This book provides a comprehensive guide to the state-of-the-art in cardiovascular computing and highlights novel directions and challenges in this constantly evolving multidisciplinary field. The topics covered span a wide range of methods and clinical applications of cardiovascular computing, including advanced technologies for the acquisition and analysis of signals and images, cardiovascular informatics, and mathematical and computational modeling.

The book gathers the chapters of Cognitive InfoCommunication research relevant to a variety of application areas, including data visualization, emotion expression, brain-computer interfaces or speech technologies. It provides an overview of the kind of cognitive capabilities that are being analyzed and developed. Based on this common ground, it may become possible to see new opportunities for synergy among disciplines that were heretofore viewed as being separate. Cognitive InfoCommunication begins by modeling human cognitive states and aptitudes in order to better understand what the user of a system is capable of comprehending and doing. The patterns of exploration and the specific tools that are described can certainly be of interest and of great relevance for all researchers who focus on modeling human states and aptitudes. This innovative research area provides answers to the latest challenges in influence of cognitive states and aptitudes in order to facilitate learning or generally improve performance in certain cognitive tasks such as decision making. Some capabilities are purely human, while others are purely artificial, but in general this distinction is rarely clear-cut. Therefore, when discussing new human cognitive capabilities, the technological background which makes them possible cannot be neglected, and indeed often plays a central role. This book highlights the synergy between various fields that are perfectly fit under the umbrella of CogInfoCom and contribute to understanding and developing new, human-artificial intelligence hybrid capabilities. These, merged capabilities are currently appearing, and the importance of the role they play in everyday life are unique to the cognitive entity generation that is currently growing up.

This book provides information on digital audio watermarking, its applications, and its evaluation for copyright protection of audio signals - both basic and advanced. The author covers various advanced digital audio watermarking algorithms that can be used for copyright protection of audio signals. These algorithms are implemented using hybridization of advanced signal processing transforms such as fast discrete curvelet transform (FDCuT), redundant discrete wavelet transform (RDWT), and another signal processing transform such as discrete cosine transform (DCT). In these algorithms, Arnold scrambling is used to enhance the security of the watermark logo. This book is divided in to three portions: basic audio watermarking and its classification, audio watermarking algorithms, and audio watermarking algorithms using advance signal transforms. The book also covers optimization based audio watermarking. Describes basic of digital audio watermarking and its applications, including evaluation parameters for digital audio watermarking algorithms; Provides audio watermarking algorithms using advanced signal transformations; Provides optimization based audio watermarking algorithms.

This book documents some of the most recent advances on the physical layer of the Internet of Things (IoT), including sensors, circuits, and systems. The application area selected for illustrating these advances is that of autonomous, wearable systems for real-time medical diagnosis. The book is unique in that it adopts a holistic view of such systems and includes not only the sensor and processing subsystems, but also the power, communication, and security subsystems. Particular attention is paid to the integration of these IoT subsystems as well as the prototyping platforms needed for achieving such integration. Other unique features include the discussion of energy-harvesting subsystems to achieve full energy autonomy and the consideration of hardware security as a requirement for the integrity of the IoT physical layer. One unifying thread of the various designs considered in this book is that they have all been fabricated and tested in an advanced, low-power CMOS process, namely GLOBALFOUNDRIES 65nm CMOS LPe.

This thesis presents first successful experiments to carrier-envelope-phase stabilize a high-power mode-locked thin-disk oscillator and to compress the pulses emitted from this laser to durations of only a few-optical cycles. Moreover, the monograph introduces several methods to achieve power-scalability of compression and stabilization techniques. All experimental approaches are compared in detail and may serve as a guideline for developing high-power waveform controlled, few-cycle light sources which offer tremendous potential to exploit extreme nonlinear optical effects at unprecedentedly high repetition rates and to establish table-top infrared light sources with a unique combination of brilliance and bandwidth. As an example, the realization of a multi-Watt, multi-octave spanning, mid-infrared femtosecond source is described. The thesis starts with a basic introduction to the field of ultrafast laser oscillators. It subsequently presents additional details of previously published research results and establishes a connection between them. It therefore addresses both newcomers to, and experts in the field of high-power ultrafast laser development.

