Most modern systems involve various engineering disciplines. Mechatronic systems are designed to be dependable and efficient; however, mechatronics engineering faces multiple challenges at the design and exploitation stages. It is essential for engineers to be aware of these challenges and remain up to date with the emerging research in the mechatronics engineering field. Trends, Paradigms, and Advances in Mechatronics Engineering presents the latest advances and applications of mechatronics. It highlights the recent challenges in the field and facilitates understanding of the subject. Covering topics such as the construction industry, design optimization, and low-cost fabrication, this premier reference source is a crucial resource for engineers, computer scientists, construction managers, students and educators of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

Handbook of Advanced Ceramic Coatings: Fundamentals, Manufacturing and Classification introduces ceramic coating materials, methods of fabrication, characterizations, the interaction between fillers, reinforcers, and environmental impact, and the functional classification of ceramic coatings. The book is one of four volumes that together provide a comprehensive resource in the field of Advanced Ceramic Coatings, also including titles covering energy, biomedical and emerging applications. These books will be extremely useful for academic and industrial researchers and practicing engineers who need to find reliable and up-to-date information about recent progresses and new developments in the field of advanced ceramic coatings. Smart ceramic coatings containing multifunctional components are now finding application in transportation and automotive industries, in electronics, and energy sectors, in aerospace and defense, and in industrial goods and healthcare. Their wide application and stability in harsh environments are only possible due to the stability of the inorganic components used. Ceramic coatings are typically silicon nitride, chromia, hafnia, alumina, alumina-magnesia, silica, silicon carbide, titania, and zirconia-based compositions. The increased demand for these materials and their application in energy, transportation, and the automotive industry, are considered, to be the main drivers.

Sustainable Biodiesel: Real World Designs, Economics and Applications offers a unique, integrated approach that combines cutting-edge research results and the day-to-day aspects of biodiesel production at the industrial level. The book brings together experienced academics and recognized industry experts to explore the most practical elements of research and discuss limitations and future needs in the industry. Sections discuss biodiesel-based biorefineries, feedstock supply chains, reactor technologies and processes for biodiesel production. In addition, the authors examine biodiesel plants from the point-of-view of design, operation, quality control, lifecycle costing (LCC), life cycle assessment, and environmental and exergetic sustainability, and more. This book provides both researchers and practitioners in the field of biomass and biofuels with a well-rounded understanding of how the technologies developed in the lab can be deployed in the industry at commercial scale in a sustainable and cost-efficient way.

Nanotechnology Principles in Drug Targeting and Diagnosis focuses on the nanotechnology principles and mechanisms involved in drug targeting, nano carriers and target interactions associated with particular diseases. The book addresses how phytotherapeutics are effective against solid tumors and how they can be used in designing targeted delivery systems. Also addressed is the use of macrophages as the biomimetic carrier for targeting drugs to different organs. Sections cover the nanotechnology-based concepts in drug targeting, strategies for drug targeting, ways to identify drug carrier-target interaction, the concept of an artificial neural network in identifying drug-target interaction, and more. The book's final section concentrates on the role of nanotechnology in medical diagnosis, throwing light on nanoscale sensors for the diagnosis of viruses in the bloodstream and biomarkers indicating various cancers. This is an important reference source for materials scientists and pharmaceutical scientists who want to understand how nanotechnology plays an important role in creating more efficient drug targeting and delivery systems.

North American animals will come to life with the exciting scrolling patterns found in this book. The book provides 61 precisely drawn patterns for bears, wolves, eagles and more. Also included are helpful instructions on choosing blades and wood, making inside and outside cuts, safety precautions, and tips and techniques for altering projects. Patterns include: Wolf, Eagle, Owl, Moose, Duck, Bear, Cougar, Pheasant, Antelope, Ram, Buffalo and Coyote.

