Bücher veröffentlicht von Mdpi AG

Since the launch of Seasat, TIROS-N, and Nimbus-7 satellites equipped with ocean observation sensors in 1978, a new era of ocean remote sensing has opened. Today, remotely sensed data have been widely used in oceanographic studies. This reprint collects various advanced ocean remote sensing technologies and their applications, including the use of artificial intelligence techniques to explore ocean information and bibliometric analysis to assess researchers and trends in this scientific field. The observations of various sensors enrich the application of ocean environment monitoring and ocean dynamical analysis. If you are interested in understanding the application of ocean remote sensing, this monograph should be very helpful.

The need to find suitable biomaterials and procedures from alternative sources able to imitate or even enhance the performance of currently used products has become an important focus of research today due to the depletion of non-renewable resources and the increasing concern related to climate change, sustainability and environmental preservation. Thus, this reprint gathers different original articles and review manuscripts from the Special Issue "Development of Bio-Based Materials: Synthesis, Characterization and Applications". The development of partial or fully bio-based materials has been included, with excellent outcomes in many different applications, as well as alternative procedures that can reduce the carbon footprint or optimize both production and energy consumption.

The Covid-19 pandemic is having an undeniable impact on all the statements of society. Regarding teaching and learning activities, most educational institutions suspended in-person instruction and moved to remote learning during the lockdown of March and April 2020. Although nowadays many countries have progressively re-opened their educational systems, blended learning is a common practice aimed to reduce the spread of the Covid-19 disease.This disruption has supposed an unprecedented acceleration to the digitalization of teaching and learning. Teaching professionals have been forced to develop their digital competence in a short amount of time, getting mastery in the management of information, the creation of audiovisual contents, and the use of technology to keep their students connected. This Special Issue presents contributions regarding the adoption of distance learning strategies, experiences, or lessons learned in this domain.

Metallurgy involves the art and science of extracting metals from their ores and modifying the metals for use. With thousands of years of development, many interdisciplinary technologies have been introduced into this traditional and large-scale industry. In modern metallurgical practices, modelling and simulation are widely used to provide solutions in the areas of design, control, optimization, and visualization, and are becoming increasingly significant in the progress of digital transformation and intelligent metallurgy. This Special Issue (SI), entitled "Metallurgical Process Simulation and Optimization", has been organized as a platform to present the recent advances in the field of modelling and optimization of metallurgical processes, which covers the processes of electric/oxygen steel-making, secondary metallurgy, (continuous) casting, and processing. Eighteen articles have been included that concern various aspects of the topic.

Due to its low adaptability to climate change, the MENA region has become a "hot spot". Water scarcity, extreme heat, drought, and crop failure will worsen as the region becomes more urbanized and industrialized. Both water and food scarcity are made worse by civil wars, terrorism, and political and social unrest. It is unclear how climate change will affect the MENA water-food-energy nexus. All of these concerns need to be empirically evaluated and quantified for a full climate change assessment in the region. Policymakers in the MENA region need to be aware of this interconnection between population growth, rapid urbanization, food safety, climate change, and the global goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions (as planned in COP27). Researchers from a wide range of disciplines have come together in this SI to investigate the connections between water, food, energy, and climate in the region. By assessing the impacts of climate change on hydrological processes, natural disasters, water supply, energy production and demand, and environmental impacts in the region, this SI will aid in implementation of sustainable solutions to these challenges across multiple spatial scales.

In China, serious air pollution has been apparent since the 1990s, and this is complicated due to human activities and partly due to natural factors. It is worth mentioning that local air pollution has greatly improved in the past 5 years, mainly due to the progress of institutional and technical measures since the 2010s. However, the appearance of air pollution in China is changing, as the compound pollution of photochemical pollution and aerosol pollution has been formed, and air pollution control has entered a new phase. In order to record the Chinese atmospheric environment's development with the passage of time and to identify what we are going to face in the future, we invite papers in our latest Special Issue, "Air Pollution in China", which will focus on air pollution trends throughout China or in each region of China over the past 30 years, the effects of countermeasures, analysis of the latest atmospheric environment, etc.

Population growth and climate change are leading to global water scarcity. Water shortages are thus hindering rural, urban and industrial development. These days, approximately half of the world's population is affected temporarily by water scarcity. To enable a secure water supply, alternative water sources must be generated to tackle the challenge of water scarcity. An important alternative resource is the reuse of treated wastewater. Water reuse processes are rarely considered and implemented. In contrast to the storage and use of rainwater, treated wastewater is a valuable resource, as it is available daily. Certain wastewater treatment processes are required to produce the new resource "reused water". The treatment processes depend on the quality of the wastewater since industrial and municipal wastewater flows are characterized by different concentrations. Moreover, water reuse methods must be developed in order to use the treated wastewater as efficiently as possible. Ideally, the reused water can be provided according to the "fit for purpose" principle and applied directly in areas such as irrigation, street cleaning, toilet flushing or make-up water for cooling systems.The Special Issue brings together new wastewater treatment technologies and water reuse concepts to tackle the challenges of climate change with the aim of bringing the resource "reused water" according to the "fit for purpose" principle to the user. This issue aims to draw on global experiences, approaches and solutions.

