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'Exploring ideas of post-mortem existence through the lenses of complex systems and traditional cultural perspectives offers a deeper understanding about life, death, and the existence beyond. Self-organization theory provides a framework for examining how cultural systems evolve and adapt new concepts of post-mortem states, where individual consciousness and collective memory continue to evolve. Traditional cultures provide diverse and deep-rooted views on the afterlife, often envisioning a continued existence, spiritual transformation, or idea perpetuated by moral beliefs. Further research on integrating these perspectives is necessary to gain a more nuanced approach to post-mortem existence understanding and appreciation for evolving systems and cultural constructs. Post-Mortem Existence Within the Complex Systems Self-Organization Theory Framework and in Traditional Cultures explores the ideals of post-mortem existences in traditional cultures using a complex systems self-organization theory framework. Religious structures and cultural responses to death are outlined while examining various models and scenarios. This book covers topics such as biology, philosophy, and anthropology, and is a useful resource for scientists, biologists, medical professionals, philosophers, anthropologists, academicians, and researchers.'--

The book introduces readers to the latest developments in biotechnological methods used for improving the cultivation of silkworms. The text focuses on implementing biotechnological approaches, ranging from basic to advanced techniques, on enhancing silk production, increasing abiotic stress resilience, improving disease tolerance, and developing resistance in silkworm crops. With the current climate crisis and growing demand for high-quality silk, biotechnological applications have become essential in addressing the urgent need to increase silk production. The field of sericulture has made significant breakthroughs, such as identifying DNA markers, linkage association, genome-wide association studies, generating mutants, and introducing transgenic silkworms. Developing silkworms with improved cocoon yield and disease resistance is crucial to boost silk production. The book covers fundamental principles and recent advancements and delves into various methodologies employed inseri-biotechnology for improving silkworm crops. These methodologies include next-generation sequencing for DNA sequencing, using molecular markers to enhance abiotic stress tolerance (specifically high temperature and humidity conditions), expression analysis, RNA interference, gene knockout approaches to bolster disease resistance, and transcriptomics to enhance economically significant parameters such as silk content. The book explains these topics in detail and includes contemporary research appraisals, extensive discussions, and an evaluation of the benefits and risks associated with the use of biotechnological tools. This book serves as an invaluable reference for researchers and academics in biotechnology, molecular biology, and sericulture while also serving as an informative starting point for budding researchers.

Blockchain is a new type of technology that combines and secures information exchange between different stakeholders such as medical practitioners, patients, healthcare providers, and other applicable parties. Among them, Blockchain Technology is one of the most important areas in the bioinformatics application of biomedical research and healthcare systems utilizing unique requirements and integration features. All the chapters are written by experts and researchers working in various areas of the biomedical and healthcare domain and they also dive into one of the most overlooked methodological, practical, and moral questions to secure and handle the enormous amount of data being generated from IoT-enabled biomedical and healthcare systems. In the beginning, this book presents an overview and then discusses open issues, challenges, and applicability aspect of Blockchain technology in healthcare. Then, this book presents a variety of perspectives on the most pressing questions in the field, for example: how IoT can connect billions of biomedical and healthcare information; how the blockchain-based secure access control mechanisms in biomedical and healthcare work; how to address the Quality-of-Service (QoS) and real-time accessibility requirements for healthcare applications; and how to ensure communication with efficiency. Also, it discusses Blockchain for IoT-enabled healthcare systems and presents a comparative analysis with respect to various performance evaluation metrics too.

This book is unique as it will cover the latest technological advancements in the field of biorefinery and how it is a major futuristic component of global biofuel research. Initially, the role of bio-based waste materials, microorganisms, and their bioactive metabolites in biorefinery will be focused. Further, recent advances and emerging topics that are related to industrially important products such as biofuels, hydrogen production will also be elaborated. The book addresses the lack of understanding of recent technological advancement such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic assessment (TEA) as well. The systems for biorefineries demand a methodical approach to identifying effects and evaluating their long-term viability. Thus, a futuristic paradigm focusing on in silico studies, will also be incorporated, enabling us to understand the developments and impacts of bio-based materials towards a circular and sustainable economy. Additionally the proposed book will also discuss various strategies such as the analysis of cost-effectiveness, nanotechnology, value sensitive design (VSD) and also emphasize the economic, technical, and environmental aspects that affect their production as well as the future perspective in terms of the market scenario. Thus, the book will provide cumulative information on various dimensions of biorefinery and its role as a major bio-economic industry of the future for researchers, industrialists, entrepreneurs, career starters, and policymakers. The shift towards a bioeconomy not only promises innovative solutions to pressing global challenges but also opens up new avenues for various industries and policymakers. Thus, biorefinery is regarded as a crucial aspect of biobased economy ultimately leading the path towards sustainability.