Magnetic Nanoferrites and their Composites: Environmental and Biomedical Applications addresses recent developments in this important research field. The book covers the latest synthesis and fabrication techniques, properties, characterization and multifunctional biomedical and environmental applications. Chapters provide cutting-edge research while addressing the latest scenarios, recent developments, future aspects, and challenges and opportunities attributed to their excellent properties, including large surface-to-volume ratio, high chemical stability, low eddy losses, moderate values of saturation magnetization and coercivity, large adsorption, non-toxicity, bio-degradable and biocompatibility. This book will be a valuable reference resource for researchers, engineers and technologists working in this important research field. Magnetic nanoferrites and their composites are now utilized in a broad range of different application fields such as catalysis, biomedicine, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), tissue targeting, drug delivery, sensors, environmental remediation, data storage, transformers, switching devices, high frequency and microwave devices.

Diagnostic Biomedical Signal and Image Processing Applications: With Deep Learning Methods presents comprehensive research on both medical imaging and medical signals analysis. The book discusses classification, segmentation, detection, tracking and retrieval applications of non-invasive methods such as EEG, ECG, EMG, MRI, fMRI, CT and X-RAY, amongst others. These image and signal modalities include real challenges, which are the main themes that medical imaging and medical signal processing researchers focus on today. The book also emphasizes removing noise and specifying dataset key properties, with each chapter containing details of one of the medical imaging or medical signal modalities. Focusing on solving real medical problems using new deep learning and CNN approaches, this book will appeal to research scholars, graduate students, faculty members, R&D engineers, and biomedical engineers who want to learn how medical signals and images play an important role in the early diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

BSIM-Bulk Mosfet Model for Wireless and Mixed-Mode ICs provides in-depth knowledge of the internal operation of the model. The authors not only discuss the fundamental core of the model, but also provide details of the recent developments and new real-device effect models. In addition, the book covers the parameter extraction procedures, addressing geometrical scaling, temperatures, and more. There is also a dedicated chapter on extensive quality testing procedures and experimental results. This book discusses every aspect of the model in detail, and hence will be of significant use for the industry and academia. Those working in the semiconductor industry often run into a variety of problems like model non-convergence or non-physical simulation results. This is largely due to a limited understanding of the internal operations of the model as literature and technical manuals are insufficient. This also creates huge difficulty in developing their own IP models. Similarly, circuit designers and researcher across the globe need to know new features available to them so that the circuits can be more efficiently designed.

Tropical Cyclones: Observations and Basic Processes provides a modern observational overview of tropical cyclone structure and behavior. The book is organized into two sections. Part I builds a new foundation for a basic understanding of tropical cyclone genesis, intensification, and weakening. Part II employs the basic elements developed in Chapters 2--10 to present new appraisals of the accepted WISHE paradigm of vortex intensification, storm energetics, requirements for a quasi-steady state hurricane, and more likely transient lifecycle behavior in a consistent three-dimensional flow configuration. Tropical Cyclones provides a state-of-the-art summary of the fundamentals of cyclones accessible to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and hurricane forecasters. Tropical cyclones are one of the biggest threats to life and property even in the formative stages of their development. They include a number of different hazards that can individually cause significant impacts on life and property, such as storm surge, flooding, extreme winds, tornadoes, and lighting. Members of the Royal Meteorological Society are eligible for a 35% discount on all Developments in Weather and Climate Science series titles. See the RMetS member dashboard for the discount code.

Bionanocatalysis: From Design to Applications discusses recent advances in nano-biocatalysis, fundamental design concepts and their applications in a variety of industry sectors. Strategies for immobilizing enzymes onto nanocarriers, made from polymers, silicas, carbons, and metals, by physical adsorption, covalent binding, cross-linking, or specific ligand spacers are also discussed as are the advantages, problems and solutions derived from the use of non-porous nanomaterials for enzyme immobilization. This is an important reference source for materials scientists and chemical engineers who would like to learn more about how nanobiocatalysts are designed and used. Biocatalysis has emerged as a sustainable technique to synthesize valuable commodity chemicals with wide applications in various industrial domains, such as in agriculture, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, biofuels, biosensors, biofuel cells, biochemicals, and foods. The synergistic integration of bio-catalysis engineering with nanostructured materials, as unique multifunctional carrier matrices, has emerged as a new interface of nano-biocatalysis (NBC).

