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Books in Agricultural and biological sciences

The Agricultural and Biological Sciences collection advances science-based knowledge for the improvement of animal and plant life and for secure food systems that produce nutritious, novel, sustainable foods with minimal environmental impact. Food Science titles include not only those products from agriculture but all other aspects from food production to nutrition, health and safety, chemistry to security, policy, law and regulation. Biological Sciences address animal behaviour and biodiversity, organismal and evolutionary biology, entomology, marine biology and aquaculture, plant science and forestry.

  • Cycling of Mineral Nutrients in Agricultural Ecosystems

    • 1st Edition
    • M Frissel
    • English
    Cycling of Mineral Nutrients in Agricultural Ecosystems contains the papers presented in the first international environmental symposium of the Royal Netherlands Land Development Society held at Amsterdam on 1976. The symposium is cosponsored by the International Association for Ecology and Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company. This compilation reflects the exchange of information and ideas by specialists and participants of the symposium. The book is comprised of nine chapters, which cover the following concepts of nutrient cycling in agricultural ecosystems: principles and control of nutrient cycling; description and classification of agro-ecosystems; nutrient cycling data from different countries; and general discussion on nutrient balances, changes in soil pools, manipulations, and future researches. This book also offers potential background and perspectives for further studies on nutrient cycling in agro-ecosystems, presenting a view on what directions future research should take. This volume will be an invaluable reference source for environmental science students and professionals. Research workers in agriculture and other environmental disciplines will also find this book useful.

  • Biological Transmission of Disease Agents

    • 1st Edition
    • Karl Maramorosch
    • English
    Biological Transmission of Disease Agents covers the proceedings of a 1960 symposium on Biological Transmission of Disease Agents, held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This book discusses methods, approaches, and problems that contribute to the progress in basic and applied research in biological transmission. This compilation is organized into two major parts encompassing 13 chapters that cover agents of plant, animal, and human diseases. The first part of the book deals with the status and significant advances of plant viruses, and the mechanical and non-mechanical transmissions and nematode vectors of these viruses. The second part starts with a discussion on viral agents known to be mosquito-borne, their importance in animal and human disease causation, as well as the several types of biological cycles involved in their transmission. The following chapters describe groups of diseases caused by transmission of sandflies, tabanids, Tsetse-borne insects, mites, ticks, and helminths. The concluding chapter presents ways of suppressing the vectors that cause diseases, such as malaria, typhus, filariasis, dysentery, trypanosomiasis, and dengue. The book appeals to students of entomology, plant pathology, human and veterinary medicine, virology, zoology, microbiology, and other branches of biology.

  • Application of Mutation Breeding Methods in the Improvement of vegetatively propagated crops V2

    • 1st Edition
    • C. Broertjes
    • English
    Application of Mutation Breeding Methods in the Improvement of Vegetatively Propagated Crops: An Interpretive Literature Review summarizes advances in the use of artificially induced mutations to improve cultivated plants, particularly those that are vegetatively propagated. It brings together all available and accessible references that examine the advantages, drawbacks, and possibilities of the mutation breeding method, as well as the challenges that prevent it from being applied to various crops. Comprised of eight chapters, this volume begins with an overview of various aspects of mutagenic treatment using chemical and physical mutagens. It then discusses the structure and functioning of shoot apices and their behavior after irradiation; adventitious bud techniques and other in vivo or in vitro methods of asexual propagation; and breeding of root and tuber crops, such as cassava and potato, ornamental crops such as foliage plants and cut flowers, fruit crops, and other crops. Plant breeders who want to better understand how to apply mutation breeding to their crops will find this book extremely helpful.

  • Natural Cell-Mediated Immunity Against Tumors

    • 1st Edition
    • Ronald Herberman
    • English
    Natural Cell-Mediated Immunity Against Tumors aims to be the first book to provide a comprehensive discussion on natural cell-mediated immunity against tumors. This book is mostly a collection of different research contributed by leading laboratories. It also presents a better perspective of how natural mechanisms fit in with and relate to the traditional and more extensively studied components of the immune system. The book starts off with an overview of the contents of the volume – the historical development of the advances in the field of research and the status of knowledge in the subject area. Divided into four major sections, the book consists of a total of 98 chapters. The sections discuss the natural killer cells and related cells and the natural lymphokine production. This book also explains the natural macrophage and granulocyte cytotoxicity. The book will be a helpful reference for students, professionals, and researchers in biology, immunology, biochemistry, microbiology, and other related fields.

  • Inorganic Nutrition of Plants

    • 1st Edition
    • F.C. Steward
    • English
    Plant Physiology, Volume III: Inorganic Nutrition of Plants deals with the inorganic nutrition and metabolism of plants. The book explores the role of elements, other than carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which are essential to, or used by, plants in their vital processes. It summarizes the knowledge about mineral nutrition of plants and presents a philosophy of plant nutrition in general. This volume is organized into six chapters and begins with a brief history of mineral nutrition of plants, as well as the media from which plants draw their nutrients, such as the soil and artificial culture medium. The book then discusses the requirements for specific elements, the symptoms incurred by their deficient supply, and the evidence that a given element can be considered essential. The next chapters focus on the inorganic nutrition of microorganisms, general functions of the essential nutrient elements, and the biological situations in which elementary nitrogen is converted to the organic form. The book concludes by analyzing the soil as a complex biological system and its implication for the interpretation of the nutrition of higher plants. This book is a valuable resource for those interested in plant nutrition and plant physiology.

