Books published by Mdpi AG

In recent years, many technologies for gait and posture assessments have emerged. Wearable sensors, active and passive in-house monitors, and many combinations thereof all promise to provide accurate measures of physical activity, gait, and posture parameters. Motivated by market projections for wearable technologies and driven by recent technological innovations in wearable sensors (MEMs, electronic textiles, wireless communications, etc.), wearable health/performance research is growing rapidly and has the potential to transform future healthcare from disease treatment to disease prevention. The objective of this Special Issue is to address and disseminate the latest gait, posture, and activity monitoring systems as well as various mathematical models/methods that characterize mobility functions. This Special Issue focuses on wearable monitoring systems and physical sensors, and its mathematical models can be utilized in varied environments under varied conditions to monitor health and performance

In recent years, many technologies for gait and posture assessments have emerged. Wearable sensors, active and passive in-house monitors, and many combinations thereof all promise to provide accurate measures of physical activity, gait, and posture parameters. Motivated by market projections for wearable technologies and driven by recent technological innovations in wearable sensors (MEMs, electronic textiles, wireless communications, etc.), wearable health/performance research is growing rapidly and has the potential to transform future healthcare from disease treatment to disease prevention. The objective of this Special Issue is to address and disseminate the latest gait, posture, and activity monitoring systems as well as various mathematical models/methods that characterize mobility functions. This Special Issue focuses on wearable monitoring systems and physical sensors, and its mathematical models can be utilized in varied environments under varied conditions to monitor health and performance

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that are 19-24 nucleotides in length, following maturation. Recent evidence has demonstrated their key role as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression through the binding of specific sequences within target messenger RNA (mRNA). miRNAs are involved in the synthesis of a very large number of proteins, and it is speculated that they could regulate up to 30% of the human genome. They control virtually every cellular process and are essential for animal development, cell differentiation, and homeostasis. Altered miRNA expression has been linked to such pathological events as inflammatory, degenerative, or autoimmune processes and have been associated with several diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and rheumatic and neurological disorders. Recently, miRNAs have been found in many different biological fluids, and this observation suggests the potential of miRNAs as new candidate biomarkers for diagnosis, classification, prognosis, and responsiveness in the treatment of different pathological conditions. Furthermore, the development of therapeutic strategies that involve either restoring or repressing miRNAs expression and activity has attracted much attention. Significant progress has been made in the systems for delivery of miRNAs, even if substantial improvements in this area are still necessary. Although they have been extensively studied, a number of interesting questions regarding the physiological and pathological role of miRNAs have been postulated, and their potential diagnostic and therapeutic role remain yet unanswered. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are free radical-containing oxygen molecules derived from cellular oxidative metabolism, including enzyme activities and mitochondrial respiration, and play a pivotal role in many cellular functions. Whereas ROS are essential for normal cellular processes, their aberrant production, or failure of the capacity to scavenge excessive ROS, induces an altered redox status with excessive synthesis of free radicals, leading to an imbalance in the redox environment of the cell. The loss of normal ROS levels causes lipid, protein, and DNA damage, which contribute to the development of various pathologies including neurological disorders, rheumatic and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer. Increasing evidence highlights that there is crosstalk between miRNAs and components of redox signaling, even if this complex and the characteristics of mutual interaction need to be amply elucidated. Hence, both miRNAs and oxidative stress are involved in the multifactorial development and progression of acute and chronic diseases by influencing numerous signaling and metabolic pathways. The Special Issue entitled "Crosstalk between MicroRNA and Oxidative Stress in Physiology and Pathology" of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences includes original articles and reviews that provide new insights into the interaction between miRNAs and oxidative stress under normal and pathological conditions which can assist in the development of new therapeutic strategies. Finally, I would like to thank all the authors for their excellent contribution. I hope this Special Issue will provide readers with updated knowledge about the role of miRNAs and oxidative stress in physiology and pathology.

Food quality, safety, and fortification are key aspects to guarantee that foods reach consumers in optimal conditions from the point of view of freshness, microbiology, and health promotion. This book overviews the most recent fundamental and oriented efforts by multidisciplinary researchers and technologists on the application of nanoscience and nanotechnology to generate new added value solutions for the food industry. Nanomaterials to Enhance Food Quality, Safety, and Health Impact provides a valuable guide for both industry and academic researchers interested in the production of healthier, safer, and sustainable food products.

