Bücher veröffentlicht von Mdpi AG

Blockchain applications in different industries are booming, yet there are many unresolved challenges with the mass adoption of the technology. This reprint is an attempt to review some of the applications in different industries and propose solutions to some of the critical challenges in technology adoption.

An integral part of homeostasis includes daily rhythms in physiology, behavior, and metabolism. The circadian timing system enables organisms to adapt their biological functions to the cyclic nature of the Earth. Sleep is a fundamental physiological function, playing a crucial role in physical, mental and emotional health. Alterations of sleep quality and quantity caused by modern lifestyle and behavior as well sleep disorders are associated with an increased risk for chronic diseases. Chronic misalignment of endogenous rhythms can also lead to metabolic dysfunction. Research is starting to demonstrate the complex interrelationship between nutrition, sleep and the circadian system. For example, some foods and nutrients may impact the availability of substances that influence sleep. On the other hand, inadequate sleep is associated with an unhealthy nutrient intake and altered metabolism. Nutrients can act as drivers of circadian rhythms; they have the ability to influence circadian regulation and alter biological functions in specific tissues. A lacuna still exists in the knowledge surrounding the interplay of nutrition with sleep and the circadian system. In light of this, novel opportunities are disclosed for developing tailored nutritional recommendations with beneficial effects on sleep and circadian rhythmicity so as to improve life quality and prevent disease. The purpose of this Special Issue is therefore to collect contributions regarding this interplay and the related clinical implications.

Bioanalysis of endogenous substances, metabolites, and contaminants poisons is important in analyses of biological functions, metabolomics, forensic toxicology, patient diagnosis and biomonitoring of human exposure to hazardous chemicals. In these analyses, methods of sample preparation are essential for the isolation and concentration of target analytes from complex biological matrices. These processes, however, are time-consuming, labor-intensive and error-prone, and markedly influence the reliability and accuracy of determining target analytes. Thus, efficient sample preparation techniques and their integration with analytical methods have become significant. Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is a simple and convenient sample preparation technique that has enabled automation, miniaturization, high-throughput performance, and online coupling with analytical instruments. Moreover, SPME has reduced analysis times, as well as solvent and disposal costs.This book consists of 14 original, peer-reviewed papers for the Special Issue in the MDPI journal Molecules. The topics covered include headspace fiber SPME (HS-SPME) gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), HS-in-needle microextraction GC-MS, thin film SPME liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), magnetic solid phase extraction LC-MS/MS, in-tube SPME LC-MS/MS and in-tube SPME LC-UV. Samples analyzed include plant-derived volatile organic compounds; body odor; metabolites in urine, plasma and saliva sample; and biomarkers of tobacco smoke exposure in hair and environmental estrogens.

Sarcomas are a group of rare cancers that arise in connective tissues of the body. Surgical resection is pivotal for the management of locoregional disease. In locally advanced or metastatic disease settings, systemic therapy has an important role in the multidisciplinary management of sarcoma. Cytotoxic therapy has been the primary treatment for many years. However, recent advances in molecular pathogenesis, the investigation of the tumour microenvironment, changes in clinical trial design, and increased international collaboration have led to the development of histology-driven therapy. Furthermore, genomic profiling has highlighted that, while some sarcomas have complex karyotypes, others are driven by translocation, amplification, and mutation, representing targets for the development of novel therapies. Checkpoint inhibitors have been used as single agents or in combination in clinical sarcoma trials. This progress will move the therapeutic modality in sarcoma patients from the "one-size-fits-all" approach towards a more personalized therapeutic algorithm and better outcomes soon. In this Special Issue, we present original research and review articles highlighting novel therapeutic approaches in the treatment of sarcoma patients.

This book aims to provide a wide range of viable alternative designs that utilize valuable compounds from spicy and aromatic plants. Spices and aromatic plants have been used for thousands of years to flavor food, but they can also be used for healing purposes. Until a few decades ago, however, this was performed with little knowledge of their actual properties. The attitude toward these plants has changed, and the need for knowledge has increased. The studies are oriented towards an in-depth analysis of the valuable compounds in these plants in order to be used in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and agricultural industries.

