Fundamentals of Telemedicine and Telehealth provides an overview on the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to solve health problems, especially for people living in remote and underserviced areas. With the advent of new technologies and improvement of internet connectivity, telehealth has become a new subject requiring a new understanding of IT devices and how to utilize them to fulfill health needs. The book discusses topics such as digitizing patient information, technology requirements, existing resources, planning for telehealth projects, and primary care and specialized applications. Additionally, it discusses the use of telemedicine for patient empowerment and telecare in remote locations. Authored by IMIA Telehealth working group, this book is a valuable source for graduate students, healthcare workers, researchers and clinicians interested in using telehealth as part of their practice or research. - Presents components of healthcare that can be benefitted from remote access and when to rely on them - Explains the current technologies and tools and how to put them to effective use in daily healthcare - Provides legal provisions for telehealth implementation, discussing the risks of remote healthcare provision and cross border care

Sustainable development is the key for the survival in 21st century. The natural resources are finite and cannot be used with impunity because we are the custodian of these resources and have responsibility to pass these to the next generation. This monumental task requires several major commitments and most important of them is to arrest population explosion which has already reached seven billion. Natural resources like air to breath, food to eat, and water to drink, and fossil fuel to maintain this life style are being overexploited. Unrestrained consuming culture will accelerate undesired situation. This situation will have more dire consequences in resource limited ecosystems like dry lands. Given the severe scarcity of water, ever increasing population and soil salinization out of the box solutions for the provision of food and clean energy is required to spare meager fresh water resources for conventional agriculture. This volume contains a number of articles dealing with halophyte ecology, bio-geography, ecophysiology, hyper-saline soils, biofuels, biosaline agriculture, biosaline landscaping, climate change mitigation, and biodiversity. It also contains the communication of innovative ideas, such as the research into floating mangroves, seagrass terraces, as well as a World Halophyte Garden containing all known salt-tolerant plant species. It is hoped that the information provided will not only advance vegetation science, but that it will truly generate more interdisciplinarity, networking, awareness, and inspire farmers, and agricultural and landscaping stakeholders to seriously engage in halophyte cash crop production in coastal hyper-saline areas.

Our knowledge of the origin, evolution, nature, and distribution of organic matter in space has undergone a revolution in recent years. Insights into various aspects of this material can be found using a variety of different technical approaches. These range from telescopic measurements by observational astronomers over a wide range of wavelengths, to laboratory experiments and simulations by chemists, physicists, and spectroscopists, and analyses of actual extraterrestrial materials. IAU Symposium 251 brought together expertise of scientists from different disciplines, including observational astronomers, laboratory spectroscopists, and solar system scientists, to provide a synthesis of our current understanding of these organics and to identify areas in which additional work and new ideas are required to further our understanding.

Leading researchers in the area of the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe contributed to Exobiology: Matter, Energy, and Information in the Origin and Evolution of Life in the Universe. This volume provides a review of this interdisciplinary field. In 50 chapters many aspects that contribute to exobiology are reviewed by 90 authors. These include: historical perspective of biological evolution; cultural aspects of exobiology, cosmic, chemical and biological evolution, molecular biology, geochronology, biogeochemistry, biogeology, and planetology. Some of the current missions are discussed. Other subjects in the frontier of exobiology are reviewed, such as the search for planets outside the solar system, and the possible manifestation of intelligence in those new potential environments. The SETI research effort is well represented in this general overview of exobiology. This book is the proceedings of the Fifth Trieste Conference on Chemical Evolution that took place in September 1997. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam who suggested the initiation of the Trieste conferences on chemical evolution and the origin of life. Audience: Graduate students and researchers in the many areas of basic, earth, and life sciences that contribute to the study of chemical evolution and the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe.

Discussions and presentations addressed three aspects of cell research in space: the suitability of the cell as a subject in microgravity experiments, the requirements for generic flight hardware to support cell research, and the potential for collaboration between academia, industry, and government to develop these studies in space. Synopses are given for the presentations and follow-on discussions at the conference and papers are presented from which the presentations were based. An Executive Summary outlines the recommendations and conclusions generated at the conference.