This book aims to elucidate recent advancements in immunology, presenting a curated selection of topics not typically covered in conventional immunology textbooks. Each chapter features a comprehensive outline, an abstract, a glossary, and relevant figures, making this volume an accessible and user-friendly resource for seeking to enhance their understanding of these subjects. This publication will appeal to university researchers, R&D professionals, and graduate students in immunobiology who wish to update and deepen their knowledge of emerging and applied concepts in the field.

This book provides insights into the recent developments in the field of bioprocess technology and bioreactor design. Bioprocess engineering or biochemical engineering is a subcomponent of chemical engineering, which encompasses designing and developing those processes and equipment that are required for the manufacturing of products from biological materials and sources, such as agriculture, pharmaceutical, chemicals, polymers, food, etc., or for the treatment of environmental process, for example, waste water. The main focus of this book is to highlight the advancements in the field of bioprocess technology and bioreactor design. The book is divided into various chapters briefing all aspects of bioprocess engineering and focusing on the advances in bioprocess engineering. The book summarizes introduction to bioprocess technology and microbiology, isolation and maintenance of microbial strains, and sterilization techniques for advanced-level students and researchers. Different models depicting kinetics of microbial growth, substrate consumption, and product formation are discussed. The applications of enzymes have increased tremendously and therefore understanding their metabolic pathways to increase yields is also briefly discussed. The calculations of mass and energy balances associated with entropy changes and free energy. This book also covers the approaches for handling different types of cell cultures and current advancements in the area of bioprocess strategies for different culture types, which scientists and researchers working in the different cell cultures can refer to. The downstream processing of various industrially important products is also a part of this book. Apart from that, the process economics which ensures the feasibility and quality of any biological process is also dealt with as the last section of the book.

This book provides an in-depth exploration of microbial biodiversity and its crucial role in diverse biotechnological and industrial sectors. It covers topics such as the integration of molecular approaches for identifying industrially significant strains, omics roles in the production of bioproducts, and modern genetic engineering techniques. It discusses biostatistical investigations and the impact of microbial biotechnology on healthcare and emerging contaminants. It highlights the significance of food microbiology, fermentation, and the latest technologies in improving human health. Additionally, the book delves into emerging trends in oligosaccharide production, biobased approaches for a sustainable future, and the importance of microbial biomolecules and secondary metabolites. It also explores the identification and production of industrially significant biocatalysts/enzymes, the valorization of agro-industrial waste using microorganisms for green energy generation, and the development of bioreactor systems for the biobased economy. The book covers advancements in solid-gaseous biofuels production, impact assessment of synthetic microfiber pollution, sustainable management strategies for waste management, and the impact of emerging technologies in medical microbiology. The book also discusses the development of healthcare products using nano-biotechnological advancements, the impact of novel remediation technology, and the utilization of microbial products in biomaterial development. It further explores microbial regulatory systems, gene expression studies, and the significance of mutations in microbial technology. This book serves as a great reference for researchers, environmentalists, microbiologists, biotechnologists, and graduate, post-graduate students, and doctoral students working on microbial biotechnology and industrial microbiology.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction and review of state-of-the-art biotechnological tools in enhancement of bioactive compounds in medicinal and aromatic plants. Plant bioactive compounds are plant-based natural products that display a variety of pharmacological applications. These bioactive compounds are important as medicines, pigments, flavorings and drugs because most of the pharmaceutical industries are highly dependent on medicinal plants and their extraction. The book introduces a systematic overview of state-of-the-art biotechnological techniques such as Omics, Crisper /Cas9 and RNAi to enhance the plant bioactive contents as well as enlists various in vitro techniques, hairy root culture and transgenic technology to enhance plant bioactive contents using plant tissue culture approaches. The book also provides an overview of the role of induced mutation, biotic and abiotic stress to increase the bioactive contents in plants and discusses the significant role of endophytes to enhance the contents of plant bioactive compound. The book also opens discussions related to standard operating procedures using hydroponics system of cultivation for significant enhancement of bioactive compound(s) and much more. This book serves as an excellent reference book for the researchers working in the field of plant secondary metabolites and pharmaceutical industries at global level.