This reprint is concerned with the microstructural characterization and the defect analysis of metallic additively manufactured (AM) materials and parts. Special attention is paid to the determination of residual stress in such parts and to online monitoring techniques devised to predict the appearance of defects. Finally, several non-destructive testing techniques are employed to assess the quality of AM materials and parts.

This reprint covers a wide range of topics including, but not limited to, new analytical and bioanalytical methods relevant to the separation, identification, and determination of substances in pharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics, nanobiotechnology, clinical chemistry, and related disciplines; methods for the identification of bioactive compounds in functional foods and medicinal plants; applications of chromatography and allied techniques in biomedical sciences.

Essential hypertension is still an important health care problem. It is necessary to investigate its mechanisms in animal models. The potential clinical importance of such experimental research might be expected. This Special Issue concerned several important topics. First, several studies focused on the pathophysiological mechanisms responsible for blood pressure elevation during hypertension development, organ damage in chronic hypertension, and drugs targeting hypertension and/or its complications. Other studies were interested in the participation of central and peripheral blood pressure control, changes in vascular structure and function, and neural, humoral, and endocrine factors. Furthermore, the contribution of altered redox signaling, chronic inflammation, microbiome changes, and interactions of genetic and environmental factors were evaluated in multiple papers. Finally, special attention was paid to the progress in pharmacological tools for the control of hypertension and associated organ damage, genetic modifications to alter blood pressure levels, and non-pharmacological interventions attenuating hypertension or its complications. The original articles or reviews covered the interesting aspects of the pathophysiology of hypertension and associated end-organ damage, the use of various experimental hypertensive models, and the importance of specific environmental factors acting in distinct phases of the ontogeny. We especially appreciate the presentation of new ideas and the critical discussion of traditional theories.

With the second volume, we continue our mission to providing theoretical and experimental research that contribute new insights and practical findings in the field of crystal plasticity-related topics.Once again, a completely new set of 26 original works (including 22 research articles, 3 communications, and 1 review) has been collected. As in the case of the first volume, here, a full spectrum of topics belonging to the field of crystal plasticity is represented, including both numerical simulations and experimental works.By taking into account the investigated materials, the papers can be assigned to the following thematic groups:Steels and iron-based alloys;Non-ferrous alloys with fcc- (Ni- and Cu-based), or hcp crystal structure (Mg- and Ti-based). Other examples include Zirconium, Bi-Sn alloy, or polycarbonate resins;Multicomponent and high-entropy alloys;General theoretical studies on crystal plasticity.Specifically, the reprint should be interesting for students of material science and engineering, Ph.D. candidates, and researchers dealing with various theoretical and practical aspects of plastic deformation in crystalline materials.

Preeclampsia is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy, diagnosed after the 20th week of gestation in women experiencing new-onset hypertension along with symptoms affecting the liver, kidneys, or brain. In some cases, women with preeclampsia develop novel seizures or unexplained coma, at which time they are diagnosed with eclampsia. The mechanisms contributing to preeclampsia and eclampsia are not fully elucidated, although the placenta seems to play a critical role. Previous studies suggest that improper placentation stimulates mitochondrial dysfunction and the exaggerated release of placental-derived molecules including inflammatory cytokines, anti-angiogenic factors, reactive oxygen species, and cell-free nucleic acids into the maternal circulation that cause systemic vascular dysfunction. These, along with maternally derived molecules, act in concert, leading to hypertension and target organ damage during pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia and eclampsia.In this reprint, we present the original research articles and review papers published as part of the Special Issue: "The Pathophysiology of Preeclampsia and Eclampsia" in Cells.

In the last decade, the Industrial Revolution 4.0 brought flexible supply chains and flexible design projects to the forefront. Nevertheless, the recent pandemic, the accompanying economic problems, and the resulting supply problems have further increased the role of logistics and supply chains. Therefore, planning and scheduling procedures that can respond flexibly to changed circumstances have become more valuable both in logistics and projects.There are already several competing criteria of project and logistic process planning and scheduling that need to be reconciled. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that even more emphasis needs to be placed on taking potential risks into account. Flexibility and resilience are emphasized in all decision-making processes, including the scheduling of logistic processes, activities, and projects.

