The aim of this volume is to present the basic mathematical aspects of the ranking methods using a didactical approach and to explain their use through examples of relevant applications in different scientific fields. Ranking methods can be applied in several different fileds, such as decision support, toxicology, EU priority lists of toxic chemicals, environmental problems, proteomics and genomics, analytical chemistry, food chemistry and QSAR.
. Covers a wide range of applications, from the environment and toxicology to DNA sequencing
. Incorporates contributions from renowned experts in the field
. Meets the increasing demand for literature concerned with ranking methods and their applications

Although a large number of books are available in the fields of solvent extraction and ion exchangers (extraction by chelation or solvation), this book is the first of its kind in the field of liquid ion exchangers (extraction by ion pair formation) which is an upcoming field in solvent extraction chemistry. There are a number of monographs dealing with various aspects of solvent extraction. However, the present title deals in depth with analytical chemistry liquid ion exchangers. This monograph will be very useful to analytical chemists, environmental scientists, chemical processing and material scientists, research workers in solvent extraction as well as postgraduate students majoring in analytical chemistry.This monograph comprises of several chapters. The introduction deals with elementary ideas about liquid ion exchangers and their comparisons with the solid ion exchange resins. The chapter on solvent extraction covers the general classification of mechanisms of extraction and consideration of the extraction equilibria. There are two chapters pertaining to important characteristics and principles of extraction by both liquid anion as well as liquid cation exchangers. The rest of the chapters deal with the separation of elements with liquid ion exchangers, reverse phase partition chromatography and usage of solvent extraction in separation of metals for industrial purposes.

Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) was discovered in the 1970s and has since grown enormously in breadth, depth, and understanding. One of the major characteristics of SERS is its interdisciplinary nature: it lies at the boundary between physics, chemistry, colloid science, plasmonics, nanotechnology, and biology. By their very nature, it is impossible to find a textbook that will summarize the principles needed for SERS of these rather dissimilar and disconnected topics. Although a basic understanding of these topics is necessary for research projects in SERS with all its many aspects and applications, they are seldom touched upon as a coherent unit during most undergraduate studies in physics or chemistry. This book intends to fill this existing gap in the literature. It provides an overview of the underlying principles of SERS, from the fundamental understanding of the effect to its potential applications. It is aimed primarily at newcomers to the field, graduate student, researcher or scientist, attracted by the many applications of SERS and plasmonics or its basic science. The emphasis is on concepts and background material for SERS, such as Raman spectroscopy, the physics of plasmons, or colloid science, all of them introduced within the context of SERS, and from where the more specialised literature can be followed.
* Represents one of very few books fully dedicated to the topic of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)
* Gives a comprehensive summary of the underlying physical concepts around SERS
* Provides a detailed analysis of plasmons and plasmonics

This book reveals unique transport phenomena and functionalities in topological insulators coupled with magnetism and superconductivity. Topological insulators are a recently discovered class of materials that possess a spin-momentum-locked surface state. Their exotic spin texture makes them an exciting platform for investigating emergent phenomena, especially when coupled with magnetism or superconductivity. Focusing on the strong correlation between electricity and magnetism in magnetic topological insulators, the author presents original findings on current-direction-dependent nonreciprocal resistance, current-induced magnetization reversal and chiral edge conduction at the domain wall. In addition, he demonstrates how the coupling between superconductivity and topological surface state leads to substantial nonreciprocal resistance. The author also elucidates the origins of these phenomena and deepens readers' understanding of the topologically nontrivial electronic state. The book includes several works which are published in top journals and were selected for the President's Award by the University of Tokyo and for the Ikushi Prize, awarded to distinguished Ph.D. students in Japan.

