This book presents the first critical examination of the overlapping ethical, sociocultural, and policy-related issues surrounding disasters, global bioethics, and public health ethics. These issues are elucidated under the conceptual rubric: Public health disasters (PHDs). The book defines PHDs as public health issues with devastating social consequences, the attendant public health impacts of natural or man-made disasters, and latent or low prevalence public health issues with the potential to rapidly acquire pandemic capacities. This notion is illustrated using Ebola and pandemic influenza outbreaks, atypical drug-resistant tuberculosis, and the health emergencies of earthquakes as focal points. Drawing on an approach that reckons with microbial, existential, and anthropological realities; the book develops a relational-based global ethical framework that can help address the local, anthropological, ecological, and transnational dynamics of the ethical issues engendered by public health disasters. The book also charts some of the critical roles that relevant local and transnational stakeholders may play in translating the proposed global ethical framework from the sphere of concept to the arena of action. This title is of immense benefit to bioethics scholars, public and global health policy experts, as well as graduate students working in the area of global health, public health ethics, and disaster bioethics.

This volume opens by covering two main types of approaches widely used to determine essential genes: single-gene knockouts and transposon mutagenesis, in both prokaryotes and Candida albicans. Given the significant advancement in the computational predictions of microbial essential genes, the second half of the book examines four main types of approaches: comparative genomics, supervised machine learning, constraint-based methods, and corrections of transposon mutagenesis data, as well as databases and servers that are often used in studying gene essentiality. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include an introduction to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and up-to-date, Gene Essentiality: Methods and Protocols will aid researchers who wish to further our knowledge in this vital field of study.

With a focus on food safety, this book highlights the importance of microbes in sustainable agriculture. Plants, sessile organisms that are considered as primary producers in the ecosystem and communicate with above- and below-ground communities that consist of microbes, insects, and other vertebrate and invertebrate animals, are subjected to various kinds of stress. Broadly speaking, these can be subdivided into abiotic and biotic stresses. Plants have evolved to develop elaborate mechanisms for coping with and adapting to the environmental stresses. Among other stresses, habitat-imposed biotic stress is one serious condition causing major problems for crop productivity. Most plants employ plant-growth-promoting microorganisms (PGPMs) to combat and protect themselves from stresses and also for better growth. PGPMs are bacteria associated with plant roots and they augment plant productivity and immunity. They are also defined as root-colonizing bacteria that have beneficial effects on plant growth and development. Remarkably, PGPMs including mycorrhizae, rhizobia, and rhizobacteria (Acinetobacter, Agrobacterium, Arthrobacter, Azospirillum, Bacillus, Bradyrhizobium, Frankia, Pseudomonas, Rhizobium, Serratia, Thiobacillus) form associations with plant roots and can promote plant growth by increasing plants' access to soil minerals and protecting them against pathogens. To combat the pathogens causing different diseases and other biotic stresses, PGPMs produce a higher level of resistance in addition to plants' indigenous immune systems in the form of induced systemic resistance (ISR). The ISR elicited by PGPMs has suppressed plant diseases caused by a range of pathogens in both the greenhouse and field. As such, the role of these microbes can no longer be ignored for sustainable agriculture. Today, PGPMs are also utilized in the form of bio-fertilizers to increase plant productivity. However, the use of PGPMs requires a precise understanding of the interactions between plants and microbes, between microbes and microbiota, and how biotic factors influence these relationships. Consequently, continued research is needed to develop new approaches to boost the efficiency of PGPMs and to understand the ecological, genetic and biochemical relationships in their habitat. The book focuses on recent research concerning interactions between PGPMs and plants under biotic stress. It addresses key concerns such as - 1. The response of benign microbes that benefit plants under biotic stress 2. The physiological changes incurred in plants under harsh conditions 3. The role of microbial determinants in promoting plant growth under biotic stress The book focuses on a range of aspects related to PGPMs such as their mode of action, priming of plant defence and plant growth in disease challenged crops, multifunctional bio-fertilizers, PGPM-mediated disease suppression, and the effect of PGPMs on secondary metabolites etc. The book will be a valuable asset to researchers and professionals working in the area of microbial-mediated support of plants under biotic stress.

