Bücher veröffentlicht von Mdpi AG

A Special Issue of the international journal Sustainability under the section Sustainability of Culture & Heritage has been made, entitled Natural Sciences in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. The bridge between science/technology and the humanities (archaeology, anthropology, history of art, and cultural heritage) has formed a well-established interdisciplinary subject with several sub-disciplines; it is growing exponentially, spurred by the fast development of technology in other fields (space exploration, medical, military, and industrial applications). On the other hand, art and culture struggle to survive due to neglect, lack of funding, or the dangers of events such as natural disasters and war. This volume strengthens and exerts the documentation of the sustainability of the issue that arises from the outcome of resulting research and the application of such a duality link. The sustainable dimension emerges from society, education, and economics through the impact of cultural growth, all of which produce a balanced society, in which prosperity, harmony, and development are merged at a sustainable local/regional/national/social level. A wide range of subjects linking the applied natural sciences with archaeology and the cultural heritage of innovative research and applications are presented in this volume.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), which are a type of short non-coding RNA, are involved in number of processes, such as differentiation, development, inflammation, immune response, and cancer. miRNAs, which act as oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes, can control and regulate the translation and stability of target messenger RNA, contributing to cancer pathogenesis. Despite the progress that has been made in discovering the mechanisms of how miRNAs function in tumors, many questions and aspects of miRNA biology and processing still remain to be determined. This Special Issue, titled "MicroRNA in Solid Tumor and Hematological Diseases", provides a panorama of the existing knowledge gaps and potential uses of microRNAs to predict clinical outcome or response to therapies and provides evidence to explain their role as biomarkers to modulate the biological pathways that are critical for cancer development and progression. It includes eleven peer-reviewed papers that cover the role of microRNAs in different tumor types and their potential applications in diagnosis and clinical approaches.

At present, more and more procedures and technologies used to discover and characterize new materials are available, including advanced characterization techniques.This Special Issue covers a wide range of topics about obtaining and characterizing new materials, from the nano to macro scales, including for new alloys, ceramics, composites, biomaterials, and polymers and the procedures and technologies used to enhance their structure, properties, and functions. To select new materials for future use, we must first understand their structure and their characteristics using modern techniques such as microscopy (SEM, TEM, AFM, STM, etc.), spectroscopy (EDX, XRD, XRF, FTIR, XPS, etc.), and mechanical tests (tensile, hardness, elastic modulus, toughness, etc.) and their behaviors (in vitro and in vivo; corrosion; and thermal-DSC, STA, DMA, magnetic properties, and biocompatibility), among many others.

The enteric protozoans Cryptosporidium spp. and Giardia duodenalis are the most common diarrhoea-causing protozoan parasites worldwide. Cryptosporidium spp. is a leading cause of diarrhoea morbidity and mortality in children younger than 5 years of age in poor-resource settings in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Although infection by G. duodenalis is rarely a fatal condition, giardiasis is commonly associated with childhood growth faltering and cognitive impairment. Because of their significant socioeconomic impact, particularly in low-income countries, giardiasis and cryptosporidiosis joined the "Neglected Disease Initiative" launched by the World Health Organization in 2004. Both Cryptosporidium spp. and G. duodenalis are ubiquitous in the environment and can infect a wide range of hosts with different specificities, meaning that humans may acquire the infection via waterborne, foodborne, or zoonotic transmission. Recent advances in detection and molecular epidemiology have indicated that certain species/genotypes of Cryptosporidium and G. duodenalis have an expanded range of suitable hosts, suggesting that their transmission pathways are more intricate than previously thought, challenging our current notion of host specificities. Therefore, there is a clear need for more studies  aiming at investigatingthat aim to investigate the frequency and molecular diversity of these parasites in humans, production and companion animals, and wildlife species. This information would be extremely useful to elucidate the transmission dynamics of cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis, and to investigate the exact contribution of zoonotic events to human infections.

