Perpustakaan Digital

The availability of new products has always been the driving force of the ornamental sector. Nevertheless, the sector is currently facing important challenges related to reducing production costs in order to cope with new climatic and phytopathological adversities, as well as to respond to sustainable production not only from an economic point of view but also from an environmental and social point of view. Moreover, new uses and new needs of end-consumers have led us to consider that it is important to envisage new organizational systems and new forms of propositions in the market. This Special Issue wants to take a holistic approach to the ornamental industry and includes studies and research covering several aspects of the ornamental productive flow from breeding to market. The latest breeding technologies and the new production systems of propagation and cultivation, as well as the most recent surveys on understanding trends of consumers of the ornamentals sector, will be presented.

The current Special Issue of Publications is dedicated to PUBMET2022, The 9th Conference on Scholarly Communication in the Context of Open Science. The PUBMET conference aimed to provide a forum for the community involved in scholarly communication and the dissemination of knowledge, inviting researchers, information and communication specialists, librarians, editors, publishers, teachers, students, research funders, policy makers, repository managers, and other stakeholders involved in scholarly communication to discuss the current changes, developments, and advancements in scholarly communication from the perspective of open science. The PUBMET conference is open to individuals who are interested in learning more about and sharing their research results and experiences on the practices in open science. The current Special Issue contains submissions of research that reflect both practical and technical innovations, which serve the implementation of open science. The following topic

This book focuses on recent advances in both theoretical and experimental studies of material behaviour at the micro- and nano-scales. Special attention is given to experimental studies of nanofilms, nanoparticles and nanocomposites as well as tooth defects. Various experimental techniques were used.  Magneto- and thermoelastic coupling were considered, as were nonlocal models of thin structures. Related Books Mechanics of Micro- and Nano-Size Materials and Structures Engineering Recent Advances in Mechanisms of Fracture and Fatigue Chemistry & Materials Science ... Advanced Mechanical Modeling of Nanomaterials and Nanostructures Engineering Small Scale Deformation using Advanced Nanoindentation Techniques Engineering Advances in Micro and Nano Manufacturing: Process Modeling and Applications Engineering The recommendations have been generated using an AI system. About: About MDPI Books Advisory Board Legal Information: MDPI Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions Terms of Use Acce

This volume includes 12 chapters of pilgrim studies on European pilgrimages in the Catholic tradition in multidisciplinary perspectives. The contributions’ methodological perspectives range from quantitative approaches of social science to qualitative approaches of the humanities, from religious studies to political science, and from philosophy to geography. The themes of this contribution reflect on the Italian landscape of pilgrimage, on the Oberammergau passion play, on the pilgrim aspect of the 1989 revolution in Romania, and two types of pilgrimage in the Catholic tradition and how they present themselves on the internet. Three social science chapters provide new data and analysis to the most popular pilgrim destination in Europe: The Ways of St. James to Santiago de Compostela. Five studies discuss papal pilgrims and pilgrim popes. The chapters range from a historical analysis of the pilgrimage from Mexico to Rome in the 19th century and a quantitative analysis of all papal add

Ecophysiological mechanisms underlie plant responses to environmental conditions and the influence these responses have on ecological patterns and processes. In this Special Issue, with a particular interest in the interactions between climate change, environmental disturbance, and functional ecology, experimental observations are described at a range of spatial scales. A modeling framework is used in an effort to relate mechanistic responses to ecosystem functions and services, and link forest ecophysiology and environmental indicators. This Special Issue collects important advances in studying and monitoring plant–environment interactions, covering biogeographic gradients from Mediterranean woodlands to boreal forests and from Alpine mountains to tropical environments. Related Books Impacts of Climate Change on Tree Physiology and Responses of Forest Ecosystems Biology & Life Sciences ... Advances in Forest Ecophysiology: Stress Response and Ecophysiological Indicators of Tree Vital

In today's industrial world and applied scientific research, it is crucial to continuously update ourselves on the applications and developments of mechatronic systems, in which increasingly technologically complex electronic and sensory devices allow us to manage machinery, devices, or parts of them in increasingly surprising ways. For this reason, in this Special Issue, some interesting developments of mechatronic systems are proposed with the aim of stimulating the reader's interest and updating them on recent applications.

This Special Issue (SI) explores how language, identity, and power intersect in multilingual, multicultural, and digitally mediated environments—from households and classrooms to boardrooms and online platforms. The SI centers on historically underrepresented perspectives in the field, especially those from non-Western and Global South contexts. Challenging the dominance of Western-centric frameworks, the contributors highlight how colonial legacies, indigenous knowledge, and regional dynamics reshape intercultural theory and practice. In the opening article, “knowledge strategies” are introduced that position indigenous perspectives as global contributions, reframing community building as a third key dimension of intercultural communication alongside interaction and exchange. Subsequent articles adopt a decolonial, multilingual, and multiscalar lens. Topics include family language policy, bilingual development, youth identity in digitally saturated settings, and multilingualism in corporate communication. Digital media emerges as both a communication tool and a contested space where ideology and identity are negotiated. Two articles examine how media shape public discourse. The SI concludes with a study exploring students’ development of intercultural competencies and proposing inclusive co-curricular strategies. Together, these contributions reconceptualize intercultural communication as a dynamic, plural, and power-laden process. By amplifying diverse voices, this SI expands the field’s boundaries and advances a more inclusive global conversation on what it means to communicate—and coexist—across cultures.