Polyamines are small organic compounds found in all living organisms. In recent years, there have been many exciting advances in our understanding of plant polyamines, such as the determination of the biosynthetic and catabolic pathways of plant polyamines and the identification of the roles that plant polyamines play in cellular processes. This Special Issue contains six original research papers and three review articles, providing valuable insights and information for future polyamine-related research.

The use of social media in public health education/promotion has been increasing due, in part, to its ability to remove physical access and geographical barriers for users. Specifically, social media provides an outlet to increase and promote translational health communication strategies and the effective dissemination of health information and data in ways that allow users to not only utilize, but also to create and share pertinent health information. Although social media applications in public health and health promotion have yielded success in terms of generating support structures and networks for effective health behavior change, there are challenges and complications associated with use of social media that also need to be addressed (e.g., managing misinformation, ensuring compliance with privacy protection regulations). This Special Issue aims to explore social media as a translational health promotion tool by bridging principles of health education and health communication. Broadly, this Special Issue is seeking original submissions that examine: (1) the method with which social media users access, negotiate, and create health information that is both actionable and impactful for diverse audiences; (2) strategies for overcoming challenges to using social media in health promotion; and (3) best practices for designing, implementing, and/or evaluating social media campaigns and forums in public health. Special interest will be given to innovative submissions that expand and build upon traditional health education approaches with health communication theories and models. Other manuscript types of interest include relevant position papers, brief reports, and commentaries.

"Earth Observations for Addressing Global Challenges" presents the results of cutting-edge research related to innovative techniques and approaches based on satellite remote sensing data, the acquisition of earth observations, and their applications in the contemporary practice of sustainable development.Addressing the urgent tasks of adaptation to climate change is one of the biggest global challenges for humanity. As His Excellency Ant├│nio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, said, "Climate change is the defining issue of our time-and we are at a defining moment. We face a direct existential threat." For many years, scientists from around the world have been conducting research on earth observations collecting vital data about the state of the earth environment. Evidence of the rapidly changing climate is alarming: according to the World Meteorological Organization, the past two decades included 18 of the warmest years since 1850, when records began. Thus, Group on Earth Observations (GEO) has launched initiatives across multiple societal benefit areas (agriculture, biodiversity, climate, disasters, ecosystems, energy, health, water, and weather), such as the Global Forest Observations Initiative, the GEO Carbon and GHG Initiative, the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network, and the GEO Blue Planet, among others. The results of research that addressed strategic priorities of these important initiatives are presented in the monograph.

The development of porous materials has attracted the attention of the research community for years. Porosity characteristics have specific impacts on the material properties and materials that are applied in many areas, such as pollutant removal, CO2 capture, energy storage, catalytic oxidation and reduction processes, the conversion of biomass to biofuels, and drug delivery. Examples of porous materials are activated carbons, clays, and zeolites. The aim of this book is to collect the recent advances and progress regarding porous materials and their applications in the environmental area.

Energy crises and global warming pose serious challenges to researchers in their attempt to develop a sustainable society for the future. Solar energy conversion is a remarkable, clean, and sustainable way to nullify the effects of fossil fuels. The findings of photocatalytic hydrogen production (PCHP) by Fujishima and Honda propose that "water will be the coal for the future". Hydrogen is a carbon-free clean fuel with a high specific energy of combustion. Titanium oxide (TiO2), graphitic-carbon nitride (g-C3N4) and cadmium sulfide (CdS) are three pillars of water splitting photocatalysts owing to their superior electronic and optical properties. Tremendous research efforts have been made in recent years to fabricate visible or solar-light, active photocatalysts. The significant features of various oxide, sulfide, and carbon based photocatalysts for cost-effective hydrogen production are presented in this Special Issue. The insights of sacrificial agents on the hydrogen production efficiency of catalysts are also presented in this issue.

Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) was born in Basel, Switzerland. Euler''s formula is a mathematical formula in complex analysis that establishes the fundamental relationship between the trigonometric functions and the complex exponential function. When its variable is the number pi, Euler''s formula evaluates to Euler''s identity. On the other hand, the Yang-Baxter equation is considered the most beautiful equation by many scholars. In this book, we study connections between Euler''s formulas and the Yang-Baxter equation. Other interesting sections include: non-associative algebras with metagroup relations; branching functions for admissible representations of affine Lie Algebras; super-Virasoro algebras; dual numbers; UJLA structures; etc.

Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) of the omega-3 family, such as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are physiologically important for many animals and humans. Moreover, fatty acids play an important roles in numerous contexts reflecting various levels: from their producers in natural ecosystems, microalgae, through to invertebrates and fish, and to culinary treatments of fish products for human consumption. Environmental threats such as anthropogenic pollution and its effects on PUFA yield in aquatic ecosystems as well as their transfer to terrestrial ecosystems are highlighted. Assumptions and challenges that are important for the study of PUFA in trophic webs of aquatic ecosystems as well as in human nutrition are discussed.

High penetration of fluctuating renewable power units, such as wind turbines and photo voltaic systems, and new heavy loads, such as electrical vehicles and heat pumps, which so far might not be controlled according to the actual distribution grid condition, but rather according to actual consumption of the devices, influences the distribution grid in several ways, and it may lead to voltage disturbances, frequency deviations and harmonic content beyond limits. Over voltages might be generated at power production which is too high, whereas under voltage might occur at heavy load situations; both phenomena might be seen at the same distribution radial, where harmonic injections can also come from the devices, if equipped with power converters. This has led to the main target object for this book being power quality in distribution grids. This book offers 10 papers regarding power quality issues at distribution grids. It looks into hosting capacity issues, stability analysis, reliability assessment, mitigation of voltage rise using reactor installation, power quality assessments, harmonic analysis and damping, frequency control in weak and isolated power systems, and the focus is therefore broad within the overall topic of power quality.

In an effort to contribute to global efforts by addressing the marine pollution from various emission types, this Special Issue of Ship Lifecyle for Journal of Marine Science and Engineering was inspired to provide a comprehensive insight for naval architects, marine engineers, designers, shipyards, and ship-owners who strive to find optimal ways to survive in competitive markets by improving cycle time and the capacity to reduce design, production, and operation costs while pursuing zero emission. In this context, this Special Issue is devoted to providing insights into the latest research and technical developments on ship systems and operation with a life cycle point of view. The goal of this Special Issue is to bring together researchers from the whole marine and maritime community into a common forum to share cutting-edge research on cleaner shipping. It is strongly believed that such a joint effort will contribute to enhancing the sustainability of the marine and maritime activities. This Special Issue features six novel publications dedicated to this endeavor. First of all, as a proactive response to transitioning to cleaner marine fuel sources, numerous aspects of the excellence of fuel-cell based hybrid ships were demonstrated through four publications. In addition, two publications demonstrated the effectiveness of life cycle assessment (LCA) applicable to marine vessels.

This volume examines the applicability of nature-based solutions in ecological restoration practice and in contemporary landscape architecture by bringing together ecology and architecture in the built environment. Green infrastructure is used to address urban challenges such as climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and stormwater management. In addition, thermal comfort nature-based solutions reintroduce critical connections between natural and urban systems. In light of ongoing developments in sustainable urban development, the goal is a paradigm shift towards a landscape that restores and rehabilitates urban ecosystems. The ten contributions to this book examine a wide range of successful cases of designing healthier, greener and more resilient landscapes in different geographical contexts, from the United States of America and Brazil, through various European regions, to Singapore and China. While some chapters attempt to conceptualize the interconnections between cities and nature, others clearly have an empirical focus. Therefore, this volume provides a rich body of work and acts as a starting point for further studies on restoration of ecosystems and integrative policies such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Robotics and control are both research and application domains that have been frequently engineered through the use of interdisciplinary approaches like cybernetics. Cognition is a particular concept of this approach, abstracted from the context of living organisms to that of artificial devices, and is concerned with knowledge acquisition and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. Cognitive robotics and control refer to knowledge processing as much as knowledge generation from problem understanding, leading to special forms of architectures that enable systems to behave in an autonomous way. The main aim of this book is to highlight emerging applications and address recent breakthroughs in the domain of cognitive robotics and control and related areas. Procedures, algorithms, architectures, and implementations for reasoning, problem solving, or decision making are considered in the domain of robotics and control.

