This book provides basic theories and implementations using SCILAB open-source software for digital images. The book simplifies image processing theories and well as implementation of image processing algorithms, making it accessible to those with basic knowledge of image processing. This book includes many SCILAB programs at the end of each theory, which help in understanding concepts. The book includes more than sixty SCILAB programs of the image processing theory. In the appendix, readers will find a deeper glimpse into the research areas in the image processing.

This is the first book dedicated to wavelength filters for fibre optics. It provides a comprehensive account of the principles and applications of such filters, including their technological realizations. It explains the relevant performance parameters, the particular advantages and shortcomings of the various concepts and components, and the preferred applications. There is also in-depth information on the characteristics of commercially available devices.

Orthogonal designs have proved fundamental to constructing code division multiple antenna systems for more efficient mobile communications. Starting with basic theory, this book develops the algebra and combinatorics to create new communications modes. Intended primarily for researchers, it is also useful for graduate students wanting to understand some of the current communications coding theories.

This book constitutes the Final Report of COST Action 279, Analysis and DesignofAdvancedMultiserviceNetworkssupportingMultimedia, Mobility, andInterworking, a guided tour of the state-of-the-art work on diverse aspects of modern telecommunications networks design developed within this Action during the four years of its operation, started on July 1, 2001, and ended on June 30, 2005. As stated in its founding charter, its Memorandum of Understanding, the work area of COST 279 is the analysis, design, and control aspects of prese- day networks-quite a wide scope. Behind the unifying fac, ade put on by the Internet Protocol (IP) network layer, todays networks hide a mess of hete- geneity: heterogeneity at the level of applications, both concerning the traf?c they produce and the network Quality of Service (QoS) they require, and h- erogeneity at the level of network component subsystems, in particular an - creasingly important mobile/wireless access segment. A common ground for the treatment of this disparate set of topics was given by the strong meth- ological component contained in the approach followed in COST 279, with importance placed on the development and application, whenever possible, of analytical techniques and models for the mathematical understanding of the systems under study. The results expected from the Action ranged thus from mathematical models and algorithms as entities of own interest to the und- standing of systembehavior via their application."

The series Advances in Polymer Science presents critical reviews of the present and future trends in polymer and biopolymer science. It covers all areas of research in polymer and biopolymer science including chemistry, physical chemistry, physics, material science. The thematic volumes are addressed to scientists, whether at universities or in industry, who wish to keep abreast of the important advances in the covered topics. Advances in Polymer Science enjoys a longstanding tradition and good reputation in its community. Each volume is dedicated to a current topic, and each review critically surveys one aspect of that topic, to place it within the context of the volume. The volumes typically summarize the significant developments of the last 5 to 10 years and discuss them critically, presenting selected examples, explaining and illustrating the important principles, and bringing together many important references of primary literature. On that basis, future research directions in the area can be discussed. Advances in Polymer Science volumes thus are important references for every polymer scientist, as well as for other scientists interested in polymer science - as an introduction to a neighboring field, or as a compilation of detailed information for the specialist. Review articles for the individual volumes are invited by the volume editors. Single contributions can be specially commissioned. Readership: Polymer scientists, or scientists in related fields interested in polymer and biopolymer science, at universities or in industry, graduate students

This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the fascinating topic of audio source separation based on non-negative matrix factorization, deep neural networks, and sparse component analysis. The first section of the book covers single channel source separation based on non-negative matrix factorization (NMF). After an introduction to the technique, two further chapters describe separation of known sources using non-negative spectrogram factorization, and temporal NMF models. In section two, NMF methods are extended to multi-channel source separation. Section three introduces deep neural network (DNN) techniques, with chapters on multichannel and single channel separation, and a further chapter on DNN based mask estimation for monaural speech separation. In section four, sparse component analysis (SCA) is discussed, with chapters on source separation using audio directional statistics modelling, multi-microphone MMSE-based techniques and diffusion map methods. The book brings together leading researchers to provide tutorial-like and in-depth treatments on major audio source separation topics, with the objective of becoming the definitive source for a comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible treatment. This book is written for graduate students and researchers who are interested in audio source separation techniques based on NMF, DNN and SCA.

