Bücher veröffentlicht von Mdpi AG

The Special Issue papers comprise classified into four categories: The first category includes three papers that examine the practical application of design theory in different contexts. The second category comprises three papers exploring the role of technology in design education. The third category includes three papers that analyze the intersection of design education and cross-cultural communication. The final category encompasses two papers investigating the application of design education in diverse fields. It offered invaluable insights into the latest pedagogical approaches, technologies, and trends in the field of design education. It provided a rich and nuanced view of the challenges and opportunities faced by design educators today. It was an invaluable resource for researchers, educators, and practitioners in the field of design education.

Numerous biotic and abiotic stresses can significantly decrease crop growth and yields. In the context of climate change, stresses will be more frequent in the coming years and will have an even more severe impact on agricultural systems. As a result, crop production could be drastically reduced, with the consequences aggravated by the fact that the world's growing population will require more food production. Furthermore, among abiotic stresses, the salinity of soils and water for agricultural use, as well as drought, particularly impact crops. For these reasons, sustainable measures need to be implemented to maintain/increase crop production and ensure the resilience of agricultural systems. To this end, biostimulants, materials that can increase crop productivity and the quality profile of end products, are an increasingly popular solution. The primary function of biostimulants is improving nutrient use efficiency, quality traits, and stress tolerance, as well as ensuring the bioavailability of nutrients in the soil or rhizosphere. Therefore, this Special Issue published research on the effects of biostimulants on helping crops to cope with abiotic stresses, focusing on salt and drought stress. In addition, scientific contributions on the use of biostimulants to counteract other abiotic stresses, such as potentially toxic metals and extreme temperatures, are also welcome. New substances with biostimulant action and studies investigating the mechanisms of action of biostimulants and their qualitative, economic, and environmental benefits will also be considered.

Extreme hydrometeorological events, which cause severe impacts in terms of injuries, casualties, and socioeconomic losses, are being reported more and more frequently worldwide. Climate variability and anthropogenic changes amplify the impacts of these events. This reprint showcases studies which address challenges related to monitoring, modeling, forecasting, and assessing the impacts of hydrometeorological hazards. These studies focus on: (i) the description of recent relevant extreme hydrometeorological events, accompanied by analyses of spatiotemporal features and trends; (ii) the estimation and projection of the impacts of climate change and land-use transformations on the occurrence and severity of hydrometeorological extreme events, with associated uncertainties; (iii) the integration of remote sensing data or climate forecasts and models to provide timely warnings or reliable predictions; and (iv) the use of advanced statistical methodologies to characterize extreme hydrometeorological events, among other topics.

Neurodegenerative disorders (NDs) are becoming more prevalent in our aging population, and traditional methods of monitoring ND symptoms can be challenging. Wearable technology offers several advantages, such as continuous monitoring, objective measurements, and remote monitoring. The present reprint includes a collection of eleven research and review articles that propose wearable solutions and explore signal processing, machine learning, and deep learning approaches for the computerized diagnosis and monitoring of NDs. Topics covered include using wearable technology to measure blood pressure, movement, sleep patterns, and brain activity, and developing predictive models to support clinicians in making informed decisions about treatment and care. This reprint is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the potential of wearable technology to improve the diagnosis and management of NDs.

The welfare of an individual could be severely affected by stressful events. Mainly for this reason, the scientific community is interested in finding specific and quantifiable characteristics which could indicate or predict specific signs of acute or chronic stress exposure. The aim of this reprint is to reflect this interest in the field of companion animal physiology. The authors engaged in publishing this reprint are experts in the multiple mechanisms involved in stress response, including the detection of behavioral and physical signs which can be measured through biological indicators of homeostasis displacement. The editors strongly believe this topic will be of interest not only to researchers in this field, but also to dog trainers, dog shelter workers and veterinary behaviorists.

This reprint is aimed at presenting strategic and design elements for the development of low-cost, low-size Free Electron Lasers.Different points of view are considered here, attempting to consider technologies and design conceptions that are fairly mature and may be viable solutions in the near or midterm future.The design conceptions proposed here are based on the so-called hybrid (or broader-approach) technologies, which put together, e.g., combinations of oscillator and amplifier configurations.These solutions, although developed almost thirty years ago, appear nowadays within the present technological capabilities.Other possibilities offered, for example , by the recirculated wave undulator FELs, represent border line technologies, which are worth carefully studying as the architecture of the mid-term future. Finally, the reprint addresses both theoretical and design considerations regarding proposals for the enhancement of coherent emission on higher harmonics.

