Bücher veröffentlicht von IntechOpen

The structural properties of materials play a fundamental role in the determination of their suitability for a specific application. This book is intended as a contribution to the efforts to increase the knowledge of the influence exerted on the properties of materials by their crystalline or amorphous structure. To this aim, some of the materials that are most promising for their use in different technological fields have been studied, namely graphene, titanium oxide, several types of functional metal oxides, porphyrinic crystalline solids, plasma deposited polymers, amorphous silicon, as well as hydrogenated amorphous carbon. These materials have been presented by the authors for their use in different applications, including microelectronics, photonics, and biomedicine.

Intake of a sufficient diet will provide an individual to live a healthy and functional life. However, poor intake of different nutritional components, such as proteins, vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, may lead to health problems that can cause morbidity and finally mortality. Assessment of nutritional status involves physical examination, comprehensive evaluation of biochemical tests, body composition, and organ functions. Both high and low intake of nutritional elements may lead to significant health impairment. The main aim of the book Nutritional Deficiency is to determine the relationships between nutritional status and general health. The authors, who are contributing to the book, particularly focused on iron, vitamin D, and zinc deficiencies, which are global health problems. Besides, some chapters mention the impact of different nutritional deficiencies in susceptible periods of life, such as pregnancy and elderly. Besides, as a result of these deficiencies, different health conditions, such as depression, anemia, loss of neuronal plasticity, and cancer, are widely scrutinized in the book. One chapter mainly focuses on the effects of disasters on nutrition and disaster-caused malnutrition in underdeveloped countries. This book will widen the knowledge store of the readers on the effects of nutrition on general health, how nutritional deficiencies arise when there is a health problem, and how the nutritional status affects susceptible populations.

This book is a feast of knowledge, yet a balanced diet of healthy foods. There are high values of rich essential nutrients from top-quality medical research. But they are made easily digestible and absorbable, even by health care providers and planners, working in resource-limited settings, in all parts of the world, through social implications and community applications. All the chapters are value-added master pieces. The book would serve both as a scientific reference guide and a practical work manual. The authors, editor, and Intech publishers, together, are pleased to provide the readers a precious blend of scientific excellence and social relevance, for health empowerment, globally. We wish the readers great success, savoring science and sociology together.

The need to be tolerant to changes in the control systems or in the operational environment of systems subject to unknown disturbances has generated new control methods that are able to deal with the non-parametrized disturbances of systems, without adapting itself to the system uncertainty but rather providing stability in the presence of errors bound in a model. With this approach in mind and with the intention to exemplify robust control applications, this book includes selected chapters that describe models of H-infinity loop, robust stability and uncertainty, among others. Each robust control method and model discussed in this book is illustrated by a relevant example that serves as an overview of the theoretical and practical method in robust control.

The book is a collection of studies dedicated to different perspectives of three dimensions or pillars of the sustainability of supply chain and supply chain management - economic, environmental, and social - and other aspects related to performance evaluation, optimization, and modelling of and for sustainable supply chain management, and thus presents another valuable contribution to sustainable development and sustainable way of life.

The study of radiation effects has developed as a major field of materials science from the beginning, approximately 70 years ago. Its rapid development has been driven by two strong influences. The properties of the crystal defects and the materials containing them may then be studied. The types of radiation that can alter structural materials consist of neutrons, ions, electrons, gamma rays or other electromagnetic waves with different wavelengths. All of these forms of radiation have the capability to displace atoms/molecules from their lattice sites, which is the fundamental process that drives the changes in all materials. The effect of irradiation on materials is fixed in the initial event in which an energetic projectile strikes a target. The book is distributed in four sections: Ionic Materials; Biomaterials; Polymeric Materials and Metallic Materials.

Pattern recognition has gained significant attention due to the rapid explosion of internet- and mobile-based applications. Among the various pattern recognition applications, face recognition is always being the center of attraction. With so much of unlabeled face images being captured and made available on internet (particularly on social media), conventional supervised means of classifying face images become challenging. This clearly warrants for semi-supervised classification and subspace projection. Another important concern in face recognition system is the proper and stringent evaluation of its capability. This book is edited keeping all these factors in mind. This book is composed of five chapters covering introduction, overview, semi-supervised classification, subspace projection, and evaluation techniques.

