While a sharp debate is emerging about whether conventional biometric technology offers society any significant advantages over other forms of identification, and whether it constitutes a threat to privacy, technology is rapidly progressing. Politicians and the public are still discussing fingerprinting and iris scan, while scientists and engineers are already testing futuristic solutions. Second generation biometrics - which include multimodal biometrics, behavioural biometrics, dynamic face recognition, EEG and ECG biometrics, remote iris recognition, and other, still more astonishing, applications - is a reality which promises to overturn any current ethical standard about human identification. Robots which recognise their masters, CCTV which detects intentions, voice responders which analyse emotions: these are only a few applications in progress to be developed.

This book is the first ever published on ethical, social and privacy implications of second generation biometrics. Authors include both distinguished scientists in the biometric field and prominent ethical, privacy and social scholars. This makes this book an invaluable tool for policy makers, technologists, social scientists, privacy authorities involved in biometric policy setting. Moreover it is a precious instrument to update scholars from different disciplines who are interested in biometrics and itswider social, ethical and political implications.

Arising from a scientific conference marking the 100th anniversary of her birth, this book honors the life and work of the social scientist and diplomat Ester Boserup, who blazed new trails in her interdisciplinary approach to development and sustainability.

This book provides a series of comprehensive views on various important aspects of vertebrate photoreceptors. The vertebrate retina is a tissue that provides unique experimental advantages to neuroscientists. Photoreceptor neurons are abundant in this tissue and they are readily identifiable and easily isolated. These features make them an outstanding model for studying neuronal mechanisms of signal transduction, adaptation, synaptic transmission, development, differentiation, diseases and regeneration. Thanks to recent advances in genetic analysis, it also is possible to link biochemical and physiological investigations to understand the molecular mechanisms of vertebrate photoreceptors within a functioning retina in a living animal.

Photoreceptors are the most deeply studied sensory receptor cells, but readers will find that many important questions remain. We still do not know how photoreceptors, visual pigments and their signaling pathways evolved, how they were generated and how they are maintained. This book will make clear what is known and what is not known. The chapters are selected from fields of studies that have contributed to a broad understanding of the birth, development, structure, function and death of photoreceptor neurons. The underlying common word in all of the chapters that is used to describe these mechanisms is molecule . Only with this word can we understand how these highly specific neurons function and survive. It is challenging for even the foremost researchers to cover all aspects of the subject. Understanding photoreceptors from several different points of view that share a molecular perspective will provide readers with a useful interdisciplinary perspective. "

These essays by leading philosophers and scientists focus on recent ideas at the forefront of modern Darwinism, showcasing and exploring the challenges they raise as well as open problems. This interdisciplinary volume is unique in that it addresses the key notions of evolutionary theory in approaches to the mind, in the philosophy of biology, in the social sciences and humanities; furthermore it considers recent challenges to, and extensions of, Neo-Darwinism. The essays demonstrate that Darwinism is an evolving paradigm, with a sphere of influence far greater than even Darwin is likely to have imagined when he published 'On the Origin of Species' in 1859.

The difference among pluripotent stem cells, multipotent stem cells, and unipotent stem cells is pointed out. Vast therapeutic applications of the following specific stem cells in disease and tissue injury are discussed: human embryonic stem cells, human mesenchymal stem cells, germ cell-derived pluripotent stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, human umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells, breast tumor stem cells,and hematopoietic stem cells. Because of the potential of human embryonic stem cells to produce unlimited quantities of any human cell type, considerable focus is placed on their therapeutic potential. Because of their pluripotency, these cells have been used in various applications such as tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, pharmacological and toxicological studies, and fundamental studies of cell differentiation. The formation of embryoid bodies, which are three-dimensional aggregates of embryonic stem cells, is explained as this is the first step in cell differentiation. Such embryoid body culture has been widely used as a trigger for the in vitro differentiation of embryonic stem cells. The basic capacity of self-renewal of human embryogenic stem cells is explained. The role of TGF-beta in the propagation of human embryonic stem cells is discussed. The differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into neurons, hepatocytes, cardiomyocytes, and retinal cells is fully explained. Donor policies for hematopoietic stem cells are also explained.