Quantum Communication, Quantum Networks, and Quantum Sensing represents a self-contained introduction to quantum communication, quantum error-correction, quantum networks, and quantum sensing. It starts with basic concepts from classical detection theory, information theory, and channel coding fundamentals before continuing with basic principles of quantum mechanics including state vectors, operators, density operators, measurements, and dynamics of a quantum system. It continues with fundamental principles of quantum information processing, basic quantum gates, no-cloning and theorem on indistinguishability of arbitrary quantum states. The book then focuses on quantum information theory, quantum detection and Gaussian quantum information theories, and quantum key distribution (QKD). The book then covers quantum error correction codes (QECCs) before introducing quantum networks. The book concludes with quantum sensing and quantum radars, quantum machine learning and fault-tolerant quantum error correction concepts.

In contrast with trichromatic image sensors, imaging spectroscopy can capture the properties of the materials in a scene. This implies that scene analysis using imaging spectroscopy has the capacity to robustly encode material signatures, infer object composition and recover photometric parameters.

This landmark text/reference presents a detailed analysis of spectral imaging, describing how it can be used in elegant and efficient ways for the purposes of material identification, object recognition and scene understanding. The opportunities and challenges of combining spatial and spectral information are explored in depth, as are a wide range of applications from surveillance and computational photography, to biosecurity and resource exploration.

Topics and features: discusses spectral image acquisition by hyperspectral cameras, and the process of spectral image formation; examines models of surface reflectance, the recovery of photometric invariants, and the estimation of the illuminant power spectrum from spectral imagery; describes spectrum representations for the interpolation of reflectance and radiance values, and the classification of spectra; reviews the use of imaging spectroscopy for material identification; explores the recovery of reflection geometry from image reflectance; investigates spectro-polarimetric imagery, and the recovery of object shape and material properties using polarimetric images captured from a single view.

An essential resource for researchers and graduate students of computer vision and pattern recognition, this comprehensive introduction to imaging spectroscopy for scene analysis will also be of great use to practitioners interested in shape analysis employing polarimetric imaging, and material recognition and classification using hyperspectral or multispectral data.

The symposium "UV, Blue and Green Light Emission from
Semiconductor Materials" was part of the European Materials
Research Society (E-MRS) Spring Meeting in Strasbourg, 4-7 June,
1996 and it was arranged to bring together specialists in growth,
characterization and device fabrication of materials suitable for
visible and UV optoelectronic applications. Although the main
emphasis was on the development of semiconductor diode lasers,
work was also presented on the progress of frequently doubling
techniques which have an immediate application in commercial
systems. The proceedings are divided into Part I and Part II
reflecting the two streams of research based on II-VI
semiconductors on the one hand and III-V GaN based semiconductors
on the other hand. Although these two areas are competing
vigorously for the realization of practical blue laser diodes,
there are many common problems, particularly with doping and also
the need for suitable substrates for the growth of lattice
matched structures.

The invited talks were presented by
speakers from Japan, the USA and Europe with representation from
both University and Industrial research groups. In particular,
leaders in the development of blue lasers SONY (II-VI devices)
and Nichia (GaN devices) provided important device papers
alongside the excellent contributions on a wide range of topics
covering epitaxial growth, optical structural and electrical
measurements as well as problems of compensation of dopants and
laser lifetimes.

The symposium "Nonlinear Optical and
Optoelectronics Organic Materials" dealt with the development of
organic molecules and polymers as potential replacements for
existing materials in electronic, optoelectronics and nonlinear
optical devices.

Owing to the development and rapid spread of communication technologies including the Internet, the world is indeed turning into a global village. The rate of introduction of new products and technologies is steadily rising. At the same time, pressures to reduce time-to-market are mounting. Only companies that are able to realize products rapidly are able to survive today.
From a technological viewpoint, rapid product realization involves rapid design, rapid prototyping, and rapid tooling. Fortunately, a class of technologies, also collectively called rapid prototyping (RP) technologies, has emerged in the last two decades or so to meet these requirements. Early technologies merely aimed to produce single part look-alikes. However, intense R&D efforts are taking place around the world to go beyond mere look alike' single part prototyping, into functional, multi-part assemblies.
RP technologies are different from other modern manufacturing technologies in many ways. In RP, material is usually added incrementally in a layered manner and, occasionally, subtracted. Some technologies depend upon layers of resin cured under the influence of one or more CNC controlled laser beams. Others use lasers to selectively sinter layers of powdered metal. There are also RP technologies that do not use lasers at all. Indeed, RP is turning out to be a potent arena for technological creativity.
This book provides an updated overview of RP technologies at a level of detail that university engineering students taking courses on RP as well R&D and operating professionals from industry interested in RP are likely to find attractive. While the emphasis is on laser-based technologies, other processesare also discussed. With respect to each important RP process, the part/assembly modeling techniques, the materials used, process itself, advantages and disadvantages, accuracy and finish issues as well as application potential are discussed.