This reprint includes 22 research papers and an editorial, collected from the Special Issue "Modelling, Monitoring, Control and Optimization for Complex Industrial Processes", highlighting recent research advances and emerging research directions in complex industrial processes. This reprint aims to promote the research field and benefit the readers from both academic communities and industrial sectors.

This reprint summarizes recent advances in the production and research of biobased and biodegradable polymeric composites for various applications. The development and characterization of environmentally friendly, conductive and biomedical materials as well as materials with barrier and antimicrobial properties have been considered and discussed.

A major challenge for the future is combining both the profitability and sustainability of agriculture. The European H2020 project SoilCare aims to identify, test, and evaluate soil-improving cropping systems (SICS) which contribute to the implementation of agricultural solutions across Europe (See: https://soilcare-project.eu/en/ for the project website). The project includes 16 study sites distributed across Europe. Each study site implemented short-term experiments during the duration of the project, and most also ran long-term experiments comparing soil quality as a function of different treatments, such as soil amendments, tillage, cover crops, nutrients, and organic matter inputs. In addition, eight work-packages assess different aspects encompassing reviewing the soil-improving cropping systems, the participatory analysis of implementation and selection, methodology and analysis, upscaling at the European level, policy analysis and support, and dissemination and communication. In this way, SoilCare works on a providing a holistic approach to soil quality, spanning from biophysical to human interactions at different scales.In this Special Issue, we aim to compile scientific findings on soil-improving cropping systems (SICS) based on field experiments, including the study of policy, upscaling, and dissemination.

The 2020 IEEE International Conference on High Voltage Engineering (ICHVE 2020) was held on 6-10 September 2020 in Beijing, China. The conference was organized by the Tsinghua University, China, and endorsed by the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society. This conference has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers around the world in the field of high voltage engineering. The forum offered the opportunity to present the latest developments and different emerging challenges in high voltage engineering, including the topics of ultra-high voltage, smart grids, and insulating materials.

This reprint focuses on the application of the combination of synthetic aperture radars and depth learning technology. It aims to further promote the development of SAR image intelligent interpretation technology.A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an important active microwave imaging sensor, whose all-day and all-weather working capacity give it an important place in the remote sensing community. Since the United States launched the first SAR satellite, SAR has received much attention in the remote sensing community, e.g., in geological exploration, topographic mapping, disaster forecast, and traffic monitoring. It is valuable and meaningful, therefore, to study SAR-based remote sensing applications.In recent years, deep learning represented by convolution neural networks has promoted significant progress in the computer vision community, e.g., in face recognition, the driverless field and Internet of things (IoT). Deep learning can enable computational models with multiple processing layers to learn data representations with multiple-level abstractions. This can greatly improve the performance of various applications.This reprint provides a platform for researchers to handle the above significant challenges and present their innovative and cutting-edge research results when applying deep learning to SAR in various manuscript types, e.g., articles, letters, reviews and technical reports.

Advanced Blood-Brain Barrier Drug Delivery is a reprint with a summary editorial, followed by 16 chapters that cover five areas of brain drug delivery, including receptor-mediated transport (RMT), carrier-mediated transport (CMT), active efflux transport (AET), Trojan horse lipid nanoparticles (LNP), and in vivo methods for measurement of drug transport across the blood-brain barrier (BBB).

We are honored and privileged to edit this Special Issue, "Fungal Taxonomy, Phylogeny, and Ecology: A Themed Issue Dedicated to Academician Wen-Ying Zhuang". In this Special Issue, we are pleased to publish a comprehensive assemblage of 23 papers covering fungal taxonomy, phylogeny, and ecology, in which 76 new taxa from a broad taxonomic group and different ecological habitats are reported.

Water resource systems planning and management issues are often very complex. The pressures on water resources are increasing with the expanding scale of global development involving ecological and hydrological consequences in river basins and groundwater aquifers, and water-quality deterioration. All this leads to the increasing need for investigating the effects of different human influences and impacts on the hydrological regime and on water quality like as land-use changes, climatic variability and climate changes, and intensified water and land-use practices. The Special Issue "Advances in Flow Modeling for Water Resources and Hydrological Engineering" presents a collection of scientific contributions that provides a sample of the state-of-the-art and forefront research in this field. In particular, basin-wide water resources planning, watershed management, flood forecasting, droughts, climate change impacts on flood risk and water resources, reservoir operation and management, river morphology and sediment transport, river water quality, and irrigation were the main research and practice targets that the papers published in this Special Issue aimed to address.

Metal 3D printing, as an advanced forming, can manufacture parts directly from digital model by using layer by layer material build-up approach. This manufacturing method can prepare complex shape metal parts in short time, with and high precision. Three-dimensional printing processes can be classified into two major groups: Powder Bed Fusion-based technologies and Directed Energy Deposition. Three-dimensional printing features freedom of part complexity, part design, and light-weighting for aerospace, automobile, and other industries application. The Global Metal 3D Printing Market is mainly driven by the the fast developing of aerospace and automobile industry. The Global Metal 3D Printing Market size was valued at USD 534.18 Million in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 4458.76 Million by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 30.38% from 2021 to 2028.

