Microphone arrays have attracted a lot of interest over the last few decades since they have the potential to solve many important problems such as noise reduction/speech enhancement, source separation, dereverberation, spatial sound recording, and source localization/tracking, to name a few. However, the design and implementation of microphone arrays with beamforming algorithms is not a trivial task when it comes to processing broadband signals such as speech. Indeed, in most sensor arrangements, the beamformer output tends to have a frequency-dependent response. One exception, perhaps, is the family of differential microphone arrays (DMAs) who have the promise to form frequency-independent responses. Moreover, they have the potential to attain high directional gains with small and compact apertures. As a result, this type of microphone arrays has drawn much research and development attention recently. This book is intended to provide a systematic study of DMAs from a signal processing perspective. The primary objective is to develop a rigorous but yet simple theory

for the design, implementation, and performance analysis of DMAs. The theory includes some signal processing techniques for the design of commonly used first-order, second-order, third-order, and also the general "N"th-order DMAs. For each order, particular examples are given on how to form standard directional patterns such as the dipole, cardioid, supercardioid, hypercardioid, subcardioid, and quadrupole. The study demonstrates the performance of the different order DMAs in terms of beampattern, directivity factor, white noise gain, and gain for point sources. The inherent relationship between differential processing and adaptive beamforming is discussed, which provides a better understanding of DMAs and why they can achieve high directional gain. Finally, we show how to design DMAs that can be robust against white noise amplification.

This book explores various applications of deep learning to the diagnosis of cancer,while also outlining the future face of deep learning-assisted cancer diagnostics. As is commonly known, artificial intelligence has paved the way for countless new solutions in the field of medicine. In this context, deep learning is a recent and remarkable sub-field, which can effectively cope with huge amounts of data and deliver more accurate results. As a vital research area, medical diagnosis is among those in which deep learning-oriented solutions are often employed. Accordingly, the objective of this book is to highlight recent advanced applications of deep learning for diagnosing different types of cancer. The target audience includes scientists, experts, MSc and PhD students, postdocs, and anyone interested in the subjects discussed. The book can be used as a reference work to support courses on artificial intelligence, medical and biomedicaleducation.

This book highlights the most recent advances in nano science from leading researchers in Ukraine, Europe and beyond. It features contributions from participants of the 3rd International Summer School "Nanotechnology: From Fundamental Research to Innovations," held in Yaremche, Ukraine on August 23-26, 2014 and of the 2nd International NANO-2014 Conference, held in Lviv, Ukraine on August 27-30, 2014. These events took place within the framework of the European Commission FP7 project Nano twinning and were organized jointly by the Institute of Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, University of Tartu (Estonia), University of Turin (Italy) and Pierre and Marie Curie University (France). Internationally recognized experts from a wide range of universities and research institutions share their knowledge and key results in the areas of nanocomposites and nanomaterials, nanostructured surfaces, microscopy of nano-objects, nano-optics and nano photonics, nano plasmonics, nano chemistry, nano biotechnology and surface enhanced spectroscopy. Covers nanocomposites, nano structured surfaces and nano biotechnology Presents state-of-the-art advances in nano plasmonics, nanomaterials characterization and surface enhanced spectroscopy Represents essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students through practicing university and industry researchers

There has continuously been a massive growth of Internet traffic for these years despite the "bubble burst" in year 2000. As the telecom market is gradually picking up, it would be a consensus in telecom and data-com industries that the CAPEX (Capital Expenditures) to rebuild the network infrastructure to cope with this traffic growth would be imminent, while the OPEX (Operational Expenditures) has to be within a tight constraint. Therefore, the newly built 2r DEGREES-century network has to fully evolve from voice-oriented legacy networks, not only by increasing the transmission capacity of WDM links but also by introducing switching technologies in optical domain to provide full-connectivity to support a wide variety of services. This book stems from the technical contributions presented at the Optical Networks and Technology Conference (OpNeTec), inaugurated this year 2004 in Pisa, Italy, and collects innovations of optical network technologies toward the 2V DEGREES century network. High-quality recent research results on optical networks and related technologies are presented, including IP over WDM integration, burst and packet switchings, control and managements, operation, metro- and access networks, and components and devices in the perspective of network application. An effort has been made throughout the conference, hopefully reflected at least partially in this book, to bring together researchers, scientists, and engineers working both academia and industries to discuss the relative impact of networks on technologies and vice versa, with a vision of the fut

The field of optics has been accelerating at an unprecedented rate, due both to the tremendous growth of the field of fiber-optic communications, and to the improvement of optical materials and devices. Throughput capabilities of fiber systems are accelerating faster than Moore's law, the famous growth rate of silicon chip capability, which has propelled that industry relentlessly over decades. In addition, new optical storage techniques push the limits of information density, with an ever decreasing cost per bit of storage. Economic investment in photonics is at an all-time high. At the same time, other fields of optics, adaptive optics for instance, are bringing new capabilities to more classical applications such as astronomical imaging. New lasers continue to be developed, with applications in display, sensing, and biomedicine following at ever-shorter intervals after the initial discoveries. Given this background, the NATO Mediterranean Dialog Advanced Research Workshop on Unconventional Optical Elements for Information Storage, Processing and Communications, held in Israel on October 19-21, 1998, came at an opportune moment in the history of optics. Its aim was to overview the current state-of-the-art and encourage cooperation in the Mediterranean region, with a view to highlighting and enhancing the existing potential for further development and innovation. The workshop included participants from Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and USA.

