Books published by Mdpi AG

Extreme sea levels can lead to hazardous events, such as coastal flooding, erosion, or salt water intrusion, with-wide ranging environmental, societal, and economic consequences. In combination with climate-driven sea-level rise, and, potentially, additional changes in storminess, dynamic wave contributions, and tidal dynamics, the adverse consequences of extreme oceanographic events are expected to escalate in many regions. Integrated coastal zone impact assessments can guide the decisions on the adaptive responses to these changes in the physical environment and for the socioeconomic development of the local communities. 

The purpose of this Special Issue, “Nutrition and Allergic Diseases”, is to provide an overview of the role of nutrition in allergy. The prevalence of asthma, rhinitis, and food allergy has increased tremendously over the last few decades. Is there a role for nutrition to help managing this global challenge? This Special Issue touches upon the many aspects that relate to nutrition and allergy and focuses on two fundamental questions:1) Can nutrition play a role in allergy prevention and induction?2) Can nutrition play a role in managing allergies?The topics covered range from the epidemiology of nutrition and allergy prevalence to the description of food components known to have beneficial effects on allergy, and include the importance of pregnancy and breastfeeding, the possibility of therapeutically targeting the microbiota in allergic diseases (with pre- or probiotics), the allergic effects of food processing, food allergies and related available treatments. 

The field of marine polysaccharides is constantly evolving, due to progress in the discovery and production of new marine polysaccharides. Seaweed remains the most abundant source of polysaccharides, but recent advances in biotechnology have allowed the production of large quantities of polysaccharides from a variety of micro-algae, by controlling growth conditions and tailoring the production of bioactive compounds in a bioreactor. Of particular interest are polysaccharides produced by micro-organisms from extreme marine environments, due to their recognized different biochemistry. Extracellular polysaccharides (EPSs) with unique properties produced by a number of micro-algae are known. The first volume is a collection of papers concerning the identification and characterization of novel marine polysaccharides. It is divided into three chapters; the first two are dedicated to polysaccharides from different marine sources (algae, micro-algae, animals), while the third one gathers information on the isolation, characterization and bioactivity of new EPSs.

Through evolution of life, animals have adapted to the ubiquitous presence of metals in the biosphere. They utilize the more frequent ones as essential constituents of their biochemical machinery. In fact, about 40% of all proteins present in animal cells are so-called metalloproteins. On the other hand, animals have invented regulatory and detoxifying mechanisms to protect themselves from critical concentrations of both essential and non-essential metal concentrations. Metallomics is a modern approach applying cellular, biochemical, molecular and analytical methods to investigate the relationships of metals in their cellular context. The present edition contains a number of original articles and reviews dealing with various aspects of metallomics in animals, published as Special Issues of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences in 2016 and 2017. The book addresses subjects such as metal definition in biology, metabolism of metals in invertebrate and vertebrate animals, metal detoxification and regulation strategies, supplementation of essential trace elements, metal behavior in pregnancy and embryonic development, as well as metal toxicology and emerging medical implications.

There is general agreement within the fields of food, nutrition, and medical sciences that an individual’s diet and lifestyle can substantially predispose one to, or protect against osteoporosis, low bone mass, and numerous other age-related bone diseases. Dietary bioactives, found diversity in a variety of  foods from fruits to vegetables, herbs and spices, essential oils and beverages, have the potential to influence bone health. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements has defined dietary bioactives as “compounds that are constituents in foods and dietary supplements, other than those needed to meet basic human nutritional needs, which are responsible for changes in health status.” These compounds are generally thought to be safe in food at normal consumption levels (e.g., polyphenols in plant foods). Dietary bioactives are currently being assessed for their properties beyond antioxidant capacity, including anti-inflammatory actions. Some compounds or classes of compounds have been reported to enhance bone formation and inhibit bone resorption through their actions on cell signaling pathways that influence osteoblast and osteoclast differentiation.Emerging scientific evidence is available, including observational studies and small clinical interventions that suggest consumption of certain dietary bioactives may have beneficial effects on bone health.  Animal models have the unique advantage of feeding controlled diets for extended periods of time to assess long-term changes in bone.  While bone mineral density (BMD) is the gold standard for assessing fracture risk, other factors such as bone structure, including trabecular thickness and separation, influence bone strength. Bone turnover rate is also predictive of fracture. Future research is needed to determine the types and quantities of dietary bioactives that are most effective and at what dose, as well as the mechanisms involved in modulating cellular events, in order to set precedence for larger clinical trials. 