Exploring how changes in advanced technology deeply affect international politics, this book theoretically engages with the overriding relevance of investments in technological research, and the ways in which they directly foster a country's economic and military standing. Scholars and practitioners present important insights on the technical and social issues at the core of technology competition. Technology and International Relations emphasizes the importance of leadership styles, domestic political agendas and the relative weight of technologically driven countries in global affairs. It highlights the now widely shared belief among both developed and developing countries that technology will be the defining factor in international politics. The book also unpacks the complexity of real-life cases of key technological advances, including artificial intelligence, UAVs, satellites and the responses of governments and the private sector to rising technological challenges. This will be an important read for scholars of political science, international relations and international political economy, particularly those looking at the impact of technology and innovation.

Contributors to this special issue explore the ways literature and literary studies contribute to historical understandings and imagined futures of infrastructure under conditions of planetary ecological emergency. Focusing particularly on the infrastructures of empire and capital, as well as the local and global environmental ramifications of their historical unfolding, the authors consider the roles that literature can play in the theorization of infrastructure. The issue covers how settler capitalism has shaped the infrastructural transformation of the continent, from the settler colonial project of the nineteenth century to "transform dirt into infrastructure" to the deep entanglement of ecological emergency with the arrival of the internet in the United States. The issue also focuses on the intersections of infrastructure with the ongoing emergencies of racial oppression. It covers topics ranging from an emergent formal technique in contemporary African American fiction called "geomemory"-where the racial emergencies of the present are revealed to be the result of still-active infrastructures of the plantation-to the conglomeration of the buildings, laws, institutions, and capital markets that constitute the US healthcare system. Contributors. John Levi Barnard, Suzanne F. Boswell, Rebecca Evans, Stephanie Foote, Michelle N. Huang, Jessica Hurley, Jeffrey Insko, Andrew Kopec, Kelly McKisson, Jamin Creed Rowan

Carbon Nanomaterials and their Nanocomposite-Based Chemiresistive Gas Sensors: Applications, Fabrication and Commercialization sets out how carbon nanomaterials based chemiresistive gas sensor are made, and their applications at lab and industrial levels. The book focuses on major advances in the field of chemiresistive gas sensors in recent years and their potential applications in environmental monitoring and healthcare. Carbon Nanomaterials and their Nanocomposite-Based Chemiresistive Gas Sensors: Applications, Fabrication and Commercialization provides systematic and effective guidelines to the researchers as well as learners about sensor, their fabrication and applications. Chemiresistive sensors are widely used in automation of numerous industrial processes as well as for everyday monitoring of various activities as public safety, engine performance, medical therapeutics, and in many other situations hence the book will catch the attention of readers and motivate them for advanced research for the development of smart and efficient gas sensors. With full coverage of the state of the art in this active research field, the book will appeal to researchers in a broad range of disciplines, including nanotechnology, engineering, materials science, chemistry and physics.

Antimicrobial Nanosystems: Fabrication and Development provides an in-depth review of nanotechnological advancements in the fields of biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries to counteract bacterial infections and related health issues. Functionalized nanomaterials and their processes are covered, along with the theory and fabrication of antimicrobial nanosystems. The potential applications of antimicrobial nanosystems are also discussed along with their challenges and commercialization. This book discusses the most frequent problems caused by resistant microorganisms and difficult-to-treat bacteria and highlights the impact of recently developed antimicrobial nanosystems. Various methodsto obtain efficient nanomaterials with antimicrobial properties are described, along with their advantages, challenges, and main applications. The design of targeting antimicrobial therapeutics, able to specifically detect pathogenic microorganisms and to act in a very specific manner, is thoroughly investigated.

Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery is a comprehensive guide to PLGA nanoparticles for targeting various diseases, covering principles, formation, characterization, applications, regulations and the latest advances. Sections introduce the fundamental aspects of PLGA nanoparticles for drug delivery, including properties, preparation methods, characterization, drug loading methods, and drug release mechanisms, along with a focus on applications. Application of PLGA nanoparticles for the treatment of cancer, inflammatory, cerebral, cardiovascular, and infectious diseases, as well as in regenerative medicine, photodynamic and photothermal therapy, and gene therapy, are all explained in detail. The final chapters explore recent advances and regulatory aspects. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and advanced students across nanomedicine, polymer science, bio-based materials, chemistry, biomedicine, biotechnology, and materials engineering, as well as for industrial scientists and R&D professionals with an interest in nanoparticles for drug delivery, pharmaceutical formulations and regulations, and development of innovative biodegradable materials.

Lactic Acid Bacteria as Cell Factories: Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering describes the most recent developments on the metabolic engineering and synthetic biology of Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) for production of biologically active biomolecules (enzymes, organic acids, bacteriocins, bioactive peptides, etc.), recombinant proteins, and their role in bioremediation. The book focuses on synthetic biology and metabolic engineering for the production of biologically active molecules such as bioactive peptides, polysaccharides, vitamins (Riboflavin), enzymes, organic acids (lactic and gamma-aminobutyric acid), flavor and aroma compounds, bacteriocins, recombinant proteins, etc. Individual chapters are devoted to the production of biosurfactants and their applications and the bioremediation of heavy metals by LAB from aquatic environments. Two critical chapters address Genome editing of LAB: opportunities for food, feed and pharmaceuticals and A synthetic biology approach for plasmid DNA and Recombinant protein production. This book will be a valuable resource for those working in biology, biotechnology, biological engineering, chemical engineering, microbiology, food science and technology, genetics and synthetic biology.

Development and Commercialization of Biopesticides: Costs and Benefits provides a uniquely comprehensive view of the commercial production of biopesticides, from research to application, featuring case studies in various developed and developing countries of the world. The book offers guidance for future strategies to researchers, along with considerations for the industry's economic concerns, i.e., costs and benefits compared to conventional pesticides, future perspectives for application strategies, bioavailability and environmental safety, and impacts on intellectual property issues during commercialization. Finally, the book covers why the development of this industry must be strategic, comprehensive and forward-looking in order to be an accepted, safe and sustainable. There is no doubt that biopesticides are now in large-scale use, and a variety of novel techniques have been used to improve or modify existing biopesticides, which will further accelerate their development.

Water, Land, and Forest Susceptibility and Sustainability, Volume 2: Insight Towards Management, Conservation and Ecosystem Services brings an interdisciplinary perspective to solving complex problems in sustainability, utilizing the latest research and technologies, and includes case studies that emphasize the applications of remote sensing, GIS, and image processing for addressing the current state and future needs to achieve sustainability. As forests, land, and water are among the most precious resources on earth, emphasizing the need to conserve them for future generations and, of course, a safe and sustainable planet. The assessment of the susceptibility of all these three precious resources must therefore be addressed to inform their sustainable management. This second volume focuses on environmental management, conservation, and ecosystem services and provides information on forest, land, and water resources, presenting in integrated manner various aspects of their characterization, susceptibility, and sustainability.

Technological Advancements in Product Valorization of Tea Waste focuses on recent and advanced topics involved with technologies for valorization of tea waste. The book elaborately explains the fundamental concepts of utilization of such waste in the process of conversion as well as current research accomplishments. It emphasizes technologies involved in the major areas of extraction of several important biomolecules like tea polyphenols, polysaccharides for human bioactivity, metal-based nanomaterial synthesis for environmental removal of aquatic pollutants, generation of various different forms of bioenergy including biogas, biodiesel and bioethanol and advanced applications of tea waste in various emerging sectors. Industries covered include the polymer industry, biorefineries, electrical manufacturing and electrochemistry.