This book has seven chapters, from more than 15 authors from different countries (Korea, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Turkey and USA) edited by Professor Milica Prostran MD, PhD. The potential reader is shown the modern approach to pain management because the chapters deal at length and clearly with their topics. I believe that this book that I edited with great pleasure and dedication will capture the attention of many readers, from medical students to practicing doctors. All of them need to deal with this extremely important field of medicine: pain treatment. I do believe that the answers they may find in Pain Management will make their practice easier. Also, the life of their patients will be considerably more pleasant, or at least more bearable.

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is an ensemble of non-cellular components present within all tissues and organs of the human body. The ECM provides structural support for scaffolding cellular constituents and biochemical and biomechanical support for those events leading to tissue morphogenesis, differentiation and homeostasis. Essential components of all ECMs are water, proteins and polysaccharides. However, their composition, architecture and bioactivity greatly vary from tissue to tissue in relation to the specific role the ECM is required to assume. This book overviews the role of the ECM in different tissues and organs of the human body.

This book provides useful information about Urban Agriculture, which includes the production of crops in small to large lots, vertical production on walls, windows (window farms), rooftops (green roofs), urban gardens, farmer's markets, economic models of urban gardening, peri-urban agricultural systems, and spatial planning and evolution of the land uses. Additionally, this book elucidates further agricultural technologies, such as the aquaculture systems.

The development of the Chronic Care Model (CCM) for the care of patients with chronic diseases has focused on the integration of taking charge of the patient and his family within primary care. The major critical issues in the implementation of the CCM principles are the non-application of the best practices, defined by EBM guidelines, the lack of care coordination and active follow-up of clinical outcomes, and by inadequately trained patients, who are unable to manage their illnesses. This book focuses on these points: the value of an integrated approach to some chronic conditions, the value of the care coordination across the continuum of the illness, the importance of an evidence-based management, and the enormous value of the patients involvement in the struggle against their conditions, without forgetting the essential role of the caregivers and the community when the diseases become profoundly disabling.

Alternative crops and cropping systems have importance in whole agricultural sector. As the name suggests, it is an alternative that can currently represent only a small economic importance. On the other hand, in some areas pose a new progressive direction, which has the potential to expand in the future. The goal was to write a book where as many different existing studies as possible could be presented in a single volume, making it easy for the reader to compare methods, results and conclusions. As a result, studies from countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Poland, The Czech Republic, Mexico and Japan have been compiled into one book. I believe that the opportunity to compare results and conclusions from different countries and continents will create a new perspective in alternative crops and cropping systems. I hope that our book will help researchers and students all over the world to attain new and interesting results in the field of alternative crops and cropping systems.

Tourism is that area of activity of contemporary man that touches on various fields of human interest. Representatives of numerous academic disciplines find it intriguing for its exceptionally interdisciplinary character. Conditions for and consequences of the development of tourism are investigated, among others, by economists, geographers, sociologists, experts in culture, anthropologists, management and social policy specialists and even by representatives of some natural sciences. Researchers dealing with tourism need to meet strict methodological requirements, but they get access to a very interesting subject of scientific inquiry, which combines social, cultural, economic and environmental aspects to create an ontologically new quality offering epistemological challenges.

Food-borne diseases are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. It is estimated that about 2.2 million people die yearly due to food and water contamination. Food safety and consequently food security are therefore of immense importance to public health, international trade and world economy. This book, which has 10 chapters, provides information on the incidence, health implications and effective prevention and control strategies of food-related diseases. The book will be useful to undergraduate and postgraduate students, educators and researchers in the fields of life sciences, medicine, agriculture, food science and technology, trade and economics. Policy makers and food regulatory officers will also find it useful in the course of their duties.

This book is an original, high-quality, research-level work. It sheds lights on the similarities and differences of social enterprise practices across the international scene. Most of the chapters include empirical findings derived from researches conducted by the authors in Middle East and North Africa, East and West Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. From this perspective the book fills an important knowledge gap while also making a contribution to sorting out the competing and contrasting predictions of social enterprise. Through exploring context-dependent dynamics in a global perspective, the authors address potential opportunities and benefits of social enterprise that may help to find solutions to face emerging social needs. Written by leading academics, this book will be of interest not only to students and academics of social enterprise and entrepreneurship but also to those international practitioners who are looking for new approaches for sustainably tackling emerging social challenges.

This book brings suitable data concerning theory and experiments of neutron interactions with different materials. Since the neutron discovery by Chadwick in 1932, researchers of the entire world begin to make studies about it. It is well known that neutron have no charge, and their electric dipole moment is either zero or too small to measure, but theories and experiments show that neutron has spin (presence of magnetic moment), and polarization neutron scattering is plausible. The reader can obtain remarks about inelastic scattering cross sections for neutron; polarized neutron reflectivity; scattering methods; neutron reflectometry tool to probe the chemical structures; neutron scattering for amino acid crystals; and small-angle neutron scattering nanoemulsion heat transfer fluids in this book.

