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Summary: Processing and Conversion of Oil and Gas: Modeling, Control, Simulation, and Optimization describes the core of the activity of petrochemical engineers, process controller engineers, industrial engineers, energy engineers, and researchers in the oil and gas field. This reprint explores the modeling, control, simulation, and optimization of new and revamped petrochemical processes using proven software. Thus, it offers novel illustrative examples, prospective applications, and solutions to improve these processes. This reprint aims to combine theoretical principles with examples modeled by commonly used simulation software employing steady-state or dynamic process simulation. Furthermore, applying numerical methods and optimization at both the theoretical and practical levels is within the scope of this reprint.

Summary: Electrical machines are one of the most important components of the industrial world. They are at the heart of the new industrial revolution, brought forth by the development of electromobility and renewable energy systems. Electric motors must meet the most stringent requirements of reliability, availability, and high efficiency in order, among other things, to match the useful lifetime of power electronics in complex system applications and compete in the market under ever-increasing pressure to deliver the highest performance criteria. Today, thanks to the application of highly efficient numerical algorithms running on high-performance computers, it is possible to design electric machines and very complex drive systems faster and at a lower cost. At the same time, progress in the field of material science and technology enables the development of increasingly complex motor designs and topologies. The purpose of this Special Issue is to contribute to this development of electric machines. The publication of this collection of scientific articles, dedicated to the topic of electric machine design and application, contributes to the dissemination of the above information among professionals dealing with electrical machines.

Summary: Polymer composite materials have attracted great interest for the development of electrical and electronic engineering and technology, and have been widely applied in electrical power systems, electrical insulation equipment, electrical and electronic devices, etc. Due to the significant expansion in the use of newly developed polymer composite materials, it is necessary to understand and accurately describe the relationship between composite structure and material properties, as only based on thorough laboratory characterization is it possible to estimate the properties for their future commercial applications. This book focuses on polymer composites applied in the field of electrical and electronic equipment, including but not limited to synthesis and preparation of new polymeric materials, structure-properties relationship of polymer composites, evaluation of materials application, simulation and modelling of material performance.

Summary: This book focuses on the interaction between different energy vectors, that is, between electrical, thermal, gas, and transportation systems, with the purpose of optimizing the planning and operation of future energy systems. More and more renewable energy is integrated into the electrical system, and to optimize its usage and ensure that its full production can be hosted and utilized, the power system has to be controlled in a more flexible manner. In order not to overload the electrical distribution grids, the new large loads have to be controlled using demand response, perchance through a hierarchical control set-up where some controls are dependent on price signals from the spot and balancing markets. In addition, by performing local real-time control and coordination based on local voltage or system frequency measurements, the grid hosting limits are not violated.

Summary: The main purpose of this Special Issue of "Advances in Fluid Power Systems" was to present new scientific work in the field of fluid power systems for hydraulic and pneumatic control of machines and devices used in various industries. Advances in fluid power systems are leading to the creation of new smart devices that can replace tried-and-true solutions from the past. The development work of authors from various research centres has been published. This Special Issue focuses on recent advances and smart solutions for fluid power systems in a wide range of topics, including: • Fluid power for IoT and Industry 4.0: smart fluid power technology, wireless 5G connectivity in fluid power, smart components, and sensors.• Fluid power in the renewable energy sector: hydraulic drivetrains for wind power and for wave and marine current power, and hydraulic systems for solar power. • Hybrid fluid power: hybrid transmissions, energy recovery and accumulation, and energy efficiency of hybrid drives.• Industrial and mobile fluid power: industrial fluid power solutions, mobile fluid power solutions, eand nergy efficiency solutions for fluid power systems.• Environmental aspects of fluid power: hydraulic water control technology, noise and vibration of fluid power components, safety, reliability, fault analysis, and diagnosis of fluid power systems.• Fluid power and mechatronic systems: servo-drive control systems, fluid power drives in manipulators and robots, and fluid power in autonomous solutions.

Summary: Additive manufacturing (AM) processes are gaining more and more attention from many industrial fields, mainly because they are revolutionizing the components' designs and production lines. The complete industrialization of these processes has to be supported by the full understanding of correlation between AM building conditions and the final materials' properties. Another critical aspect is that nowadays only a reduced number of materials processable by AM are available on the market. It is, therefore, fundamental to widen the materials' portfolio, and to study and develop new materials that can take advantage of these unique building processes.

