The concept of using mathematical models to investigate crop growth and productivity has attracted much attention in recent years. A major reason is that modelling can allow an expert in one area to assess the impact of his ideas in the light of other advances in our understanding of crop performance. Whether or not many of the claims made for or the demands made of models can ever be satisfied, this role as a focus for quantitative definition of crop growth is an important one. One consequence is that the development and appraisal of such models requires the efforts of scientists from a wide...

A volume on the biliary system appeared in 1965, based on a symposium of the NATO Advanced Institute held in September, 1963, in Newcastle upon Tyne in England. It soon became an authorita- tive text on the problems of the biliary tract and, for instance, the discussion on the biliary secretion of organic anions, organic cations and inorganic ions were classic references. The worn pages of the volume in many libraries, including my own, bespeak its usefulness over ten long years. The initiative and energy of the Director of the first Institute have to be admired, even more so since he was...

This volume is a collection of the lectures and commu- nications presented at the Nato Advanced Study Institute on "Liver, Nutrition and Bile Acids" held in Maratea, Italy, September 1983. The research areas covered by the Meeting are very wide, having to do with the liver and biliary pathophysiology, nutrition, gallstone disease and atherosclerosis prevention. Scientists from the major clinical and basic disciplines provided an update overview of the complex mechanisms regula- ting the biosynthesis and catabolism of cholesterol and the formation and metabolism of bile acids. The NATO ASI has...

Never so pleased, sir. 'Twas an excellent dance, And for a preface, I never heard a better. Two Noble Kinsmen, Act III, Sc.S This volume is based mostly on the lectures delivered at an Advanced Study Institute (ASI) of the same title held in July 1977. One lecture given is not in the volume and three chapters, although not based on lectures delivered, have been added to better balance the book. A chapter on the ecosensory functions in crustaceans could not be put in due to time contingency. This absence is deeply regretted. The idea to hold an ASI on Sensory Ecology evolved slowly, main- ly...

By the year 2000, the most critical world problem--as things stand now--will be sustaining the human race. The quality and the availability of food will continue to be central to this issue. However, since the beginning of the final quarter of the twentieth century, few attempts have been made to organize and integrate information applying our knowledge of the regulation of plant growth to the enhancement of the world's yield of food, forage, fiber, and other useful plants. It is appropriate, therefore, to approach a solution to future human needs by combining an area of basic science with a...

The study of the interaction between light and matter has played a fundamental role in the development of natural sciences. Synchrotron radiation has characteristics of intensity, width and continuity of Jave length range, time structure, tunability and polarization which are far superior to those of most other sources. It is possible with synchrotron radiation to perform experiments Jhich could previously be only thought about and to routinely carry out measureEents Jhich were once made only with great dif- ficulties. The study of the enormously complicated but imF-ensely interesting...

This volume is arecord of the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Study institute on "Biochemical and Bio- logical Markers of Neoplastic Transformation" held September 28 - October 8, 1981, at Corfu, Greece. As early as 1860, Rudolf Virchow provided the first genetic concept of cancer by postulating "Omnia ceZZuZa e ceZZuZa ejusdem generis," a modification of the then exisiting cell theory "Omnis ceZZuZa e ceZZuZa." Thus, the idea that all cells originate from the parent cell was extended to the idea that all cancer cells come from the "paren t" cancer cello But how the first cancer cell arose, or...

This book contains the proceedings of the ARW NATO Conference on "Action of Free Radicals and Active Forms of Oxygen on Lipoproteins and Membrane Lipids: Cellular Interactions and Atherogenesis," held in Bendor, France, October 5-8,1988. Since the pioneer work of Mc Cord and Fridovitch, growing interest has been focused on the study of the role of oxyradicals role in pathology. This interest is reflected in the exponential increase in the number of papers on free radicals, the success of specialized journals and books on this theme, and the organization of national and international meetings....

This volume, the fourth in the series "The Prostagiandin System," contains most of the presentations at the International School of Pharmacology on "Drugs Effecting Leukotrienes and other Eicosanoid pathways" held in Erice, Sicily, at the "Ettore Majorana Center" on 9-20 September 1984. The discovery of a new class of biologically active compounds is always exciting even if at the present time knowledge is advancing very rapidly; this is particu1arly true for the eicosanoids. Evidence for a pivotal role of arachidonic acid as a precursor of mediators and modulators of various cell functions...