The natural environment can no longer sustain human development; non-renewable resources must be preserved and used wisely. More recently, a number of intensive environmental problems have arisen, and many natural boundaries have been crossed due to our actions. Global warming and the depletion of natural resources are becoming a reality. Pollution and climate change are important factors enforcing our society to change their habits and move toward process circularity. The huge energy demand, both thermal and electrical, is obvious; however, it is no longer guaranteed. To maintain stability, we must move toward more eco-friendly solutions and replace fossil fuels with more heterogeneous and dynamic fuels such as biomass, especially agricultural biomass, refuse-derived fuels, and municipal waste. The thermochemical processing of waste fuels and biomass includes, but is not limited to: torrefaction, pyrolysis, liquefaction, gasification, hydrothermal carbonization and co-combustion, and direct combustion. At present, not only is the efficiency of the process the main challenge but waste generation and further utilization of the products to close the material loop are important issues as well. One of the major concerns is the quality of the materials generated; product cleaning and upgrading to enhance their properties provide significant research opportunities. The following Special Issue presents recent findings in biomass and waste conversion technologies, raw material analysis, and further upgrading and utilization of thermal processing products according to the circular economy concept.

Pavement materials such as asphalt mixtures, granular aggregates, and soils exhibit complex material properties and engineering performance under external loading and environmental conditions. For instance, the asphalt mixture shows highly nonlinear viscoelastic and viscoplastic properties at high temperatures, and it presents fatigue cracking damage and fracture properties at intermediate or low temperatures. Constitutive models based on mechanics theories have been the kernel of performance prediction of pavement infrastructures and materials. They lay down a solid foundation for material selection, design, pavement structural evaluation and maintenance decisions. Advances in mechanics modeling and associated experimental testing for pavement infrastructures and construction materials are emerging constantly, such as nonlinear viscoelasticity, viscoplasticity, fracture, and damage mechanics models. Meanwhile, various numerical modeling technologies are being developed and implement

The impairment of neurogenesis may be induced after pre- and post-natal chemical and biological toxin, alcohol, or radiation exposure, drug treatment, hormone imbalances, stress, pain, hypoxia, brain trauma, malnutrition, and aging. It also occurs as a result of genetic disorders such as Down syndrome (DS), autism, fragile X syndrome (FXS), neurological disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) epilepsy, and Huntington's disease (HD), and neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia; however, the causal relationship between the impairment of neurogenesis and neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders remains unknown. In this Special Issue, entitled “Induced Impairment of Neurogenesis and Brain Diseases”, original animal or cell experimental research and review papers were combined to discuss different causes of the impairment of neurogenesis, relevant neurobehavioral changes, molecular mechanisms, and therapeutic approaches. The aim is

Sustainability, defined as ‘meeting current needs without compromising the future’, is a widely accepted goal across many sectors of society. Sustainability’s criteria and indicators often only regard sustaining present conditions through increased resilience, intended as a system’s capacity to experience shocks while retaining essentially the same functions and structures. However, new sustainability concepts, sometimes referred to as “sustainagility”, also consider the properties and assets of a system that sustains the ability (agility) of agents to adapt and meet their needs in new ways, preparing for future unpredictability and unforeseen changes. Therefore, resilience must coexist with adaptive capacity for real, long-term sustainability. Consumers are paying increasing attention to the sustainability of the food supply chain; thus, sustainable development is necessary for all food processes. Since the olive oil sector has a well-established historical tradition, any change an

Probably, the most well-documented, and at the same time, simple conceptual method for predicting runoff depth from rainfall depth is the Soil Conservation Service curve number (SCS-CN) method. This Special Issue presents the latest developments in the SCS-CN methodology, including, but not limited to, novel applications, theoretical and conceptual studies broadening the current understanding, studies extending the method’s application in other geographical regions or other scientific fields, substantial evaluation studies, and ultimately, key advancements towards addressing the key remaining challenges, such as: improving the SCS-CN method runoff predictions without sacrificing its current level of simplicity; moving towards a unique generally accepted procedure for CN determination from rainfall-runoff data; improving the initial abstraction estimation; investigating the integration of SCS-CN method in long-term continuous hydrological models and the implementation of various soil m

As the global climate continues to change, there is an increasing need to develop climate-resilient food crops to feed the growing population. As such, research in plant stress biology is expanding, and systems biology approaches involving plant physiology, biochemistry, ‘omics’ and ‘multi-omics’ methodologies are shedding light on the complex mechanisms underlying plant responses to abiotic stresses. All this knowledge could contribute to crop improvement programs to increase global food security under changing environments. Therefore, this Reprint consists of 13 publications that expand our understanding of plant responses to a range of abiotic stresses using ‘omics’ and ‘multi-omics’ methods. Such studies are critical as agricultural research is focused on developing climate-resilient food crops.

