Books published by Mdpi AG

The aim of this book is to provide an analysis of the main characteristics and applications of hydrogels. Hydrogels are frequently used for manufacturing contact lenses, hygiene products, tissue engineering scaffolds, drug delivery systems, and wound dressings. These materials are useful in everyday life, so publicizing them in both academic and pharmaceutical fields is essential.

Inequity starts before birth and is programmed in part by nutritional exposures. If these exposures occur around the time of conception, during pregnancy, and/or in infancy or childhood (all critical periods of development) they may alter a child’s health trajectory and impact risk for impaired cognition and learning, and cardiometabolic, immune, and neuropsychiatric diseases and disorders. This Special Issue on “Early Life Nutrition and Future Health” has the following aims: 1) understand the origins of offspring health inequities from an early nutritional perspective; 2) uncover new insights into the environmental, biological, and social mechanisms that underpin these health outcomes in offspring; and 3) present novel targets and approaches to optimise health trajectories and prevent chronic diseases and disorders in later life and across generations. The research projects included herein highlight novel mechanistic, epidemiologic, and intervention studies that target key windows where nutrition has the greatest influence on future health (preconception, prenatal, and postnatal periods) and that explore vulnerable populations and animal models of early life nutritional programming.

Structural mechanics is an important field of engineering. The main goal of structural mechanics is to ensure that structures are safe and durable so that catastrophic situations can be prevented, which can otherwise cause loss of life, environmental pollution and financial losses. Depending on the uses of the structure and the conditions that the structure is subjected to, special treatment may be required for the analysis. Specifically, marine structures are subjected to harsh environmental conditions due to the marine environment, which can cause several different damage mechanisms including fatigue and corrosion. This book on “Marine structures” considers a wide range of areas related to marine structures and provides a compilation of numerical and experimental studies related to “Marine structures” research.

For more than 50 years, silicon has dominated the electronics industry. However, this growth will come to an end, due to resources limitations. Thus, research developments need to focus to alternative materials, with higher performance and better functionality. Current research achievements have indicated that carbon is one of the promising candidates for its exploitation in the electronics industry. Whereas the physical properties of graphite and diamond have been investigated for many years, the potential for electronic applications of other allotropes of carbon (fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibres, carbon films, carbon balls and beads, carbon fibers, etc), has only been appreciated relatively recently. Carbon-based materials offer a number of exciting possibilities for new applications of electronic devices, due to their unique thermal and electrical properties. However, the success of carbon-based electronics depends on the rapid progress of the fabrication, doping and manipulation techniques. In this Special Issue, we focus on both insights and advancements in carbon-based electronics. We will also cover various topics ranging from synthesis, functionalisation, and characterisation of carbon-based materials, for their use in electronic devices, including advanced manufacturing techniques, such as 3D printing, ink-jet printing, spray-gun technique, etc.