Bücher veröffentlicht von IntechOpen

Genetically Modified Plants and Beyond takes a fresh look at methodologies used in developing crop plants, discusses genome editing, and interrogates the regulatory approaches that different countries are proposing to use to regulate genetically modified (GM) vs genome-edited crop plants. The book focuses on root and tuber crops, ginger, and industrial/oil seed crops. A chapter on the production of pharmaceuticals in plants is also included. Going beyond the usual debate, the book includes case studies from Africa on the adoption of GM crops.

Current Trends in Wheat Research is an interdisciplinary book dealing with diverse topics related to recent developments in wheat research. It discusses the latest research activities in biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in wheat. The book contains chapters containing valuable information on wheat diseases, insect pests, drought stress as well as water use efficiency in wheat crops.

Ultrasound Imaging - Current Topics presents complex and current topics in ultrasound imaging in a simplified format. It is easy to read and exemplifies the range of experiences of each contributing author. Chapters address such topics as anatomy and dimensional variations, pediatric gastrointestinal emergencies, musculoskeletal and nerve imaging as well as molecular sonography. The book is a useful resource for researchers, students, clinicians, and sonographers looking for additional information on ultrasound imaging beyond the basics.

Leadership is viewed as a phenomenon allowing advantages for organizations and their success. Although much research has been done on the concept of leadership, many studies do not include the different styles, perspectives, and contexts of leadership. As such, this book aims to fill this gap by combining several studies on leadership from different perspectives. The various chapters address such topics as millennial leaders, Theory X style leadership, leadership in the turbulent environment, emotional intelligence, and much more. This volume shows how new insights about leadership can stimulate organizational development in various countries and regions worldwide.

In the modern era of scientific and technological development, the role of measurements and metrology in scientific research is becoming more and more important due to the increase in the testing of various products. Moreover, requirements for the accuracy and reliability of measurement results are increasing significantly and their ranges are expanding. Improving measurement accuracy allows us to identify the shortcomings of certain technological processes and either eliminate them or reduce their influence. This leads to better-quality products and contributes to saving energy and other resources, as well as raw materials and materials. This book discusses relevant aspects of practical metrological activity to establish traceability of measurements while increasing their accuracy and reliability. It also presents procedures for the calibration and testing of measuring instruments.

Despite significant worldwide progress in fighting rabies, a zoonotic viral disease, it remains an important public health concern, causing approximately 50,000 human cases per year. This book summarizes current knowledge regarding rabies, the prevalence and genetic diversity of the rabies virus, and modern approaches to rabies diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. It is a useful resource for scientists, doctors, and students.

This book, Natural Medicinal Plants is a comprehensive overview of drugs derived from medicinal plants and their use in treating human illnesses such as cancer. Chapters include scientific evidence on flora rich in active ingredients.

Gallstones are one of the most common digestive system diseases in the world that can potentially lead to serious complications and even death. As such, this book discusses the epidemiological and pathophysiological characteristics of gallstones, the latest progress in the treatment of different types of gallstones, and the management of complications.

Natural Drugs from Plants emphasizes the importance of medicinal plants for drug discovery worldwide. Chapters discuss the active ingredients of certain medicinal plants, their mechanisms of action, and how they can be used to treat different diseases.

It has been more than 140 years since water was used to generate electricity. Especially since the 1970s, with the advancement of science and technology, new technologies, new processes, and new materials have been widely used in hydropower construction. Engineering equipment and technology, as well as cascade development, have become increasingly mature, making possible the construction of many high dams and large reservoirs in the world. However, with the passage of time, hydropower infrastructure such as reservoirs, dams, and power stations built in large numbers in the past are aging. This, coupled with singular use of hydropower, limits the development of hydropower in the future. This book reports the achievements in hydropower construction and the efforts of sustainable hydropower development made by various countries around the globe. These existing innovative studies and applications stimulate new ideas for the renewal of hydropower infrastructure and the further improvement of hydropower development and utilization efficiency.

The application of advanced analytics in science and technology is rapidly expanding, and developing optimization technics is critical to this expansion. Instead of relying on dated procedures, researchers can reap greater rewards by utilizing cutting-edge optimization techniques like population-based metaheuristic models, which can quickly generate a solution with acceptable quality. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is one the most critical and widely used models among heuristics and meta-heuristics. This book discusses ACO applications in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), multi-robot systems, wireless multi-hop networks, and preventive, predictive maintenance.

Pneumonia is an infectious disease of the pulmonary alveoli that leads to extensive morbidity and mortality. This book presents a comprehensive overview of this disease with chapters on hospital-acquired pneumonia, drug-related problems and hospital readmissions, secondary bacterial infections in viral pneumonia, and iron acquisition in pneumococci.

