This volume discusses recent advances in research regarding the evolution of specific and nonspecific defense responses in a taxonomically diverse array of species. Topics regarding invertebrates include the protective mechanisms (cellular and molecular) employed by insects, the protective roles of lectins, and the self-nonself discrimination revealed by tissue incompatibility reactions. With vertebrates, the evolution of the immunoglobulin-related superfamily of recognition molecules (inc...

The Ph.D. Process offers the essential guidance that students in the biological and physical sciences need to get the most out of their years in graduate school. Drawing upon the insights of numerous current and former graduate students, this book presents a rich portrayal of the intellectual and emotional challenges inherent in becoming a scientist, and offers the informed, practical advice a "best friend" would give about each stage of the graduate school experience. What are th...

This is an unusual book. Combining social science fiction, utopianism, pragmatism, sober analysis and innovative social theory, the authors address one of the biggest dilemmas of our age – how to solve the problems arising from mass displacement. As early versions of the solution proposed by Robin Cohen and Nicholas Van Hear filtered out, their vision of a new, networked, transnational archipelago, called Refugia, was immediately denounced or met with scepticism by established refugee scho...

Selecting the best embryo to transfer to the uterus is key to successful in vitro fertilization (IVF). A huge amount of research has been devoted to this topic and there are numerous methods used, from simple morphological assessment to molecular biological techniques to assess the genome and metabolism of the newly fertilized embryo. For many of these techniques, an adequate evidence base is lacking, and expert opinion is valuable. Clinical imperatives require ranking all embryos in a coh...

T’ai Chi and qigong are popular because of their great reputations as exercises with numerous health-related benefits. Can these benefits simply be results of placebo effects? Chapters in this e-book not only provide an interesting historical backdrop in which taiji and qigong developed, but also provide scientific support for the efficacy and effects of both modalities. Breslow’s chapter focuses on Daoist practices associated with their quest for immortal...

A 2026 Audie Award Finalist for Literary Fiction and Classics**“Wonderful reading.” —Scott Turow, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed InnocentAn extraordinarily accomplished debut novel—a love story, mystery, and philosophical puzzle, told in the singular voices of the residents of a Beaux Arts apartment house in Belgium during World War II.**On the eve of the Nazi occupation, in the heart of Brussels, life for the res...

The Ph.D. Process offers the essential guidance that students in the biological and physical sciences need to get the most out of their years in graduate school. Drawing upon the insights of numerous current and former graduate students, this book presents a rich portrayal of the intellectual and emotional challenges inherent in becoming a scientist, and offers the informed, practical advice a "best friend" would give about each stage of the graduate school experience. What are th...

The integrity of democratic elections, both in the United States and abroad, is an important problem. In this Element, we present a data-driven approach that evaluates the performance of the administration of a democratic election, before, during, and after Election Day. We show that this data-driven method can help to improve confidence in the integrity of American elections.

This book is an overview of latest successes and applications of fuzzy techniques—techniques that use expert knowledge formulated by natural-language words like "small". Engineering applications deal with aerospace (control of spacecrafts and unmanned aerial vehicles, air traffic control, airport passenger flow predictions), materials (designing gold nano-structures for medicine, catalysis, and sensors), and robot navigation and manipulation. Other application areas include cosmology, demo...

Heart Physiology and Pathophysiology, 4E, provides the foundation for the scientific understanding of heart function and dysfunction, and bridges the gap between basic cardiovascular science and clinical cardiology. This comprehensive text covers all the important aspects of the heart and vascular system. The most important and relevant disorders are presented, with emphasis on the mechanisms involved. The first three editions of this book developed a reputation as the leading reference in...

A classic nephrology reference for over 25years, Seldin and Giebisch's The Kidney, is the acknowledged authority on renal physiology and pathophysiology. In this 5th edition, such new and powerful disciplines as genetics and cell biology have been deployed to deepen and widen further the explanatory framework. Not only have previous chapters been extensively updated, but new chapters have been added to incorporate additional disciplines. Individual chapters, for example, now provide detail...

Radiation Medicine Rounds is a trinary hard cover periodical designed to provide an up-to- date review of a dedicated radiation medicine topic of interest to clinicians and scientists who are involved in the care of patients receiving radiotherapy. It is intended to serve as both a reference and instructional tool for students, housestaff, fellows, practicing clinicians, medical physicists, cancer biologists, radiobiologists, and interdisciplinary colleagues throughout the oncolog...