Open Access Books

Lignin, found in the cell walls of trees and plants, is the second-most naturally abundant biopolymer. It is composed of alkyl-aromatic polymer units. This book describes the composition and structure of lignin, strategies for its chemical modification, and studies of biopolymer lignin. It also discusses the synthesis and characterization of lignin, methods for degradation, applications in various materials, and prospects for further development. Other topics covered include the role of lignin in thermosetting and thermoplastic materials and its technical and economic potential for generating green biofuel as an energy source for industrial plants and in the manufacture of fine chemicals.

While the chapters in this book are a long way from solving the enigma that is CFS, they do represent important attempts to understand this complex and perplexing disease. A common theme in them all is CFS as a multisystem disease with the possibility of more than one cause and influenced by a variety of interacting factors. Further, they acknowledge the reality of CFS for persons with this disease and the importance of finding causes, treatments and ultimately a cure. As advanced biomedical research techniques are increasingly applied to the study of CFS, it is surely only a matter of time before biomarkers are identified, etiologies understood, and remedies devised.

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In the last few decades, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has distinguished itself as one of the most rapidly advancing spectroscopic techniques. Mainly known as an analytical tool useful for sample characterization and content quantification, NIR spectroscopy is essential in various other fields, e.g. NIR imaging techniques in biophotonics, medical applications or used for characterization of food products. Its contribution in basic science and physical chemistry should be noted as well, e.g. in exploration of the nature of molecular vibrations or intermolecular interactions. One of the current development trends involves the miniaturization and simplification of instrumentation, creating prospects for the spread of NIR spectrometers at a consumer level in the form of smartphone attachments—a breakthrough not yet accomplished by any other analytical technique. A growing diversity in the related methods and applications has led to a dispersion of these contributions among disparate scientific communities. The aim of this Special Issue was to bring together the communities that may perceive NIR spectroscopy from different perspectives. It resulted in 30 contributions presenting the latest advances in the methodologies essential in near-infrared spectroscopy in a variety of applications.

The Chinese-speaking Muslims have for centuries been an inseperable but anomalous part of Chinese society--Sinophone yet incomprehensible, local yet outsiders, normal but different. Long regarded by the Chinese government as prone to violence, they have challenged fundamental Chinese conceptiosn of Self and Other and denied the totally transforming power of Chinese civilization by tenaciously maintaining connectios with Central and West Asia as well as some cultural differences from their non-Muslim neighbors.Familiar Strangers narrates a history of the Muslims of northwest China, at the intersection of the frontiers of the Mongolian-Manchu, Tibetan, Turkic, and Chinese cultural regions. Based on primary and secondary sources in a variety of languages, Familiar Strangers examines the nature of ethnicity and periphery, the role of religion and ethnicity in personal and collective decisions in violent times, and the complexity of belonging to two cultures at once. Concerning itself with a frontier very distant from the core areas of Chinese culture and very strange to most Chinese, it explores the influence of language, religion, and place on Sino-Muslim identity.

L’écrivain-personnage est un pôle d’attraction tant pour le cinéaste que pour le spectateur : Hollywood a produit plus de 250 films traitant d’écrivains. Mais pourquoi reviennent-ils donc si souvent dans le cinéma américain ? Trudy Bolter, Américaine, maître de conférences en culture nord-américaine à l’Institut d’études politiques de Bordeaux (université Montesquieu Bordeaux 4), analyse une vingtaine de « writer-films » pour expliquer le pouvoir de la figure de l’écrivain sur la scène culturelle des États-Unis. À travers la mise en spectacle de l’écrivain-personnage, oscillant entre sanctification et déchéance, le spectateur qui « réécrit » l’histoire du film met en marche sa « voix baladeuse », se reconnaissant dans le personnage. Grâce à l’étude de l’histoire culturelle des États-Unis et à l’analyse textuelle, guidée par la psychologie cognitive bordwellienne et le formalisme russe eichenbaumien, Trudy Bolter décrit et définit la « voix baladeuse » où s’exprime l’envie d’écrire présente chez le spectateur.

Analisa as questões relativas ao agente comunitário de saúde, decorrentes da grande disseminação dos Programas de Saúde da Família. Estudando o agente comunitário de saúde que atua no Projeto Qualis/PSF, no município de São Paulo, este livro examina a construção de identidades profissionais e caracteriza o perfil das áreas metropolitanas. Por meio de uma reflexão sobre a identidade dos profissionais dos programas de saúde, os agentes comunitários, e sobre suas dificuldades para viabilizar uma política de reorientação do modelo de assistência à saúde, este livro demonstra sua importância como discussão essencial para sustentar e continuar os Programas de Saúde da Família, buscando recursos disponíveis nas próprias comunidades.

