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Mannitol : Chemistry, Uses and Potential Side Effects

Presents topical research in the study of the chemistry, uses and potential side effects of mannitol. Topics discussed include the utilization and production of D-mannitol by bacteria; concentration of mannitol and other soluble carbohydrates in the crustose lichen rhizocarpon geographicum; disease-related changes and mannitols use for clinical disorders; use of mannitol in thermal energy storage applications; and chiral phosphorous ligands derived from D-mannitol.

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Lake Verevi, Estonia : A highly stratified hypertrophic lake

The present book summarises investigations on Lake Verevi (surface 12.6 ha, mean depth 3.6 m). The seventeen articles in this issue deal with a wide range of questions, starting with a holistic overview of the ecological status, over assessments of long-term changes in biotic and abiotic conditions and finishing with proposed restoration plans. Abiotic chapters provide calculations on water and mass balance, distribution and fractions of phosphorus in the sediment, optical properties and penetration of radiation in the water column, sedimentation rate during the formation of stratification, and nitrogen circulation characteristics.

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Class 2 Transferases VIII : EC 2.6.1.58 - 2.7.1.37

Springer Handbook of Enzymes provides data on enzymes sufficiently well characterized. It offers concise and complete descriptions of some 5,000 enzymes and their application areas. Data sheets are arranged in their EC-Number sequence and the volumes themselves are arranged according to enzyme classes. This new, second edition reflects considerable progress in enzymology: many enzymes are newly classified or reclassified. Each entry is correlated with references and one or more source organisms. New datafields are created: application and engineering (for the properties of enzymes where the sequence has been changed). The total amount of material contained in the Handbook has more than doubled so that the complete second edition consists of 39 volumes as well as a Synonym Index.

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Changing Land Use Patterns in the Coastal Zone : Managing Environmental Quality in Rapidly Developing Regions

Coastal ecosystems make up some of the most important, yet most endangered, regions in the world. The protection of the unique processes that take place in these ecosystems requires that partnerships be formed among ecologists, resource managers, and planners. Experienced in the challenges of coastal system analysis, the contributors to this book provide multidisciplinary guidance on the assessment and management of environmental impacts caused by development. Each chapter examines an issue important to these fragile ecosystems, first presenting a non-technical summary of the issue and a review of the current state of the knowledge, then following with data and a more detailed consideration of the topic.

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Advances in Integrated Soil Fertility Research in sub-Saharan Africa : Challenges and Opportunities

Food insecurity is a central concern and a fundamental challenge for human welfare and economic growth in Africa. Low agricultural production, results in low incomes, poor nutrition, vulnerability to risks and lack of empowerment. Land degradation and soil fertility depletion are considered the major threats to food security and natural resource conservation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Investments in technology, policy and institutional reforms are needed to increase agricultural productivity to ensure food security and sustained national economies. Past research has generated numerous soil fertility management technologies which if adopted could propel the African continent out of the poverty trap. However, these technologies have had little, if any, impact due to low adoption by the smallholder farmers.

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Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants : Toward the Improvement of Global Environment and Food

Stresses in plants caused by salt, drought, temperature, oxygen, and toxic compounds are the principal reason for reduction in crop yield. For example, high salinity in soils accounts for large decline in the yield of a wide variety of crops world over; ~1000 million ha of land is affected by soil salinity. Increased sunlight leads to the generation of reactive oxygen species, which damage the plant cells. The threat of global environment change makes it increasingly demanding to generate crop plants that could withstand such harsh conditions. Much progress has been made in the identification and characterization of the mechanisms that allow plants to tolerate abiotic stresses.

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Marine Eutrophication in Perspective : On the Relevance of Ecology for Environmental Policy

Is ecological knowledge relevant for environmental policy and if so, to what extent and in what way? These are some of the basic questions addressed in this book. Triggered by a series of oxygen depletion events in German, Danish and Swedish coastal waters at the beginning of the 1980s, international policies to reduce inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus to the North Sea were agreed upon by the North Sea states. The book provides a critical analysis of the role, scientists and scientific information, as well as civil servants, have played in the formulation and implementation of these decisions.

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Chiral Diazaligands for Asymmetric Synthesis

The use of phosphine derivatives has historically induced the tremendous development of catalysis (both non-asymmetric and asymmetric). Although the chemistry of amines is more documented, the use of nitrogen-containing ligands only appeared recently. Nevertheless, during the last ten years, the results describing chiral diamine preparations and their uses in asymmetric catalysis and synthesis are increasing faster than their phosphorus counterparts. The reader will find in this volume the most recent methods for the synthesis of chiral diamines as well as their applications in asymmetric catalysis of CC bond formation. Particular attention will be given to spartein and derivatives of such diamines. Recently, the particular properties and the chemistry of amines allowed to obtain catalysts easy to separate and recycle and new types of ligands such as diaminocarbenes, ureas and thioureas. Finally, the complexing properties of some diamines allowed the formation of complexes with chirality "at the metal " which is of major theoretical interest and presents numerous potential applications.

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Carbon in the Geobiosphere : Earth's outer shell

Carbon and carbon dioxide always played an important role in the geobiosphere that is part of the Earth’s outer shell and surface environment. The book’s eleven chapters cover the fundamentals of the biogeochemical behavior of carbon near the Earth’s surface, in the atmosphere, minerals, waters, air-sea exchange, and inorganic and biological processes fractionating the carbon isotopes, and its role in the evolution of inorganic and biogenic sediments, ocean water, the coupling to nutrient nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, and the future of the carbon cycle in the Anthropocene. This book is mainly a reference text for Earth and environmental scientists; it presents an overview of the origins and behavior of the carbon cycle and atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the human effects on them. The book can also be used for a one-semester course at an intermediate to advanced level addressing the behavior of the carbon and related cycles.

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Biophysical Aspects of Transmembrane Signaling

Transmembrane signaling is one of the most significant cell biological events in the life and death of cells in general and lymphocytes in particular. Until recently biochemists and biophysicists were not accustomed to thinking of these processes from the side of a high number of complex biochemical events and an equally high number of physical changes at molecular and cellular levels at the same time. Both types of researchers were convinced that their findings are the most decisive, having higher importance than the findings of the other scientist population. Both casts were wrong. Life, even at cellular level, has a number of interacting physical and biochemical mechanisms, which finally build up the creation of an "excited" cell that will respond to particular signals from the outer or inner world.

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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.

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