Digital Twins for Healthcare: Design, Challenges and Solutions establishes the state-of-art in the specification, design, creation, deployment and exploitation of digital twins' technologies for healthcare and wellbeing. A digital twin is a digital replication of a living or non-living physical entity. When data is transmitted seamlessly, it bridges the physical and virtual worlds, thus allowing the virtual entity to exist simultaneously with the physical entity. A digital twin facilitates the means to understand, monitor, and optimize the functions of the physical entity and provide continuous feedback. It can be used to improve citizens' quality of life and wellbeing in smart cities and the virtualization of industrial processes.

Copper is one of the three most important metals in the world economy, and the only one of the three that is comparatively scarce in the earth's crust. Known reserves will only last a few decades at projected rates of consumption. While some substitution possibilities exist for some of its applications, copper is uniquely valuable as a conductor of electricity in a world that is rapidly electrifying. This fact makes the copper life cycle an appropriate subject for holistic analysis. This book, which includes a quantitative demand forecasting model, is based on a study commissioned by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) fills that need for the first time.

Among the conclusions of the study are the following. The medium-term prospects for copper producers and copper consuming industries include (1) more intensive exploration into more remote regions, (2) utilization of lower grade ores resulting in more mine wastes and associated waste disposal problems, (3) more intensive mining efficient ore reduction processes, (4) dramatic price increases when the current glut works itself out, (5) significant changes in the patterns of consumption (increasingly electrical applications), (6) sharp increases in the need for recovering and recycling old scrap copper in the future, (7) a significant buildup of copper and by-products (especially arsenic) either in use or in the human environment. Similar implications can be drawn for two other scarce and toxic metals - lead and zinc - often found in geological association with copper.

Flexible Incentives for the Adoption of Environmental Technologies in Agriculture identifies and structures more flexible economic incentives for the achievement of environmental goals in agriculture. It provides a conceptual framework and presents case studies that analyze how flexible incentives can address environmental problems that are caused by agricultural production. The book brings together economists, agency personnel and political economists for the purpose of exploring how new cutting-edge economic tools could be developed and applied to environmental problems. The goal of the book is to complement and to expand the economic theory of environmental regulation and technology adoption with new research findings. The key theme of this book is the important role technology takes when addressing environmental problems. New technologies and technical development are broadly defined to include economic instruments, innovative ways to communicate environmental information, new economic institutions, and education. This book is designed for public and private policymakers, government analysts, teachers, researchers and students who specialize in the fields of natural resources, agricultural economics and environmental regulation. It provides a fresh perspective on what types of incentives may be used to lead us to the desired environmental outcomes and offers new ideas about the types of economic instruments that may achieve these outcomes.

The last two decades have seen a phenomenal growth of the field of genetic or biochemical engineering and have witnessed the development and ultimately marketing of a variety of products-typically through the manipulation and growth of different types of microorganisms, followed by the recovery and purification of the associated products. The engineers and biotechnologists who are involved in the full-scale process design of such facilities must be familiar with the variety of unit operations and equipment and the applicable regulatory requirements. This book describes current commercial practice and will be useful to those engineers working in this field in the design, construction and operation of pharmaceutical and biotechnology plants. It will be of help to the chemical or pharmaceutical engineer who is developing a plant design and who faces issues such as: Should the process be batch or continuous or a combination of batch and continuous? How should the optimum process design be developed? Should one employ a new revolutionary separation which could be potentially difficult to validate or use accepted technology which involves less risk? Should the process be run with ingredients formulated from water for injection, deionized water, or even filtered tap water? Should any of the separations be run in cold rooms or in glycol jacketed lines to minimize microbial growth where sterilization is not possible? Should the process equipment and lines be designed to be sterilized in-place, cleaned-in-place, or should every piece be broken down, cleaned and autoclaved after every turn?"

Upcoming applications of genetic engineering in farm animals include higher yields, leaner meat, or disease resistance. The proceedings cover an analysis of the state of the art of the technology and its applications, an introduction to the specific application zoopharming (a method to produce biopharmaceuticals in transgenic livestock), including an analysis of the market for biopharmaceuticals. In addition an assessment of ethical aspects of livestock biotechnology and considerations regarding animal welfare implications are covered. The study is addressed to science, industry and politics.

