Bücher veröffentlicht von IntechOpen

Occupational Health deals with all aspects of health and safety in the workplace and has a strong focus on primary prevention of hazards. A wide array of workplace hazards presents risks to the health and safety of people at work, which include physical factors, adverse ergonomic conditions, chemicals, biological agents, allergens, and a complex network of safety risks. This book covers topics from health and safety management, occupational medicine, work-related musculoskeletal disorders, and occupational protection. Thus, it can be utilized as a guide to identify and analyze hazards, assess risk, apply risk reduction strategies, and manage process safety for various occupations.

Marine organisms have been under research for the last decades as a source for different active compounds with various biological activities and application in agriculture, pharmacy, medicine, environment, and industries. Marine polysaccharides from these active compounds are used as antibacterial, antiviral, antioxidant, anti-inflammation, bioremediations, etc. During the last three decades, several important factors that control the production of phytoplankton polysaccharides have been identified such as chemical concentrations, temperature, light, etc.The current book includes 14 chapters contributed by experts around the world; the chapters are categorized into three sections: Marine Polysaccharides and Agriculture, Marine Polysaccharides and Biological Activities, and Marine Polysaccharides and Industries.

In modern practice, the role of female reproductive surgery is declining apparently due to the widespread availability of assisted reproductive technology as an attractive option for infertile couples. To be more precise, prevention of female infertility should be the ultimate goal of all obstetricians and gynecologists during operating on females in the reproductive age. This book concentrates on different issues of fertility preservation both in obstetrics and gynecology. Not a matter of kindly or courtesy, but the core of obstetricians and gynecologists' work is to restore normal anatomy and to preserve fertility for all women in the reproductive age.

Generally the nanometer scale covers from 1 to 100 nm while discussing the nanomaterials. Nanomaterials have very high potency and emerge with large applications piercing through all the discipline of knowledge, leading to industrial and technological growth. Nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary science that has its roots in fields such as colloidal science, device physics, and biomedical and supramolecular chemistry. The main objective of the book is to cover maximum areas focusing on synthesis, characterization with various microscopic techniques, and multiple applications. This book is divided into two sections with Non-carbon Compounds and Carbon Compounds. The synthesis, characterization, and applications of metal, metal oxides, and metal hydroxide nanoparticles are covered in the section Non-carbon Compounds, while the section Carbon Compounds focuses on the carbon nanotubes, graphite oxide, graphene oxide, etc.

Aerosols have a significant impact on technological processes and human activities. In many cases, aerosols are at the core of human health, environmental and technological problems (climate change and air quality). However, aerosols can be successfully used in industry and technology (new materials, fire suppression and fuel delivery). The current scientific status of aerosol modelling and simulation and measurements and some advances in computational techniques, particle measurement technologies and practical applications of aerosols are reviewed and considered in this book. This book also includes a number of case studies focused on analysis of optical thickness and air quality in various regions.

Written for ophthalmology residents and practitioners, this book provides the most comprehensive resource covering all the major aspects of aqueous humor and intraocular pressure dynamics. In addition to chapters on the conventional and new technologies for intraocular pressure assessment, there is a novel chapter on the engineering perspectives of continuous monitoring of the intraocular pressure. Based on the newer insights in aqueous outflow, this text offers a rational approach to the medical and surgical management of glaucoma.

Due to that at present, the majority of diseases are associated with alterations in oxidative stress and inflammatory processes, and in that Nrf-2 is a modulator of these processes; knowing how this transcriptional factor functions and is regulated opens a therapeutic window to diverse diseases. Therefore, the efforts of various investigation groups are centered on finding activators and/or inhibitors of Nrf-2 to prevent or control diverse diseases, for example, cancer, where it would be important to regulate Nrf-2 in order for it to activate apoptosis pathways in cancerogenous cells, or in neurodegenerative diseases where cell death is predominant, it would be important for Nrf-2 to activate antiapoptotic pathways.

