This volume gathers the proceedings of the Joint International Conference of the XIII International Conference on Mechanisms and Mechanical Transmissions (MTM) and the XXIV International Conference on Robotics (Robotics), held in Timisoara, Romania. It addresses the applications of mechanisms and transmissions in several modern technical fields such as mechatronics, biomechanics, machines, micromachines, robotics and apparatus. In doing so, it combines theoretical findings and experimental testing. The book presents peer-reviewed papers written by researchers specialized in mechanism analysis and synthesis, dynamics of mechanisms and machines, mechanical transmissions, biomechanics, precision mechanics, mechatronics, micromechanisms and microactuators, computational and experimental methods, CAD in mechanism and machine design, mechanical design of robot architecture, parallel robots, mobile robots, micro and nano robots, sensors and actuators in robotics, intelligent control systems, biomedical engineering, teleoperation, haptics, and virtual reality.

This is an introductory statistics book designed to provide scientists with practical information needed to apply the most common statistical tests to laboratory research data. The book is designed to be practical and applicable, so only minimal information is devoted to theory or equations. Emphasis is placed on the underlying principles for effective data analysis and survey the statistical tests. It is of special value for scientists who have access to Minitab software. Examples are provides for all the statistical tests and explanation of the interpretation of these results presented with Minitab (similar to results for any common software package). The book is specifically designed to contribute to the AAPS series on advances in the pharmaceutical sciences. It benefits professional scientists or graduate students who have not had a formal statistics class, who had bad experiences in such classes, or who just fear/don't understand statistics. Chapter 1 focuses on terminology and essential elements of statistical testing. Statistics is often complicated by synonyms and this chapter established the terms used in the book and how rudiments interact to create statistical tests. Chapter 2 discussed descriptive statistics that are used to organize and summarize sample results. Chapter 3 discussed basic assumptions of probability, characteristics of a normal distribution, alternative approaches for non-normal distributions and introduces the topic of making inferences about a larger population based on a small sample from that population. Chapter 4 discussed hypothesis testing where computer output is interpreted and decisions are made regarding statistical significance. This chapter also deasl with the determination of appropriate sample sizes. The next three chapters focus on tests that make decisions about a population base on a small subset of information. Chapter 5 looks at statistical tests that evaluate where a significant difference exists. In Chapter 6 the tests try to determine the extent and importance of relationships. In contrast to fifth chapter, Chapter 7 presents tests that evaluate the equivalence, not the difference between levels being tested. The last chapter deals with potential outlier or aberrant values and how to statistically determine if they should be removed from the sample data. Each statistical test presented includes an example problem with the resultant software output and how to interpret the results. Minimal time is spent on the mathematical calculations or theory. For those interested in the associated equations, supplemental figures are presented for each test with respective formulas. In addition, Appendix D presents the equations and proof for every output result for the various examples. Examples and results from the appropriate statistical results are displayed using Minitab 18O. In addition to the results, the required steps to analyze data using Minitab are presented with the examples for those having access to this software. Numerous other software packages are available, including based data analysis with Excel.

The first contribution summarizes current trends in research on medicinal plants in Mexico with emphasis on work carried out at the authors' laboratories. The most relevant phytochemical and pharmacological profiles of a selected group of plants used widely for treating major national health problems are described. The second contribution provides a detailed survey of the so far reported literature data on the capacities of selected oxyprenylated phenylpropanoids and polyketides to trigger receptors, enzymes, and other types of cellular factors for which they exhibit a high degree of affinity and therefore evoke specifice responses. And the third contribution discusses aspects of endophytic actinobacterial biology and chemistry, including biosynthesis and total synthesis of secondary metabolites produced in culture. It also presents perspectives fo the future of microbial biodiscovery, with emphasis on the seondary metabolism of endophytic actinobacteria.

