Books published by Mdpi AG

Climate change and land use transformations have induced an increased flood risk worldwide. These phenomena are dramatically impacting ordinary life and the economy. Research and technology offer a new strategy to quantify and predict such phenomena and also mitigate the impact of flooding. In particular, the growing computational power is offering new strategies for a more detailed description of the flooding over large scales. This book offers an overview of the most recent outcomes of the research on this argument.

This book is a collection of several unique articles on the current state of research on complex concentrated alloys, as well as their compelling future opportunities in wide ranging applications. Complex concentrated alloys consist of multiple principal elements and represent a new paradigm in structural alloy design. They show a range of exceptional properties that are unachievable in conventional alloys, including high strength-ductility combination, resistance to oxidation, corrosion/wear resistance, and excellent high-temperature properties. The research articles, reviews, and perspectives are intended to provide a wholistic view of this multidisciplinary subject of interest to scientists and engineers.

Wood composites have shown very good performance and substantial service lives when correctly specified for the exposure risks present. The selection of an appropriate product for the job should be accompanied by decisions about the appropriate protection, whether this is by design, by preservative treatment, or by wood modification techniques. This Special Issue, "Advances in Wood Composites II", presents recent progress in enhancing and refining the performance and properties of wood composites by chemical and thermal modification and the application of smart nanomaterials. Such enhancements and refinements have made wood composites a particular area of interest for researchers. In addition, this Special Issue reviews some important aspects in the field of wood composites, with particular focus on their materials, applications, and engineering and scientific advances, including solutions inspired biomimetically by the structure of wood and wood composites. This Special Issue, as a collection of 14 original contributions, provides selected examples of recent advances in wood composites.

The first quantum revolution started in the early 20th century and gave us new rules that govern physical reality. Accordingly, many devices that changed dramatically our lifestyle, such as transistors, medical scanners and lasers, appeared in the market. This was the origin of quantum technology, which allows us to organize and control the components of a complex system governed by the laws of quantum physics. This is in sharp contrast to conventional technology, which can only be understood within the framework of classical mechanics. We are now in the middle of a second quantum revolution. Although quantum mechanics is nowadays a mature discipline, quantum engineering as a technology is now emerging in its own right. We are about to manipulate and sense individual particles, measuring and exploiting their quantum properties. This is bringing major technical advances in many different areas, including computing, sensors, simulations, cryptography and telecommunications. The present collection of selected papers is a clear demonstration of the tremendous vitality of the field. The issue is composed of contributions from world leading researchers in quantum optics and quantum information, and presents viewpoints, both theoretical and experimental, on a variety of modern problems.

Steel has become the most requested material all over the world during the rapid technological evolution of recent centuries. As our civilization grows and its technological development becomes connected with more demanding processes, it is more and more challenging to fit the required physical and mechanical properties for steel in its huge portfolio of grades for each steel producer. It is necessary to improve the refining and casting processes continuously to meet customer requirements and to lower the production costs to remain competitive. New challenges related to both the precise design of steel properties and reduction in production costs are combined with paying special attention to environmental protection. These contradictory demands are the theme of this book.

The future of electric vehicles relies nearly entirely on the design, monitoring, and control of the vehicle battery and its associated systems. Along with an initial optimal design of the cell/pack-level structure, the runtime performance of the battery needs to be continuously monitored and optimized for a safe and reliable operation and prolonged life. Improved charging techniques need to be developed to protect and preserve the battery. The scope of this Special Issue is to address all the above issues by promoting innovative design concepts, modeling and state estimation techniques, charging/discharging management, and hybridization with other storage components.

