- Table View
- List View
Bacilli and Agrobiotechnology: Volume 2 (Bacilli in Climate Resilient Agriculture and Bioprospecting)
by Piyush Pandey Md Tofazzal Islam M. Mahfuz Rahman Michael Henry Boehme Geert HaesaertThe Gram-positive and spore-forming Bacilli are the most dominant group of bacteria that exist in various ecological niches on the earth. They represent one of the most important unmapped pools of biodiversity with immense potential of applications in agriculture, environment, and industry. As these bacteria are highly tolerant to stressful environment and enhance plant tolerance to harsh environment such as salinity, drought, and heavy metal toxicity, plant-associated Bacilli have high potential for promoting sustainable crop production. Many species of Bacilli are being commercially used as phytostimulator and biofertilizer. Some of them are applied as biopesticide for protecting crop plants from phytopathogens and insect pests. The Bacillus-based products are becoming popular in ecologically sound and climate resilient agricultural production system. In fact, Bacillus and allied species based formulations are already dominating the biopesticides market, although, to compete with other formulations and chemical alternatives, the biology of Bacillus had to be understood from perspective of such applications. Our understanding of the biology and molecular-basis of the beneficial effects of plant-associated Bacilli has greatly been progressed in recent years through genomics, metagenomics, post-genomics and metabolomics studies. The volume two of the series Bacilli and Agrobiotechnology comprehensively reviews and updates current knowledge of Bacilli as phytostimulant and biological control of plant pests. Better understanding the biology, ecology and mechanism of action of the beneficial strains of Bacilli will play a role in the development of products to support green biotechnology in agriculture and industries.
Bacilli in Agrobiotechnology: Plant Stress Tolerance, Bioremediation, and Bioprospecting (Bacilli in Climate Resilient Agriculture and Bioprospecting)
by M. Tofazzal Islam Mahfuz Rahman Piyush PandeyThe third volume of the series ‘Bacilli and Agrobiotechnology’ is comprised of 25 chapters that bring a unique perspective to the readers about Bacillus-mediated biotic and abiotic plant stress tolerance, bioremediation and bioprospecting. These chapters are prepared by the leading scientists of global repute. The negative impacts of agrochemicals such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides on human health and environment are paramount. Bacillus and allied genera of beneficial plant-associated microbes are presenting beacon of hope to the farmers, plant scientists and stewards of environment. Several chapters of this volume focus on the induction of various signaling pathways in plants by Bacillus spp. to alleviate biotic and abiotic stresses impacted by global climate change Agricultural lands contaminated with heavy metals affect the ecological food chain starting from crop cultivation. How the toxic effects of trace metals originating from industrial effluents and agrochemicals can be remediated? This book addresses how to overcome these issues by applying elite strains of Bacillus. Bioprospecting is a systematic and organized search for conversion of bioresources to industrially important products by utilizing microbe-derived metabolites. This volume is enriched by including the bioprospecting aspects mediated by Bacillus spp. with novel insights.
Bacillus Probiotics for Sustainable Aquaculture
by Koushik Ghosh Preetham Elumalai Mehdi Soltani Einar RingøThis book provides a comprehensive examination of the role of Bacillus bacteria in aquaculture, particularly focusing on finfish and shellfish. It begins with foundational chapters on the anatomy and physiology of these aquatic species, their immune systems, and the biology of Bacillus bacteria. The book discusses the specific interactions between Bacillus and the gastrointestinal tracts of fish and shellfish, examining the production and effects of Bacillus-derived exoenzymes and bacteriocins and their role in enhancing aquatic animal health and water quality. Additionally, the book covers the role of Bacillus in bioremediation, particularly in improving water quality, which is a significant concern in aquaculture. The latter sections delve into the application of Bacillus as probiotics and paraprobiotics in fish and shellfish culture, their integration in feed biotechnology, and a critical evaluation of their safety. The book concludes with a critical discussion on the safety and regulatory aspects of using Bacillus in aquaculture.This book is intended for professionals and practitioners in the aquaculture industry and researchers, academicians, and students in the fields of microbiology, marine biology, aquaculture, and veterinary medicine.
