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Nanocelluloses are a very promising material that has been widely explored for the most diverse applications. The pursuit for sustainable and environmentally friendly materials is in line with the nature of nanocelluloses and therefore they have emerged as the perfect candidate for plastics substitution, food additive, rheology controller, 3D printing of diverse structures, among many other possibilities. This derives from their interesting characteristics, such as reduced size and high specific surface area, high tensile strength, crystallinity and transparency, and from the fact that, such as cellulose, they are obtained from renewable sources, with relative ease for functionalization in order to obtain desired specificities. Thus, the industry is trying to react and effectively respond to the exponential growth of published research in the last years, and therefore new facilities (not only lab and pilot plants but already industrial sites) have been producing nanocelluloses. This new fibrous materials can be obtained from different raw-materials by different methodologies, leading to different types of nanocelluloses with, obviously, different characteristics. Nonetheless, technical and economical constraints have been addressed, such as the high energy demand or the clogging of homogenizers/microfluidizers.This chapter intends to present a review addressing the main features related to the production, characterization and market of nanocelluloses and providing additional information regarding the vast literature published in these domains., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Tumors cannot be understood in isolation from their microenvironment. Tumor and stromal cells change phenotype based upon biochemical and biophysical inputs from their surroundings, even as they interact with and remodel the microenvironment. Cancer should be investigated as an adaptive, multicellular system in a dynamical microenvironment. Computational modeling offers the potential to detangle this complex system, but the modeling platform must ideally account for tumor heterogeneity, substrate and signaling factor biotransport, cell and tissue biophysics, tissue and vascular remodeling, microvascular and interstitial flow, and links between all these sub-systems. Such a platform should leverage high-throughput experimental data, while using open data standards for reproducibility. In this chapter, we review advances by our groups in these key areas, particularly in advanced models of tissue mechanics and interstitial flow, open source simulation software, high-throughput phenotypic screening, and multicellular data standards. In the future, we expect a transformation of computational cancer biology from individual groups modeling isolated parts of cancer, to coalitions of groups combining compatible tools to simulate the 3-D multicellular systems biology of cancer tissues.

The properties of water are known to be significantly modified by propinquity to solid surfaces. This author has previously measured some thermodynamic properties of water in silica gel pores and offered a statistical thermodynamic model for vicinal water that is apparently able to account successfully for the observed properties of water in silica pores. This model suggests that hydrogen bonding between water molecules is enhanced by propinquity to solid surfaces. The experimental work suggests that the structural modification extends at least to distances approaching 5 nm from the surface. In addition to the work of the present author, Low has conducted an extensive study of the thermodynamic properties of water in clays. Low's results are remarkably similar to those of the present author, suggesting that the "state" of vicinal water in both systems is similar. In this paper, the properties of water adjacent to several surfaces are compared. The properties of water near cellulosic surfaces, including wood, are compared to those in silica. It appears that the properties of vicinal water adjacent to dissimilar surfaces are nearly identical to those in silica gel. Significantly, it appears that the notion of "structure breaking" surfaces suggested earlier by Goring and the notion of dense water near surfaces discussed, for instance, by Stamm are, in fact, inconsistent with the available thermodynamic data, despite their rather frequent mention in the wood and paper literature.