Summary: In recent years, the global climate has become variable due to intensification of the greenhouse effect, and natural disasters are frequently occurring, which poses challenges to the situation awareness of intelligent distribution networks. Aside from the continuous grid connection of distributed generation, energy storage and new energy generation not only reduces the power supply pressure of distribution network to a certain extent but also brings new consumption pressure and load impact. Situation awareness is a technology based on the overall dynamic insight of environment and covering perception, understanding, and prediction. Such means have been widely used in security, intelligence, justice, intelligent transportation, and other fields and gradually become the research direction of digitization and informatization in the future. We hope this Special Issue represents a useful contribution. We present 10 interesting papers that cover a wide range of topics all focused on problems and solutions related to situation awareness for smart distribution systems. We sincerely hope the papers included in this Special Issue will inspire more researchers to further develop situation awareness for smart distribution systems. We strongly believe that there is a need for more work to be carried out, and we hope this issue provides a useful open-access platform for the dissemination of new ideas.

Summary: This Special Issue provides an overview of the applied experimental and numerical flow, models, which are used to investigate fluid flow in complex situations. The investigated problems are related to fundamental processes or new applications. As demonstrated, the field of the application of experimental and numerical flow models is constantly expanding.

Summary: In recent years, improving the sustainability of the steel industry and reducing its CO2 emissions has become a global focus. To achieve this goal, further process optimization in terms of energy and resource efficiency and the development of new processes and process routes are necessary. Modeling and simulation have established themselves as invaluable sources of information for otherwise unknown process parameters and as an alternative to plant trials that involves lower costs, risks, and time. Models also open up new possibilities for model-based control of metallurgical processes. This Special Issue focuses on recent advances in the modeling and simulation of unit processes in iron and steelmaking. It includes reviews on the fundamentals of modeling and simulation of metallurgical processes, as well as contributions from the areas of iron reduction/ironmaking, steelmaking via the primary and secondary route, and continuous casting.

Summary: Unlike other construction materials, road materials have developed minimally over the past 100 years. However, since the 1970s, the focus has been on more sustainable road construction materials such as recycled asphalt pavements. Recycling asphalt involves removing old asphalt and mixing it with new (fresh) aggregates, binders, and/or rejuvenators. Similarly, there are various efforts to use alternative modifiers and technical solutions such as crumb rubber, plastics, or various types of fibres. For the past two decades, researchers have been developing novel materials and technologies, such as self-healing materials, in order to improve road design, construction, and maintenance efficiency and reduce the financial and environmental burden of road construction. This Special Issue on "Advances in Asphalt Pavement Technologies and Practices" curates advanced/novel work on asphalt pavement design, construction, and maintenance. The Special Issue comprises 19 papers describing unique works that address the current challenges that the asphalt industry and road owners face.

Summary: This reprint focuses on interdisciplinary research that reveals the problems of resource provision of the economy, both from the perspective of local projects and from the point of view of the creation of global infrastructure that contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. Considerable attention is paid to the development of the Arctic territories as one of the most promising sources of mineral and fuel resources as of 2021. This reprint also includes selected papers from European Raw Materials Conferences 2020-2021, held despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, and will be published with the financial support of the International competence Centre for mining-engineering education under the auspices of UNESCO: - Russian-UK Raw Materials Dialogue (21-23 October 2020); - Russian-German Raw Materials Conference (30 November-1 December 2020).

Summary: This reprint is based on "Antimicrobial resistance and anti-biofilms" in the journal Antibiotics since November of 2020. This reprint has one editorial article, eight research articles, one review article, and one case report article, covering a time period of 15 months from December of 2021 to February of 2023. Containing three major sub-topics in this reprint, four manuscripts regarding the prevalence of resistant microbes, the emergence and evolution of resistance, and the molecular investigation of resistance mechanisms fall into the first sub-topic as "Antimicrobial resistance in microorganisms: epidemiology and molecular mechanism"; three manuscripts fall into the second sub-topic as "New antibiofilm strategy against fungal and/or bacterial biofilms"; and three manuscripts regarding the production and characteristics of these functional material encapsulated/ delivered natural compounds, in vitro and in vivo antimicrobial and antivirulent effects, and their potential applications, such as in food and medicine, fall into the third sub-topic as "Influence of Functional Material-Based Encapsulation/Delivery on the Antimicrobial and Antivirulent Effects of Natural Compounds". Articles contained in this reprint have provided comprehensive knowledge and insight in understanding of antimicrobial resistance epidemiology and molecular mechanism and new antibiofilm strategies.

Summary: This reprint focused on the advancements in the field of shoulder arthroplasty in recent years. These concern surgical indications that have dramatically evolved and planification and navigation. The rapid development of surgical techniques and new prosthetic designs, as well as glenoid and humeral reconstruction for various conditions, is also overviewed. Despite the important progress highlighted in this reprint, there is currently a myriad of prosthetic designs, highlighting the evolving nature of this field.

Summary: In this new book, we present a collection of the advanced developments in reconfigurable antennas and metasurfaces. It begins with a review of reconfigurability technologies, and proceeds to the presentation of a series of reconfigurable antennas, UWB MIMO antennas and reconfigurable arrays. Then, reconfigurable metasurfaces are introduced and the latest advances are presented and discussed.