Hermeticity of Electronic Packages is a book about the integrity of sealed packages to resist foreign gases and liquids penetrating the seal or an opening (crack) in the packageuespecially critical to the reliability and longevity of electronics. The author explains how to predict the reliability and the longevity of the packages based on leak rate measurements and the assumptions of impurities. Non-specialists in particular will benefit from the author's long involvement in the technology. Hermeticity is a subject that demands practical experience, and solving one problem does not necessarily give one the background to solve another. Thus, the book provides a ready reference to help deal with day to day issues as they arise. The book gathers in a single volume a great many issues previously available only in journalsuor only in the experience of working engineers. How to define the ""goodness"" of a seal? How is that seal measured? How does the integrity of the seal affect circuit reliability? What is the significance of the measured integrity of the seal? What is the relationship of Residual Gas Analysis and the seal integrity? The handbook answers these questions and more, providing an analysis of nearly 100 problems representative of the wide variety of challenges that actually occur in industry today.

This book gathers selected papers from the 16th UK Heat Transfer Conference (UKHTC2019), which is organised every two years under the aegis of the UK National Heat Transfer Committee. It is the premier forum in the UK for the local and international heat transfer community to meet, disseminate ongoing work, and discuss the latest advances in the heat transfer field. Given the range of topics discussed, these proceedings offer a valuable asset for engineering researchers and postgraduate students alike.

This book introduces readers to interfacial reactions in confinement on stimuli-responsive homopolymer and diblock copolymer films. It also includes investigations concerning the immobilization of (bio)molecules and the fabrication of biomolecular patterns by reactive microcontact printing on these reactive polymer films. In turn, the book takes advantage of the microphase separation of diblock copolymer films to study the fabrication of nanopatterns, which could contribute to the future development of a model system that allows us to area-selectively deposit and address (bio)molecules. Given its scope, the book broadens readers' perspective on the microfabrication of stimuli-responsive polymers.

Bioactive natural compounds have gained attention in recent years due to their potential health benefits, including reducing the risk of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases. These benefits derive from bioactive compounds' anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative, anti-hypertensive and anti-hyperlipidemic activities, which serve in addition to their basic nutritional functions. Over the last decade, researchers have investigated the health impact of bioactive compounds in detail, and the development of food applications has attracted great interest. Consumer demand has surged for functional foods (nutraceuticals), superfoods, and tailor-made foods, generated by supplementing traditional food products with bioactive ingredients. Food Bioactives and Health offers comprehensive coverage of the properties and health effects of food bioactives in view of new trends in processing, food science and food technology. Starting with the metabolic characteristics of polyphenols, glucosinolates, and other food bioactives, the text then dives into their impact on human health and recent applications in the world of food technology. For food scientists, food technologists, and product developers looking to understand the role of food bioactives in health and develop applications in personalized nutrition, functional foods and nutraceuticals, Food Bioactives and Health serves as a one-stop reference.

This book includes selected, peer-reviewed contributions from the 2018 International Conference on "Physics and Mechanics of New Materials and Their Applications", PHENMA 2018, held in Busan, South Korea, 9-11 August 2018. Focusing on manufacturing techniques, physics, mechanics, and applications of modern materials with special properties, it covers a broad spectrum of nanomaterials and structures, ferroelectrics and ferromagnetics, and other advanced materials and composites. The authors discuss approaches and methods in nanotechnology; newly developed, environmentally friendly piezoelectric techniques; and physical and mechanical studies of the microstructural and other properties of materials. Further, the book presents a range of original theoretical, experimental and computational methods and their application in the solution of various technological, mechanical and physical problems. Moreover, it highlights modern devices demonstrating high accuracy, longevity and the ability to operate over wide temperature and pressure ranges or in aggressive media. The developed devices show improved characteristics due to the use of advanced materials and composites, opening new horizons in the investigation of a variety of physical and mechanical processes and phenomena.

The Textbook of Ion Channels is a set of three volumes providing a wide-ranging reference source on ion channels for students, instructors, and researchers. Ion channels are membrane proteins that control the electrical properties of neurons and cardiac cells, mediate the detection and response to sensory stimuli like light, sound, odor, and taste, and regulate the response to physical stimuli like temperature and pressure. In non-excitable tissues, ion channels are instrumental for the regulation of basic salt balance that is critical for homeostasis. Ion channels are located at the surface membrane of cells, giving them the unique ability to communicate with the environment, as well as the membrane of intracellular organelles, allowing them to regulate internal homeostasis. Ion channels are fundamentally important for human health and diseases, and are important targets for pharmaceuticals in mental illness, heart disease, anesthesia, pain and other clinical applications. The modern methods used in their study are powerful and diverse, ranging from single ion-channel measurement techniques to models of ion channel diseases in animals, and human clinical trials for ion channel drugs. All three volumes give the reader an introduction to fundamental concepts needed to understand the mechanism of ion channels, a guide to the technical aspects of ion channel research, offer a modern guide to the properties of major ion channel families, and include coverage of key examples of regulatory, physiological, and disease roles for ion channels.

