Böcker utgivna av Mdpi AG

The book presents a collection of contributions to various aspects of ship hydrodynamics and dynamics, a part of which was presented at the MARTECH2020 Conference, and all of which were published in a Special Issue of the journal, Marine Science and Engineering. The scope of the collection covers nearly all branches of ship hydrodynamics and dynamics, and so it may be of interest to all specialists in the field as well as for naval architects and applied mechanicians of various levels. The authors are recognized specialists from a number of countries, and to all of whom the Editors express their acknowledgement.

Cities are widely recognized as environments which can present risks to humans. Risks to health and well-being are measured in three groups of indices: physiological, emotional, and cognitive. The environmental factors discussed in studies include physical factors such as noise, heat load, and air pollution, and social factors include feelings of discomfort, crime, transportation, and access to health services. Some studies even argue that stress and health risks are intrinsic to urban environments and that restoration is intrinsic to green environments. This Topic aims to discuss what spaces can be greened and the effect this has on urban environments. It also discusses the effect of the size and layout of parks, vegetation on the walls and roofs of houses, and the effects of different types of vegetation, building materials, and energy-efficient design. Today's environment demands new design processes, construction techniques, occupancy practices, and management strategies to increase the resilience of the built environment to extreme, uncontrollable, and unpredictable events while providing healthy and sustainable environments for people. This Topic reflects on what the new concept of sustainability for the built environment should be and how to guide new research directions.

This book focuses on fundamental and applied research on national parks and protected areas. The destruction and degradation of nature undermine biodiversity and human well-being. Protected areas (including national parks) represent one of the best ways to safeguard nature and preserve biodiversity for the benefit of all life on Earth. Protected areas put the focus on nature conservation while providing various types of ecosystem services and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this book, special attention is given to wilderness quality, connectivity conservation and ecological networks, ecosystem services, community participation, tourism and other relevant topics.

The book presents new approaches for bio- and immunosensors with nanodispersed labels and their optical registration. The use of nanoparticles as carriers and labels provides possibilities for simple measurements and reaching low detection limits. In this way, novel sensors obtain competitive advantages and good potential for implementation into diagnostic practice. The collected articles demonstrate the current state of developments and their most promising directions in the creation and characterization of such optical sensors.

For a long time, the entry point for most communities and decision makers concerned about climate change was to ask, "what does the science tell us is going to happen?" Consequently, even though some effort was made to bring social and policy sciences to bear with the climate services enterprise, the demand for technological advances such as downscaled climate model projections and climate impact science drove much of the climate services agenda during its first decade and a half. By the 2000s, 'users' of climate information were becoming more sophisticated, and demand-driven innovations began to be recognized in peer-reviewed discussions of climate services; nevertheless, most authors continue to privilege a top-down, science-first flow of knowledge production and innovation. Entitled "Sustainability and Climate Services: Critique, Integration, and Reimagination," the purpose of this Special Issue of Sustainability is to empower unconventional thinking in the hopes of accelerating the relevance of climate services at a time when communities at all levels are pursuing programs of adaptation, resilience, and sustainability. It is our hope that this Special Issue will provide outside-the-box, but constructive, critique to help support the basis for a 'next generation' of weather- and climate-related information products and services.

This book is the proceedings of the 7th International Electronic Conference on Water Sciences (ECWS-7), held online 15-30 March 2003, promoted by the open access MDPI journal Water (ISSN 2073-4441; IF 3.530). The title of ECWS-7 was "Adaptive Water Resources Management in an Era of Changing Climatic, Environmental and Social Conditions". This book of proceedings includes 102 papers, internationally and independently reviewed and presented in the conference. The topics of the papers cover a large number of subjects including Sustainable Water Resources Management, Water Resource Policy and GovernanceHydrology, and Climate Change: Impacts on Water Resources and Hydrology.