This highly informative and carefully presented book comprises select proceedings of Foundation for Molecular Modelling and Simulation (FOMMS 2018). The contents are written by invited speakers centered on the theme Innovation for Complex Systems. It showcases new developments and applications of computational quantum chemistry, statistical mechanics, molecular simulation and theory, and continuum and engineering process simulation. This volume will serve as a useful reference to researchers, academicians and practitioners alike.

Over half of the world's population now lives in urban areas. Few who live in cities understand that cities, too, are ecosystems, as beholden to the laws and principles of ecology as are natural ecosystems. Understanding Urban Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Systems Approach introduces students at the college undergraduate level, or those in advanced-standing college credit high school courses, to cities as ecosystems. For graduate students it provides an overview and rich literature base. Urban planners, educators, and decision makers can use this book to help in designing a more sustainable or "green" future. The authors use a systems approach to explore the complexity and interactions of different components of a city's ecology with an emphasis on the energy and materials required to maintain such concentrated centers of human activity and consumption. The book is written by seventeen specialized contributors and includes ten accompanying detailed field exercises to promote hands-on experience, observation, and quantification of urban ecosystem structure and function.The chapters describe one by one the different subsystems of the urban environment, their individual components and functions, and the interactions among them that create the social-ecological environments in which we live. The book's emphasis on social-ecological metabolism provides students with the knowledge and methods needed to evaluate proposed policies for urban sustainability in terms of ecosystem capacity, potential positive and negative feedbacks, the laws of thermo-dynamics, and socio-cultural perception and adaptability.

Updated and revised, this thorough volume covers a range of methods focusing on systems, including mammalian, yeast, bacterial and archaeal. This second edition of DNA Replication: Methods and Protocols describes approaches to analyze whole genomes to single molecules, as well as both in vivo and in vitro experiments. As a volume in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters contain introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, DNA Replication: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition provides a collections of methods intended for newcomers to this research field and for established laboratories.

"This volume, in my view, should prove to be a landmark publication. Farreras and her colleagues have thrown available light onto what will prove to be a rich field of historical research and historically informed science policy." - Wade E. Pickren, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences This volume breaks new ground in assessing the intramural research conducted at the United States National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness (today the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke) in the 1950s. The research conducted in these institutes was pioneering and laid the foundation for current neuroscience and behavioural research. Dr. Ingrid Farreras uses the records of the time and also oral histories conducted with retired institute scientists to present the institutional context in which the research was conducted. Topics in her discussion include the history of the United States Public Health Service, the creation of the two institutes at the National Institutes of Health, the organization of their extramural and intramural research programs, and brief summaries of the research that the fifteen laboratories and branches of both institutes conducted during the 1950s. Twelve noted scientists involved in neurological and mental health research then provide their unique, first-hand accounts of their experiences at the NIH. The volume also contains four appendices providing information about the organizational structure of the two institutes, the scientists who worked there, citations of illustrative landmark papers that were published based on their research, and selected primary and secondary resources related to the history of these institutes. The aim of the volume is to foster continuing additional descriptive and analytical research on the history of biomedical sciences in the areas of neurology and mental health in the mid twentieth century.

This book addresses the core tenets, logic, methodology and practice of Xi Jinping's thoughts on ecological civilization. It traces the theoretical origins of his ideas and comprehensively discusses their theoretical characteristics and historical status, while also demonstrating that they represent a self-contained theoretical system and discourse system. In addition, the book offers guidelines on putting his thoughts into practice in connection with the new era of socialist ecological civilization in China, implementing the 2030 sustainable development agenda action plan and contributing to global ecological security.