Bacillus thuringiensis Biotechnology
by Estibaliz SansineneaBacillus thuringiensis (Bt) has been used as a biopesticide in agriculture, forestry and mosquito control because of its advantages of specific toxicity against target insects, lack of polluting residues and safety to non-target organisms. The insecticidal properties of this bacterium are due to insecticidal proteins produced during sporulation. Despite these ecological benefits, the use of Bt biopesticides has lagged behind the synthetic chemicals. Genetic improvement of Bt natural strains, in particular Bt recombination, offers a promising means of improving efficacy and cost-effectiveness of Bt-based bioinsecticide products to develop new biotechnological applications. On the other hand, the different Bacillus species have important biotechnological applications; one of them is carried out by producing secondary metabolites, which are the study object of natural product chemistry. The amazing structural variability of these compounds has attracted the curiosity of chemists and the biological activities possessed by natural products have inspired the pharmaceutical industry to search for lead structures in microbial extracts. Screening of microbial extracts reveals the large structural diversity of natural compounds with broad biological activities, such as antimicrobial, antiviral, immunosuppressive, and antitumor activities that enable the bacterium to survive in its natural environment. These findings widen the target range of Bacillus spp., in special B. thuringiensis, besides insecticidal activity and help people to better understand its role in soil ecosystem.
Bacillus thuringiensis: A Cornerstone of Modern Agriculture
by Matthew MetzMake the right decisions when it comes to pest control in agriculture!Bacillus thuringiensis: A Cornerstone of Modern Agriculture explores the impact that one of the most prominent biologically based pesticides has had on pest control technologyand the issues that surround its use. The book examines the development, use, and management of technologies derived from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), addressing the health, economic, environmental, and social concerns generated by the deployment of genetically engineered crops. Authors representing a diverse cross section of the international scientific community contribute review articles and research findings that address the use of Bt in microbial formulations and transgenic crops, technological advances in the genetic engineering of plants, advances in methodologies, and improved agricultural practices and productivity through the use of Bt cotton.Bacillus thuringiensis: A Cornerstone of Modern Agriculture examines the vital issues surrounding this Gram-positive bacterium. Contributors from academia, government, and industry address the safety of Bt for human consumption, its effects on non-target organisms, the role of microbial Bt products in crop production in the United States, and the utility and management of transgenic plants. The book also explores: engineering Bt transgenic rice for insect pest protection the Bt potato in developing countries Bt expression in sugarcane and cauliflower a comparative analysis of Bt cotton in Argentina the ecological impact, gene expression, and current resistance management requirements of Bt cotton in the United States and much more! Bacillus thuringiensis: A Cornerstone of Modern Agriculture is an essential resource for advanced students and technical specialists working in agriculture, biotechnology, entomology, pest management, and crop sciences. Stakeholders will also find it invaluable in regulatory decision making about genetically engineered crops, pesticide use, and crop protection.
Back Analysis in Rock Engineering (ISRM Book Series)
by Shunsuke SakuraiThis book provides practicing engineers working in the field of design, construction and monitoring of rock structures such as tunnels and slopes with technical information on how to design, how to excavate and how to monitor the structures during their construction. Based on the long-term engineering experiences of the author, field measurements together with back analyses are presented as the most powerful tools in rock engineering practice. One of the purposes of field measurements is to assess the stability of the rock structures during their construction. However, field measurement results are only numbers unless they are quantitatively interpreted, a process in which back analyses play an important role. The author has developed both the concepts of “critical strain” and of the “anisotropic parameter” of rocks, which can make it possible not only to assess the stability of the structures during their construction, but also to verify the validity of design parameters by the back analysis of field measurement results during the constructions. Based on the back analysis results, the design parameters used at a design stage could be modified if necessary. This procedure is called an “Observational method”, a concept that is entirely different from that of other structures such as bridges and buildings. It is noted that in general, technical books written for practicing engineers mainly focus on empirical approaches which are based on engineers’ experiences. In this book, however, no empirical approaches will be described, instead, all the approaches are based on simple rock mechanics theory. This book is the first to describe an observational method in rock engineering practice, which implies that the potential readers of this book must be practicing engineers working on rock engineering projects.