Fungi playa major role in the sustainability of the biosphere, and mycorrhizal fungi are essential for the growth of many of our woods and forests. The applications of fungi in agriculture, industry and biotechnology remain of paramount importance, as does their use as a source of drugs and to help clean up our environment. This volume contains key papers from the conference 'From Ethnomycology to Fungal Biotechnology: Exploiting Fungi from Natural Resources for Novel Products'. This was the first international scientific conference covering the transfer of traditional remedies and processes in ethnomycology to modern fungal biotechnology. The conference was held at Simla, Himachal Pradesh, India from 15 to 16 December 1997. The key subject areas addressed in the conference were the issues of exploring and exploiting fungal diversity for novel leads to new antibiotics, enzymes, medicines and a range of other leads for wood preservation, biological control, agricultural biotechnology and the uses of fungi in the food industry. The conference programme included key-note presentations followed by poster sessions and general discussion. The book is broadly based, covering five main areas: Ethnomycology, Fungal Biotechnology, Biological Control, Mycorrhizal Fungi and Fungal Pests. There is no doubt that in the past fungi have played a key role in ethnomycological remedies and that in the future they will continue to attract the interest of a wide range of disciplines ranging from environmental conservation, agriculture and the food industry to wood preservation and aerobiological studies.

The aim of this book is to present the current state of the art of extracting natural products with near-critical solvents and to view the possibilities of further extensions of the technique. Relevant background theory is given but does not dominate the book. Carbon dioxide is the near-critical solvent used in most recent applications and inevitably receives prominence. In addition to general descriptions and reviews, the book contains three chapters by indus trial practitioners who describe in detail the operation of their processes and discuss the market for their products. Sections on the design of the pressure vessels and pumps required in these processes and on the acquisition of the data required for design are included. The costing of the processes is also discussed. There is good scope for combining a near-critical extraction step with other process steps in which the properties of near-critical solvents are utilised, for example as a reaction or crystallisation medium and a chapter is devoted to these important aspects. It is hoped that the work will be found to contain a great deal of specific information of use to those already familiar with this field. However the style of presentation and content is such that it will also be useful as an introduction. In particular it will be helpful to those wondering if this form of separation method has anything to offer for them, whether they are engineers, chemists or managers in industry, or in academic or research institutions."

Microfluidic techniques are becoming widely incorporated into medical diagnostic systems due to the inherent advantages of miniaturization. In Microfluidic Diagnostics: Methods in Molecular Biology, researchers in the field detail methods and protocols covering subjects such as microfluidic device fabrication, on-chip sample preparation, diagnostic applications and detection methodologies. The protocols described range from cutting-edge developments to established techniques and basic demonstrations suitable for education and training; from basic fabrication methods to commercializing research. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology (TM) series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and key tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and practical, Microfluidic Diagnostics: Methods in Molecular Biology seeks to aid scientists in the further development and commercialization of microfluidic diagnostic technologies

This book offers a comprehensive review on biomass resources, examples of biorefineries and corresponding products. The first part of this book covers topics such as different biorefinery resources from agriculture, wood processing residues and transport logistics of plant biomass. In the second part, expert contributors present biorefinery concepts of different biomass feedstocks, including vegetable-oils, sugarcane, starch, lignocellulose and microalgae. Readers will find here a summary of the syngas utilization and the bio-oil characterization and potential use as an alternative renewable fuel and source for chemical feedstocks. Particular attention is also given to the anaerobic digestion-based and Organosolv biorefineries. The last part of the book examines relevant products and components such as alcohols, hydrocarbons, bioplastics and lignin, and offers a sustainability evaluation of biorefineries.