Summary: Metallic biomaterials (biometals) are widely used for the manufacture of medical implants, ranging from load-bearing orthopaedic prostheses to dental and cardiovascular implants, because of their favourable combination of properties, including high strength, fracture toughness, biocompatibility, and wear and corrosion resistance. Owing to the significant consequences of implant material failure/degradation, in terms of both personal and financial burden, failure analysis of biometals has always been of paramount importance in order to understand the failure mechanisms and implement suitable solutions with the aim to improve the longevity of implants in the body. Failure Analysis of Biometals presents some of the latest developments and findings in this area. This includes a great range of common metallic biomaterials (Ti alloys, CoCrMo alloys, Mg alloys, and NiTi alloys) and their associated failure mechanisms (corrosion, fatigue, fracture, and fretting wear) that commonly occur in medical implants and surgical instruments.

Summary: Information and communication technology (ICT) is reponsible for up to 10% of world power consumption. In particular, communications and computing systems are indispensable elements in ICT; thus, determining how to improve the energy efficiency in communications and computing systems has become one of the most important issues for realizing green ICT. Even though a number of studies have been conducted, most of them focused on one aspect-either communications or computing systems. However, salient features in communications and computing systems should be jointly considered, and novel holistic approaches across communications and computing systems are strongly required to implement energy-efficient systems. In addition, emerging systems, such as energy-harvesting IoT devices, cyber-physical systems (CPSs), autonomous vehicles (AVs), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), require new approaches to satisfy their strict energy consumption requirements in mission-critical situations. The goal of this Special Issue is to disseminate the recent advances in energy-efficient communications and computing systems. Review and survey papers on these topics are welcome. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following: • energy-efficient communications: from physical layer to application layer; • energy-efficient computing systems; • energy-efficient network architecture: through SDN/NFV/network slicing; • energy-efficient system design; • energy-efficient Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT); • energy-efficient edge/fog/cloud computing; • new approaches for energy-efficient computing and communications (e.g., AI/ML and data-driven approaches); • new performance metrics on energy efficiency in emerging systems; • energy harvesting and simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT); • smart grid and vehicle-to-grid (V2G); and • standardization and open source activities for energy efficient systems.

Summary: This is a reprint of the articles from the Special Issue entitled "10th Anniversary of Actuators", published in the open-access journal, Actuators. It consists of 18 representative works with four main topics: systematic reviews for specific types of actuators, performance evaluation, design and controls, and new actuators' applications. This reprint helps readers to understand the challenges and the trends of research and development in advancing the theories, methodologies, and design tools of actuators.

Summary: Membrane Distillation (MD) is based on the evaporation of a hot feed through a microporous and hydrophobic membrane. Thermal energy is needed to heat the feed up to the desired temperature during the process. Therefore, improvements of the thermal performance of MD are important to apply this technology at large scale. The Special Issue "Thermal Performance of Membrane Distillation" focuses on the recent research efforts made in this direction, covering both the development of new membranes and the optimization of the process.

Summary: The present book contains nine articles that were accepted and published in the Special Issue "Modeling and Control of Energy Conversion during Underground Coal Gasification Process" of the MDPI Energies journal. This book focuses on the energy conversion processes in underground coal gasification (UCG), as well as on the modeling and control of this process. The articles published in this book can be divided into three thematic parts of research in the field of underground coal gasification technology: the first part is the impact of technology on the environment, the second is research (studies) on the coal areas and coal properties of UCG technology, and the third is the monitoring, modeling, and control processes within UCG. We hope that this book will be interesting and useful for workers and researchers in the field of underground coal gasification technology, as well as for those who are interested in the mathematical modeling and control of this process.

Summary: The construction industry is growing rapidly and time has changed the construction methods used. The traditional way of construction is becoming obsolete and technology is taking over. In this case, sustainable construction is the future and the new norm in the construction industry. Although there are various opportunities in this sector, there are also some challenges that exist and hinder productivity. Hence, this reprint covers the opportunities and challenges in sustainable construction.

Summary: Agricultural productivity should increase to meet the growing food demand. Tillage is defined as the mechanical manipulation of agricultural soil, and it is an extremely vital part of crop production, particularly for seedbed preparation and weed control. Tillage operations are carried out using mechanical force, commonly with a tractor-drawn tool to achieve the cutting, inversion, pulverization, and disturbance of soil. A significant part of the energy (from fossil fuels) used in crop production is expended in tillage. This energy use results in greenhouse gas emissions. It is essential that we reduce energy use (hence, greenhouse gas emissions) to achieve sustainable farming practices and improve crop production and design new tillage tools or optimize the existing tools. Although the design and evaluation of tillage tools are generally carried out using analytical methods and field experiments, with recent technological improvements, computer technology has been used for the design and evaluation of tillage tools. Additionally, sensor technology can improve the efficiency of tillage tools. This Special Issue collated innovative papers that make a significant contribution to the design and application of agricultural equipment in tillage systems. It involved original research and review papers from different research fields, such as agricultural engineering, engineering simulation, and precision agriculture.

