Bücher veröffentlicht von Mdpi AG

In the last two decades, nanogels have emerged as very promising and versatile biomaterials suitable for a wide range of applications. Their features, such as large surface areas, the ability to hold molecules, flexibility in their size and their water-based formulations, have earned them great recognition as drug delivery systems for various in vivo applications, confirming their potential. On the other hand, because of their tuneable and versatile characteristics, nanogels have been investigated in recent years for applications in various fields other than biomedicine. In view of this variety of possible applications of nanogels, in this Special Issue, we extend our knowledge on the topic of their possible uses described in literature, taking stock of the state-of-the-art for all possible nanogel applications and their synthesis methods.

The present reprint provides some theoretical results (and their applications) in the fields of mathematical analysis and functional analysis, in which the concept of symmetry plays an essential role. More specifically, various problems are investigated in areas, such as: optimization problems, polynomial approximation on unbounded subsets, moment problems, variational inequalities, evolutionary problems, dynamical systems, generalized convexity, partial differential equations, and special spaces of self-adjoint operators. With various examples and applications to complement and substantiate the mathematical developments, the present reprint is a valuable guide for researchers, engineers, and students in the field of mathematics, operations research, optimal control science, artificial intelligence, management science, and economics.

This reprint aims to promote and disseminate applied research in the field of corrosion of steel structures and technological equipment. Within the text, the focus is firmly placed on the detailed study of corrosion processes affected by specific environments, as well as on the effects of corrosion damage on the reliability and service life of structural components and technological equipment. Special attention is paid to the study of the impact of corrosion processes on pipelines.

Service life prediction is crucial for the adoption of more sustainable solutions, allowing developers to optimize the costs and environmental impact of buildings during their life cycle. An accurate assessment of the service life of buildings requires a thorough understanding of the degradation mechanisms and behaviour of the construction materials. Building pathology assessment methods characterize the deterioration state of buildings, using specific measurable properties as indicators. Based on this information, different service life prediction methodologies can be defined to provide reliable data concerning the most probable failure time of whole buildings and individual components according to their characteristics and their age. This Special Issue provides new perspectives on the existing knowledge related with various aspects of the Assessment, Diagnosis and Service Life Prediction of buildings and their components.The ten original research studies published in this Special Issue result from research centres and university departments of Civil and Construction Engineering, Safety Management, Environmental Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, and Architecture and the Built Environment, with relevant contributions from experts from Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Iran, Israel, Norway, Portugal, and Taiwan. The studies included in this Special Issue address topics related to: Building pathology assessment methods; Diagnosis of defects in buildings and components; Appropriate intervention and repair techniques; Deterministic and stochastic service life prediction models.

This reprint discusses advancements in forest research using Earth Observation datasets. Forests, which occupy about one-third of the terrestrial surface of Earth, play an indispensable role in monitoring global climate change and ecosystem dynamics. The health of forests has been affected in recent years by various stress factors, such as forest fragmentation and deforestation, biodiversity loss, climate change, invasive species, drought, and unsustainable management. This reprint focuses on the evaluation of different techniques for the retrieval of different biophysical/biochemical parameters using available Earth Observation data. The following topics have been covered in this reprint:Mangrove forest carbon assessment using EO data;Phenological ,etrics of plant species using NDVI time series data;fPAR for diversity relation;Forest/canopy height retrieval using Pol-InSAR modeling;Dominant species discrimination using LiDAR data;Biophysical parameters estimation of young oil palm using UAV;

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), posing a new challenge to the medical care of solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients. Due to the relatively small number of studies in SOT recipients suffering from COVID-19, the natural course of the SARS-CoV-2 infection, optimal treatment strategies including modification of immunosuppressive therapy and the prognosis in COVID-19 in these patients is incompletely understood.The current Special Issue aimed to fill some of the knowledge gaps and highlight some recent advances in the management of SOT patients during the pandemic. The call for manuscripts had been addressed to healthcare professionals involved in SOT patient care. We welcomed comprehensive reviews, original studies, interesting case series or case reports and commentaries relating to this topic.

This reprint examines regulatory, pricing and reimbursement issues related to the market access and uptake of off-patent biologics, biosimilars, next-generation biologics and competing innovative medicines in European countries.

Hyperbaric oxygen is a known therapeutic agent, and treatments using this agent remain a matter of discussion and research. This Special Issue collection will add new knowledge and also offer some not so usual approaches to foster contemporary understanding and potential benefit for patients and scholars.

