Sustainable Construction Engineering and Management

This Book is a Printed Edition of the Special Issue which covers sustainability as an emerging requirement in the fields of construction management, project management and engineering. We invited authors to submit their theoretical or experimental research articles that address the challenges and opportunities for sustainable construction in all its facets, including technical topics and specific operational or procedural solutions, as well as strategic approaches aimed at the project, company or industry level. Central to developments are smart technologies and sophisticated decision-making mechanisms that augment sustainable outcomes. The Special Issue was received with great interest by the research community and attracted a high number of submissions. The selection process sought to balance the inclusion of a broad representative spread of topics against research quality, with editors and reviewers settling on thirty-three articles for publication. The Editors invite all participating researchers and those interested in sustainable construction engineering and management to read the summary of the Special Issue and of course to access the full-text articles provided in the Book for deeper analyses

Durum Wheat Breeding and Genetics

The Mediterranean basin is the main area both for the cultivation of durum wheat and for the consumption of derived food products such as pasta, couscous, and bulgur. The ongoing climate changes and new consumer preferences make the selection of genetic materials suitable for the present scenarios particularly difficult. This Special Issue Book covers several aspects of the genetic improvement of durum wheat, collected in seven chapters including two review papers focused on milestones in durum wheat breeding programs across the countries of the Mediterranean basin and sub-Saharan Africa. Water deficit and heat stress occurring during the reproductive stage of wheat have a detrimental effect on yield and grain quality of durum wheat. The papers included in this Special Issue propose selection strategies for traits associated with yield and grain quality (e.g., root architecture, carbon isotope composition of grain, and gluten quality) under natural or artificial environmental conditions of drought, heat, and nutrient stress. This Special Issue presents new breeding opportunities for selecting modern varieties adapted to climate change and expanding durum wheat production

Cells and Materials for Disease Modeling and Regenerative Medicine

Materials science and engineering are strongly developing tools with increasing impact in the biotechnological and biomedical areas. Interestingly, research in molecular and cellular biology is often at the core of the design and development of materials-based approaches, providing biological rationale. Focused on research relying on biology–materials interaction, IJMS launched a Special Issue named “Cells and Materials for Disease Modeling and Regenerative Medicine”. The aim of the Special Issue was to generate a compilation of in vitro and in vivo strategies based on cell–material interactions. This book compiles the papers published in that Special Issue and includes a selection of six original scientific experimental articles and six comprehensive reviews. We are convinced that this collection of articles shows representative examples of the state of the art in the field, unveiling the relevance of materials research in generating new regenerative medicine and disease modeling approaches

Control and Automation

Control and automation systems are at the heart of our every day lives. This book is a collection of novel ideas and findings in these fields, published as part of the Special Issue on Control and Automation. The core focus of this issue was original ideas and potential contributions for both theory and practice. It received a total number of 21 submissions, out of which 7 were accepted. These published manuscripts tackle some novel approaches in control, including fractional order control systems, with applications in robotics, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, vibratory systems, and wastewater treatment plants. This Special Issue has gathered a selection of novel research results regarding control systems in several distinct research areas. We hope that these papers will evoke new ideas, concepts, and further developments in the field

Image Processing Using FPGAs

This book presents a selection of papers representing current research on using field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for realising image processing algorithms. These papers are reprints of papers selected for a Special Issue of the Journal of Imaging on image processing using FPGAs. A diverse range of topics is covered, including parallel soft processors, memory management, image filters, segmentation, clustering, image analysis, and image compression. Applications include traffic sign recognition for autonomous driving, cell detection for histopathology, and video compression. Collectively, they represent the current state-of-the-art on image processing using FPGAs

Introduction to the peer commentary special section on “Jaws 30” by W. B. Langdon

