Books published by Nova Science Publishers Inc

This current book provides an overview of current research on bacteriophages. Chapter One discusses bacteriophages of pathogenic vibrios, identification and differentiation. Chapter Two reviews recent literature about the application of phages for the biocontrol of microorganisms in meat and meat products, with a particular emphasis on chicken, beef and pork in order to shed light on the efficacy of such strategy for the prevention and/or eradication of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms in foods and food processing environments. Chapter Three studies the synthesis of the divalent cation requirements for efficient adsorption of bacteriophage onto bacterial cells. Chapter Four focuses on the isolation and evaluation of the lytic spectrum of bacteriophages active against food-borne bacteria. Chapter Five presents data about the history and present-day of using bacteriophage preparations in treatment and prevention of various infectious diseases, in particular of suppurative-inflammatory diseases of the respiratory organs. Chapter Six reviews phagebiotics in treatment and prophylaxis of healthcare-associated infections.

This book analyzes a new phenomenon in civilization: the transformation of the current "Information Wave" into virtual civilization. In the 21st century, the "real-space" of the world civilization, due to the massive, network-intensive use of computers world-wide, gained the virtual space known as cyberspace. Cyberspace is a product of information technology exemplified by the Internet as the world system of information highway(s) [INFOSTRADA(S)] which forms a digital space containing all sorts of files and communication exchanges practiced in online and real-time modes. For the first time in 6,000 years of human civilization, society has become a quantum society, which can be real and virtual at the same time. The virtual society is invisible for those who do not use computer networks. Even for those who do use them, cyberspace access requires some sort of commercial transactions-oriented activities (ex. on Amazon or eBay and others), searching on Google or Yahoo or communicating as a member of one of social networks, e.g.. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others.

It is common for adoptive families to need support and services after adoption. Postadoption services can help families with a wide range of issues. They are available for everything from learning how to explain adoption to a preschooler, to helping a child who experienced early childhood abuse, to supporting an adopted teens search for identity. Experience with adoptive families has shown that all family members can benefit from some type of postadoption support. Families of children who have experienced trauma, neglect, abuse, out-of-home care, or institutionalisation may require more intensive services. This book serves as a guide to postadoption assistance.

Over the past two decades, automobile crash-related fatality and injury rates have declined over 34 and 40 percent respectively, due in part to improvements in automobile safety. To further improve traffic safety and provide other transportation benefits, the Department of Transportation (DOT) is promoting the development of vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technologies. Among other things, V2I technologies would allow roadside devices and vehicles to communicate and alert drivers of potential safety issues, such as if they are about to run a red light. GAO was asked to review V2I deployment. This book addresses the status of V2I technologies; challenges that could affect the deployment of V2I technologies, and DOT efforts to address these challenges; and what is known about the potential benefits and costs of V2I technologies.

Americans today confront an array of challenges in their efforts to achieve and maintain financial security. Financial literacythe ability to use knowledge and skills to manage financial resources effectively -- has thus become increasingly important. Experts have identified the workplace as a potentially effective venue for providing financial education and helping individuals improve their financial decision making. This book discusses the role of the employer in promoting financial literacy; the effectiveness of such efforts; how best to serve low-income and other underserved populations; and the federal government''s role in supporting these efforts. The book also discusses needs and priorities in improving financial literacy; roles and responsibilities of, and collaboration among, the government, nonprofit, and private sectors; lessons learned from federal public health and nutrition literacy initiatives; and the Government Accountability Office''s potential role in addressing financial literacy issues.

This book provides readers with the latest developments in neuroscience research. Topics covered include the multiple effects of electroacupuncture on the synaptic efficacy of neuronal ensembles in the spinal cord of experimental animal models of neuropathic pain and their neuromodulation by neuropeptide hormones and cytokines; electrical stimulation for pressure ulcer prevention and treatment of spinal cord injury; the structure and function on the entorhinal cortex with special reference to neurodegenerative disease; recent advances in the understanding of the effects of different ginsenosides on CNS targets and how ginsenosides can contribute to cures for some of the most devastating neurological disorders and neurodegenerative diseases; neuroplasticity and neurogenesis; neuroplastic changes in subjects with deaf-blindness using the topographic distribution maps of the somatosensory evoked potential by stimulation of the median nerve (SEP-N20) pre-CI versus post-CI; vascular functions of dexamethasone, a synthetic GC with a focus on dexamethasone action on the blood-brain-barrier (BBB); the relationship between the effects of GCs on neurosteroid biosynthesis and on cognitive behaviors and hippocampal neural activity; a review of the real case of a patient with subacute combined spinal cord degeneration and pancytopenia secondary to severe and sustained vitamin B12 deficiency; and the role of sex-steroid hormones in anxiety, affective, eating and psychotic disorders.

The authors of this book discuss the latest advances in sociology research. Chapters include research on the importance of stories in assessing personal and/or community problems and designing culturally relevant and effective solutions; the repercussions of precarious, low-status work regarding access to healthcare services by immigrant workers in Greece; the repercussions of work and employment in precarious, low-status/low wage jobs of immigrant workers on their trade union participation and work rights claims in Greece; new oral transmission of popular culture in the face of global challenges; norm conformity, rationalization and resident participation in multi-owned housing management; myths and facts of closing the gender gap in trade union activities in Nigeria; and the phenomenon of homophobia within the framework of masculine domination as well as its role in setting the binary regarding gender boundaries.