This volume contains a contemporary, integrated description of the processes of language. These range from fast scales (fractions of a second) to slow ones (over a million years). The contributors, all experts in their fields, address language in the brain, production of sentences and dialogues, language learning, transmission and evolutionary processes that happen over centuries or millenia, the relation between language and genes, the origins of language, self-organization, and language competition and death. The book as a whole will help to show how processes at different scales affect each other, thus presenting language as a dynamic, complex and profoundly human phenomenon.

This book presents a long-term study in genetic isolates of indigenous small ethnics of Dagestan, located in the North-East part of Caucasus in Russia. Dagestan is characterized by extreme cultural and linguistic differences in a small geographic area and contains 26 indigenous ethnic groups. According to archeological data these indigenous highland ethnics have been living in the same area for more than ten thousand years. Our long-term population-genetic study of Dagestan indigenous ethnic groups indicates their close relation to each other and suggests that they evolved from one common ancestral meta-population. Dagestan has an extremely high genetic diversity between ethnic populations and a low genetic diversity within them. Such genetic isolates are exceptional resources for the detection of susceptibility genes for complex diseases because of the reduction in genetic and clinical heterogeneity. The founder effect and gene drift in these primary isolates may have caused aggregation of specific haplotypes with limited numbers of pathogenic alleles and loci in some isolates relative to others. The book presents a study in four ethnically and demographically diverse genetic isolates with aggregation of schizophrenia that we ascertained within our Dagestan Genetic Heritage Research Project. The results obtained support the notion that mapping genes of any complex disease (e.g., schizophrenia) in demographically older genetic isolates may be more time and cost effective due to their high clinical and genetic homogeneity, in comparison with demographically younger isolates, especially with genetically heterogeneous outbred populations.

A timely overview covering the three major types of glial cells in the central nervous system - astrocytes, microglia, and oligodendrocytes. New findings on glia biology are overturning a century of conventional thinking about how the brain operates and are expanding our knowledge about information processing in the brain. The book will present recent research findings on the role of glial cells in both healthy function and disease. It will comprehensively cover a broad spectrum of topics while remaining compact in size.

This volume reviews the current metabolic engineering tools and technologies from a practical point of view, and guides researchers as they overcome challenges at various stages of organism and bioprocess development. Microbes have been engineered to produce a variety of industrial products such as fuels, basic chemicals, fine chemicals, nutritional supplements, and pharmaceutical intermediates, and new tools such as gene synthesis, advanced cloning techniques, 'omics' analysis, and mathematical modeling have greatly accelerated the pace of innovation in the field. Written by leading experts in the field from both academia and industry, key topics include synthetic biology, pathway engineering, metabolic flux manipulation, adaptive evolution, and fermentation process scale-up. It is suitable for non-specialists, and is a valuable resource for anyone embarking on the exciting path to harnessing the metabolic potential of microorganisms.

Laser Scanning Microscopy and Quantitative Image Analysis of Neuronal Tissue brings together contributions from research institutions around the world covering pioneering applications in laser scanning microscopy and quantitative image analysis and providing information about the power and limitations of this quickly developing field. This detailed volume seeks to introduce key questions, to provide detailed information on how to acquire data by laser-scanning microscopy, and to examine how to use the often huge digital data set in an efficient manner to extract maximum information. Thus the book not only provides a compilation of diverse protocols but aims to bring together biological bench work, laser scanning microscopy, and mathematical, computer-assisted data analysis to grasp novel insights of form, dynamics, and interactions of microscopy-sized biological objects. Written in the popular Neuromethods series format, chapters include the kind of practical implementation advice that promises successful results. Wide-ranging and innovative, Laser Scanning Microscopy and Quantitative Image Analysis of Neuronal Tissue will stimulate the reader to make efficient use of the application of laser scanning microscopy for his or her own research question.