Currently, cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide and is the most complex and challenging disease known to humankind. Due to the complex underlying mechanisms of tumorigenesis and tumor metastasis, as well as the intrinsic limitations of conventional cancer therapies, the effective treatment of cancer remains a great challenge. Novel therapeutic strategies with superior anticancer ability urgently need to be discovered. In recent years, nano-drug delivery systems have been extensively investigated and applied as alternatives to conventional cancer treatments. Cancer nanomedicines aim to achieve the targeted delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs to the tumor site, utilizing strategies such as passive targeting, active targeting and stimuli-triggered drug release, while simultaneously decreasing drug accumulation in normal tissues, which together lead to improved therapeutic efficacy and reduced side effects. Currently, several cancer nanomedicines are in regular use, and several others are in various stages of development.This Special Issue will highlight recent progress in the development of novel nanomedicines and targeted drug delivery systems for cancer therapy.

The book presents a series of articles devoted to modeling, simulation, and optimization of processes, mainly chemical. General methods for process modeling and numerical simulation are described with flowsheeting. Population balances are addressed in detail with application to crystal production; energy saving is frequently optimized, including exergy analysis. The coupling between process simulation and computational fluid dynamics is studied for air classification and bubble columns. Pressure swing adsorption, reactive distillation, and nanofiltration are explained in general and applied to particular processes. The synthesis of carbon dots is solved by the design of experiments method. A safety study addresses the consequences of gas explosion.

In this book, 20 papers focused on different fields of power electronics are gathered. Approximately half of the papers are focused on different control issues and techniques, ranging from the computer-aided design of digital compensators to more specific approaches such as fuzzy or sliding control techniques. The rest of the papers are focused on the design of novel topologies. The fields in which these controls and topologies are applied are varied: MMCs, photovoltaic systems, supercapacitors and traction systems, LEDs, wireless power transfer, etc.

In the food and beverage industries, implementing novel methods using digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), sensors, robotics, computer vision, machine learning (ML), and sensory analysis using augmented reality (AR) has become critical to maintaining and increasing the products' quality traits and international competitiveness, especially within the past five years. Fermented beverages have been one of the most researched industries to implement these technologies to assess product composition and improve production processes and product quality. This Special Issue (SI) is focused on the latest research on the application of digital technologies on beverage fermentation monitoring and the improvement of processing performance, product quality and sensory acceptability.

The production and development of the built environment relates strongly to the fields of architecture and urban planning. The built environment experiences severe impacts from disasters that have become more frequent and intense around the world due to climate change and other human actions, requiring research on architectural design and urban planning that contributes to resilience. On the other hand, the built environment itself causes environmental impacts through the consumption of energy, land-use change and pressure on ecosystems, among a variety of other factors. Thus, research-informed policies, practices, and strategies relating to the built environment are necessary, requiring innovative and forward-thinking visions for a resilient and sustainable future. The built environment is multifold, with its manifestation determined by economic levels, political systems, demography, and natural resources. Therefore, contextual approaches and solutions in architecture and urban planning are essential to produce a diverse range of research findings. This publication serves as a platform to assemble such recent and innovative research findings relating to resilience and sustainability in the architecture and urban planning fields, and through an open access mode, disseminate this knowledge widely at a time when the world is facing critical challenges posed by disasters and environmental transformation.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD), including coronary artery disease, heart disease, arrhythmias, and other types of vascular diseases, is one of the leading causes of death around the world. It is estimated that approximately half of the variabilities of CVD appear to be attributed to genetics. Therefore, the other half of them have been attributed to acquired factors, including diet. It is of note that even a genetic predisposition to CVD can be canceled out by a healthy lifestyle. In this regard, it is important to acknowledge that acquired factors, including diet, are causally associated with CVD. Based on these facts, important papers are presented in this Special Issue entitled "The Effect of Diet on Cardiovascular Disease, Heart Disease, and Blood Vessels".