Summary: In the competitive business environment or public domain, the sustainability assessment in supply chain and infrastructure management are important for any organization. Organizations are currently striving to improve their sustainable strategies through preparedness, response, and recovery because of increasing competitiveness, community, and regulatory pressure. Thus, it is necessary to develop a meaningful and more focused understanding of sustainability in supply chain management and infrastructure management practices. In the context of a supply chain, sustainability implies that companies identify, assess, and manage impacts and risks in all the echelons of the supply chain, considering downstream and upstream activities. Similarly, the sustainable infrastructure management indicates the ability of infrastructure to meet the requirements of the present without sacrificing the ability of future generations to address their needs. The complexities regarding sustainable supply chain and infrastructure management have driven managers and professionals to seek different solutions. This Special Issue aims to provide readers with the most recent research results on the aforementioned subjects. In addition, it offers some solutions and also raises some questions for further research and development toward sustainable supply chain and infrastructure management.

Summary: This book focuses on advanced techniques to reduce the impact of the transport sector and, more specifically, of Spark-Ignition (SI) Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs) on atmospheric air pollution and climate change. Hybrid vehicles represent the most suitable option for addressing these issues in the medium term, since hybridization allows us to overcome the major disadvantages of ICEs, electric units, and energy storage devices and merge their respective benefits. In this scenario, ICEs will remain the core component of automotive propulsion systems in the years to come. Of course, further efforts to improve the efficiency and reduce the pollutant and CO2 emissions of ICEs are necessary.

Summary: This volume is a reprint of the Special Issue "Theory and Application of Web 3.0 in the Media Sector". Launched to highlight vital multidisciplinary perspectives, the SI's contents are both theory- and application-oriented. The advancements of computational processing and storage capacities (at affordable or decreasing costs), the evolution of content compression techniques, and the constant update of networking infrastructures led to the domination of the so-called User-Generated Content (UGC). The proliferation of mobile devices, offering inherent networking with enhanced content capturing and sharing capabilities, also fueling the models of Participatory and Citizens' Journalism. Thus, the interest has shifted to semantic services, purposing, among others, to automate content production, publishing, validation, documentation, and management. Such technological solutions have already entered the media sector, with their successful growth and elaboration requiring multidisciplinary effort supported by digital literacy initiatives. Nevertheless, further research is needed for the transition to the new media era in which algorithmic automations and semantic services will serve their original purposes, helping both media professionals and broader audiences. A total of 11 contributions were published within this volume, enlightening various aspects of contemporary Web 3.0 services from both technological/algorithmic and conceptual/social science approaches..

Summary: With the progress in nanotechnology and associated production methods, composite materials are becoming lighter, cheaper, more durable, and more versatile. At present, great progress has been made in the design, preparation, and characterization of composite materials, making them smarter and versatile. By creating new properties using suitable fillers and matrix, functional composites can meet the most challenging standards of users, especially in high-tech industries. Advanced composites reinforced by high-performance carbon fibers and nanofillers are popular in the automotive and aerospace industries thanks to their significant advantages, such as high specific strength to weight ratio and noncorrosion properties. In addition to the improvement of the mechanical performance, composite materials today are designed to provide new functions dealing with antibacterial, self-cleaning, self-healing, super-hard, and solar reflective properties for desired end-use applications. On the other hand, composite materials can contribute to mitigating environmental issues by providing renewable energy technologies in conjunction with multifunctional, lightweight energy storage systems with high performance and noncorrosive properties. They are also used to prepare a new generation of batteries and directly contribute to H2 production or CO2 reduction in fuels and chemicals. This Special Issue aims to collect articles reporting on recent developments dealing with preparative methods, design, properties, structure, and characterization methods as well as promising applications of multifunctional composites. It covers potential applications in various areas, such as anticorrosion, photocatalyst, absorbers, superhydrophobic, self-cleaning, antifouling/antibacterial, renewable energy, energy storage systems, construction, and electronics. The modeling and simulation of processes involving the design and preparation of functional and multifunctional composites as well as experimental studies involving these composites are all covered in this Special Issue.