The scope of the field of biotechnological processes is very wide, covering such processes as fermentations for production of high-valued specialist chemicals (e.g. pharmaceuticals), high-volume production of foods and feeds (e.g. yoghurt, cheese, beer), as well as biological waste treatment, handling solid (composting), liquid (activated sludge) and gaseous wastes (biofilters). Compared to other engineering disciplines, the introduction of modern optimization and control strategies is lagging behind. Two main reasons can be identified. First, the living organisms (or part thereof) that are central to these processes make the mathematical modeling of the processes a difficult task, and, since models are central to the development of control systems, the on-line control problem is also complex. The other difficulty stems from the absence, in most cases, of cheap and reliable instrumentation suited to real-time monitoring. In this book a number of advanced techniques is introduced to deal with these problems. In the first part modern on-line hardware sensors are discussed in detail (FIA, viable biomass measurement, membrane inlet mass spectrometry, flow cytometry, microcalorimetry). In the second part, novel model-based process diagnosis and control techniques are dealt with, including advances in bioprocess modeling and identification, data processing, software sensor design, and on-line control algorithms. The book is directed at engineers, researchers, and students in the field of process control and systems theory as applied to industrial biotechnological processes, as well as at bioengineers who have some background in control engineering and wish to increase their understanding ofhow advanced control theory applies to biological processes.

The current book describes the chemical and physical behaviour of polymers and biopolymers that form highly associating structures in equilibrium solution. It summons the established results known of polymer complexes in solution, taking into account also the recent developments in biotechnology concerning this topic, in technological applications of polymer-protein interactions, in fluorescence and scattering techniques for the study of intra- and interpolymer association and in the study of ionomers in solution. The book covers the whole range from synthesis and fundamental aspects to applications and technology of associated polymers.

Since its first systematic application during the 1970s, bioremediation, or the exploitation of a biological system's degradative potential to combat toxic pollutants such as heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), cyanides, and radioactive material, has proven itself over time, and the many advances in molecular techniques have only amplified its utility. In Bioremediation: Methods and Protocols, experts in the field explore imaginative and ambitious multidisciplinary techniques that will enable more predictable removal of pollutants from a variety of environments. The easy-to-follow volume addresses some of the broader issues such as the effect of the environment in determining the availability and fate of organic and inorganic compounds and how choices around the most appropriate bioremediation process can be arrived at, as well as detailed complementary techniques that support the effective deployment and monitoring of a bioremediation approach. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.

Authoritative and cutting-edge, Bioremediation: Methods and Protocols offers researchers a series of invaluable techniques certain to enhance their work with environmental contamination."

Plants have to manage a series of environmental stresses throughout their entire lifespan. Among these, abiotic stress is the most detrimental; one that is responsible for nearly 50% of crop yield reduction and appears to be a potential threat to global food security in coming decades. Plant growth and development reduces drastically due to adverse effects of abiotic stresses. It has been estimated that crop can exhibit only 30% of their genetic potentiality under abiotic stress condition. So, this is a fundamental need to understand the stress responses to facilitate breeders to develop stress resistant and stress tolerant cultivars along with good management practices to withstand abiotic stresses. Also, a holistic approach to understanding the molecular and biochemical interactions of plants is important to implement the knowledge of resistance mechanisms under abiotic stresses. Agronomic practices like selecting cultivars that is tolerant to wide range of climatic condition, planting date, irrigation scheduling, fertilizer management could be some of the effective short-term adaptive tools to fight against abiotic stresses. In addition, "system biology" and "omics approaches" in recent studies offer a long-term opportunity at the molecular level in dealing with abiotic stresses. The genetic approach, for example, selection and identification of major conditioning genes by linkage mapping and quantitative trait loci (QTL), production of mutant genes and transgenic introduction of novel genes, has imparted some tolerant characteristics in crop varieties from their wild ancestors. Recently research has revealed the interactions between micro-RNAs (miRNAs) and plant stress responses exposed to salinity, freezing stress and dehydration. Accordingly transgenic approaches to generate stress-tolerant plant are one of the most interesting researches to date. This book presents the recent development of agronomic and molecular approaches in conferring plant abiotic stress tolerance in an organized way. The present volume will be of great interest among research students and teaching community, and can also be used as reference material by professional researchers.