Next generation optical communication systems will have to transport a significantly increased data volume at a reduced cost per transmitted bit. To achieve these ambitious goals optimum design is crucial in combination with dynamic adaptation to actual traffic demands and improved energy efficiency. In the first part of the book the author elaborates on the design of optical transmission systems. Several methods for efficient numerical simulation are presented ranging from meta-model based optimization to parallelization techniques for solving the nonlinear Schroedinger equation. Furthermore, fast analytical and semi-analytical models are described to estimate the various degradation effects occurring on the transmission line. In the second part of the book operational aspects of optical networks are investigated. Physical layer impairment-aware routing and regenerator placement are studied. Finally, it is analyzed how the energy efficiency of a multi-layer optical core network can be increased by dynamic adaptation to traffic patterns changing in the course of the day.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art, data flow-based techniques for the analysis, modeling and mapping technologies of concurrent applications on multi-processors. The authors present a flow for designing embedded hard/firm real-time multiprocessor streaming applications, based on data flow formalisms, with a particular focus on wireless modem applications. Architectures are described for the design tools and run-time scheduling and resource management of such a platform.
"

This book offers an essential compendium of astronomical high-resolution techniques. Recent years have seen considerable developments in such techniques, which are critical to advances in many areas of astronomy. As reflected in the book, these techniques can be divided into direct methods, interferometry, and reconstruction methods, and can be applied to a huge variety of astrophysical systems, ranging from planets, single stars and binaries to active galactic nuclei, providing angular resolution in the micro- to tens of milliarcsecond scales. Written by experts in their fields, the chapters cover adaptive optics, aperture masking imaging, spectra disentangling, interferometry, lucky imaging, Roche tomography, imaging with interferometry, interferometry of AGN, AGN reverberation mapping, Doppler- and magnetic imaging of stellar surfaces, Doppler tomography, eclipse mapping, Stokes imaging, and stellar tomography. This book is intended to enable a next generation of astronomers to apply high-resolution techniques. It informs readers on how to achieve the best angular resolution in the visible and near-infrared regimes from diffraction-limited to micro-arcsecond scales.

Physics of laser crystals has been constantly developing since the invention of the laser in 1960. Nowadays, more than 1500 wide-band-gap and semiconductors crystals are suitable for the production of the laser effect. Different laser devices are widely used in science, medicine and communication systems according to the progress achieved in the development of laser crystal physics. Scintillators for radiation detection also gained benefit from these developments. Most of the optically active materials offer laser radiations within the 500 to 3000 nm region with various quantum efficiency which fit the usual applications. However, new crystals for laser emissions are needed either in the blue, UV and VUV - region or far IR- region, especially for medicine, computer microchip production and for undiscovered practical uses. Scientific problems of the growth and properties of laser crystals are discussed in numerous books and scientific journals by many scientists working in the field. Therefore, we thought that joint discussions of the scientific and technical problems in laser physics will be useful for further developments in this area. We have proposed to held a Workshop on Physics of Laser Crystals for attempting to induce additional advances especially in solid state spectroscopy. This NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) was hold in Kharkiv * Stary Saltov th nd (Ukraine) on august 26 - September 2 , 2002, and was mainly devoted to the consideration 0 f modem approaches and Iast results in physics of laser crystals.

This thesis deals with strongly luminescent lanthanide complexes having novel coordination structures. Luminescent lanthanide complexes are promising candidates as active materials for EL devices, lasers, and bio-sensing applications. The organic ligands in lanthanide complexes control geometrical and vibrational frequency structures that are closely related to the luminescent properties. In most of the previous work, however, lanthanide complexes have high-vibrational frequency C-H units close to the metal center for radiationless transition. In this thesis, the luminescent properties of lanthanide complexes with low-vibrational frequency C-F and P=O units are elucidated in terms of geometrical, vibrational, and chemical structures. The author also describes lanthanide coordination polymers with both high thermal stability (decomposition point > 300 DegreesC) and strong-luminescent properties (emission quantum yield > 80%). The author believes that novel studies on the characteristic structures and photophysical properties of lanthanide complexes may open up a frontier field in photophysical, coordination and material chemistry.

