Publications
Now showing items 301-360 of 680
Chapter Emerging Photovoltaic Technologies and Eco-Design—Criticisms and Potential Improvements
(2020)
An efficient waste management for emerging photovoltaic (PV) technologies is not mature yet. The problematic aspects along with the possible failure’s identification have a pivotal role in modelling the future end-of-life ...
Chapter Antennas for Space Applications: A Review
(2020)
It is well known that antennas are inevitable for wireless communication systems. After the launch of Sputnik-1 which was the first artificial satellite developed by USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), telecommunication ...
Chapter Tungsten Nanoparticles Produced by Magnetron Sputtering Gas Aggregation: Process Characterization and Particle Properties
(2020)
Tungsten and tungsten nanoparticles are involved in a series of processes, in nanotechnology, metallurgy, and fusion technology. Apart from chemical methods, nanoparticle synthesis by plasma offers advantages as good control ...
Chapter The Impacts of Soil Degradation Effects on Phytodiversity and Vegetation Structure on Atacora Mountain Chain in Benin (West Africa)
(2020)
Atacora mountain is a particular ecosystem of West Africa where soil degradation occurs. The present study assessed the impacts of physical soil degradation on vegetation in the Beninese portion of this mountain chain. ...
Chapter Resilience in Critical Infrastructures: The Role of Modelling and Simulation
(2020)
Resilience and risk are fundamental concepts for critical infrastructure protection, but it is complex to assess them. Modelling critical infrastructure interdependency helps in evaluating the resilience and risk metrics. ...
Chapter Tidal Turbine Generators
(2020)
Recently, tidal stream turbines have become a preferable mode of harvesting tidal energy. The main issue for low utilization of tidal energy is the high levelized cost of energy (LCoE) from tidal stream turbines. A major ...
Chapter Polyimide Films for Digital Isolators
(2020)
Digital isolators provide compelling benefits over legacy opto-couplers in terms of high speed, low power consumption, high reliability, small size, high integration, and ease of use. Billions of digital isolators using ...
Chapter User Experience Results of Setting Free a Service Robot for Older Adults at Home
(2018)
The chapter presents the analysis of user trials where, for the first time, a service robot was set free in the home of users. Different to previous studies there was no pre-specified schedule of tasks to execute. The goal ...
Chapter Geology, Textural Study, Ore Genesis and Processing of the Tabuaço Tungsten Deposit (Northern Portugal)
(2018)
The Tabuaço tungsten deposit (Northern Portugal) is hosted in the Cambrian Douro Group metasediments, at the northern margin of the Beira-Tabuaço granitic complex. The hosting schisto-calcareous Lower Cambrian Bateiras ...
Chapter Nanostructured Pure and Doped Zirconia: Synthesis and Sintering for SOFC and Optical Applications
(2018)
Zirconia is a multifunctional material with potential applications in wide domains. Rare-earth doped zirconia and stabilized zirconia yield interesting properties based on the phase transitions induced by the sintering ...
Chapter A New Method to Reconstruct Recent Tree and Stand Attributes of Temporary Research Plots: New Opportunity to Analyse Mixed Forest Stands
(2018)
In the last decades, studying effects of mixing tree species is increasingly important. In particular, under changing growing conditions and social requirements, investigations on mixed forest compared to mono-specific ...
Chapter Effects of Water Scarcity on the Performances of the Agricultural Sector and Adaptation Strategies in Tunisia
(2019)
The chapter aims to develop a regionally disaggregated agricultural supply model for Tunisia in order to investigate the potential effects of increasing water scarcity on the performances of the agricultural sector in the ...
Chapter Potentials and Challenges of Additive Manufacturing Technologies for Heat Exchanger
(2019)
The rapid development of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies enables a radical paradigm shift in the construction of heat exchangers. In place of a layout limited to the use of planar or tubular starting materials, ...
Chapter Additive Manufacturing Applied to the Design of Small Satellite Structure for Space Debris Reduction
(2019)
Space debris has become a major aspect in the last few years. The vast amount of artificial objects orbiting the Earth is increasing. These objects are a threat for active and future missions. Besides, the possibility of ...
