Biometric systems : Technology, design and performance evaluation
The use of computers to recognize humans from physical and behavioral traits dates back to the digital computer evolution of the 1960s. But even after decades of research and hundreds of major deployments, the field of biometrics remains fresh and exciting as new technologies are developed andoldtechnologiesareimprovedandfieldedinnewapplications.Wor- wide over the past few years,there has been a marked increase in both g- ernment and private sector interest in large-scale biometric deployments for accelerating human–machine processes, efficiently delivering human services, fighting identity fraud and even combating terrorism. The p- pose of this book is to explore the current state of the art in biometrics- tems and it is the system aspect that we have wished to emphasize. By their nature, biometric technologies sit at the exact boundary of the human–machineinterface.Butlikealltechnologies,bythemselvestheycan provide no value until deployed in a system with support hardware, n- work connections, computers, policies and procedures, all tuned together to work withpeople to improve some real business process within a social structure.
BioMEMS and Biomedical Nanotechnology : Vol. I: Biological and Biomedical Nanotechnology
Abe Lee has been working on micro/ and nanotechnology for biomedical and biotech applications since 1992. His recent research focuses on the development of integrated micro and nano fluidic chip processors for the following applications: point-of-care diagnostics, "smart" nanomedicine for early detection and treatment, stem cell biology and therapeutics, the synthesis of novel and pure materials, and biosensors to detect environmental and terrorism threats. Jim Lee's research interest includes BioMEMS/NEMS, and polymer micro/nanotechnology. In the last 4 years, he has over 20 refereed journal publications, 2 book chapters, and 5 patents in these areas. He is now leading an NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for Affordable Nanoengineering of Polymer Biomedical Devices at OSU.
Biomedical data mining for information retrieval : Methodologies, techniques, and applications
Discusses data mining, biomedical image processing, information retrieval with broad coverage of basic scientific applications. covers the topic of mining biomedical text, images and visual features towards information retrieval. Biomedical and health informatics is an emerging field of research at the intersection of information science, computer science, and healthcare and brings tremendous opportunities and challenges due to easily available and abundant biomedical data for further analysis. The aim of healthcare informatics is to ensure the high-quality, efficient healthcare, better treatment and quality of life by analyzing biomedical and healthcare data including patient’s data, electronic health records (EHRs) and lifestyle. Previously, it was a common requirement to have a domain expert to develop a model for biomedical or healthcare; however, recent advancements in representation learning algorithms allows us to automatically to develop the model. Biomedical image mining, a novel research area, due to the vast amount of available biomedical images, increasingly generates and stores digitally.
Biologically-Inspired Collaborative Computing ; IFIP 20th World Computer Congress, 2nd IFIP TC 10 International Conference on Biologically-Inspired Collaborative Computing, September 8–9, 2008, Milano, Italy
The IFIP series publishes state-of-the-art results in the sciences and technologies of information and communication. The principal aim of the IFIP series is to encourage education and the dissemination and exchange of information about all aspects of computing.
Biologically Inspired Approaches to Advanced Information Technology ; 2nd International Workshop, BioADIT 2006, Osaka, Japan 26-27, 2006, Proceedings
This book contains 30 articles and three abstracts of invited talks presented at The Second International Workshop on Biologically Inspired Approaches for Advanced Information Technology,The workshop is intended to provide an e?ective forum for original research results in the ?eld of bio-inspired approaches to advanced information technologies. It also serves to foster the connection between biological paradigms and solutions to building the next-generation information systems.
Biological processes associated with impact events
The biological effects of asteroid and comet impacts have been widely viewed as primarily destructive. The role of an impactor in the K/T boundary extinctions has had a particularly important influence on thinking concerning the role of impacts in ecological and biological changes. th During the 10 and final workshop of the ESF IMPACT program during March 2003, we sought to investigate the wider aspects of the involvement of impact events in biological processes, including the beneficial role of these events from the prebiotic through to the ecosystem level. The ESF IMPACT programme (1998-2003) was an interdisciplinary effort that is aimed at understanding impact processes and their effects on the Earth environment, including environmental, geological and biological changes.
Biological Membrane Ion Channels : Dynamics, Structure, and Applications
Ion channels are biological nanotubes that are formed by membrane proteins. Because ion channels regulate all electrical activities in living cells, understanding their mechanisms at a molecular level is a fundamental problem in biology. This book deals with recent breakthroughs in ion-channel research that have been brought about by the combined effort of experimental biophysicists and computational physicists, who together are beginning to unravel the story of these exquisitely designed biomolecules. With chapters by leading experts.