Summary: Remote sensing is being actively researched in the fields of environment, military and urban planning through technologies such as monitoring of natural climate phenomena on the earth, land cover classification, and object detection. Recently, satellites equipped with observation cameras of various resolutions were launched, and remote sensing images are acquired by various observation methods including cluster satellites. However, the atmospheric and environmental conditions present in the observed scene degrade the quality of images or interrupt the capture of the Earth's surface information. One method to overcome this is by generating synthetic images through image simulation. Synthetic images can be generated by using statistical or knowledge-based models or by using spectral and optic-based models to create a simulated image in place of the unobtained image at a required time. Various proposed methodologies will provide economical utility in the generation of image learning materials and time series data through image simulation. The 6 published articles cover various topics and applications central to Remote sensing image simulation. Although submission to this Special Issue is now closed, the need for further in-depth research and development related to image simulation of High-spatial and spectral resolution, sensor fusion and colorization remains.I would like to take this opportunity to express my most profound appreciation to the MDPI Book staff, the editorial team of Applied Sciences journal, especially Ms. Nimo Lang, the assistant editor of this Special Issue, talented authors, and professional reviewers.

Summary: This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Gels (ISSN 2310-2861). This reprint focuses on the modification of hydrogels and their applications in biomedical engineering, aiming to provide a reference for scholars in related fields. It mainly involves the applications of hydrogels in biomedical fields such as phantoms, wound healing, skin, cartilage, muscle, and drug loading. We believe this reprint can provide a valuable reference for scientific and technological workers in the fields of materials science, tissue engineering, biological manufacturing, biomedical engineering, and so on.

Summary: Nowadays, there is great pressure on energy conservation and emission reduction. In order to achieve these goals, weight reduction in manufacturing fields, such as the vehicle, marine, and aerospace industries, and microelectromechanical systems is the major trend. Although some structures and parts that require special properties and service conditions must use ferrous materials such as steels due to their superior thermal and wear resistance, there is a desperate need to replace these alloys with non-ferrous materials such as Al alloys, Mg alloys, Ti-based alloys, Cu alloys, and others in order to decrease the operational and maintenance costs. Recently, many new material processing techniques, i.e., irradiation, cryogenic rolling, wet chemical method, induction sintering, liquid/solid casting, heat treatment, electromagnetic hot forming, and five-axis flank milling, have been developed to enhance the performance of non-ferrous materials. Excellent work hardening, fracture toughness, mechanical properties, magnetic properties, and wear resistance could be realized depending on the appropriate application of these new technologies. This Special Issue covers these topics and focuses on the process-structure-properties relationships of high-performance non-ferrous materials.

Summary: Wood is a natural material that is available in large quantities and is easy to produce, making it the perfect material to consider for the circular economy. Its importance has dramatically increased in recent years. This increase is accompanied by the development of new research methods that open new possibilities in the areas related to wood and wood products in the process of their production, processing, and final use. The main topics of this Special Issue were the knowledge of the quality of wood and other lignocellulose materials; the processes of their effective utilization and processing for more efficient processing; the adoption of techniques and research around using wood for environmentally friendly composite production and the positive impact of this on the environment; wood's interaction with solid substances and with different mechanical loads, chemicals, and other substances; and the different forms of energy and surface modification of wood and wood composites.

Summary: The United Kingdom has a proud history of liquid crystal research. Its contributions span from the formulation of the theory of nematic elasticity as it is used today, uncovered via the Leslie-Erickson theory describing the viscosity of mesophases, to the discovery of the first room-temperature nematic and the related developments in the display industry, to name just several pioneering contributions. Today, liquid crystal science in the UK is more diverse and multidisciplinary than ever, ranging from the synthesis of increasingly complex mesogenic molecules, via the physical properties of self-organised systems and composites of both the thermotropic and the lyotropic type, to a wide variety of applications outside of the traditional display sector. The field covers aspects of chemistry, physics, material sciences, chemical engineering, mathematics, biology and device engineering in an overarching effort to advance the fundamental understanding of these soft-matter materials and to promote their technological exploitation in the UK and worldwide. To this end, a large group of individuals and research groups from universities and industry in the UK are working together on a Special Issue to advance the development of this field. The achievements of these scholars can be found in publications in top-class journals and presentations at all large international conferences, in the development of new products, and in events for public engagement.

Summary: Metalliferous minerals play a central role in the global economy. They will continue to provide the raw materials we need for industrial processes. Significant challenges will likely emerge if the climate-driven green and low-carbon development transition of metalliferous mineral exploitation is not managed responsibly and sustainably. Green low-carbon technology is vital to promote the development of metalliferous mineral resources shifting from extensive and destructive mining to clean and energy-saving mining in future decades. Global mining scientists and engineers have conducted a lot of research in related fields, such as green mining, ecological mining, energy-saving mining, and mining solid waste recycling, and have achieved a great deal of innovative progress and achievements. This Special Issue intends to collect the latest developments in the green low-carbon mining field, written by well-known researchers who have contributed to the innovation of new technologies, process optimization methods, or energy-saving techniques in metalliferous minerals development.