This book presents some of the selected works presented during the 5th Mexican Workshop on Fractional Calculus on October 5-7, 2022, hosted by the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Nuevo León. The works correspond to those recent proposals and applications on fractional calculus carried out in Mexico or by Latin American researchers related in one way or another to this country. Unfortunately, some of the papers we discussed during these three days of complete (not fractional) immersion in the non-integer operators were disregarded from this book, not because of their quality or relevance but due to reasons out of the academic domain. It is also worth mentioning that students of all levels, practitioners, and researchers attending this workshop participated in great critical discussions in every single session, including tutorials, plenary talks, accepted talks, and-not the least relevant to science-coffee breaks.

In this Special Issue, authors from nine countries on five continents provide overviews on and insights into current research topics related to the 'Genetic Complexity of Hormone-Sensitive Cancers'. The chapters cover topics on completely novel technologies and instruments revolutionizing our view of biological entities, and also, novel extensions and revisions of existing and well-established technologies such as genetic probes and bar-coding techniques, which add a new dimension to microscopy, as they allow us to visualize DNA sequences and mRNA in situ. With this Special Issue, the editors wanted to create a forum for the international biomedical research community to compile their data on the genetic complexity of cancer in a unique resource. While this collection of articles cannot certainly claim completeness in any way, it represents an attractive collection of the different aspects of hormone-dependent cancers and will hopefully encourage further targeted research.

Dear Readers,This book describes the ability of some foods or natural substances extracted by plants to counteract some of the most common diseases at present, such as obesity, diabetes, intestinal inflammatory diseases, and neurodegeneration. It is well accepted that high-fat diets that are rich in saturated fats are involved in the onset and progression of obesity and its dangerous comorbidities. It is also well accepted that a balanced diet is useful to maintain a good health status and the choice of certain foods could help to counteract the onset of chronic diseases. Foods and natural substances rich in compounds with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties should be paid attention. Most of these foods belong to the Mediterranean Diet, and they are famous for being rich of unsaturated fatty acids, such as the oleic acid found in extra-virgin olive oil, or the omega 3 contained in fish, vitamin D and vitamin C with their high anti-oxidant capacity, and spices and nuts that can counteract inflammatory status. These substances have also anti-obesity properties, because they are able to reduce fat mass and and restore the physiological role of fat tissue. Therefore, strict adherence to this healthy diet could be enough to prevent the onset of chronic diseases linked to fatty diets or aging.The scientific data collected in this book could provide new insights, allowing for readers to change their own dietary habits and make more informed food choices.

This book considers studies related to the bone graft materials used for bone regeneration in dental and medical areas, and particularly studies on new development and development directions, such as synthetic bone and heterologous bone. Bone regeneration is one of the most important challenges in medicine. Previously, patients' autologous bones were collected and transplanted for bone regeneration, but this had many limitations. Many researchers are currently developing a method that surpasses the bone regeneration ability of an autologous bone, via the use of artificial bone or heterologous bone. By developing and commercializing more functional, more efficient graft materials, both medical standards and patients' quality of life will be improved.This book reflects some of the related studies, but its greatest contribution to the field is its suggestions for future research and possible developments in this area.

As increasingly sophisticated and evasive malware attacks continue to emerge, more effective detection solutions to tackle the problem are being sought through the application of advanced machine learning techniques. This reprint presents several advances in the field including: a new method of generating adversarial samples through byte sequence feature extraction using deep learning; a state-of-the-art comparative evaluation of deep learning approaches for mobile botnet detection; a novel visualization-based approach that utilizes images for Android botnet detection; a study on the detection of drive-by exploits in images using deep learning; etc. Furthermore, this reprint presents state-of-the-art reviews about machine learning-based detection techniques that will increase researchers' knowledge in the field and enable them to identify future research and development directions.