The growth of data-driven technologies, 5G, and the Internet place enormous pressure on underlying information infrastructure. There exist numerous proposals on how to deal with the possible capacity crunch. However, the security of both optical and wireless networks lags behind reliable and spectrally efficient transmission. Significant achievements have been made recently in the quantum computing arena. Because most conventional cryptography systems rely on computational security, which guarantees the security against an efficient eavesdropper for a limited time, with the advancement in quantum computing this security can be compromised. To solve these problems, various schemes providing perfect/unconditional security have been proposed including physical-layer security (PLS), quantum key distribution (QKD), and post-quantum cryptography. Unfortunately, it is still not clear how to integrate those different proposals with higher level cryptography schemes. So the purpose of the Special Issue entitled "Physical-Layer Security, Quantum Key Distribution and Post-quantum Cryptography" was to integrate these various approaches and enable the next generation of cryptography systems whose security cannot be broken by quantum computers. This book represents the reprint of the papers accepted for publication in the Special Issue.

Cybersecurity models include provisions for legitimate user and agent authentication, as well as algorithms for detecting external threats, such as intruders and malicious software. In particular, we can define a continuum of cybersecurity measures ranging from user identification to risk-based and multilevel authentication, complex application and network monitoring, and anomaly detection. We refer to this as the "anomaly detection continuum". Machine learning and other artificial intelligence technologies can provide powerful tools for addressing such issues, but the robustness of the obtained models is often ignored or underestimated. On the one hand, AI-based algorithms can be replicated by malicious opponents, and attacks can be devised so that they will not be detected (evasion attacks). On the other hand, data and system contexts can be modified by attackers to influence the countermeasures obtained from machine learning and render them ineffective (active data poisoning). This Special Issue presents ten papers that can be grouped under five main topics: (1) Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), (2) Intrusion Detection, (3) Malware Analysis, (4) Access Control, and (5) Threat intelligence.AI is increasingly being used in cybersecurity, with three main directions of current research: (1) new areas of cybersecurity are being addressed, such as CPS security and threat intelligence; (2) more stable and consistent results are being presented, sometimes with surprising accuracy and effectiveness; and (3) the presence of an AI-aware adversary is recognized and analyzed, producing more robust solutions.

This Special Issue collects emerging research activities in the field of cooperative microactuator systems, which are expected to generate new synergies, e.g., through parallelization, cascading, and multistability, as well as through inherent sensing.

This Special Issue "Design and Sustainability" aimed to foster discussion on the design and development of products, services and PSS that are socially, economically and environmentally sustainable. It is crucial to consider various facets of design and sustainability in a broad range of sectors and countries, while providing attention to often overlooked 'softer' dimension of social sustainability.

This reprint provides a forum for scientists and engineers to share and discuss their pioneering/original findings or insightful reviews on the "Characterization and Processing of Complex Materials". Reports on successfully coupling complex industrial materials/waste/natural ores with non-destructive characterization method(s) and the unique processing developments were particularly encouraged. On the other hand, any kind of contribution under the broad framework of the understanding and production of complex materials was also highly regarded.This reprint gathers papers on the characterization and processing of complex materials with the following keywords: non-destructive characterization; analytical chemistry and instrumentation; waste management and recycling; selective material recovery/processing; sustainability and circular economy. This includes the waste management and recycling of complex materials (e.g., food and electronic waste) through the development of a new characterization method and/or process intensification. For example, the proper characterization of complex/heterogeneous materials is still an extremely challenging task, since the majority of characterization methods analyze either the average characteristics of the whole material or a narrow area of specific interest. On the other hand, the efficient processing/recycling of complex materials/waste should be strongly supported by their characterization from the viewpoint of economic and environmental concerns.

The present book contains the 11 articles published in the Special Issue "Advances in Delay Differential Equations" of the MDPI journal Mathematics. The papers cover a wide range of topics connected to the theory of differential equations with delay. These topics include, among others, the construction of solutions, analytical and numerical methods for; dynamical properties of; and applications of DDE to the mathematical modeling of various phenomena and processes in physics, biology, ecology, and medicine.It is hoped that the book will be interesting and useful for those working in the area of differential equations with delays and nonlinear dynamics, as well as for those with the proper mathematical background who are willing to become familiar with recent advances in mathematical modelling, which have now entered almost all areas of science.