Summary: Today, the flow of electricity is bidirectional, and not all electricity is centrally produced in large power plants. With the growing emergence of prosumers and microgrids, the amount of electricity produced by sources other than large, traditional power plants is ever-increasing. These alternative sources include photovoltaic (PV), wind turbine (WT), geothermal, and biomass renewable generation plants. Some renewable energy resources (solar PV and wind turbine generation) are highly dependent on natural processes and parameters (wind speed, wind direction, temperature, solar irradiation, humidity, etc.). Thus, the outputs are so stochastic in nature. New data-science-inspired real-time solutions are needed in order to co-develop digital twins of large intermittent renewable plants whose services can be globally delivered.

Summary: Electrical machines and drives dominate our everyday lives. This is due to their numerous applications in industry, power production, home appliances, and transportation systems such as electric and hybrid electric vehicles, ships, and aircrafts. Their development follows rapid advances in science, engineering, and technology. Researchers around the world are extensively investigating electrical machines and drives because of their reliability, efficiency, performance, and fault-tolerant structure. In particular, there is a focus on the importance of utilizing these new trends in technology for energy saving and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This Special Issue will provide the platform for researchers to present their recent work on advances in the field of electrical machines and drives, including special machines and their applications; new materials, including the insulation of electrical machines; new trends in diagnostics and condition monitoring; power electronics, control schemes, and algorithms for electrical drives; new topologies; and innovative applications.

Summary: The use of the energy and its resources have changed dramatically in last few decades. The increasing use of technology and electrification increases the demand for energy, with impacts natural energy resources. At present, industries are trying to reduce the direct use of traditional energy by utilizing renewable energy as an alternative energy resource. Recent studies have attempted to optimize consumed energies for entire systems by using alternative energies. These alternatives are different kinds of renewable energies which provide numerous new possibilities to survive without using non-renewable energies. The production industry is moving toward smart production using the technology of the fourth industrial revolution. In this book, energy consumption for production and supply chain management are explained through presentation of some the latest major research advances. These studies collectively contribute new ideas and strategies in enriching the literature.

Summary: This Special Issue of the journal Applied Sciences presents recent advances and developments in the use of digital 3D technologies to protect and preserve cultural heritage. While most of the articles focus on aspects of 3D scanning, modeling, and presenting in VR of cultural heritage objects from buildings to small artifacts and clothing, part of the issue is devoted to 3D sound utilization in the cultural heritage field.

Summary: Machine learning is a relatively new field, without a unanimous definition. In many ways, actuaries have been machine learners. In both pricing and reserving, but also more recently in capital modelling, actuaries have combined statistical methodology with a deep understanding of the problem at hand and how any solution may affect the company and its customers. One aspect that has, perhaps, not been so well developed among actuaries is validation. Discussions among actuaries' "preferred methods" were often without solid scientific arguments, including validation of the case at hand. Through this collection, we aim to promote a good practice of machine learning in insurance, considering the following three key issues: a) who is the client, or sponsor, or otherwise interested real-life target of the study? b) The reason for working with a particular data set and a clarification of the available extra knowledge, that we also call prior knowledge, besides the data set alone. c) A mathematical statistical argument for the validation procedure.

Summary: In recent years, the industrial environment has been changing radically due to the introduction of concepts and technologies based on the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0. After the introduction of Industry 4.0 in large enterprises, SMEs have moved into the focus, as they are the backbone of many economies. Small organizations are increasingly proactive in improving their operational processes, which is a good starting point for introducing the new concepts of Industry 4.0. The readiness of SME-adapted Industry 4.0 concepts and the organizational capability of SMEs to meet this challenge exist only in some areas. This reveals the need for further research and action plans for preparing SMEs in a technical and organizational direction. Therefore, special research and investigations are needed for the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies and concepts in SMEs. SMEs will only achieve Industry 4.0 by following SME-customized implementation strategies and approaches and realizing SME-adapted concepts and technological solutions. Thus, this Special Issue represents a collection of theoretical models as well as practical case studies related to the introduction of Industry 4.0 concepts in small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Summary: With increasing awareness about environmental sustainability issues, the geotechnical engineering community is in search of sustainable materials, innovative applications and ground improvement technologies which are resilient to climate change, involve low carbon emissions, are ecologically friendly and affordable, yet effective. As such, this reprint brings together 18 novel contributions providing the state-of-the-art in "Sustainable Geotechnics" with special focus on the reuse and recycling of waste materials in geotechnical applications as well as sustainable design, construction, and monitoring of the performance of geostructures. This reprint may be of particular interest to geotechnical professional engineers and researchers who are facing the challenging task of increasing the sustainability and resiliency of geotechnical assets and infrastructures.

