This book comprises the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Asia-Pacific Microscopy Conference (APMC12) focusing on emerging opportunities and challenges in the field of materials sciences, life sciences and microscopy techniques. The contents of this volume include papers on aberration corrected TEM & STEM, SEM - FIB, ion beam microscopy, electron diffraction & crystallography, microscopy and imaging associated with bio-nanotechnology, medical applications, host-pathogen interaction, etc. This book will be beneficial to researchers, educators, and practitioners alike.

This book addresses the structural and biological properties of dental and peridental tissue structures and covers their mineralization process. The book contains a description of dentines, cementum, enamel and bone, including collagens, as well as non-collagenous proteins (SIBLINGs, SLRPs, GAGs, PGs, lipids, and MMPs). The mechanisms of mineralization are described in detail and the book is focused on matrix vesicles, collagen mineralization and the role of non-collagenous extracellular matrix components either as promoters or inhibitors of mineralization. In addition, the matrix components (non-collagenous) of enamel (amelogenin, ameloblastin, enamelin, MMP4, MMP20 and other proteases) are reviewed and their respective roles in dental tissues biomineralizations and tissue turnover are discussed. Additionally, environmental factors involved in enamel / dentin defects are adressed. With state-of-the-art contributions from experts in the respective domains, the book is a useful introduction to the field for junior scientists, interested in dental and peridental tissue biomineralization. It is also an interesting read for advanced scientists and clinicians working in dental research, giving them a broader view of the topic beyond their area of specialization. The series Biology of Extracellular Matrix is published in collaboration with the American Society for Matrix Biology.

This book primarily aims to discuss emerging topics in statistical methods and to booster research, education, and training to advance statistical modeling on interval-censored survival data. Commonly collected from public health and biomedical research, among other sources, interval-censored survival data can easily be mistaken for typical right-censored survival data, which can result in erroneous statistical inference due to the complexity of this type of data. The book invites a group of internationally leading researchers to systematically discuss and explore the historical development of the associated methods and their computational implementations, as well as emerging topics related to interval-censored data. It covers a variety of topics, including univariate interval-censored data, multivariate interval-censored data, clustered interval-censored data, competing risk interval-censored data, data with interval-censored covariates, interval-censored data from electric medical records, and misclassified interval-censored data. Researchers, students, and practitioners can directly make use of the state-of-the-art methods covered in the book to tackle their problems in research, education, training and consultation.

The field of electromagnetic sensitivity is the new epidemic of the 21st century, and can cause disease of the automatic nerve system in any part of the body. This is as a result of chemical sensitivity, in which over 80,000 chemicals are involved, resulting in innumerable combinations. A cursory understanding of the combinations can help clinicians partially understand the associated problems and thus help in the diagnosis and treatment of electromagnetic sensitivities. But a basic understanding of environmentally induced illness and healing must first be understood by the clinicians before diseases occur such as cardiac arrhythmia, muscle spasms, and nerve pain. Key Features: Describes how an understanding of the vast combinations of electrical and chemical sensitivities will help in the diagnosis and treatment of electromagnetic sensitivities Reveals the complexity and multi-faceted presentation often seen in chemical sensitivity and chronic degenerative disease cases Provides information backed up by rigorous scientific data including hundreds of tables and figures as online resources Features a Dedication to Robert Becker, MD, an orthopedic surgeon who was one of the first clinicians to recognize the significance of EMF in medicine and surgery, and also to his assistant Andrew Marino, PhD, who helped develop the basic science of orthopedic electromagnet healing

Cardiovascular Toxicity and Therapeutic Modalities Targeting Cardio-Oncology: From Basic Research to Advanced Study analyzes the emerging the field of cardio-oncology, reviewing recent advancements in the field, discussing how to monitor and treat cancer survivors for cardiotoxicity, and identifying potential cardiac side effects in novel cancer therapies. By adopting a translational approach, the book first comprehensively covers the basic science, mechanisms and concepts, which is followed by advanced state-of-art of cardio-oncology. Other sections cover tyrosine kinase inhibitors, Anthracyclines, and biomarkers in cardiotoxicity induced by chemotherapeutic drugs, noninvasive cardiovascular imaging techniques, radiotherapy induced cardiovascular, and more. Anti-cancer treatment is associated with serious cardiovascular adverse events, including arterial and pulmonary hypertension, supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias, systolic and diastolic cardiac dysfunction and coronary artery disease. Progress in cancer therapy over the past decades improved long-term survival but increased cancer therapy-related cardiotoxicity. Both traditional chemotherapeutic agents and newer therapies have demonstrated profound cardiovascular toxicities. It is important to understand the mechanisms of these toxicities to establish strategies for the prevention and management of complications-arrhythmias, heart failure, and even death.

