Preface
The broad area of Transport Phenomena has now emerged as a science covering various disciplines encompassing physiology, medicine, materials technology, thermal engineering, protein aggregation, pharmaceutical research and space technology, to name a few. With such a large set of scientific disciplines dependent on the fundamentals of transport phenomena, it is indeed an important area of study, and one that requires the expertise of various scientific groups to fully utilize the knowledge base for furthering research in those disciplines. With the principal idea of advancing such research, we are continuing with this series of conferences where we hope that intense interaction will promote ideas for strong interdisciplinary research programs. In dealing with the challenges of interdisciplinary research in Transport Phenomena, scientists with a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise need to participate in forums to identify significant issues and contribute new ideas.
We have recognized that the strength of scientific research in Transport Phenomena lies in appreciating the new challenges through interdisciplinary activity and pursuing ideas across traditional disciplinary boundaries. In organizing the ITP (Interdisciplinary Transport Phenomena) Conference Series, we have attempted to set up forums to stimulate discussions on relevant scientific issues with the hope of leading to a better understanding of the scientific principles that apply to cross-disciplinary transport phenomena. We intend to continue to focus on this basic theme which also provides the scientific community with an avenue for publishing of their research results. The high-quality scientific papers put together by the conference participants are indeed a very positive output of these conferences and we thank all of the participants who have the spent time and effort in putting their works together. Additionally, we appreciate the support from Van P. Carey, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Transport Phenomena, for recognizing the strength of our scientific contributions, and working with Ian Mellanby (Old City Publishing) to give us the privilege to publish our papers, after peer-review, in a series of special issues of the journal. We are also indebted to Guy Griffiths and his production staff for seeing through the final stages of typesetting and publication of this series.
The institutional support for conference organization from the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of Pisa is highly appreciated, and we are very grateful to members of the Local Organizing Committee at the University of Pisa for their time and effort in helping us put together the Sixth ITP Conference (October 2009). Thanks are also due to Theodore Bergman for coordinating the financial support from the US National Science Foundation.
Satwindar Singh Sadhal, Guest Editor (USA)
David M. Eckmann, Associate Guest Editor (USA)
Walter Grass i, Associate Guest Editor (Italy)
Haruhiko Ohta, Associate Guest Editor (Japan)