It is a great pleasure to provide you this Special Issue of Nutrients related to the 5th International Conference "Vitamin D-Minimum, Maximum, Optimum", under the auspices of the European Vitamin D Association (EVIDAS).The conference and the forthcoming papers serve as an international forum for the presentation and discussion of current basic and clinical research in the field of vitamin D. Organizing this subsequent Special Issue was truly challenging, given that vitamin D has recently been shown by prestigious medical journals to be an epiphenomenon that coincides with diseases, and that the correction of vitamin D deficits has limited clinical meaning. On the other hand, it was recognized that vitamin D deficiency is a global health problem with potential negative consequences on health, welfare, and morbidity during growth and adulthood, therefore influencing healthcare services worldwide. Thus, due to mutually exclusive conclusions, it was essential to discuss and share scientific reports and evidence demonstrating both the benefits and lack thereof in relation to human health.Prof. Dr. Pawel PludowskiGuest Editor

Foods derived from grains and grain-based ingredients represent a crucial source of energy and nutrients for humans. Cereals are conventional food materials, while interest is growing in the utilization of pseudocereals, pulses, oilseeds, and other grains to develop various foods and food ingredients. Grain and food processing converts raw grains into functional ingredients and creates palatable and nutritious end-products. During processing, various physical and chemical changes and interactions take place, affecting the nutritional, textural, sensory, and other quality properties of the products. Methods, protocols, and equipment have been developed to process, monitor, and control processing parameters to achieve the desired end-product quality or functionality. This book covers diverse topics related to grain-processing innovations and the effect of both conventional and innovative grain processes on the properties of grain-derived ingredients, intermediates, and end products.

Optical technology is one of the key technologies that have been widely used for communication, computing and sensing. By utilizing different degrees of freedom for photon, optical signals can be detected and processed in different dimensions including amplitude, phase, polarization, time, frequency, and spatial mode. Multidimensional signal processing technologies have thus been broadly studied for improving the performance of communication, sensing and even computing systems. Recently, innovative optical signal processing methods and devices have been emerged to serve those needs driven by applications including but not limited to optical fiber transmission, supercontinuum generation, phase conjugation, free space optical communication, optical beamforming, photonic integration, fiber amplification, pose estimation and so on. This Special Issue aims to explore those emerging and enabling technologies of signal processing methods and devices for optical communication, optical computing, and optical sensing. The Special Issue consists of two review papers, one communication and seven articles within the areas of optical fiber transmission, specialty fiber design, 3D pose estimation, free space communication, digital signal processing, as well as photonic integration. Optical signal processing powered next generation communication, computing and sensing can be highly expected.

Diet contributes to the development of many chronic conditions including obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, some cancers, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and potentially some neurological diseases. This book addresses associations between diet (and specific nutrients including vitamin D) and various chronic diseases including obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, neurological conditions, and age-related macular degeneration. More specifically, the impacts of plant-based diets, dairy products, and ketogenic diets are explored in relation to chronic disease risk as well as some benefits of the consumption of oral nutritional supplements in the prevention of malnutrition and sarcopenia and in the treatment of wounds in individuals with diabetes. Additional topics that are covered include some roles of the fatty acid arachidonic acid in the body and the impact of cellular mitochondrial dysfunction on the progression of age-related macular degeneration. The effectiveness of a variety of nutraceuticals is covered as a means for the prevention or treatment of age-related macular degeneration. Lastly, the use of olive oil in reducing gut permeability in those with pre-diabetes is addressed, as well as the complex relationships of diet/food and of disease (metabolic syndrome) with the gut microbiota.

This reprint addresses the relationship between education and sustainability from various perspectives. The main issues discussed in the 12 collected papers are concerned with (1) the quality of education, (2) SDG policy and implementation, (3) education and societal development, (4) students' learning, and (5) global experience.

The Special Issue "Mapping, Monitoring and Assessing Disasters" includes recent advances and results from research in the field of disaster detection and monitoring, and disaster impact assessment and mapping. It includes 10 research articles on multiparametric and interdisciplinary research on disaster phenomena related to geophysical and hydrometeorological hazards (e.g., earthquakes, landslides, tsunami, medicanes, megafires) that have occurred in various regions of Greece, New Zealand and Chile. These approaches constitute a useful and effective tool for mapping, monitoring and assessing disasters in areas with similar geodynamic settings and geoenvironmental properties worldwide.

This Special Issue highlights the last decade's progress regarding new nanostructured materials. In this regard, the development of nanoscale syntheses and innovative characterization tools resulted in the tailored design of nanostructured materials with versatile abilities in many applications were investigated. Various types of engineered nanostructures, usually metal nanoparticles or nanoporous metal oxides, have been synthesized for various applications. This Special Issue covers the state-of-the-art of advanced nanoparticles in many disciplines (chemistry, pharmacy, nano-medicine, agriculture, catalysis, and environmental science). The Special Issue entitled, Synthesis, Characterization and Application of Sustainable Advanced Nanomaterials, including 18 original research works, focuses on highlighting the progress, challenges, and future directions in the area of the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials and nanostructures with multiple applications in chemistry, physics, biology, and medicine [1-3].