This book summarizes the recent research development concerning olive oil wastewater management: characterization, environmental impact, recovery and treatment. The book combines different chapters on the management of olive oil rejects using simple techniques with low investment and operating costs. The main focus of the book is: - Diagnosis, impacts of olive oil waste, and regulations- The valorization of the margins and the olive waste- Wastewater treatment and recovery- Evaluation of investments and operating costs of treatment techniques- Shaped by experience, the authors present their view and approach to each focus area of managing liquid and solid waste produced by crushing units.

This book's aim is to study the mathematical and computational models to analyze the progress, prognosis, prevention, and panacea of breast cancer. The book discusses application of Markov chains and transient mappings, Charlie-Simpson numerical algorithm, models represented by nonlinear reaction-diffusion-type partial differential equations, and related techniques. The book also attempts to design mathematical model of targeted strategic treatments by using Skilled Killer Drugs (SKD1 and SKD2) to suggest the improvisation of future cancer treatments. Both graduate students and researchers of computational biology and oncologists will benefit by studying this book. Researchers of cancer studies and biological sciences will also find this work helpful.

The recent accumulation of information from genomes, including their sequences, has resultednotonlyinnewattemptstoansweroldquestionsandsolvelongstandingissues inbiology, butalsointheformulationofnovelhypothesesthatarisepreciselyfromthis wealth of data. The storage, processing, description, transmission, connection, and analysis of these data has prompted bioinformatics to become one the most relevant applied sciences for this new century, walking hand-in-hand with modern molecular biology and clearly impacting areas like biotechnology and biomedicine. Bioinformatics skills have now become essential for many scientists working with DNA sequences. With this idea in mind, this book aims to provide practical guidance andtroubleshootingadviceforthecomputationalanalysisofDNAsequences, covering a range of issues and methods that unveil the multitude of applications and relevance that Bioinformatics has today. The analysis of protein sequences has been purposely excludedtogainfocus.Individualbookchaptersareorientedtowardthedescriptionof theuseofspecificbioinformaticstools, accompaniedbypracticalexamples, adiscussion on the interpretation of results, and specific comments on strengths and limitations of the methods and tools. In a sense, chapters could be seen as enriched task-oriented manuals that will direct the reader in completing specific bioinformatics analyses. The target audience for this book is biochemists, and molecular and evolutionary biologiststhatwanttolearnhowtoanalyzeDNAsequencesinasimplebutmeaningful fashion. Readers do not need a special background in statistics, mathematics, or computer science, just a basic knowledge of molecular biology and genetics. All the tools described in the book are free and all of them can be downloaded or accessed throughtheweb.Mostchapterscouldbeusedforpracticaladvancedundergraduateor graduate-level courses in bioinformatics and molecular evolut

This book includes an international group of researchers who present the latest achievements in the field of enzyme, immune system, and microbial and nano-biosensors. It highlights the experimental evidence for formation of biological fuel cells (BFCs)-which has a dual purpose - as a device that produces electricity and the systems which produce it simultaneously cleaning up the environment from polluting organic compounds. Considering the work in the field of macro, micro and nano-biosensors, considerable attention is paid to the use of nanomaterials for the modification of working electrodes. Nanomaterials in some cases can significantly improve the parameters of analytical systems. Readers will be interested in the projection of the presented theoretical and experimental materials in the field of practical application of modern analytical developments. The presented results in many cases imply the possibility of using the created models of macro, micro and nano-biosensors, and biofuel elements in the field of health, and protection/restoration of the environment. It includes information about all existing types of transducers of signals in biosensors - electrochemical, optical and quantum-optics, thermoelectric, data of atomic force microscopy, piezoelectric, and more. On the basis of these principles, descriptions are given about the functioning of macro, micro and nano- biosensors for the detection of compounds used in medicine, detection of compounds that clog the environment, and thus affect human health, for compounds that are potentially the basis for the production of drugs, for the selection of compounds that have medicinal activity, for immunodetection, and to assess the quality of food. These questions form the basis of research carried out in the field of biosensors in the world. Since the described models of biosensors have high sensitivity, high measurement speed and selectivity, the described results attract the attention of both the ordinary reader and business class specialists who create and implement analytical technologies. This book is very useful for researchers in life sciences, chemical sciences, physics, and engineering. In addition, it will be useful for the persons working in industry. Advanced technologies specialists will be attracted by the novelty of the proposed solutions and their relevance and ease of implementation. Since the studies contain sections describing the parameters of different biosensors, BFCs, they are easily navigated into assessing the effectiveness of the practical use of the proposed device. The relevant sections indicate such characteristics as detection ranges, life span, type of biological material used, the method of formation of the bio-receptor part. These parameters are of interest to both developers of new models of biosensors and BFC, and their manufacturers.

