As a concept, Concurrent Engineering (CE) initiates processes with the goal of improving product quality, production efficiency and overall customer satisfaction. Services are becoming increasingly important to the economy, with more than 60% of the GDP in Japan, the USA, Germany and Russia deriving from service-based activities. The definition of a product has evolved from the manufacturing and supplying of goods only, to providing goods with added value, to eventually promoting a complete service business solution, with support from introduction into service and from operations to decommissioning. This book presents the proceedings of the 20th ISPE International Conference on Concurrent Engineering, held in Melbourne, Australia, in September 2013. The conference had as its theme Product and Service Engineering in a Dynamic World, and the papers explore research results, new concepts and insights covering a number of topics, including service engineering, cloud computing and digital manufacturing, knowledge-based engineering and sustainability in concurrent engineering.

Since the introduction of recombinant human growth hormone and insulin a quarter century ago, protein therapeutics has greatly broadened the ho- zon of health care. Many patients suffering with life-threatening diseases or chronic dysfunctions, which were medically untreatable not long ago, can attest to the wonder these drugs have achieved. Although the ?rst generation of p- tein therapeutics was produced in recombinant Escherichia coli, most recent products use mammalian cells as production hosts. Not long after the ?rst p- duction of recombinant proteins in E. coli, it was realized that the complex tasks of most post-translational modi?cations on proteins could only be ef?ciently carried out in mammalian cells. In the 1990s, we witnessed a rapid expansion of mammalian-cell-derived protein therapeutics, chie?y antibodies. In fact, it has been nearly a decade since the market value of mammalian-cell-derived protein therapeutics surpassed that of those produced from E. coli. A common characteristic of recent antibody products is the relatively large dose required for effective therapy, demanding larger quantities for the treatment of a given disease. This, coupled with the broadening repertoire of protein drugs, has rapidly expanded the quantity needed for clinical applications. The increasing demand for protein therapeutics has not been met exclusively by construction of new manufacturing plants and increasing total volume capacity. More - portantly the productivity of cell culture processes has been driven upward by an order of magnitude in the past decade.

The last decade has witnessed remarkable developments in antibody research and its therapeutic applications. With the methods of molecular biology it is now possible to manipulate the specificities and activities of antibody molecules to generate an almost limitless array of structures for both basic investigations and the clinical setting. The contributions to this volume cover all three domains of the antibody: the variable regions, the relatively neglected but crucial hinge, and the constant region. These studies provide critical structural and functional information about antibodies, while also pointing the way to the construction of molecules with enhanced or even novel properties. Bringing together major experts on antibody engineering, this book is highly recommended to faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students in molecular biology, microbiology, immunology, cancer research and genetics.

This book aims at informing on new trends, challenges and solutions, in the multidisciplinary field of biomedical engineering. It covers traditional biomedical engineering topics, as well as innovative applications such as artificial intelligence in health care, tissue engineering , neurotechnology and wearable devices. Further topics include mobile health and electroporation-based technologies, as well as new treatments in medicine. Gathering the proceedings of the 8th European Medical and Biological Engineering Conference (EMBEC 2020), held on November 29 - December 3, 2020, in Portorož, Slovenia, this book bridges fundamental and clinically-oriented research, emphasizing the role of education, translational research and commercialization of new ideas in biomedical engineering. It aims at inspiring and fostering communication and collaboration between engineers, physicists, biologists, physicians and other professionals dealing with cutting-edge themes in and advanced technologies serving the broad field of biomedical engineering.