Transportation, logistics, and supply chain systems and networks constitute one of the pillars of modern economies and societies. From sustainable traffic management in smart cities or air transportation to green and socially responsible logistics practices, many enterprises and governments around the world have to make decisions that affect the efficiency of these complex systems. Typically, optimization algorithms are employed to deal with these challenges, and simulation approaches are utilized when considering scenarios under uncertainty. However, better results might be achieved by hybridizing both optimization algorithms with simulation techniques to deal with real-life transportation, logistics, and SCM challenges, which often are large-scale and NP-hard problems under uncertainty conditions. Hence, simheuristic algorithms (combining metaheuristics with simulation) as well as other simulation optimization approaches constitute an effective way to support decision makers in such complex scenarios.This reprint presents a collection of selected articles on simulation optimization in transportation, logistics, and supply chain management. The reprint is strongly connected to the topics covered in the Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) track on logistics, transportation, and SCM, which includes a stream in simheuristic algorithms as well.

This book includes 16 original articles published in a Special Issue that focuses on the pathological significance of amyloid-¿ in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, the main cause of dementia. Collections in this book provide novel insights into the underlying mechanisms and therapeutic potentials of repositioning drugs and new agents for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. These findings are expected to contribute to the development of innovative strategies for the prevention and treatment of such diseases.

Musculoskeletal research deals with the effects of the orthopedic treatment of pathologies on the biomechanics of the affected areas and on the musculoskeletal system. Biomechanical measurement methods enable the quantitative determination of these influences and allow for an assessment of their extent and size for the patient (in vivo). The range of examination methods is particularly wide in this field of musculoskeletal research. On the one hand, in vitro examinations under laboratory conditions on simplified models, such as artificial bones or specimens from donors, will be implemented. With the help of these models, for example, new biomaterials or implants for the treatment of fractures are often examined for their primary stability or the influence of a joint replacement on the kinematics. In contrast to experimental in vitro studies, numerical methods will be increasingly applied to analyze a large number of implant configurations and loading scenarios. With the method of clinical motion analysis, a comprehensive view of the musculoskeletal system is performed directly in vivo on the patient. For example, it allows for the monitoring and control of therapeutic interventions. These are just a few examples from the field of musculoskeletal research and its methods. They all have the common goal of increasing patient safety. This Special Issue intends to provide the reader with an exciting overview of current research in the field of biomechanical investigations for the treatment of musculoskeletal diseases.

Unlike transistors, the continuous downscaling of feature size in CMOS technology leads to a dramatic rise in interconnect resistivity and concomitant performance degradation. At nanoscale technology nodes, interconnect delay and reliability become the major bottlenecks faced by modern integrated circuits. To resolve these interconnect problems, various emerging technologies, including airgap, nanocarbon, optical, and through-silicon via (TSV), have been proposed and investigated. For example, by virtue of TSV technology, dies can be stacked to increase the integration density. More importantly, 3D integration and packaging also offer the most promising platform to implement "More-than-Moore" technologies, providing heterogeneous materials and technologies on a single chip. The "Advanced Interconnect and Packaging" Special Issue seeks to showcase research papers on new developments in advanced interconnect and packaging, i.e., on the design, modeling, fabrication, and reliability assessment of emerging interconnect and packaging technologies. Additionally, there are two interesting papers on carbon nanotube interconnects and interconnect reliability issues.

Energy systems have played an essential role in the history of human civilization. As our civilization evolves, energy systems are expected to adapt to the environment and desire of people for more sustainable development whilst meeting the ever-increasing energy demand of society. To address global warming and its threats to sustainable development to multiple ends, major economies around the world have announced low-carbon, carbon-neutral, or negative-carbon development targets. To meet these goals, the energy systems as we know them today need to undergo substantial structural changes in terms of the way primary energy is extracted from nature, converted to secondary energy, transmitted from conversion sites to end use, and shifted between time slots to coordinate supply and demand. The share of renewable and fossil energy in the overall energy portfolio could experience unprecedented structural change of a kind not witnessed since industrialization. To cope with this harsh transition, energy systems should be planned, designed, retrofitted, and operated in a revolutionary manner.This reprint aims to present the most recent advances in energy systems analysis towards low/zero/negative carbon emission targets via integration amongst different primary energy supplies, between multiple energy supplies and demands, across geographically separated regions, and over different time scales from seconds to seasons.