Recently, the attention paid to self-care tests and the easy and large screening of a high number of people has dramatically increased. Indeed, easy and affordable tools for the safe management of biological fluids together with self-diagnosis have emerged as compulsory requirements in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, to lighten the pressure on public healthcare institutions and thus limiting the diffusion of infections. Obviously, other kinds of pathologies (cancer or other degenerative diseases) also continue to require attention, with progressively earlier and more widespread diagnoses. The contribution to the development of this research field comes from the areas of innovative plastic and 3D microfluidics, smart chemistry and the integration of miniaturized sensors, going in the direction of improving the performances of in vitro diagnostic (IVD) devices.In our Special Issue, we include papers describing easy strategies to identify diseases at the point-of-care and near-the-bed levels, but also dealing with innovative biomarkers, sample treatments, and chemistry processes which, in perspective, represent promising tools to be applied in the field.

Viruses of the Parvoviridae family constitute a most diverse and intriguing field of research. Parvoviruses can differ widely in their structure, genome organization and expression, virus-cell interactions, and impact on hosts. The translational implication of research on parvoviruses is relevant, since many viruses are important human and veterinary pathogens, while other viruses can be engineered as tools for oncolytic therapy or as sophisticated gene delivery vectors.Exploring the diversity and inherent complexity in the biology of these apparently simple viruses is a still challenging topic for the scientific community. The Special Issue of Viruses is a collection of recent contributions in the field of parvovirus research, encompassing many aspects of basic and translational research on viruses of the family Parvoviridae, including on their structure, replication, and gene expression in addition to virus-host interactions and the development of vaccines and viral vectors.

The development and promotion of teaching-enhanced learning tools in the academic field is leading to the collection of a large amount of data generated from the usual activity of students and teachers. The analysis of these data is an opportunity to improve many aspects of the learning process: recommendations of activities, dropout prediction, performance and knowledge analysis, resource optimization, etc. However, these improvements would not be possible without the application of computer science techniques that have demonstrated high effectiveness for this purpose: data mining, big data, machine learning, deep learning, collaborative filtering, and recommender systems, among other fields related to intelligent systems. This Special Issue provides 17 papers that show advances in the analysis, prediction, and recommendation of applications propelled by artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning in the teaching-enhanced learning context.

In collaboration with the MDPI publishing house, we are pleased to introduce the reader to our new project, a Special Issue entitled "Advanced Eco-friendly Wood-Based Composites". This Special Issue provides an opportunity to investigate advanced eco-friendly wood-based composites from a broader perspective. The coronavirus pandemic and shutdown measures employed to contain it, as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine, have influenced and decelerated the world economy and adversely impacted research activities on most levels in all countries. Surprisingly, researchers in the field of wood-based composites have continued to make progress, which is also described in this Special Issue.

Water pollution from biorefractory pollutants and emerging contaminants is still a very relevant problem worldwide. Examples of these pollutants include disinfection by-products, pharmaceutical and personal care products, persistent organic chemicals, as well as their degradation products. The occurrence of these contaminants in water has raised increasing concern due to their accumulation and persistence in the environment and the threat they pose to the ecological system and human health. In this Special Issue, papers regarding the advancements in materials and processes for use in the electro- and photoelectrochemical removal of different pollutants from water are collected. The synthesis, characterization and application of materials for use in electrochemical or photoelectrochemical techniques are presented, as well as studies concerning catalytic processes and reaction kinetics.