This volume details experimental protocols to study structure and function of hepatocytes in vivo and in vitro, and for characterizing heterogeneity and plasticity of hepatocytes in healthy and in injured liver. Chapters guide readers through separating hepatocyte subfractions, characterizing the heterogeneity, novel culture systems, hepatocyte-like cells from human pluripotent stem cells, analyzing drug metabolism, monitoring protein sorting, manipulating gene expression, and methods for expanding primary hepatoblastoma and identifying hepatocellular carcinoma subtypes. Written in the format of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, each chapter includes an introduction to the topic, lists necessary materials and reagents, includes tips on troubleshooting and known pitfalls, and step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Hepatocytes: Methods and Protocols aims to provide techniques to further understand molecular mechanisms involved in the regulating hepatocyte functions and underlying liver diseases.

Health Effects of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster provides a multidisciplinary retrospective on the health consequences on the population the first decade after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Sections 1 and 2 of the book begins with an introduction and an overview of the developments surrounding the Fukushima accident. Section 3 discusses topics such as the physical health impact of radiation exposure as well as diseases that resulted from long-term evacuation. Section 4 examines the psychological factors and the social impact of the disaster and how their combined influence affected the physical and mental wellness of the population. The book concludes with Section 5 which covers the mitigation strategy for treatment and care of psychological health issues resulting from the disaster. The book contains expert contributions from those who have first-hand experience in the recovery efforts and are still actively researching the impact of the disaster. Health Effects of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster provides readers with a coherent, multi-dimensional narrative about the physical, psychosocial, and psychological aspects of the decade-long aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

"Systems Biology of Apoptosis" summarizes all current achievements in this emerging field. Apoptosis is a process common to all multicellular organisms. Apoptosis leads to the elimination of cells via a complex but highly defined cellular programme. Defects in the regulation of apoptosis result in serious diseases such as cancer, autoimmunity, AIDS and neurodegeneration. Recently, a substantial step forward in understanding the complex apoptotic pathways has been made by utilising systems biology approaches. Systems biology combines rigorous mathematical modelling with experimental approaches in a closed loop cycle for advancing our knowledge about complex biological processes. In this book, the editor describes the contemporary systems biology studies devoted to apoptotic signaling and focuses on the question how systems biology helps to understand life/death decisions made in the cell and to develop new approaches to rational treatment strategies.

The papers in this volume comprise the refereed proceedings of the Second IFIP International Conference on Computer and Computing Technologies in Agriculture (CCTA2008), in Beijing, China, 2008. The conference on the Second IFIP International Conference on Computer and Computing Technologies in Agriculture (CCTA 2008) is cooperatively sponsored and organized by the China Agricultural University (CAU), the National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture (NERCITA), the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering (CSAE) , International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), Beijing Society for Information Technology in Agriculture, China and Beijing Research Center for Agro-products Test and Farmland Inspection, China. The related departments of China's central government bodies like: Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Education and the Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation, Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, etc. have greatly contributed and supported to this event. The conference is as good platform to bring together scientists and researchers, agronomists and information engineers, extension servers and entrepreneurs from a range of disciplines concerned with impact of Information technology for sustainable agriculture and rural development. The representatives of all the supporting organizations, a group of invited speakers, experts and researchers from more than 15 countries, such as: the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Germany, Greece, Australia, Estonia, Japan, Korea, India, Iran, Nigeria, Brazil, China, etc.

Of the 7,000 estimated non-native species present in North America, approximately 1,000 are invasive. Clearly, invasive species are in the minority, but their small numbers don't keep them from causing billions of dollars in economic and ecological harm each year. Policymakers and ecologists continue to try to figure out which species might be harmful, which invasive species are doing the most damage, and which of these might respond best to eradication efforts. Invasive species reports and case studies are prevalent in political, environmental, and scientific news cycles, and a significant portion of the public is concerned about the issue.
In Invasive Species: What Everyone Needs to Know(r), Simberloff will first cover basic topics such as how non-native species are introduced, which areas have incurred the most biological invasions, and how the rates of biological invasions have shifted in recent years. He then moves on to the direct and indirect impacts of the impacts of invasive species on various ecosystems, such as habitat and resource competition, how invasive species transmit pathogens, and how introduced plants and animals can modify a habitat to favor other non-native species. Simberloff's final chapters will discuss the evolution of invasive species, the policies we currently have in place to manage them, and future prospects for controlling their spread. The book will also contain a section dedicated to the more controversial topics surrounding invasive species: invasive natives, useful non-native species, animal rights versus species rights, and non-native species' impacts on the biodiversity of an ecosystem.
What Everyone Needs to Know(r) is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

