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Due to population aging, calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) has become the most common heart valve disease in Western countries. No therapies exist to slow this disease progression, and surgical valve replacement is the only effective treatment. Calcific Aortic Valve Disease covers the contemporary understanding of basic valve biology and the mechanisms of CAVD, provides novel insights into the genetics, proteomics, and metabolomics of CAVD, depicts new strategies in heart valve tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, and explores current treatment approaches. As we are on the verge of understanding the mechanisms of CAVD, we hope that this book will enable readers to comprehend our current knowledge and focus on the possibility of preventing disease progression in the future.

RFID based application creates tremendous new business opportunities such as the support of independent living of elderly and disabled persons, efficient supply chains, efficient anti-counterfeiting and better environmental monitoring. RFID data management, scalable information systems, business process reengineering, and evaluating investments are emerging as significant technical challenges to applications underpinned by new developments in RFID technology. This book presents the contributions from world leading experts on the latest developments and state-of-the-art results in the RFID field to address these challenges. The book offers a comprehensive and systematic description of technologies, architectures, and methodologies of various efficient, secure, scalable, and reliable RFID and RFID based applications.

This book is a compilation of works presenting recent advances and progress in optical fiber technology related to the next generation optical communication, system and network, sensor, laser, measurement, characterization and devices. It contains five sections including optical fiber communication systems and networks, plastic optical fibers technologies, fiber optic sensors, fiber lasers and fiber measurement techniques and fiber optic devices on silicon chip. Each chapter in this book is a contribution from a group of academicians and scientists from a prominent university or research center, involved in cutting edge research in the field of photonics. This compendium is an invaluable reference for researchers and practitioners working in academic institutions as well as industries.

In the chapters of this excellent text, the authors have described advances in the neoadjuvant chemotherapeutic management of a number of tumor types. Based on the extensive experience with this management concept in breast cancer, several chapters are devoted to this important topic (Section 1). Section 2 deals with the administration of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in non-breast malignancies.Those who read and study the content of the chapters in this book will come away with a far greater understanding of the rationale supporting neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the existing evidence-based data regarding its use, limitations of the approach, and required future investigative efforts to learn how to optimize the benefits of this innovative management concept.

Today modern materials science is a vibrant, emerging scientific discipline at the forefront of physics, chemistry, engineering, biology and medicine, and is becoming increasingly international in scope as demonstrated by emerging international and intercontinental collaborations and exchanges. The overall purpose of this book is to provide timely and in-depth coverage of selected advanced topics in materials science. Divided into five sections, this book provides the latest research developments in many aspects of materials science. This book is of interest to both fundamental research and also to practicing scientists and will prove invaluable to all chemical engineers, industrial chemists and students in industry and academia.

As the subject of tribology comprises lubrication, friction and wear of contact components highly relevant to practical applications, it challenges scientists from chemistry, physics and materials engineering around the world on todays sophisticated experimental and theoretical foundation to complex interdisciplinary research. Recent results and developments are preferably presented and evaluated in the context of established knowledge. Consisting of eleven chapters divided into the four parts of Lubrication and Properties of Lubricants, Boundary Lubrication Applications, Testing and Modeling, and Sustainability of Tribosystems, this textbook therefore merges basic concepts with new findings and approaches. Tribology Fundamentals and Advancements, supported by competent authors, aims to convey current research trends in the light of the state of the art to students, scientists and practitioners and help them solve their problems.

Given the centrality of protein to many biological process, this book makes a significant contribution to the fields of healthcare and nutrition. Its chapters consider topics such as protein-protein and protein-ligand docking, and the protein engineering of enzymes involved in bioplastic metabolism. One contribution gives an overview of the In Vitro Virus (IVV) analytic method, while another shows how cutting-edge techniques in protein engineering advance our knowledge in the field of palaeontology. The book also includes a review of classic and alternative strategies when using yeasts in research, with a focus on Pichia pastoris as a host. Finally, there are two contributions on chromatography: one on the method itself, and another on its use to identify HMGB1-binding components.

Understanding climate change requires analysis of its effects in specific contexts, and the case studies in this volume offer examples of such issues. Its chapters cover tropical cyclones in East Asia, study of a fossil in Brazils Araripe Basin and the fractal nature of band-thickness in an iron formation of Canadas Northwest Territories. One chapter examines the presence of trace elements and palynomorphs in the sediments of a tropical urban pond. Examples of technologies used include RS- GIS to map lineaments for groundwater targeting and sustainable water-resource management, the ALADIN numerical weather-prediction model used to forecast weather and use of grids in numerical weather and climate models. Finally, one chapter models sea level rises resulting from ice sheets melting.