This book seeks to support social science researchers who interact with vulnerability and/or sensitivity in the context of their research. Whilst there has been some important debate about the theoretical, methodological and ethical issues of conducting research on sensitive topics, and/or with vulnerable populations, the number of scholarly publications focused solely on these topics is limited and not up to date. The book intends to fill this gap by providing various research experiences, as well as the elements that characterize them. The articles selected for this book intend, first and foremost, to stimulate reflexivity amongst the use of the concepts of sensitive topics and vulnerable groups, and to provide tools that will allow researchers to improve their research practices The book integrates several articles that explore a wide range of dilemmas that, to a certain extent, might allow the reader to access the backstage of this type of research. The reader will find here a rich and fruitful space for theoretical and empirical reflection, where several social science researchers with different backgrounds share their experiences and research paths in a rigorous and creative way.

Adipose tissue is a rich, ubiquitous, and easily accessible source for multipotent mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs), so-called adipose-derived stromal/stem cells (ASCs). Primary isolated ASCs are a heterogeneous preparation consisting of several subpopulations of stromal/stem and precursor cells. Donor-specific differences in ASC isolations and the lack of culture standardization hinder the comparison of results from different studies. Nevertheless, ASCs are already being used in different in vivo models and clinical trials to investigate their ability to improve tissue and organ regeneration. Many questions concerning their counterparts and biology in situ, their differentiation potential in vitro and in vivo, and the mechanisms of regeneration (paracrine effects, including regeneration-promoting factors and extracellular vesicles, differentiation, and immunomodulation) are not completely understood or remain unanswered. This Special Issue covers research articles investigating various adipose tissues as a source for ASC isolation, specific cultures methods to enhance proliferation or viability, and the differentiation capacity. Furthermore, other studies highlight aspects of various diseases, the immunosuppressive potential of ASCs and their derivates, or the in vivo tracking of transplanted ASCs. This edition is complemented by a review that summarizes the current knowledge of spheroid culture system methods and applications for mesenchymal stem cells.

Multiscale entropy (MSE) measures to evaluate the complexity of time series by taking into account the multiple time scales in physical systems were proposed in the early 2000s. Since then, these approaches have received a great deal of attention and have been used in a wide range of applications. Multivariate approaches have also been developed. The algorithms for an MSE approach are composed of two main steps: (i) a coarse-graining procedure to represent the system''s dynamics on different scales and (ii) the entropy computation for the original signal and for the coarse-grained time series to evaluate the irregularity for each scale. Moreover, different entropy measures have been associated with the coarse-graining approach, each one having its advantages and drawbacks. In this Special Issue, we gathered 24 papers focusing on either the theory or applications of MSE approaches. These papers can be divided into two groups: papers that propose new developments in entropy-based measures or improve the understanding of existing ones (9 papers) and papers that propose new applications of existing entropy-based measures (14 papers). Moreover, one paper presents a review of cross-entropy methods and their multiscale approaches.

Novel technologies are playing an important role in the development of crop and livestock farming and have the potential to be the key drivers of sustainable intensification of agricultural systems. In particular, new sensors are now available with reduced dimensions, reduced costs, and increased performances, which can be implemented and integrated in production systems, providing more data and eventually an increase in information. It is of great importance to support the digital transformation, precision agriculture, and smart farming, and to eventually allow a revolution in the way food is produced. In order to exploit these results, authoritative studies from the research world are still needed to support the development and implementation of new solutions and best practices. This Special Issue is aimed at bringing together recent developments related to novel sensors and their proved or potential applications in agriculture.

In recent decades, there have been extensive developments in science and technology. These advances provide new techniques to deposit coatings onto various substrates, thus, addressing the ever-increasing performance requirements of various applications. Moreover, as technology itself develops, there are new problems that require new solutions, some of which can be solved through the application of coatings. Thus, the demands from coatings are continually increasing and the field is growing. The collection of articles contained within this volume cover a wide range of different research approaches to coatings reflecting the expanding field of coatings. It covers examples from topics such as a cold spray of magnesium alloys onto steel substrates, mechanical coatings of Ti-based materials onto steel balls, electroless plating of Ni-P coating onto an Mg-based alloy, magnetron sputtering of Ru-Zr coatings onto a Si wafer, a review of ionic liquids that form surface layers, as corrosion inhibitors, nano-composite epoxy coatings containing exfoliated clay (montmorillonite) for steel protection, a coating based on plasma electrolytic oxidation of an aluminum alloy and inhibited epoxy primer for aerospace aluminum alloys. This volume provides a wide-angle snapshot of current coating technologies through the presentation of some specific studies.