Johannes Klumpers Biotechnologies, such as genetic engineering, cloning and biodiversity, raise many legal and ethical concerns, so it is important that people understand these issues and feel able to express their opinions. This is why the European Commission has been, for a number of years, supporting actions to improve communication among scientists in these diverse areas. The project 'Women in Biotechnology' (WONBIT), financed under the 6th Framework programme of the European Commission, is an excellent example of what can be done to target opinion-formers such as scientists, economists and lawyers in bottom-up activities, and to encourage a debate on gender issues triggered by developments in the life sciences. WONBIT gave rise to a successful international conference highlighting the importance of adopting good practices and ethical considerations in parallel with the rapid pace of progress in biotechnology - from a woman's point of view. In particular, the conference addressed women in decision-making positions in b- technology with specific reference to scientific excellence, social competencies and management qualities as well as issues relating to environment, society and the younger generation. But it did not stop there: a key part of the conference was dedicated to stimulating public debate among non-specialists, which has led to a number of recommen- tions to policy-makers on better communication in biotechnology, on taking better account of the gender aspects of research, and on involving more women in the decision-making process that surrounds developments in biotechnology.

Biology of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases combines physiology and pathophysiology of selected metabolic and cardiovascular diseases with health relevance. Written in a concise and easy to read manner, the book allows readers to gain an understanding on a number of topics, including cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology and how it relates to the development of insulin resistance, diabetes and other metabolic diseases. The book also highlights the relevance of obesity in the development of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and emphasizes the benefits of exercise as a preventative measure and way to treat underlying conditions.

Deep Learning in Bioinformatics: Techniques and Applications in Practice introduces the topic in an easy-to-understand way, exploring how it can be utilized for addressing important problems in bioinformatics, including drug discovery, de novo molecular design, sequence analysis, protein structure prediction, gene expression regulation, protein classification, biomedical image processing and diagnosis, biomolecule interaction prediction, and in systems biology. The book also presents theoretical and practical successes of deep learning in bioinformatics, pointing out problems and suggesting future research directions. Dr. Izadkhah provides valuable insights and will help researchers use deep learning techniques in their biological and bioinformatics studies.

Current demand in biomedical sciences emphasizes the understanding of basic mechanisms and problem solving rather than rigid empiricism and factual recall. Knowledge of the basic laws of mass and momentum transport as well as model development and validation, biomedical signal processing, biomechanics, and capstone design have indispensable roles in the engineering analysis of physiological processes. To this end, an introductory, multidisciplinary text is a must to provide the necessary foundation for beginning biomedical students. Assuming no more than a passing acquaintance with molecular biology, physiology, biochemistry, and signal processing, Biomedical Engineering Principles, Second Edition provides just such a solid, accessible grounding to this rapidly advancing field. Acknowledging the vast range of backgrounds and prior education from which the biomedical field draws, the organization of this book lends itself to a tailored course specific to the experience and interests of the student. Divided into four sections, the book begins with systems physiology, transport processes, cell physiology, and the cardiovascular system. Part I covers systems analysis, biological data, and modeling and simulation in experimental design, applying concepts of diffusion, and facilitated and active transport. Part II presents biomedical signal processing, reviewing frequency, periodic functions, and Fourier series as well as signal acquisition and processing techniques. Part III presents the practical applications of biomechanics, focusing on the mechanical and structural properties of bone, musculoskeletal, and connective tissue with respect to joint range, load bearing capacity, and electrical stimulation. The final part highlights capstone design, discussing design perspectives for living and nonliving systems, the role of the FDA, and the project timeline from inception to proof of concept. Cutting across many disciplines, Biomedical Engineering Principles, Second Edition offers illustrative examples as well as problems and discussion questions designed specifically for this book to provide a readily accessible, widely applicable introductory text.

In the statistical domain, certain topics have received considerable attention during the last decade or so, necessitated by the growth and evolution of data and theoretical challenges. This growth has invariably been accompanied by computational advancement, which has presented end users as well as researchers with the necessary opportunities to handle data and implement modelling solutions for statistical purposes. Showcasing the interplay among a variety of disciplines, this book offers pioneering theoretical and applied solutions to practice-oriented problems. As a carefully curated collection of prominent international thought leaders, it fosters collaboration between statisticians and biostatisticians and provides an array of thought processes and tools to its readers. The book thereby creates an understanding and appreciation of recent developments as well as an implementation of these contributions within the broader framework of both academia and industry. Computational and Methodological Statistics and Biostatistics is composed of three main themes: * Recent developments in theory and applications of statistical distributions;* Recent developments in supervised and unsupervised modelling;* Recent developments in biostatistics; and also features programming code and accompanying algorithms to enable readers to replicate and implement methodologies. Therefore, this monograph provides a concise point of reference for a variety of current trends and topics within the statistical domain. With interdisciplinary appeal, it will be useful to researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in statistics, biostatistics, clinical methodology, geology, data science, and actuarial science, amongst others.

