General

Jan Haft zeigt uns den Wald, wie wir ihn noch nicht gesehen haben - Ein neuer Blick des Autors von 'Die Wiese' auf das Ökosystem Wald - Mit zahlreichen farbigen Abbildungen des AutorsLeuchtende Pilzmücken, dunkle Bienen, Spechte mit überraschenden Entdeckerfähigkeiten und Schmetterlinge, die Wölfen hinterherfliegen: Unsere Wälder sind voll prallem Leben, mehr als wir auf den ersten Blick wahrnehmen - und doch sind sie zugleich meist eintöniger, als sie es sein müssten. Dabei ist die Artenvielfalt oft besonders gering in Wäldern, die nicht genutzt und sich selbst überlassen werden.Anschaulich beschreibt der Biologe und Naturfilmer Jan Haft, der mehrere Filme über den Wald gedreht hat, das faszinierende Netzwerk des Lebens im Wald und legt dar, welche der bei uns vorkommenden Waldarten dieses Netzwerk am stabilsten halten: Mittelwälder etwa oder die beinahe vergessenen Weidewälder, die eines gemeinsam haben - sie sind licht und artenreich.Mit vielen eindrucksvollen Fotografien und Tipps für WaldbesucheAusstattung: mit farbigen Abbildungen

This book discusses state-of-the-art techniques for ecosystem service valuation of forests, rivers, wetlands, lakes and coastal ecosystems, for their sustainable development and management. An ecosystem service valuation can be used to address environmental degradation of natural resources. Numerous natural and man-made factors like climate change, pollution, encroachment, and over-exploitation, have put ecosystems under threat worldwide. These ecosystems provide a lot of services to human beings but many of these services are not taken into account in the market prices for products and services, and their ecological functions are not economically valued. The valuation of these ecosystems' services will help to shed light on their sustainable management. This book offers a fresh and innovative resource that captures the latest advancements, addresses emerging challenges, and propels the field forward, making it a must-have for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. This book is also useful for stakeholders to achieve United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals 6 (Sustainability of water resources) and 13 (Climate action).The most relevant target audiences are hydrologists, hydrogeologists, environmental scientists, ecologists, biologists, and academicians. This book can be useful to post-graduate students, researchers, academicians, policy makers, NGOs in these fields. It also appeals to professionals in the fields of urban planning, agriculture, forestry, water resources management and environmental policy.

Individual-based models (IBM) describe a population as a collection of different organisms whose local interactions determine the behaviour of the entire population. The individual description is convenient for computer simulations and the determination of various model parameters, and appropriate limit passages lead to the transport equations used in classical population dynamics models. The aim of this book is to provide a brief mathematical introduction to IBMs and their application to selected biological topics. The book is divided into seven chapters. In the first chapter we give a general description of IBMs and we present examples of models to illustrate their possible applications. Examples of applications include age, size and phenotype models, coagulation-fragmentation process, and models of genome evolution. The second chapter contains some theoretical results concerning limit passages from IBMs to phenotype and age-structured models. The rate of this convergence formulated as functional central limit theorems is presented in Chapter 3. As a result of the limit passage can be a superprocess, i.e., a stochastic process with values in a space of measures. Chapter 4 presented examples of such passages: from the branching Brownian motion to the Dawson--Watanabe superprocess and from the Moran's model of genetic drift with mutations to the Fleming--Viot superprocess. The next three chapters are devoted to models, in which we directly participated in the study. In Chapter 5 we study IBMs phenotype models and their limit passages. We show that random mating stabilises the distribution of traits, while assortative mating can lead to a polymorphic population. Formation of aggregates of phytoplankton and their movement is studied in Chapter 6. We present two types of models based on: fragmentation-coagulation processes; and diffusion with chemical signals leading to advanced superprocesses. Chapter 7 is devoted to rather advanced models with chemotaxis used to description of retinal angiogenesis and cell proliferations. The book is complemented by two appendices in which we have collected information about stochastic processes and various spaces we have used. The book is dedicated both to mathematicians and biologists. The first group will find here new biological models which leads to interesting and often new mathematical questions. Biologists can observe how to include seemingly different biological processes into a unified mathematical theory and deduce from this theory interesting biological conclusions. Apart from the sections on superprocesses, where quite advanced mathematical issues arise, such as stochastic partial equations, we try to keep the required mathematical and biological background to a minimum so that the topics are accessible to students.

