This up-to-date reference book compiles the recent developments, innovations, and perspectives on second and third-generation bioplastics. It discusses the main commercialized bioplastics, such as polylactic acid (PLA) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). Chapters include the use of alternative raw materials and innovations in bioplastic production processes to reduce costs and decrease environmental impacts. It covers bioplastic production from lignocellulosic biomass, sugars, or oils produced by microbes and municipal waste material. It also includes techno-economic aspects. The book is meant for researchers and industry experts in biotechnology, environmental sciences, and applied microbiology.

This up-to-date reference book discusses the synthesis, production, and application of various microbial enzymes and metabolites for health. Microorganisms like bacteria (lactic acid bacteria, Bacillus species), yeasts, and filamentous fungi have been globally exploited for their biotechnological applications. This book discusses ways to use them commercially. Chapters include the production of fibrinolytic enzymes, microbial lipases, bacteriocin production by lactic acid bacteria, and bioactives produced. It also covers microbial synthesis of alkaloids, terpenoids, and steroids. The book is useful for researchers, academicians, and industry experts in microbiology and biotechnology.

This book turns to the intellectual discourses that have emerged from India and Latin America, two outposts of the Global South, on the themes of imperialism, sovereignty, development, and socio-economic, racial and caste inequalities. It recovers the elided reflective traditions of thinkers, writers and activists from these peripheries and highlights the distinctive ideas, alliances and parallelisms in their works, as well as the manner in which they articulate liberatory paradigms which continue to have contemporary relevance. The book maps the innovative epistemic engagements of thinkers from India and Latin America, highlighting the manner in which they have disrupted and challenged the hierarchies of global knowledge production. It argues that political, spatial and historical distinctions notwithstanding, the experiences of peripheralization, their common traditions of resistance to oppression and their deeply entangled histories have forged a shared intellectual identity and a rich alternative set of emancipatory epistemologies grounded in the realities and histories of Southern nations. The book recovers this body of work as mass movements the world over seek civilizational alternatives to capitalist modernity. The book will be of interest to students and researchers of development studies, history, political science, sociology, political economy, South Asian studies, Latin American studies and Global South studies.

Optical Methods of Measurement: Wholefield Techniques, Second Edition provides a comprehensive collection of wholefield optical measurement techniques for engineering applications. Along with the reorganization of contents, this edition includes a new chapter on optical interference, new material on nondiffracting and singular beams and their applications, and updated bibliography and additional reading sections. The book explores the propagation of laser beams, metrological applications of phase-singular beams, various detectors such as CCD and CMOS devices, and recording materials. It also covers interference, diffraction, and digital fringe pattern measurement techniques, with special emphasis on phase measurement interferometry and algorithms. The remainder of the book focuses on theory, experimental arrangements, and applications of wholefield techniques. The author discusses digital hologram interferometry, digital speckle photography, digital speckle pattern interferometry, Talbot interferometry, and holophotoelasticity. This updated book compiles the major wholefield methods of measurement in one volume. It provides a solid understanding of the techniques by describing the physics behind them. In addition, the examples given illustrate how the techniques solve measurement problems.

This practical reference offers state-of-the-art coverage of speckle metrology and its value as a measuring technique in industry.;Examing every important aspect of the field, Speckle Metrology: surveys the origin of speckle displacement and decorrelation; presents procedures for deformation analysis and shape measurement of rough objects; explains particle image velocimetry (PIV), the processing of PIV records, and the design requirements of PIV equipment; discusses the applications of white light speckle methods and the production of artificial speckles; describes the measurement of surface roughness with laser speckles and polychromatic speckles; illustrates semiautomatic and automatic methods for the analysis of Young's fringes; calculates the variation of Young's fringes with the change in the microrelief of the rough surface; and explicates hololenses for imaging and provides design details with aberration corrections for hololense systems.;With over 1500 literature citations, tables, figures and display equations, Speckle Metrology is a resource for students and professionals in the fields of optical, mechanical, electrical and electronics engineering; applied physics; and stress analysis.

Presents optical techniques and measurement procedures, providing basic background information on optics and lasers, their components and basic systems. Contains information on thermal and laser sources, detectors, and recording materials, semi-conductor laser diodes, and optical techniques such as

Key Points: 1. Discusses the role of microbial enzymes in functional food and nutraceutical production 2. Covers a range of enzymes like proteases, pullulanases, lipases 3. Explores various microbial sourcess and processing techniques 4. Reviews application of enzymes in synthesis of chiral drug intermediates 5. Examines molecular techniques on improving microbial enzymes properties and ability

Photobioreactors: Design and Applications provides a comprehensive overview of photobioreactor design, types and applications. It also introduces key principles that enable chemical and environmental engineers to engage in analysis, optimization and design with consistent control over biological and chemical transformations. The use of computational modeling of processes, control systems and CFD is in great demand. This book covers these aspects of chemical and bioprocesses.