Pulsed lasers are lasers with a single laser pulse width of less than 0.25 s, operating only once in every certain time interval. Commonly used pulsed lasers are nanosecond, femtosecond, and picosecond lasers. A pulsed laser produces short pulses with a short interaction time with the material, which can largely avoid impact on the thermal movement of molecules and has a minimal thermal impact on the surrounding materials, thus having significant advantages in precision microfabrication. It is now widely used in flexible electronics, chips, medicine, and other fields, such as photographic resin curing, microwelding, vision correction, heart stent manufacturing, etc. However, as an emerging processing technology, the application prospects of pulsed lasers have yet to be fully expanded, and there is still a need to continuously explore the mechanisms of interaction with materials, to manufacture advanced functional structures, and to develop advanced process technologies.

This Special Issue will include papers related to the planning, protection, and control of smart grids and microgrids, and their applications in the industry, transportation, water, waste, and urban and residential infrastructures.Authors are encouraged to present their latest research; reviews on topics including methods, approaches, systems, and technology; and interfaces to other domains such as big data, cybersecurity, human-machine, sustainability, and smart cities. The planning side of microgrids might include technology selection, scheduling, interconnected microgrids, and their integration with regional energy infrastructures. The protection side of microgrids might include topics related to protection strategies, risk management, protection technologies, abnormal scenario assessments, equipment and system protection layers, fault diagnosis, validation and verification, and intelligent safety systems. The control side of smart grids and microgrids might include control strategies, intelligent control algorithms and systems, control architectures, technologies, embedded systems, monitoring, and deployment and implementation.

This reprint is intended for a broad readership of phytopathologists. It includes different scientific contributions focused on many crucial aspects, such as the identification, characterization and rapid detection of plant diseases; predictive models and deep learning networks; and ecofriendly measures for disease management.

This Special Issue aims to bring together the various aspects of plant cell tissue and organ culture with a special emphasis on the production of phytochemical compounds, considered therapeutically valuable for their antioxidant, antiviral, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties.Secondary metabolites play a key role in the diverse defense mechanisms of the plant organism in response to environmental stimuli, such as climatic fluctuations, pathogenic organisms, predatory herbivores, and competing plants. Therefore, by providing the opportunity for controlled modifications of environmental conditions, in vitro culture is an easy-to-manage experimental system that can be utilized as a source of secondary metabolites for industrial applications, as well as for food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical purposes.This Special Issue will highlight the modern use of different plant cell tissue and organ culture approaches for successfully producing plant secondary metabolites, particularly those with high economic value.

This reprint focuses on state-of-the-art vibration sensing and energy harvesting technologies. The 11 chapters can be divided into three aspects: (i) new materials for vibration energy harvesting applications, (ii) design and fabrication of vibration energy harvesters (VEHs), and (iii) system-level integration and testing of VEHs.

This reprint, "Flexible Micromanipulators and Micromanipulation," is a collection of 12 full research articles that provide insights into the latest development and applications in the field of micromanipulation which has important applications in areas, such as metal additive manufacturing, medical devices, and robotics. The topics of the reprint cover the design and fabrication of magnetic actuators, electromagnetic levitation systems, compliant manipulators and robots, micromanipulation of microparticles and microcapsules to characterize mechanical properties of microscale objects, and inchworm robot for inspection, assembly, and maintenance.

Pharmacology and Pharmacognosy is organized into twelve articles that explore therapeutic potential of different natural products from land and marine. The articles contain highly detailed coverage of information that has been overseen by an editorial board made up of well-respected, field-leading experts. The content in this book offers readers an in-depth and easily accessible reference work on every aspect of natural product research surrounding the pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, pharmacognosy, and bioinformatics of all natural products and their scaffolds, their mechanism of action, and their therapeutic values. These elements are essential to be selected as future drugs are almost never tested and developed in the actual therapeutic system, but rather in test systems from which parameters must be determined to predict activity in systems of varying ambient physiology. As different technologies rapidly evolve, there is an ever-increasing level of knowledge about the natural products, along with increasing capability to utilize bioactive molecules to predict new drugs against chronic diseases, all of which must be communicated to professionals in varying fields.