Vanneschi, L., & Trujillo, L. (2023). Introduction to the peer commentary special section on “Jaws 30” by W. B. Langdon. Genetic Programming And Evolvable Machines, 24(2 Special Issue on Highlights of Genetic Programming 2022 Events), 1-2. [18]. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10710-023-09466-yIn 1992, John R. Koza published his first book on Genetic Programming (GP): “Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection” [1]. This ground-breaking book paved the way for the establishment of a new field of study. Building on the seminal work by John Holland and others in the nascent research community of evolutionary computation, Koza showed how evolution can be applied also to problems related to programming, learning and design. Koza influenced the work of thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide, many of whom aimed to continue the exploration, formalization and improvement of the original formulation of GP. Another aspect of the research derived from Koza’s work has been the application of GP to challenging problems, producing a long list of human-competitive solutions. In this special issue, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of [1] with a position paper written by William B. Landgon, titled “Jaws 30”, that focuses on the multiple impacts of the book on the GP field. The authority and prospective of W. B. Langdon is unique and unquestioned in this research field, with his work over the years covering a large subset of the core principles and components of GP. The paper has received the peer commentaries of Giovanni Squillero and Alberto Tonda, Mauro Castelli, Malcolm Heywood, Alberto Bartoli, Luca Manzoni and Eric Medvet, Jason Moore and Colin Johnson, all of them core contributors to the state-of-the-art in GP. W. B. Langdon responded to the commentary, giving rise to a very interesting and insightful discussion about the past, the present and the future of GP.publishersversionpublishe

Nothing forever

Thank you to everybody who made contributions to this bumper 2021 Special Issue on Improvisation. Many thanks to our peer reviewers and especially to co-editors Deborah and Daniel for their help with the selection and editing process which has now culminated in a baker’s dozen texts. With contributions from Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, as well as from France, the USA and the UK, the issue includes five interviews, four articles, two book reviews, a reflection and a score

Fuzzy Sets, Fuzzy Logic and Their Applications

The present book contains 20 articles collected from amongst the 53 total submitted manuscripts for the Special Issue “Fuzzy Sets, Fuzzy Loigic and Their Applications” of the MDPI journal Mathematics. The articles, which appear in the book in the series in which they were accepted, published in Volumes 7 (2019) and 8 (2020) of the journal, cover a wide range of topics connected to the theory and applications of fuzzy systems and their extensions and generalizations. This range includes, among others, management of the uncertainty in a fuzzy environment; fuzzy assessment methods of human-machine performance; fuzzy graphs; fuzzy topological and convergence spaces; bipolar fuzzy relations; type-2 fuzzy; and intuitionistic, interval-valued, complex, picture, and Pythagorean fuzzy sets, soft sets and algebras, etc. The applications presented are oriented to finance, fuzzy analytic hierarchy, green supply chain industries, smart health practice, and hotel selection. This wide range of topics makes the book interesting for all those working in the wider area of Fuzzy sets and systems and of fuzzy logic and for those who have the proper mathematical background who wish to become familiar with recent advances in fuzzy mathematics, which has entered to almost all sectors of human life and activity

Sustainability, Digital Transformation and Fintech: The New Challenges of the Banking Industry

In the current competitive scenario, the banking industry must contend with multiple challenges tied to regulations, legacy systems, disruptive models/technologies, new competitors, and a restive customer base, while simultaneously pursuing new strategies for sustainable growth. Banking institutions that can address these emerging challenges and opportunities to effectively balance long-term goals with short-term performance pressures could be aptly rewarded. This book comprises a selection of papers addressing some of these relevant issues concerning the current challenges and opportunities for international banking institutions. Papers in this collection focus on the digital transformation of the banking industry and its effect on sustainability, the emergence of new competitors such as FinTech companies, the role of mobile banking in the industry, the connections between sustainability and financial performance, and other general sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) topics related to the banking industry. The book is a Special Issue of the MDPI journal Sustainability, which has been sponsored by the Santander Financial Institute (SANFI), a Spanish research and training institution created as a collaboration between Santander Bank and the University of Cantabria. SANFI works to identify, develop, support, and promote knowledge, study, talent, and innovation in the financial sector