Advances in Nanocomposites - Synthesis, Characterization and Industrial Applications was conceived as a comprehensive reference volume on various aspects of functional nanocomposites for engineering technologies. The term functional nanocomposites signifies a wide area of polymer/material science and engineering, involving the design, synthesis and study of nanocomposites of increasing structural sophistication and complexity useful for a wide range of chemical, physicochemical and biological/biomedical processes. "Emerging technologies" are also broadly understood to include new technological developments, beginning at the forefront of conventional industrial practices and extending into anticipated and speculative industries of the future. The scope of the present book on nanocomposites and applications extends far beyond emerging technologies. This book presents 40 chapters organized in four parts systematically providing a wealth of new ideas in design, synthesis and study of sophisticated nanocomposite structures.

Since the development of microelectronic clamping methodology and fluorescent indicators for direct measurement of dynamic intracellular calcium transients, our understanding of biological signal transduction has progressed dramatically since the 1980s. Calcium is a universal signal in biology that modulates gene expression, transmitter and hormone release, muscular movement, and even "programmed" cell death. This book represents a compilation of chapters from a diverse set of expert biologists throughout the world who have conducted research in the general area of calcium signaling in organisms ranging from bacteria to humans. In accord with priorities of resolving human disease, the reader will also benefit from learning calcium's role in cellular signaling pathology relating to acute or chronic conditions such as vomiting, sepsis, obesity, hypertension, and cancer.

This book is a comprehensive guide to rheumatology and includes all possible topics. The book is ideal for all those interested in the field of rheumatology, including students, scientists, and postdocs.

This book gives a comprehensive overview of recent advances in influenza, as well as general concepts of molecular biology of influenza infections, epidemiology, immunopathology, prevention, and current clinical recommendations in management of influenza, including preparation of vaccines, assessment of the safety and quality of influenza vaccines and adjuvants highlighting the ongoing issues and recent advances, with future directions in prevention and therapeutic strategies. I hope that this work might increase the interest in this field of research and that the readers will find it useful for their investigations, management, and clinical usage.

This book provides information to the readers starting with the history of oral hygiene manners, and modern oral hygiene practices. It continues with the prevalence and etiology of caries and remedy of caries through natural sources. Etiology of secondary caries in prosthetic restorations and the relationship between orthodontic treatment and caries is addressed. An update of early childhood caries is presented. The use of visual-tactile method, radiography and fluorescence in caries detection is given. The book finishes with methods used for the prevention of white spot lesions and management of caries.

Biometric recognition is one of the most widely studied problems in computer science. The use of biometrics techniques, such as face, fingerprints, iris and ears is a solution for obtaining a secure personal identification. However, the "old" biometrics identification techniques are out of date. This goal of this book is to provide the reader with the most up to date research performed in biometric recognition and descript some novel methods of biometrics, emphasis on the state of the art skills. The book consists of 15 chapters, each focusing on a most up to date issue. The chapters are divided into five sections- fingerprint recognition, face recognition, iris recognition, other biometrics and biometrics security. The book was reviewed by editors Dr. Jucheng Yang and Dr. Loris Nanni. We deeply appreciate the efforts of our guest editors: Dr. Girija Chetty, Dr. Norman Poh, Dr. Jianjiang Feng, Dr. Dongsun Park and Dr. Sook Yoon, as well as a number of anonymous reviewers

Fatty acids are considered as a very important category of chemical compounds to human health as well as from an industrial perspective. This book intends to provide an update on fatty acid research, their methods of detection, quantification, and related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Cyclic fatty acids are also covered, along with short chain fatty acids, which are important to the human gut microbiota. Fatty acids are important in the chemical structure of the cell membrane and its pivotal role in this aspect is reviewed herein. The book also contains a chapter that deals with some unpublished molecular aspects concerning the roles of fatty acids in depression and bipolar disorder. All in all, the book provides a brief overview of both highly explored as well as overlooked perspectives of fatty acids, while highlighting its significance as a biochemical molecule, which is imperative to the livelihood of unicellular and multi-cellular organisms alike.

Keratin is the proteinaceous body covering layer produced by mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Hair and wool, horns, claws, hooves, feathers, and scales are made of keratin. Keratin is insoluble in water and is resistant to proteolysis. Importantly, keratin is also the intracellular structural protein that protects living epithelial cells from mechanical damage or stress. The fundamental keratin functions are revealed in congenital human skin diseases caused by mutations in keratin genes, e.g., Epidermolysis bullosa simplex or Epidermolytic hyperkeratosis. Most keratin gene mutations have a dominant-negative effect disrupting the filamentous structure formation even from the natural allele, and leaving the cell with a deficient cytoskeleton. However, industrial scale meat production results in vast quantities of keratin byproduct. Processing this byproduct is, on the one hand a major challenge, and on the other hand, a potential for useful recycling and exploitation.

