Nature Conservation : Concepts and Practice
This book provides a multi-disciplinary coverage of the broad fields of species, community and landscape conservation.
Nato And Terrorism : On Scene : New Challenges for First Responders and Civil Protection
This book provides information about how leading agencies across the NATO membership are preparing to confront and respond to terrorists deploying Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Weapons of Mass Killing (WMK) and Weapons of Mass Disruption (WMDi). Based on contributions by experts from NATO member states, Israel and the Russian Federation, this book offers information on fourth generation warfare as a new challenge to first responders. It also provides a variety of insights into methods for preparing for and responding to WMD-, WMK-, and WMDi-events, using new technologies and strategies. Furthermore, the book offers solution for restoring the community to functioning after such a major terror attack. Topics include preparing, planning, operations, equipment, training and unique applications of existing technologies for countering terrorist attacks against cities and their infrastructure.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH ; Vol.1 : Frontiers in Research
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH: Volume 1, Frontiers in Research contains presentations given at the 2006 NIAID Research Conference held in Opatija, Croatia which brought internationally known researchers from the United States and Central and Eastern Europe to focus together on shared interests in microbiology, infectious disease, HIV/AIDS, and basic and clinical immunology. Some of the topics covered include emerging and re-emerging infections, the development of infectious disease prophylactics and therapeutics, drug resistance, and various topics in immunomodulation, autoimmunity, infections and immunity, and the development of vaccines.Extensive and in-depth, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH: Volume 1, Frontiers in Research is a valuable, comprehensive guide to the state of research today.
Nanostructured and advanced materials for applications in sensor, optoelectronic and photovoltaic technology ; Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on nanostructured and advanced materials for applications in sensors, optoelectronic and photovoltaic technology ; Sozopol, Bulgaria, 6-17 September 2004
Nanotechnology is an emerging scientific field receiving significant worldwide attention. On a nanometer scale, materials or structures may possess new and unique physical properties. Some of these are now known to the scientific community, but there may well be many properties not yet known to us, rendering it as a fascinating area of research and a suitable subject for a NATO ASI. Yet another aspect of the field is the possibility for creating meta-stable phases with unconventional properties and the ultra-miniaturization of current devices, sensors, and machines. Such nanotechnological and related advanced materials have an extremely wide range of potential applications, viz. nanoscale electronics, sensors, optoelectronics, photonics, nano-biological systems, na- medicine, energy storage systems, etc. This is a wide-ranging subject area and therefore requires the formation of multi-disciplinary teams of physicists, chemists, materials scientists, engineers, molecular biologists, pharmacologists, and others to work together on the synthesis and processing of materials and structures, the understanding of their physical properties, the design and fabrication of devices.
Nanomechanics of Materials and Structures
This book is derived from the proceedings of the International Workshop on Nanomechanics held at Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California on July 14-17, 2004. The main objective was to convene leading researchers in the nanotechnology community to assess the current state-of-the-art and disseminate recent progress, critical issues, barriers to applications, and directions for future research in nanomechanics.
Music as Intangible Cultural Heritage : Economic, Cultural and Social Identity
Our first contact with music is almost certainly in our childhood when our parents sing lullabies to us at bedtime. In a community where music is important, these songs are likely to be successfully transmitted from one generation to the next. This is similar to the concept of intangible cultural heritage and how it is transmitted.
Multi-Scale Approaches in Drug Discovery : From Empirical Knowledge to In silico Experiments and Back
Drug discovery is an expensive, time-consuming process and the modern drug discovery community is constantly challenged not only with discovering novel bioactive agents to combat resistance from known diseases and fight against new ones, but to do so in a way that is economically effective. Advances in both experimental and theoretical/computational methods envisage that the greatest challenges in drug discovery can be most successfully addressed by using a multi-scale approach, drawing on the specialties of a whole host of different disciplines. Multi-Scale Approaches to Drug Discovery furnishes chemists with the detail they need to identify drug leads with the highest potential before isolating and synthesizing them to produce effective drugs with greater swiftness than classical methods may allow. This significantly speeds up the search for more efficient therapeutic agents.