The book is a reprint of a Special Issue with the same title published online in the chemical journal Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049) within the section of Medicinal Chemistry. It was edited by academic guest editors from September 2020 to April 2022. In total, it includes eighteen research/review articles including the editorial.

This reprint contains a Special Issue of the MDPI journal Machines on Italian advances in mechanism and machines science through a collection of selected papers from the Fourth International Conference of IFToMM Italy, IFIT 2022.The included papers belong to a broad range of disciplines in MMS, with research and design results that can be of interest not only to scholars in the field of MMS and mechanical engineering but also to professionals and even students, broadening their understanding of the problems and solutions under development, mainly, but not only, from the Italian community.

The global financial crisis plunged the global economy into a great recession. Many central banks responded with unconventional monetary policies such as quantitative easing, negative policy rates, and forward guidance to calm down financial markets. The COVID-19 pandemic led the global economy, financial markets, and central banks to face even more severe problems. Central banks set up further asset purchase programmes to complement existing unconventional monetary policy measures that have already been in place to help the economy to absorb the COVID-19 shock. The new crisis has increased the importance of preserving financial stability through the international cooperation of central banks around the globe. Managing the expectations of market participants plays a crucial role in the context of financial stability. Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue is to disseminate important empirical and theoretical research questions concerning the connection between monetary policy and international financial markets and to stimulate discussion among academics and policymakers. A special focus is devoted to emerging and developing economies.The Special Issue covers several different articles on a variety of topics from the fields of monetary policy and international financial markets. The contributions address research questions on exchange rates, cryptocurrencies, stock markets, the connection between money supply and inflation after the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of commodity price shocks for banking system stability in developing countries, global liquidity effects, the twin deficit, and the Taylor rule.

Let us introduce this new reprint published by MDPI. This volume is the second part of a previous one devoted to Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Materials, published by MDPI in 2021. As expected, these unique ten contributions fully agree with the definition of hybrid material as per the IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) recommendations, defining hybrid materials as the composed of an intimate mixture of inorganic or both types of components interpenetrating scales of less than one micron. Therefore, the reader may deduce that this definition offers many approximations to investigate in the field. Orrganic-inorganic materials are multi-component systems with at least one of their organic (the polymer) or inorganic components in the nano-metric size domain, which confers the material as a whole greatly enhanced properties respecting the constitutive parts in isolation. The works compiled in this volume are at the forefront of Organic-Inorganic Hybrid material research. So, these ten new articles would provide information and inspiration for future applications in this fantastic and fascinating scientific field.

This reprint focuses on original research articles on the use of geodetic measurement techniques for land deformation identification, monitoring, and impact assessment. The development and application of modern surveying techniques for understanding land deformation is of particular interest. There is a special focus on examining the current and advanced geodetic measurement techniques, including radar interferometry (InSAR), global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), light detection and ranging (LiDAR), close-range photogrammetry (CRP), Robotic Total Station (RTS), digital levelling etc., to detect and monitor land deformation.

This reprint focuses on quantitatively assessing the impact of climate change on agricultural production based on multi-source model simulation and reveals the role and mechanism of improved management measures in adapting to climate change.Modeling is a key tool for exploring the impacts of climate change on agriculture and proposing adaptation strategies. The insights derived from this reprint will be helpful for relevant decision makers in the areas of agricultural adaptation and food security.

The replacement of the bridging H atom in H-bonds by a multitude of other, more electronegative, atoms has led to the rapidly growing study of related noncovalent bonds generally known as halogen, chalcogen, and pnicogen bonds. It has recently been recognized that elements of the tetrel family (C, Si, Ge, Sn, Pb) also engage in such bonds, wherein the tetrel atom serves as an electron acceptor to an incoming Lewis base, and that these bonds can be quite strong. This type of bond has the potential to be of importance comparable even to that of the well-researched H-bond, as it may be far more prevalent than has been realized, perhaps a common feature of chemical and biological systems too numerous to mention. The articles included in this volume delve into the many facets of tetrel bonds: the factors determining their strength, their geometrical requirements, various phenomena in which they play an outsized role, and the means by which they can be detected and measured.