and has an inherent storage capability. Geothermal energy is also considered to be an environmentally friendly clean energy source that could significantly contribute to the reduction of GHG emissions. The utilization of geothermal energy is usually divided into the part used for electricity generation and the part used for heating applications. Due to its important utilization and future prospects, various interesting topics of research related to geothermal energy are covered in this book. This book is the result of contributions from several researchers and experts worldwide. It is hoped that the book will become a useful source of information and basis for extended research for researchers, academics, policy makers, and practitioners in the area of geothermal energy.

This edition is intended to provide better understanding of antibacterial drugs and their mechanism, the role of a few metal drug complexes as antibacterials, cross-checking of a few compounds and biomaterials against drug-resistant bacterial strains as well as a few alternative approaches using medicinal plant based formulations in the control of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The information in this book provides clues for upcoming trends in treating antibiotic resistance problems with which one can explore new approaches in the treatment of common infections with drug-resistant strains.

This book is a collection of selected and relevant research, concerning the developments within the Cell Death field of study. Each contribution comes as a separate chapter complete in itself but directly related to the books topics and objectives. The target audience comprises scholars and specialists in the field.

This book documents the increased amount of stem cell-related research, basic and clinical applications as well as views for the future. The book covers a wide range of issues related to new developments and innovations in cell-based therapies discussed in basic and clinical chapters from authors around the world involved in stem cell studies and research. It thereby complements and extends the basic coverage of stem cells, such as mesenchymal stem cells, effect of stem cells on aging, cover hematopoietic stem cells, storage and cryopreservation, issues related to clinical applications such as haploidentical transplants and use of stem cells for the treatment of Huntingtons disease. Clearly, the treatment of various malignant and nonmalignant diseases depends heavily on stem cells, and this book is well positioned to provide comprehensive coverage of these developments.

Cellulose - Fundamental Aspects and Current Trends consists of 10 chapters written by international subject matter experts investigating the characteristics and current applications of this fascinating material. This book will help the reader to develop a deeper understanding about the concepts related to cellulose and the nanocellulose structure, modification, production, dissolution, and application. Biosynthesis mechanisms and medical applications of microbial cellulose are also discussed. This book will serve as the starting point for materials science researchers, engineers, and technologists from diverse backgrounds in physics, chemistry, biology, materials science, and engineering who want to know and better understand the unique characteristics of the most abundant biopolymer on earth.