This book is the first comprehensive compilation of research on state¿of¿the-art genomics on the most advanced model tree species including genome assemblies, insights into genomic structural features and methylation patterns, whole¿genome resources used for population genomics and adaptation to climate, enabled breeding vs. classical genetics and traditional breeding, comparative genomics, and elucidations on functional genomics. The latest developments in the genomics of wood formation are particularly highlighted. Altogether, the book contains over 300 pages in over 15 chapters authored by globally reputed experts in the relevant fields of this tree crop's genomics research. This book is useful for students, teachers, and scientists in academia and governmental or private tree improvement agencies or companies interested in genetics, pathology, entomology, physiology, molecular genetics and breeding, in vitro culture and genetic engineering, land restoration, and agroforestry solutions.

This volume is focused on a wide range of topics, including adaptive optic components and tools, wavefront sensing, different control algorithms, astronomy, and propagation through turbulent and turbid media.

This book highlights the latest findings and techniques related to nutrition and feed efficiency in animal agriculture. It addresses the key challenges facing the nutrition industry to achieve high animal productivity with minimal environmental impact. The concept of smart nutrition involves the use of smart technologies in the feeding and management of livestock.The first chapters focus on advances in biological fields such as molecular agriculture and genotype selection, as well as technologies that enhance or enable the collection of relevant information. The next section highlights applications of smart nutrition in a variety of livestock systems, ranging from intensive indoor housing of broilers and pigs to extensive outdoor housing of cattle and sheep, and marine fish farms. Finally, because of the worldwide attention to this issue, the authors address the environmental consequences.This work, which takes a serious look at how nutrition can be usedto improve sustainability in animal agriculture, is a key literature for readers in animal and veterinary sciences, the food industry, sustainability research, and agricultural engineering.

This volume contains up-to-date contributions written by leading experts in the role played by various microorganisms in psychiatric and neurological illness. The initial chapters present an evolutionary framework for the impact of microorganisms on behavior. This is followed by historical and epidemiological perspectives of the role of viruses in psychiatric illness. Subsequent chapters focus on different classes of microorganisms and psychiatric illnesses and emphasize diverse research approaches ranging from preclinical models to therapeutic interventions.

This highly-readable Open Access textbook provides basic background information about marine mammals and anthropogenic impacts on them. The book includes inspiring exercises for education school programs in natural sciences. The book also provides advice on career paths using case studies of marine scientists and veterinarians describing their journeys from student to profession. By sharing real-life career paths, readers find answers to questions such as "What needs to be considered when choosing a career in science?" and "What kind of tasks do scientists undertake on a daily basis?"Marine mammals are amongst some of the most celebrated creatures on Earth, with their high intelligence, social and communicating skills, and capacity for deep diving. Alongside general information about marine mammals, the book aims at generating awareness of the impact of litter and noise pollution on the marine environment using marine mammals as an example. Huge numbers of marine animals, including marine mammals, die every year from entanglement in fishing gear, by ingestion of litter or because of chemical pollution. In the last decade many technological and scientific tools have been developed to aid research, for instance miniaturised sound recorders which can be attached to cetaceans and seals and record noise levels around them, their vocal production as well as their diving behaviour. This Open Access textbook can be used by undergraduate students interested in the fundamentals of marine mammal biology and medicine, and in pursuing the profession of a marine scientist.

Part Background. Fatigue a phenomenon of modern age? On the history of fatigue.- Definitions, Epidemiology and etiological factors.- Pathophysiology and differentiation to other symptoms and diseases.- Immunopathology and pathogenesis.- Part Clinic. Motor fatigue and fatigability in MS.- Cognitive fatigue.- Personality factors and motivation.- Fatigue and depression.- Sleep-wake disorders.- Part Diagnostics. Clinical assessment instruments of fatigue.- Imaging methods and fatigue.- Electrophysiology and fatigue.- Expert opinion and sociomedical evaluation.- Part Therapy. Disease modifying drugs and fatigue.- Symptomatic pharmacotherapy and fatigue.- Non-pharmacological treatment and neurorehabilitation.