Back Blast (Gray Man #5)
by Mark GreaneyFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels, comes an all-new explosive thriller featuring the lethal assassin known as the Gray Man...Court Gentry was the CIA's best agent. Until the day the Agency turned against him and put out a kill on sight order. That's when the enigmatic international assassin called the Gray Man was born--and Court has been working for himself ever sinceNow, Court is back in Washington looking for answers. He's determined to find out what happened all those years ago that made the Agency turn against him. On his list to interrogate are his former partners and the men who sent him on his last mission. What he doesn't realize is that the questions that arose from that mission are still reverberating in the U.S. intelligence community, and he's stumbled onto a secret that powerful people want kept under wraps. And now, they have Court in their crosshairs.Court Gentry is used to having people on his trail, but this time, it's on U.S. soil--the last place he wants to be. Now, he'll have to find the answers to his fate while evading capture...and avoiding death
Back Burn (Firestormers)
by Carl BowenWhile training new members for the FIRESTORMERS the world’s newest, most elite wildfire fighting crew a group of recruits goes missing inside a massive blaze. Their trainer, former special operations soldier Heath Rodgers, blames himself for their mistakes. If the new recruits are going to survive, Rodgers must lead the Firestormers into the flames before the past comes back to burn him.
Back Injury Among Healthcare Workers: Causes, Solutions, and Impacts
by William Charney Anne HudsonThe U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently calculated nearly 60,000 musculoskeletal injuries to healthcare workers resulting from heavy lifting during attempts to move patients. Often the nurses, aides, orderlies, and attendants who suffered permanent injuries were forced out of the profession, straining an already inadequate pool of workers and
Back Injury Prevention Handbook
by David W. AptsBack injuries can be controlled and prevented! They are not and should not be accepted as a cost of doing business!Written in plain language for the industrial professional, this book presents back injury prevention methods that have proven effective for cost containment. Such techniques include the 5-year back attack, the Olympic weight lifting model applied to the industrial setting. Training styles, and concepts for a proper educational format are also emphasized.The author draws on literature from around the world and his own experience of over 20 years of treating and preventing back pain and neck pain in presenting information in this book. Several case studies prove that back injuries can be prevented, which can save hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours of lost work. This book will prove essential for helping trainers, safety specialists, ergonomists, industrial hygienists, and other industry personnel to implement the best cure for back pain-prevention!
Back Online (From the Files of Madison Finn #23)
by Laura DowerMadison Finn is back online, and she's spilling all the details on her new friend, old flame, and very unexpected crush Madison, Aimee, Fiona, and the gang are ready for a new school year, but Madison knows that nothing is ever what you expect--especially when it comes to matters of the heart. Regardless of how prepared she is, the eighth grade is going to bring a bunch of awkward new experiences and some major surprises, including a new love interest--and a very confusing love triangle! Perfect for fans of the Dork Diaries, Back Online is the newest novel in the hugely popular From the Files of Madison Finn series.