The sustainable energy sources are potentially employed to substitute petrol fuels in transport engines such as buses and small vehicles. Hydrogen-enriched compressed natural gas engines are forthcoming energy carriers for the internal combustion engine, with higher thermal efficiency and less pollutant emissions. The different availability of renewables has allowed various countries to adopt the most appropriate type of renewable energy technology according to their energy source adequacy/abundance. In Taiwan, ocean energy is considered as an abundant source of renewables due to its geographical location as an island. The Taiwanese government has approved the investment to construct an MW-scale demonstration electricity plant. In this book, the Taiwanese ocean energy experience is comprehensively presented. The technical and legal analyses of ocean energy implementation are provided. The challenges that they had to overcome to optimize the utilization of the most available ocean energy potential are discussed. The sustainable transition in South Africa would be a good example for implementing rooftop solar, especially in low-income communities. Apart from the environmental benefits, sustainable energy technologies can boost the socioeconomic level of developing countries. Other advantages may be the continuous supply of energy and creation of new job opportunities. Moreover, sustainable renewable energy sources such as the wind could be employed for generating electricity to operate water purification systems in remote areas. This, in turn, would overcome the health problems associated with drinking water scarcity issues. This book is an attempt to cover the sustainable energy issues from a technical perspective. Furthermore, the sustainable energy applications and existing case studies are helpful illustrations for the broad understanding of the importance of sustainable energy.

This collection presents various interesting aspects of genetic engineering. Many thought-provoking queries like "Is gene revolution an answer to the world hunger? Do GM crops with more complex transformation contribute to the enrichment of multinationals? Why the US increases food aids?" have been analyzed. Transformation protocols and retrieval of recombinants are essential to the success of genetic engineering. The book throws light on new transformation strategies which can be used to increase the transformation efficiency in most plant species. Genetic engineering offers potentially viable solution to look for alternatives beyond Bt toxins with similar pattern of toxicity. An interesting chapter is dedicated to in vitro fig regeneration and transformation systems. To address the long juvenile phase of fruit trees, the book includes a chapter on plant breeding technique that can significantly shorten the breeding periods. The book dwells on aspects of genome editing which will enable researchers to produce transgenic plants in a more convenient and safer way to genetic modification of stem cells holding significant therapeutic promise to treat complications of diabetes and obesity. I hope this book will serve as a seed for further investigations and novel innovations in the area of genetic engineering.

Schizophrenia treatment has many facets. This book begins with the glutamatergic and GABAergic hypofunctioning contribute to the schizophrenic symptoms and their current targeted therapeutics. The genetic, epigenetic, and immune etiologies of schizophrenia and their potential targeted therapeutics as approached in this book are interesting. Understanding cognitive biases and delusional circuits in schizophrenia is important; several behavioral cognitive therapies working on the reduction and avoidance of these cognitive biases are demonstrating their effectiveness. Advances in schizophrenia treatment followed, including transcranial magnetic stimulation and special sport program, are presented at the book's end.

This book provides comprehensive and up-to-date insights into emerging trends in research and treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Key features include pathogenesis, existing and new therapies, as well as nonpharmacological approach in management of IBS. The authors are known experts who contributed significantly for a better understanding of the etiology of IBS as one of the most commonly diagnosed functional disorders. This book provides a state-of-the-art review of different aspects of IBS and is recommended to healthcare providers, clinical scientists, general practitioners, students, and patients.

This book is dedicated to operations research of broad applications, such as improving informational bases of performance measurement with grey relational analysis, application of lean methodologies in a neurosurgery high dependency unit, iteration algorithms in Markov decision processes with state-action-dependent discount factors and unbounded costs, financial feasibility analysis of Natura Rab business case study, and mathematical modeling of isothermal drying and its potential application in the design of the industrial drying regimes of clay products.Operations research is an important topic. In addition to its obvious benefits of winning a war, making most profit in a business endeavor, and constructing a correct mathematical model, it also provides a tool for efficient use of natural resources. Furthermore, both theory and practice of operations research and its related concepts are covered in the book, and a reader can benefit from this balanced coverage.