This Special Issue is designed to celebrate the founding of the open-access journal Oceans and is focused on presenting new ideas and advances at the cutting edge of ocean science. The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to: ocean geosciences, physics, biogeochemistry, and ecology; ocean ecosystem services and sustainable ocean resource use; and ocean operations and engineering. The fifteen articles published in this Special Issue focus on diverse areas of oceanography, including ocean ecology and biology, ocean geosciences, ocean climate and meteorology, ocean circulation, ocean chemistry and biogeochemistry, ocean resources (e.g., fisheries, aquaculture, and mining), ocean engineering, ocean modeling and ocean governance.

The milk industry is largely based on dairy cattle production. After decades of great advancements in genetics, nutrition, and management, today, one cow can reach unprecedented levels of milk production. New challenges have been posed to preserving the health and welfare of these domestic animals. "High-Yielding Dairy Cows" is a collection of scientific papers focusing on three main areas: metabolic diseases, reproduction diseases, and herd (heath) management in confined and pasture production systems. This book aggregates knowledge from a molecular level to a more holistic approach on disease prevention and management, giving the reader an accurate overview of the current state of the art of this topic. It intends to contribute to ensuring the supply of ethical and responsible animal protein for about eight billion of people.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Non-canonical Kinases and Substrates in Cancer Progression" that was published in the scientific journal Cancers. It was edited by Francisco M. Vega, Ph.D. from the University of Seville in Spain. It brings together the latest views and original research on non-canonical protein kinases, substrates, and scaffolds

In many industrial applications, metallic materials are exposed to harsh operating conditions. Due to a combination of chemical and thermal stresses, the constructional and functional materials are degraded, and their utility properties are lost. These undesirable events are of a physicochemical nature and are commonly known as ''corrosion''. In this Special Issue Book, 3 reviews and 18 original research papers focused on the complex relationships between the microstructure, phase constitution, and corrosion behavior of metallic materials are collected. Both high temperature and low temperature corrosion studies are included as they investigate the physicochemical processes at the material interfaces. Furthermore, possibilities for increasing the corrosion resistance of metallic materials are studied by means of surface modification and application of protective layers. This Special Issue Book, Microstructure and Corrosion Behavior of Advanced Alloys, displays the diversity and complexity of modern corrosion research. It is hoped that it will become a valuable source of reference for corrosion scientists.

Fruit production has faced many challenges in recent years as society seeks to increase fruit consumption while increasing safety and reducing the harmful effects of intensive farming practices (e.g., pesticides and fertilizers). In the last 50 years, the population has more than doubled and is expected to grow to 9 billion people by 2050. Per capita consumption of fruit is also increasing during this time and the global fruit industry is facing a major challenge to produce enough fruit in quantity and quality. The need for sustainable production of nutritious food is critical for human and environmental health.This book provides some answers to people who are increasingly concerned about the sustainability of fruit production and the fruit industry as a whole.

Metals have always played a significant role in human life, and the current global growth and prosperity are directly dependent on these materials. With the rapidly growing global demand for metals, their extraction from natural minerals (as their primary sources) has been enhanced, causing a significant reduction in the grade and quality of the ores in ore deposits and leading to the production of huge amounts of waste, which requires management. In light of this, new proposals to develop more advanced metal recovery technologies from minerals are needed. Additionally, the huge quantity of waste generated through all steps of metal production is known to be a source of environmental pollution, while its valorization can create value via recycling metals or even though use in the production of other valuable materials. Such waste valorization is also in line with the United Nations'' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as the implementation of the Paris Agreement. In this regard, the recycling of end-user products in order to reproduce valuable metals can also create significant value and reduce mining activities, and thus, their harmful consequences worldwide. Therefore, research and development in the state-of-the-art technologies for the recovery and recycling of metals are absolutely necessary. The aim of this Special Issue was to collect a range of articles on different aspects of valuable metal recovery and recycling from primary and secondary sources, as well as to decipher all new methods, processes, and knowledge in valuable metal production. We hope that this open access Special Issue will provide a great opportunity to demonstrate the work of researchers working in this area all around the world and help to provide new ideas for researchers who are working in the areas of hydrometallurgy, mineral processing, and waste recycling and valorization.