Leukemias are a group of heterogeneous neoplastic disorders, that differ significantly in terms of morhological, immunophenotypic, cytogenetic and molecular features of malignant cells. These specific features reflect the differences in the spectrum of underlying biological alterations involved in malignant transformation, and/or variations in the level of hematopoietic stem cells hierarchy where the transforming events occur. The continuous and rather extensive influx of new information regarding the pathogenesis and treatment of leukemias requires a frequent updating of this topic. The primary objective of this book is to provide the specialists involved in the diagnosis and management of acute and chronic leukemias with a comprehensive and concise information on some important theoretical and practical issues of the biology and clinical presentation, the diagnosis, treatment and follow up of patients with leukemias.

In this book the reader will find a collection of chapters written by different experts around the world, describing the current research trends in both short- and long-period fiber grating technology. This work is mainly addressed to researchers already working in this area, but it is also accessible to anyone with a scientific background who desires to have an updated overview of the recent progress in this domain. It will also be valuable to scientist and engineers who have become newly involved in this field. Each chapter is self-contained and can be read independently of the others. This book intends to provide highlights of the current research in this area, showing the recent advances in the field of fiber gratings.

Carbon nanotubes are rolled up graphene sheets with a quasi-one-dimensional structure of nanometer-scale diameter. In these last twenty years, carbon nanotubes have attracted much attention from physicists, chemists, material scientists, and electronic device engineers, because of their excellent structural, electronic, optical, chemical and mechanical properties. More recently, demand for innovative industrial applications of carbon nanotubes is increasing. This book covers recent research topics regarding syntheses techniques of carbon nanotubes and nanotube-based composites, and their applications. The chapters in this book will be helpful to many students, engineers and researchers working in the field of carbon nanotubes.

The main goal in preparing this book was to publish contemporary concepts, new discoveries and innovative ideas in the field of surface engineering, predominantly for the technical applications, as well as in the field of production engineering and to stress some problems connected with the use of various surface processes in modern manufacturing of different purpose machine parts. This book is an attempt to introduce science into the study of surface treatment processes. Tribology offers a good approach for describing abrasive machining and coating processes and offers the ability to predict some of the outputs of the processes. The study of friction, forces, and energy explores the importance of the various factors which govern the stresses and deformations of abrasion. The effects of grain shape, depth of penetration, and lubrication on the process forces are explored. The tribology of nanostructured surfaces involves many fundamental and scientific issues. More importantly, it has tremendous applications in industries. It is a powerful tool to regulate friction, adhesion, and wetting of surfaces by altering their geometric textures and material compositions at the nanoscale, and, hence, to control the tribological performance of the engineering surfaces.

Public Health is regarded as the basis and cornerstone of health, generally and in medicine. Defined as the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals, this discipline has been renewed by the incorporation of multiple actors, professions, knowledge areas and it has also been impacted and promoted by multiple technologies, particularly - the information technology. As a changing field of knowledge, Public Health requires evidence-based information and regular updates. Current Topics in Public Health presents updated information on multiple topics related to actual areas of interest in this growing and exciting medical science, with the conception and philosophy that we are working to improve the health of the population, rather than treating diseases of individual patients, taking decisions about collective health care that are based on the best available, current, valid and relevant evidence, and finally within the context of available resources. With participation of authors from multiple countries, many from developed and developing ones, this book offers a wide geographical perspective. Finally, all these characteristics make this book an excellent update on many subjects of world public health.

Neonatal sepsis still remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the newborn, particularly in preterm, low birth weight infants. Despite advances in neonatal care, overall case-fatality rates from sepsis may be as high as 50%. Clinical signs of bacterial infection are vague and non-specific, and up to now there exists no easily available, reliable marker of infection despite a large bulk of studies focussing on inflammatory indices in neonatology. Every neonatologist is faced with the uncertainty of under- or over- diagnosing bacterial infection. In this book three topics will be discussed: clinical presentation including a general approach to sepsis neonatorum and two distinct diagnoses pneumonia and osteomyelitis diagnostic approaches including C-reactive protein and the immature myeloid information, and prevention and treatment of bacterial infection with immunoglobulins.