The European Community regards training as a priority area and has therefore developed a series of programmes in the field of vocational training. This book is the result of a pilot project selected under two of these Community Action Programmes. It was initially selected under the COMETT programme, concerned with the development of continuing vocational training in the European Community. Moreover, it was one of the few selected projects to receive further funding under a second selection in the context of the LEONARDO DA VINCI Action Programme for the implementation of a European Community Vocational Training policy. It is with great pleasure that I present the outcome of this project which embodies one of the fundamental objectives of the LEONARDO DA VINCI Programme - training for new technologies in SMEs, which make a significant contribution to economic development in Europe. K DRAXLER Director Directorate General XXII European Commission x Acknowledgements The Volume Editor gratefully acknowledges funding by the LEONARDO DA VINCI Programme of the Commission of the European Community and by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Transport whose financial support has made the EuroLaser Academy a reality and has led directly to the generation of this handbook. He is also indebted to Director Dr. Klaus Draxler, Head of the LEONARDO DA VINCI Programme, DG XXII of the Commission of the European Community, moreover to Director General Raul Kneucker, Minister's Advisor Helmut Schacher and Mrs. Friederike Pranckl-Kloepfer from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Transport.

This book reviews techniques used to characterize non-linear optical constants of chalcogenide glasses in bulk or thin films, and presents the properties of many chalcogenide systems. A range of applications of these glasses are surveyed, including ultra-fast switching, optical limiting, second harmonic generation and electro-optic effects. Also addressed are suitability of chalcogenide films in all-optical integrated circuits, fabrication of rib as well as ridge waveguides and of fiber gratings.

Optical and photonic systems and devices have significant potential for homeland security. "Optical Imaging Sensors and Systems for Homeland Security Applications" presents original and significant technical contributions from leaders of industry, government, and academia in the field of optical and photonic sensors, systems and devices for detection, identification, prevention, sensing, security, verification and anti-counterfeiting. The chapters have recent and technically significant results, ample illustrations, figures, and key references. This book is intended for engineers and scientists in the relevant fields, graduate students, industry managers, university professors, government managers, and policy makers.

This book is intended for designers of military and civil systems, such as systems for guiding and control, target acquisition, surveillance, laser range-finding, fiber-optical communications, thermal imaging and the like, as well as for designers of photodetectors for optical signal detection. The first question they face is how to detect an ultimately weak optical signal. This book gives the answer to this most important question. All the main types of photodetectors are considered, from photodiodes (including avalanche photodiodes) to focal plane arrays (FPA). Methods of matching photodetectors with preamplifiers are described. The pair photodetector plus preamplifier is treated as an integrated detection system. Much attention is paid to different types of noise and ways of maximising the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Foundations of theory of optimal filtering of photosignals are discussed taking due account of typical shapes of optical signals and noise spectra. Methods for tuning quasi-optimal filters to maximise the SNR are explained. The main problems associated with detection of low-level optical signals are considered: operation of avalanche photodiodes in photon count mode, filtering in the case of charge accumulation in FPA cells, and the effect of the number of pixels and geometry of FPAs on detection. Finally, using the examples of the laser range finder and IR Imager, we give guidelines for calculating the limiting parameters of optoelectronic systems to achieve the highest possible SNR. The book is based on many years' experience by the author and his colleagues in the development of photodetectors and FPAs. The book is aimed at research workers, engineers, students andpostgraduates.

Video technology promises to be the key for the transmission of motion video. A number of video compression techniques and standards have been introduced in the past few years, particularly the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 for interactive multimedia and for digital NTSC and HDTV applications, and H.2611H.263 for video telecommunications. These techniques use motion estimation techniques to reduce the amount of data that is stored and transmitted for each frame. This book is about these motion estimation algorithms, their complexity, implementations, advantages, and drawbacks. First, we present an overview of video compression techniques with an emphasis to techniques that use motion estimation, such as MPEG and H.2611H.263. Then, we give a survey of current motion estimation search algorithms, including the exhaustive search and a number of fast search algorithms. An evaluation of current search algorithms, based on a number of experiments on several test video sequences, is presented as well. The theoretical framework for a new fast search algorithm, Densely-Centered Uniform-P Search (DCUPS), is developed and presented in the book. The complexity of the DCUPS algorithm is comparable to other popular motion estimation techniques, however the algorithm shows superior results in terms of compression ratios and video qUality. We should stress out that these new results, presented in Chapters 4 and 5, have been developed by Joshua Greenberg, as part of his M.Sc. thesis entitled "Densely-Centered Uniform P-Search: A Fast Motion Estimation Algorithm" (FAU, 1996).