Nine manuscripts were published in this Special Issue on "Theoretical and Computational Research in Various Scheduling Models, 2021" of the MDPI Mathematics journal, covering a wide range of topics connected to the theory and applications of various scheduling models and their extensions/generalizations. These topics include a road network maintenance project, cost reduction of the subcontracted resources, a variant of the relocation problem, a network of activities with generally distributed durations through a Markov chain, idea on how to improve the return loading rate problem by integrating the sub-tour reversal approach with the method of the theory of constraints, an extended solution method for optimizing the bi-objective no-idle permutation flowshop scheduling problem, the burn-in (B/I) procedure, the Pareto-scheduling problem with two competing agents, and three preemptive Pareto-scheduling problems with two competing agents, among others. We hope that the book will be of interest to those working in the area of various scheduling problems and provide a bridge to facilitate the interaction between researchers and practitioners in scheduling questions. Although discrete mathematics is a common method to solve scheduling problems, the further development of this method is limited due to the lack of general principles, which poses a major challenge in this research field.

The present book contains the articles published in the Special Issue "Differential Equation Models in Applied Mathematics: Theoretical and Numerical Challenges" of the MDPI journal Mathematics. The Special Issue aimed to highlight old and new challenges in the formulation, solution, understanding, and interpretation of models of differential equations (DEs) in different real world applications. The technical topics covered in the seven articles published in this book include: asymptotic properties of high order nonlinear DEs, analysis of backward bifurcation, and stability analysis of fractional-order differential systems. Models oriented to real applications consider the chemotactic between cell species, the mechanism of on-off intermittency in food chain models, and the occurrence of hysteresis in marketing. Numerical aspects deal with the preservation of mass and positivity and the efficient solution of Boundary Value Problems (BVPs) for optimal control problems. I hope that this collection will be useful for those working in the area of modelling real-word applications through differential equations and those who care about an accurate numerical approximation of their solutions. The reading is also addressed to those willing to become familiar with differential equations which, due to their predictive abilities, represent the main mathematical tool for applying scenario analysis to our changing world.

Previous and current resource use models have led to high levels of pollution, environmental degradation, and depletion of natural resources. The waste policy has a long history and has traditionally focused on more environmentally sustainable waste management. To be efficient in terms of resource use, the principles of the circular economy should change this trend, transforming the economy into a sustainable economy. The new waste regulations introduce new waste management objectives in terms of waste prevention, reuse, recycling, and storage by addressing new processes.

Despite tremendous advances in our understanding of marine mammals over the past several decades, numerous unanswered questions remain. These include fundamental questions in every biological discipline as well as other areas of science, including basic and applied chemistry and physics. Current studies of marine mammals reflect major improvements in technology as well as equally large changes in the ocean environment. Contributions for this Special Issue were invited in all areas of marine mammal research, especially those focusing on one (or both) of two themes: changing technological advances and changes in ocean habitats affecting marine mammals (including but not limited to changes in climate/temperature; ocean acidification; noise, plastic, or chemical pollution; vessel traffic and ship strikes; pathogenic viruses and microbes; trophic and salinity changes; fisheries impacts; habitat destruction; and related topics). The five articles published in this Special Issue focus on diverse areas of marine mammal research and health, including ecology, conservation, population biology and management, behavior, habitat and distribution, genetics, evolution, physiology, anatomy, acoustics, effects of noise and pollution, and new technologies.