Functionally graded materials (FGMs) were initially designed as thermal barrier materials for aerospace structures and fusion reactors and now they are also considered as potential structural materials for future high-speed spacecraft and recently are being increasingly considered in various applications to maximize strengths and integrities of many engineering structures. This book is a result of contributions of experts from international scientific community working in different aspects of FGMs and structures and reports on the state of the art research and development findings on this topic through original and innovative research studies. Through its six chapters the reader will have access to works related to processing, sintering properties and applications of functionally graded ceramics and new processing routes for FGMs while it introduces some specific applications, such as functionally graded annular fins and the high-performance self-lubricating ceramic composites with laminated graded structure. Besides, it presents an experimental crack propagation analysis of aluminum matrix FGMs and a unified accurate solution for three-dimensional vibration analysis of functionally graded plates and cylindrical shells with general boundary conditions.

The chapters in this volume of "Insights from Animal Reproduction" address several, particular hot topics in the field of reproduction. The book begins with a comprehensive overview of the cryopreservation of sheep-produced embryos. The following chapter revises the assisted reproductive techniques available for South American wild mammals. Chapter 3 presents the technical procedures necessary to produce transgenic goats. Chapter 4 provides a comprehensive revision of the major molecular determinants of litter size in prolific species. Chapter 5 examines the germ cell determinant transmission, segregation, and function using the zebrafish as a model for germ cell specification in the embryo. Chapter 6 summarizes the current understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms regulating the early stages of folliculogenesis. Chapter 7 examines the sperm motility regulatory proteins as a tool to enhance sperm quality in cryopreservation processes. Chapter 8 discusses contemporary knowledge on the effects of extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) on male reproductive function in rodents. Chapter 9 highlights the importance of the cytogenetic evaluation in searching for causes of infertility of phenotypically normal animals, as well as individuals with an abnormal sex development. The last chapter provides evidence that other uterine diseases may be hidden behind the clinical diagnosis of pyometra that in some case may have a poor outcome.

The presented book provides an overview of the most widely used alternative fuels in the power supply systems in spark-ignition engines and compression-ignition engines, such as LPG, CNG and RME, including the assessment of their operational usefulness, especially in terms of environmental impact in urban traffic. The possibilities of optimizing the ignition processes in engines fueled by gas are presented. The monograph also contains the results of exploitation tests with an assessment of the environmental impact of fuels containing oxygen additives in diesel engines. The possibilities of producing a wide range of advanced alternative fuels (biofuels) with the use of microorganisms as raw materials are also presented.

Nanophase materials are single-phase or multiphase polycrystals, with dimensions of the order of 1-100 nm. As grain size decreases down to the nanometer-size range, nanophase metals generally get stronger and harder, while nanophase ceramics show ductility, even superplasticity, at lower temperatures than conventional brittle ceramics. This book describes a novel method for the production of high purity, unagglomerated nano-particulates of tungsten and tungsten titanium alloys by flame synthesis. W-Ti nano-sized alloys have a combination of high strength (800-1000 MPa), high ductility (10-30%), good e1ectrical and thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance, and excellent machinability. Current applications for W and W-Ti inc1ude radiation shields, lighting components, ignition electrode materials, catalysts in the chemical industry, alloying elements for high speed steels, sputter targets in VLSI chip technology, and sport related parts.

Using the energy from sunlight, photosynthesis usually converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, which are important for all living creatures. Photosynthesis is one of the most important reactions on Earth, and it is a scientific field that is intrinsically interdisciplinary, and many research groups have considered photosynthesis. The aim of this book is to provide new progresses on applied aspects of photosynthesis, and different research groups collected their voluble results from study of this interesting process. All sections have been written by experts in their fields, and book chapters present different and new subjects on photosynthesis.

Organic farming is a progressive method of farming and food production it does not mean going back to traditional (old) methods of farming. Many of the traditional farming methods used in the past are still useful today. Organic farming takes the best of these and combines them with modern scientific knowledge. Authors' task was to write a book where many different existing studies could be presented in a single volume, making it easy for the reader to compare methods, results and conclusions. As a result, studies from different countries have been compiled into one book. I believe that the opportunity to compare results and conclusions from different authors will create a new perspective in organic farming and food production. I hope that our book will help researchers and students from all over the world to attain new and interesting results in the field of organic farming and food production.

