The experimental data that have been generated using new molecular techniques associated with the completion of genome projects have changed our perception of the structural features, functional implications and evolutionary dynamics of repetitive DNA sequences. This volume of Genome Dynamics provides a valuable update on recent developments in research into multigene families, centromeres, telomeres, microsatellite DNA, satellite DNA, and transposable elements. Each chapter presents a rev...

This remarkable publication focuses on the importance of genetics in mental retardation, investigating the extent to which molecular diagnostic capability and the understanding of genetic causes have improved over recent years. As a result, clinical evaluation and diagnostic laboratory practice are now undergoing an unprecedented period of change. In a single volume, a unique combination of key individuals and world-class clinical, diagnostic and research-based experts share specialized, s...

Genetics of Deafness offers a journey through areas crucial for understanding the causes and effects of hearing loss. It covers such topics as the latest approaches in diagnostics and deafness research and the current status and future promise of gene therapy for hearing restoration. The book begins by bringing attention to how hearing loss affects the individual and society. Methods of hearing loss detection and management throughout the lifespan are highlighted as is a particularly new d...

Infertility affects more than one in ten couples worldwide and is related to highly heterogeneous pathologies sometimes only discernible in the germ line. Its complex etiology often, but not always, includes genetic factors besides anatomical defects, immunological interference, and environmental aspects. Nearly 30% of infertility cases are probably caused only by genetic defects. Thereby experimental animal knockout models convincingly show that infertility can be caused by single or mult...

This volume offers an in-depth description and discussion of research design for a large-scale investigation of bilingual development. It introduces and justifies a range of theoretical and methodological innovations, discusses some of the problems that come with these and proposes practical solutions. The present volume introduces a research design intended to capture a wide range of linguistic data, elicited by means of behavioral tasks, neuroimageing data and free speech from both secon...

Adolf Hitler's GhostBy: Elizabeth Maria Schmid, M.D.Elizabeth was born on August 31, 1936 in Vienna, Austria to a non-Jewish family. She describes how she, as a young child, experienced the War, even though her family was not Jewish. Yet the spirit of the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler pervaded every aspect of every German and Austrian person, day and night. Everybody had to be afraid of their neighbors and careful about every word they spoke, and life was changed profoundly,...

In retrospect the 19th century tmdoubtedly seems to be the century of evolutionism. The 'discovery of time' and therewith the experience of variability was made by many sciences: not only historians worked on the elaboration and interpretation of this discovery, but also physicists, geographers, biologists and economists, demographers, archaelogists, and even philosophers. The successful empirical fotmdation of evolutive processes by Darwin and his disciples suggested Herbert Spencer's vig...

Describes developments in healthcare systems over nearly four decades. Combining cross-sectional studies on healthcare financing, provision and policy values with in-depth country studies of Britain, Germany and the USA, this volume is a thorough examination of the convergence toward hybrid forms of healthcare systems.

Scientists are supposed to have freedom to choose and conduct their experiments and exchange their ideas. Known as scientific freedom, this idea has been implicated in both wonderful and terrible scientific discoveries. Although it is not new, it has great relevance to contemporary society. In a time of genetic editing, global warming, and a worldwide pandemic, the question of how freely science is and should be conducted is one that has significant practical consequences.Drawing o...

It is now 20 years since thoracoscopic surgery first entered everyday hospital practice, revolutionizing surgery and offering major benefits to patients. The intervening years have witnessed rapid progress, with the development of a variety of specialized techniques and equipment.This superbly illustrated book provides authoritative and comprehensive descriptions of the various minimally invasive techniques that are currently employed in thoracic and cardiac surgery. A wide range o...

The volume is collection of articles treating the topic of human improvement/enhancement from a variety of perspectives – philosophical, literary, medical, genetic, sociological, legal etc. The chapters in this volume treat not only those aspects that most immediately come to mind when one thinks of ‘human enhancement’, such as genetic engineering, cloning, artificial implants and artificial intelligence etc. Somewhat less obvious aspects include evolutionary perspectives in connection wit...