This issue contains contributions in different cutting edge topics within the field of open quantum systems. The theoretical work presented is focused, in particular, on quantum thermodynamics and quantum non-Markovianity and provides a window into current research in these fields. Different perspectives are considered that share a common root in the exploitation of open quantum systems and quantum information tools.

Natural hazard events and technological accidents are separate causes of environmental impacts. Natural hazards are physical phenomena active in geological times, whereas technological hazards result from actions or facilities created by humans. In our time, combined natural and man-made hazards have been induced. Overpopulation and urban development in areas prone to natural hazards increase the impact of natural disasters worldwide. Additionally, urban areas are frequently characterized by intense industrial activity and rapid, poorly planned growth that threatens the environment and degrades the quality of life. Therefore, proper urban planning is crucial to minimize fatalities and reduce the environmental and economic impacts that accompany both natural and technological hazardous events.

The provision of affordable housing for low-income households is a very complex issue that has long been debated in many countries around the world. Social housing (SH) is one of the tools for achieving fairness, social sustainability, and economic feasibility, and it is interrelated with politics, ethics, and economics, as well as the environment, architecture, and technology. In other words, national and local policies, as well as public and private financial resources, are all needed to provide SH.SH also involves social and urban transformations and is, consequently, linked to urban planning and redevelopment projects, real estate market dynamics, and cooperation between public and private stakeholders. Furthermore, decision-making on SH policies and projects has to be supported by assessments of economic feasibility and social and environmental sustainability.This volume presents studies on various topics to recompose the multi-faceted subjects of social housing within a unified framework.

Advanced ceramics are referred to in various parts of the world as technical ceramics, high-tech ceramics, and high-performance ceramics. Advanced ceramics have better performances in quality as well as new applications that traditional ones do not have. They have multiple physical and mechanical properties including high hardness, high strength, thermal shock resistance, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and high-temperature resistance. In view of these characteristics, advanced ceramics are often high value-added products. Developments in advanced ceramics continue at a rapid pace, constituting what can be considered a revolution in the kind of materials and properties obtained.This reprint is intended for material researchers and application developers who seek information on the microstructural design and processing control of advanced ceramics, including piezoelectric ceramics, high-temperature ceramic composites, ceramic coatings, metal glasses, etc.

We invite you to read the Special Issue on innovation for sustainable business. It is a collection of 7 articles published in a Special Issue of Sustainability MDPI in 2021-2022.Many of the articles in this reprint are related to leadership. In the context of sustainable development, issues such as dynamic capabilities, CSR, succession management and innovative projects were addressed.Sustainable innovation is also considered from other perspectives. One of them is the topic of introducing sustainable innovations to new ventures. In addition, drivers and impacts of eco-innovation were also examined. There was also research in the area of ¿¿live commerce, which includes the perspective of consumer behavior.

The current reprint presents studies of uncertain variational problems. It aims to develop the research in this field by formulating and demonstrating some characterization results of well-posedness and robust efficient solutions in new classes of (multiobjective) variational (control) problems governed by multiple and/or path-independent curvilinear integral cost functionals and robust mixed and/or isoperimetric constraints involving first- and second-order partial differential equations.

Data have become an immensely valuable resource. They are the key driver that puts the smart into smart services. This is fundamentally fueled by two technological achievements, namely the Internet of Things (IoT), which enables the continuous and comprehensive collection of all kinds of data, and blockchain technologies, which provide secure data management and exchange. In addition to those information security measures, data privacy solutions are also required to protect the sensitive data involved. In this book, eight research papers address security and privacy challenges when dealing with blockchain technologies and the IoT. Solutions are presented to the issue of how IoT group communication can be secured and how trust within IoT applications can be increased. In the context of blockchain technologies, approaches to enhance query-processing capabilities and efficiently apply a proof-of-work consensus protocol in IoT environments are introduced. Furthermore, how blockchain technologies can be used in IoT environments to control access to confidential IoT data as well as enable privacy-aware data sharing is discussed. Finally, two reviews offer an overview of the state-of-the-art in in-app activity recognition based on convolutional neural networks and the prospects for blockchain technology applications in ambient assisted living.

Contemporary research has been enriched by new directions in which light plays a key role as a tool for the modulation of cellular activity and the invasive monitoring of intracellular ions and other components. The progress in molecular biology, imaging techniques and other modern technologies has led to the emergence of three main areas in which light is the main tool: optogenetics, photopharmacology, and optosensorics. The main advantages of these approaches are the possibilities to investigate the functions of cells; modulate the activity of ion channels, synaptic transmission and neuronal circuits; measure concentrations of ions and other cellular components; and even control the behaviour of organisms.Due to the development of these powerful molecular and genetic tools, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the functioning of the nervous system has greatly advanced. This reprint is intended to highlight the latest advances in these areas with a primary focus on light-based analysis and control of neuronal functions.

