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Books in Life sciences

  • Inoculating Cities

    Case Studies of Urban Pandemic Preparedness
    • 1st Edition
    • Rebecca Katz + 1 more
    • English
    Inoculating Cities: Case Studies of Urban Pandemic Preparedness begins with a brief historical description of infectious disease outbreaks in cities as well as an overview of infectious disease outbreaks since 2000 that hold profound implications for cities and urban environments – such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, H1N1 influenza in 2009, Ebola virus in 2014, Zika virus in 2015, and more recently, COVID-19 in 2020. Each of these outbreaks affected different geographies of the world and underscored the importance of urban pandemic preparedness or urban health security as a means of mitigating the threats posed by infectious diseases. This book describes several of the characteristics of cities that make them uniquely vulnerable to infectious disease threats which include, but are not limited to, their population density, population diversity, internal and external population movements, and inequalities in cities. Finally, the book discusses frameworks and capacities that are essential for preparing cities to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks. With contributions from experts and researchers with first-hand experiences with infectious disease outbreaks, their impact on the management of disease, and pandemic preparedness in progressively urban societies, Inoculating Cities addresses the unique threats infectious diseases pose to urban environments and surveys innovative models that cities are using to combat these threats.
  • Biomedical Signal Analysis for Connected Healthcare

    • 1st Edition
    • Sridhar Krishnan
    • English
    Biomedical Signal Analysis for Connected Healthcare provides rigorous coverage on several generations of techniques, including time domain approaches for event detection, spectral analysis for interpretation of clinical events of interest, time-varying signal processing for understanding dynamical aspects of complex biomedical systems, the application of machine learning principles in enhanced clinical decision-making, the application of sparse techniques and compressive sensing in providing low-power applications that are essential for wearable designs, the emerging paradigms of the Internet of Things, and connected healthcare.
  • Biostimulants for Crops from Seed Germination to Plant Development

    A Practical Approach
    • 1st Edition
    • Shubhpriya Gupta + 1 more
    • English
    Biostimulants for crops from seed germination to plant development focuses on the effects and roles of natural biostimulants in every aspect of plant growth development to reduce the use of harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Biostimulants are a group of substances of natural origin that offer a potential to reduce the dependency on harmful chemical fertilizers causing environmental degradation. While there is extensive literature on biostimulants, there remains a gap in understanding how natural biostimulants work and their practical application. This book fills that gap, presenting the ways in which biostimulants enhance seed vigor and plant productivity by looking into their mode of action, an area still being researched for deeper understanding. Exploring the roles of seed germination, pollen tube formation, pollen-pistil interaction, flower and fruit setting, to plant pigments, rhizospheric and soil microorganisms, the book also sheds light on the challenges and realistic opportunities for the use of natural biostimulants.
  • Successes and Challenges of NK Immunotherapy

    Breaking Tolerance to Cancer Resistance
    • 1st Edition
    • Benjamin Bonavida + 1 more
    • English
    Successes and Challenges of NK Immunotherapy: Increasing Anti-tumor Efficacy describes the unique therapeutic applications of NK cells to fight cancers and eliminate the bulk and subset of cancer stem cells responsible for metastasis, relapse and recurrences. The book provides information on the development, engineering, mechanisms of action, response to various preclinical models, and applications in various clinical trials. Sections cover the development of highly engineered cytotoxic NK cells, their mechanisms of action, preclinical and clinical applications, the development and application of CAR-NK cells, and new NK-drug conjugates, also emphasizing that activated NK cells can target and kill highly resistant cancer stem cells. Written by the leading experts on NK immunotherapy worldwide, this is a valuable resource for researchers, clinicians and members of the biomedical field who are interested in understanding novel and efficient therapies to fight cancers.
  • Curing Genetic Diseases through Genome Reprogramming

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 182
    • English
    Curing Genetic Diseases through Genome Reprogramming, Volume 182 captures an historic moment in the field of gene therapy—the dawn of a new age in which the dream of curing genetic diseases has become realizable. The volume presents the most clinically advanced gene therapy and genome editing approaches for the treatment of genetic diseases in specific organs, including difficult therapeutic targets, futuristic ideas of genetic interventions, and large scale human genome repair. An initial chapter addresses the complex ethical aspects involved in the very idea of modifying the human genome.
  • Advanced Drug Delivery Systems in the Management of Cancer