Feeding the increasing global population, which is projected to reach ~10 billion by 2050, there has been increasing demands for more improved/sustainable agricultural management practices that can be followed by farmers to improve productivity without jeopardizing the environment and ecosystem. Indeed, about 95% of our food directly or indirectly comes from soil. It is a precious resource, and sustainable soil management is a critical socio-economic and environmental issue. Maintaining the environmental sustainability while the world is facing resource degradation, increasing climate change and population explosion is the current challenge of every food production sectors. Thus, there is an urgent need to evolve a holistic approach such as conservation agriculture to sustain higher crop productivity in the country without deteriorating soil health. Conservation Agriculture (CA), is a sustainable approach to manage agro-ecosystems in order to improve productivity, increase farm profitabilty and food security and also enhance the resource base and environment. Worldwide, it has been reported various benefits and prospects in adopting CA technologies in different agro-climatic conditions. Yet, CA in arid and semi-arid regions of India and parts of south Asia raises uncertainities due to its extreme climates, large scale residue burning, soil erosion and other constraints such as low water holding capacity, high potential evapotranspiration, etc . Thus, the proposed book has 30 chapters addressing all issues relevant to conservation agriculture/no-till farming system. The book also gives further strengthening existing knowledge in relation to soil physical, chemical and biological processes and health within close proximity of CA as well as machinery requirements. Moreover, the information on carbon (C) sequestration, C credits, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, mitigation of climate change effects and socio-economic view on CA under diverse ecologies namely rainfed, irrigated and hill eco-region is also deliberated. For large scale adoption of CA practices in South Asian region especially in India and other countries need dissemination of best-bet CA technologies for dominant soil types/cropping systems through participatory mode, strong linkages and institutional mechanism and public-private-policy support. We hope this book gives a comprehensive and clear picture about conservation agriculture/no-till farming and its associated problem, challenges, prospects and benefits. This book shall be highly useful reference material to researchers, scientists, students, farmers and land managers for efficient and sustainable management of natural resources.

Just how far did Charles Darwin's luck - both good and bad - affect his life and scientific discoveries? One might make a case for saying that Darwin's life was dogged by ill-luck (or perhaps ill-fortune is more appropriate). His mother died when he was seven; he was sent to a school at which he 'learnt little'; he left Edinburgh Medical School after two years, unqualified. He undertook a five-year voyage although he was prone to sea-sickness; his girlfriend (of whom there is evidence he was very fond) married someone else a few months into this voyage. He was affected by ill-health throughout much of his life. One of his children appears to have been mentally handicapped and this child, and also his beloved Annie, died in infancy. In addition to all this, his brother became addicted to drugs.On the other hand one could argue that he had a privileged and fortunate life - perhaps the more common view. At a number of key points in his life he made a choice, or others made a choice, or circumstances occurred, that profoundly influenced the path that he took. There is a school of thought, one that this book investigates, that although Darwin came to the right conclusions, he did not actually follow the right path in getting there. While his science was sometimes flawed, he had the distinct knack of good instinct. Whilst on his voyage to the Galapagos vital evidence that would have led to his theories becoming clearer quite literally slipped through his fingers - Galapagos turtles were caught, examined and their shells thrown overboard. Had he been more thorough, Darwin may have noticed that the clues to his theory of evolution were on these very shells.

This book presents selected papers on statistical model development related mainly to the fields of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. The coverage of the material falls squarely into the following categories: (a) Survival analysis and multivariate survival analysis, (b) Time series and longitudinal data analysis, (c) Statistical model development and (d) Applied statistical modelling. Innovations in statistical modelling are presented throughout each of the four areas, with some intriguing new ideas on hierarchical generalized non-linear models and on frailty models with structural dispersion, just to mention two examples. The contributors include distinguished international statisticians such as Philip Hougaard, John Hinde, Il Do Ha, Roger Payne and Alessandra Durio, among others, as well as promising newcomers. Some of the contributions have come from researchers working in the BIO-SI research programme on Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, centred on the Universities of Limerick and Galway in Ireland and funded by the Science Foundation Ireland under its Mathematics Initiative.