This book deals with medical image analysis methods. In particular, it contains two significant chapters on image segmentation as well as some selected examples of the application of image analysis and processing methods. Despite the significant development of information technology methods used in modern image analysis and processing algorithms, the segmentation process remains open. This is mainly due to intra-patient variability and/or scene diversity. Segmentation is equally difficult in the case of ultrasound imaging and depends on the location of the probe or the contact force. Regardless of the imaging method, segmentation must be tailored for a specific application in almost every case. These types of application areas for various imaging methods are included in this book.

This book focuses on several key aspects of nonlinear systems including dynamic modeling, state estimation, and stability analysis. It is intended to provide a wide range of readers in applied mathematics and various engineering disciplines an excellent survey of recent studies of nonlinear systems. With its thirteen chapters, the book brings together important contributions from renowned international researchers to provide an excellent survey of recent studies of nonlinear systems. The first section consists of eight chapters that focus on nonlinear dynamic modeling and analysis techniques, while the next section is composed of five chapters that center on state estimation methods and stability analysis for nonlinear systems.

Heat and mass transfer are ubiquitous transport phenomena in many fields, from the natural environment and living organisms to the engineering process. This book focuses on the latest advances in applying fundamental heat and mass transfer theory and novel technologies for addressing a wide range of industrial problems of interest. This book will present readers with a recent analytical study, CFD modelling, and experimental investigations of heat and mass transfer topics associated with a variety of engineering disciplines including multiphase flow, nanofluids, porous media, battery thermal management, and engineering processes such as extractive distillation and arc welding. The book aims to provide new insights to understand the heat and mass transfer phenomena, serving as a platform for exchanging inspiring ideas and boosting further development of these disciplines.

As a baby one of our earliest stimuli is that of human faces. We rapidly learn to identify, characterize and eventually distinguish those who are near and dear to us. We accept face recognition later as an everyday ability. We realize the complexity of the underlying problem only when we attempt to duplicate this skill in a computer vision system.This book is arranged around a number of clustered themes covering different aspects of face recognition. The first section on Statistical Face Models and Classifiers presents reviews and refinements of some well-known statistical models. The next section presents two articles exploring the use of Infrared imaging techniques and is followed by few articles devoted to refinements of classical methods. New approaches to improve the robustness of face analysis techniques are followed by two articles dealing with real-time challenges in video sequences. A final article explores human perceptual issues of face recognition.

This book covers a variety of topics on animal reproduction and reproductive medicine. With evolving technology and a continual increase in knowledge, regarding domestic pets or agricultural animals, new information is available on diverse topics in this broad field. The book contents reflect the individual experience of authors, who developed a number of themes identified as attracting interest in the field. As it is, new opportunities were opened for productive collaboration. We have tried to provide you with current, specialised information that may be useful to students, clinicians and researchers. We hope this book inspires you to embrace these themes, foster the debate on particular topics and may be used as a start-up source for exploring the theriogenology field.

An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting from the sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in size from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt to those violent enough to toss people around and destroy the whole cities. At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground. When the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides and occasionally volcanic activity. Earthquakes are caused not only by rupture of geological faults but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear tests. This book addresses the multidisciplinary topic of earthquake hazards and risk, one of the fastest growing, relevant, and applied fields of research and study practiced within the geosciences and environment. This book addresses principles, concepts, and paradigms of earthquakes, as well as operational terms, materials, tools, techniques, and methods including processes, procedures, and implications.

Demyelination disorders are among the most frequent neurological conditions. Types of these disorders include multiple sclerosis, Guillain Barré syndrome, diabetic peripheral neuropathy, entrapment neuropathies, and others, all of which can result in serious physical incapacity and diminished quality of life. This book examines various aspects of demyelination from clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic points of view. Chapters address different types of demyelination diseases, their associated mechanisms, and pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic treatment approaches, among other topics.

Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is an acquired autoimmune disorder in which the immune system mistakenly produces antiphospholipid antibodies that attack tissues in the body. These antibodies can lead to the formation of blood clots in arteries and veins. During pregnancy, APS can also lead to miscarriage and stillbirth. Classification criteria require a clinical event (i.e., thrombosis or pregnancy complication) and persistent positive blood test results at least three months apart that detect lupus anticoagulant, anti-cardiolipin antibodies, or anti-¿2-glycoprotein-1 antibodies. This book addresses important clinical aspects of APS, including stroke and APS, obstetric manifestations of APS, and bleeding complications in APS. It also discusses the diagnostic utility of a novel autoantibody against ¿2-glycoprotein I/HLA class II complexes as a promising biomarker for APS. Finally, this book also reviews the latest findings in the field of extracellular vesicles in APS and provides explanations of their role in the pathogenesis of APS.