This book deals with problems related to unit roots and structural change, and the interplay between the two. The research agenda dealing with these topics have proved to be of importance to devise procedures that are reliable for inference and forecasting. Several important contributions have been made. Still, there is scope for improvements to and analyses of the existing procedures. This book provides contributions that follow up on what has been done and/or offer new perspectives on such issues and related ones.

Information Society is advancing along a route of ecosystemic evolution. ICT and Internet advancements, together with the progression of the systemic approach for enhancement and application of Smart Systems, are grounding such an evolution. The needed approach is therefore expected to evolve by increasingly fitting into the basic requirements of a significant general enhancement of human and social well-being, within all spheres of life (public, private, professional). This implies enhancing and exploiting the net-living virtual space, to make it a virtuous beneficial integration of the real-life space. Meanwhile, contextual evolution of smart cities is aiming at strongly empowering that ecosystemic approach by enhancing and diffusing net-living benefits over our own lived territory, while also incisively targeting a new stable socio-economic local development, according to social, ecological, and economic sustainability requirements. This territorial focus matches with a new glocal vision, which enables a more effective diffusion of benefits in terms of well-being, thus moderating the current global vision primarily fed by a global-scale market development view.Basic technological advancements have thus to be pursued at the system-level. They include system architecting for virtualization of functions, data integration and sharing, flexible basic service composition, and end-service personalization viability, for the operation and interoperation of smart systems, supporting effective net-living advancements in all application fields. Increasing and basically mandatory importance must also be increasingly reserved for human–technical and social–technical factors, as well as to the associated need of empowering the cross-disciplinary approach for related research and innovation. The prospected eco-systemic impact also implies a social pro-active participation, as well as coping with possible negative effects of net-living in terms of social exclusion and isolation, which require incisive actions for a conformal socio-cultural development. In this concern, speed, continuity, and expected long-term duration of innovation processes, pushed by basic technological advancements, make ecosystemic requirements stricter. This evolution requires also a new approach, targeting development of the needed basic and vocational education for net-living, which is to be considered as an engine for the development of the related ‘new living know-how’, as well as of the conformal ‘new making know-how’.

Solid-state lasers offer unique qualities in terms of flexibility, robustness, efficiency, and wavelength diversity. For these reasons, they are nowadays irreplaceable tools in many scientific and industrial applications.  The engineering of new materials, the advances in photonics technologies, and the increasing demand for speed, cleanliness, and high-precision in industrial processes contribute to propel the research in this exciting and quickly developing field. Despite the impossibility to cover all the aspects of this very diversified topic in a single publication, this Special Issue "Solid State Lasers Materials, Technologies and Applications" offers an interesting insight into some of the latest developments in this field. Comprehensive review papers describe the state of the art of highly doped fiber lasers and amplifiers, deep-ultraviolet generation, and laser welding under vacuum with high-power lasers. Research articles present the latest results on picosecond pulse amplification, mid-infrared laser sources, parametric down-conversion modules, and coherent beam combining. Heavy-industry applications, such as laser welding and laser cladding, are also addressed.

Marine organisms are a well-known source of lipids with high nutritional value, such as n-3 fatty acids (e.g., 20:5 and 22:6), but also possess bioactive properties (e.g., polar lipids as glycolipids and phospholipids). Polar lipids are considered high added value bioactive molecules with health promoting effects, and with potential applications in food, feed, and pharmaceutical industries. Although some polar lipids of marine organisms are known to have functional properties (e.g., anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative, antioxidant and antimicrobial), the potential of these molecules is yet to be fully unravelled, as the lipidome of the majority of marine organisms remains largely unknown. Different marine organisms, even when closely related in the tree of life, display specific lipidome signatures, which are representative of the remarkable chemical biodiversity present in world oceans. Lipid composition can also change due to environmental and nutritional conditions. If one considers that each marine organism contains thousands of structurally and functionally diverse lipids, it is clear that the characterization of their lipidome is a challenging task. Nonetheless, in recent years, advanced analytical approaches coupling chromatography and mass spectrometry have emerged as powerful tools in lipidomic analysis. The resolution and high throughput analysis achieved with these analytical approaches has allowed researchers to identify and quantify the lipid species present on the cells and tissues of a diversity of marine organisms, opening new perspectives in the identification of lipid signatures for their valorisation and biotechnological applications.