The book provides an up-to-date account of mangrove forests from Asia, together with restoration techniques, and the management requirements of these ecosystems to ensure their sustainability and conservation. All aspects of mangroves and their conservation are critically re-examined. The book is divided into three sections presenting the distribution and status of mangrove ecosystems in Asia, the challenges they are facing, their issues and opportunities, and the management strategies for their conservation.

The present book describes in detail all aspects of rainwater harvesting, including the basic concepts, procedures, opportunities and practice of rainwater harvesting mainly focusing its application in buildings of various occupancies and sizes. It provides a user-friendly methodology for the planning, design, construction and maintenance of rainwater harvesting infrastructure, in buildings and its premise, as a supplement to conventional water supplies. It highlights the application of plumbing technology, which is an important aspect of rainwater harvesting in buildings. It also includes global rainfall scenario and brief notes on all the elements of rainwater harvesting used in buildings. It is a valuable reference resource for policy and decision-makers, as well as for engineers, architects and students.

This book focuses on the robustness analysis of high accuracy surface modeling method (HASM) to yield good performance of it. Understanding the sensitivity and uncertainty is important in model applications. The book aims to advance an integral framework for assessing model error that can demonstrate robustness across sets of possible controls, variable definitions, standard error, algorithm structure, and functional forms. It is an essential reference to the most promising numerical models. In areas where there is less certainty about models, but also high expectations of transparency, robustness analysis should aspire to be as broad as possible. This book also contains a chapter at the end featuring applications in climate simulation illustrating different implementations of HASM in surface modeling. The book is helpful for people involved in geographical information science, ecological informatics, geography, earth observation, and planetary surface modeling.

Posited by Professor Leon Chua at UC Berkeley more than 40 years ago, memristors, a nonlinear element in electrical circuitry, are set to revolutionize computing technology. Finally discovered by scientists at Hewlett-Packard in 2008, memristors generate huge interest because they can facilitate nanoscale, real-time computer learning, as well as due to their potential of serving as instant memories. This edited volume bottles some of the excitement about memristors, providing a state-of-the-art overview of neuromorphic memristor theory, as well as its technological and practical aspects. Based on work presented to specialist memristor seminars organized by the editors, the volume takes readers from a general introduction the fundamental concepts involved, to specialized analysis of computational modeling, hardware, and applications. The latter include the ground-breaking potential of memristors in facilitating hybrid wetware-hardware technologies for in-vitro experiments. The book evinces, and devotes space to the discussion of, the socially transformative potential of memristors, which could be as pervasive as was the invention of the silicon chip: machines that learn in the style of brains, are a computational Holy Grail. With contributions from key players in a fast-moving field, this edited volume is the first to cover memristors in the depth needed to trigger the further advances that surely lie around the corner.

* Draws on work across multiple disciplines, from astrobiology and physics to linguistics and the social sciences, making it appealing to graduates from a wide variety of fields. * The first accessible introduction into the important work of philosopher Howard Pattee. * Aims to equip readers with new approaches to simple and complex systems theory to take into any respective discipline.

For over thirty years Susan Wolf has been writing about moral and nonmoral values and the relation between them. This volume collects Wolf's most important essays on the topics of morality, love, and meaning, ranging from her classic essay "Moral Saints" to her most recent "The Importance of Love." Wolf's essays warn us against the common tendency to classify values in terms of a dichotomy that contrasts the personal, self-interested, or egoistic with the impersonal, altruistic or moral. On Wolf's view, this tendency ignores or distorts the significance of such values as love, beauty, and truth, and neglects the importance of meaningfulness as a dimension of the good life. These essays show us how a self-conscious recognition of the variety of values leads to new understandings of the point, the content, and the limits of morality and to new ways of thinking about happiness and well-being.