This Special Issue focused on novel vision-based approaches, mainly related to computer vision and machine learning, for the automatic analysis of human behaviour. We solicited submissions on the following topics: information theory-based pattern classification, biometric recognition, multimodal human analysis, low resolution human activity analysis, face analysis, abnormal behaviour analysis, unsupervised human analysis scenarios, 3D/4D human pose and shape estimation, human analysis in virtual/augmented reality, affective computing, social signal processing, personality computing, activity recognition, human tracking in the wild, and application of information-theoretic concepts for human behaviour analysis. In the end, 15 papers were accepted for this special issue. These papers, that are reviewed in this editorial, analyse human behaviour from the aforementioned perspectives, defining in most of the cases the state of the art in their corresponding field.

Neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer''s, Parkinson''s, Huntington''s, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, are the most common pathologies of the central nervous system currently without a cure. They share common molecular and cellular characteristics, including protein misfolding, mitochondrial dysfunction, glutamate toxicity, dysregulation of calcium homeostasis, oxidative stress, inflammation, and ageing, which contribute to neuronal death. Efforts to treat these diseases are often limited by their multifactorial etiology. Natural products, thanks to their multitarget activities, are considered promising alternatives for the treatment of neurodegeneration. This book deals with two different forms of natural products: extracts and isolated compounds. The study of the bioactivity of the extracts is extremely important as many studies have demonstrated the synergistic effect of the combination of different natural products. On the other hand, the investigation of the activity of specifically isolated natural products can be also important to understand their cellular and molecular mechanisms and to define the specific bioactive components in extracts or foods. This book can be considered an important contribution to knowledge of the neuroprotective effect of natural products and presents a great deal of information, related to both the benefits but also the limitations of their use in counteracting neurodegeneration.

The main objective of this book is to evaluate alternative energy systems in buildings, regardless of their location and climatic conditions. Over the past few years, the use of passive cooling and heating technologies has become more common for reducing the energy consumption of buildings. However, for some building systems, these technologies are not used very often. Buildings intended for children or the elderly are often climatized to improve indoor thermal conditions. In this Special Issue, a cost reduction in climatization based on passive systems is expected to be conducted. Building site optimization is expected to be performed, to improve thermal behavior. To achieve this, computational fluid dynamics tools are expected to be used. These reductions are expected to be studied for conventional and renewable energy systems, showing that passive systems provide better thermal comfort and reduce the initial investment and energy consumption, making low-cost buildings feasible.

The microwave and millimeter wave frequency range is nowadays widely exploited in a large variety of fields including (wireless) communications, security, radar, spectroscopy, but also astronomy and biomedical, to name a few. This Special Issue focuses on the interaction between the nanoscale dimensions and centimeter to millimeter wavelengths. This interaction has been proven to be efficient for the design and fabrication of devices showing enhanced performance. Novel contributions are welcome in the field of devices based on nanoscaled geometries and materials. Applications cover, but not are limited to, electronics, sensors, signal processing, imaging and metrology, all exploiting nanoscale/nanotechnology at microwave and millimeter waves. Contributions can take the form of short communications, regular or review papers.

This Special Issue provides 15 research articles and 4 comprehensive review articles on various aspects of plant-metal/metalloid interactions. - Up-to-date information on plant responses to metals/metalloids are published. - Various mechanisms of plant tolerance to metals''/metalloids'' toxicity are presented. - Exogenous applications of mitigating metals''/metalloids'' toxicity are discussed. - Sustainable technologies in growing plants in metal/metalloid-contaminated environments are discussed. - Phytoremediation techniques for the remediation of metals/metalloids are discussed.

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by the fungi of different species (mainly Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Penicillium), with toxic effects for humans and animals. These mycotoxins can contaminate food and feed. The European Union (EU) has established the maximum permitted or recommended levels for well-known mycotoxins in different foodstuffs. However, there are other mycotoxins that are not included in the regulations: the "emerging mycotoxins" (whose toxicity is still not clear), and the "modified or masked mycotoxins" (produced as a consequence of a detoxification strategy of the host plant of the fungus or during food processing). These mycotoxins could pose a risk and should also be taken into account. In order to assure consumers'' health, analytical methods for the accurate determination of mycotoxins in different food matrices and feeds are required. In this sense, liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) is a powerful tool for their unique identification and quantification. Moreover, the use of high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) allows one to identify novel mycotoxins and targeted/untargeted approaches for study. This Special Issue compiles recent applications of LC-MS/MS in mycotoxin studies, as well as the development and validation of new analytical methods for their identification and quantification in different food matrices and feed, occurrence studies, and the biomonitoring of mycotoxins and their metabolites in biological fluids.

