This issue of Clinics in Laboratory Medicine, Guest Edited by Dr. Anand S. Dighe, will focus on Clinical Decision Support, including tools, strategies, and emerging technologies. This issue is one of four issues selected per year by the series Consulting Editor, Milenko Jovan Tanasijevic. Topics include, but are not limited to, The Laboratory's Role in Clinical Decision Support, Integrating Decision Support into a Utilization Management Program, Decision Support Tools within the Electronic Health Record, Decision Support to Enhance Automated Testing and Laboratory Workflow, Laboratory-based CDS programs, Decision Support in Blood Banking, Decision Support in Molecular Pathology, A Computational Perspective on Decision Support, Emerging Decision Support Techniques, Decision Support and Patient Safety, Decision Support from a Reference laboratory perspective, and Training Aspects of Laboratory Based Decision Support.

Big Data and Smart Service Systems presents the theories and applications regarding Big Data and smart service systems, data acquisition, smart cities, business decision-making support, and smart service design. The rapid development of computer and Internet technologies has led the world to the era of Big Data. Big Data technologies are widely used, which has brought unprecedented impacts on traditional industries and lifestyle. More and more governments, business sectors, and institutions begin to realize data is becoming the most valuable asset and its analysis is becoming the core competitiveness.

This is an authoritative, one-volume, and independent treatment of the history, functioning and nature of the European integration. Written by a selection of leading scholars. It covers the major institutions, policies, and events in the history of integration, whilst also providing a guide to the major theoretical approaches that have been used to study it over time. By bringing together such a distinguished cast covering such a wide array of themes, the Handbook is intended as a one stop shop for all those interested in the European Union and its predecessors. Written in an accessible style, the volume is intended to shape the discipline of EU studies, and to establish itself as the essential point of reference for all those interested in European integration, both in universities and more broadly. It represents a timely guide to an institution that is much discussed but often only imperfectly understood.

AI in Biomedical and Modern Healthcare Informatics provide a deeper understanding of current trends in AI and machine learning within health care diagnosis. Its practical approach in healthcare gives insight into wearable sensors and device modules to help doctors and their patients in enhanced healthcare systems. The book helps readers detect common difficulties and their solutions for early detection and prediction of any disease. In 34 chapters AI in Biomedical and Modern Healthcare Informatics provides beginners and experts in the medical science field with general pictures and detailed descriptions of imaging and signal processing principles and clinical applications. With forefront applications and up-to-date analytical methods, this book captures the interests of colleagues in the medical imaging research field and is a valuable resource for healthcare professionals who wish to understand the principles and applications of signal and image processing and its related technologies in healthcare

Computational Intelligence in Healthcare Applications discusses a variety of techniques designed to represent, enhance and empower inter-domain research based on computational intelligence in healthcare. The book serves as a reference for the pervasive healthcare domain which takes into consideration new convergent computing and other applications. The book discusses topics such as mathematical modeling in medical imaging, predictive modeling based on artificial intelligence and deep learning, smart healthcare and wearable devices, and evidence-based predictive modeling. In addition, it discusses computer-aided diagnostic for clinical inferences and pervasive and ubiquitous techniques in healthcare. This book is a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers in medical informatics, however, it is also ideal for members of the biomedical field and healthcare industry who are interested in learning more about novel technologies and their applications in the field.

XAI Based Intelligent Systems for Society 5.0 focuses on the development and analysis of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)-based models and intelligent systems that can be utilized for Society 5.0—characterized by a knowledge intensive, data driven, and non-monetary society. The book delves into the issues of transparency, explainability, data fusion, and interpretability, which are significant for the development of a super smart society and are addressed through XAI-based models and techniques. XAI-based deep learning models, fuzzy and hybrid intelligent systems, expert systems, and intrinsic explainable models in the context of Society 5.0 are presented in detail.The book also addresses—using XAI-based intelligent techniques—the privacy issues intrinsic in storing huge amounts of data or information in virtual space. The concept of Responsible AI, which is at the core of the future direction of XAI for Society 5.0, is also explored in this book. Finally, the application areas of XAI, including relevant case studies, are presented in the concluding chapter. This book serves as a valuable resource for graduate/post graduate students, academicians, analysts, computer scientists, engineers, researchers, professionals, and other personnel working in the area of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and intelligent systems, who are interested in creating a people-centric smart society.