This book provides readers with an overview of the architectures, programming frameworks, and hardware accelerators for typical cloud computing applications in data centers. The authors present the most recent and promising solutions, using hardware accelerators to provide high throughput, reduced latency and higher energy efficiency compared to current servers based on commodity processors. Readers will benefit from state-of-the-art information regarding application requirements in contemporary data centers, computational complexity of typical tasks in cloud computing, and a programming framework for the efficient utilization of the hardware accelerators.

This book comprehensively covers the important efforts in improving the quality of images in visual cryptography (VC), with a focus on cases with gray scale images. It not only covers schemes in traditional VC and extended VC for binary secret images, but also the latest development in the analysis-by-synthesis approach. This book distinguishes itself from the existing literature in three ways. First, it not only reviews traditional VC for binary secret images, but also covers recent efforts in improving visual quality for gray scale secret images. Second, not only traditional quality measures are reviewed, but also measures that were not used for measuring perceptual quality of decrypted secret images, such as Radially Averaged Power Spectrum Density (RAPSD) and residual variance, are employed for evaluating and guiding the design of VC algorithms. Third, unlike most VC books following a mathematical formal style, this book tries to make a balance between engineering intuition and mathematical reasoning. All the targeted problems and corresponding solutions are fully motivated by practical applications and evaluated by experimental tests, while important security issues are presented as mathematical proof. Furthermore, important algorithms are summarized as pseudocodes, thus enabling the readers to reproduce the results in the book. Therefore, this book serves as a tutorial for readers with an engineering background as well as for experts in related areas to understand the basics and research frontiers in visual cryptography.

This textbook provides a sound foundation in physical optics by covering key concepts in a rigorous but accessible manner. Propagation of electromagnetic waves is examined from multiple perspectives, with explanation of which viewpoints and methods are best suited to different situations. After an introduction to the theory of electromagnetism, reflection, refraction, and dispersion, topics such as geometrical optics, interference, diffraction, coherence, laser beams, polarization, crystallography, and anisotropy are closely examined. Optical elements, including lenses, mirrors, prisms, classical and Fabry-Perot interferometers, resonant cavities, multilayer dielectric structures, interference and spatial filters, diffraction gratings, polarizers, and birefringent plates, are treated in depth. The coverage also encompasses such seldom-covered topics as modeling of general astigmatism via 4x4 matrices, FFT-based numerical methods, and bianisotropy, with a relativistic treatment of optical activity and the Faraday and Fresnel-Fizeau effects. Finally, the history of optics is discussed.

Advances in Imaging and Electron Physics, Volume 206, merges two long-running serials, Advances in Electronics and Electron Physics and Advances in Optical and Electron Microscopy. The series features extended articles on the physics of electron devices (especially semiconductor devices), particle optics at high and low energies, microlithography, image science, digital image processing, electromagnetic wave propagation, electron microscopy, and the computing methods used in all these domains.

This book focuses on non-GNSS positioning systems and approaches. Although it addresses both theoretical and practical aspects, the primary focus is on engineering practice. This is achieved by providing in-depth studies on a number of major topics such as tracking system architecture, link budget, system design, implementation, testing, and performance evaluation. It studies four positioning application cases in detail: covert vehicle tracking, horse racing, rowing, and tracking for field sports. Its comprehensive and systematic treatment of practical issues in wireless positioning makes the book particularly suitable for readers who are interested in learning about practical wireless positioning solutions. It will also benefit researchers, engineers and graduate students in fields such as positioning and navigation, geospatial engineering and telecommunications.

