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Decision Making is a book where each chapter has been contributed to by a different author(s). The book synthesizes the analytical principles with business practice of Decision Making. Specifically, the book provides an interface between the main disciplines of engineering/technology and the organizational, administrative, and planning abilities of decision making. It is complementary to other sub-disciplines such as economics, finance, marketing, decision and risk analysis, etc. The chapters introduce and demonstrate decision making theory in practical case studies. It demonstrates key results for each sector with diverse real-world case studies. The theory is accompanied by relevant analysis techniques, with a progressional approach building from simple theory to complex and dynamic decisions with multiple data points, including big data, etc. Computational techniques, dynamic analysis, probabilistic methods, and mathematical optimization techniques are expertly blended to support analysis of multi-criteria decision-making problems with defined constraints and requirements.

Photochemistry and photophysics are as old as our planet Earth. Photosynthesis in plants and vision in our eyes are natural examples of their importance. This book entitled "Photochemistry and Photophysics - Fundamentals to Applications" presents various advanced topics that inherently utilize core concepts of photochemistry and photophysics. There are eleven chapters in this book, which are divided into four 'parts'. While the first and second parts contain chapters describing the fundamentals of photochemistry and photophysics, respectively, the third part is on computational photochemistry. The last part deals with applications of photochemistry and photophysics. The goal of this book is to familiarize both research scholars and postgraduate students with recent advances in this exciting field.

Although trauma victims constitute around one-tenth to one-eighth of the total patient volume in hospital emergency departments, the burden of trauma on humankind is beyond these statistics. The twenty-first century is witnessing a growing threat on human beings imposed by many sources, namely natural disasters, terrorism and other conflicts, warfare, and transportation accidents; all of which ignite the rise of major trauma incidents worldwide. Physicians, therefore, get involved in trauma management more and more frequently in time. They need to evaluate, diagnose, treat, and stabilize victims and help them take part in active and productive life as soon as possible. Technological advances have provided many techniques to augment trauma care and resuscitation, fracture healing, wound care, casts and splints, sutures, and transfusions. However, the successful management of trauma warrants a collaboration of emergency medicine, surgical disciplines, intensive care medicine, and almost all the resources of a hospital. This work is an example of a multidisciplinary approach that is a must to maximize synergistic efforts to deliver contemporary care for trauma victims of all ages throughout the world.

Aging is characterized by functional decline in every organ due to several cellular, biological, and physiological changes over time. Molecular and cellular damages are gradually decreasing in the physical and mental capacities of the human body. Health results have shown that lifespan has dramatically increased during the twenty-first century. Increasing elderly population naturally deals with many health problems leading to a rise in health expenditure and labor loss. The good news is that the clinical trials in gene therapy have almost stopped and/or reversed human aging. Regenerative medicine can repair and reverse aging in all body cells. Thus, the body's own repair mechanisms may struggle with aging and age-related diseases. Research is promising and suggests that human aging will be eradicated on earth.

Asphalt modification is an important area in the development of new road and pavement materials. There is an urgent demand for road materials that can minimize fracture at low temperatures and increase resistance to deformation at high temperatures. The function of asphalt is to bind aggregate to protect it from water and other harmful agents. In the beginning asphalt was ideal for this purpose, but recently traffic loads have increased and environmental factors have deteriorated more rapidly than before. Asphalt is a byproduct of crude oil in the refining process, and it is considered a complex heterogeneous mixture of hydrocarbons. Asphalt modification has become an important research area, using several methods and new materials as modifiers.

This book is intended as both an introduction to the discipline for students of landscape architecture, architecture, and planning, and a source of continuing interest for more experienced environmental designers. The book offers various materials for landscape architects and other planning professionals. The book is divided into 4 parts and 17 chapters. Part I "Introduction to the Landscape Architecture Theme" is general reading on landscape architecture. Part II "Art's Replica and Landscape Architecture Model" includes three chapters. This part represents a theoretical and sensitive visual interpretation of landscape architecture. Part III "Sustainable Prototypes of a Contemporary Landscape Architecture" includes four chapters, with sustainability as a concept and guiding thought. Part IV "Landscape Architecture Around the World (Study Cases)" includes 9 chapters with many examples from different geographical practical cases.

Metallic glasses are very promising engineering and functional materials due to their unique mechanical, chemical, and physical properties, attracting increasing attention from both scientific and industrial communities. However, their practical applications are greatly hindered due to three main problems: dimensional limit, poor tension plasticity, and difficulty in machining and shaping. Therefore, further investigation of these issues is urgently required. This book provides readers with recent achievements and developments in the properties and processing of metallic glasses, including mainly thermoplastic forming of metallic glasses (Chapter 2), atomic-level simulation of mechanical deformation of metallic glasses (Chapter 3), metallic glass matrix composites (Chapter 4), and tribo-electrochemical applications of metallic glasses (Chapters 5 and 6).