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.

The riveting true story of John and Aileen Crowley's race to find a cure for Pompe disease that inspired the movie Extraordinary Measures

With three beautiful children, a new house, and financial security, John and Aileen Crowley were on top of the world--until their two youngest children, fifteen-month-old Megan and five-month-old Patrick, were diagnosed with Pompe disease and given only months to live. Refusing to accept a death sentence, John quit his financial consultant job and invested his life savings in a biotechnology start-up to research the disease and find a cure. Battling scientific setbacks, conflict of interest accusations, and business troubles, John and Aileen would be tested to their limits as they valiantly fought, and succeeded, in finding revolutionary new treatment for the disease--offering hope to Megan, Patrick, and the many children and families affected by Pompe disease around the world.

The inspiration for the captivating film Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford, The Cure is a remarkable true story of cutting-edge science, business acumen and daring, and one family's indomitable spirit.

Climate Change and Crop Stress: Molecules to Ecosystems expounds on the transitional period where science has progressed to 'post-genomics' and the gene editing era, putting field performance of crops to the forefront and challenging the production of practical applicability vs. theoretical possibility. Researchers have concentrated efforts on the effects of environmental stress conditions such as drought, heat, salinity, cold, or pathogen infection which can have a devastating impact on plant growth and yield. Designed to deliver information to combat stress both in isolation and through simultaneous crop stresses, this edited compilation provides a comprehensive view on the challenges and impacts of simultaneous stresses.

A Thermo-Economic Approach to Energy From Waste provides readers with the tools to analyze the effectiveness of biomass waste conversion into value-added products and how thermochemical conversion methods can be commercialized with minimum environmental impact. The book provides a comprehensive overview of biomass conversion technologies through pyrolysis, including the types of reactors available, reactor mechanisms, and the upgradation of bio-oil. Case studies are provided on waste disposal in selected favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro, including data on subnormal clusters and analyses of solid waste in the 37 slums of Catumbi. Step-by-step guidance is provided on how to use a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach to analyze the potential impact of various waste-to-energy conversion technologies, and a brief overview of the common applications of LCA in other geographical locations is presented, including United States, Europe, China, and Brazil. Finally, waste-to-value-added functional catalysts for the transesterification process in biodiesel production are discussed alongside various other novel technologies for biodiesel production, process simulation, and techno-economic analysis of biodiesel production. Bringing together research and real-world case studies from an LCA perspective, the book provides an ideal reference for researchers and practitioners interested in waste-to-energy conversion, LCA, and the sustainable production of bioenergy.

This book comprehensively covers sustainable blended learning approach in each of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines. The book also includes the compilation of detailed concepts of blended learning ranging from definition, need, features, models, advantages and disadvantages and comparisons with traditional face-to-face learning. Sustainable blended learning in K-12 education has an immense role as foundation to learning for students in their early education. Fostering creativity and inculcating problem solving and critical thinking skills are the integral aspect of STEM education, which encourages students to pursue them to for their future careers. This book presents recent practices taken by experts at various levels to promote education in STEM. Furthermore, impact over teacher–student relationships is analyzed. Lastly, sustainable frameworks, strategies and implementation to incorporate students with additional needs are explored.

Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) have started a revolution in Deep Learning, and today GAN is one of the most researched topics in Artificial Intelligence. Generative Adversarial Networks for Image-to-Image Translation provides a comprehensive overview of the GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) concept starting from the original GAN network to various GAN-based systems such as Deep Convolutional GANs (DCGANs), Conditional GANs (cGANs), StackGAN, Wasserstein GANs (WGAN), cyclical GANs, and many more. The book also provides readers with detailed real-world applications and common projects built using the GAN system with respective Python code. A typical GAN system consists of two neural networks, i.e., generator and discriminator. Both of these networks contest with each other, similar to game theory. The generator is responsible for generating quality images that should resemble ground truth, and the discriminator is accountable for identifying whether the generated image is a real image or a fake image generated by the generator. Being one of the unsupervised learning-based architectures, GAN is a preferred method in cases where labeled data is not available. GAN can generate high-quality images, images of human faces developed from several sketches, convert images from one domain to another, enhance images, combine an image with the style of another image, change the appearance of a human face image to show the effects in the progression of aging, generate images from text, and many more applications. GAN is helpful in generating output very close to the output generated by humans in a fraction of second, and it can efficiently produce high-quality music, speech, and images.