Multifunctional polymer composites are a class of smart materials in which the polymer matrix is reinforced with fillers to tailor with different functionalities. The promise of integrating several functions into a single material is quite challenging. Moreover, their lightweight, durable, and customizable materials positions multifunctional polymer composites as a key enabler for next-generation technologies. This Reprint will focus on these aspects, thereby providing readers with an insightful idea of multifunctionality in polymer composites.

Sustainable construction projects encompass new eco-materials and techniques for the construction and retrofitting of materials during operation. Simultaneously, environmental protection issues augment the complexity of construction and maintenance projects, thus resulting in a greater need for advanced management and decision-making tools and techniques. This Special Issue showcases recent academic and industrial developments in successful and sustainable project management throughout the whole life cycle of construction projects, including green construction retrofitting methods and materials; lean construction techniques; the application of robotics and automation in construction; new approaches to budget estimation using machine learning; multicriteria decision-making in design and construction; sustainable procurement and contract management; successful claim management; and the digital transformation of construction processes and organizations.

The production of food enriched with bioactive compounds, through natural means, represents a concept desired by nutritionists, doctors and consumers. Animal products with high nutritional quality can be designed using innovative feeding strategies. Animals are known to be able to ‘‘bio-convert’’ health-promoting components from their diet into their eggs, milk or meat. The nutritional quality of animal products depends on genetic, physiological and environmental conditions, but also upon their diets. Lately, various feed additives have been shown to increase the nutritional quality of animal-origin food, which in turn promotes a healthy human diet. Some of them have proven effects on productive parameters or on the sensory attributes of animal products, or modify the nutrient composition of products. Nutritional evaluations of animal products and feeds are necessary for establishing the bioconversion yield of nutrients, from feeds to animal-origin food. This Special Issue focuses on

Mathematical fuzzy logic (MFL) specifically targets many-valued logic and has significantly contributed to the logical foundations of fuzzy set theory (FST). It explores the computational and philosophical rationale behind the uncertainty due to imprecision in the backdrop of traditional mathematical logic. Since uncertainty is present in almost every real-world application, it is essential to develop novel approaches and tools for efficient processing. This book is the collection of the publications in the Special Issue “Mathematical Fuzzy Logic in the Emerging Fields of Engineering, Finance, and Computer Sciences”, which aims to cover theoretical and practical aspects of MFL and FST. Specifically, this book addresses several problems, such as:- Industrial optimization problems- Multi-criteria decision-making- Financial forecasting problems- Image processing- Educational data mining- Explainable artificial intelligence, etc. Related Books Research on Fuzzy Logic and Mathematics wit

The extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold, which surrounds and supports the cells in tissues, consists of fibrillar proteins, proteoglycans, glycosaminoglycans, signaling molecules, and enzymes involved in its remodeling. The stages of cancer progression, e.g., local invasion, intravasation, extravasation, distant invasion and immunosuppression, are obligatorily perpetrated through interactions of these tumor cells with the ECM. Cancer-related ECM changes can be exploited for the evaluation of disease progression, anticancer therapy development, and monitoring of therapy response. Thus, in breast cancer, hyaluronan-mediated wound repair mechanisms are hijacked to promote tumor development. Altered mechanical properties of the pancreatic cancer ECM are immunosuppressive and prevent the penetration of cytotoxic chemotherapy agents. The expression of the proteoglycan syndecan-4 is modulated by anticancer drugs, suggesting its potential druggabilty capacity. Another proteoglycan, lumican,

This text presents cutting-edge topics on and the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for tear film abnormities, including dry eye disease and Meibomian gland dysfunction. A new management algorithm for Meibomian gland dysfunction, therapeutic eye drops and intense pulsed lasers for dry eye disease, and topical and systemic agents for neuropathic ocular pain are proposed in this issue. Related Books Molecular Advances in Dry Eye Syndrome Medicine & Pharmacology Treatment of Cornea and Ocular Surface Diseases Medicine & Pharmacology The Challenges and Therapeutic Prospects in Eye Disease Biology & Life Sciences New Challenges in Ocular Drug Delivery Medicine & Pharmacology Glaucoma Medicine & Pharmacology The recommendations have been generated using an AI system. About: About MDPI Books Advisory Board Legal Information: MDPI Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions Terms of Use Accessibility Sales: Order and Delivery Indexing and Distribution Further Information: Book Series Rep