This book presents experimental and numerical methods that have been developed during six years of targeted research within the DFG priority program SPP 1740, elucidating the interaction between hydrodynamics, mass transfer and transport as well as chemical reactions in bubbly flows. A special feature of this book is its focus on an interdisciplinary research approach with contributions from chemistry, mathematics and engineering sciences, providing enhanced or novel experimental methods, models and numerical simulations. This book provides fundamental knowledge to students about the current state of knowledge regarding transport processes in reactive bubbly flows as well as to scientists, emphasizing pressing research questions and further current demands for fundamental research. Engineers from the chemical industries will get valuable insights into relevant gas-liquid processes and benefit from recommendations concerning the design of gas-liquid reactors and laboratory experiments for studying the performance of gas-liquid reactions in their own lab.

This book provides a concise treatise on the use of surfactants in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), including information on key types of surfactants and their respective applications in the wider petroleum industry. The authors discuss carbon dioxide EOR, alkaline-surfactant-polymer flooding strategies, and the use of surfactants as a means of reducing interfacial tension, while also paying special attention to the challenges involved in using surfactants for enhanced oil recovery, such as the difficult issue of surfactant adsorption on reservoir rock. All chapters highlight and are based on the authors' own laboratory-scale case studies. Given its content, the book offers a valuable asset for graduate students of petroleum and chemical engineering, as well as researchers in the field of chemical enhanced oil recovery. It will also be of interest to professionals involved in enhanced industrial oil recovery.

The volume begins with discussion of solvent use in over 30 industries, which are the main consumers of solvents. The analysis is conducted based on available data and contains information on the types (and frequently amounts) of solvents used and potential problems and solutions. This followed by discussion of residual solvents left in final products. The environmental impact of solvents, such as their fate and movement in water, soil and air, fate-based management of solvent containing wastes, and ecotoxicological effects are discussed in a separate chapter. This is followed by the analysis of concentration of solvents in more than 15 and discussion of regulations in the USA and Europe. Solvent toxicology chapter was written by professors and scientists from major centers who study the effect of solvents on various aspects of human health, immediate reaction to solvent poisoning, persistence of symptoms of solvent exposure, and effects of solvents on various parts of human organism. This is a very unique collection of observations which should be frequently consulted by solvent users and agencies which are responsible for protection of people in industrial environment. The following chapters show possibilities in solvent substitution by safer materials. Here emphasis is placed on supercritical solvents, ionic liquids, ionic melts, and agriculture-based products. Solvent recycling, removal from contaminated air, and degradation are discussed by experts in these technologies with regard to research and industry manufacturing equipment for safe methods of processing with solvents. The book is concluded with evaluation of methods of natural attenuation of various solvents in soils and modern methods of cleaning contaminated soils, selection of gloves, suites, and respirators, and new trends in solvent technology. This comprehensive two volume book has no equal in depth and breadth to any other publication available today. It contains the most recent finds and additional source data in a separate printed and digital publications, such as Solvent databook Solvent database on CD-ROM These two publications contain data on close to 2000 solvents. The data organized in sections such as General, Physical & Chemical Properties, Health & Safety, Environmental, and Use, contain all available and required data to use solvent efficiently and safely. There are a few chemical companies, universities, research centers, which can conduct their activities without consulting this book.

This book presents an authoritative review of the most significant findings about all the epigenetic targets (writers, readers, and erasers) and their implication in physiology and pathology. The book also covers the design, synthesis and biological validation of epigenetic chemical modulators, which can be useful as novel chemotherapeutic agents. Particular attention is given to the chemical mechanisms of action of these molecules and to the drug discovery prose which allows their identification. This book will appeal to students who want to know the extensive progresses made by epigenetics (targets and modulators) in the last years from the beginning, and to specialized scientists who need an instrument to quickly search and check historical and/or updated notices about epigenetics.