This book presents a collection of chapters from different areas of science and engineering, where Petri Nets have been shown to be a useful tool for the design and modeling of the problems that arise in such fields. The areas covered in this book include manufacturing systems, authentication and cyber-security, computer architectures, mechanical systems, process mining, control theory and time analysis. The main focus of the chapters was to be illustrative, to help the development of intuitive ideas that may guide the reader to adopt Petri Nets in their scientific or engineering work. However, there are other chapters with deep mathematical basis such as time analysis. Whenever possible, models, graphics and examples illustrate the developed concepts.

Conventionally, the simulation of power engineering applications can be a challenge for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. For the easy implementation of several kinds of power structure and control structures of power engineering applications, simulators such as MATLAB/(Simulink and coding) are necessary, especially for students, to develop and test various circuits and controllers in all branches of the field of power engineering. This book presents three different applications of MATLAB in the power system domain. The book includes chapters that show how to simulate and work with MATLAB software for MATLAB professional applications of power systems. Moreover, this book presents techniques to simulate power matters easily using the related toolbox existing in MATLAB/Simulink.

Over the past decade it has been increasingly recognized that medical errors constitute an important determinant of patient safety, quality of care, and clinical outcomes. Such errors are both directly and indirectly responsible for unnecessary and potentially preventable morbidity and/or mortality across our healthcare institutions. The spectrum of contributing variables or "root causes" - ranging from minor errors that escalate, poor teamwork and/or communication, and lapses in appropriate protocols and processes (just to name a few) - is both extensive and heterogeneous. Moreover, effective solutions are few, and many have only recently been described. As our healthcare systems mature and their focus on patient safety solidifies, a growing body of research and experiences emerges to help provide an organized framework for continuous process improvement. Such a paradigm - based on best practices and evidence-based medical principles- sets the stage for hardwiring "the right things to do" into our institutional patient care matrix. Based on the tremendous interest in the first two volumes of The Vignettes in Patient Safety series, this third volume follows a similar model of case-based learning. Our goal is to share clinically relevant, practical knowledge that approximates experiences that busy practicing clinicians can relate to. Then, by using evidence-based approaches to present contemporary literature and potential contributing factors and solutions to various commonly encountered clinical patient safety scenarios, we hope to give our readers the tools to help prevent similar occurrences in the future. In outlining some of the best practices and structured experiences, and highlighting the scope of the problem, the authors and editors can hopefully lend some insights into how we can make healthcare experiences for our patients safer.

Over the last few years, we have witnessed increasing efforts dedicated to the scientific investigation and characteristics of trace elements. Especially in the field of human and animal nutrition, trace elements display a considerably attractive issue for research because they play an essential role in the nutrition of both animals and humans. Aquatic environments contaminated with trace elements are an emerging research area due to the toxicity, abundance, and environmental persistence of trace elements. Accumulation of heavy metals as a class of trace elements in various environments, and the subsequent transition of these elements into the food and feed chain, severely affects human health. The determination of type and concentration of trace elements is regarded as the first and most important step to follow the mechanisms controlling the dispersal and accumulation of trace elements. Element speciation in different media (water, soil, food, plants, coal, biological matter, food, and fodder) is pivotal to assess an element's toxicity, bioavailability, environmental mobility, and biogeochemical performance. Recently, new analytical techniques have been developed, which greatly simplified the quantitation of many trace elements and considerably extended their detection range. In this context, the development of reproducible and accurate techniques for trace element analysis in different media using spectroscopic instrumentation is continuously updated.

This book contains 11 chapters of significant and updated materials on what we know and what we lack and need in better understanding of Trypanosoma cruzi - a parasite that never dies - and the consequences of Chagas disease as one of the most important neglected parasitic diseases threatening the global health and wellbeing. This book is intended to increase the readers' enthusiasm to explore the four sections of the contents: Section 1 begins with biochemistry, pathophysiology, histo-immunological study, and findings to assist in the diagnosis; Section 2 further investigates the role of vector in propagation of the parasite, the intensity on epidemiology, and the severity on clinical aspects, which help us to be well perceived on the course of disease; Section 3 is seeking beyond modern medicine and what lays in the nature that helps fight against this parasite; and the last section, Section 4, deals with the impacts of public health problem and the control strategies on Chagas disease.