Holography - Basic Principles and Contemporary Applications is a collection of fifteen chapters, describing the basic principles of holography and some recent innovative developments in the field. The book is divided into three sections. The first, Understanding Holography, presents the principles of hologram recording illustrated with practical examples. A comprehensive review of diffraction in volume gratings and holograms is also presented. The second section, Contemporary Holographic Applications, is concerned with advanced applications of holography including sensors, holographic gratings, white-light viewable holographic stereograms. The third section of the book Digital Holography is devoted to digital hologram coding and digital holographic microscopy.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible central vision loss in developed countries.There have been rapid developments of therapies that today can halt or even reverse aspects of vision loss resulting from AMD among those most severely affected, and there is promise of future therapies that may prevent vision loss.This book provides an overview about AMD; an update on the current understanding of AMD, pathophysiology, the use of diagnostic tests, the management of both non-neovascular and neovascular AMD as well as future directions in treatment and its limitations. It also looks into the future with potential treatment options that are now under investigation in clinical trials.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is carried by 50 100% of the worlds population throughout their lives. Consequences are most readily seen in immunocompromised individuals such as organ transplant recipients, HIV-infected patients and new born infants. This book gives an in-depth view of manifestations of CMV infection in immunocompromised individuals: how it affects the immune system and how it is diagnosed and treated. The book also sheds light on the epidemiology and impact of CMV in sub-Saharan Africa, and also associations with age related disease that are more commonly seen in the western world. It particularly details a recent discovery between CMV and tumour immuno-biology. The book explores the development of a few compounds and also highlights the need to discover novel antiviral agents in future.

Micro/Nano mechatronics is currently used in broader spectra, ranging from basic applications in robotics, actuators, sensors, semiconductors, automobiles, and machine tools. As a strategic technology highlighting the 21st century, this technology is extended to new applications in bio-medical systems and life science, construction machines, and aerospace equipment, welfare/human life engineering, and other brand new scopes. Basically, the miniaturizing technology is important to realize high performance, low energy consumption, low cost performance, small space instrumentation, light-weight, and so on. This book presents the summary of our project Center of Excellence for Education and Research of Micro-Nano Mechatronics. The project implements a strategy to realize applications of micro-nano mechatronics, which are based on mechanical engineering or materials science, control systems engineering, and advanced medical engineering. The chapters describe the research advances in micro/nano measurement and control, micro/nano design and manufacturing, nano materials science, and their applications in biomedical engineering.The publication of this book was supported by Nagoya University, the 21st COE program "Micro- and NanoMechatronics for Information-Based Society," and the global COE program "COE for Education and Research of Micro-Nano Mechatronics."

Stem cells have a prominent role in normal life and also in pathogenesis of disorders. Today, these cells are clinically applicable in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation but expansion of their application in many more disorders needs more work. For safe and effective application of these cells, we need better knowledge of their biology, their interaction with other cells (especially supporting niche cells), growth, maturation and also immigration of stem cells through body in normal and abnormal conditions. Also for clinical application we need to understand better, their separation methods and safe manipulation. This book is written to clarify some aspects of stem cell biology, their characteristics, assessment of damage to cells during ex vivo manipulation and also their role in a model of cancers (chronic myeloid leukemia).

Amyloidosis is an uncommon disorder characterized by the deposition of extracellular amyloid proteins in tissues. Significant advancement has been made recently, which not only provides insight in to the pathophysiology of the disease but also helps to discover new therapies to fight the deadly disease. If accurate diagnosis and typing are made early, effective or even curative therapies are available. Unfortunately, because of the rarity of the disease and its protean clinical manifestations, patients may be misdiagnosed, especially at early stage of the disease, and this could lead to missed opportunities to effective therapy. The aim of the book is to help readers become familiar with the clinical presentation of amyloidosis and to review the latest diagnostic and therapeutic development.

The disease of the heart muscle may occur secondarily to common diseases, such as ischemic, hypertensive and valvular, among others. However, there is a group of conditions with intrinsic myocardial involvement from gene or multifactorial etiology, and high morbidity and mortality that represent a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for the physician. The book is focused on these cardiomyopathies, its features, its pathophysiology and its relation to sudden death. Mention is made also on general aspects, like ecocardiographic findings and myocardial contractile reserve, specific as pathophysiology and molecular mechanisms and cardiomyopathies in special populations. Special attention was deserved to cardiomyopathies in pediatrics, diabetic patients and women, as well as to the cases of chronic heart failure and dilated cardiomyopathy.

Current Progress in Biological Research presents new insights into key topics from different areas of the biological sciences. Some of the topics covered in the book are antibiotic susceptibility, genomic rearrangement, historical biogeography, biogeographic patterns, endemism and the use of microorganisms for pest control. The book is an interesting collection of 16 original research articles written by respected experts in their fields. It is hoped that readers will be stimulated and challenged by the contents of this book.

Cancer Treatment: Conventional and Innovative Approaches is an attempt to integrate into a book volume the various aspects of cancer treatment, compiling comprehensive reviews written by an international team of experts in the field. The volume is presented in six sections: i) Section 1: Cancer treatment: Conventional and innovative pharmacological approaches; ii) Section 2: Combinatorial strategies to fight cancer: Surgery, radiotherapy, backytherapy, chemotherapy, and hyperthermia; iii) Section 3: The immunotherapy of cancer; iv) Section 4: Multidisciplinarity in cancer therapy: nutrition and beyond; v) Section 5: Supportive care for cancer patients; vi) Section 6: Perspectives in cancer biology and modeling. Ultimately, we hope this book can enlighten important issues involved in the management of cancer, summarizing the state-of-the-art knowledge regarding the disease control and treatment; thus, providing means to improve the overall care of patients that daily battle against this potentially lethal condition.