Biological and artificial intelligence environments
The book reports the proceedings of the 15th Italian workshop on neural networks issued by the Italian Society on Neural Networks SIREN. The longevity recipe of this conference stands in three main points that normally renders the reading of these proceedings so interesting as appealing. 1. The topics of the neural networks is considered an attraction pole for a set of researches centered on the inherent paradigm of the neural networks, rather than on a specific tool exclusively. Thus, the subsymbolic management of the data information content constitutes the key feature of papers in various fields such as Pattern Recognition, Stochastic Optimization, Learning, Granular Computing, and so on, with a special bias toward bioinformatics operational applications. An excerpt of all these matters may be found in the book. 2. Though managed at domestic level, the conference attracts contributions from foreign researchers as well, so that in the book the reader may capture the flavor of the state of the art in the international community. 3. The conference is a meeting of friends as well. Thus the papers generally reflect a relaxed atmosphere where researchers meet to generously exchange their thought and explain their actual results in view of a common cultural growing of the community.
Bioinorganic electrochemistry
Interfacial electrochemistry of redox metalloproteins and DNA-based molecules is presently moving towards new levels of structural and functional resolution. This is the result of powerful interdisciplinary efforts. Underlying fundamentals of biological electron and proton transfer is increasingly well understood although with outstanding unresolved issues. Comprehensive bioelectrochemical studies have mapped the working environments for bioelectrochemical electron transfer, supported by the availability of mutant proteins and other powerful biotechnology. Introduction of surface spectroscopy, the scanning probe microscopies, and other solid state and surface physics methodology has finally offered exciting new fundamental and technological openings in interfacial bioelectrochemistry of both redox proteins and DNA-based molecules.
Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements in Arid Environments
Global warming has worsened the water resource crisis in many arid zones worldwide, from Africa to Asia, affecting millions of people and putting them at risk of hunger. Effective management of arid zone resources, including understanding the risks of toxic trace and heavy elements to humans, coupled with the need to produce more food to feed the world’s growing population, has thus become increasingly important. This very timely book, the only one of its kind on the market, fills the gap of our knowledge of trace elements in these regions. This book begins by introducing the nature and properties of arid zone soil, followed by an updated overview and comprehensive coverage of the major aspects of the trace elements and heavy metals of most concern in the world’s arid and semi-arid soils. These aspects include: - content and distribution - solution chemistry - solid-phase chemistry - selective sequential dissolution techniques - transfer fluxes - bioavailability - pollution and remediation In order to illustrate the themes, a comprehensive and focused case study on transfer fluxes of trace elements in Israeli arid soils is presented. Finally it closes with the global perspectives on anthropogenic interferences in the natural trace elements’ distribution.
Biogeochemical cycles in globalization and sustainable development
This valuable study of environmental subsystems functioning under various climatic and anthropogenic conditions provides a unique insight into the social context of global changes in biogeochemical cycles and demonstrates current understanding of globalization and sustainable development.
Biofuels, Solar and Wind as Renewable Energy Systems : Benefits and Risks
With shortages of fossil energy, especially oil and natural gas, and heavy biomass energy use occurring in both developed and developing countries, a major focus has developed worldwide on renewable energy systems. Renewable energy systems include wind power, biomass, photovoltaics, hydropower, solar thermal, thermal ponds, and biogas. Currently, a heavy focus is on biofuels made from crops, such as corn, sugarcane, and soybeans, for use as renewable energy sources. Wood and crop residues also are being used as fuel. Though it may seem beneficial to use renewable plant materials for biofuel, the use of crop residues and other biomass for biofuels raises many concerns about major environmental problems, including food shortages and serious destruction of vital soil resources.
Bioelectricity : A Quantitative Approach
"The authors’ goal in producing this book was to provide an introductory text to electrophysiology, based on a quantitative approach. In attempting to achieve this goal, therefore, the authors have opened the book with a useful, and digestible, introduction to various aspects of the mathematics relevant to this field, including vectors, introduction to Laplace, Gauss’s theorem, and Green’s theorem. This book will be useful for students in medical physics and biomedical engineering wishing to enter the field of electrophysiological investigation. It will also be helpful for biologists and physiologists who wish to understand the mathematical treatment of the processes and signals at the center of the interesting interdisciplinary field.