Chapter Introductory Chapter: Why Do We Need Rapid Detection of Pathogens?
(2018)
Biotechnology
Chapter Introductory Chapter: Agricultural Waste as a Source of Raw Materials
(2018)
Agricultural science
Chapter Estimating the Effect of Voters’ Media Awareness on the 2016 US Presidential Election
(2019)
We examine whether voter media awareness of the 2016 US Presidential election campaign influenced the election using a logit model to estimate the probability that a voter with certain characteristics votes for one of the ...
Chapter Machine Learning in Volcanology: A Review
(2020)
A volcano is a complex system, and the characterization of its state at any given time is not an easy task. Monitoring data can be used to estimate the probability of an unrest and/or an eruption episode. These can include ...
Chapter Machine Learning Techniques to Mitigate Nonlinear Phase Noise in Moderate Baud Rate Optical Communication Systems
(2020)
Nonlinear phase noise (NLPN) is the most common impairment that degrades the performance of radio-over-fiber networks. The effect of NLPN in the constellation diagram consists of a shape distortion of symbols that increases ...
Chapter Business Process Linguistic Modeling: Theory and Practice Part I: BPLM Strategy Creator
(2020)
The business activities provided within any firm or company should be checked and controlled continuously, while two principal approaches should be applied: (a) qualitative monitoring, (b) quantitative evaluations, while ...
Chapter Computer Assistance in the Minimally Invasive Ablation Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer
(2020)
The insertion of ablation needles towards pancreatic tumors demands excellent anatomical knowledge and interdisciplinary skills from the medical professional. While the placement of a single needle next to the structures ...
Chapter The Zebrafish Kupffer’s Vesicle: A Special Organ in a Model Organism to Study Human Diseases
(2020)
The Kupffer’s vesicle (KV) is a small, ciliated organ transiently present during embryogenesis of the zebrafish and other teleosts. The KV is required to the establishment of visceral laterality, such as the heart on the ...
Chapter Valorization of Microalgae and Energy Resources
(2020)
Microalgae biotechnology has grown very rapidly in the last few decades due to the multiple applications that these microorganisms have from pharmaceuticals and cosmetics to foods/feeds and biofuels. One of the main ...
Chapter Integrating Water-Food-Energy Nexus with Climate Services: Modelling and Assessment for a Case Study in Africa
(2020)
This chapter is based on the work of DAFNE project, a decision analytic framework to explore the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus in complex transboundary water resources of fast developing countries. In particular, we developed ...
Chapter Modelling and Control of Narrow Tilting Vehicle for Future Transportation System
(2020)
The increasing number of cars leads traffic congestion and parking problems in urban area. Small electric four-wheeled narrow tilting vehicles (NTV) have the potential to become the next generation of city cars. However, ...
Chapter AI for Improving the Overall Equipment Efficiency in Manufacturing Industry
(2020)
Industry 4.0 has emerged as the perfect scenario for boosting the application of novel artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions to industrial process monitoring and optimization. One of the key ...
Chapter Sugar Beet Tolerance to Drought: Physiological and Molecular Aspects
(2018)
Drought often reduces sugar beet yield in the Balkan agroecological region. Climate forecasts indicate that this negative trend of drought periods will continue. Tolerance to drought is a complex trait, which comprises ...
Chapter The EU Research Project PLANET
(2018)
Renewable energy sources offer unprecedented opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But some challenges remain to be solved before their full benefits can be reaped. The main one relates to the intermittency of ...
Chapter The Emissions of the Tagoro Submarine Volcano (Canary Islands, Atlantic Ocean): Effects on the Physical and Chemical Properties of the Seawater
(2018)
This chapter presents the changes and evolution of the physical and chemical properties of the seawater south of the El Hierro Island (Canary archipelago, Atlantic Ocean) as a consequence of the emissions of the Tagoro ...
Chapter Temporal Clustering for Behavior Variation and Anomaly Detection from Data Acquired Through IoT in Smart Cities
(2018)
In this chapter, we propose a methodology for behavior variation and anomaly detection from acquired sensory data, based on temporal clustering models. Data are collected from five prominent European smart cities, and ...