Advances in Food Engineering, the latest release in the Current Developments in Biotechnology and Bioengineering series, is a unique source of state-of-art information about scientific and technological advances in food engineering. The book gives specific understanding of the engineering properties of food materials such as the morphological, physic-chemical, nutritional, thermal and organoleptic characteristics of food products. It covers food processing and preservation methods such as pressure, light, electromagnetic, sound and heat based and also the use of artificial intelligence-based machineries, intelligent control systems, Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain for food security traceability.

Advances in Bioprocess Engineering, the latest release in the Current Developments in Biotechnology and Bioengineering series, provides a comprehensive overview of bioprocess systems, kinetics, bioreactor design, batch and continuous reactors and introduces key principles that enable bioprocess engineers to engage in analysis, optimization and design with consistent control over biological and chemical transformations. The bioprocessing sector is also updating its technologies with state-of-the art techniques to keep up with the rising demand of the industry and R&D. This book covers these aspects, taking readers through a step-by-step journey of bioprocessing while also guiding them towards a new era and future.

This book studies the experiences of Brazil and India, the major economic powerhouses of the 21st century, during the neoliberal era. Both the nations have become important players in global markets and their economic performance has captured the attention of policymakers and academicians across the world. The book explores the patterns of growth and the changing status of human development in the two regions, since the 1980s. In an attempt to better grasp the subtleties of their developmental experiences, it also highlights the political and institutional dynamics that have under girded the liberalization of the two countries.

Introduction to Optical Metrology examines the theory and practice of various measurement methodologies utilizing the wave nature of light. The book begins by introducing the subject of optics, and then addresses the propagation of laser beams through free space and optical systems. After explaining how a Gaussian beam propagates, how to set up a collimator to get a collimated beam for experimentation, and how to detect and record optical signals, the text: Discusses interferometry, speckle metrology, moire phenomenon, photoelasticity, and microscopy Describes the different principles used to measure the refractive indices of solids, liquids, and gases Presents methods for measuring curvature, focal length, angle, thickness, velocity, pressure, and length Details techniques for optical testing as well as for making fiber optic- and MEMS-based measurements Depicts a wave propagating in the positive z-direction by ei( t - kz), as opposed to ei(kz - t) Featuring exercise problems at the end of each chapter, Introduction to Optical Metrology provides an applied understanding of essential optical measurement concepts, techniques, and procedures.

Smart Solutions for Wastewater: Road-mapping the Transition to Circular Economy, the latest release in the Current Developments in Biotechnology and Bioengineering presents up-to-date information on research and technological developments of resource recovery in wastewater treatment in terms of carbon, nutrients and energy. The book fulfils the gaps and current challenges that hinder the application of resource recovery facilities in wastewater treatment plants, discusses knowledge gaps, provides future research perspectives, and discusses strategies to solve problems from a circular economy perspective. It is an excellent, interdisciplinary and updated overview of technologies in terms of potential yields, pollutants removal, nutrients recovery and energy production.

The twenty-first century could be called the 'Multifunctional Materials Age'. The inspiration for multifunctional materials comes from nature, and therefore these are often referred to as bio-inspired materials. Bio-inspired materials encompass smart materials and structures, multifunctional materials and nano-structured materials. This is a dawn of revolutionary materials that may provide a 'quantum jump' in performance and multi-capability. This book focuses on smart materials, structures and systems, which are also referred to as intelligent, adaptive, active, sensory and metamorphic. The purpose of these materials from the perspective of smart systems is their ability to minimize life-cycle cost and/or expand the performance envelope. The ultimate goal is to develop biologically inspired multifunctional materials with the capability to adapt their structural characteristics (such as stiffness, damping and viscosity) as required, monitor their health condition, perform self-diagnosis and self-repair, morph their shape and undergo significant controlled motion over a wide range of operating conditions.

Designer Microbial Cell Factories: Metabolic Engineering and Applications, the latest release in the Current Developments in Biotechnology and Bioengineering series, provides a detailed overview of the biotechnological approaches and strategies used to generate engineered microbes and to facilitate the acceleration, modulation and diversion of metabolic pathways to get desired output such as production of value-added compound or biodegradation of xenobiotic pollutant. The book also highlights applied aspects of designer microbes in fields as diverse as agriculture, pharmaceuticals and bioremediation. Designer microbes generated through reprogramming the microbial cell factories (MCFs) provide an edge over their natural counterparts in terms of increased molecular diversity and selective chemistry. These bugs are becoming instrumental in several areas, including agriculture, environment and human health. Engineering microbes through directed evolution not only gives freedom from evolutionary constrains but also allow introduction of regulated and foreseeable functions into MCFs.