High-resolution images of phytoplankton cells such as diatoms or desmids, which are useful for monitoring water quality, can now be provided by digital microscopes, facilitating the automated analysis and identification of specimens. Conventional approaches are based on optical microscopy; however, manual image analysis is impractical due to the huge diversity of this group of microalgae and its great morphological plasticity. As such, there is a need for automated recognition techniques for diagnostic tools (e.g. environmental monitoring networks, early warning systems) to improve the management of water resources and decision-making processes. Describing the entire workflow of a bioindicator system, from capture, analysis and identification to the determination of quality indices, this book provides insights into the current state-of-the-art in automatic identification systems in microscopy.

This reference book covers the ecological impact and biotechnological applications of diatoms. Diatoms contribute to 40% of primary productivity in aquatic ecosystems. They have a unique biomonitoring ability and sensitivity toward different pollutants in wastewater, and are thereby a tool for ecotoxicological monitoring. The book discusses the need for newer diatom-based indices for wastewater quality analysis. It describes the nutraceutical value of the myriad compounds like omega 3 fatty acids-DHA, polysaccharides, and phenols in diatoms. It also elaborates on the challenges in sustainable diatom biorefinery. This book is meant for microbiologists, biotechnologists, and marine biologists.

Organisms and environment have evolved through modifying each other over millions of years. Humans appeared very late in this evolutionary time scale. With their superior brain attributes, humans emerged as the most dominating influence on the earth. Over the millennia, from simple hunter-food gatherers, humans developed the art of agriculture, domestication of animals, identification of medicinal plants, devising hunting and fishing techniques, house building, and making clothes. All these have been for better adjustment, growth, and survival in otherwise harsh and hostile surroundings and climate cycles of winter and summer, and dry and wet seasons. So humankind started experimenting and acting on ecological lines much before the art of reading, writing, or arithmetic had developed. Application of ecological knowledge led to development of agriculture, animal husbandry, medicines, fisheries, and so on. Modem ecology is a relatively young science and, unfortunately, there are so few books on applied ecology. The purpose of ecology is to discover the principles that govern relationships among plants, animals, microbes, and their total living and nonliving environmental components. Ecology, however, had remained mainly rooted in botany and zoology. It did not permeate hard sciences, engineering, or industrial technologies leading to widespread environmental degradation, pollution, and frequent episodes leading to mass deaths and diseases.

DIATOM MORPHOGENESIS A unique book presenting the range of silica structures formed by diatoms, theories and hypotheses of how they are made, and applications to nanotechnology by use or imitation of diatom morphogenesis. There are up to 200,000 species of diatoms, each species of these algal cells bearing an ornate, amorphous silica glass shell. The silica is structured at 7 orders of magnitude size range and is thus the most complex multiscalar solid structure known. Recent research is beginning to unravel how a single cell marshals chemical, physical, biochemical, genetic, and cytoskeletal processes to produce these single-cell marvels. The field of diatom nanotechnology is advancing as this understanding matures. Diatoms have been actively studied over the recent 10-20 years with various modern equipment, experimental and computer simulation approaches, including molecular biology, fluorescence-based methods, electron, confocal, and AFM microscopy. This has resulted in a huge amount of information but the key stages of their silica morphogenesis are still not clear. This is the time to reconsider and consolidate the work performed so far and to understand how we can go ahead. The main objective of this book is to describe the actual situation in the science of diatom morphogenesis, to specify the most important unresolved questions, and to present the corresponding hypotheses. The following areas are discussed: A tutorial chapter, with a glossary for newcomers to the field, who are often from outside of biology, let alone phycology; Diatom Morphogenesis: general issues, including symmetry and size issues; Diatom Morphogenesis: simulation, including analytical and numerical methods for description of the diatom valve shape and pore structure; Diatom Morphogenesis: physiology, biochemistry, and applications, including the relationship between taxonomy and physiology, biosilicification hypotheses, and ideas about applications of diatoms. Audience Researchers, scientists, and graduate students in the fields of phycology, general biology, marine sciences, the chemistry of silica, materials science, and ecology.

This book gathers a collection of high-quality, peer-reviewed research papers presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Computing, Communication and Devices (ICCD 2018), which address three core dimensions of the intelligent sciences—intelligent computing, intelligent communication, and intelligent devices. Intelligent computing includes areas such as intelligent and distributed computing, intelligent grid and cloud computing, Internet of Things, soft computing and engineering applications, data mining and knowledge discovery, semantic and web technology, hybrid systems, agent computing, bioinformatics, and recommendation systems. In turn, intelligent communication is concerned with communication and network technologies, such as mobile broadband and all-optical networks, which are the key to groundbreaking advances in intelligent communication technologies. It includes communication hardware, software and networked intelligence, mobile technologies, machine-to-machine communication networks, speech and natural language processing, routing techniques and network analytics, wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, communications and information security, signal, image and video processing, network management, and traffic engineering. Lastly, intelligent devices refer to any equipment, instruments, or machines that have their own computing capability, and covers areas such as embedded systems, radiofrequency identification (RFID), radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems (RF MEMS), very large-scale integration (VLSI) design and electronic devices, analog and mixed-signal integrated circuit (IC) design and testing, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microsystems, solar cells and photonics, nanodevices, single electron and spintronic devices, space electronics, and intelligent robotics.

This is the first book to deal with automatic diatom identification. It provides the necessary background information concerning diatom research, useful for both diatomists and non-diatomists. It deals with the development of electronic databases, image preprocessing, automatic contour extraction, the application of existing contour and ornamentation features and the development of new ones, as well as the application of different classifiers (neural networks, decision trees, etc.). These are tested using two image sets: (i) a very difficult set of Sellaphora pupula with 6 demes and 120 images; (ii) a mixed genera set with 37 taxa and approximately 800 images. The results are excellent, and recognition rates well above 90% have been achieved on both sets. The results are compared with identification rates obtained by human experts. One chapter of the book deals with automatic image capture, i.e. microscope slide scanning at different resolutions using a motorized microscope stage, autofocusing, multifocus fusion, and particle screening to select only diatoms and to reject debris. This book is the final scientific report of the European ADIAC project (Automatic Diatom Identification and Classification), and it lists the web-sites with the created public databases and an identification demo.

As the field of genomics has progressed, our understanding of microbiology has also developed. With the advent of next-generation sequencing methods and advancements in instrumental resolution, complex transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome data could be analyzed, as well as detailed annotation of microbial genomes. Microbial Genomics: Clinical, Pharmaceutical and Industrial Applications focuses on the various applications of microbial genomics in clinical, pharmaceutical and industrial fields. It consists of four parts devoted to bacterial, viral, and fungal genomics, as well as their applications in clinical, pharmaceutical, and industrial fields. Chapters are written by experts in their respective disciplines and are tightly organized with an introduction to detailed descriptions, available software implementation, applications, advanced topics, summaries, analytic questions, exercises, and suggested readings. Throughout this book, the latest genomics and biotechnological developments and discoveries as well as open problems and future challenges on microbial genomics will be highlighted. Readers will be introduced to state-of-the-art developments and trends of microbial genomics, its clinical, pharmaceutical, and industrial applications. The book will be beneficial for researchers who study microbial genomics in universities, post-graduate and graduate programs (biology, biotechnology, medicine, genetics, microbiology, industrial and environmental microbiology, etc.), as well as the pharmaceutical and industrial sector. - Presents the recent genomic developments in the industrial applications of microorganisms - Summarizes recent developments in microbial genomics, emphasizing the role of next-generation sequencing in functional genomics - Focus on how transcriptomics can help better understand host responses to pathogen infection - Describes applications of genomics in clinical microbiology