This inclusive text describes 3D Printing for pharmaceutical applications, including emerging 3D technologies. The book focuses on the functionality of the materials/biomaterials used for the preparation of dosage forms and devices, fundamentals for preparing these systems and novel applications using these additive manufacturing techniques. Also, the text includes clinical relevance and regulatory considerations for the future of personalized medicine.Authored by experts with a broad range of experience, extensive insight into the science of 3D printing technology used to produce these systems is provided. Highlighting viewpoints from the academic, polymer excipient, equipment, product development and regulatory communities, this comprehensive text compiles input from industry thought leaders to illustrate strategies and technologies for applying techniques of additive manufacturing for drug product and device development whilealso providing insight into the path forward for the technology in years to come.

Nanotechnology has shown great potential to alleviate increasing pressure to meet food needs for our increasing human population, Novel agricultural innovations are required to enhance the health of edible crops and per unit area yield without impacting the associated environment in a negative way. Recent advancements in nanotechnology-based agricultural solutions have proven to help overcome the problems in agriculture that are associated with run-off of essential fertilizers from agricultural soils, low nutrient accumulation by crops, as well as to control insects, pests, and seasonal biotic factors, treatment of wastewater used for irrigation, plant uptake of xenobiotics (heavy metals, pesticides, industrial chemicals, drugs, and so on) that may be present in contaminated soils. Additionally, the consumption of such food crops may result in malnourishment and plant-mediated transfer of toxic substances among humans especially in underprivileged and rural populations. Agents to stimulate plant growth include various types of nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes, metal, and metal-oxide nanoparticles. Applications of particular nutrients or elements in crop plants can be shown to aid human nourishment (either by directly inducing its uptake or indirectly through enhancing the intracellular levels of other associated elements that ultimately boost the synthesis of the desired nutrient in plants). It is also important to consider the competence and fate of nanomaterials in soil ecosystems. The entry route of nanomaterials into the environment includes both natural and anthropogenic sources. In order to achieve sustainable and safe use of nanotechnological products in agriculture, similar environmental conditions must be simulated on lab scale with the careful selection of organisms related to agriculture. Thus, emphasis should be placed on the judicial use of nano-enabled products without compromising the sustainability of the environment and human health. This comprehensive book highlights recent field research as well as contributions from academicians in the lab. This book addresses the major aspects related to nanotechnology, biofortification of crops, and human and environmental health.

This book reviews the knowledge, methods and available techniques in the rapidly advancing field of virus based vaccines and gene therapeutics. It also highlights new innovative tools and interdisciplinary techniques for bioprocess development and analytics of viruses and viral vectors. As such, it provides a timely and highly relevant resource, since current advances in pharmaceutical research have seen the rise of vaccines and advanced therapeutics and medicinal products (ATMPs), that rely on the power of viruses. However, developing bioprocesses and analytics required to create this often called “magic bullet” (i.e. gene therapy) remains an extremely challenging and costly task. This book offers strategies for overcoming hurdles and difficulties within in all the necessary steps of viral vector development - from scalability to purification methods and quality control. The book is intended for researchers working in academia or industry, as well as graduate students pursuing a career in virology.

This book highlights the recent progress on the applications of mutation breeding technology in crop plants. Plant breeders and agriculturists are faced with the new challenges of climate change, human population growth, and dwindling arable land and water resources which threaten to sustain food production worldwide. Genetic variation is the basis which plant breeders require to produce new and improved cultivars. The understanding of mutation induction and exploring its applications has paved the way for enhancing genetic variability for various plant and agronomic characters, and led to advances in gene discovery for various traits. Induced mutagenesis has played a significant role in crop improvement and currently, the technology has resulted in the development and release of more than 3600 mutant varieties in most of the crop plants with great economic impact. The field of ‘mutation breeding'has come long way to become an important approach for crop improvement. This book covers various methodologies of mutation induction, screening of mutants, genome editing and genomics advances and mutant gene discovery. The book further discusses success stories in different countries and applications of mutation breeding in food crops, horticultural plants and plantation crops.This informative book is very useful to plant breeders, students and researchers in the field of agriculture, plant sciences, food science and genetics.

This book “Microbial Products for Future Industrialization” focuses on the exploitation of various advanced microbial and molecular biology technologies and their associated processes, especially the microbial-molecular-chemical nexus, for the future industrialization of emerging new microbial products. The descriptions given in its chapters take the reader through an entire journey of new emerging microbial products from lab to industry and provide new information that has not yet been fully exploited for future industrialization steps. This volume is a great resource for readers seeking a more comprehensive material covering the technical, economic, and societal aspects that impact bioprocessing of microbial products at the industrial level along with biotechnological intervention for better production of microbial products in near future. This book also encompasses advanced and updated information as well as future directions for young researchers and scientists, and academics who are working in the field of microbial product production related to sustainability.