The first volume in a series which aims to focus on advances in computational biology. This volume discusses such topics as: fluctuations in the shape of flexible macromolecules; the hydration of carbohydrates as seen by computer simulation; and studies of salt-peptide solutions.

"This monograph contains recent studies in eco-informatics, promising ideas "

"and new challenges in information management for supporting sustainability in"

"companies and other organization. The scope of this book includes sets of"

"solutions which show different stakeholders viewpoints on sustainability. ""In individual chapters, authors discuss the role which Environmental"

"Information Systems (EIS) play in the environmental conscious functioning of"

"enterprise. New models, methods and tools supporting sustainability are"

"presented. Emphasis is placed on the innovative approach to eco-friendly"

"organization and coordination of transport, logistics processes and operations"

"management. The information management and decision making in"

"manufacturing and service organizations is highlighted."

"The scope of this monograph also encompasses topics related to the modeling"

"and monitoring of climate change.""

"

This book contains complete information on Capsicum genetic resources, diversity, evolution, history and advances in capsicum improvement from classical breeding to whole genome sequencing, genomics, databases and its impact on next generation pepper breeding. Capsicum is one of the most important Solanaceae crops grown worldwide as vegetables and spices. Due to its high economic value and to meet the demands of enormous population growth amid biotic and abiotic stresses, there has been an ongoing breeding program utilizing available genetic resources with desired traits to increase the sustainable productivity of this crop for several decades. However, the precision breeding of this crop for desired traits only started with the advent of molecular markers. The recent advances in high-throughput genome sequencing technologies helped in the quick decoding of transcriptome, epigenome, nuclear and organeller genomes, thereby enhancing our understanding of the structure and function of the Capsicum genome, and helping in genomics assisted breeding. These advanced technologies coupled with conventional mapping have greatly contributed towards dissection and manipulation of economically important traits more precisely and made less time consuming.

A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable us to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable. In this groundbreaking book, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines. He describes the near-term benefits we can expect, from intelligent personal assistants to vastly accelerated scientific research, and outlines the AI breakthroughs that still have to happen before we reach superhuman AI. He also spells out the ways humans are already finding to misuse AI, from lethal autonomous weapons to viral sabotage. If the predicted breakthroughs occur and superhuman AI emerges, we will have created entities far more powerful than ourselves. How can we ensure they never, ever, have power over us? Russell suggests that we can rebuild AI on a new foundation, according to which machines are designed to be inherently uncertain about the human preferences they are required to satisfy. Such machines would be humble, altruistic, and committed to pursue our objectives, not theirs. This new foundation would allow us to create machines that are provably deferential and provably beneficial.

The purpose of this book is to provide a balanced introduction to process control and management, aimed at the general process engineer. Rapid changes have occurred in process control over the past decade, mainly because of the deployment of robust and effective digital control equipment, and the development of the models which underpin the area. Historically, process control was seen as simply the maintenance of particular process variables at appropriate setpoints. This very narrow view has been superseded by the view that process control involves the regulation of any given process, in the context of a complete processing plant, to maximise the economic return from the plant. This wider definition brings into play a range of control regimes, from basic regulatory control, through advanced regulatory control, to complex process management. The organization of the book reflects this hierarchy, and is thus split into 3 parts, covering basic regulatory control, advanced process control and finally process management. The book is completed by the inclusion of several useful appendices, covering mathematical modelling, process optimisation and simulation.

In dealing with recent advances in biological engineering and human reproduction, we are confronted with legal, ethical, and religious questions for which there are no precedents. Warren Freedman undertakes a comprehensive examination of this topic. Sorting through the tangle of issues surrounding artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood, and other aspects of contemporary reproduction trends, Freedman attempts to clarify the rights and responsibilities of individuals, families, and society in the face of these new developments.