This reprint gathers the literature regarding diverse disciplines within the context of contemporary urban planning and land use in different regions to address global challenges in sustainable urban development.

This special Issue aimed to collect the latest original research and reviews on the fundamentals and applications of any functional multiphase flow in microfluidics. There were 24 papers submitted to this Special Issue, and 15 papers were accepted. They address numerous topics, mainly on the motion characteristics of particles with different scales and shapes.

The aim of this Special Issue is to highlight the most recent advancements in the field of materials science, showcasing novel techniques that can be used in a variety of applications, including medical and civil engineering. This collection of research articles was edited by Assoc. Prof. Andrei Victor Sandu from the Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of läi, Romania.

The Special Issue "Laser Technologies in Metal-Based Materials" offers a harmonious presentation of the recent achievements in the field of laser-induced physical and chemical phenomena that have evolved into laser techniques to produce diverse functional metal materials and structures. The presented results provide new ideas for researchers, and new solutions for science-consuming manufacturing and industry.

The increasing partial pressure of atmospheric CO2 (pCO2) is reducing surface ocean pH, a process known as ocean acidification (OA) This results in a reduced saturation of the seawater with respect to the CaCO3 polymorphs aragonite, high-Mg calcite, and low-Mg calcite that are involved in the biological formation of calcareous skeletons and shells. The effect of OA on calcium carbonate precipitation and the subsequent dissolution in carbonate depositional systems, such as coral reefs, is a hotly debated topic. While early studies suggested that certain carbonate-secreting organism groups may be strongly affected by OA or may even become extinct, others observed highly variable, species-specific responses to OA, whereby some taxa are negatively affected, some are positively affected, and others are unaffected.The collection of articles presented in this Special Issue presents ongoing research into the effects of OA on calcareous biomineralization while introducing some new questions and provocative hypotheses. The continued investigation of these concepts should advance our understanding of the mechanisms of biocalcification and improve predictions of how future CO2-induced changes in marine and freshwater systems will impact calcifying organisms, as well as the ecosystems they comprise, in the decades and centuries ahead.

This book focuses on both advanced metals and their alloys and the areas of physical and process metallurgy, materials science, and processing techniques. Specific areas of interest also include titanium/nickel-based superalloys, intermetallics, advanced metallic materials, nanomaterials, metal matrix composites, functional materials, related synthesis and processing techniques, finite element modelling, statistical analysis, physical/mechanical property characterization, experimental validation, and other relevant phenomena. Physical metallurgy is important in the design and optimization of advanced materials with superior physical and mechanical properties through microstructural modifications and processing techniques. The goal of this Special Issue is to bring together recent progress, novel technologies, and advanced equipment for the design and development of advanced metals and alloys and provide guidelines/benchmarks for further research in related areas. Composites, intermetallics, and nanomaterials as well as functional materials will be also included. Some of the recent advances in the field of advanced metals and alloys include novel material processing techniques, manufacturing methods and theories, microstructural characterization, modelling development, and advanced equipment. Conventional and nonconventional processes related to machining, forming, laser processing, additive/subtractive manufacturing, surface modification, and the solidification of high-performance alloys/metals are also included.

This book focuses on the complexity of the European Union food systems and their progress in achieving Farm to Forks' and European Green Deal strategies' goals. Nowadays, the sustainability of food systems' issue is a crucial driver for the mitigation and adaptation climate change actions and for the reduction of environmental degradation. The presented research, analyzing different strategies and tools, has provided updated solutions for several agri-food sectors and geographical areas.

The present book contains the 20 articles accepted and published in the Special Issue "Computational Methods and Applications for Numerical Analysis" of the MDPI "Mathematics" journal, which surround the theory, algorithms, programming, software, numerical simulation, and/or novel applications of computational methods to solve problems in engineering, science, and other disciplines related to computations. These topics include finite element methods, finite difference methods, meshless/meshfree methods, physics-informed neural networks, interpolation, approximation, optimization, numerical methods for ordinary/partial differential equations, etc. Their applications include crack propagation, acoustic analysis, elastodynamic analysis, free vibration analysis, structure and topology optimization, fractional equations, eigenvalue problems, inverse problems, etc.Numerical analysis is an increasingly important link between pure mathematics and its application in science and technology. It is hoped that the book will be interesting and useful for those working in the area of numerical analysis, as well as for those with a proper mathematical background and willing to become familiar with novel applications of computational techniques, which have rapidly developed nowadays.