Scheduling and control are typically viewed as separate applications because of historical factors such as limited computing resources. Now that algorithms and computing resources have advanced, there are new efforts to have short-term decisions (control) interact or merge with longer-term decisions (scheduling). A new generation of numerical optimization methods are evolving to capture additional benefits and unify the approach to manufacturing process automation. This special issue is a collection of some of the latest advancements in scheduling and control for both batch and continuous processes. It contains developments with multi-scale problem formulation, software for the new class of problems, and a survey of the strengths and weaknesses of successive levels of integration.

Classically, polymer micelles have been defined as aggregates formed by the self-association of amphiphilic polymers due to the hydrophobic interactions between polymer molecules in water. Practical applications of polymer micelles include as carriers in drug delivery systems, as solubilizers, and as associative thickeners. Polymer micelles that do not fall within the classical definition have recently been reported and reflect important developments in synthesis and analysis. For example, hydrophobic interactions are the classic force driving polymer association, whereas recently, micelles have been formed through interactions such as electrostatics, hydrogen bonds, and coordination bonds. Intermolecular association results in the formation of polymer micelles that are similar to micelles formed from low molecular weight surfactants, whereas unimolecular micelles formed by intramolecular association within a single polymer chain have also been reported, as have stimuli-responsive polymer micelles. It is therefore important to constantly update the information available and our knowledge of polymer micelles. This special issue covers synthesis, characterization, solution properties, association behavior, simulation, and the application of polymer micelles and polymer aggregates. The aim of this issue is to expand our knowledge of polymer micelles by gathering together the latest basic and applied information regarding these supramolecular structures.

At the current time of writing, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has awarded American infrastructure a grade of D+, meaning poor and at risk. Part of the reason for the low grade is due to the rapid deterioration of structural integrity and the inability of most places to safely meet future demands. Deficiencies in these areas may be remediated by advancements in structural health monitoring (SHM) technologies that provide sensing systems to automatically and economically diagnose structural integrity. In a sense, SHM technologies will help pave the way to intelligent structures that are able to detect damage by themselves and even warn occupants of any danger due to impending structural failure. Engineering sensors and developing smart algorithms for SHM often involves the close collaboration of a surprisingly large breadth of specialties. In this book, we have collected a thin but representative slice of the most recent research in SHM, and hope that the reader will gain an inspiring view of today’s research landscape and a notion of what is to come.

There has been an observed decrease in the global mortality from cancer, mostly atributable to improved, particularly early, detection and prevention. For many carcinomas and leukaemias in adults, once the disease has reached a certain stage there are no therapies that are able to erradicate the cancer cells and cure patients. There has been progress in the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and remissions are achievable; however, the presence of chemoresistent blast cells leads to most patients relapsing, and relapse is difficult to treat and thus patients die due to their disease. Targeting these resistent cells and the leukaemia stem cells, which sustain the leukaemia, is crucial for an effective therapy for AML. Moreover, an increasing number of diverse mutations have been described in AML cells that disrupt the ability of these cells to undergo differentiation. The use of pro-differentiating agents to drive the blast cells to mature, and subsequently undergo apoptosis, provides another approach to therapy. Differentiation therapy, using all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA), an inducer of granulocyte differentiation, has been highly successful in the case of acute promyeloicytic leukaemia, a sub-type of AML, turning this disease into a curable malignancy.

Currently, at the dawn of 5G networks, and the era of the Internet-of-Things, wireless and mobile networking is becoming increasingly ubiquitous. In this landscape, security and privacy turn into decisive factors. That is, the mobile and wireless ecosystem is an ideal playground for many perpetrators: (a) handheld devices are used for critical tasks, such as e-commerce, bank transactions, payments, application purchases, as well as social interaction; (b) such devices uniquely identify their users and store sensitive and detailed information about them; and (c) despite all their sophistication, native security mechanisms of mobile operating systems can be bypassed, and several wireless interfaces and protocols have been proven to be vulnerable to attack. As the attacker is given so many alternative entry points for penetration, the creation of assaults against the end-user and the underlying systems and services have been augmented, both in amount, as well as in matters of complexity. It is, therefore, imperative that new and advanced security and privacy-preserving measures are deployed.To cope with the aforementioned challenges, this edited book has been dedicated to the security and privacy aspects of mobile networks, wireless communications, and their apps. Particularly, apart from network and link layer security, the focus is on the security and privacy of mobile software platforms and the increasingly differing spectrum of mobile or wireless apps. This edited book presents a collection of nine chapters. All the chapters constitute original research work addressing a variety of topics pertaining to the above-mentioned challenges.