The purpose of this Special Issue on inclusive research is to capture internationally, "How far have we come?" and "Where do we need to go?" Such questions are relevant now that it has been close to two decades since Walmsley and Johnson (2003) first introduced the inclusive research paradigm in their text, Inclusive research with people with learning disabilities: past, present, and futures. Within this Special Issue we have reprinted 18 articles that promote inclusive research as a paradigm that has succeeded in transferring power to people with intellectual disabilities who were once the "researched" to now being and becoming the "researchers". The articles draw upon the work of co-researchers both with and without the lived experience of disability who have adopted inclusive research as a paradigm to redress the exclusion of people with intellectual disabilities as researchers. All the 18 articles have an eye on the future and are sequenced across the following themes: the individual impact of being and becoming an inclusive researcher; building inclusive research relationships as a duo; being part of an inclusive research network; and using inclusive research to push boundaries and facilitate issues of importance identified by people with disabilities. The reprint concludes with two articles where inclusive researchers of long standing reflect on how to continue to walk forward on the road that aided by this reprint will become more well-travelled?

The researchers involved in this reprint will continue their studies to improve the existent dental biomaterials in order to achieve optimal dental treatment with biocompatible, bioactive, and stable properties. As the Guest Editors, we sincerely value and thank the reviewers for their insightful comments and the support of the team at Bioengineering. Finally, we express our gratitude to all contributing authors for their valuable research. Altogether, the 16 research papers/reviews in this Special Issue entitled "Recent Advances in Biomaterials and Dental Disease" reflect the importance of in vitro and in vivo studies for improving the efficacy of using biomaterials in dental treatment.

The Special Issue "Future Trends in Advanced Materials and Processes" contains original high-quality research papers and comprehensive reviews addressing the relevant state-of-the-art topics in the area of materials focusing on relevant or innovative applications such as radiological hazard evaluations of non-metallic materials, composite materials' characterization, geopolymers, metallic biomaterials, etc.

This reprint is a printed edition of the Special Issue on Maritime Autonomous Vessels that was published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. It contains an editorial and 17 peer-reviewed research studies in the field of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS), Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs), Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), and underwater gliders, to name a few. The main goal of this reprint is to address key challenges, thereby promoting research on marine autonomous ships. There are many topics on autonomous vessels involved in this reprint, for instance, automatic control, manoeuvrability, collision avoidance, ship target identification, motion planning, and buckling analysis.

This book encompasses a number of articles that focus on the molecular blueprint of brain tumors. A collection of relevant papers in the rapidly expanding field of brain tumor molecular genetics broadens our knowledge about the biology of brain tumors, and inspires further studies that will improve the diagnosis and clinical management of brain tumors. Due to the great heterogeneity of brain tumors it is important to research and understand every aspect of their initiation, progression and metastasis in order to design better diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for their clinical management and patient benefit.

The sustainable development of our planet depends on the use of energy. The increasing world population inevitably causes an increase in the demand for energy, which, on the one hand, threatens us with the potential to encounter a shortage of energy supply, and, on the other hand, causes the deterioration of the environment.Therefore, our task is to reduce this demand through different innovative solutions (i.e., both technological and social). Social marketing and economic policies can also play their role by affecting the behavior of households and companies and by causing behavioral change oriented to energy stewardship, with an overall switch to renewable energy resources. This reprint provides a platform for the exchange of a wide range of ideas, which, ultimately, would facilitate driving societies toward long-term energy efficiency.

The purpose of this Special Issue was to attract papers in the new era of sustainability and food packaging that address all major sectors of the food industry from cereals and confectionery to fruits and vegetables, meat, and dairy products.

In natural languages, filler-gap dependencies can straddle across an unbounded distance. Since the 1960s, the term "island" has been used to describe syntactic structures from which extraction is impossible or impeded. While examples from English are ubiquitous, attested counterexamples in the Mainland Scandinavian languages have continuously been dismissed as illusory and alternative accounts for the underlying structure of such cases have been proposed. However, since such extractions are pervasive in spoken Mainland Scandinavian, these languages may not have been given the attention that they deserve in the syntax literature. In addition, recent research suggests that extraction from certain types of island structures in English might not be as unacceptable as previously assumed either. These findings break new empirical ground, question perceived knowledge, and may indeed have substantial ramifications for syntactic theory. This volume provides an overview of state-of-the-art research on island phenomena primarily in English and the Scandinavian languages, focusing on how languages compare to English, with the aim to shed new light on the nature of island constraints from different theoretical perspectives.