Chapter The Highest Geomagnetic Storms of the Solar Cycle Observed at Ground Level
(2018)
We report two ground-level observations, of geomagnetic storms of different origins; they are among the highest geomagnetic storms, in the solar Cycle 24. The first is St. Patrick’s Day storm on March 17, 2015, originated ...
Chapter Product Life Cycle Risk Management
(2018)
Every new product coming to the market usually brings with a certain amount of doubt concerning the likelihood of its success. In particular, hidden problems and risks which might appear later in the product’s service life ...
Chapter Recycling of Polymeric Composite Materials
(2018)
This chapter treats studies about the methods and technologies used to recycle the polymeric composite materials and develop new recipes using waste of polymer composite materials resulted from recycling. Composite materials ...
Chapter MEMS Technologies Enabling the Future Wafer Test Systems
(2018)
As the form factor of microelectronic systems and chips are continuing to shrink, the demand for increased connectivity and functionality shows an unabated rising trend. This is driving the evolution of technologies that ...
Chapter Occupational Exposure to Magnetic Field inTranscranial Magnetic Stimulation Treatment
(2018)
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is used both as a diagnostic instrument and for therapy, available only at some psychiatric clinics for treatment of depression and at clinical neurophysiology where TMS is used for ...
Chapter The Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles by Urban Search and Rescue Groups
(2018)
In the case of natural or man-made disaster, the top priority of urban search and rescue (USAR) groups is to localise the victim as quickly as possible. Even minutes might play a crucial role in the victim’s survival. A ...
Chapter Innovation of Textiles through Natural By-Products and Wastes
(2020)
Nowadays, the competitiveness of the textile industry and the consumers’ interest have been increasing the demand for innovative and functional textiles. Allied to this, sustainable developments are playing an increasingly ...
Chapter Bayesian Approach for X-Ray and Neutron Scattering Spectroscopy
(2020)
The rapidly improving performance of inelastic scattering instruments has prompted tremendous advances in our knowledge of the high-frequency dynamics of disordered systems, yet also imposing new demands to the data analysis ...
Chapter Challenges and New Frontiers in the Paediatric Drug Discovery and Development
(2020)
Drug discovery and development advances in the last decades allowed to find a treatment for many preventable diseases. However, all too often, children are excluded from these progresses since most of the new medicines ...
Chapter Fly Ash as a Cementitious Material for Concrete
(2020)
This paper presents a review on fly ash as prime materials used for geopolymer. Due to its advantages of abundant resources, less in cost, great workability and high physical properties, fly ash leads to achieving high ...
Chapter Earth Observation Technologies: Low-End-Market Disruptive Innovation
(2020)
After decades of traditional space businesses, the space paradigm is changing. New approaches to more efficient missions in terms of costs, design, and manufacturing processes are fostered. For instance, placing big ...
Chapter Deep Learning Training and Benchmarks for Earth Observation Images: Data Sets, Features, and Procedures
(2020)
Deep learning methods are often used for image classification or local object segmentation. The corresponding test and validation data sets are an integral part of the learning process and also of the algorithm performance ...
Chapter Is Induced Abortion a Part of Family Planning in China
(2020)
Family planning policy is one of the basic policies in China. Since the founding of New China, it has gone through three stages during its development process, which include free fertility policy, one-child policy (including ...
Chapter Hydrothermal Synthesis of Zinc Tin Oxide Nanostructures for Photocatalysis, Energy Harvesting and Electronics
(2020)
The massification of Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Surfaces has increased the demand for nanomaterials excelling at specific properties required for their target application, but also offering multifunctionality, ...
Chapter Fast-Spectrum Fluoride Molten Salt Reactor (FFMSR) with Ultimately Reduced Radiotoxicity of Nuclear Wastes
(2020)
A mixture of NaF-KF-UF4 eutectic and NaF-KF-TRUF3 eutectic containing heavy elements as much as 2.8 g/cc makes a fast-spectrum molten salt reactor based upon the U-Pu cycle available without a blanket. It does not object ...