Zeroing Neural Networks Describes the theoretical and practical aspects of finite-time ZNN methods for solving an array of computational problems Zeroing Neural Networks (ZNN) have become essential tools for solving discretized sensor-driven time-varying matrix problems in engineering, control theory, and on-chip applications for robots. Building on the original ZNN model, finite-time zeroing neural networks (FTZNN) enable efficient, accurate, and predictive real-time computations. Setting up discretized FTZNN algorithms for different time-varying matrix problems requires distinct steps. Zeroing Neural Networks provides in-depth information on the finite-time convergence of ZNN models in solving computational problems. Divided into eight parts, this comprehensive resource covers modeling methods, theoretical analysis, computer simulations, nonlinear activation functions, and more. Each part focuses on a specific type of time-varying computational problem, such as the application of FTZNN to the Lyapunov equation, linear matrix equation, and matrix inversion. Throughout the book, tables explain the performance of different models, while numerous illustrative examples clarify the advantages of each FTZNN method. In addition, the book: Describes how to design, analyze, and apply FTZNN models for solving computational problems Presents multiple FTZNN models for solving time-varying computational problems Details the noise-tolerance of FTZNN models to maximize the adaptability of FTZNN models to complex environments Includes an introduction, problem description, design scheme, theoretical analysis, illustrative verification, application, and summary in every chapter Zeroing Neural Networks: Finite-time Convergence Design, Analysis and Applications is an essential resource for scientists, researchers, academic lecturers, and postgraduates in the field, as well as a valuable reference for engineers and other practitioners working in neurocomputing and intelligent control.

Smart cities are cities which use different types of electronic methods and sensors to collect data. The gathered information and data is then used to manage assets, resources and services efficiently to improve the operations across the city. This book provides a new insight for the current issues and opportunities in smart cities and related concepts in the next generation of urban evolution. The smart cities of tomorrow engage locals, visitors, governments and businesses in the intelligent, collaborative and connected ecosystem. To this end, the goal of this book is to provide better understanding of city services but also enhancing and evaluating the local and visitor experience and city decision-making processes by creating livable environments and business solutions. With international contributions from well-respected and international academics, it brings state-of-art knowledge on marketing management (and related areas e.g., urban studies) from a new modern perspective within the smart cities. Via academic research and international case studies, it discusses issues such as: * Smart tourists in smart cities * The evolution of the smart city * Smart trends in the tourism and hospitality industry * Smart sports in smart cities * Creating a smart tourist destinations * What does it mean for the locals - the smart city as a proposal to improve the quality of life of residents

Drying Technology in Food Processing, in the Unit Operations and Processing Equipment in the Food Industry series, explains the processing operations and equipment necessary for drying of different food products. These processes and unit operations are very important in terms of qualitative properties and energy usage. Divided into four sections, "Drying basics", "Different dryers in the food industry", "Application of drying in the food industry", and "Design, control, and efficiency of dryers", all chapters emphasize experimental, theoretical, computational and/or applications of food engineering principles and the relevant processing equipment. Written by experts in the field of food engineering, in a simple and dynamic way, this book targets industrial engineers working in the field of food processing and within food factories to make them more familiar with drying unit operations.

AI-based technologies and, in a broader sense, digital technologies have become very important in civil engineering design. Artificial Intelligence-Based Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures: Artificial Neural Networks for Engineering Applications is an essential reference resource for those readers who want to learn how to perform artificial intelligence-based structural design. The book describes in detail the main concepts of ANNs and their application and use in civil and architectural engineering. It shows how neural networks can be established and implemented depending on the nature of a broad range of diverse engineering problems. The design examples include both civil and architectural engineering solutions, for both structural engineering and concrete structures. Those who have not had the opportunity to study or implement neural networks before will find this book very easy to follow. It covers the basic network theory and how to formulate and apply neural networks to real-world problems. There are plenty of examples based on real engineering problems and solutions.