Inventions have led to the technological advances of mankind. There are inventions of all kinds, some of which have lasted hundreds of years or even longer. Low-cost technologies are expected to be easy to build, have little or no energy consumption, and be easy to maintain and operate. The use of sustainable technologies is essential in order to move towards a greater global coverage of technology, and therefore to improve human quality of life. Low-cost products always respond to a specific need, even if no in-depth analysis of the situation or possible solutions has been carried out. It is a consensus in all industrialized countries that patents have a decisive influence on the organization of the economy, as they are a key element in promoting technological innovation. Patents must aim to promote the technological development of countries, starting from their industrial situations.

Chronic liver diseases develop from a wide range of causes, including hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, alcoholic-related liver disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and autoimmune liver diseases. Recent advances in molecular and cellular techniques have succeeded in providing new aspects in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic liver diseases. This book includes the state-of-the-art researches on chronic liver diseases.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is known as the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome, and while most patients develop simple steatosis, up to one-third can develop nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH is a chronic inflammatory condition of the liver that can further progress to fibrosis and cirrhosis, which may eventually lead to liver failure and death. While we have increased our mechanistic knowledge regarding the pathogenesis of NASH within the last decade, treatment options are still limited and liver biopsies have remained the gold standard for diagnosis. To achieve major clinical breakthroughs for NASH patients, it is not sufficient to use a single animal model, since each model has specific limitations. Furthermore, we should rely more on alternative models such as organ-on-a-chip, which will enable us to explore unknown aspects of disease pathogenesis much faster and serve as clinically relevant surrogates for murine models. Another important direction for the improvement of patient health is to pay more attention to extrahepatic, organ-specific and systemic effects, which are associated with NASH. The articles in this Special Issue include an up-to-date overview of the rapidly developing technologies, novel targets for intervention and insights in the field in NASH. Additionally, these articles describe the major challenges in the field, strategies to overcome them and suggestions for future directions. To improve patient''s outcome, clinicians, as well as scientists with biomedical, nutrition, physics and mathematics backgrounds, should join forces. Although challenges remain, the future of the field seems promising as these novel technologies and developments are expected to lead to progress in NASH.

Aquatic ecosystems and the water they hold have attracted people over the centuries. With the technological development and increasing needs of human society, the attitude to water and aquatic ecosystems has changed. Consequently, biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems has declined dramatically and it is still decreasing. Anthropogenic exploitation of these ecosystems and alterations of their hydrology has largely influenced hydrology-shaped plant communities.This Special Issue, "Hydrology-Shaped Plant Communities: Diversity and Ecological Function" brings new outcomes about the interactions between hydrological factors and wide spectrum of plant communities. In ecosystems, where human activities directly or indirectly affected the hydrological factors, dependent plant communities have also changed or even disappeared. These plant communities have multiple ecological functions, and one of the most important are the maintenance of water quality and enhancement of local and regional diversity of other biotic communities like diatoms, invertebrates or fish. Thus, detailed knowledge and suitable management of hydrology-shaped plant communities is a prerequisite for their unconstrained ecological functions and high diversity of aquatic ecosystems in the widest sense. The Special Issue consists of ten peer-reviewed papers on plant communities in a variety of ecosystems - from the small kettle-holes in the lowlands of northern Germany to the river Danube - the largest river within the European Union, and from different wetland types in Central Europe to the Donggting Lake - fourth largest lake in China.

This book brings together a diverse range of international scholars to highlight recent developments in research on collaborative learning. The emphasis is on research that has a strong evidence base for the work that is presented and includes empirical studies, best evidence synthesis of the relevant research, case studies, and theoretical reports. It also highlights how different technologies have been used to facilitate group interaction, dialogue, and learning. There is much to be gained by sharing and learning about what happens in different disciplines and contexts and how different collaborative pedagogies can be implemented when needed to promote understanding and learning. This book will have strong appeal to pre-service and experienced teachers and researchers who are interested in how different collaborative pedagogies can be embedded in course curricula to promote student engagement and learning.