Antennas and radio propagation are continuously and rapidly evolving and new challenges arise every day. As a result of these rapid changes the need for up-to-date texts that address this growing field from an interdisciplinary perspective persists. This book, organized into nine chapters, presents new antenna designs and materials that will be used in the future, due to the trend for higher frequencies, as well as a bird's eye view of some aspects related to radio propagation channel modeling. The book covers the theory but also the practical aspects of technology implementation in a way that is suitable for undergraduate and graduate-level students, as well as researchers and professional engineers.

We are entering the era of big data, and machine learning can be used to analyze this deluge of data automatically. Machine learning has been used to solve many interesting and often difficult real-world problems, and the biometrics is one of the leading applications of machine learning. This book introduces some new techniques on biometrics and machine learning, and new proposals of using machine learning techniques for biometrics as well. This book consists of two parts: "Biometrics" and "Machine Learning for Biometrics." Parts I and II contain four and three chapters, respectively. The book is reviewed by editors: Prof. Jucheng Yang, Prof. Dong Sun Park, Prof. Sook Yoon, Dr. Yarui Chen, and Dr. Chuanlei Zhang.

Measurements in present experiments have dramatically advanced our understanding of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. The suppression of the flux at the highest energies is now confirmed without any doubt, and strong limits have been placed on the photon and neutrino components. There are indications for a small, large-scale anisotropy both below and above the energy of the angle and for a correlation on smaller angular scales at E > 5.5*1019 eV. Around 3*1018 eV, there is a distinct change of slope with energy, and the shower-to-shower variance decreases. Interpreted with the leading LHC-tuned shower models, this implies a gradual shift to a heavier composition, and a number of fundamentally different astrophysical model scenarios have been developed to describe this evolution.

Fossil fuels still need to meet the growing demand of global economic development, yet they are often considered as one of the main sources of the CO2 release in the atmosphere. CO2, which is the primary greenhouse gas (GHG), is periodically exchanged among the land surface, ocean, and atmosphere where various creatures absorb and produce it daily. However, the balanced processes of producing and consuming the CO2 by nature are unfortunately faced by the anthropogenic release of CO2. Decreasing the emissions of these greenhouse gases is becoming more urgent. Therefore, carbon sequestration and storage (CSS) of CO2, its utilization in oil recovery, as well as its conversion into fuels and chemicals emerge as active options and potential strategies to mitigate CO2 emissions and climate change, energy crises, and challenges in the storage of energy.

The most effective method of producing nanofibres is the technology of producing in the electrostatic field, which does not require the use of complicated procedures and equipment. Electrospinning allows to produce 1D nanostructures on an industrial scale in a relatively easy and quick way. The method of electrospinning shares the most features with classical technologies in obtaining synthetic fibres that enable forming and generating a stream of previously dissolved or melted polymer and its coaxial stretching, combined with the transition of the polymer from a liquid state to a solid state. In view of the large application possibilities of electrospun fibres, electrospinning is enjoying a dynamically growing interest of scientists, which can be proven by the increasing trend of scientific publications.

This book is dedicated to the reuse of waste and residues from the agricultural sector. Plant residues, as well as animal manure and residues from animal breeding, contain useful elements that can be processed for production of fertilizers, compost for soil recultivation, and biofuels. The emerging energy and resources crisis calls for development of sustainable reuse of waste and residues. This book contains eight chapters divided into four sections. The first section contains the introductory chapter from the editor. The second section is related to the preparation of fertilizers and compost for soil amelioration from agricultural residues and waste water. The third section considers the use of agricultural waste for solid biofuels and biogas. The fourth section discusses sustainability and risk assessment related to the use of agricultural waste and residues.

As with most dynamic activities that are based on social and cultural contexts and rely on interactions, education is a complex and often ambiguous endeavor. Despite this complexity, scholars and educators are often required to find ways of defining and explaining what "good" teaching is and to incorporate these conclusions into teacher education. This book contains eight scholarly articles from various countries around the world and offers unique and up-to-date perspectives on relevant practices and pedagogies for teachers' professional education and development. In this international book, it is argued that there is a significant inspiration and enrichment to be gained by investigating the policies and practices of teacher education systems from all over the world.

Electrophoresis is a widely used method in the field of life sciences, having multiple practical applications in physical, chemical, biochemical, and molecular biology domains. This book contains 8 chapters depicting various applications of this technique in biochemistry, molecular biology, and physical chemistry. This book presents the link between the exposed method and its applications in a very explicit manner and offers a wide range of practical examples. The book provides not only a vision of actual methods but also their necessary further improvements and suggested developments. Therefore, a particular attention was given to the described techniques as true guidelines in the fields where electrophoresis is recommended, being useful for not only the scientists but also the laboratory clinicians.