This monograph offers a comprehensive guide to good research practices and mindsets, covering a wide range of topics across 8 chapters. Readers will find numerous themes and strategies that can help them develop their research skills and achieve their objectives, from effective proposal writing to stress management and upskilling. This book explains the purpose, process, tips, and mistakes of writing proposals, theses, articles, and reviews in clear and straightforward language, allowing readers to develop good research plans. By applying the advice and insights offered in this book, students and researchers can improve the quality of their work, cultivate research integrity, and develop good publication plans, write well, and reduce rejection rates. Research outputs will be more likely to be of high quality if students and researchers are encouraged to cultivate these pieces of advice. The focus of the book is not solely on the outcomes of research. Rather, it also delves into mindset, habits, adaptability, time management, stress management, recent tools for upskilling, planning, and execution. Throughout the book, the author seeks to instill a growth mindset in the readers, encouraging them to develop positive research habits and behaviors. KPIs, particularly publications, shall not be used as a reason to erode research integrity and ethnicity; therefore, plagiarism, self-citation, falsifying data, exaggerating findings, authorship in publications, the use of AI tools, CRediT, and COPE are discussed. This book contains interviews with high-profile researchers, top management at institutions, policy advisers, etc., whose opinions and advice the readers will find valuable. Overall, this all-in-one guide is an essential resource for postgraduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and academics who are struggling to find a survival strategy in the rapidly changing research environment. The book assists readers in developing right mindset, planning their research and publications, and in achieving their predetermined objectives.

This book combines medicinal and engineering knowledge to present engineering modelling applications (mainly computational, but also experimental) in the context of facilitating a patient-centred approach to treating congenital heart disease (CHD). After introducing the basic concepts of engineering tools, it discusses modelling and the applications of engineering techniques (e.g. computational fluid dynamics, fluid-structure interaction, structural simulations, virtual surgery, advanced image analysis, 3D printing) in specific congenital heart diseases. It also offers a number of clinical case studies describing the applications in real-life clinical practice. The final section focuses on the importance of surgical training, counselling and patient communication. Considering the unique anatomical arrangement pre/post repair in CHD, as well as the different surgical strategy and device options (e.g. stents) for interventions, a patient-specific approach is certainly warranted in this area of medicine, and engineering is helping improve our understanding of individual patients and their particular anatomy and physiology. To reinforce the idea of a necessary dialogue between clinicians and engineers, this book has not only been edited by two cardiologists and two bioengineers, but each chapter has been written by a clinician and an engineer, incorporating both voices in the description of state-of-the-art models for different CHDs.

Algae are simple, primitive, heterogeneous, autotrophic, eukaryotic or prokaryotic organisms that lead a symbiotic, parasitic or free-living mode of life. Microalgae and macroalgae possess great potential in various fields of application. Microalgae are ubiquitous and extremely diverse microorganisms that can accumulate toxic contaminants and heavy metals from wastewater, making them a superior candidate to become a powerful nanofactory. Algae were discovered to reduce the presence of metal ions, and afterwards aid in the biosynthesis of nanoparticles. Since algae-mediated biogenic nanoparticles are eco-friendly, cost-effective, high-yielding, speedy and energy-efficient, a large number of studies have been published on them in the last few years. This book focuses on recent progress on the utilization of algae for the synthesis of nanoparticles, their characterization and the possible mechanisms involved. Bioprospecting Algae for Nanosized Materials describes the synthesis of algal nanomaterials and its application in various fields for sustainable development. This book outlines the procedures to prepare phyconanomaterials, techniques to utilize the nanomaterials, and applications in agriculture, environment and medicine.

Bacterial reporters are live, genetically engineered cells with promising application in bioanalytics. They contain genetic circuitry to produce a cellular sensing element, which detects the target compound and relays the detection to specific synthesis of so-called reporter proteins (the presence or activity of which is easy to quantify). Bioassays with bacterial reporters are a useful complement to chemical analytics because they measure biological responses rather than total chemical concentrations. Simple bacterial reporter assays may also replace more costly chemical methods as a first line sample analysis technique. Recent promising developments integrate bacterial reporter cells with microsystems to produce bacterial biosensors. This lecture presents an in-depth treatment of the synthetic biological design principles of bacterial reporters, the engineering of which started as simple recombinant DNA puzzles, but has now become a more rational approach of choosing and combining sensing, controlling and reporting DNA'parts'. Several examples of existing bacterial reporter designs and their genetic circuitry will be illustrated. Besides the design principles, the lecture also focuses on the application principles of bacterial reporter assays. A variety of assay formats will be illustrated, and principles of quantification will be dealt with. In addition to this discussion, substantial reference material is supplied in various Annexes. Table of Contents: Short History of the use of Bacteria for Biosensing and Bioreporting / Genetic Engineering Concepts / Measuring with Bioreporters / Epilogue