Back and Bed: Ergonomic Aspects of Sleeping
by Bart HaexA synergy of physical, psychological, and physiological conditions affects the mental and physical quality of sleep. Although much has been written about this issue, little has been founded on actual research, until now.Back and Bed: Ergonomic Aspects of Sleeping is the first book to scientifically attribute the relationship between ergonom
Back on Track: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1965–2015 (Hagley Library Studies in Business, Technology, and Politics)
by Mark AldrichA fascinating account of one of America’s most important industries and its dangers.Throughout the early twentieth century, railroad safety steadily improved across the United States. But by the 1960s, American railroads had fallen apart, the result of a regulatory straightjacket that eroded profitability and undermined safety. Collisions, derailments, worker fatalities, and grade crossing mishaps skyrocketed, while hazmat disasters exploded into newspaper headlines. In Back on Track, his sequel to Death Rode the Rails, Mark Aldrich traces the history of railroad accidents beginning in 1965, when Congress responded to bankrupt and scandal-ridden carriers by enacting a new safety regime. Aldrich details the federalization of rail safety and the implementation of a massive grade crossing program. He touches on post-1976 economic deregulation, which provided critical financing that underwrote better public safety. He also explores how the National Transportation Safety Board acted as a public scold to shine bright lights on private failings, while Federal Railroad Administration regulations reinforced market incentives for better safety. Ultimately, Aldrich concludes, the past 50 years have seen great strides in restoring railroad safety while enhancing industry profitability. Arguing that it was not inadequate safety regulation but rather stifling economic regulation that initially caused an uptick in train accidents, Back on Track is both a paen to the return of more competitive railroading and the only comprehensive history of the safety of modern American railroads. Praise for Death Rode the Rails"A masterful study of the complex evolution of railroad safety."—American Historical Review"Students of rail safety, and today's Class I railroad managers, need to read this volume."—Trains"Aldrich has created a masterpiece. His research is extensive, drawing on a rich variety of obscure yet relevant sources."—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society"One of the first large-scale scholarly studies of railroad safety in America."—Railroad History"A thought-provoking and well-grounded contribution to the history of American economic development."—Journal of American History"Pioneering... A central message of Aldrich's book is that 'little accidents' played a crucial though until now largely hidden role in the gradual evolution of a risk society."—Technology and Culture"A work of merit... essential reading for historians of transport safety, business, and technology."—Journal of Transport History"Impressive and thoroughly researched... Demonstrates how railroad safety evolved from the intersection of market pressures, technology, and public sentiment."—Journal of Southern History
Back to Basics: Your Guide to Manufacturing Excellence (Resource Management)
by Steven A. Melnyk R. T. ChristensenAs organizations move into the future, the operations environment needs to expand into Collaborative Planning and Forecast Replenishment (CPFR), Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), and an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) operating system to become and remain competitive. These innovative and complex methods require an unprecedented degree of accuracy
Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet—And Our Mission to Protect It
by Nicole StottInspired by insights gained in spaceflight, a NASA astronaut offers key lessons to empower Earthbound readers to fight climate change. <p><p>When Nicole Stott first saw Earth from space, she realized how interconnected we are and knew she had to help protect our planetary home. <p><p>In Back to Earth, Stott imparts essential lessons in problem-solving, survival, and crisis response that each of us can practice to make change. She knows we can overcome differences to address global issues, because she saw this every day on the International Space Station. Stott shares stories from her spaceflight and insights from scientists, activists, and changemakers working to solve our greatest environmental challenges. She learns about the complexities of Earth’s biodiversity from NASA engineers working to enable life in space and from scientists protecting life on Earth for future generations. <p><p>Ultimately, Stott reveals how we each have the power to respect our planetary home and one another by living our lives like crewmates, not passengers, on an inspiring shared mission
Back to Statistics: Tail-Aware Control Performance Assessment
by Paweł D. DomańskiDue to the popularity of artificial intelligence today, scientists and practitioners tend to ignore the achievements of statistical methods. This book aims to re-establish statistical methods, especially for control practitioners, for whom the task of assessing control performance is important.The author introduces the elements of statistical theory, including basic statistical concepts and the description of distributions. Extending the most common observations toward the tails and extreme statistics, he demonstrates the robust statistics approach that deals with the tails, followed by the description of methods that can visualize and bring forward statistical properties as long as the derivative issues. By addressing statistical issues of sustainability, extreme statistics, non-Gaussianity, L-moments, tail index and index ratio diagrams, the author aims to change traditional concepts and broaden the scope of available methods. Simulation case studies and real industrial cases are also presented. The book will be of interest to site control engineers and scholars assessing control systems and process performance.