This is a timely, an informative, an interesting, and a well-managed book. The book not only offers an in-depth review of the current status of the knowledge of electrospinning and its biomedical applications but also discusses the emerging ideas and features, both from the East and West, with a focus on the needless electrospinning for the production of uniform fibers. The book is equally helpful to the experts of this field, who wish to enhance their understanding of the emerging technologies, and to the new comers, who can use this book as a reference.

We are in constant search for new therapeutic options to cure cancer. In this book, you can find out how scientists throughout the world deal with this problem. Readers will learn how to engage nature, chemical synthesis, and cell machinery to design new anticancer agents. Nature has already been very generous in providing us different compounds which are in widespread application. Starting from these resources, various synthetic processes are applied to create synthetic drugs which can be then obtained in large quantities. Also, the cell by itself provides different possibilities to meet the constantly increasing requirements for successful therapy. Explore the book and find out what are the new ways to fight cancer.

What are smart cities? What are their purposes? What are the impacts resulting from their implementations? With these questions in mind, this book is compiled with the primary concern of answering readers with different profiles; from those interested in acquiring basic knowledge about the various topics surrounding the subject related to smart cities, to those who are more motivated by knowing the technical elements and the technological apparatus involving this theme. This book audience is multidisciplinary, as it will be confirmed by the various chapters addressed here. It explores different knowledge areas, such as electric power systems, signal processing, telecommunications, electronics, systems optimization, computational intelligence, real-time systems, renewable energy systems, and information systems.

Do you want to know the details that should be taken into consideration in order to have accurate conventional and real-time PCR results? If so, this book is for you. Polymerase Chain Reaction for Biomedical Applications is a collection of chapters for both novice and experienced scientists and technologists aiming to address obtaining an optimized real-time PCR result, simultaneous processing of a large number of samples and assays, performing PCR and RT-PCR on cell lysate without extraction of DNA or RNA, detecting false-positive PCR results, detecting organisms in viral and microbial diseases and hospital environment, following safety assessments of food products, and using PCR for introduction of mutations. This is a must-have book for any PCR laboratory.

Drug discovery involves multiple disciplines, technologies, and approaches. This book selects important topics related to drug discovery, including emerging tool (Chapter 1), cutting-edge approaches (Chapters 2, 3, and 4), examples of specific therapeutic area (Chapter 5), quality control in drug development (Chapter 6), and job and career opportunities in the pharmaceutical sector, a topic rarely covered by other books (Chapter 7). This book draws knowledge from experts actively involved in different areas of drug discovery from both industrial and academic settings. We hope that this book will facilitate your efforts in drug discovery.

Malaria is still the main vector-borne parasitic disease in the world. Fortunately, elimination of this disease was achieved in multiple countries during the last decades. During the last decade, a significant reduction of malaria in the Americas was achieved. Nevertheless, many challenges still are ahead in order to reach a higher control and to continue in the elimination toward a world free of malaria in the next decades. This book tries to update the significant epidemiological and clinical research in many aspects with a multinational perspective. This book with 20 chapters is organized into 5 major sections: (I) Clinical and Epidemiological Aspects, (II) Basic Science, (III) Therapeutics and Antimalarials, (IV) Vaccines, and (V) Entomology and Vector Control.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 1.6 million people will be diagnosed with cancer during this year. Outcomes have steadily risen over the last several decades with the advent of newer therapies. As outcomes have improved, more and more cancer patients are developing critical illness. In the not-too-distant past, patients with active malignancy were thought not appropriate for critical care services as decreased longevity related to the cancer suggested poor prognosis for intensive care utilization. More recently, evidence supports rapid activation of critical care services leading to improved outcomes in cancer patients. Moreover, just as sub-subspecialty critical care experience in trauma and neurosciences has proved beneficial, the emerging field of oncology critical care warrants specific attention.

Increasing innovations and applications make microfluidics a versatile choice for researchers in many disciplines. This book consists of multiple review chapters that aim to cover recent advances and new applications of microfluidics in biology, electronics, energy, and materials sciences. It provides comprehensive views of various aspects of microfluidics ranging from fundamentals of fabrication, flow control, and droplet manipulation to the most recent exploration in emerging areas such as material synthesis, imaging and novel spectroscopy, and marriage with electronics. The chapters have many illustrations showcasing exciting results. This book should be useful for those who are eager to learn more about microfluidics as well as researchers who want to pick up new concepts and developments in this fast-growing field.