Unter dem Schlagwort »ethnische Ökonomie« wird die berufliche Selbstständigkeit von Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund in Politik und Wissenschaft diskutiert. Indem die Selbstständigen ihren »Markt machen«, positionieren sie sich mit dem und gegen diesen Diskurs. Robert Birnbauer zeigt aus einer wirtschaftsanthropologischen Perspektive, wie die Unternehmer*innen dabei ihre gesellschaftlichen Positionen und etablierte ökonomische Wissensbestände gleichermaßen verhandeln. Dazu folgt er dem Diskurs um »ethnische Ökonomie« von der politischen in die unternehmerische Praxis und zeigt: Geschäfte im Markt für muslimische Mode werden zum Resultat gesellschaftlicher Diskurse und der Markt zum Effekt beschreibbarer unternehmerischer Praxis - weit jenseits einer »unsichtbaren Hand«.

Since the introduction of robotic surgery in the early 2000s, several studies have demonstrated its safety and feasibility in various complicated procedures, including esophageal, gastric, and colorectal surgery (for both benign and malignant pathologies), hepatobiliopancreatic surgery, and gynecological and urological procedures.Robot-assisted surgery provides the advantages of a magnified tridimensional view and movement stability without a tremor, which facilitate a precise dissection. The EndoWrist instrument also facilitates dissection at difficult angles, thus enabling surgery in complex conditions.Even if some of the advantages of robotic surgery have been defined, we are still far from clearly recognizing precise indications for a robotic approach in gastrointestinal surgery.With this Special Issue, we aim to investigate the conditions that support the robotic approach in gastrointestinal surgery toward the definition of gold-standard robotic procedures, as established in urological surgery for prostatectomy.

This edited volume discusses the identification, discovery, characterization, structure determination and modeling of multicomponent macromolecular complexes, and as such, it fully complements the first volume (ISBN 978-3-319-27214-6), which targeted methods of recombinant production of protein complexes. This book is divided in 8 sections offering a selection of technologies widely used in the characterization of protein and protein-nucleic acid complexes for different purposes and at different scales. From native electrophoresis methods, that are accessible to any reasonably well-equipped laboratory, to the sophisticated setup required for structure determination by cryo-electron microscopy or X-ray crystallography, this book contains a wide variety of clearly explained analytic and preparative approaches, connected with the production techniques developed on the previous volume. The readers will find an integral connection between this book and the first volume, which ensures a comprehensive and updated discussion of the main topics of the discipline. Taken together, these volumes constitute a cohesive and authoritative source of the research on multicomponent macromolecular complexes. In here, we focus on characterization of protein complexes in the broadest sense, which is not typically covered in other sources. Moreover, all chapters are carefully written by world renowned scientists and active researchers, making this volume ideal, not only as a reference source, but also as a companion book for the daily laboratory work. This book is aimed for a wide range of scientists, from science students to experienced researchers, working on protein and protein-nucleic acid complexes, who need a thorough understanding of protein production and complex characterization.

In Protein, Samantha King and Gavin Weedon explore the contemporary obsession with this nutritional superstar, tracing how protein moves through food systems and fitness cultures, strengthening some bodies and environments at the expense of others.

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Schistosomes are human parasites distributed worldwide in tropical and sub-tropical latitudes, especially in developing countries and impoverished regions. These neglected tropical disease (NTD) pathogens causes debilitating illnesses, which include hepatosplenomegaly, hepatic fibrosis, haemorrhagic necrotic ulcerations in the intestinal mucosa, urogenital tract diseases, in addition to cardiopulmonary, renal and neurologic lesions due to egg accumulation in the liver, intestines, uro-genital tissues and other sites. Urogenital schistosomiasis is a risk factor for bladder cancer and increases the risk of transmission of HIV infection. Despite extensive effort to control this NTD over the years, deployment on a considerable scale of commercially available drugs in endemic populations has induced the emergence of resistant isolates and raised the need to identify new targets for alternative therapies. Because of the availability of genomes of the three major species of human schistosomiasis, and through advances in functional genomics and live imaging, studies on schistosomes have now come into focus as models to investigate adaptations to parasitism and developmental biology of trematodes and cestodes, and indeed flatworms and Lophotrochozoans, at large. This Research Topic aims at gathering state-of-art essays on schistosome genetics, genetics, pathobiology and immunobiology. It also aims to highlight advances in understanding of the host-parasite relationship, in paradigms that address this NTD, and to discuss new perspectives and advances in chemotherapy and immunoprophylaxis.

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computational Structures, FOSSACS 2023, which was held during April 22-27, 2023, in Paris, France, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2023. The 26 regular papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 85 submissions. They deal with research on theories and methods to support the analysis, integration, synthesis, transformation, and verification of programs and software systems.

Quality and security serve as a projection surface for a wide variety of problems in the German healthcare system. Sustainable objectives as the basis for the further development of quality assurance in Germany are not in sight, however, credibility and trust in instruments and terminology are lost. We continue to finance quantity instead of quality, sectoral foreclosure is about cooperation. For all legislative activities - a fundamental reform approach has not yet been identified. This is where quality comes in 2030 and proposes a regulatory framework for healthcare, in which quality and patient safety are the controlling factors. It is clearly formulated which basic reform approaches are necessary, which interventions (e.g. Pay for Performance) are necessary and how these can be introduced into the system without negative side effects. Quality 2030 also stands for a realistic time frame for implementing this paradigm shift; the work is the basis of argument and work for the necessary reforms.