Back to the Moon
by Homer H. HickamIn this no-holds-barred joyride thriller, Hickam straps us into the cockpit of the space shuttle Columbia as a renegade rocket man hijacks the shuttle--and blasts off on a Mach-speed chase into space.... Jack Nedaris is a man haunted by his past and driven by a dream. He's risking everything to "borrow" the Columbia, and pilot it to The moon. He didn't plan on an unexpected passenger, beautiful celebrity daredevil and scientist Penny High Eagle. To Penny, this hijack will test every bit of her mettle as an adventurer and as a woman. To Jack, the mission is a personal quest--to return to the moon and bring back what America left behind, something so explosive could change the future of the world.
Back to the Moon: The Next Giant Leap for Humankind
by Joseph SilkA scientist’s inspiring vision of our return to the Moon as humanity’s next thrilling step in space explorationJust over half a century since Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the lunar surface, a new space race to the Moon is well underway and rapidly gaining momentum. Laying out a vision for the next fifty years, Back to the Moon is astrophysicist Joseph Silk’s persuasive and impassioned case for putting scientific discovery at the forefront of lunar exploration.The Moon offers opportunities beyond our wildest imaginings, and plans to return are rapidly gaining momentum around the world. NASA aims to build a habitable orbiting space station to coordinate lunar development and exploration, while European and Chinese space agencies are planning lunar villages and the mining of precious resources dwindling here on Earth. Powerful international and commercial interests are driving the race to revisit the Moon, but lunar infrastructures could also open breathtaking vistas onto the cosmos. Silk describes how the colonization of the Moon could usher in a thrilling new age of scientific exploration, and lays out what the next fifty years of lunar science might look like. With lunar telescopes of unprecedented size situated in permanently dark polar craters and on the far side of the Moon, we could finally be poised to answer some of the most profound questions confronting humankind, including whether we are alone in the Universe and what our cosmic origins are.Addressing both the daunting challenges and the immense promise of lunar exploration and exploitation, Back to the Moon reveals how prioritizing science, and in particular lunar astronomy, will enable us to address the deepest cosmic mysteries.
Back to the Roots: Memory, Inequality, and Urban Agriculture (Nature, Society, and Culture)
by Sara ShostakAcross the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, urban farmers and gardeners are reclaiming cultural traditions linked to food, farming, and health; challenging systemic racism and injustice in the food system; demanding greater community control of resources in marginalized neighborhoods; and moving towards their visions of more equitable urban futures. As part of this urgent work, urban farmers and gardeners encounter and reckon with both the cultural meanings and material legacies of the past. Drawing on their narratives, Back to the Roots demonstrates that urban agriculture is a critical domain for explorations of, and challenges to, the long standing inequalities that shape both the materiality of cities and the bodies of their inhabitants.
Back to the Wild
by Alain SauryThis practical and poetic "survival manual" is the first English translation of the French masterpiece of living wild in the world and creating a permaculture. Back to the Wild is your source for everything from cartography to hunting and dressing wild game to cooking without a kitchen.Its author, the late Alain Saury, was a respected author, poet, actor, activist, and artist who created the first vegetarian organization in France. His concerns about human survival in dangerous times inspired him to create this remarkable guidebook.Beautifully designed and organized, the material in this book illustrates the importance in having an intimate relationship with nature, and it leads the reader back to wild, whether the journey is taken by choice or by necessity.