This Special Issue of Buildings, entitled "Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management," serves as a platform to showcase cutting-edge international research and development in this important field. The issue aims to explore the interplay between tradition and innovation in construction project management and identify new research studies and practices that harness the potential of digital technologies and drive sustainable development across the sector. This Special Issue comprises 22 publications, consisting of 20 research articles and two review articles. With contributions from 101 co-authors representing 11 countries, this issue offers a global perspective on tradition and innovation in construction project management. We have identified five overarching topic groups: technology, management, outcome, product, and urban cities. This classification aids in organizing the papers and highlighting the main themes explored in this Special Issue.

The ninth national conference on applied geochemistry in China will be held in Chengdu, hosted by the committee of applied geochemistry, Chinese Society for Mineralogy, Petrology and Geochemistry (CSMPG). In order to facilitate the academic exchange on applied geochemistry, this Special Issue is intended for the presentation of new advances and case illustrations in the field of applied geochemistry. The guest editors of this Special Issue are Dr. Gong, a professor from China University of Geosciences (Beijing), and Dr. Shi, a professor from the Chengdu University of Technology. This Special Issue was opened on 27 June 2022 and closed on 1 July 2023. A total 14 scientific papers have been published that capture various hot and challenging issues in applied geochemistry. These articles belong to three broad groups: (i) new advances and case illustrations in resource exploration which focus on exploration techniques in covered areas and anomaly determinations of geochemical survey data; (ii) new advances and case illustrations in environment assessment which focus on heavy metals of soils, soil nutrients assessment and geochemical survey of a top geoherb; and (iii) new advances in the basic theory of geochemistry such as elemental abundances of moon samples, equation of state of fluid mixtures, the formation's dynamic mechanism of a dendrite, provenance indices of geological materials, etc. In which, a promising concept, geochemical gene, was introduced and illustrated in tracing soils and determining geochemical anomalies.

In recent years, peptides generated from various marine organisms have attracted wide attention due to their diverse chemical structures and bioactivities, including antioxidant, immune-modulating, angiotensin-I-converting enzyme (ACE)-inhibitory, hypotensive, hypolipidemic, antiviral, cytotoxic, neurotoxic, anticoagulant, antifreeze, etc. Moreover, bioactive peptides can serve as additional functional components used in health foods, nutraceuticals, bio-preservatives, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.The Special Issue on "Marine Bioactive Peptides-Structure, Function, and Application" aimed to collect papers on up-to-date information regarding the preparation, structural identification, activity and functional evaluation, and application of marine bioactive peptides.

Understanding the interconnection between energy, the environment, and the economy is critical in contemporary society. The relationship between energy consumption, economic growth, and the environment has garnered significant attention from researchers and policymakers alike, and understanding the underlying causal connection between energy and the economy is crucial for modeling effective environmental and growth policies. Moreover, the emergence of new energy and environmental policies would create a plethora of further research opportunities in this evolving climate regime. For instance, several countries prioritize projects focused on energy efficiency, as they are considered low-risk, no-regret options that may yield economic benefits. In a nutshell, this Special Issue aims to address a gap in the existing literature by providing an in-depth analysis of the interplay between energy, the environment, and the economy, emphasizing the exploration of the potential environmental impacts of energy consumption and economic growth.

Archaeology, geography, and the Earth sciences are an integrated field devoted to researching nature, the environment, humanity, and the social sciences. Remote sensing systems have been widely applied for data acquisition at various spatial scales. Innovations in image and signal processing, IoT, big data, and deep learning models induce new potentials in the reconstruction and exploration of ancient people's material culture and lives. This Special Issue focuses on applying remote sensing techniques coupled with a data mining method to analyze and discuss humanity-, geography-, and environment-related contexts. The formal integration of archaeology and geography has been conducted over the past twenty or thirty years. In spite of this, continuous innovations, whether in imaging spectroscopy and multimodal imaging or in imaging computing using deep learning models, still motivate scholars to address related issues. The aim of this Special Issue is to compile the latest achievements in the field and to open up a forum where scholars can contribute their unique findings.