This book is intended to attract the attention of practitioners and researchers in academia and industry interested in challenging paradigms of image and video coding algorithms with an emphasis on recent technological developments. All the chapters are well demonstrated by various researchers around the world covering the field of image and video processing. This book highlights the current research in the image and video processing area such as image fusion, image segmentation and classification, image compression, machine vision algorithms and video compression. The entire work available in the book is mainly focusing on researchers who can do quality research in the area of image and video processing and related fields. Each chapter is an independent research which will definitely motivate the young researchers to ponder into. These eleven chapters available in five sections will be an eye-opener for all who are doing systematic research in these fields.

Large regions of the planet have been transformed from their natural composition into different human-made landscapes (farmlands, forest plantations, pastures, etc.). Such process, called land use change, is one of the major components of the current global change, which has brought the planet into a new geological era: the Anthropocene. Land use change is particularly important in tropical forests, as this ecosystem type is still heavily affected by deforestation for timber extraction, agricultural land creation of urban expansion. Changing land use has important implications for the services that tropical forests provide: production of goods such as timber, food or water; regulation of process such as nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, local weather or climate extremes; generating the framework for economic and cultural activity, etc. Therefore, keeping ecosystem services when changing the use of the tropical lands is a major challenge in tropical regions. This brief book, by showcasing different research work done in tropical countries, provides a first introduction on this topic, discussing issues such as biodiversity loss, changes in local weather or nutrient cycling patterns, and economic activities around tropical forests, and tools to detect and quantify the importance of land use change.

This book addresses a wide range of clinically relevant topics and issues in sickle cell disease. This is written by experts in their own field offering a robust, engaging discussion about the presentations and mechanisms of actions in the multiple complications associated with sickle cell disease. This first of the series addresses pain, which is considered the hallmark of sickle cell presentation. It looks at the basic mechanism of pain in sickle cell disease. A more detailed review of precision medicine gives a clear well laid out presentation that is incisive and yet gives in-depth detail relevant to both the clinician and the researcher in the basic laboratory. The same pattern is shown in the discussion on respiratory, cardiac and neurological complications. The 14 chapters also include an overview of sickle cell disease especially in the paediatric age. The content is organized into well-designed broad sections on overview regarding diagnosis including point of care and the role of digital apps in patient management. A key aspect of the book is the opportunity it affords expert physicians to express well-reasoned opinions regarding complex issues in sickle cell disease. The readership would find that it provides a well-described, concise and immediate applicable answers to complex questions. This is highly recommended for scientists and clinicians alike.

Spatial statistics has been widely used in many environmental studies. This book is a collection of recent studies on applying spatial statistics in subjects such as demography, transportation, precision agriculture and ecology. Different subjects require different aspects of spatial statistics. In addition to quantitative statements from statistics and tests, visualization in forms of maps, drawings, and images are provided to illustrate the relationship between data and locations. This book will be valuable to researchers who are interested in applying statistics to spatial data, as well as graduate students who know statistics and want to explore how it can be applied to spatial data. With the processing part being simplified to several mouse clicks by commercial software, one should pay more attention to justification of using spatial statistics, as well as interpretation and assessment of the results. GIScience proves to be a useful tool in visualization of spatial data, and such useful technology should be utilized, as part, for the interpretation and assessment of the results.

In this book, authors investigated asymmetric and symmetric supercapacitor configurations for different electrode materials. Besides the already standard activated carbon (AC), studies were done with other materials and technologies for their preparation and activation. Also, the research info was presented with different electrolytes in order to obtain a higher capacitance and potential window, with as small as possible serial resistance. Achieved high performance enables wide application, and some of the new applications (spacecraft power systems, powering heart pacemakers and wireless sensors) are also described in this book.