Bioeconomy and Global Inequalities Socio-Ecological Perspectives on Biomass Sourcing and Production
This book explores bioeconomy and bioenergy policies across South America, Asia and Europe. It discusses how a transition away from a fossil and towards a bio-based economic order alters, reinforces and challenges socio-ecological inequalities. A series of conceptual discussions and case studies with a multidisciplinary background in the Social Science illuminate how the deployment of biomass sources from the agricultural and forestry sectors affect societal changes concerning knowledge production, land and labour relations, political participation and international trade
Bioeconomic modelling and valuation of exploited marine ecosystems
This book offers an environmental-economic analysis of exploited ecosystems with a clear policy orientation. The study tries to move beyond traditional economic fishery analysis in two respects. First, several theoretical and numerical models are offered that combine economic and ecological descriptions of fisheries. These models give special attention to spatial processes as well as to combining exploitation and conservation objectives. Second, valuation and stakeholder concerns are addressed in empirical analyses employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The latter is done by using advanced methods of monetary valuation. In addition, the first part of the book presents short, introductory overviews of integrated assessment, economic modeling of fishery management, and incorporating uncertainty in fisheries analysis.
Biodiesel : A realistic fuel alternative for diesel engines
Environmental and political concerns are generating a growing interest in alternative engine fuels such as biodiesel. Biodiesel is a renewable energy source produced from natural oils and fats, which can be used as a substitute for petroleum diesel without the need for diesel engine modification. In addition to being biodegradable and non-toxic, biodiesel is also essentially free of sulfur and aromatics, producing lower exhaust emissions than conventional gasoline whilst providing similar properties in terms of fuel efficiency.
Biochemical Mechanisms of Detoxification in Higher Plants : Basis of Phytoremediation
Plants play a key role in purifying the biosphere of the toxic effects of industrial activity. This book shows how systematic application of the results of investigations into the metabolism of xenobiotics (foreign, often toxic substances) in plants could make a vastly increased contribution to planetary well-being. Deep physiological knowledge gained from an accumulation of experimental data enables the great differences between the detoxifying abilities of different plants for compounds of different chemical nature to be optimally exploited. Hence planting could be far more systematically adapted to actual environmental needs than is actually the case at present.
Bioactive Confirmation II
Specific binding of a ligand to a receptor is a key step in a variety of biol- ical processes, such as immune reactions, enzyme cascades, or intracellular transport processes. The ligand-receptor terminology implies that the rec- tor molecule is signi?cantly larger than the ligand, and the term "bioactive conformation" usually characterizes the conformation of a ligand when it is bound to a receptor. In a more general sense, bioactive conformation applies toanymoleculeinabiologicallyrelevantboundstateregardlessofsizecons- erations. Mostofthecontributions tothisbookaddressligandsthat aremuch smaller than their receptors. X-ray crystallography and high resolution NMR spectroscopy are the two main experimental techniques used to study bioactive conformations. The- fore, the twovolumes ofthisbookcover approachesthat use either ofthetwo techniques, or a combination thereof.
Binary Rare Earth Oxides
The book begins with a brief introduction to binary rare earth oxides, their physical and chemical stabilities, polymorphism, crystal structures and phase transformation and the association with current applications. The book goes on to present the band structure of the oxides using several quantum chemical calculations, which belong to a newly developed area in the binary rare earth oxides. Central to this chapter are the characterizations of electrical, magnetic and optical properties, as well as details of single crystal growth and particle preparation methods that have progressed in recent years. Later chapters concentrate on thermo-chemical properties and trace determination techniques. The final chapter contains a variety of useful applications in various fields such as phosphors, glass abrasives, automotive catalysts, fuel cells, solid electrolytes, sunscreens, iron steels, and biological materials.
Big Data Recommender Systems ; Vol.2 : Application Paradigms
Combines experimental and theoretical research on big data recommender systems to help computer scientists develop new concepts and methodologies for complex applications. It includes original scientific contributions in the form of theoretical foundations, comparative analysis, surveys, case studies, techniques and tools. First designed to generate personalized recommendations to users in the 90s, recommender systems apply knowledge discovery techniques to users’ data to suggest information, products, and services that best match their preferences. In recent decades, we have seen an exponential increase in the volumes of data, which has introduced many new challenges. recommender systems. Volume 2 covers a broad range of application paradigms for recommender systems over 22 chapters



