Recent decades have brought to light the staggering ubiquity of human activity upon Earth and the startling fragility of our planet and its life systems. This is so momentous that many scientists and scholars now argue that we have left the relative climactic stability of the Holocene and have entered a new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene. This emerging epoch may prompt us not only to reconsider our understanding of Earth systems, but also to reimagine ourselves and what it means to be human. How does the Earth''s precarious state reveal our own? How does this vulnerable condition prompt new ways of thinking and being? The essays that are part of this collection consider how the transformative thinking demanded by our vulnerability inspires us to reconceive our place in the cosmos, alongside each other and, potentially, before God. Who are we "after" (the concept of) the Anthropocene? What forms of thought and structures of feeling might attend us in this state? How might we determine our values and to what do we orient our hopes? Faith, a conceptual apparatus for engaging the unseen, helps us weigh the implications of this massive, but in some ways, mysterious, force on the lives we lead; faith helps us visualize what it means to exist in this new and still emergent reality.

During the last decade, there has been an increased interest in fractional differential equations, inclusions, and inequalities, as they play a fundamental role in the modeling of numerous phenomena, in particular, in physics, biomathematics, blood flow phenomena, ecology, environmental issues, viscoelasticity, aerodynamics, electrodynamics of complex medium, electrical circuits, electron-analytical chemistry, control theory, etc. This book presents collective works published in the recent Special Issue (SI) entitled "Fractional Differential Equation, Inclusions and Inequalities with Applications" of the journal Mathematics. This Special Issue presents recent developments in the theory of fractional differential equations and inequalities. Topics include but are not limited to the existence and uniqueness results for boundary value problems for different types of fractional differential equations, a variety of fractional inequalities, impulsive fractional differential equations, and applications in sciences and engineering.

This special edition, Seafood Sustainability Series I, includes two articles on seafood consumption, four on sustainable capture fisheries, and four on sustainable aquaculture. The articles on consumption explore an alternative perspective on sustainable seafood movement governance to consumer- or retail/brand-driven logic and analyze fish tissues for human consumption to detect contaminants like flame retardant chemicals hazardous to human health sourced from microplastic pollutants. Articles on capture fisheries include: ΓÇóA study of harvest strategies to achieve ecological, economic, and social sustainability objectives; ΓÇóAn examination of the economic leverages and resources needed to sustain coastal artisanal fishing communities in Africa; ΓÇóA review of sustainability planning efforts to combat fishing community threats like declining participation, aging infrastructure and fleets, gentrification, reduced resource access, market competition, and environmental stresses; ΓÇóAn analysis of responsible fish consumption through a life-promoting sustainable food system for school-age children. Three of the articles on aquaculture focus on studying consumer preferences related to sustainable aquaculture based on the estimation of how the attributes of aquaculture products (including product labeling and perception) affect consumers'' purchase decisions. The other article questions the widely held assumption of sustainable substitutability of plant protein sources (e.g., soymeal) for fishmeal in aquaculture production.

The book is devoted to the fundamental aspects of the non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of many-particle systems. The concept of Zubarev''s approach, which generalizes the notion of Gibbs'' ensembles, and introduces a nonequilibrium statistical operator, providing an adequate basis for dealing with strongly correlated systems that are governed by nonperturbative phenomena, such as the formation of bound states, quantum condensates and the instability of the vacuum. Besides a general introduction to the formalism, this book contains contributions devoted to the applications of Zubarev''s method to the solution of modern problems in different fields of physics: transport theory, hydrodynamics, high-energy physics, quark-gluon plasma and hadron production in heavy-ion collisions. The book provides valuable information for researchers and students in these fields, requiring powerful concepts to solve fundamental problems of non-equilibrium phenomena in strongly