Functional foods continue to attract significant scientific and consumer interest due to their health-promoting properties, largely attributed to the presence of bioactive compounds. Such compounds include plant-derived metabolites such as polyphenols, carotenoids, or sulfur- and nitrogen-containing compounds, as well as bioactives from animal and microbial sources, including peptides, fatty acids, and polysaccharides. Their biological activity is associated with antioxidant, immunomodulatory, and metabolic effects, contributing to disease prevention and overall health maintenance. This compilation of scientific publications presents current advances in the identification, characterization and application of bioactive compounds in food systems. The collected contributions highlight the importance of food matrix structure, processing conditions and technological approaches in determining stability, bioavailability and functionality. Attention is also given to molecular mechanisms of action, including interactions with the gut–brain axis, immune regulation and inflammation pathways. In addition, both experimental and computational methods are addressed, including advanced analytical techniques and in silico predictions supporting bioactivity assessment. The diversity of sources and approaches reflects the complexity of the field and emphasizes the need for critical and evidence-based evaluation of health effects.

As renewable energy integration continues to expand, electricity market participants face growing uncertainty in both prices and volumes. These evolving conditions underscore the urgent need for advanced tools and strategies to support effective decision-making and ensure system reliability. Recognizing these challenges, the current Reprint presents a collection of innovative research on forecasting and risk management in electricity markets undergoing rapid transformation. The featured papers explore a range of approaches, including load forecasting under uncertainty, agent-based simulations for peer-to-peer trading, blockchain-based electricity market mechanisms, and the development of energy and weather derivatives to hedge market risks. Together, these contributions span both centralized and decentralized systems and offer practical insights for energy producers, grid operators, and financial engineers. Several studies also align risk-management strategies with broader policy goals such as carbon neutrality and sustainable electricity market design. In summary, this Reprint serves as a timely reference for researchers and practitioners seeking interdisciplinary methods to enhance forecasting accuracy and market resilience. The collection reflects the evolving nature of electricity markets and brings together perspectives from energy economics, finance, control theory, and data science to address pressing challenges and emerging opportunities worldwide.

The seafloor, which covers 71\% of the Earth's surface, contains diverse habitats (from shallow coastal areas to the deepest ocean trenches) and is essential for ecosystem services (such as pollution regulation, food supply, and biodiversity conservation). However, despite its crucial role, only about a quarter of the seafloor has been mapped. This Special Issue aligns with global initiatives such as the UN Decade of Ocean Science and SDG 14 ("Life Below Water") by deepening our understanding of marine ecosystems. It combines traditional and modern methods and aims to integrate research from a wide range of habitats, climates, and regions. The studies presented have primarily examined macrofauna at the community and species level, with an additional focus on megafauna, foraminifera, and macroalgae. These studies integrated conventional techniques and remote sensing for data collection, as well as taxonomic, molecular, and biogeochemical analyses in the laboratory. By applying diverse metrics to assess biodiversity and physiological conditions, coupled with advanced statistical tools, these studies have successfully explored previously unexplored areas, identified invasive species, monitored pollution, and tested innovative substrates to enhance monitoring capabilities. Overall, this SI significantly enriches our understanding of marine benthic ecology and biogeography and provides critical insights that support the conservation and management of marine benthic ecosystems.

This reprint focuses on exploring the relationship between urban form, mobility, and social well-being across neighborhoods, cities, and regions. Understanding more about these relationships is helpful in shaping integrated sustainable urban planning and transport development strategies. All reprint chapters primarily contribute to the existing literature on the interdisciplinary field of the impact of urban planning and transport on social well-being and facilitate novel ways of measuring the abstract concept of well-being, particularly in Asian and European countries. We suggested that further research could explore these themes in greater depth by means of both theoretical frameworks and methodological developments in this integrated field. Related Books Transportation and Infrastructure for Sustainability Engineering Strategies for Sustainable Urban Development—Exploring Innovative Approaches for a Liveable Future Public Health & Healthcare ... The Study of Urban Geography and C

The importance of studying pollution via potentially toxic elements (PTEs) is becoming a key challenge considering the increasing concern about the presence of PTEs in the environment and their potential impacts on ecosystem functioning and public health due to their persistence and biotoxicity. Regional geochemical research, together with geostatistical computations which are used to identify source patterns of different pollutants related to the underlying geological features and/or anthropogenic activities, is the best approach for characterizing this pollution issue. The collection of research in this Special Issue, “Potentially Toxic Element Pollution in Urban and Suburban Environments”, represents the need of the scientific community to characterize the behavior, transport, fate, and ecotoxicological state of PTEs in environmental matrices in both urban and suburban settings. All the case studies collected are of relevant significance due to their quality, both in the methodo