The aim of this book is to highlight up to date exploited technologies and approaches in terms of antenna designs and requirements. In this regard, this book targets a broad range of subjects, including the microstrip antenna and the dipole and printed monopole antenna. The varieties of antenna designs, along with several different approaches to improve their overall performance, have given this book a great value, in which makes this book is deemed as a good reference for practicing engineers and under/postgraduate students working in this field. The key technology trends in antenna design as part of the mobile communication evolution have mainly focused on multiband, wideband, and MIMO antennas, and all have been clearly presented, studied and implemented within this book. The forthcoming 5G systems consider a truly mobile multimedia platform that constitutes a converged networking arena that not only includes legacy heterogeneous mobile networks but advanced radio interfaces and the possibility to operate at mm wave frequencies to capitalize on the large swathes of available bandwidth. This provides the impetus for a new breed of antenna design that, in principle, should be multimode in nature, energy efficient, and, above all, able to operate at the mm wave band, placing new design drivers on the antenna design. Thus, this book proposes to investigate advanced 5G antennas for heterogeneous applications that can operate in the range of 5G spectrums and to meet the essential requirements of 5G systems such as low latency, large bandwidth, and high gains and efficiencies.

There are several types of training methods aiming to develop sports performance and improve health indicators. Fundamentally, training methods are the result of manipulating different training variables, and the possibility of combining these variables is vast. Therefore, the search to study the effect of these constraints on sports and health, considering specific contexts and taking into account the magnitude of inter-individual responses, will afford a better understanding of the training interventions.At the same time, over the years, numerous innovations and technological advances have been introduced to assist the development of athletes'' performance and monitor individual lifestyles. These advances have changed how training may be conducted, controlled, and evaluated. For example, in sport settings, using technology to collect many and continuous data of athletes'' activity in their natural environments appears as an innovative and promising step. In health, an enormous diversity of training methods supporting healthy lifestyles and innovative approaches is arising, especially from higher-quality information gathered through technological development.Papers addressing these topics are included in this book, especially those combining a high academic standard with a practical focus on providing knowledge on how training methods improve sports performance and health across people''s lifespans. New evidence urges us to track the progress and effects of training methods.

Additive manufacturing (AM) or, more commonly, 3D printing is one of the fundamental elements of Industry 4.0. and the fourth industrial revolution. It has shown its potential example in the medical, automotive, aerospace, and spare part sectors. Personal manufacturing, complex and optimized parts, short series manufacturing and local on-demand manufacturing are some of the current benefits. Businesses based on AM have experienced double-digit growth in recent years. Accordingly, we have witnessed considerable efforts in developing processes and materials in terms of speed, costs, and availability. These open up new applications and business case possibilities all the time, which were not previously in existence. Most research has focused on material and AM process development or effort to utilize existing materials and processes for industrial applications. However, improving the understanding and simulation of materials and AM process and understanding the effect of different steps in the AM workflow can increase the performance even more. The best way of benefit of AM is to understand all the steps related to that-from the design and simulation to additive manufacturing and post-processing ending the actual application.The objective of this Special Issue was to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange their latest achievements and identify critical issues and challenges for future investigations on "Modeling, Simulation and Data Processing for Additive Manufacturing". The Special Issue consists of 10 original full-length articles on the topic.

Requests for regional soil moisture observations are increasing to parameterize complex hydrological models, to assess the impact of land-use changes, and to develop climate adaption strategies in the agricultural sector. Spatial land-use patterns have an impact on the soil water balance and groundwater recharge. Soil moisture is therefore a key parameter for the long-term monitoring and development of sustainable land-management and landscape design strategies that mitigate regional water scarcity and droughts. For example, the spatial organization of hedges or tree rows related to open land and wind direction avoids soil erosion, limits local evaporation, and increases local soil water storage.Since the early 1980s, satellite missions have been designed to monitor proxies for soil moisture, mainly at the national and global scale, with a relatively coarse pixel resolution and low accuracy. The local effects of weather and climate are very dynamic in space and time. Thus, a strong need exists for more accurate, regional-scale remote sensing products for soil moisture. The transfer of existing, proof-of-concept algorithms to region-specific monitoring frameworks is urgent. This Special Issue provides an overview of current developments on remote sensing-based soil moisture observations that are applicable at a regional scale. The compendium of research papers demonstrates the benefits of concurrently utilizing multi-source remote sensing data and in situ measurements through:-          Using additional data and site-specific knowledge; -          Combining empirical and physical approaches;-          Developing concepts to deal with mixed pixels.