This timely book revisits cryptic female choice in arthropods, gathering detailed contributions from around the world to address key behavioral, ecological and evolutionary questions. The reader will find a critical summary of major breakthroughs in taxon-oriented chapters that offer many new perspectives and cases to explore and in many cases unpublished data. Many groups of arthropods such as spiders, harvestmen, flies, moths, crickets, earwigs, beetles, eusocial insects, shrimp and crabs are discussed. Sexual selection is currently the focus of numerous and controversial theoretical and experimental studies. Selection in mating and post-mating patterns can be shaped by several different mechanisms, including sperm competition, extreme sexual conflict and cryptic female choice. Discrimination among males during or after copulation is called cryptic female choice because it occurs after intromission, the event that was formerly used as the definitive criterion of male reproductive success and is therefore usually difficult to detect and confirm. Because it sequentially follows intra- and intersexual interactions that occur before copulation, cryptic female choice has the power to alter or negate precopulatory sexual selection. However, though female roles in biasing male paternity after copulation have been proposed for a number of species distributed in many animal groups, cryptic female choice continues to be often underestimated. Furthermore, in recent years the concept of sexual conflict has been frequently misused, linking sexual selection by female choice irrevocably and exclusively with sexually antagonistic co-evolution, without exploring other alternatives. The book offers an essential source of information on how two fields, selective cooperation and individual sex interests, work together in the context of cryptic female choice in nature, using arthropods as model organisms. It is bound to spark valuable discussions among scientists working in evolutionary biology across the world, motivating new generations to unveil the astonishing secrets of sexual biology throughout the animal kingdom.

This monograph offers a cross-system exchange and cross-modality investigation into brain-heart interplay. Brain-Heart Interplay (BHI) is a highly interdisciplinary scientific topic, which spreads from the physiology of the Central/Autonomous Nervous Systems, especially Central Autonomic Network, to advanced signal processing and modeling for its activity quantification. Motivated by clinical evidence and supported by recent findings in neurophysiology, this monograph first explores the definition of basic Brain-Heart Interplay quantifiers, and then moves onto advanced methods for the assessment of health and disease states. Non-invasive use of brain monitoring techniques, including electroencephalogram and function Magnetic Resonance Imaging, will be described together with heartbeat dynamics monitoring through pulseoximeter and ECG signals. The audience of this book comprises especially of biomedical engineers and medical doctors with expertise in statistics and/or signal processing. Researchers in the fields of cardiology, neurology, psychiatry, and neuroscience in general may be interested as well.

This book takes a reproductive justice approach to argue that surrogacy as practised in the contemporary neoliberal biomarkets crosses the humanitarian thresholds of feminism. Drawing on her ethnographic work with surrogate mothers, intended parents and medical practitioners in India, the author shows the dark connections between poverty, gender, human rights violations and indignity in the surrogacy market. In a developing country like India, bio-technologies therefore create reproductive objects of certain female bodies while promoting an image of reproductive liberation for others. India is a classic example for how far these biomarkets can exploit vulnerabilities for individual requirements in the garb of reproductive liberty. This critical book refers to a range of liberal, radical and postcolonial feminist frameworks on surrogacy, and questions the individual reproductive rights perspective as an approach to examine global surrogacy. It introduces 'humanitarian feminism' as an alternative concept to bridge feminist factions divided on contextual and ideological grounds. It hopes to build a global feminist solidarity drawing on a 'reproductive justice' approach by recognizing the histories of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, age and immigration oppression in all communities. This work is of interest to researchers and students of medical sociology and anthropology, gender studies, bioethics, and development studies.

This book provides policymakers, researchers, and other interested audiences with knowledge on how to quantify and integrate and advance co-benefits in their decisions. It begins with an introductory chapter that provides an overview of the concept of co-benefits. This followed by a section that details quantitative approaches to estimate co-benefits, particularly in cities. A third section presents a series of case studies from the energy sector in Northeast and Southeast Asia. A final section focuses on new perspectives on co-benefits from linking climate change with biodiversity, social justice, and through new models of co-innovation. The book is particularly timely as many countries in Asia seek to achieve objectives in the national climate policies and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The climate emergency poses an increasingly severe threat to the health and well-being of more than a billion people in Asia. Policymakers in the region have sought to curb this threat by adopting clean energy, energy efficiency, and other sectoral policies. In some cases, these policies can bring additional benefits beyond mitigating climate change. These so-called "co-benefits" --ranging from improved air quality to better health to socioeconomic equity--could not only offset the costs of climate mitigation but also make Asia's development more sustainable. Yet all too frequently policymakers lack the analytical methods and practical experiences to incorporate co-benefits into their decisions. This has created difficulties in aligning climate and sustainable development policies in Asia.