A trillion different microbial species have been evolving for some 3.5 billion years, producing ever more complex active secondary metabolites. The sea is a cauldron of a great diversity of useful and valuable compounds. This Special Issue focused on studies of marine microbe natural products for discovering compounds useful to humankind. Papers were collected that provide up-to-date information regarding the characterization of marine microbes'' metabolic diversity and the evaluation of the therapeutic potential of marine microbes'' metabolites. Most of the articles in this book deal with marine fungi, biological and chemical diversity, and their active metabolites. This may be a sign that marine fungi have been under studied to date and are perceived by many researchers as an important source of discovery in this field. A best practices guide for the isolation of marine fungi from different matrixes and their conservation is also presented. The comparison of the phylogenetic and metabolomic profiles of microalgae from different lineages provides novel insights into the potential of chemotaxonomy in marine phytoplankton, showing a good overlap of phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic signals.

Standalone (off-grid) renewable energy systems supply electricity in places where there is no access to a standard electrical grid. These systems may include photovoltaic generators, wind turbines, hydro turbines or any other renewable electrical generator. Usually, this kind of system includes electricity storage (commonly lead-acid batteries, but also other types of storage can be used). In some cases, a backup generator (usually powered by fossil fuel, diesel or gasoline) is part of the hybrid system. The modelling of the components, the control of the system and the simulation of the performance of the whole system are necessary to evaluate the system technically and economically. The optimization of the sizing and/or the control is also an important task in this kind of system.

Radar-related technology is mainly processed within the time and frequency domains but, at the same time, is a multi-dimensional integrated system including a spatial domain for transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves. As a result of the enormous technological advancements of the pioneers actively discussed in this book, research and development in multi-dimensional undeveloped areas is expected to continue. This book contains state-of-the-art work that should guide your research.

Information and communication technology (ICT) is reponsible for up to 10% of world power consumption. In particular, communications and computing systems are indispensable elements in ICT; thus, determining how to improve the energy efficiency in communications and computing systems has become one of the most important issues for realizing green ICT. Even though a number of studies have been conducted, most of them focused on one aspect-either communications or computing systems. However, salient features in communications and computing systems should be jointly considered, and novel holistic approaches across communications and computing systems are strongly required to implement energy-efficient systems. In addition, emerging systems, such as energy-harvesting IoT devices, cyber-physical systems (CPSs), autonomous vehicles (AVs), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), require new approaches to satisfy their strict energy consumption requirements in mission-critical situations. The goal of this Special Issue is to disseminate the recent advances in energy-efficient communications and computing systems. Review and survey papers on these topics are welcome. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following: ΓÇóenergy-efficient communications: from physical layer to application layer; ΓÇóenergy-efficient computing systems; ΓÇóenergy-efficient network architecture: through SDN/NFV/network slicing; ΓÇóenergy-efficient system design; ΓÇóenergy-efficient Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT); ΓÇóenergy-efficient edge/fog/cloud computing; ΓÇónew approaches for energy-efficient computing and communications (e.g., AI/ML and data-driven approaches); ΓÇónew performance metrics on energy efficiency in emerging systems; ΓÇóenergy harvesting and simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT); ΓÇósmart grid and vehicle-to-grid (V2G); and ΓÇóstandardization and open source activities for energy efficient systems.

Unravelling an intricate network of interatomic interactions and their relations to different behaviors of chemical compounds is key to the successful design of new materials for both existing and novel applications, from medicine to innovative concepts of molecular electronics and spintronics. X-ray crystallography has proven to be very helpful in addressing many important chemical problems in modern materials science and biosciences. Intertwined with computational techniques, it provides insights into the nature of chemical bonding and the physicochemical properties (including optical, magnetic, electrical, mechanical, and others) of crystalline materials, otherwise accessible by experimental techniques that are not so readily available to chemists. In addition to the advanced approaches in charge density analysis made possible by X-ray diffraction, the information collected over the years through this technique (which is easily mined from huge databases) has tremendous use in the design of new materials for medicine, gas storage, and separation applications as well as for electronic devices. This Special Issue contains two reviews and five articles that cover very different aspects of ''composition-structure'' and ''structure-property'' relations identified by X-ray diffraction and complementary techniques (from conventional IR and Raman spectroscopies to cutting-edge quantum chemical calculations) and their use in crystal engineering and materials science.