This book is intended as reference material for students and professors interested in air pollution modeling at the graduate level as well as researchers and professionals involved in developing and utilizing air pollution models. Current developments in air pollution modeling are explored as a series of contributions from researchers at the forefront of their field. This newest contribution on air pollution modeling and its application is focused on local, urban, regional and intercontinental modeling; emission modeling and processing; data assimilation and air quality forecasting; model assessment and evaluation; aerosol transformation. Additionally, this work also examines the relationship between air quality and human health and the effects of climate change on air quality. This work is a collection of selected papers presented at the 37th International Technical Meeting on Air Pollution Modeling and its Application, held in Hamburg, Germany, September 23-27, 2019.

For almost a decade, quantitative NMR spectroscopy (qNMR) has been established as valuable tool in drug analysis. In all disciplines, i. e. drug identification, impurity profiling and assay, qNMR can be utilized.
Separation techniques such as high performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, super fluid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis techniques, govern the purity evaluation of drugs. However, these techniques are not always able to solve the analytical problems often resulting in insufficient methods. Nevertheless such methods find their way into international pharmacopoeias. Thus, the aim of the book is to describe the possibilities of qNMR in pharmaceutical analysis.
Beside the introduction to the physical fundamentals and techniques the principles of the application in drug analysis are described: quality evaluation of drugs, polymer characterization, natural products and corresponding reference compounds, metabolism, and solid phase NMR spectroscopy for the characterization drug substances, e.g. the water content, polymorphism, and drug formulations, e.g. tablets, powders. This part is accompanied by more special chapters dealing with representative examples. They give more detailed information by means of concrete examples.
- combines theory, techniques, and concrete applications-all of which closely resemble the laboratory experience
- considers international pharmacopoeias, addressing the concern for licensing
- features the work of academics and researchers, appealing to a broad readership

A classical metastable state possesses a local free energy minimum at infinite sizes, but not a global one. This concept is phase size independent. We have studied a number of experimental results and proposed a new concept that there exists a wide range of metastable states in polymers on different length scales where their metastability is critically determined by the phase size and dimensionality. Metastable states are also observed in phase transformations that are kinetically impeded on the pathway to thermodynamic equilibrium. This was illustrated in structural and morphological investigations of crystallization and mesophase transitions, liquid-liquid phase separation, vitrification and gel formation, as well as combinations of these transformation processes. The phase behaviours in polymers are thus dominated by interlinks of metastable states on different length scales. This concept successfully explains many experimental observations and provides a new way to connect different aspects of polymer physics.
* Written by a leading scholar and industry expert
* Presents new and cutting edge material encouraging innovation and future research
* Connects hot topics and leading research in one concise volume

High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy has become a powerful tool for astrophysics since the launch of Chandra and XMM-Newton, ten years ago. The grating spectrometers on both instruments still continue to provide excellent data, while imaging calorimeters are being prepared for future missions like Astro-H and IXO. The synergy with other wavelength bands like the UV has been boosted by the addition of COS to HST. X-ray spectroscopy offers unique diagnostics to study almost any object in the Universe. This book contains review papers on highlights and the state-of-the-art of X-ray spectroscopy for a broad range of objects and on the prospects for future studies.

This book highlights the latest advances in bioMEMS for biosensing applications. It comprehensively reviews different detection methods, including colorimetric, fluorescence, luminescence, bioluminescence, chemiluminescence, biochemiluminescence, and electrochemiluminescence, and presents various bioMEMS for each, together with recent examples. The book also offers an overview of the history of BioMEMS and the design and manufacture of the first bioMEMS-based devices.

This book highlights the use of LEDs in biomedical photoacoustic imaging. In chapters written by key opinion leaders in the field, it covers a broad range of topics, including fundamentals, principles, instrumentation, image reconstruction and data/image processing methods, preclinical and clinical applications of LED-based photoacoustic imaging. Apart from preclinical imaging studies and early clinical pilot studies using LED-based photoacoustics, the book includes a chapter exploring the opportunities and challenges of clinical translation from an industry perspective. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scientists and engineers in academia and industry, as well as medical experts interested in the clinical applications of photoacoustic imaging.