In the last decades, the importance of gut microbiome has been linked to medical research on different diseases. Developments of other medical disciplines (human clinical pharmacology, clinical nutrition and dietetics, everyday medical treatments of antibiotics, changes in nutritional inhabits in different countries) also called attention to study the changes in the gut microbiome.This book contains five excellent review chapters in the field of gut microbiome, written by researchers from the USA, Canada, China, and India. These chapters present a critical review about some clinically important changes in the gut microbiome in the development of some human diseases and therapeutic possibilities (liver disease, cardiovascular diseases, brain diseases, gastrointestinal diseases).The book brings to attention the essential role of gut microbiome in keeping our life healthy. This book is addressed to experts of microbiology, podiatrists, gastroenterologists, internists, nutritional experts, cardiologists, basic and clinical researchers, as well as experts in the field of food industry.

The world of echocardiography continues to be full of exciting new technological developments with an ultimate goal of better patient care. In this book, titled "Echocardiography in Heart Failure and Cardiac Electrophysiology", authors from various parts of the world contributed to the advancement of the field. We have included various chapters about the use of echocardiography and modalities of imaging in various common clinical scenarios - ranging from evaluation of commonly ignored right ventricle, imaging in congestive heart failure, to echocardiographic evaluation of critically ill patients. We have also included topics describing the use of echocardiography in cardiac electrophysiology with special interest to cardiac resynchronization therapy and atrial fibrillation ablation. These topics would be of great interest to the clinicians whether they are trainees, physicians, advanced care providers, or anyone involved in the patient care.

Is the heart rate variability biofeedback a promising intervention for PTSD? Is there a link between early traumatic events in life and the presence of psychopathology and interpersonal difficulties in adulthood? Wondering what is the next step for humanistic, psychodynamic, or CBT therapists working with PTSD patients? Look no further. A Multidimensional Approach to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - From Theory to Practice explores the PTSD through the lens of the biopsychosocial model. The various topics covered in this book - from the neuro-bio-physiological aspects to the clinical and methodological dimensions involved in investigating the PTSD - address a wide variety of concerns regarding the disorder. The authors of the chapters are internationally renowned leaders in their field of science, sharing both the results of their latest investigations and their thoughtful perspectives on future fundamental and clinical research on PTSD. The knowledge shared by the authors results in an engaging and scientific experience for the initiated reader, yet accessible to the newcomers who are just learning about PTSD.

Using natural products and developing pharmaceutical drugs are emerging topics to reduce blood cholesterol levels for preventing heart disease and stroke. Covering recent progresses in cholesterol-lowering drugs and therapy, this book describes the natural and pharmaceutical products that are in clinical uses to lower cholesterol and lipids and compares these drugs in responses to different diseases such as homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. The relationship between ethnicity and cholesterol-lowering drug responses is also reviewed. Each chapter is a building block for the book, but each individual chapter is also a complete subject package for the readers. Researchers from basic and clinic science interested in lipid and cholesterol metabolism, regulation, and lowering will find this book very useful.Features:- Up-to-date information of the molecular mechanisms of cholesterol lowering, the drugs from natural and pharmaceutical products, and their associated therapeutic strategies in human diseases.- Discussion of the pathogenesis of several human diseases, which are associated with high cholesterol levels and evaluation of the results of different cholesterol-lowering drug treatment in these diseases.- Discussion of the combinations of cancer chemotherapy and cholesterol lowering in potential cancer treatment and cancer prevention by cholesterol-lowering drugs.- Critical analysis of the effect of ethnicity on responses to cholesterol-lowering drug therapy leading to rational dose adjustment of cholesterol-lowering drugs for different people use.

This book offers a sharp critique and a detailed analysis of some pernicious social welfare problems and the wide-ranging causes and consequences of those complex social issues on individuals, families, and communities. Unemployment, health-care disparities, teenage pregnancy, and intimate partner violence constitute the focus of this work. Based on empirical and historical analyses of primary and secondary data, the book provides a conceptual framework that facilitates the reader's understanding of how those social issues are interrelated. Each chapter offers some clear policy recommendations directed to address those social problems. Written by well-published scholars, this work will be of great interest not only to students majoring in the social and political sciences but also to academics and practitioners active in the field of social welfare, social policy, and social work.