This book originates from the ISPRS/CIPA Workshop “3D-ARCH 2017 – 3D Virtual Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex Architectures”, which was held in March 2017 in Nafplio, Greece. The main workshop’s scope was to bring together scientists, developers and advanced users in 3D surveying and data processing and to encourage cooperation and practice sharing in the various fields where 3D technologies are nowadays used. The workshop focused primarily on multi-source and multi-sensors approaches, low-cost sensors and open-source algorithms for terrestrial 3D modelling, automation in data registration, image matching and 3D reconstruction, point cloud analysis, 4D modelling, BIM/HBIM and procedural modelling, accuracy requirement and assessment in 3D reconstructions, 3D applications in terrestrial and underwater environments, Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) applied to the visualization and conservation of complex architectures and heritage. The most exciting and innovative papers presented at the workshop were selected to be extended and included in this cornerstone collection.

Aluminium is the world’s most abundant metal and is the third most common element, comprising 8% of the Earth’s crust. The versatility of aluminium makes it the most widely used metal after steel. By utilising various combinations of their advantageous properties such as strength, lightness, corrosion resistance, recyclability, and formability, aluminium alloys are being employed in an ever-increasing number of applications. In the recent decade, a rapid new development has been made in production of aluminium alloys, and new techniques of casting, forming, welding, and surface modification, have been evolved to improve the structural integrity of aluminium alloys. This Special Issue covers wide scope of recent progress and new developments regarding all aspects of aluminium alloys, including processing, forming, welding, microstructure and mechanical property, creep, fatigue, corrosion and surface behavior, thermodynamics, modeling, and application of different aluminum alloys. 

This book contains the successful submissions to a Special Issue of Energies on the subject area of “Engineering Fluid Dynamics”. The topic of engineering fluid dynamics includes both experimental as well as computational studies. Of special interest were submissions from the fields of mechanical, chemical, marine, safety, and energy engineering. We welcomed both original research articles as well as review articles. After one year, 22 papers were submitted and 12 were accepted for publication. The average processing time was 65.2 days. The authors had the following geographical distribution: China (four); Italy (two); Korea (one); Germany (one); UK (one); Ireland (one); Australia (one); Sweden (one); Japan (one); Spain (one); Norway (one).Papers covered topics such as heat transfer in shell and helically coiled tube heat exchangers, the multiphase modeling of sprays, flashing flows, as well as mixing in a bubbling fluidized bed. Two papers related to heating ventilation and air condition (HVAC) are included, namely evaporation and condensation in the underfloor space of detached houses and air distribution in a railway vehicle. Three papers dealt with various aspects of pumps and turbines: a performance prediction method for pumps as turbines; noise radiation in a centrifugal pump; periodic fluctuations in energy efficiency in centrifugal pumps; and study of a high-pressure external gear pump. One paper used both laser doppler velocimetry (LDV) and CFD in the study of flow behind a semi-circular step cylinder. Finally, a paper investigated the influence of the equivalence ratio (ER) and feedstock particle size on birch wood gasification.

Coasts are often beautiful landscapes with high biodiversity and provide a large and rapidly growing proportion of the world’s population with living and working environments, recreation, food, and drinking water. Coasts are also one of the most dynamic natural features on Earth and are under increasing pressure by human activities and climate change. This book compiles the papers that are part of the JMSE Special Issue on Coastal Morphodynamics, launched to compile the current state-of-the-art and future perspectives in the understanding of coastal morphodynamics, the complex and perpetual interaction between waves, tides, currents, sediment, biota, morphology, and humans. A solid understanding of, and skills in, predicting coastal morphodynamics is critical if we wish to manage our coasts in a sustainable manner.

Accumulating evidence suggests that not all obese subjects are at increased cardiometabolic risk and that the “metabolically healthy obese” phenotype may exist in the absence of metabolic abnormalities. Limited data regards the determinants of metabolically healthy obesity exist, particularly in relation to genetics, dietary and lifestyle behaviours. In light of the current obesity epidemic, it is clear that current “one size fits all” approaches to tackle obesity are largely unsuccessful. Whether dietary, lifestyle and/or therapeutic interventions, based on stratification of obese individuals according to their metabolic health phenotype, are more effective remains to be seen, with limited and conflicting data available. This book includes original research articles and reviews of the scientific literature that contribute to our understanding of the role of clinical, biological, genetic, and environmental factors in metabolically healthy and unhealthy obesity.