Summary: The fast development of the industrial internet is boosting the evolution of the manufacturing industry to a new stage of socialization, servitization, universal interaction and connection, and platformization. Under this background, social manufacturing emerged as a new kind of manufacturing paradigm, established based on the self-driven, self-organizing and self-adaptive cyber-physical-social interaction among extensive numbers of socialized manufacturing resource providers. Up until now, social manufacturing has drawn attention from both academic and industrial fields due to its promising research and application values. However, social manufacturing is still at its infant stage as the fast development of the industrial internet, artificial intelligence, collective intelligence, cloud/edge/fog computing, and a new generation of information and communication technologies, etc., are changing the interaction, configuration and operation mechanisms of social manufacturing every day. In this regard, this Special Issue is established to explore precisely how the newly emerged social manufacturing paradigm influences the trends of mass customization and the configuration/operation patterns during order delivery, and exactly how the advanced information technologies can boost the development and application of social manufacturing

Summary: This reprint collects 10 original research contributions published in the Special Issue entitled "Artificial Intelligence for Multisource Geospatial Information" of the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. The focus is on different methods of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) based on deep learning using different network architectures, clustering, soft computing, and semantic approaches. They are proposed to deal with a variety of Geospatial Big Data (GBD), such as georeferenced texts and photos in social networks, remote sensing images, cartographic maps, multidimensional geo databases, metadata in spatial data infrastructures, and for different tasks, such as for multisource georeferenced text integration and geodata flexible querying, for social sensing by applying sentiment analysis, clustering and geo analysis, for segmentation of roads, clouds and snow, and for detection of small targets and people on the streets.

Summary: Symmetry and quantum mechanics are two of the most fundamental probes we have of nature. This collection of eleven papers discusses new quantum phenomena in atoms, galaxies, and people (quantum cognition), which is a testimonial to the breadth of the influence of symmetry and quantum mechanics. The book represents an international effort of researchers from educational and research institutions in nine countries, including India, Finland, France, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the United States. The papers can be divided into four broad categories: Fundamentals of quantum systems, including a new derivation of the uncertainty principle from optimal stochastic control theory, a new model of energy transfer between atoms with no wave function collapse, a new asymmetric optical micro-device with the remarkable property of showing a current with no applied voltage, and a model of quantum cognition to predict the effect of irrelevant information on decision making. 2. Algebraic methods in quantum mechanics, describing an elegant derivation of hydrogen atom Stark effect matrix elements, and a new group theoretical method for the computation of radiative shifts. Teleportation and scattering, including a method to improve the information transfer in teleportation, and the use of permutation symmetry to compute scattering cross sections. Cosmology, including scalar-tensor theory applied to inflation, the characterization of new Levi-Cevita space-times, and a comprehensive analysis of gravitational dispersion forces.

Summary: Due to the ongoing rise in sea level and increases in extreme wave climates, which consequently change the wave climate, coastal structures such as sea dikes and seawalls are exposed to severe and frequent sea storms. Even though much research related to wave-structure interactions has been carried out, it remains one of the most important and challenging topics in the field of coastal engineering. The recent publications in the Special Issue "Wave Interactions with Coastal Structures" in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering include a wide range of research, including theoretical/mathematical, experimental, and numerical work related to the interaction between sea waves and coastal structures. These publications address conventional coastal hard structures in deep water zones as well as those located in shallow water zones, such as wave overtopping over shallow foreshores with apartment buildings on dikes. The research findings presented help to improve our knowledge of hydrodynamic processes, and the new approaches and developments presented here will be good benchmarks for future work.

Summary: This book, entitled "Selected papers from IEEE ICKII 2019", selected 13 excellent papers from the 260 papers presented in the IEEE International Conference on Knowledge Innovation and Invention (IEEE ICKII) 2019 on energies. The 2nd IEEE ICKII 2019 was held in Seoul, South Korea, 12-15 July, 2019, and provided a unified communication platform for research on information technology, innovation design, communication science and engineering, industrial design, creative design, applied mathematics, computer science, electrical and electronic engineering, mechanical and automation engineering, green technology and architecture engineering, material science, and other related fields. The ICKII conference enables interdisciplinary collaboration of science and engineering technologists in the academic and industrial fields, as well as international networking. This book is a collection of 13 research papers. The fields included are as follows: energy fundamentals, energy sources and energy carriers, energy exploration, intermediate and final energy use, energy conversion systems, and energy research and development. The main goals of this book are to encourage scientists to publish their experimental and theoretical results in as much detail as possible, and to discover new scientific knowledge relevant to the topics of energies.

Summary: We thank all contributors of this Special Issue and the editorial staff of Crystals for helping this Special Issue achieve success; we are especially gratefully to the expert reviewers who agreed to review the papers submitted to this Special Issue for their diligence and timely effort. Under joint efforts, finally, this Special Issue published 15 papers, including 1 review paper and 14 original research papers. These published papers are mainly related to the mechanical properties of superelastic alloys, titanium alloys, shape memory alloys, various kinds of steels, medium-entropy alloys, high-temperature alloys, etc. Under the success of this Special Issue, the published papers will promote the development and progress of advanced metallic materials. We sincerely hope these papers can cause the readers to be informative and inspire them to obtain new ideas.