This book covers the state of the art in learning algorithms with an inclusion of semi-supervised methods to provide a broad scope of clustering and classification solutions for big data applications. Case studies and best practices are included along with theoretical models of learning for a comprehensive reference to the field. The book is organized into eight chapters that cover the following topics: discretization, feature extraction and selection, classification, clustering, topic modeling, graph analysis and applications. Practitioners and graduate students can use the volume as an important reference for their current and future research and faculty will find the volume useful for assignments in presenting current approaches to unsupervised and semi-supervised learning in graduate-level seminar courses. The book is based on selected, expanded papers from the Fourth International Conference on Soft Computing in Data Science (2018). Includes new advances in clustering and classification using semi-supervised and unsupervised learning; Address new challenges arising in feature extraction and selection using semi-supervised and unsupervised learning; Features applications from healthcare, engineering, and text/social media mining that exploit techniques from semi-supervised and unsupervised learning.

This thesis describes the design, development, characterisation and clinical translation of three novel devices for optical endoscopic imaging. Over the past decade, rapid innovation in optics and photonics has led to the availability of low-cost and high-performance optical technologies that can be exploited for biomedical applications, but relatively few have been translated into clinic. The work presented outlines for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of the common barriers and unique challenges associated with the translation of optical imaging techniques. To assist developers streamline translation of optical imaging devices in future, a roadmap to clinical translation is outlined, and key translational characteristics are defined. Guided by these, subsequent development of endoscopic devices resulted in preparation and approval of endoscopes for first in human trials in the oesophagus, for early detection of cancer, and in the brain, for delineation of tumour during surgical resection. The thesis culminates in the presentation of results from the first in human use of a compact multispectral endoscope for imaging endogenous tissue contrast in the oesophagus. With continuation of the work as outlined at the end of this thesis, the novel techniques described have the potential to improve the standard of care in their respective indications.

This book highlights practical solutions for flight safety improvement techniques, which are currently the focus of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). It has become clear that, in order to rapidly and significantly improve flight safety, the integrated use of new aeronautical technologies is called for. Considering the size of the aviation fleet, its constant growth and the long service lives of aircraft, new technologies should be adapted both to cutting-edge air navigation systems and to those that have been used for over a decade. Concretely, the book discusses methodological approaches to the construction of ground and on-board avionics that make it possible to achieve improved flight safety using innovative new methods. The proposed approaches are illustrated with real-world examples of e.g. satellite-based navigation systems and enhanced ground proximity warning systems. The book is written for professionals involved in the development of avionics systems, as well as students, researchers and experts in the field of radiolocation, radio navigation and air traffic control, the book will support the development and modeling of radio technical complexes, as well as the analysis of complex radio technical systems.

This book fills in details that are often left out of modern books on the theory of antennas. The starting point is a discussion of some general principles that apply to all electronic systems and to antennas in particular. Just as time domain functions can be expanded in terms of sine waves using Fourier transforms, spatial domain functions can be expanded in terms of plane waves also using Fourier transforms, and K-space gain is the spatial Fourier transform of the aperture weighting function. Other topics discussed include the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) formulation of antenna gain and what is missing in this formulation, the effect of sky temperature on the often specified G/T ratio of antennas, sidelobe control using conventional and novel techniques, and ESA digital beamforming versus adaptive processing to limit interference. Presents content the author derived when first asked to evaluate the performance of an electronically scanned array under design with manufacturing imperfections and design limitations; Enables readers to understand the firm theoretical foundation of antenna gain even when they must start from well-known formulations rather than first principles; Explains in a straightforward manner the relationship between antenna gain and aperture area; Discusses the relationship between sidelobe control algorithms and aperture shape, how to take advantage of it, and what the penalties are; Shows the equivalence of Minimum-Variance, Distortionless Response (MVDR) and Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) and how these algorithms can be used with ESA subarrays to mitigate interference.