    • 1st Edition
    • Kamal Dua + 5 more
    • English
    Advanced Drug Delivery Systems in the Management of Cancer discusses recent developments in nanomedicine and nano-based drug delivery systems used in the treatment of cancers affecting the blood, lungs, brain, and kidneys. The research presented in this book includes international collaborations in the area of novel drug delivery for the treatment of cancer. Cancer therapy remains one of the greatest challenges in modern medicine, as successful treatment requires the elimination of malignant cells that are closely related to normal cells within the body. Advanced drug delivery systems are carriers for a wide range of pharmacotherapies used in many applications, including cancer treatment. The use of such carrier systems in cancer treatment is growing rapidly as they help overcome the limitations associated with conventional drug delivery systems. Some of the conventional limitations that these advanced drug delivery systems help overcome include nonspecific targeting, systemic toxicity, poor oral bioavailability, reduced efficacy, and low therapeutic index. This book begins with a brief introduction to cancer biology. This is followed by an overview of the current landscape in pharmacotherapy for the cancer management. The need for advanced drug delivery systems in oncology and cancer treatment is established, and the systems that can be used for several specific cancers are discussed. Several chapters of the book are devoted to discussing the latest technologies and advances in nanotechnology. These include practical solutions on how to design a more effective nanocarrier for the drugs used in cancer therapeutics. Each chapter is written with the goal of informing readers about the latest advancements in drug delivery system technologies while reinforcing understanding through various detailed tables, figures, and illustrations. Advanced Drug Delivery Systems in the Management of Cancer is a valuable resource for anyone working in the fields of cancer biology and drug delivery, whether in academia, research, or industry. The book will be especially useful for researchers in drug formulation and drug delivery as well as for biological and translational researchers working in the field of cancer.
  • Polymeric Supports for Enzyme Immobilization

    Opportunities and Applications
    • 1st Edition
    • Alka Dwevedi
    • English
    Enzyme immobilization has been approached for finding solutions for various critical problems associated with industries, medicine, environment, agriculture, etc. Especially since last decades, several innovative researches have come up to look for enhancing catalytic efficiency, reusability of immobilized enzyme and longer stability by introducing range of immobilizing supports, supports modifiers through introduction of several chemical agents (non-toxic) and adopting innovative enzyme immobilization methods. In the present book, polymeric supports have been focussed for enzyme immobilization, especially due to their versatility in immobilizing different enzymes for different large scale enzyme reactors to be used for several applications. Especially, polymers can be modified according to applications and enzyme properties which have made it supports of choice for all several enzyme based applications. Polymeric Supports for Enzyme Immobilization: Opportunities and Applications offers in-depth discussions of known polymeric enzyme support materials, reaction processes, and optimized methods to enhance enzyme immobilization. Case-based chapters examine methods of enzyme immobilization onto various polymeric supports, their surface chemistry and physical morphology followed by implementation of polymers based immobilized enzymes in various applications, viz. medicine, environment, industries, clean energy, disease diagnosis, drug delivery etc. This book has prime focus to allow several researchers across the world to provide updated technological details and incite to contribute more innovative work in coming years to find solutions to several critical problems.
  • Non-invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) in Neurodevelopmental Disorders

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 264
    • English
    Non-invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Volume 264 presents the latest updates on recent techniques used to examine the potential treatment of psychiatric and neurological disorders in adults. In this special issue, the book's authors and contributors provide a unique focus on the potential effects of non-invasive brain stimulation. Topics cover a range of reviews, opinions, methodologies, original research articles, and suggestions on how to better translate scientific knowledge into practice. This new release will help guide basic research and the development of therapeutic interventions for children and adolescents who suffer from neurodevelopmental disorders.
  • Generative Adversarial Networks for Image-to-Image Translation

    • 1st Edition
    • Arun Solanki + 2 more
    • English
    Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) have started a revolution in Deep Learning, and today GAN is one of the most researched topics in Artificial Intelligence. Generative Adversarial Networks for Image-to-Image Translation provides a comprehensive overview of the GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) concept starting from the original GAN network to various GAN-based systems such as Deep Convolutional GANs (DCGANs), Conditional GANs (cGANs), StackGAN, Wasserstein GANs (WGAN), cyclical GANs, and many more. The book also provides readers with detailed real-world applications and common projects built using the GAN system with respective Python code. A typical GAN system consists of two neural networks, i.e., generator and discriminator. Both of these networks contest with each other, similar to game theory. The generator is responsible for generating quality images that should resemble ground truth, and the discriminator is accountable for identifying whether the generated image is a real image or a fake image generated by the generator. Being one of the unsupervised learning-based architectures, GAN is a preferred method in cases where labeled data is not available. GAN can generate high-quality images, images of human faces developed from several sketches, convert images from one domain to another, enhance images, combine an image with the style of another image, change the appearance of a human face image to show the effects in the progression of aging, generate images from text, and many more applications. GAN is helpful in generating output very close to the output generated by humans in a fraction of second, and it can efficiently produce high-quality music, speech, and images.
  • The Inductive Brain in Development and Evolution

    • 1st Edition
    • Nelson R Cabej
    • English
    The Inductive Brain in Development and Evolution provides readers with a substantial biological education on animal nervous systems and their role in the development, adaptation, homeostasis, and evolution of species. The book begins by delving into the embryonic development of the brain and then discusses epigenetic information and neural activity post-birth. It then analyzes the inductive brain’s neural and brain control of such factors like myogenesis, bone development, sensory organs, metamorphosis in vertebrates and invertebrates, and wing development in insects. The book closes with an examination of phenotypic evolution in neural control, mechanisms, and drivers of animal brains. The Inductive Brain in Development and Evolution will offer evolutionary biologists, specifically those researching development, adaptation, and evolution of animals, a comprehensive text that covers a variety of valuable topics.