This book, now in its fourth edition, is a well-known classic on the ultrafast nonlinear and linear processes responsible for supercontinuum generation. The book begins with chapters reviewing the experimental and theoretical understanding of the field along with key applications developed since the discovery of the supercontinuum effect. The chapters that follow cover recent research activity on supercontinuum phenomena, novel applications, and advances achieved since the publication of the previous edition. The new chapters focus on: filamentation in gases, air, and condensed media; conical emission by four-wave mixing and X-waves; electronic self-phase mechanism; higher harmonics generation; attosecond laser pulses; complex vector beam supercontinuum; higher order self-phase modulation and cross-phase modulation; nonlinear supercontinuum interference in uniaxial crystals; new nonlinear microscopes involving supercontinuum and ultrafast lasers with biomedical applications; and other current supercontinuum applications in communications.The Supercontinuum Laser Source is a definitive work by one of the discoverers of the white light effect. It is indispensable reading for any researcher or student working in the field of ultrafast laser physics.Chapter 6 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book is a revised version of the PhD dissertation written by the author to receive her PhD from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. The work deals with one of the central objectives of the European Research Council project "Data-Driven Genomic Computing", i.e., building an integrated repository for genomic data. It reflects the research adventure that starts from modeling biological data, goes through the challenges of integrating complex data and their describing metadata and finally builds tools for searching the data empowered by a semantic layer. The results of this thesis are part of a broad vision: the availability of conceptual models, related databases, and search systems for both humans and viruses genomics will provide important opportunities for research, especially if virus data will be connected to its host, the human being, who is the provider of genomic and phenotype information.In 2023, the PhD dissertation won the CAiSE PhD Award, granted to outstanding PhD theses in the field of information systems engineering.

This book gives a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in both theory and practical implementation of plasmonic probes. Encompassing multiple disciplines, the field of plasmonics provides a versatile and flexible platform for nanoscale sensing and imaging. Despite being a relatively young field, plasmonic probes have come a long way, with applications in chemical, biological, civil, and architectural fields as well as enabling many analytical schemes such as immunoassay, biomarkers, environmental indexing, and water quality sensing, to name but a few. The objective of the book is to present in-depth analysis of the theory and applications of novel probes based on plasmonics, with a broad selection of specially-invited chapters on the development, fabrication, functionalization, and implementation of plasmonic probes as well as their integration with current technologies and future outlook. This book is designed to cater to the needs of novice, seasoned researchers and practitioners in academia and industry, as well as medical and environmental fields.

This book is a collection of comprehensive and latest information on all aspects of vaccination in fish and shellfish. It provides the basic understanding about the immune system of both fish and crustaceans, besides giving the latest information on adjuvants, vaccine delivery methods, adverse effects of vaccines and methods to assess the efficacy of vaccines. Separate chapters on the role of pattern recognition receptors and interferons in fish vaccination, biofilm vaccines and biosafety and regulatory requirements for fish vaccines are also included. Aquaculture, being the fastest growing food producing industry in the world, is looked upon for alleviating the malnutrition especially among the under privileged population. However, intensive aquaculture practices have led to increased incidences of diseases and significant production losses. Among various health management measures employed in aquaculture, vaccination has been proven to be the best approach to protect fish against pathogens. It is considered to be safe and is a key factor for sustainable aquaculture. In this background, apart from the basic understanding of fish and shellfish immune system, updated knowledge on various types of vaccines and the vaccination strategies currently employed in aquaculture are also covered. The book is designed to provide the latest and comprehensive knowledge on all these aspects as a compiled resource material which is useful to students, researchers and other professionals in the field of aquaculture.

This book presents the applications of systems biology and synthetic biology in cancer medicine. It highlights the use of computational and mathematical models to decipher the complexity of cancer heterogeneity. The book emphasizes the modeling approaches for predicting behavior of cancer cells, tissues in context of drug response, and angiogenesis. It introduces cell-based therapies for the treatment of various cancers and reviews the role of neural networks for drug response prediction. Further, it examines the system biology approaches for the identification of medicinal plants in cancer drug discovery. It explores the opportunities for metabolic engineering in the realm of cancer research towards development of new cancer therapies based on metabolically derived targets. Lastly, it discusses the applications of data mining techniques in cancer research. This book is an excellent guide for oncologists and researchers who are involved in the latest cancer research.

