Any researchers in the field of meshless methods who want to keep up to date with the latest work in the field will find this an essential text.In recent years meshless/meshfree methods have gained considerable attention in engineering and applied mathematics.The variety of problems that are now being addressed by these techniques continues to expand and the quality of the results obtained demonstrates the effectiveness of many of the methods currently available.This means that engineers in general, applied mathematicians, physicists, and those active in computational mechanics will all find this book a useful reference tool as well. The book collects extended original contributions presented at the first ECCOMAS Conference on Meshless Methods held in 2005 in Lisbon.

Fundamentals of Enriched Finite Element Methods provides an overview of the different enriched finite element methods, detailed instruction on their use, and also looks at their real-world applications, recommending in what situations they’re best implemented. It starts with a concise background on the theory required to understand the underlying functioning principles behind enriched finite element methods before outlining detailed instruction on implementation of the techniques in standard displacement-based finite element codes. The strengths and weaknesses of each are discussed, as are computer implementation details, including a standalone generalized finite element package, written in Python. The applications of the methods to a range of scenarios, including multi-phase, fracture, multiscale, and immersed boundary (fictitious domain) problems are covered, and readers can find ready-to-use code, simulation videos, and other useful resources on the companion website to the book.

In recent years meshless/meshfree methods have gained a considerable attention in engineering and applied mathematics. The variety of problems that are now being addressed by these techniques continues to expand and the quality of the results obtained demonstrates the effectiveness of many of the methods currently available. The book presents a significant sample of the state of the art in the field with methods that have reached a certain level of maturity while also addressing many open issues.

The book collects extended original contributions presented at the first ECCOMAS Conference on Meshless Methods held in 2005 in Lisbon. The list of contributors reveals a mix of highly distinguished authors as well as quite young but very active and promising researchers, thus giving the reader an interesting and updated view of different mesh reduction methods and its range of applications. The material presented is appropriate for researchers, engineers, physicists, applied mathematicians and graduate students interested in this active research area.

The largely unexplored natural world harbours great biodiversity, and provides a unique and rich source of natural products with interesting pharmaceutical activities as well as potential applications for environmental protection. Over the last few years, much attention has been paid to unraveling the structural, compositional and sequential properties of bioactive compounds, but the exploration of new natural resources needs to be developed wisely while keeping sustainability principles in mind. With the help of some developed isolation techniques, researchers have been able to elucidate new extraction methods applicable to both aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Natural products have often been used in medicine, food, fragrances, and pest control. Most likely due to their easy accessibility, terrestrial plants have been the major source of medicinal products, especially for traditional or folk medicine. However, only 10% of over 250,000 plants have been investigated for biological activity. On the other hand, aquatic environments contain over 80% of worlds plant and animal species. In recent years, several bioactive compounds have been extracted from various marine organisms, such as tunicates, sponges, starfish, soft corals, bryozoans, and sea cucumbers, among others. The search for new metabolites from marine organisms has resulted in the isolation of more than 10,000 metabolites, many of which are endowed with pharmacodynamic properties. These natural products are of high commercial value due to their natural source, complete biodegradable properties, lower or no toxicity, and in most cases lower cost compared to synthetic chemicals. Despite the biodiversity in the marine environment overcoming that of the terrestrial environment, the research into the use of natural marine products as pharmaceutical agents and for environmental applications is still in its early stages. In this context, this book highlights some of the most recent advances in natural product discovery over the past few years.