This book focuses on the latest developments in psychology research. The first chapter reviews the effects of acute aerobic exercise and high intensity interval training (HIIT) on positive and negative affect. The following chapters discuss alexithymia, psychological flexibility and social anxiety; analyses the ethical implication of discrimination, especially discrimination that may occur inadvertently, through a type of stigma; presents eating disorders in women as a multifaceted and complex social phenomenon; evaluates the potential of visible facial behavior in studies of affective disorders; studies infants'' communication and parental triad nonverbal interactions; and examines the challenges and practices, and provides research on distinguishing grief from depression in the clinical setting.

Briefly stated, comparative effectiveness research pertains to the direct, succinct and precise comparison of existing healthcare interventions to determine what works best for each individual patient, and which treatment course poses the greatest benefits, costs and harms. The core question of comparative effectiveness research goes beyond establishing what treatment works best, for whom, and under what circumstances: it is a hypothesis-driven endeavor designed to uncover and implement the consensus of the best evidence base for patient-centered, effectiveness-focused and evidence-based health care. Members at the Institute of Medicine and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research concur that comparative effectiveness research involves the generation and synthesis of the best available evidence for a treatment intervention by means of a process driven by the PICOTS question/hypothesis, and are directed at comparing and contrasting the benefits, costs and harms of alternative methods to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor a clinical conditions with the specified intent of improving the delivery of health care. The purpose of comparative effectiveness research is to assist healthcare providers, patients, allied clinicians, caregivers and other stakeholders to engage together and make informed decisions that will improve healthcare at both the individual and population levels, and in so doing utilize the identified best evidence base in specific clinical settings, a process that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality defines as "Translational Effectiveness". In brief, comparative effectiveness research is the tool and the process necessary for translational effectiveness. In this light, it is critical and timely to facilitate comparative effectiveness research as one of the essential and primary components of patient-centered, effectiveness-focused and evidence-based clinical decision-making in healthcare, as the premier process that results in improved patient outcomes, enhanced research planning, better products, and novel evidence-based policy development. This book is a compilation of the writings of several experts in the field and their collaborators. Each chapter examines specific facets of the process of comparative effectiveness research-based clinical decision-making in the principal domains of healthcare, which are subsumed in this work as dentistry, Western and alternative medicine, nursing, and pharmacology. Taken together, the chapters in this book present a brief, yet comprehensive overview and discussion of the current state of comparative effectiveness in healthcare. They establish the central role of systematic reviews in the process of clinical decision-making in evidence-based health care, and examine in depth the statistical significance and the clinical relevance of actualising and evaluating clinical decision-making. Additionally, policies in optimizing evidence-based, patient-centered and effectiveness-focused clinical outcomes, stakeholders engagement for raising health literacy in the U.S. and worldwide in this decade of the twenty-first century and beyond are discussed.

Smoking cigarettes starts during adolescence. Some adolescents may stop smoking cigarettes having taken it as an experiment during adolescence, but others may continue smoking into adulthood. Most adults who smoke started smoking during the adolescence stage and may have been already addicted to nicotine before the age of eighteen, resulting in long-term health consequences. This book compiles and documents smoking epidemiology and correlates of smoking in adolescents in various regions of the world. It aims to provide critical information that relates to the magnitude of the problem and who is affected in order for strategies to be identified and implemented. The issue is a concern of public health, since smoking affects people not only at the time the smoking habit begins, but because it has an influence on them for the rest of an individual''s life.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in Hippocrates'' dictum: "Let food be your medicine and medicine your food". This book focuses on the therapeutic effects of broccoli phytochemicals, in particular certain glucosinolate metabolites and flavonoids. This book is organized in such a manner that people with only a basic background in the biological sciences would profit greatly. Anyone interested in any area of nutrigenomics would profit from reading this book as well. This would include horticulturists interested in how phytochemicals may be therapeutic, as well as nutritionists and other health professionals who wish to better understand how diet may influence gene expression and thereby health. Persons engaged in the food-processing industry will also find this book profitable. This book will be of especial interest to graduate students as well as health profession students. The book starts out with a chapter outlining the role of Professor Paul Talalay of Johns Hopkins University and his colleagues, whom initially identified activators of the Nrf2 signalling pathway as playing a critical role in the anti-cancer properties of certain phytochemicals and then went on to greatly develop this area of nutrigenomic research, most recently with human clinical trials. Since many of the therapeutic effects of broccoli consumption can be attributed to specific glucosinolates, two chapters deal with glucosinolates in general (Chapter Two) and glucosinolate distribution in different broccoli cultivars specifically (Chapter Three). Nrf2 activators will influence xenobiotic metabolism in a number of ways; hence, Chapter Four gives an overview of xenobiotic metabolism. Chronic diseases, a major target of nutraceuticals, are a major health concern and place a huge burden on the health care system. Chronic diseases are driven by oxidative stress and generalized inflammation. To understand the medicinal effects of plant bioactive compounds requires an understanding of the mechanisms of oxidant production and scavenging, how oxidative stress affects signalling pathways, and the roles of certain phytochemicals in countering oxidative stress and inflammation. This is the topic of Chapter Five. Chapter Six outlines the Nrf2 signalling pathway and its role in regaining redox and metabolic homeostasis. Broccoli also contains bioactive flavonoids that influence xenobotic metabolism and Nrf2 signalling. Chapter Seven deals with flavonoids with a focus on the major flavonoids found in broccoli, quercetin and kaempferol. Chapters Eight through Eleven outline some of the basic research examining the effects of sulforaphane on x-irradiation-mediated damage, UV-mediated skin damage and perinatal ischemic insults. Chapters Twelve and Three give an overview of some of the clinical trials that involve intake of sulforaphane/broccoli sprouts. The last four chapters deal with the agronomic aspects of broccoli, including cultivation, post-harvest processing and how various cooking methods affect the bioactive components in broccoli.