Students and researchers in the health sciences are faced with greater opportunity and challenge than ever before. The opportunity stems from the explosion in publicly available data that simultaneously informs and inspires new avenues of investigation. The challenge is that the analytic tools required go far beyond the standard methods and models of basic statistics. This textbook aims to equip health care researchers with the most important elements of a modern health analytics toolkit, drawing from the fields of statistics, health econometrics, and data science. This textbook is designed to overcome students' anxiety about data and statistics and to help them to become confident users of appropriate analytic methods for health care research studies. Methods are presented organically, with new material building naturally on what has come before. Each technique is motivated by a topical research question, explained in non-technical terms, and accompanied by engaging explanations and examples. In this way, the authors cultivate a deep ("organic") understanding of a range of analytic techniques, their assumptions and data requirements, and their advantages and limitations. They illustrate all lessons via analyses of real data from a variety of publicly available databases, addressing relevant research questions and comparing findings to those of published studies. Ultimately, this textbook is designed to cultivate health services researchers that are thoughtful and well informed about health data science, rather than data analysts. This textbook differs from the competition in its unique blend of methods and its determination to ensure that readers gain an understanding of how, when, and why to apply them. It provides the public health researcher with a way to think analytically about scientific questions, and it offers well-founded guidance for pairing data with methods for valid analysis. Readers should feel emboldened to tackle analysis of real public datasets using traditional statistical models, health econometrics methods, and even predictive algorithms. Accompanying code and data sets are provided in an author site: https://roman-gulati.github.io/statistics-for-health-data-science/

This book provides a compact introduction to the bootstrap method. In addition to classical results on point estimation and test theory, multivariate linear regression models and generalized linear models are covered in detail. Special attention is given to the use of bootstrap procedures to perform goodness-of-fit tests to validate model or distributional assumptions. In some cases, new methods are presented here for the first time. The text is motivated by practical examples and the implementations of the corresponding algorithms are always given directly in R in a comprehensible form. Overall, R is given great importance throughout. Each chapter includes a section of exercises and, for the more mathematically inclined readers, concludes with rigorous proofs. The intended audience is graduate students who already have a prior knowledge of probability theory and mathematical statistics.

For some time, medicine has been an important driver for the development of data processing and visualization techniques. Improved technology offers the capacity to generate larger and more complex data sets related to imaging and simulation. This, in turn, creates the need for more effective visualization tools for medical practitioners to interpret and utilize data in meaningful ways.

The first edition of Visualization in Medicine and Life Sciences (VMLS) emerged from a workshop convened to explore the significant data visualization challenges created by emerging technologies in the life sciences. The workshop and the book addressed questions of whether medical data visualization approaches can be devised or improved to meet these challenges, with the promise of ultimately being adopted by medical experts.

Visualization in Medicine and Life Sciences II follows the second international VMLS workshop, held in Bremerhaven, Germany, in July 2009. Internationally renowned experts from the visualization and driving application areas came together for this second workshop.

The book presents peer-reviewed research and survey papers which document and discuss the progress made, explore new approaches to data visualization, and assess new challenges and research directions.

The assembled papers span the frontiers of VMLS, examining these topics:

* Feature Extraction

* Classification

* Volumes and Shapes

* Tensor Visualization

* Visualizing Genes, Proteins, and Molecules"

This book explores the impact of nonlinearity on a broad range of areas, including time-honored fields such as biology, geometry, and topology, but also modern ones such as quantum mechanics, networks, metamaterials and artificial intelligence. The concept of nonlinearity is a universal feature in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, and is used to characterize systems whose behavior does not amount to a superposition of simple building blocks, but rather features complex and often chaotic patterns and phenomena. Each chapter of the book features a synopsis that not only recaps the recent progress in each field but also charts the challenges that lie ahead. This interdisciplinary book presents contributions from a diverse group of experts from various fields to provide an overview of each field's past, present and future. It will appeal to both beginners and seasoned researchers in nonlinear science, numerous areas of physics (optics, quantum physics, biophysics), and applied mathematics (ODEs, PDEs, dynamical systems, machine learning) as well as engineering.