The endocannabinoid system consists of cannabinoid receptors, their endogenous lipid ligands (endocannabinoids) and the enzymatic machinery for their synthesis and degradation. In the brain, endocannabinoids regulate ion channel activity and neurotransmitter release and thereby contribute to various aspects of brain function, including memory, reward and emotions. Their ability to modulate synaptic efficacy has a wide range of functional consequences and provides unique therapeutic possibilities. Unprecedented advances have been made in the understanding of the role of endocannabinoids in the regulation of the emotional brain over the past few years. However, a comprehensive book encompassing all these aspects is still lacking. The book will provide an overview of the role played by the endocannabinoid system in the regulation of emotional processes with particular emphasis on the modulation of memory and reward for emotionally arousing events and for the regulation of motivational aspects in cannabis use.

The multidisciplinary book assesses the legal and economic uncertainties surrounding the collection, storage, provision and economic development of biological samples (tumors, tissues, cells) and associated personal data related to oncology. Public, partly public and private sector actors in the field of cancer care and research hold collections supported by significant public and social funding. Under certain conditions, particularly in the context of networking (sometimes promoted by public authorities), these collections can also represent major economic assets and scientific resources. However, this involves a number of issues and institutional constraints: legal: the will of the source person; non-pecuniary damage; freedom to establish collections; competence in deciding on their use; legal frameworks for their distribution; desire for return on investment for public institutions, notably in terms of industrial and intellectual property. economic: cost of establishing and running biological resource centres; destroying resources; emerging markets; profit sharing. public health policy choices: prioritisation of therapeutic measures over research (fundamental or clinical trials); conservation of resources; promotion of scientific (and not commercial) value of collections. The establishment, heritage recognition ("patrimonialisation"), development and sharing of these resources thus merit our calling into question present practices and their evolution, as well as the leverage available to public authorities (incentives, legislation, regulation) in a context where norms emerge from professional practice to become widely used in collaborative networks. Filling a gap in the current literature on law and economics, which pays little heed to these specific considerations, this book explores these considerations to bring to light the economic implications of ethical choices and governance issues in the health sector (structural organisation of local, national and European actors in oncology). It is intended for researchers in fields such as law, economics and biomedical sciences, as well as for public policymakers.

Modern Electroencephalographic Assessment Techniques: Theory and Applications presents numerous signal processing and connectivity analysis methodologies addressing a wide variety of clinical applications including epilepsy, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and even alcoholism. Among the different topics addressed, the neurophysiological basis of cognitive processes is also investigated. The goal is to provide a comprehensive overview of the most modern and widely established approaches mainly applied in, but not limited to, decomposing high resolution multichannel Electroencephalography (EEG) and Magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals into functional interconnected brain regions. Synergistic approaches linking both EEG/ MEG and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) techniques are also discussed. In line with the popular Neuromethods series, chapters present the theoretical basis of each method along with prosperous application domains, in the form of a balanced mixture of theoretical tutorials, comprehensive reviews and original research. Emphasis is given to the underlying assumptions, to technical matters that greatly affect the outcome of each proposed method, to the ambitions and to the domain of application of each method. Furthermore, links to graph theory and visualization of connectivity motifs is also addressed in an attempt to better describe the functional characteristics of brain networks. Authoritative and practical, Modern Electroencephalographic Assessment Techniques: Theory and Applications touches upon both the biomedical and computational aspects of this exciting and rapidly evolving field and will allow for a more in-depth, vital understanding of the brain's complex underlying mechanisms.

Seaweeds (macroalgae) represent the most striking living components in the Antarctic's near-shore ecosystems, especially across the West Antarctic Peninsula and adjacent islands. Due to their abundance, their central roles as primary producers and foundation organisms, and as sources of diverse metabolically active products, seaweed assemblages are fundamental to biogeochemical cycles in Antarctic coastal systems. In recent years, the imminence of climate change and the direct impacts of human beings, which are affecting vast regions of the Antarctic, have highlighted the importance of seaweed processes in connection with biodiversity, adaptation and interactions in the benthic network. Various research groups have been actively involved in the investigation of these topics. Many of these research efforts have a long tradition, while some "newcomers" have also recently contributed important new approaches to the study of these organisms, benefiting polar science as a whole. This book provides an overview of recent advances and insights gleaned over the past several years. Focusing on a timely topic and extremely valuable resource, it assesses the challenges and outlines future directions in the study of Antarctic seaweeds.