The Special Issue "Demand Response in Smart Grids" includes 11 papers on a variety of topics. The success of this Special Issue demonstrates the relevance of demand response programs and events in the operation of power and energy systems at both the distribution level and at the wide power system level. This reprint addresses the design, implementation, and operation of demand response programs, with focus on methods and techniques to achieve an optimized operation as well as on the electricity consumer.

This book focuses on experimental and applied research on sustainable recycling techniques for pavement materials. The recycling of waste materials in pavement infrastructures could be successfully facilitated based on such techniques.Sustainability in civil engineering has attracted more attention in recent decades, the lack of natural resources, serious environmental pollution, and high carbon dioxide emissions are the main issues regarding traditional infrastructure materials. This book provides the most recent innovations and applications of recycling wastes as high-performance pavement materials, aiming to provide methods for producing green low-carbon and durable pavement structures. In particular, several treatment methods and 3D construction techniques are proposed for the efficient recycling of waste materials.

This reprint features 12 research articles that contribute to the research on lubricated bearings. The articles focus on the latest steps in understanding bearing operating behavior, its interaction with lubricants, and its role as a component in the drive train.In addition to the description of novel modeling approaches, a variety of experimental data are presented to provide interesting identification results as well as validation data for the research and engineering community.

This collection focuses on the legacy of Old English poetry and includes new interpretations of works such as Exeter Book Riddle 5, which provides an enduring legacy of social critique crafted through humor; the three manuscripts that contain the Solomon and Saturn dialogues, which reveal a shift in the use of poetry over time; Fates of the Apostles in which a previously unseen eighth rune is semiotically operative along with Cynewulf's signature; The Wife's Lament, in which the cave occupied by the wife has its archeological antecedents in early medieval rock-cut buildings; The Ruin, in which both the poem's text and the silent spaces of wyrd's traces are inscribed upon the material manuscript; the history of the reception of the riddles, which is instrumental in inspiring one of the acknowledged classic ghost stories of the twentieth century; tears and weeping in the whole corpus of Old English literature; and Beowulf, in which the figures of the stag and wolf play an important role in the thematic design of the poem but have not been examined before. The reprint is prefaced with a detailed account of the scholarly contributions to Old English studies by John D. Niles.

This reprint is comprised of eleven articles that are screened by our hard-working peer reviewers. It mainly focuses on the recent advances in electric motors and drives, to adapt to the ongoing trends of electrification in both transportation and industry. New structural motors, such as the axial flux machine and the multi-phase machine, are introduced because of their enhanced reliability for use in next-generation electrified transportation. Special attention is also given to the micro PM motor, which has a broad use in many areas. In addition, advanced control techniques, such as position sensorless control and fault-tolerant control, are also incorporated to fulfill the demand for safe crucial applications, and the modeling of the bearing voltage and a line-start permanent magnet motor can be of particular interest to the industrial sectors.Through this reprint, we hope to provide a new perspective for the readers to manage their encountered problems, as well as stimulate innovative ideas for the electrified transportation of the next generation.

The 10th International Conference on Modern Circuit and System Technologies on Electronics and Communications (MOCAST 2021) will take place in Thessaloniki, Greece, from July 5th to July 7th, 2021. The MOCAST technical program includes all aspects of circuit and system technologies, from modeling to design, verification, implementation, and application. This Special Issue presents extended versions of top-ranking papers in the conference. The topics of MOCAST include:Analog/RF and mixed signal circuits;Digital circuits and systems design;Nonlinear circuits and systems;Device and circuit modeling;High-performance embedded systems;Systems and applications;Sensors and systems;Machine learning and AI applications;Communication; Network systems;Power management;Imagers, MEMS, medical, and displays;Radiation front ends (nuclear and space application);Education in circuits, systems, and communications.

This reprint contains fourteen chosen articles on robust design optimization of electrical machines and devices. Optimization is essential for the research and design of electromechanical devices, especially electrical machines. Finding optimal solutions may lead to cheaper and more efficient production of electrical machines. However, optimizing such a complex system as an electrical machine is a computationally expensive optimization problem, where many physical domains should be considered together. However, a good, practical design should be insensitive to parameter changes and the manufacturing tolerances. The collected papers show how modern artificial intelligence (AI) tools can be used for the robust design optimization of electric machines and electrical devices. The articles which are published in this Special Issue present the latest results of current research fields. Hopefully, the presented models and various application fields will provide useful information for researchers and professionals interested in these techniques themselves or who have other problems from different fields.