Summary: Buildings are responsible for almost one third of global energy consumption. The building and construction sector could thus make a significant contribution to the communal effort needed to meet the Paris Agreement that would substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change. Given the importance of decarbonizing buildings and making them energy efficient in order to meet the Paris Agreement, and bearing in mind the promising role of biomimetic solutions in achieving this goal, this book reports on some recent research in the field related to bio-inspired approaches for reducing building energy use. This book includes a review of the use of biomimicry in modern building design; how both the Saharan ant and the zebra have inspired strategies for reducing energy use in Panama City; how the study of biomimetics can contribute to city regeneration; the description of a method to connect the thermal physiology of plants and animals to thermal challenges in buildings; how biomimicry could contribute to creating a circular economy in the construction sector; and how advances in electricity storage could benefit from a biomimetic approach. This book thus covers a combination of research and review articles to offer a glimpse into current biomimetic design strategies together with new directions for future research.

Summary: This Special Issue, entitled "Non-Destructive Testing in Civil Engineering", aims to present to interested researchers and engineers the latest achievements in the field of new research methods, as well as the original results of scientific research carried out with their use-not only in laboratory conditions but also in selected case studies. The articles published in this Special Issue are theoretical-experimental and experimental, and also show the practical nature of the research. They are grouped by topic, and the main content of each article is briefly discussed for your convenience. These articles extend the knowledge in the field of non-destructive testing in civil engineering with regard to new and improved non-destructive testing (NDT) methods, their complementary application, and also the analysis of their results-including the use of sophisticated mathematical algorithms and artificial intelligence, as well as the diagnostics of materials, components, structures, entire buildings, and interesting case studies.

Summary: This reprint is a compilation of the articles submitted in the Special Issue entitled, "Heterogeneous Photocatalysis: A Solution for a Greener Earth", from the journal Catalysts, which presents an overview of the latest advances in the development of innovative photocatalytic processes.

Summary: This reprint contains contributions focusing on recent developments in the design, synthesis, and characterization of nanocatalysts intended for applications in environmental protection and low carbon footprint power generation processes thanks to the overall effort of scientists and researchers for a cleaner and more sustainable future. New synthetic approaches to the production and in-depth characterization of innovative nanostructured composites and hybrid materials with well-controlled textural and surface chemistry properties that give performance advantages in a variety of important environmental and energy applications such as CO2 utilization/recycling, hydrogen and syngas production, biosensing, and biocatalysis as well as in ways to obtain useful materials from waste are included, among others. This reprint is the result of one of the cutting-edge Special Issues in the field of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology organized by Nanomaterials to celebrate its 10th anniversary.

Summary: This volume collects papers published in two Special Issues "Kinematics and Robot Design II, KaRD2019" (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/robotics/special_issues/KRD2019) and "Kinematics and Robot Design III, KaRD2020" (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/robotics/special_issues/KaRD2020), which are the second and third issues of the KaRD Special Issue series hosted by the open access journal robotics.The KaRD series is an open environment where researchers present their works and discuss all topics focused on the many aspects that involve kinematics in the design of robotic/automatic systems. It aims at being an established reference for researchers in the field as other serial international conferences/publications are. Even though the KaRD series publishes one Special Issue per year, all the received papers are peer-reviewed as soon as they are submitted and, if accepted, they are immediately published in MDPI Robotics. Kinematics is so intimately related to the design of robotic/automatic systems that the admitted topics of the KaRD series practically cover all the subjects normally present in well-established international conferences on "mechanisms and robotics".KaRD2019 together with KaRD2020 received 22 papers and, after the peer-review process, accepted only 17 papers. The accepted papers cover problems related to theoretical/computational kinematics, to biomedical engineering and to other design/applicative aspects.

Summary: A key aspect of cyber-physical systems (CPS) is their potential for integrating information technologies with embedded control systems and physical systems to form new or improved functionalities. CPS thus draws upon advances in many areas. This positioning provides unprecedented opportunities for innovation, both within and across existing domains. However, at the same time, it is commonly understood that we are already stretching the limits of existing methodologies. In embarking towards CPS with such unprecedented capabilities, it becomes essential to improve our understanding of CPS complexity and how we can deal with it. Complexity has many facets, including complexity of the CPS itself, of the environments in which the CPS acts, and in terms of the organizations and supporting tools that develop, operate, and maintain CPS. This book is a result of a journal Special Issue, with the objective of providing a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange their latest achievements and to identify critical issues, challenges, opportunities, and future directions for how to deal with the complexity of future CPS. The contributions include 10 papers on the following topics: (I) Systems and Societal Aspects Related to CPS and Their Complexity; (II) Model-Based Development Methods for CPS; (III) CPS Resource Management and Evolving Computing Platforms; and (IV) Architectures for CPS.