This book provides information on the incidence of fungi and mycotoxins in some African countries, the health implications and possible intervention control strategies for mycotoxins in developing countries and in Africa in particular. It will therefore be of interest to students, educators, researchers and policy makers in the fields of medicine, agriculture, food science and technology, trade and economics. Food regulatory officers also have quite a lot to learn from the book. Although a lot of the generated data in the area of mycotoxicology are available to the developed world, information on the subject area from Africa is scanty and not usually available in a comprehensive form. This book attempts to address the gap. Being an open access book, it will be of great benefit to scientists in developing countries who have limited access to information due to lack of funds to pay or subscribe for high quality journals and data from commercial publishing and database companies.

This book highlights the pathophysiological complexities of the mechanisms and factors that are likely to be involved in a range of neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease, other Dementia, Parkinson Diseases and Multiple Sclerosis. The spectrum of diverse factors involved in neurodegeneration, such as protein aggregation, oxidative stress, caspases and secretase, regulators, cholesterol, zinc, microglia, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, etc, have been discussed in the context of disease progression. In addition, novel approaches to therapeutic interventions have also been presented. It is hoped that students, scientists and clinicians shall find this very informative book immensely useful and thought-provoking.

This book collects some new progresses on research of graphene from theoretical and experimental aspects in a variety of topics, such as graphene nanoribbons, graphene quantum dots, and graphene-based resistive switching memory. The authors of each chapter give a unique insight about the specific intense research area of graphene. This book is suitable for graduate students and researchers with background in physics, chemistry, and materials as reference.

The term "chromatin remodelling" is widely used to describe changes in chromatin structure which is controlled by histone-modifying enzymes, chromatin remodelling complexes, non-histone DNA-binding proteins and noncoding RNAs. Many human diseases such as cancer, various genetic syndromes, autism and infectious disease have been linked to the disruption of these control processes by genetic, environmental or microbial factors. Therefore, to unravel the mechanisms by which they operate is one of the most exciting and rapid developing fields of modern biology and will contribute to new ways in treatment of these diseases. The chapters in this book will focus on recent advances in our understanding of the mechanisms that govern the dynamic structural of chromatin, thereby providing important insights into gene regulation, DNA repair, and human diseases.

This book does not provide a comprehensive overview of Multiple Myeloma but a collection of chapters with in-depth information of distinct hot topics in the diagnostic, research and therapeutic fields. The dynamics of testing new drugs for multiple myeloma treatment in clinical trials is breathtaking. Scientific discoveries have uncovered complicated pathogenesis of multiple myeloma; complicated reactions to treatment lead to the creation of super cocktails. Curability of multiple myeloma is a question that is being discussed by the entire professional myeloma world. Improvement of prognosis is a fact which is most important from a patient's perspective. We believe that this book could be of interest to medical professionals specializing in hematooncology, researchers, as well as many others.

MEMS technology is increasingly penetrating into our lives and improving our quality of life. In parallel to this, advances in nanotechnology and nanomaterials have been catalyzing the rise of NEMS. Consisting of nine chapters reviewing state-of-the-art technologies and their future trends, this book focuses on the latest development of devices and fabrication processes in the field of these extremely miniaturized electromechanical systems. The book offers new knowledge and insight into design, fabrication, and packaging, as well as solutions in these aspects for targeted applications, aiming to support scientists, engineers and academic trainees who are engaged in relevant research. In the chapters, practical issues and advances are discussed for flexible microdevices, bioMEMS, intelligent implants, optical MEMS, nanomachined structures and NEMS, and others. Most of the chapters also focus on novel fabrication/packaging processes, including silicon bulk micromachining, laser micromachining, nanolithography, and packaging for implantable microelectronics enabled by nanomaterials.

The game is on. Do you know how to play? Game theory sets out to explore what can be said about making decisions which go beyond accepting the rules of a game. Since 1942, a well elaborated mathematical apparatus has been developed to do so; but there is more. During the last three decades game theoretic reasoning has popped up in many other fields as well - from engineering to biology and psychology. New simulation tools and network analysis have made game theory omnipresent these days. This book collects recent research papers in game theory, which come from diverse scientific communities all across the world; they combine many different fields like economics, politics, history, engineering, mathematics, physics, and psychology. All of them have as a common denominator some method of game theory. Enjoy.