JAK tyrosine kinases and STAT transcription factors constitute a signaling pathway, which is activated by cytokines. By activating gene transcription it regulates essential biological responses to environmental cues. The Jak-Stat pathway is involved in the regulation of cell development, differentiation, proliferation and apoptosis. Improper function may contribute to hematopoietic malignancies and cancer. This book provides comprehensive insights into the latest basic and clinical developments in the field. The first part reviews recent findings and new technologies pertaining to basics of Jak-Stat function. The second part describes the evolution of Jak-Stat signaling and the role of the pathway in invertebrate organisms. The third part focuses on Jak-Stat signaling in hematopoietic cells under both physiological and pathophysiological conditions. Finally, chapters in the fourth section describe the relationship of Jak-Stat signaling to various states of disease, particularly infection, leukemias and solid cancers. The book is intended for all scientists in molecular biology, biochemistry and cell biology dealing with biomedical issues.

Metagenomics has taken off as one of the major cutting-edge fields of research. The field has broad implications for human health and disease, animal production and environmental health. Metagenomics has opened up a wealth of data, tools, technologies and applications that allow us to access the majority of organisms that we still cannot access in pure culture (an estimated 99% of microbial life). Numerous research groups are developing tools, approaches and applications to deal with this new field, as larger data sets from environments including the human body, the oceans and soils are being generated. See for example the human microbiome initiative (HMP) which has become a world-wide effort and the Global Ocean Sampling (GOS) surveys. The number of publications as measured through PubMed that are focused on metagenomics continues to increase. The field of metagenomics continues to evolve with large common datasets available to the scientific community. A concerted effort is needed to collate all this information in a centralized place. By having all the information in an Encyclopedia form, we have an opportunity to receive seminal contributions from the leaders in the field and at the same time provide this information to a significant number of junior and senior scientists, via colleges, libraries, and just through online access. This format also allows scientists in the developing world to have continued access to this growing field. It is anticipated that the Encyclopedia will also be used by many other groups including, clinicians, undergraduate and graduate level students, as well as ethical and legal groups associated with or interested in the issues surrounding metagenome science.

As a species, we are currently experiencing dramatic shifts in our lifestyle, family structure, health, and global contact. Evolutionary Anthropology provides a powerful theoretical framework to study such changes, revealing how current environments and legacies of past selection shape human diversity. This book is the first major review of the emerging field of Applied Evolutionary Anthropology bringing together the work of an international group of evolutionary scientists, addressing many of the major public health and social issues of this century. Through a series of case studies that span both rural and urban situations in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, each chapter addresses topics such as natural resource management, health service delivery, population growth and the emergence of new family structures, dietary, and co-operative behaviours. The research presented identifies the great, largely untapped, potential that Applied Evolutionary Anthropology holds to guide the design, implementation and evaluation of effective social and public health policy. This book will be of interest to policy-makers and applied researchers, along with academics and students across the biological and social sciences.

This volume focuses on various approaches to studying long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), including techniques for finding lncRNAs, localization, and observing their functions. The chapters in this book cover how to catalog lncRNAs in various plant species; determining subcellular localization; protein interactions; structures; and RNA modifications. 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 laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and innovative, Plant Long Non-Coding RNAs: Methods and Protocols is a valuable resource that aids researchers in understanding the functions of lncRNAs in different plant species, and helps them explore currently uncharted facets of plant biology.

This book describes how genomics has revolutionized our scientific understanding of agriculturally important plant-associated bacteria. Each chapter focuses on the genomics of particular bacteria: the first described plant pathogen, "Erwinia amylovora"; phytoplasmas lacking cell walls; fastidious, phloem-restricted liberibacters; "Pseudomonas syringae," which is a genetically tractable model system; "Xanthomonas citri," which causes a disease that can devastate citrus crops and "Pseudomonas fluorescens," which can protect plants from diseases.

Topics considered in this volume include the importance of horizontal gene transfer in originating new bacterial strains and species and advances in transcriptomics that allow us to describe the complex regulatory networks critical to plant-microbe interactions. The availability of the "Xanthomonas oryzae" genome has led to new technologies in genome editing, which will revolutionize approaches to genetic engineering, even in eukaryotes. The contributions show how genomics has greatly accelerated progress toward understanding the biology of these bacteria and how that understanding can be translated into novel crop protection methods.