This book offers an overview of the current knowledge on beta glucanase enzymes derived from actinobacterial source, their structure, functions and industrial applications. It summarizes the exploitation of actinomycetes, assay methods for beta glucanase screening, structural characterisation, genetic engineering, protein engineering, strategies for purification, characterisation and finally how to synthesize a hybrid enzyme of beta glucanases.Enzyme beta glucanases have considerable interest in industrial biotechnology owing to its distinct effect on the hydrolysis of insoluble beta glucan molecules and applications in particular industrial sectors such as food, feed and beverages industries. The beta glucanases are characterized extensively in microorganisms viz. bacteria, fungi and also in plants. A wide varieties of actinobacterial β- glucanases have exclusively active on β-glucan substrates and cleave the mixed linkage β-glucan chains at different points. This is significant for picking precise substrates for the assay of each type of enzymes within this enzyme groups. The well recognized specificity and mechanism of action within the enormous substrates allow to understand that most of them are varied from cellulases, excluding β-1,4-glucanases. The progress in genetic and protein engineering in actinobacterial beta glucanases improves the stability, activity and thermodynamic properties in relation with industrial relevance. This book will be useful for researchers and students engaged in industrial biotechnology, enzyme production, molecular biology, protein engineering and many more.

This book reviews the advances in data gathering and processing in the biotech laboratory environment, and it sheds new lights on the various aspects that are necessary for the implementation of intelligent laboratory architecture and infrastructure. Smart technologies are increasingly dominating our everyday lives and have become an indispensable part of the industrial environment. The laboratory environment, which has long been rather conservative, has also set out to adapt smart technologies with regards to Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT) for the laboratory. Due to the heterogeneity of the existing infrastructure and the often complex work processes, standardization is slow, e.g. to implement device interfaces or standardized driver protocols, which are urgently needed to generate standardized data streams that would be immanent for post-processing of data.Divided into 9 chapters, this book offers an authoritative overview of the diverse aspects in the generation and recording of uniform data sets in the laboratory, and in the processing of the data and enabling seamless processing towards machine learning and artificial intelligence. In the first part of the book, readers will find more about high throughout systems, automation, robotics, and the evolution of technology in the laboratory. The second part of the book is devoted to standardization in lab automation, in which readers will learn more about some regulatory aspects, the SiLA2 standards, the OPC LADS (Laboratory and Analytical Device Standard), and FAIR Data infrastructure

The field of nanotechnology for targeted therapy initiated more than decade ago has grown fast and interest is increasing. Given the importance of the field for targeted drug and gene delivery systems, there are a large number of laboratory investigations today researching nanobiomaterials for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Because of the ability of scientists to load nanoparticles with any agent, interest continues to grow and technology in this arena is rapidly evolving. These emerging nanobiomaterials-based medicines can overcome the disadvantages of traditional medicines by target-oriented and site-specific delivery of precise medicines (immunotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents, diagnostic agents, and so on). Pharmaceutical Nanobiotechnology for Targeted Therapy presents an updated overview of recent advancements in the field of pharmaceutical nanobiotechnology and nano-based drug and gene delivery systems. This comprehensive knowledge willallow researchers to discover innovative nanobiomaterials for targeted therapeutics. The chapters deal with various emerging nanobiomaterials for targeted therapeutic delivery systems and the writing is in a style that is easily disseminated and in a manner that can be readily adopted as sources for new and further studies. This book should be useful for researchers and professionals from academia and industry working in the field of nanotechnology, nanobiotechnology, as well as in the field of pharmaceutical nanotechnology. It should also be useful to those interested in a range of disciplines from material science, chemistry, molecular biology, polymer chemistry, and many more interdisciplinary areas.

This book contains contributions from leading researchers in biomechanics, nanomechanics, tribology, contact mechanics, materials science and applications on various experimental techniques including atomic force microscopy (AFM) for studying soft, biomimetic and biological materials and objects. Biologists, physicists, researchers applying methods of contact mechanics and researchers testing materials using indentation techniques along with many other applied scientists will find this book a useful addition to their libraries. Moreover, several reviews in this book are written as introductions to several important and rather sophisticated research areas such as depth-sensing indentation, studying of biological cells by AFM probes, mechanics of adhesive contact and contact between viscoelastic (hereditary elastic) solids. The book containing new theoretical models, results of experimental studies and numerical simulations, along with reviews of above mentioned areas of contact mechanics in application to biological systems, would be beneficial for researchers in many areas of biology, medicine, engineering, mechanics and biomimetics.