This Special issue focuses of the most relevant advances in the field of inborn errors of immunity. Indeed, as immunology is rapidly progressing, with the constant discovery of new disease entities and the better characterization of molecular mechanisms and targeted therapies, a continuous update is mandatory for clinician and researchers. In this Issue, the non-infectious manifestations of inborn errors of immunity (such as autoimmunity, atopy, and lymphoproliferation) are deeply discussed, as well as the impact of the novel genetic sequencing techniques in the diagnostic approach. Moreover, some well-known disorders, including common variable immunodeficiency, are extensively reviewed and revisited in a modern way. Also, diseases of recent description, including some disorders of immune dysregulation and inborn errors of immunity associated with syndromes, are described. Finally, some of the papers of this Special Issue focus in a detailed way the molecular mechanisms leading to immunodeficiency and immune dysregulation, also opening the way for further clinical and preclinical studies.As the expanding availability of immunological and genetic testing offers the opportunity to identify new disease entities and elucidate the function of new genes involved in the development and regulation of the immune response, we aim to present the most relevant innovations in this delicate field.

This Special Issue is a complimentary work of over 70 scholars from various countries, including Poland, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic. The issues analyzed in the 16 articles primarily focus on energy generation in rural areas, particularly in the agricultural sector. They examine specific crops or livestock production and range from case studies of individual countries to the level of the European Union.Published works collectively review the economic and environmental issues of energy generation. These include the potential of agricultural production to serve as a resource for bio-energy generation, the economic and energy efficiency of farms and rural residential housing, and the impact of agricultural production on greenhouse gas emissions. They also explore the possibility for farms to achieve energy self-sufficiency, as well as the progress and gaps in the development of renewable energy generation.

This reprint focuses on recent advancements, technical challenges, and novel design methodologies for the energy manufacturing system, including energy management, green manufacturing, sustainable manufacturing, energy saving in manufacturing systems, the operation and maintenance of power generation, prognostics and health management of power systems, and so on.With the increasing attention paid to sustainable development around the world, improving energy efficiency and applying effective means of energy saving have gradually received worldwide attention. As the largest energy consumers, manufacturing industries also inevitably face pressures on energy optimization evolution from both governments and competitors. The rational optimization of energy consumption in industrial operation activities can significantly improve the sustainability level of an entire company.

The present book contains all of the articles in the second edition of the Special Issue titled "Statistical Data Modeling and Machine Learning with Applications II". This Special Issue belongs to the "Mathematics and Computer Science" Section and aims to publish research on the theory and application of statistical data modeling and machine learning. New mathematical methods and approaches, new algorithms and research frameworks, and their applications aimed at solving diverse and nontrivial practical problems are proposed and developed in this SI. We believe that the chosen papers are attractive and useful to the international scientific community and will contribute to further research in the field of statistical data modeling and machine learning.

Chondrichthyes (sharks, skates, rays, and chimaeras) represent one of the oldest and most ecologically various vertebrate lineages. These predators occupy the top of aquatic food webs and play important functional roles in the control of coastal and oceanic ecosystem structure and function; however, nowadays, overfishing and habitat degradation are altering their populations, leading to a worrisome decline in these species worldwide because of their low resilience due to their K-selected life history strategy (e.g., slow growth, late attainment of sexual maturity, long life spans, and low fecundity). Moreover, data on the stock status of this important resource still remain poor or non-existent, which is due to a problematic taxonomy (e.g., misidentification issues).In these regards, collecting information about these species is essential to formulate conservation strategies to preserve this precious marine resource.In this Special Issue, we aimed to expand the knowledge about these important predators. We have collected data from several parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. The main topics presented in this Special Issue are as follows: abundance and distribution of a single species or more, genetic information using different techniques, life histories (e.g., reproduction, age, and growth), demographic analyses, information about stock assessment, aggregative behaviors, and prey discrimination.