In the history of humankind, the sea has always played a key role as a privileged medium for communication, commerce and contact among population centers. It constitutes an essential ecosystem, and an invaluable reservoir and source of food for all living beings. Therefore, its heath is a critical challenge for the survival of all humanity, particularly as one the most important environmental components targeted by global warming. Measuring and monitoring techniques are key tools for managing the marine environment and for supporting the Blue Economy. With this perspective, a series of annual international events, entitled Metrology for the Sea (MetroSea for short) was begun in 2017. Their increasing success inspired this book, which provides an anthology of tutorials dealing with a representative selection of topics of concern to a broad readership. The book covers two broad application areas, marine hydrography and meteorology, and then deals with instrumentation for measurement at sea. Typical metrological issues such as calibration and traceability, are considered, for both physical and chemical quantities. Key techniques, such as underwater acoustic investigation, remote sensing, measurement of waves and monitoring networks, are treated alongside marine geology and the monitoring of animal species. Economic and legal aspects of metrology for navigation are also discussed. Such an unparalleled wide vision of measurement for the sea will be of interest to a broad audience of scientists, engineers, economists, and their students.

The coastal zone is the host to many human activities, which have significantly increased in the last decades. However, sea level rise and more frequent storm events severely affect beaches and coastal structures, with negative consequences and dramatic impacts on coastal communities. These aspects add to typical coastal problems, like flooding and beach erosion, which already leading to large economic losses and human fatalities. Modeling is thus fundamental for an exhaustive understanding of the nearshore region in the present and future environment. Innovative tools and technologies may help to better understand coastal processes in terms of hydrodynamics, sediment transport, bed morphology, and their interaction with coastal structures. This book collects several contributions focusing on nearshore dynamics, and span among several time and spatial scales using both physical and numerical approaches. The aim is to describe the most recent advances in coastal dynamics.

Physical Modelling in Geotechnics collects more than 1500 pages of peer-reviewed papers written by researchers from over 30 countries, and presented at the 9th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics 2018 (City, University of London, UK 17-20 July 2018). The ICPMG series has grown such that two volumes of proceedings were required to publish all contributions. The books represent a substantial body of work in four years. Physical Modelling in Geotechnics contains 230 papers, including eight keynote and themed lectures representing the state-of-the-art in physical modelling research in aspects as diverse as fundamental modelling including sensors, imaging, modelling techniques and scaling, onshore and offshore foundations, dams and embankments, retaining walls and deep excavations, ground improvement and environmental engineering, tunnels and geohazards including significant contributions in the area of seismic engineering. ISSMGE TC104 have identified areas for special attention including education in physical modelling and the promotion of physical modelling to industry. With this in mind there is a special themed paper on education, focusing on both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching as well as practicing geotechnical engineers. Physical modelling has entered a new era with the advent of exciting work on real time interfaces between physical and numerical modelling and the growth of facilities and expertise that enable development of so called ‘megafuges’ of 1000gtonne capacity or more; capable of modelling the largest and most complex of geotechnical challenges. Physical Modelling in Geotechnics will be of interest to professionals, engineers and academics interested or involved in geotechnics, geotechnical engineering and related areas. The 9th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics was organised by the Multi Scale Geotechnical Engineering Research Centre at City, University of London under the auspices of Technical Committee 104 of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). City, University of London, are pleased to host the prestigious international conference for the first time having initiated and hosted the first regional conference, Eurofuge, ten years ago in 2008. Quadrennial regional conferences in both Europe and Asia are now well established events giving doctoral researchers, in particular, the opportunity to attend an international conference in this rapidly evolving specialist area. This is volume 1 of a 2-volume set.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 8th International Work-Conference on IWBBIO 2020, held in Granada, Spain, in May 2020. The total of 73papers presented in the proceedings, was carefully reviewed and selected from 241 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections as follows: Biomarker Identification; Biomedical Engineering; Biomedical Signal Analysis; Bio-Nanotechnology; Computational Approaches for Drug Design and Personalized Medicine; Computational Proteomics and Protein-Protein Interactions; Data Mining from UV/VIS/NIR Imaging and Spectrophotometry; E-Health Technology, Services and Applications; Evolving Towards Digital Twins in Healthcare (EDITH); High Performance in Bioinformatics; High-Throughput Genomics: Bioinformatic Tools and Medical Applications; Machine Learning in Bioinformatics; Medical Image Processing; Simulation and Visualization of Biological Systems.

This set of two volumes comprises the collection of the papers presented at the 5th International Conference on Maritime Technology and Engineering (MARTECH 2020) that was held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 16 to 19 November 2020. The Conference has evolved from the series of biennial national conferences in Portugal, which have become an international event, and which reflect the internationalization of the maritime sector and its activities. MARTECH 2020 is the fifth of this new series of biennial conferences. The set comprises 180 contributions that were reviewed by an International Scientific Committee. Volume 2 is dedicated to ship performance and hydrodynamics, including CFD, maneuvering, seakeeping, moorings and resistance. In addition, it includes sections on ship machinery, renewable energy, fishing and aquaculture, coastal structures, and waves and currents.

Introduction to Advanced Soft Robotics is an introductory textbook on soft body robotics. The content is designed to enable readers to better understand soft body robotics. Starting with an introduction to the subject, contents explain fundamental concepts such as perception and sensing, fabrication techniques and material design. These introductory chapters demonstrate the design concept and related design structures of soft robots from multiple perspectives, which can provide considerable design references for robotics learners and enthusiasts. Next, the book explains modeling and control for soft robotics and the applications. Key features of this book include easy-to-understand language and format, simple illustrations and a balanced overview of the subject (including a section on challenges and future prospects for soft robotics), and scientific references.

This volume of the SPAR series brings the proceedings of the fourteen edition of the DARS symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems, whose proceedings have been published within SPAR since the past edition. This symposium took place in Boulder, CO from October 15th to 17th, 2018. The volume edited by Nikolaus Correll and Mac Schwager contains 36 scientific contributions cutting across planning, control, design, perception, networking, and optimization, all united through the common thread of distributed robotic systems.

This book gathers the proceedings of the Multidisciplinary International Conference of Research Applied to Defense and Security (MICRADS), held at the Military Engineering Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 8 to 10th May 2019. It covers a variety of topics in systems, communication and defense; strategy and political-administrative vision in defense; and engineering and technologies applied to defense. Given its scope, it offers a valuable resource for practitioners, researchers, and students alike.