Micro-extraction techniques in sample preparation are gaining interest among analytical chemists as they comply with green analytical chemistry demands and ensure environmental protection and public safety. Savings in cost and time are considered as valuable benefits by using novel micro-extraction approaches in sample handling. Selectivity, sensitivity and lower detection limits are also included among the performance characteristics required to meet the legislation criteria.The target of this special issue is to present the state of art in microextraction sample preparation techniques. Modern, simple and efficient methods for preconcentration and separation are described for different analytes isolated from various matrices.

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is the most popular alternative water source in many urban, peri-urban, and rural areas. Although rainwater is fresh in nature, it gets polluted from atmospheric contaminants, roof catchments, and the RWH system itself. The research questions which are the most relevant to RWH system include the optimum rainwater tank size for a given location and set of users, water quality from a RWH system, financial viability of a RWH system, and state regulations on the use of water from a RWH system. You are invited to submit a technical paper to this Special Issue of Water on these aspects of a RWH system.

Historically, the notion of entropy emerged in conceptually very distinct contexts. This book deals with the connection between entropy, probability, and fractional dynamics as they appeared, for example, in solar neutrino astrophysics since the 1970's (Mathai and Rathie 1975, Mathai and Pederzoli 1977, Mathai and Saxena 1978, Mathai, Saxena, and Haubold 2010).The original solar neutrino problem, experimentally and theoretically, was resolved through the discovery of neutrino oscillations and was recently enriched by neutrino entanglement entropy. To reconsider possible new physics of solar neutrinos, diffusion entropy analysis, utilizing Boltzmann entropy, and standard deviation analysis was undertaken with Super-Kamiokande solar neutrino data. This analysis revealed a non-Gaussian signal with harmonic content. The Hurst exponent is different from the scaling exponent of the probability density function and both Hurst exponent and scaling exponent of the Super-Kamiokande data deviate considerably from the value of ½, which indicates that the statistics of the underlying phenomenon is anomalous. Here experiment may provide guidance about the generalization of theory of Boltzmann statistical mechanics. Arguments in the so-called Boltzmann-Planck-Einstein discussion related to Planck's discovery of the black-body radiation law are recapitulated mathematically and statistically and emphasize from this discussion is pursued that a meaningful implementation of the complex ‘entropy-probability-dynamics’ may offer two ways for explaining the results of diffusion entropy analysis and standard deviation analysis. One way is to consider an anomalous diffusion process that needs to use the fractional space-time diffusion equation (Gorenflo and Mainardi) and the other way is to consider a generalized Boltzmann entropy by assuming a power law probability density function. Here new mathematical framework, invented by sheer thought, may provide guidance for the generalization of Boltzmann statistical mechanics.  In this book Boltzmann entropy, generalized by Tsallis and Mathai, is considered. The second one contains a varying parameter that is used to construct an entropic pathway covering generalized type-1 beta, type-2 beta, and gamma families of densities. Similarly, pathways for respective distributions and differential equations can be developed. Mathai's entropy is optimized under various conditions reproducing the well-known Boltzmann distribution, Raleigh distribution, and other distributions used in physics. Properties of the entropy measure for the generalized entropy are examined. In this process the role of special functions of mathematical physics, particularly the H-function, is highlighted. 

Today, the development of active and stable catalysts still represents a challenge to overcome in the research field of low temperature fuel cells. Operation at low temperatures demands the utilization of highly active catalysts to reduce the activation energy of the electrochemical reactions involved at the electrodes, and thus obtain practical performances and high efficiencies. At present, the most practical catalysts in low temperature fuel cells are highly dispersed Pt nanoparticles. However, these present several drawbacks such as high cost, limited earth resources, sensitivity to contaminants, low tolerance to the presence of alcohols and stability due to carbon support corrosion and Pt dissolution. In the search for alternative catalysts, researchers have looked at several strategies: increase of the utilization of Pt catalysts by means of novel structures (metal/support), alloying with non-platinum metals, new carbon and non-carbon supports, cheaper platinum-group-metals like Pd, non-platinum-group metals catalysts (Fe-N-C, Co-N-C, etc.), etc. This book is intended to cover the most recent progresses in advanced electro-catalysts from the synthesis and characterization to the evaluation of performance and degradation mechanisms, in order to gain insights towards the development of highly active fuel cells.