J├╢bsis was the first to describe the in vivo application of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), also called diffuse optical spectroscopy (DOS). NIRS was originally designed for the clinical monitoring of tissue oxygenation, and today it has also become a useful tool for neuroimaging studies (functional near-infrared spectroscopy, fNIRS). However, difficulties in the selective and quantitative measurements of tissue hemoglobin (Hb), which have been central in the NIRS field for over 40 years, remain to be solved. To overcome these problems, time-domain (TD) and frequency-domain (FD) measurements have been tried. Presently, a wide range of NIRS instruments are available, including commonly available commercial instruments for continuous wave (CW) measurements, based on the modified Beer-Lambert law (steady-state domain measurements). Among these measurements, the TD measurement is the most promising approach, although compared with CW and FD measurements, TD measurements are less common, due to the need for large and expensive instruments with poor temporal resolution and limited dynamic range. However, thanks to technological developments, TD measurements are increasingly being used in research, and also in various clinical settings. This Special Issue highlights issues at the cutting edge of TD DOS and diffuse optical tomography (DOT). It covers all aspects related to TD measurements, including advances in hardware, methodology, the theory of light propagation, and clinical applications.

The principal aim of this book is to provide a wide range of information and a useful reference for researchers interested to investigate heavy mineral assemblages in different geological settings and for a variety of purposes. The methodological developments achieved in recent years for the identification of heavy minerals in a wide grain-size range are illustrated. All factors that affect heavy mineral concentration and relative proportions, including hydraulic sorting, mechanical abrasion, chemical weathering, and post-depositional dissolution, and all factors able to introduce analytical, environmental, or diagenetic bias are thoroughly addressed. A proper integration of multiple techniques including bulk sediment, multi-mineral, and single-mineral methods are discussed by renowned authors in their invited contributions.

Cancer is a great challenge to efficient therapy due to biological diversity. Disturbed oxidative homeostasis in cancer cells certainly contributes to differential therapy response. Further, one of the hallmarks of cancer cells is adaptation which includes fine tuning of the cellular metabolic and signalling pathways as well as transcription profiles. There are several factors which contribute to the tumor diversity and therapy response, and oxidative stress is certainly one of them. Changes in oxygen levels due to hypoxia/reoxygenation during tumor growth modulate antioxidative patterns finally supporting increased cell diversity and adaptation to stressing conditions. Additionally, cancer chemotherapy based on ROS production can also induce also adaptation. To counteract these negative effects natural products are often used for their antioxidant activities as well as photodynamic therapy supported by novel chemosensitizers. Understanding of possible pathways which can trigger antioxidant defence at a certain time during cancer development can also provide possible strategies in fighting cancer.

Carbohydrate-active enzymes are responsible for both biosynthesis and the breakdown of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates. They are involved in many metabolic pathways; in the biosynthesis and degradation of various biomolecules, such as bacterial exopolysaccharides, starch, cellulose and lignin; and in the glycosylation of proteins and lipids. Carbohydrate-active enzymes are classified into glycoside hydrolases, glycosyltransferases, polysaccharide lyases, carbohydrate esterases, and enzymes with auxiliary activities (CAZy database, www.cazy.org). Glycosyltransferases synthesize a huge variety of complex carbohydrates with different degrees of polymerization, moieties and branching. On the other hand, complex carbohydrate breakdown is carried out by glycoside hydrolases, polysaccharide lyases and carbohydrate esterases. Their interesting reactions have attracted the attention of researchers across scientific fields, ranging from basic research to biotechnology. Interest in carbohydrate-active enzymes is due not only to their ability to build and degrade biopolymers-which is highly relevant in biotechnology-but also because they are involved in bacterial biofilm formation, and in glycosylation of proteins and lipids, with important health implications. This book gathers new research results and reviews to broaden our understanding of carbohydrate-active enzymes, their mutants and their reaction products at the molecular level.