This Special Issue covers different aspects of the nano/microencapsulation of drugs, including papers describing the design, preparation, and characterization of nano- and micro-carrier-based drug delivery systems and the latest developments in key fields. Eight articles regarding this topic were selected for this Special Issue, demonstrating the potential of this development strategy for drug delivery in a wide range of applications (from cancer treatment to wound healing, as well as cardiovascular or ocular diseases). Prestigious experts in these fields have participated in this Special Issue, sharing their research and contributions with authors affiliated with different Universities and other renowned and well-respected institutions.

This issue of Viruses is a living memorial dedicated to Professor Stefan Kunz, who passed away too early in life, at 54. During his scientific career, Stefan made major contributions to the field of virology. He made seminal contributions to our understanding of how mammarenaviruses gain access to and are trafficked within their target cells. This issue of Viruses contains a collection of articles by leading researchers in different areas of virus-host cell interactions and who crossed pathways with Stefan. The topics covered in the issue include novel insights on mammeranavirus cell entry, host innate and adaptive immune responses to infection, recent developments on therapeutics against human pathogenic arenaviruses, as well as mammarenavirus ecology and molecular pathogenesis. The collection of articles is also a reflection of Stefan''s enthusiasm for exploring new ideas and his very collegial attitude reflected by his many collaborations, including the colleagues who have contributed sections to this memorial issue.

The dual role of complement in both cancer development and treatment has been investigated extensively and is characterized by a substantial literature that documents the conditions in which complement can either enhance tumor growth or promote the killing of malignant cells. Indeed, there are now numerous examples of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that have either been approved by the FDA or that are under active investigation that make use of complement when eliminating cancer cells. Although the direct in vitro killing of mAb-opsonized cancer cell lines by complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) can be readily demonstrated, there are considerable challenges related to the translation of these findings to the clinic, and numerous strategies have been employed to maximize mAb-mediated CDC in cancer treatment. These approaches include the redesign of mAb dosing schedules; engineering the Fc regions of the mAbs to enhance complement activation; treatment with cocktails of mAbs that bind to several different sites on the targeted cells and thus that potentially synergize CDC promotion; and neutralizing the complement control proteins on malignant cells to weaken their defenses against complement. Target sites on malignant cells that have been successfully exploited for mAb-induced CDC include CD20, CD37, CD38, CD52, and Epidermal Growth Factor Receptors. MAbs specific to complement components have served as powerful analytical reagents to investigate the detailed mechanisms of CDC, and they have been employed to document complement activation by cancer cells and to examine the role of complement proteins (in particular C1q and fragments of C3 and C5) in supporting tumor growth. The use of polyclonal and mAb reagents has revealed a role for the intracellular complement system in cancer biology and strategies that focus on the interaction of complement with the tumor microenvironment, and examining the impact of the complotype on the response to immunotherapy in cancer should lead to additional mAb-based therapies. Along these lines, there is now increasing evidence that strategies that make use of mAbs or other agents to modulate the action of C3a/C5a or their respective receptors may also find use in cancer immunotherapy.

This special issue on the genetics of Alzheimer''s disease was edited by Drs. Laura Ibanez and Justin Miller in 2021. It contains 10 original articles and reviews that help readers understand specific genetic contributions to Alzheimer''s disease and how genetics will play a role in future Alzheimer''s disease research.