Chaotic Dynamics: Theory: Complexity, Control and Data Representation: Complexity and Unpredictable Scaling of Hierarchical Structures; R. Badii. Fractals, Multifractals, and Analyticity of Normal Forms: Multifractal Coding Measures in Dynamics; G. Mantica. Integrability, Painleve Property, and Singularity Analysis: Note on a Complex Eckhaus Equation; M.F. Jorgensen, et al.. Statistical Physics, Celestial Mechanics, and Cosmology: Phase Transitions Within the Fully Developed Regime; R. Kluiving. Chaotic Dynamics: Practice: Controlling Dynamical Systems: Feedback Control of Chaotic Systems; . Romeiras et al.. Semiconductors, Superconductors, Lasers, and Electronic Circuits: Chaotic Dynamics in Practice; E. Del Rio, et al . Biology, Chemistry, Atmospheric, and Magnetospheric Dynamics: Irregular Bursting in Model Neurones; J. Hyde. Hamiltonian Dynamics, Dissipative Dynamics, and Normal Forms. 30 additional articles. Index.

In this book, three main notions will be used in the editors search of improvements in various areas of computer graphics: Artificial Intelligence, Viewpoint Complexity and Human Intelligence. Several Artificial Intelligence techniques are used in presented intelligent scene modelers, mainly declarative ones. Among them, the mostly used techniques are Expert systems, Constraint Satisfaction Problem resolution and Machine-learning. The notion of viewpoint complexity, that is complexity of a scene seen from a given viewpoint, will be used in improvement proposals for a lot of computer graphics problems like scene understanding, virtual world exploration, image-based modeling and rendering, ray tracing and radiosity. Very often, viewpoint complexity is used in conjunction with Artificial Intelligence techniques like Heuristic search and Problem resolution. The notions of artificial Intelligence and Viewpoint Complexity may help to automatically resolve a big number of computer graphics problems. However, there are special situations where is required to find a particular solution for each situation. In such a case, human intelligence has to replace, or to be combined with, artificial intelligence. Such cases, and proposed solutions are also presented in this book.

Speech Dereverberation gathers together an overview, a mathematical formulation of the problem and the state-of-the-art solutions for dereverberation.

Speech Dereverberation presents current approaches to the problem of reverberation. It provides a review of topics in room acoustics and also describes performance measures for dereverberation. The algorithms are then explained with mathematical analysis and examples that enable the reader to see the strengths and weaknesses of the various techniques, as well as giving an understanding of the questions still to be addressed. Techniques rooted in speech enhancement are included, in addition to a treatment of multichannel blind acoustic system identification and inversion. The TRINICON framework is shown in the context of dereverberation to be a generalization of the signal processing for a range of analysis and enhancement techniques.

Speech Dereverberation is suitable for students at masters and doctoral level, as well as established researchers.

This book presents the latest research findings and reviews in the field of medical imaging technology, covering ultrasound diagnostics approaches for detecting osteoarthritis, breast carcinoma and cardiovascular conditions, image guided biopsy and segmentation techniques for detecting lung cancer, image fusion, and simulating fluid flows for cardiovascular applications. It offers a useful guide for students, lecturers and professional researchers in the fields of biomedical engineering and image processing.

This volume is devoted to presentation of new results of research on systems of non-integer order, called also fractional systems. Their analysis and practical implementation have been the object of spontaneous development for a few last decades. The fractional order models can depict a physical plant better than the classical integer order ones. This covers different research fields such as insulator properties, visco-elastic materials, electrodynamic, electrothermal, electrochemical, economic processes modelling etc. On the other hand fractional controllers often outperform their integer order counterparts. This volume contains new ideas and examples of implementation, theoretical and pure practical aspects of using a non-integer order calculus. It is divided into four parts covering: mathematical fundamentals, modeling and approximations, controllability, observability and stability problems and practical applications of fractional control systems. The first part expands the base of tools and methods of the mathematical basis for non-integer order calculus. Part two focuses on new methods and developments in process modeling and fractional derivatives approximations. In the third part a bunch of papers which raise problems of controllability, observability and stability of non-integer order systems is provided. Part four is devoted to presentation of different fractional order control applications. This book was created thanks to many experts in the field of fractional calculus: authors, anonymous referees whose comments allowed us to improve the final form of the papers and active and inspiring discussion of the participants of RRNR'2015, the 7th Conference on Non-Integer Order Calculus and Its Applications that was organized by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin, Poland.