  • Microcirculation as Related to Shock

    • 1st Edition
    • David Shepro
    • English
    Microcirculation as Related to Shock contains the proceedings of the 1967 Conference on the Microcirculation as Related to Shock held at Boston University. Contributors address reduced blood flow in the microcirculation and microcirculatory hypoperfusion as the focal point of shock. They also review significant progress in shock research, basic cardiovascular physiology, and cognate interdisciplinary fields. This volume is organized into four sections encompassing 26 chapters and begins with an overview of organs and systems involved in shock, including splanchnic circulation, regulatory mechanisms in shock, and microcirculatory studies in hypotension. The next chapters explore the causative factors that produce the state of low blood flow as found in shock, and whether microcirculatory hypoperfusion in humans can be prevented and treated. The book also discusses whether microcirculatory hypoperfusion can be measured in the patient and concludes with an assessment of promising avenues for further research, emphasizing the measurement of blood viscosity, shear stress, and rheological factors as indices of the degree of hypotension. This book is a valuable source of information for physiologists, biologists, and pathologists, as well as those involved in the medical sciences.

  • Insecticide Mode of Action

    • 1st Edition
    • Joel R. Coats
    • English
    Insecticide Mode of Action presents significant research on the biological activity of insecticides. The book is organized into three sections encompassing 13 chapters that summarize three major groups of insecticides, including neurotoxic, formamidine, and developmental insecticides. The first section of the book presents studies on groups of conventional neurotoxic insecticides: chlorinated hydrocarbons, pyrethroids, carbamates, and organophosphorus chemicals. This text discusses their structure, poisoning property, structure-activity relationships, and stereoselectivity. The subsequent section discusses the biochemical, biological, and neurotoxic actions of formamidines, a group of pesticides that exhibit an unusual spectrum of activity. Several modes of action of pharmacological significance as well as some important behavioral effects are included in this section. The third section addresses groups of insecticides that affect insect growth and development. Such chemicals typically demonstrate marked selectivity and represent more sophisticated strategies in the chemical control of insect pests. This book is of value to researchers, teachers, and regulatory personnel concerned with the biological activity of insecticides.

  • Light Transducing Membranes

    Structure, Function, and Evolution
    • 1st Edition
    • David Deamer
    • English
    Light Transducing Membranes: Structure, Function, and Evolution covers the proceedings of a joint United States-Australia conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 1977. Organized into four parts encompassing 19 chapters, the book focuses on structural, functional, and evolutionary aspects of light energy transduction by membranes. The first part of the book explores the problems of how membrane-related biomolecules could have evolved prior to the origin of life, how amphiphiles might have become organized in lipid bilayer structures, and what mechanisms may have been available for light energy transduction. The mechanisms by which ions, lipids, and proteins interact in membrane systems are described in the next part of the book. Some chapters in the third part of the book cover the analysis of several bacterial membranes as reconstituted, light transducing systems, providing a new tool for investigating basic mechanisms. Relevant aspects of mitochondrial energy transduction are also covered. Finally, the last part presents mechanism analysis by which intact bacteria and chloroplasts interact with light energy, which represent the end product of several billion of years of evolution. Biological evolutionists, biologists, researchers, teachers, and students who are interested in various aspects of light transducing membranes will greatly benefit from this book.

  • Designing Antibodies

    • 1st Edition
    • Ruth Mayforth
    • English
    Designing Antibodies provides a compilation of research in the design of antibodies. It describes the techniques used in antibody design, the kinds of antibodies generated through modern techniques, and their applications in medicine and science. The book begins with an overview of the humoral immune system and of antibody structure, function, and biosynthesis, which sets the stage for the subsequent discussions of developments in antibody technology. The remaining chapters discuss the making of monoclonal antibodies; the design of antibodies for human therapy; the connection of antibodies (either chemically or genetically) to other potentially therapeutic effector molecules such as toxins, enzymes, or even an antibody of another specificity; idiotypes and anti-idiotypic antibodies; and the ability of antibodies to functionally mimic enzymes and mediate catalysis. It is hoped that, in addition to illustrating the progress of research in antibody design, the various creative and innovative approaches reviewed in this book will be modified or will stimulate new ideas that will spur the research and application of designer antibodies.

  • Perspectives on Plant Competition

    • 1st Edition
    • James Grace
    • English
    Perspectives on Plant Competition is mainly about addressing the many different perspectives in plant competition and finding a common ground among them. Its aim is that through this common ground, new theories can be created. Encompassing 20 chapters, this book is divided into three parts. Part I, Perspectives on the Determinants of Competitive Success, consists of eight chapters. This section deals mainly on the question of determination of competitive success. Different writers put forward various definitions of competition and competitive success to shed light on the question at hand. In the second part of this book, an opposing set of views regarding the consequences of competitive interactions for the plant community structure is provided. This section emphasizes the idea that competition is not the sole force in natural communities. Each chapter in this part focuses on a certain aspect of competition as seen in different communities – across and within habitats – and systems. Part III, which comprises of four chapters, focuses on the competition within the context of interaction of plants with organisms on the other trophic levels. The chapters set forth the idea that competition depends on the impacts of herbivores, parasites, and symbionts. The concluding part of the book greatly emphasizes the need to integrate the mechanisms of competition into the framework of the entire food web.

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