This book is divided into two parts. The first part describes mini-invasive surgical techniques, sufficient to perform the most important tasks in rhinoplasty, such as: tip rotation and projection; closure of the open roof after humpectomy; alignment and stabilization of the columella; refinement of the nasal tip, lower third and medial third; narrowing of the alar base. The second part concerns medical rhinoplasty techniques using nerve blocks, injectable fillers etc., which aim is to achieve similar results, despite their temporary effect. Currently, the request for such procedures and their number exceeds this of surgical operations and demonstrates their importance. Although minimally invasive techniques will not totally replace surgical rhinoplasty, this book will serve as a tool to enhance refinement of rhinoplasty and clinical aesthetics.This first textbook in minimally invasive rhinoplasty techniques will be of great help to many doctors and will provoke further development of time-saving, atraumatic and mini-invasive techniques with preservative attitude toward nasal tissues in the modern art of nasal and face beautification.

This book contains 10 Chapters divided into three Sections. Section A covers synthesis of biopolymers. Lignocellulosic feedstock contains cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, which are used for synthesis of biopolymers. Polymer-coated noble metal nanoparticles are used in nanobiomedicine and fundamental biomaterials. Section B describes applications of biopolymers in biomedical, antimicrobial, industrial, nanotechnology, laser-based thin films, and regenerative medicines. Section C is dedicated for advancement and engineering in biopolymers for personal protective garments, equipments, membrane separation processes, purifications, and new generation of high-performance biomaterials. A new numerical-cum-graphical method called TI2BioP (Topological Indices to BioPolymers) has been developed to estimate topological indices (TIs) from two-dimensional (2D) graphical approaches for the natural biopolymers DNA, RNA, and proteins.

This book brings a broad review of recent global developments in theory, instrumentation, and practical applications of electron microscopy. It was created by 13 contributions from experts in different fields of electron microscopy and technology from over 20 research institutes worldwide.

Written by an international team of experts in the field of human carcinogenesis, this book discusses recent advances in cancer research, which include the following topics: basic molecular and cellular mechanisms behind cancer growth, new approaches in cancer therapy, and cancer diagnostic. The book serves as a useful source of reference for cancer biologists, medical doctors, and clinical researchers in the fields of cancer diagnosis, prevention, and treatment.

The impact of global climate change on crop production has emerged as a major research priority during the past decade. Understanding abiotic stress factors such as temperature and drought tolerance and biotic stress tolerance traits such as insect pest and pathogen resistance in combination with high yield in plants is of paramount importance to counter climate change related adverse effects on the productivity of crops. In this multi-authored book, we present synthesis of information for developing strategies to combat plant stress. Our effort here is to present a judicious mixture of basic as well as applied research outlooks so as to interest workers in all areas of plant science. We trust that the information covered in this book would bridge the much-researched area of stress in plants with the much-needed information for evolving climate-ready crop cultivars to ensure food security in the future.

This contribution book collects reviews and original articles from eminent experts working in the interdisciplinary arena of novel drug delivery systems and their uses. From their direct and recent experience, the readers can achieve a wide vision on the new and ongoing potentialities of different smart drug delivery systems. Since the advent of analytical techniques and capabilities to measure particle sizes in nanometer ranges, there has been tremendous interest in the use of nanoparticles for more efficient methods of drug delivery. On the other hand, this reference discusses advances in the design, optimization, and adaptation of gene delivery systems for the treatment of cancer, cardiovascular, diabetic, genetic, and infectious diseases, and considers assessment and review procedures involved in the development of gene-based pharmaceuticals.

This is a comprehensive, practical guidebook that provides a clear overview and update of current modern techniques of ocular surgery. The chapters will be of interest to a wide audience. The chapters are written by experts with special interest and extensive clinical experience in the topics.

Sediment transport is a significant part of the scientific area of river hydraulics. Therefore, the first section of the present book presents effects of sediment transport on hydraulic structures, that concern alluvial channel hydraulics. The second section refers to a serious consequence of river sediment transport, namely reservoir sedimentation. Sediment transported in a river originates from the corresponding basin, that is eroded by rainfall water. Hence, the quantification of soil erosion is also addressed in the second section. While soil erosion is the original physical process that causes reservoir sedimentation, the latter process may increase coastal erosion in case that the river feeding the reservoir, discharges its water into the sea. So, the effect of reservoir sedimentation on coastal erosion is further treated in the second section. Finally, the third section of the book is dedicated to the phenomenon of local scour around bridge piers, in particular the conditions of ice cover.