This book discusses fundamentally new biomedical imaging methods, such as holography, holographic and resonant interferometry, and speckle optics. It focuses on the development of holographic interference microscopy and its use in the study of phase objects such as nerve and muscle fibers subjected to the influence of laser radiation, magnetic fields, and hyperbaric conditions. The book shows how the myelin sheath and even the axon itself exhibit waveguide properties, enabling a fresh new look at the mechanisms of information transmission in the human body. The book presents theoretically and experimentally tested holographic and speckle-optical methods and devices used for investigating complex, diffusely scattering surfaces such as skin and muscle tissue. Additionally, it gives broad discussion of the authors' own original fundamental and applied research dedicated to helping physicians introduce new contact-less methods of diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the cardiovascular and neuromuscular systems into medical practice. The book is aimed at a broad spectrum of scientific specialists in the fields of speckle optics, holography, laser physics, morphology and cytochemistry, as well as medical professionals such as physiologists, neuropathologists, neurosurgeons, cardiologists and dentists.

This book provides a comprehensive and authoritative review of the chemical analysis of UV filters in coastal waters and their impact on the marine environment. The sun care is today the most important sector within the cosmetics industry, with annual increases in sales. The main components of sunscreens, organic and inorganic UV filters, have been detected in many coastal regions, with the highest concentrations in coastal areas under high anthropogenic pressure. Moreover, these compounds have been found to be bioaccumulated in aquatic biota causing biological and toxicological responses; some organic UV filters act as endocrine disruptors in aquatic biota, affecting survival, behavior, growth, development and reproduction. On the other hand, inorganic UV filters, mainly based on nanoparticles, have been demonstrated to have various impacts on marine organisms, such as inducing oxidative stress in abalones, accumulating in microalgae, affecting the immune response in mussels, bleaching corals, and genotoxicity in fish, among others. All these effects of sunscreens on the marine environment highlight the need for more stringent and environmentally friendly regulations. This book covers the latest analytical methodologies used in assessing the impact of UV filters impact on marine waters, especially on marine biota, and also critiques the global regulation of UV filters and the environmental risk of using sunscreens. Featuring specific case studies of the environmental effects of sunscreens in the Mediterranean Sea and Hawaii, which highlight the importance of balancing human health with environmental health of coastal ecosystems, it will appeal not only to scientists and students from various disciplines (environmental chemistry, biology, ecology, biogeochemistry, fisheries and climate change among others), but also to environmental managers wanting to promote new restrictive regulations on the use of UV filters, and to professionals from the cosmetic industry interested in the development of eco-friendly sunscreens.

This book explores the use of biomass as an energy source and its application in energy conversion technologies. Focusing on the challenges of, and technologies related to, biomass conversion, the book is divided into three parts. The first part underlines the fundamental concepts that form the basis of biomass production, its feasibility valuation, and its potential utilization. This part does not consider only how biomass is generated, but also methods of assessment. The second part focuses on the clarification of central concepts of the biorefinery processes. After a preliminary introduction with industrial examples, common issues of biochemical reaction engineering applications are analysed in detail. The theory explained in this part demonstrates that the chemical kinetics are the core focus in modelling biological processes such as growth, decay, product formation and feedstock consumption. This part continues with the theory of biofuels production, including biogas, bioethanol, biodiesel and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of hydrocarbons. The third part of this book gives detailed explanations of preliminary notions related to the theory of thermodynamics. This theory will assist the reader when taking into account the concepts treated in the previous two parts of the book. Several detailed derivations are given to give the reader a full understanding of the arguments at hand. This part also gives literature data on the main properties of some biomass feedstock. Fundamentals of Biofuels Engineering and Technology will be of interest not only to academics and researchers working in this field but also to graduate students and energy professionals seeking to expand their knowledge of this increasingly important area.