In 2020-2022, much of the world was at risk for catching COVID-19. This reprint, "Crimmigration in the Age of COVID-19," contributes to understanding immigration during the pandemic. It engages a cross-national and interdisciplinary case-study approach to show how countries carved out exceptions to public health protocols for migrants. In the immigration context a variety of governments weaponized public health protocols to criminalize and exclude migrants. The Trump Administration sadistically misplayed the pandemic at almost every turn. Trump came to power on the backs of migrants, referring to them as murderers and rapists. The intersection of Trump's COVID-19 and migration policies carved out space for the exceptional dehumanization of migrants in 2020-21. This reprint documents the weaponization of public through crimmigration. Crimmigration is the criminalization of migration and migrants via state-of-the-art surveillance and militarized technologies. During the worst of COVID-19, crimmigration strategies--mandatory detention and harsh exclusions- exacerbated the risk of transmission among migrants. Policies not migrants were to blame here. The ostensibly public health related Title42 actually pushed migrants, already at great risk, into unregulated shantytowns controlled by Mexican drug cartels. Additionally, migrants contended with detention facilities, medium security prisons, that functioned as Petrie dishes for the disease.We hope this reprint contributes to understanding the intersection of public health and crimmigration, and border penologies during these exceptional times.

Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites, and their biology is closely interlinked with that of their host cells. However, this relationship is two-sided. Virus-host cell interactions are clearly essential to allow viruses to facilitate their life cycles, but they also give the host cell a chance to recognize and combat virus infections. This Special Issue of Cells compiles review papers on emerging themes related to virus-host cell interactions of RNA viruses, including mechanistic details of virus uncoating, new insights into the nature and function of viral replication compartments, and the role of RNA methylation in the virus life cycle. This is complemented by primary research papers addressing virus-host cell interactions from diverse perspectives.

The global binder production for construction materials is approximately 7.5 billion tons per year, contributing ~6% to the global anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 emissions. Reducing this carbon footprint is a key aim of the construction industry, and current research focuses on developing new innovative ways to attain more sustainable binders and concrete/mortars as a real alternative to the current global demand for Portland cement.With this aim, several potential alternative binders are currently being investigated by scientists worldwide, based on calcium aluminate cement, calcium sulfoaluminate cement, alkali-activated binders, calcined clay limestone cements, nanomaterials, or supersulfated cements. This Special Issue presents contributions that address research and practical advances in i) alternative binder manufacturing processes; ii) chemical, microstructural, and structural characterization of unhydrated binders and of hydrated systems; iii) the properties and modelling of concrete and mortars; iv) applications and durability of concrete and mortars; and v) the conservation and repair of historic concrete/mortar structures using alternative binders.We believe this Special Issue will be of high interest in the binder industry and construction community, based upon the novelty and quality of the results and the real potential application of the findings to the practice and industry.

In this edition, we focused on big data analytics methods and tools that have been specifically developed for the domain of cultural heritage, as well as on experiences from the adaptation and/or application of general-purpose solutions in the domain of cultural heritage. The aim was to gather solutions, but also to summarise the lessons learnt, methodologies, and good practices that researchers and practitioners can use as a basis for their own work in the domain.

This reprint highlights the ecological importance of forest litter in nutrient cycling, the sequestration of soil carbon, and the formation of soil organic matter. The results presented would be of great importance for the improvement of forest services against the background of the global climate change scenario.

This reprint focuses on data-driven software solutions and their impact on research and development at the academic, industry, business, and government levels to exploit the hidden knowledge and big data that can be offered to cities and citizens in the future. Data-driven software solutions are different from "traditional" software development projects, as the focus of the main development core is on managing the data (e.g., data store and data quality) and designing behavioral models with the aid of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques. To this end, new life cycles, algorithms, methods, processes, and tools are required. This reprint is centered on the recent trends and advancements in the field of engineering data-intensive software solutions to address the challenges in developing, testing, and maintaining such data-driven systems, with a focus on the application of data-driven solutions to real-life problems and techniques and algorithms addressing the different challenges of data-driven software engineering.

The reprint is devoted to the phenomena associated with exact or approximate axial symmetry in different areas of technical physics and mechanical engineering science. How can the symmetry of the problem be used most efficiently for its analysis? Why is the symmetry broken or why is it still approximately retained? These and other questions are discussed based on systems from different fields of engineering.