Handbook of Nano-biomaterials for Therapeutics and Diagnostic Applications covers in-depth topics on nano-biomaterials and nano drug delivery systems (biosensors and bioimaging) involving polymer nanocomposites, metal nanocomposites, and other carbon family fibers and proteins. The book covers the current application of tiny machines or nanodevices and their use as early detection systems for life threatening diseases, giving detailed literature on the development of nanodevices, their use as diagnostic tools, and their present trend in the industry and market. In addition, their synthesis, potential applications and future of smart nanodevices in diagnosis of diseases and their use as smart clinical devices is covered. Users will find sections on recent advances in interdisciplinary research on the processing, morphology, structure and properties of nanostructured materials and their applications in drug delivery for various diseases such as cancer, tuberculosis, Alzheimer disease, ophthalmic diseases, and more.

In this collection of medical tales, a neurologist reckons with the stories we tell about our brains, and the stories our brains tell us.

A girl believes she has been struck blind for stealing a kiss. A mother watches helplessly as each of her children is replaced by a changeling. A woman is haunted each month by the same four chords of a single song. In neurology, illness is inextricably linked with narrative, the clues to unraveling these mysteries hidden in both the details of a patient's story and the tells of their body.

Stories are etched into the very structure of our brains, coded so deeply that the impulse for storytelling survives and even surges after the most devastating injuries. But our brains are also porous—the stories they concoct shaped by cultural narratives about bodies and illness that permeate the minds of doctors and patients alike. In the history of medicine, some stories are heard, while others—the narratives of women, of Black and brown people, of displaced people, of disempowered people—are too often dismissed.

In The Mind Electric, neurologist Pria Anand reveals—through case study, history, fable, and memoir—all that the medical establishment has overlooked: the complexity and wonder of brains in health and in extremis, and the vast gray area between sanity and insanity, doctor and patient, and illness and wellness, each separated from the next by the thin veneer of a different story.

Moving from the Boston hospital where she treats her patients, to her childhood years in India, to Isla Providencia in the Caribbean and to the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, she demonstrates again and again the compelling paradox at the heart of neurology: that even the most peculiar symptoms can show us something universal about ourselves as humans.

In the digital era, novel applications and techniques in the realm of computer science are increasing constantly. These innovations have led to new techniques and developments in the field of cybernetics. The Handbook of Research on Applied Cybernetics and Systems Science is an authoritative reference publication for the latest scholarly information on complex concepts of more adaptive and self-regulating systems. Featuring exhaustive coverage on a variety of topics such as infectious disease modeling, clinical imaging, and computational modeling, this publication is an ideal source for researchers and students in the field of computer science seeking emerging trends in computer science and computational mathematics.

A one-stop resource for understanding and applying current International Financial Reporting Standards

The move to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is the single most important initiative in the financial reporting world, with more than 100 countries requiring or allowing the use of IFRS for the preparation of financial statements by publicly held companies. It is expected that by 2011, more than 150 countries will be converting to it.

It's clear that IFRS is here to stay--get the expert advice you need to properly implement IFRS with "Understanding IFRS Fundamentals: International Financial Reporting Standards."

Filled with easy-to-follow examples and case studies, "Understanding IFRS Fundamentals: International Financial Reporting Standards" is your handy resource to all things IFRS, presenting:

Authoritative advice and simple explanations of IFRS standards

Topical arrangement of issues of common interest to financial statement preparers and users

Extracts from published financial statements illustrating practical implications for applying IFRS

Guidance for finance professionals in more than 100 countries that have either adopted or adapted to IFRS

Simple explanations of complex standards

A practical reference with the answers to your issues of interest, "Understanding IFRS Fundamentals: International Financial Reporting Standards" serves as an essential resource for when you need information in a hurry.

Stay on track and focused with the straightforward guidance in "Understanding IFRS Fundamentals: International Financial Reporting Standards."