Chapter Solid Biomass from Forest Trees to Energy: A Review
(2019)
Among the different terrestrial ecosystems, forests are the most important biomass carbon producers and the ones that store the most standing biomass carbon. Consequently, they are also the major source of biomass for ...
Chapter Long-Distance LIDAR Mapping Schematic for Fast Monitoring of Bioaerosol Pollution over Large City Areas
(2019)
Light detection and ranging (LIDAR) atmospheric sensing is a major tool for remote monitoring of aerosol pollution and its propagation in the atmosphere. Combining LIDAR sensing with ground-based aerosol monitoring can ...
Chapter Sandfly-Borne Viruses of Demonstrated/Relevant Medical Importance
(2019)
Sandflies show distribution in a vast geographical area from Europe to Asia, Africa, Australia, and Central and South America where they can transmit a large number of viruses. Between these viruses, the most important are ...
Chapter Integrative Systems Biology Resources and Approaches in Disease Analytics
(2019)
Currently, our analytical competences are struggling to keep-up the pace of in-deep analysis of all generated large-scale data resultant of high-throughput omics platforms. While, a substantial effort was spent on methods ...
Chapter Noninvasive Modalities Used in Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation
(2019)
In the past three decades, research on plasticity after spinal cord injury (SCI) has led to a gradual shift in SCI rehabilitation: the former focus on learning compensatory strategies changed to functional neurorecovery, ...
Chapter Preparing Proteoforms of Therapeutic Proteins for Top-Down Mass Spectrometry
(2019)
A characteristic of many proteoforms, derived from a single gene, is their similarity regarding the composition of atoms, making their analysis very challenging. Many overexpressed recombinant proteins are strongly associated ...
Chapter Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Approach Used for Rare Earth Elements (REEs) from Monazite Material, Considering Uncertainty
(2019)
This study describes the development of life cycle inventory (LCI) to rare earth elements (REEs) based on the secondary sources, conducted according to ISO 14040 (2006) guidelines. Monte Carlo (MC) simulation with the ...
Chapter Vector-Borne Infections in Bulgaria
(2019)
Bulgaria is an endemic country for Lyme borreliosis and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF). Sporadic cases of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) and West Nile virus (WNV) encephalitis have been also reported. The reported ...
Chapter Behavioral Factors Affecting Reproduction in Domestic Horses: Sociobiological Approach
(2019)
Fetal loss is a common phenomenon in domestic horses, being usually highest (up to 40%) of all domestic ungulates. However, in all studies investigating this problem, sociobiological approach, such as conflict between the ...
Chapter Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Modeling of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Management Systems in Kosodrza, Community of Ostrów, Poland: A Case Study
(2019)
The purpose of this study is to perform the life cycle assessment (LCA) limited to life cycle inventory (LCI) related to municipal solid waste operating in Kosodrza, community of Ostrów, in Poland. The current LCI is a ...
Chapter Adenovirus as Tools in Animal Health
(2019)
Adenoviruses have long been identified as good candidates for use as viral vectors in gene therapy and as vaccines. These viruses can infect multiple cell types, while in division or in quiescence, and are relatively easy ...
Chapter Herbal Medicinal Products in the Treatment of Osteoarthritis
(2019)
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis, which represents a substantial economic burden for society and significantly affects patients’ quality of life. Current conventional treatments of OA may be ...
Chapter The Portuguese Montado: A Complex System under Tension between Different Land Use Management Paradigms
(2019)
The Montado is a silvopastoral system and the dominant land use in Alentejo (Portugal). Its functionalities expand beyond agricultural and forestry production. It is a system where a low-density and heterogeneous tree cover ...
Chapter A Multilevel Approach to Urban Regional Agglomerations: A Swedish Case of Transition Paths toward a “Fossil-Free Society” by 2050
(2018)
This article has a focus on the changing patterns of connected urban spaces forming large super-regional aggregates made up of cities of various sizes and regional functions as well as the interconnecting space of much ...
Chapter Chemical Detection of Short-Lived Species Induced in Aqueous Media by Atmospheric Pressure Plasma
(2019)
Non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasmas are widely used in biomedical research and clinical applications. Such plasmas generate a variety of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species upon interaction with ambient surroundings. ...