An indispensable resource for the use of infrared thermography in industrial nondestructive testing

Machine vision, especially infrared thermography, provides industries with a more efficient and cost-effective method of detecting production flaws than traditional means of human inspection. The trend in industry today is toward inspecting and evaluating products in a nondestructive manner. For that purpose, infrared thermography has become a prime means of ensuring quality without damaging product. This comprehensive reference for professionals provides total coverage of infrared thermography inspection, theory, and practice in nondestructive testing (NDT).

Xavier Maldague provides a comprehensive introduction to Thermographic Nondestructive Testing (TNDT) and its current applications, followed by major sections on the fundamental concepts, passive and active thermography, and case studies in industry. A complementary package called IRNDT is available on the Internet for use with problems at the end of each chapter or as a tool for image processing. Detailed coverage includes:

• Introduction to thermal emission and heat transfer
• Infrared sensors and optics fundamentals
• Images and image analysis
• Experimental concepts
• Active thermography and quantitative analysis: pulsed, step, lockin, and vibrothermography
• Case studies in passive and active thermography

The book presents innovative scientific research works by academics, research scholars and students, presented at the 2017 International Conference on Energy, Materials and Information Technology at Amity University Jharkhand, India. It includes contributions on system solutions based on soft computing techniques, and covers innovative soft computing techniques and tools with advanced applications. A major focus of the book is on presenting interdisciplinary problems and how they can be solved using information technology, together with innovative connections to other disciplines. It also includes papers on cloud computing and WSN-related real-time research.

This book offers a detailed description of the histogram probabilistic multi-hypothesis tracker (H-PMHT), providing an accessible and intuitive introduction to the mathematical mechanics of H-PMHT as well as a definitive reference source for the existing literature on the method. Beginning with basic concepts, the authors then move on to address extensions of the method to a broad class of tracking problems. The latter chapters present applications using recorded data from experimental radar, sonar and video sensor systems. The book is supplemented with software that both furthers readers' understanding and acts as a toolkit for those who wish to apply the methods to their own problems.

This book highlights the latest research presented at the International Conference on Translational Medicine and Imaging (ICTMI) 2017. This event brought together the world's leading scientists, engineers and clinicians from a wide range of disciplines in the field of medical imaging. Bioimaging has continued to evolve across a wide spectrum of applications from diagnostics and personalized therapy to the mechanistic understanding of biological processes, and as a result there is ever-increasing demand for more robust methods and their integration with clinical and molecular data. This book presents a number of these methods.

This book provides a single-source reference to the state-of-the-art in logic synthesis. Readers will benefit from the authors' expert perspectives on new technologies and logic synthesis, new data structures, big data and logic synthesis, and convergent logic synthesis. The authors describe techniques that will enable readers to take advantage of recent advances in big data techniques and frameworks in order to have better logic synthesis algorithms.

This book presents novel research ideas and offers insights into radar system design, artificial intelligence and signal processing applications. Further, it proposes a new concept of antenna spatial polarization characteristics (SPC), suggesting that the antenna polarization is a function of the spatial direction and providing new ideas for radar signal processing (RSP) and anti-jamming. It also discusses the design of an advanced signal-processing algorithm, and proposes new polarimetric and anti-jamming methods using antenna inherent properties. The book helps readers discover the potential of radar information processing and improve its anti-interference and target identification ability. It is of interest to university researchers, radar engineers and graduate students in computer science and electronics who wish to learn the core principles, methods, algorithms, and applications of RSP.

This book discusses some research results for CMOS-compatible silicon-based optical devices and interconnections. With accurate simulation and experimental demonstration, it provides insights on silicon-based modulation, advanced multiplexing, polarization and efficient coupling controlling technologies, which are widely used in silicon photonics. Researchers, scientists, engineers and especially students in the field of silicon photonics can benefit from the book. This book provides valuable knowledge, useful methods and practical design that can be considered in emerging silicon-based optical interconnections and communications. And it also give some guidance to student how to organize and complete an good dissertation.