This book contains a selection of research articles written by prominent researchers participating in The 27th World Congress on Engineering (WCE 2019) which was held in London, UK, July 3-5, 2019. Topics covered include engineering mathematics, electrical engineering, communications systems, computer science, chemical engineering, systems engineering, manufacturing engineering, and industrial applications. With contributions carefully chosen to represent the most cutting-edge research presented during the conference, the book contains some of the state of the art in engineering technologies and the physical sciences and their applications and serves as a useful reference for researchers and graduate students working in these fields.

This book presents current developments in smart city research and application regarding the management of manufacturing systems, Industry 4.0, transportation, and business management. It suggests approaches to incorporating smart city innovations into manufacturing systems, with an eye towards competitiveness in a global environment. The same pro-innovative approach is then applied to business and cooperation management. The authors also present smart city transportation solutions including vehicle data processing/reporting system, mobile application for fleet managers, bus drivers, bus passengers and special applications for smart city buses like passenger counting system, IP cameras, GPS system etc. The goal of the book is to establish channels of communication and disseminate knowledge among researchers and professionals working on smart city research and application. Features contributions on a variety of topics related to smart cities from global researchers and professionals in a wide range of sectors; Presents topics relating to smart cities such as manufacturing, business, and transportation; Includes expanded selected papers from EAI International Conference on Management of Manufacturing Systems (MMS 2016), EAI Industry of Things and Future Technologies Conference - Mobility IoT 2016 and International Conference on Smart Electric Vehicles and Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (SEVNET).

This book highlights a novel and holistic approach to multiscaled PVA bionanocomposite films used for electrical sensing, medical and packaging applications. With a combination of material characterization and modeling to understand the effect of nanoparticle size and shape, as well as 3D interphase properties and features such as interphase modulus and nanoscale dimensions, this book substantiates how excellent mechanical and thermal properties of these materials are achieved. Also it addresses the importance of using economical and ecofriendly bionanocomposites as potential green materials to support the goal of environmental sustainability with multifunctional properties.

This book compiles the fundamentals, applications and viable product strategies of biomimetic lipid membranes into a single, comprehensive source. It broadens its perspective to interdisciplinary realms incorporating medicine, biology, physics, chemistry, materials science, as well as engineering and pharmacy at large. The book guides readers from membrane structure and models to biophysical chemistry and functionalization of membrane surfaces. It then takes the reader through a myriad of surface-sensitive techniques before delving into cutting-edge applications that could help inspire new research directions. With more than half the world's drugs and various toxins targeting these crucial structures, the book addresses a topic of major importance in the field of medicine, particularly biosensor design, diagnostic tool development, vaccine formulation, micro/nano-array systems, and drug screening/development. Provides fundamental knowledge on biomimetic lipid membranes; Addresses some of biomimetic membrane types, preparation methods, properties and characterization techniques; Explains state-of-art technological developments that incorporate microfluidic systems, array technologies, lab-on-a-chip-tools, biosensing, and bioprinting techniques; Describes the integration of biomimetic membranes with current top-notch tools and platforms; Examines applications in medicine, pharmaceutical industry, and environmental monitoring.

Industrial automation has gone from simple pre-programmed machine instructions to complex general manufacturing, rules-based automation procedures. Unlike other books on industrial automation, this book focuses in on "Manufacturing Operations Systems" (MOPS) in general. It describes their development, implementation and successful management. The book especially addresses the all-important human-machine interface: computer-based manufacturing procedures that are understandable to both computers and humans. Consequently, a language for writing procedures is discussed. It is a language based on Chinese grammar, which is the simplest of all complex human languages. Finally, the design of procedures is discussed as a hierarchy of complexity, along with exception handling at each level. Readers with basic experience using non-procedural automation can greatly benefit from the productivity gains possible from procedural-based automation. They will learn how to create procedural language that is as close to natural language as possible. The reader also will benefit from * A brief overview and history of Manufacturing Operations (MOPS) * Coverage of manufacturing units and regulatory and sequential control * Discussion of Data recording from MOPs and tasks * An overview of Automating Manufacturing Tasks with DCS, PLC, and PCS * Guidelines for setting up an Automated MOPS (AMOPS) project * Guidelines for validating an AMOPS for regulated industries * Examples of applications for both continuous and batch manufacturing