This book describes the shape formation of living organisms using mathematical models. Genes are deeply related to the shape of living organisms, and elucidation of a pathway of shape formation from genes is one of the fundamental problems in biology. Mathematical cell models are indispensable tools to elucidate this problem. The book introduces two mathematical cell models, the cell center model and the vertex model, with their applications. The cell center model is applied to elucidate the formation of neat cell arrangements in epidermis, cell patterns consisting of heterogeneous-sized cells, capillary networks, and the branching patterns of blood vessels. The vertex model is applied to elucidate the wound healing mechanisms of the epithelium and ordered pattern formation involving apoptosis. Pattern formation with differential cell adhesion is also described. The vertex model is then extended from a two-dimensional (2D) to a three-dimensional (3D) model. A cell aggregate involving a large cavity is described to explain the development of the mammalian blastocyst or the formation of an epithelial vesicle. Epithelial tissues and the polarity formation process of the epithelium are also explained. The vertex model also recapitulates active remodeling of tissues and describes the twisting of tissue that contributes to understanding the cardiac loop formation of the embryonic tube. The book showcases that mathematical cell models are indispensable tools to understand the shape formation of living organisms. Successful contribution of the mathematical cell models means that the remodeling of collective cells is self-construction. Examining the successive iterations of self-constructions leads to understanding the remarkable and mysterious morphogenesis that occurs during the development of living organisms. The intended readers of this book are not only theoretical or mathematical biologists, but also experimental andgeneral biologists, including undergraduate and postgraduate students who are interested in the relationship between genes and morphogenesis.

Stephen Hawking says that the 21st century will be the century of complexity and indeed now systems biology or medicine means dealing with complexity. Both the genome and physiome have emerged in studying complex physiological systems. Computational and mathematical modeling has been regarded as an efficient tool to boost the understanding about living systems in normal or pathophysiological states.Covering applied methodology, basic case studies and complex applications, this volume provides researchers with an overview of modeling and computational studies of physiology (i.e. quantitative physiology), which is becoming an increasingly important branch of systems biology.This book aims to build multi-scale models to investigate functions in living systems and explain how biomolecules, cells, organs, organ systems and organisms carry out the chemical or physical functions. Some of the models addressed are related to gene expression, calcium signalling, neural activity,blood dynamics and bone mechanics.Combining theory and practice, with extensive use of MATLAB, this book is designed to establish a paradigm for quantitative physiology by integrating biology, mathematics, physics and informatics etc. To benefit from this book, the readers are expected to have a background in general physiology and mathematics

This second edition focuses on the study of human interphase chromosomes and its relation to health and disease. Orchestrated organization and behavior of the human genome in interphase nuclei at chromosomal level has been repeatedly shown to play a significant role in almost all basic biological processes involved in the processing and inheritance of genetic information within and between species. Accordingly, post-genomic bioscience appeals to basic and applied studies of interphase nuclei genetics and genomics with special attention to interphase chromosome behavior in health and disease. Additionally, elucidating the role of interphase chromosome behavior during development, chromosome/DNA replication, DNA reparation opens new horizons for basic and applied bioscience Studies of interphase nuclei have an appreciable impact on different areas of biomedical sciences such as cell biology, neurobiology, cancer research, developmental biology, epigenetics, cytogenetics, and medical genetics, as a whole. Moreover, development of innovative and emergent technologies to analyze interphase nuclei are closely associated with application of these techniques in diagnostic and research practices to solve reproductive problems (including infertility and spontaneous abortions), to investigate congenital malformations (including those produced by aneuploidy and other chromosome abnormalities); genetic diseases (including cardiac, immune, neurological and psychiatric diseases), and cancer. This second edition serves as a source of updated valuable information and promising ideas for a wide audience of professionals in biomedicine including researchers, scientists, and healthcare professionals in human genetics, cytogenetics, and developmental biology.