Antimicrobial resistance is the intrinsic capability of microorganisms to survive unfavorable conditions; such traits are mainly transferrable through movable genetic elements, enabling the rapid and homogeneous diffusion of resistance genes over diverse ecosystems and sectors including human medicine, veterinary medicine, and the environment. In this view, the One Health approach allows for a comprehensive depiction of the mechanisms responsible for the onset and spread of antimicrobial resistance traits, as well as enabling a clear definition of the dynamics that occurs among microbial members harboring diverse ecological niches that favor the orthogonal diffusion of antibiotic resistance between apparently separate milieus.

Despite major medical advances in recent decades, colorectal cancer remains a major public health problem with significant unmet medical needs. This reprint presents new scientific and clinical data, and discusses the need to identify new theranostic biomarkers from tissue and fluid biopsies, to go further in terms of personalised medicine and thus overcome current limitations.

It is crucial that scientists and engineers develop their expertise and capability through research and practice to quantify the interaction of infrastructure with the surroundings and the ground upon which they are founded. Therefore, the engineering concept 'soil-structure interaction' forms an integral part of delivering successful project outcomes. As the Lead and Honorary Editor for this Special Issue, Soil-Structure Interaction, I cordially invited the submission of esteemed articles related to recent projects, research, or case studies. These articles detail how geosciences (soil, rock, ground water, geochemistry, geology, hydrogeology, surface run-off, rain, wind, and temperature) directly interact with and impact the performance of human-made structures, buildings, or infrastructure through the following aspects:i) Underground construction; ii) Innovative ground improvement methods; iii) Geological explorations and interpretation; iv) Instrumentation and field observational method; v) Use of artificial intelligence or algorithms; vi) Forensic engineering or inverse-analysis methods; vii) Geophysical methods for soil or rock characterization; viii) Advancement in laboratory and field testing of geomaterials; ix) Advancement in numerical analysis; x) Advancement in multi-disciplinary design theories, codes of practice, and engineering education.

This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive collection of works on recent advances and developments in smart polymer hydrogels applied to the biomedical and nanotechnological fields. The research topic covers all hydrogels, including polymer hydrogels, supramolecular gels, hybrid hydrogels, metallohydrogels, etc.Stimulus-responsive polymer hydrogels have attracted considerable interest as promising smart materials due to their tremendous potential in biomedical and nanotechnological applications. They can respond to different chemical and physical external stimuli, including pH, temperature, light, enzyme activity, redox agents, the electric or magnetic field, and chemicals. Compared to single stimulus-responsive polymer hydrogels, multiple-responsive hydrogels exhibit higher flexibility and tunability to realize multiplefunctionality in a synergistic manner. The structural and phase transition of polymer hydrogels triggered by external stimuli offers enormous potential for drug delivery, tumor therapy, tissue engineering, and biodevices.

This Special Issue of the journal Microorganisms highlights recent publications on the importance of the antimicrobial effect of probiotics. Current research is focused on finding novel or next-generation probiotic strains with antimicrobial properties that can efficiently modulate the ecological taxa composition and functionality of the human microbiota in the gut and beyond. Overall, this Special Issue has brought together new studies on the antimicrobial effects of various novel probiotics from the Weissella, Bacillus, Leuconostoc and Levilactobacillus genera, as well as well-known probiotic food supplements. It also highlights successful applications of probiotics for different infectious diseases including rotaviral gastrointestinal infections, wound infections and even COVID-19.

Sustainable education and social networks are two important concepts that are closely related. The combination of sustainable education and social networks can be powerful in promoting positive change and creating a more sustainable future. Here are some ways in which these two concepts can be integrated:1. Online learning.2. Awareness raising.3. Collaboration.4. Engagement.5. Sharing of best practices.In conclusion, the integration of sustainable education and social networks has the potential to promote positive change and create a more sustainable future by making education more accessible, engaging, and impactful.

The book showcases a review and empirical studies on life satisfaction and its related aspects. The studies are from several countries on a wide range of samples including university students, faculty, nurses, entrepreneurs, adolescents, national databases, refugees, and community samples.