UV-Visible Spectrophotometry of Water and Wastewater is the first book dedicated to the use of UV spectrophotometry for water and wastewater quality monitoring. Using practical examples the reader is shown how this technique can be a source of new methods of characterization and measurement. Easy and fast to run, this simple and robust analytical technique must be considered as one of the best ways to obtain a quantitative estimation of specific or aggregate parameters (eg. Nitrate, TOC), and simultaneously qualitative information on the global composition of water and its variation.
* First electronic library of UV-spectra providing data readily available for researchers and users
* Provides a theoretical basis for further research in the field of spectra exploitation
* Contains helpful practical applications

This book presents developments of novel techniques and applies them in order to understand the interactions between thermally driven mesoscale flows (sea and mountain breezes) and the turbulent exchange within the atmospheric boundary layer. These interactions are not accurately reproduced in the meteorological models currently employed for weather forecasting. Consequently, important variables such as air temperature and wind speed are misrepresented. Also, the concentrations of relevant greenhouse gases such as CO2 are considerably affected by these interactions. By applying a systematic algorithm based on objective criteria (presented here), the thesis explores complete observational databases spanning up to 10 years. Further, it presents statistically significant and robust results on the topic, which has only been studied in a handful of cases in the extant literature. Lastly, by applying the algorithm directly to the outputs of the meteorological model, the thesis helps readers understand the processes discussed and reveals the biases in such models.

The book reviews photosynthetic water oxidation and proton-coupled electron transfer in photosystem, focusing on the molecular vibrations of amino acid residues and water molecules. Photosynthetic water oxidation performed by plants and cyanobacteria is essential for the sustenance of life on Earth, not only as an electron source for synthesizing sugars from CO2, but also as an O2 source in the atmosphere. Water oxidation takes place at the Mn4CaO5 cluster in photosystem II, where a series of electron transfer reactions coupled with proton transfer occur using light energy. The author addresses the unresolved mechanisms of photosynthetic water oxidation and relevant proton-coupled electron transfer reactions using a combined approach of experimental and computational methods such as Fourier transform infrared difference spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations. The results show that protonation and hydrogen-bond structures of water molecules and amino acid residues in the protein play important roles in regulation of the electron and proton transfer reactions. These findings and the methodology make a significant contribution to our understanding the molecular mechanism of photosynthetic water oxidation.

This book introduces readers to the latest advances in G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) biology. It reviews our current understanding of the structural basis of ligand binding and allosteric mechanisms, following a decade of technological breakthroughs. Several examples of structure-based drug discovery are presented, together with the future challenges involved in designing better drugs that target GPCRs. In turn, the book illustrates the important concept of GPCR biased signaling in physiological contexts, and presents fluorescent- and light-based methodologies frequently used to measure GPCR signaling or to trace their dynamics in cells upon ligand activation. Taken together, the chapters provide an essential overview and toolkit for new scientific investigators who plan to develop GPCR projects. All chapters were written by experts in their respective fields, and share valuable insights and powerful methodologies for the GPCR field.

This book highlights emerging trends in terahertz engineering and system technologies, mainly, devices, advanced materials, and various applications in THz technology. It includes advanced topics such as terahertz biomedical imaging, pattern recognition and tomographic reconstruction for THz biomedical imaging by use of machine learning and artificial intelligence, THz imaging radars for autonomous vehicle applications, THZ imaging system for security and surveillance. It also discusses theoretical, experimental, established and validated empirical work on these topics and the intended audience is both academic and professional.

Electrophoresis is a straightforward but informative analytical method used in biochemistry, biology and medicine. This book combines a detailed discussion of theory and technical application with an elaborate section on troubleshooting and problem solving in electrophoresis. Therefore the book is an important guide for both students and scientists.

Micro-Raman Spectroscopy introduces readers to the theory and application of Raman microscopy. Raman microscopy is used to study the chemical signature of samples with little preperation in a non-destructive manner. An easy to use technique with ever increasing technological advances, Micro-Raman has significant application for researchers in the fields of materials science, medicine, pharmaceuticals, and chemistry.