Multiple Sclerosis: Autoimmunity and Management
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an immune-mediated inflammatory disease that attacks myelinated axons in the central nervous system, destroying the myelin and the axon in variable degrees and producing significant physical disability within 20–25 years in more than 30% of patients. The hallmark of MS is symptomatic episodes that occur months or years apart and affect different anatomic locations. Also, see the Autoimmune Disorders: Making Sense of Nonspecific Symptoms slideshow to help identify several diseases that can cause a variety of nonspecific symptoms. MS is diagnosed on the basis of clinical findings and supporting evidence from ancillary tests. Treatment consists of immunomodulatory therapy for the underlying immune disorder and management of symptoms, as well as nonpharmacologic treatments, such as physical and occupational therapy. Disease-modifying therapies have shown beneficial effects in patients with relapsing MS, including reduced frequency and severity of clinical attacks. These agents appear to slow the progression of disability and the reduce accumulation of lesions within the brain and spinal cord.
Multifunctional Barriers for Flexible Structure : Textile, Leather and Paper
The intent of this book is to give a complete overview of the present state of the art of flexible barrier materials such as textile, paper and leather, including methods for barrier evaluation. It will be of interest to readers in industries, consumers, and members of the scientific community. The scope of the field is clearly delineated here for the first time, and it deals with a number of specific topics such as barrier to fire, antibacterial properties, resistance to waves (electrostatic, electromagnetic, acoustics), anti-odor, etc. combined with characterization techniques as well as material nanotechnology.
Multi-Agent and Multi-Agent-Based Simulation ; Joint Workshop MABS 2004
The aim of the workshop was to provide a forum for work in both appli- tions of multi-agent-based simulation and the technical challenges of simulating large multi-agent systems (MAS). There has been considerable recent progress in modelling and analyzing multi-agent systems, and in techniques that apply MAS models to complex real-world systems such as social systems and organi- tions. Simulation is an increasingly important strand that weaves together this work. In high-risk, high-cost situations, simulations provide critical cost/benefit leverage, and make possible explorations that cannot be carried out in situ: – Multi-agent approaches to simulating complex systems are keytools in interdisciplinary studies of social systems. Agent-based social simulation (ABSS) research simulates and synthesizes social behavior in order to understand real social systems with properties of self-organization, scalability, robustness, and openness. – In the MAS community, simulation has been applied to awide range of MAS research and design problems, from models of complex individual agents - ploying sophisticated internal mechanisms to models of large-scale societies of relatively simple agents which focus more on the interactions between agents.
Mucosal Immune Defense : Immunoglobulin A
This book, authored by international experts in the field of IgA immunology, presents a comprehensive and timely overview of current knowledge of IgA structure and function. Topics include the basic science of IgA biochemistry and molecular biology, general and tissue-specific aspects of IgA function, and the clinical relevance of IgA in infection, autoimmunity, immunodeficiency and cancer.
Mr Hopkins Men : Cambridge Reform and British Mathematics in the 19th Century
Tells the story of Hopkins and the education and subsequent careers of his top "wranglers", many of whom went on to have illustrious careers as bishops, judges, politicians, scientists or educators. It draws on first-hand accounts of life at Cambridge to give the reader a glimpse inside its colleges, and it charts the evolution of the curriculum and the slow, often reluctant, reforms that led to Cambridge’s dominance of British higher education. It surveys the scientific achievements of the time and considers the disproportionate contributions made by Scottish and Irish alumni in establishing a research community. Gradually, Cambridge was transformed from a near-moribund institution into a world-renowned centre for the mathematical and physical sciences.
Motor Control and Learning
Motor Control and Learning focuses on the effects of development, aging, and practice on the control of human voluntary movement. These issues have been at the center of attention of the motor control community, but no book until now has addressed all of these issues under one cover in the context of contemporary views on the control of human voluntary movement. This book emphasizes the links between progress in basic motor control research and applied areas such as motor disorders and motor rehabilitation.
Monitoring State Compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child : An Analysis of Attributes
This book presents a discussion on human rights-based attributes for each article pertinent to the substantive rights of children, as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It provides the reader with a unique and clear overview of the scope and core content of the articles, together with an analysis of the latest jurisprudence of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. For each article of the UNCRC, the authors explore the nature and scope of corresponding State obligations, and identify the main features that need to be taken into consideration when assessing a State’s progressive implementation of the UNCRC. This analysis considers which aspects of a given right are most important to track, in order to monitor States' implementation of any given right, and whether there is any resultant change in the lives of children.