In recent years, superalloys have been widespread usage in aerospace gas turbine engine parts. The main reason of it is that these materials have high yield, ultimate tensile strength, and very good corrosion/oxidation resistance, and they combine these good properties with an excellent creep resistance at elevated temperatures. In spite of their outstanding properties, superalloys can lose their mechanical strength because of wear, tear, and crack formation when they are exposed to high-service temperatures and heavy working conditions. Moreover, corrosion is another important issue for superalloys because the materials of gas turbine engine parts are exposed to harsh engine environments, which consist of many pollutants and hot gases. Therefore, special attention must be given to the corrosion behavior of superalloys. This book provides information on the interaction between the microstructure of alloys and their mechanical properties and also the position of superalloys in the manufacturing industry. Topics cover the minimization of the formation of microsegregation and detrimental phases in the GTA welding of superalloys, oxidation kinetics of nickel-based superalloys used in the manufacture of rings for aircraft engines, a review of the work done over the last two decades to understand the hot corrosion behavior of superalloys used in advanced coal-based power plants, ultrasonic-assisted machining of Inconel 718, dry high-speed turning of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy, and laser welding in dentistry. The book "Superalloys for Industry Applications" consists of contributions by scientists and engineers who are experienced in the production, design, and analysis of materials from all around the world. We hope that this book will be an irreplaceable source of study for manufacturing, degradation mechanisms, and reliability of superalloys.

Carbon fibres are lightweight, chemically stable materials with high mechanical strength, and have state-of-the-art applications in aerospace, marine, construction and automotive sectors. The demand for carbon fibre?based components is expected to grow dramatically with expanding opportunities for lightweight metals and composites. Although this field has achieved a high level of maturity, nanoscale developments in carbon fibres have seen dramatic improvements in the functions of conventional biomaterials and composites. This book reveals several new developments in the field to enhance characteristics of carbon fibres and their composites, novel applications for tissue engineering, biological scaffoldings and implants, recycling and reuse of end-of-life CFRP and manufacturing waste and other issues of concern in the field of carbon fibres.

This edited volume aims to discuss the most contemporary state of the determinants of the firm value. This book presents theoretical works as well as empirical studies that contrast the arguments offered by the leading, ground-breaking theories on the firm value. What variables determine the firm value? Are these determinants controllable or uncontrollable by the managers of the companies? Is the impact of corporate governance systems on the firm value symmetrical between different institutional contexts? Do the financial reports affect the value of the firm? What role does corporate social responsibility play as a determinant of the firm value? These and other questions are analyzed and scrutinized step by step throughout this book.

The book Vegetables - Importance of Quality Vegetables to Human Health provides useful and interesting information on the nutritional qualities of different vegetables and their roles in disease prevention. Quality vegetable production through hydroponic cultivation techniques is also included. The first few chapters discuss the importance of quality vegetables to human diet and health, and noncommunicable disease prevention. Nutritional qualities and bioactive compounds in freshly grown vegetables through hydroponics and soilless cultures are discussed in the middle part of the book. The final chapter describes methods of sea vegetable utilization in food formulation. This book mainly focuses on the nutritional quality of vegetables and disease prevention, their production methods, preparation, and cooking methods, making it a complete and useful resource to readers.

The current book entitled Heterojunctions and Nanostructures is divided into two sections. In Section 1, the chapters are related to topological insulators where their theoretical aspects, their current experiments, and their applications are presented. A few presented topics are, among others, the topological phases of matter, band topology of insulators and also of Weyl semimetals, transport properties of 3D topological insulator quantum wires and the influence of disorder, transport properties of quasi-1D (and 2D) topological surface states, quantum coherence, and topological insulator thin-film Hall bar device. In Section 2, the chapters are related to light devices such as laser diodes and their fabrication techniques. This section includes, among others, topics such as semiconductor quantum nanowire laser diodes, solutions of Schrodinger equation in nanostructures, numerical methods, light-to-electricity conversion devices, photoexcited carrier transportation process in quantum wells and quantum dots, growth mode and characterization of heterostructure of large lattice mismatch, and photoionization cross section.

Wastewater treatment and sludge disposal are important for protecting receiving rivers, lakes, and other water bodies, and vital for human health. Since excessive discharge may cause eutrophication and deterioration of aquatic systems, the US EPA and other national agencies have set guidelines for wastewater discharge standards. Conventional technologies are well developed and widely applied worldwide for wastewater treatment; however, new ideas and new technologies are gaining additional interest for the sake of water and energy reuse. While water is essential in arid regions, wastewater reuse and recycling have been playing an important role in human life. Although there are no universal standards for industrial and agriculture reuse, balancing wastewater treatment and public health protection presents challenges and opportunities.