As a result of our call in 2014 for submissions to a Special Issue, Advances in Marine Chitin and Chitosan in Marine Drugs, we are now pleased to tell you that this issue has been published. Twenty high class papers were included in this issue, which we now plan to publish as a book. In addition we now seek to publish a further Special Issue, Advances in Marine Chitin and Chitosan II, 2017, in Marine Drugs. As before, we plan to produce a strong, very exciting issue that will encompass breakthroughs in high value, scientific and industrial chitin and chitosan research. Despite significant advances in chitin and chitosan research since the 1970s, current overviews in recent publications involving chitin and chitosan research advances need reporting. 

The subject of enteral nutrition is an interesting one both to the healthcare professionals working in this practice area and to the individuals who may benefit from nutritional support. These individuals usually have functional guts but may be suffering from dysphagia (with the underlying neurological deficits) or the effects of radiotherapy treatment. Enteral nutrition involves the provision of nutritional support to individuals whose nutritional requirements cannot be met by a normal diet. In particular, it is the process of delivering enteral feed via feeding tubes such nasogastric feeding, nasojejunal and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes. Often, enteral nutrition provision involves the assessment of nutritional status, the determination of nutritional requirements, the establishment of feeding regimes, and the management of patients, pumps, feeds, and feeding tubes.Researchers in this field are also keen to evaluate the effect of enteral feeding protocols, algorithms, and guidelines on patients with different medical conditions in various care settings. There have also been a series of comparisons between the use of feeding tubes, feeding methods, and management approaches. Economic evaluations of enteral nutrition and Home Enteral Nutrition (HEN) teams show the benefits of Home Enteral Tube Feeding (HETF); however, due to the rising cost of HETF, there has been intense debate on the subject. There have been reviews on advances, challenges, and prospects in enteral nutrition.This Special Issue is intended to provide information on recent advances in the area of enteral nutrition. 

Increased awareness about environmental adverse effects of human activities has prompted the use of insecticides with low impact on systems associated to agriculture. Currently, the most successful biological products are based on protein toxins from the bacterial species Bacillus thuringiensis. Because of the remarkable properties of these proteins, their encoding genes were introduced into farming species (the so called Bt-crops), in such a way, that these plants are self-protected against some key insect pests. Despite the fact that a relatively large number of these toxins, with different toxicity ranges, have been described, it is still important to find new resources with novel capabilities to complement, or to replace in the future, the currently used ones. On another hand, it is important to continue studying their mode action in susceptible insects, and the changes occurred in resistant ones, to determine the most effective strategy for long lasting pest control. The focus of this Special Issue of Toxins is to provide updated information on the use of B. thuringiensis and their toxins on different field crops, the interactions of these toxins with other molecules, analyze the biochemical and molecular basis of emerging cases of resistance and, in general, to provide information which can contribute to an effective pest management with these toxins.

The purpose of this Special Issue, “Egg Consumption and Human Health,” is two-fold: 1) to address the lack of effect of eggs in increasing heart disease risk (this discussion will be based on what is known from epidemiological analysis and clinical interventions) and 2) to focus on the role of eggs in protecting against chronic disease. Eggs are more than just a cholesterol-containing food. They possess numerous nutritional benefits. This Special Issue will discuss eggs as a source of high-quality protein for individuals across the life spectrum, as a substantial source of choline (a known neurotransmitter involved in cognitive function), and as a source of highly bioavailable lutein and zeaxanthin (two carotenoids well-recognized for their major role in protecting against age-related macular degeneration and cataracts, as well as for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties). Finally, the potential of incorporating eggs for weight loss interventions, due to their low glycemic index and their satiety effects, will also be discussed.

Every year, a number of new forest pathosystems are discovered as the result of introduction of alien pathogens, host shifts and jumps, hybridization and recombination among pathogens, etc. Disease outbreaks may also be favored by climate change and forest management. The mechanisms driving the resurgence of native pathogens and the invasion of alien ones need to be better understood in order to draft sustainable control strategies. For this Special Issue, we welcome population biology studies providing insights on the epidemiology and invasiveness of emergent forest pathogens possibly by contrasting different scenarios varying in pathogen and host populations size, genetics, phenotype and phenology, landscape fragmentation, occurrence of disturbances, management practices, etc. Both experimental and monitoring approaches are welcome. In summary, this special issue focuses on how variability in hosts, pathogens, or ecology may affect the emergence of new threats to plant species.