Tomatoes - 13

Tomatoes - 13

Tomatoes are one of the most important horticultural crops in both temperate and tropical regions of the world. This book provides a concise review of our knowledge of the scientific principles underlying the biology and production of the tomato crop. Our understanding of these aspects has increased rapidly in recent years and new areas such as genetic modification and biological pest control have been developed. Topics covered include genetics and breeding, developmental processes, crop growth and yield, fruit ripening and fruit quality, irrigation and fertilization, crop protection, production in the open field, greenhouse tomato production, postharvest biology and handling. This book will be of significant interest to students and professionals in horticulture.

Tomatoes - 13

Transport and Reactivity of Solutions in Confined Hydrosystems

Transport and Reactivity of Solutions in Confined Hydrosystems

The present work reflects a multi-disciplinary effort to address the topic of confined hydrosystems developed with a cross-fertilization panel of physics, chemists, biologists, soil and earth scientists. Confined hydrosystems include all situations in natural settings wherein the extent of the liquid phase is limited so that the solid-liquid and/or liquid-air interfaces may be critical to the properties of the whole system. Primarily, this so-called residual solution is occluded in pores/channels in such a way that decreases its tendency to evaporation, and makes it long-lasting in arid (Earth deserts) and hyper-arid (Mars soils) areas. The associated physics is available from domains like capillarity, adsorption and wetting, and surface forces. However, many processes are still to understand due to the close relationship between local structure and matter properties, the subtle interplay between the host and the guest, the complex intermingling among static reactivity and migration pathway.

Transport and Reactivity of Solutions in Confined Hydrosystems

Computer Simulations of Liquid Crystals and Polymers

Computer Simulations of Liquid Crystals and Polymers

Liquid crystals, polymers and polymer liquid crystals are soft condensed matter systems of major technological and scientific interest. An understanding of the macroscopic properties of these complex systems and of their many and interesting peculiarities at the molecular level can nowadays only be attained using computer simulations and statistical mechanical theories. Both in the Liquid Crystal and Polymer fields a considerable amount of simulation work has been done in the last few years with various classes of models at different special resolutions, ranging from atomistic to molecular and coarse-grained lattice models. Each of the two fields has developed its own set of tools and specialized procedures and the book aims to provide a state of the art review of the computer simulation studies of polymers and liquid crystals. This is of great importance in view of a potential cross-fertilization between these connected areas which is particularly apparent for a number of experimental systems like, e.g. polymer liquid crystals and anisotropic gels where the different fields necessarily merge. An effort has been made to assess the possibilities of a coherent description of the themes that have developed independently, and to compare and extend the theoretical and computational techniques put forward in the different areas.

Computer Simulations of Liquid Crystals and Polymers