""What about the twenty-first century? Will we finally accept our responsibilities as guardians of planet Earth, the biological living trust, for the beneficiaries, the children of today, tomorrow, and beyond? Or, will it too be a century of lethal, economic struggle among the polarized positions of the supremely dysfunctional among us? Are they--once again--to be allowed to determine the legacy we, as a society, as a nation, bequeath those who follow us? The choice is ours, the adults of the world. How shall we choose?""

So writes Chris Maser in this compelling study of three interactive spheres of the ecosystem: atmosphere (air), litho-hydrosphere (rock that comprises the restless continents and the water that surrounds them), and biosphere (all life sandwiched in between).

Rich in detail and insightful analogies, "Earth in Our Care" addresses key issues including land-use policies, ecological restoration, forest management, local living, and sustainability thinking. Exploring our interconnectedness with the Earth, Maser examines today's problems and, more importantly, provides solutions for the future.

This volume collects protocols and procedures utilizing cellular, tissue, and whole animal models that can be applied to the investigation of neurotrophic factors and other agents impacting on these systems. It begins with chapters on the culture of neurons and glia from the central and peripheral nervous systems, neuron-glia and glia-glia co-culture models, oligodendrocytes, and cell-based assays for the evaluation of cell vitality. This revised second edition expands to cover methodology encompassing site-specific direct labeling of neurotrophins and their receptors, angiogenesis assays, stem cells, pancreatic beta-cells, axonal transport, synapse biology, dendritic spine analysis, and brain endothelial cells. Subsequent chapters are dedicated to in vivo lesion models of relevance to nervous system pathology, which can be applied to the investigation of neurotrophic factors and peptides, as well as protocols describing nanofiber- and nanoparticle-based methods for brain delivery of neurotrophic agents. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and practical, Neurotrophic Factors: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition is a valuable resource for a wide audience of readers as they explore nervous system function and pathology.

Focuses on the effects of natural products and their active components on brain function and neurodegenerative disease prevention. Phytochemicals such as alkaloids, terpenes, flavanoids, isoflavones, saponins etc are known to possess protective activity against many neurological diseases. The molecular mechanisms behind the curative effects rely mainly on the action of phytonutrients on distinct signaling pathways associated with protein folding and neuro-inflammation. The diverse array of bioactive nutrients present in these natural products plays a pivotal role in prevention and cure of various neurodegenerative diseases, disorders, or insults, such as Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, Huntington's Disease, traumatic brain injury, and other neuronal dysfunctions. However, the use of these antioxidants in the management of neurodegenerative conditions has so far been not well understood. This is a comprehensive collection addressing the effects on the brain of natural products and edible items such as reservatrol, curcumin, gingerol, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and marine products.

This authored monograph supplies empirical evidence for the Bayesian brain hypothesis by modeling event-related potentials (ERP) of the human electroencephalogram (EEG) during successive trials in cognitive tasks. The employed observer models are useful to compute probability distributions over observable events and hidden states, depending on which are present in the respective tasks. Bayesian model selection is then used to choose the model which best explains the ERP amplitude fluctuations. Thus, this book constitutes a decisive step towards a better understanding of the neural coding and computing of probabilities following Bayesian rules. The target audience primarily comprises research experts in the field of computational neurosciences, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students who want to specialize in this field.

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are believed to be the largest family of membrane proteins involved in signal transduction and cellular responses. They dimerize (form a pair of macromolecules) with a wide variety of other receptors. The proposed book will provide a comprehensive overview of GPCR dimers, starting with a historical perspective and including, basic information about the different dimers, how they synthesize, their signaling properties, and the many diverse physiological processes in which they are involved. In addition to presenting information about healthy GPCR dimer activity, the book will also include a section on their pathology and therapeutic potentials.