Back-of-the-Envelope Physics
by Clifford SwartzFrom an award-winning teacher, “a delightful and instructive accessory to an introductory physics course” (Physics World).Physicists use “back-of-the-envelope” estimates to check whether or not an idea could possibly be right. In many cases, the approximate solution is all that is needed. This compilation of 101 examples of back-of-the-envelope calculations celebrates a quantitative approach to solving physics problems. Drawing on a lifetime of physics research and nearly three decades as the editor of The Physics Teacher, Clifford Swartz—a winner of two awards from the American Association of Physics Teachers—provides simple, approximate solutions to physics problems that span a broad range of topics. What note do you get when you blow across the top of a Coke bottle? Could you lose weight on a diet of ice cubes? How can a fakir lie on a bed of nails without getting hurt? Does draining water in the northern hemisphere really swirl in a different direction than its counterpart below the equator?In each case, only a few lines of arithmetic and a few natural constants solve a problem to within a few percent. Covering such subjects as astronomy, magnetism, optics, sound, heat, mechanics, waves, and electricity, this book provides a rich source of material for teachers and anyone interested in the physics of everyday life.“This is a book that will help make the study of physics fun and relevant.” —Mark P. Silverman, author of Waves and Grains: Reflections on Light and Learning
Backdoor Attacks against Learning-Based Algorithms (Wireless Networks)
by Haojin Zhu Shaofeng Li Xuemin (Sherman) Shen Wen WuThis book introduces a new type of data poisoning attack, dubbed, backdoor attack. In backdoor attacks, an attacker can train the model with poisoned data to obtain a model that performs well on a normal input but behaves wrongly with crafted triggers. Backdoor attacks can occur in many scenarios where the training process is not entirely controlled, such as using third-party datasets, third-party platforms for training, or directly calling models provided by third parties. Due to the enormous threat that backdoor attacks pose to model supply chain security, they have received widespread attention from academia and industry. This book focuses on exploiting backdoor attacks in the three types of DNN applications, which are image classification, natural language processing, and federated learning.Based on the observation that DNN models are vulnerable to small perturbations, this book demonstrates that steganography and regularization can be adopted to enhance the invisibility of backdoor triggers. Based on image similarity measurement, this book presents two metrics to quantitatively measure the invisibility of backdoor triggers. The invisible trigger design scheme introduced in this book achieves a balance between the invisibility and the effectiveness of backdoor attacks. In the natural language processing domain, it is difficult to design and insert a general backdoor in a manner imperceptible to humans. Any corruption to the textual data (e.g., misspelled words or randomly inserted trigger words/sentences) must retain context-awareness and readability to human inspectors. This book introduces two novel hidden backdoor attacks, targeting three major natural language processing tasks, including toxic comment detection, neural machine translation, and question answering, depending on whether the targeted NLP platform accepts raw Unicode characters.The emerged distributed training framework, i.e., federated learning, has advantages in preserving users' privacy. It has been widely used in electronic medical applications, however, it also faced threats derived from backdoor attacks. This book presents a novel backdoor detection framework in FL-based e-Health systems. We hope this book can provide insightful lights on understanding the backdoor attacks in different types of learning-based algorithms, including computer vision, natural language processing, and federated learning. The systematic principle in this book also offers valuable guidance on the defense of backdoor attacks against future learning-based algorithms.
Backgarden Chickens and Other Poultry
by John HarrisonA practical and indispensable guide which covers all you need to know about keeping poultry in your own back garden.Find out:What housing and basic equipment you need.How to choose and obtain the right poultry for the space you have available.Which are the best breeds of chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese and quail for your circumstances.How to help your poultry settle into their new homes.How to feed and care for your poultry.How to breed your ownHow to store eggs and increase production.And even how to cull your birds.
Backgarden Chickens and Other Poultry
by John HarrisonA practical and indispensable guide which covers all you need to know about keeping poultry in your own back garden.Find out:What housing and basic equipment you need.How to choose and obtain the right poultry for the space you have available.Which are the best breeds of chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese and quail for your circumstances.How to help your poultry settle into their new homes.How to feed and care for your poultry.How to breed your ownHow to store eggs and increase production.And even how to cull your birds.
Background Modeling and Foreground Detection for Video Surveillance
by Fatih Porikli Thierry Bouwmans Benjamin Höferlin Antoine V AcavantBackground modeling and foreground detection are important steps in video processing used to detect robustly moving objects in challenging environments. This requires effective methods for dealing with dynamic backgrounds and illumination changes as well as algorithms that must meet real-time and low memory requirements.Incorporating both establish