Molecular Mimicry : Infection Inducing Autoimmune Disease
The conceptual basis for molecular mimicry was first defined in the early 1980s when monoclonal antibodies against viruses were also shown to react with non-viral host protein; in this case, measles virus phosphoprotein cross-reacted with host cell cytokeratin, herpes simplex virus type 1 with host-cell vimentin and vaccinia virus with host-cell intermediate filaments. Following this discovery, others emerged, again at the clonal level, that T cell clones against proteins from a variety of infectious agents also reacted with host antigenic determinants. The clonal distinction was imperative fo.
Molecular Mechanisms of Phagocytosis
Although, Phagocytosis was first described nearly 120 year ago, we are just recently beginning to understand the molecules that phagocytic cells use to bring about this complex cell function. Molecular Mechanisms of Phagocytosis was prepared as a series of up-to-date essays (chapters) that describe the present knowledge on the various steps of the phagocytic process from initial cell contact, through internalization of the foreign particle, to the final phagosome formation where the phagocytosed particle is destroyed.
Molecular autoimmunity
The autoimmune disease paroxysmal cold hemoglobinuria, a rare hemolytic disorder. After a century of research, the list of autoimmune diseases has become impressive. With a prevalence of approximately 5% of the world-wide population, these chronic, debilitating conditions affect almost every major organ of the body and, for reasons that remain unclear, are much more prevalent in woman than in men. Despite our rapidly expanding knowledge of the cellular and molecular pathways that govern a normal immune response, deciphering the precise etiology of autoimmune diseases remains an important challenge. Over the last few years, our understanding of the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases has improved rapidly, leading to the emergence of elegant immunointervention strategies. Molecular Autoimmunity illustrates how cutting-edge research is continuing to advance our understanding of autoimmune disease mechanisms and identifies novel therapeutic targets that provide a hope for effective future treatments. This volume contains a selected number of exciting advances in unraveling autoimmune reactions, and the resulting new armory of experimental immunotherapies that may lead to new ways of controlling autoimmune reactions.
Modulation of host gene expression and innate immunity by viruses
This book is reference on a relatively young area of research in which virology, cellular biology and molecular pathogenesis govern the principles of coinvestigation. Infection of a naïve (non-immune) host with a virus elicits an immediate response which results in a cascade of changes in the host, including an interferon response (innate immunity). The outcome of this interaction is influenced by the genes of the virus as well as the genes of the host. Interestingly, different viruses do it in different ways. Not only is there a plethora of mechanisms used by the invading organisms, but the host has also evolved a great variety of redundant and robust countermeasures. This interplay of host and virus represents one of the most significant frontiers in biology today. A clearer understanding of the mechanisms involved will arm us with better strategies to deal with viruses, including emerging pathogens and potential bioterrorism agents. This book is sure to benefit students, scientists, and physicians working in the areas of virology, immunology, microbiology, and infectious diseases.
Modern Sports Dentistry
A one-stop reference that will assist primary care community dentists, sports physicians, athletic trainers, and emergency room physicians in meeting the needs of athletes when managing facial and dental trauma and sports-related oral diseases. The opening chapters provide a complete review of sports-related dentoalveolar trauma, with coverage of emergent care, the role of endodontics, surgical issues, and restorative considerations. Prevention of dental trauma by means of mouthguards is then examined, with attention to materials and design, public policy concerning the use of mouthguards, and the role of mouthguards in relation to the ever more pressing issue of concussion in sport. Dental erosion in athletes, for example due to energy drinks, is discussed, as are the possible sequelae of use of spit tobacco, performance-enhancing drugs, and ergogenic aids. The new topic of the potential value of dental appliances in enhancing sports performance is also addressed.
Modern Morphometrics in Physical Anthropology
Morphometrics has undergone a revolutionary transformation in the past two decades as new methods have been developed to address shortcomings in the traditional multivirate analysis of linear distances, angles, and indices. While there is much active research in the field, the new approaches to shape analysis are already making significant and ever-increasing contributions to biological research, including physical anthropology. Modern Morphometrics in Physical Anthropology highlights the basic machinery of the most important methods, while introducing novel extensions to these methods and illustrating how they provide enhanced results compared to more traditional approaches. Modern Morphometrics in Physical Anthropology provides a comprehensive sampling of the applications of modern, sophisticated methods of shape analysis in anthropology, and serves as a starting point for the exploration of these practices by students and researchers who might otherwise lack the local expertise or training to get started. This text is an important resource for the general morphometric community that includes ecologists, evolutionary biologists, systematists, and medical researchers.



