The author begins with a survey of the legal implications of nontraditional approaches to conception and birth. Separate chapters are devoted to artificial insemination and surrogate motherhood; and new concepts such as cryo-preservation, in-vitro fertilization, banking of sperms and eggs, and patentable new organisms are also discussed in detail. The author addresses questions of rights and liabilities as they apply to fetuses, donors, and adoptive parents, as well as the role of physicians and parenthood organizations, researchers, corporations, and government. Following a review of existing statutes, policies, and contracts that attempt to deal with these issues both here and abroad, he presents proposals that may aid in achieving equitable, uniform solutions. Freedman's book will be of interest to any citizen, group, or government agency concerned with these vital questions, and to professionals in law, government, medicine, human services, and industry.

A particular issue for biopharmaceuticals that has not been addressed comprehensively in any book, is the potential of an immune response to the biopharmaceutical product. That is, the human body marks the drug as a foreign body, and develops antibodies against the drug. These antibodies may be relatively harmless, but may also cross-react with the endogenous compound, causing autoimmunogenicity. Recent adverse experiences in Europe with Janssen-Ortho's blockbuster product Eprex has increased the attention towards potential immunogenicity of biopharmaceuticals, above all from the regulatory agencies. This book is intended to give a broad overview of the current state-of-the-art regarding the immune response to biopharmaceuticals. The chapters range from an overview of the immune system and factors that may trigger the immune system, via detection of antibodies and clinical implications, to various case examples and the regulatory view on immunogenicity.

This groundbreaking book is the first comparative analysis of the relative strengths of global bioregions. Growth Cultures investigates the rapidly growing phenomena of biotechnology and sets this study within a knowledge economy context. Philip Cooke proposes a new knowledge-focused theoretical framework, 'the New Global Bioeconomy', against which to test empirical characteristics of biotechnology. In this timely volume, Cooke unifies concepts from the sociology of science, economic sociology and evolutionary economic geography to focus on the problems and prospects for policy agencies worldwide trying to build 'biotechnology clusters'. He develops a superior policy approach of thinking in terms of platforms that integrate proximities and pipelines, which will be of significant interest for the scientific and technological communities as well as economic development policy communities. Growth Cultures will make fascinating reading for students, policy makers and researchers across management and business studies, innovation and knowledge studies, sociology, science and technology policy, applied economics, development studies and regional science.

ss-barrel outer membrane channel proteins (OMP) are useful as robust and flexible models or components in nanotechnology. Over the last decade biotechnological techniques allowed to expand the natural characteristics of OMPs by modifying their geometry and properties. The present book is oriented towards a broad group of readers including graduate students and advanced researchers. It gives a general introduction to the field of OMP based nano-component development as well as the state of the art of the involved research. On the example of the E. coli FhuA the transformation of an OMP into a tailored nano-channel will be outlined. An exhaustive description of the scientific strategy, including protein selection, analytical methods and "in-silico" tools to support the planning of protein modifications for a targeted application, consideration on the production of a custom made OMP, and an overview on technological applications including membrane/polymersome technology, will be provided.

Biomass pyrolysis has been practised for centuries in the manufacture of charcoal for industry and leisure. Only in the last two decades, however, has attention focussed on a better understanding of the science and technology, with the resultant benefits of better designed and controlled processes that give high yields of liquid products. These liquids, or 'bio-oil' as it is referred to, can be used in a variety of ways: -combustion to replace conventional fuel oil in boilers, process equipment such as kilns and in gas turbines for power generation; -upgrading by hydrotreating or with zeolites to gasoline, diesel and other hydrocarbon fuels, of chemicals; --extraction and upgrading to fuel additives and chemical specialities. Any charcoal produced can also be utilised to form char- water slurries, analogous to coal-water slurries, or bioi-oil slurries which may be used as liquid fuels in many combustion applications. A group of experts was set up in the EC Energy from Biomass programme to evaluate the status and opportunities for deriving useful liquid products from biomass pyrolysis. This book is a report of their findings and conclusions. It forms an authoritative guide to the wide range of technologies employed in biomass pyrolysis, and product upgrading, utilisation and characterisation. Recommendations and conclusions are included to identify promising areas of research and development that will be of value to researchers, planners and companies throughout the world.