This thesis demonstrates and investigates novel dual-polarization interferometric fiber-optic gyroscope (IFOG) configurations, which utilize optical compensation between two orthogonal polarizations to suppress errors caused by polarization nonreciprocity. Further, it provides a scheme for dual-polarization two-port IFOGs and details their unique benefits. Dual-polarization IFOGs break through the restriction of the "minimal scheme," which conventional IFOGs are based on. These innovative new IFOGs have unique properties: They require no polarizer and have two ports available for signal detection. As such, they open new avenues for IFOGs to achieve lower costs and higher sensitivity.

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.

Lasers and Nuclei describes the generation of high-energy-particle radiation with high-intensity lasers and its application to nuclear science. A basic introduction to laser--matter interaction at high fields is complemented by detailed presentations of state of the art laser particle acceleration and elementary laser nuclear experiments. The text also discusses future applications of lasers in nuclear science, for example in nuclear astrophysics, isotope generation, nuclear fuel physics and proton and neutron imaging.

Optical Micro-Resonators are an exciting new field of research that has gained prominence in the past few years due to the emergence of new fabrication technologies. This book is the first detailed text on the theory, fabrication, and applications of optical micro-resonators, and will be found useful by both graduate students and researchers in the field.

This book introduces context-aware computing, providing definitions, categories, characteristics, and context awareness itself and discussing its applications with a particular focus on smart learning environments. It also examines the elements of a context-aware system, including acquisition, modelling, reasoning, and distribution of context. It also reviews applications of context-aware computing - both past and present - to offer readers the knowledge needed to critically analyse how context awareness can be put to use. It is particularly to those new to the subject area who are interested in learning how to develop context-aware computing-oriented applications, as well as postgraduates and researchers in computer engineering, communications engineering related areas of information technology (IT). Further it provides practical know-how for professionals working in IT support and technology, consultants and business decision-makers and those working in the medical, human, and social sciences.

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 is the second volume in a trilogy on modern Signal Processing. The three books provide a concise exposition of signal processing topics, and a guide to support individual practical exploration based on MATLAB programs. This second book focuses on recent developments in response to the demands of new digital technologies. It is divided into two parts: the first part includes four chapters on the decomposition and recovery of signals, with special emphasis on images. In turn, the second part includes three chapters and addresses important data-based actions, such as adaptive filtering, experimental modeling, and classification.

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.

This book presents an overview of the state of the art in video coding technology. Specifically, it introduces the tools of the AVS2 standard, describing how AVS2 can help to achieve a significant improvement in coding efficiency for future video networks and applications by incorporating smarter coding tools such as scene video coding. Features: introduces the basic concepts in video coding, and presents a short history of video coding technology and standards; reviews the coding framework, main coding tools, and syntax structure of AVS2; describes the key technologies used in the AVS2 standard, including prediction coding, transform coding, entropy coding, and loop-filters; examines efficient tools for scene video coding and surveillance video, and the details of a promising intelligent video coding system; discusses optimization technologies in video coding systems; provides a review of image, video, and 3D content quality assessment algorithms; surveys the hot research topics in video compression.

"Long Wave Polar Modes in Semiconductor Heterostructures" is concerned with the study of polar optical modes in semiconductor heterostructures from a phenomenological approach and aims to simplify the model of lattice dynamics calculations. The book provides useful tools for performing calculations relevant to anyone who might be interested in practical applications.

The main focus of "Long Wave Polar Modes in Semiconductor Heterostructures" is planar heterostructures (quantum wells or barriers, superlattices, double barrier structures etc) but there is also discussion on the growing field of quantum wires and dots. Also to allow anyone reading the book to apply the techniques discussed for planar heterostructures, the scope has been widened to include cylindrical and spherical geometries.

The book is intended as an introductory text which guides the reader through basic questions and expands to cover state-of-the-art professional topics. The book is relevant to experimentalists wanting an instructive presentation of a simple phenomenological model and theoretical tools to work with and also to young theoreticians by providing discussion of basic issues and the basis of advanced theoretical formulations. The book also provides a brief respite on the physics of piezoelectric waves as a coupling to polar optical modes.

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."

Since publication of the initial papers in 2006, compressed sensing has captured the imagination of the international signal processing community, and the mathematical foundations are nowadays quite well understood. Parallel to the progress in mathematics, the potential applications of compressed sensing have been explored by many international groups of, in particular, engineers and applied mathematicians, achieving very promising advances in various areas such as communication theory, imaging sciences, optics, radar technology, sensor networks, or tomography. Since many applications have reached a mature state, the research center MATHEON in Berlin focusing on "Mathematics for Key Technologies", invited leading researchers on applications of compressed sensing from mathematics, computer science, and engineering to the "MATHEON Workshop 2013: Compressed Sensing and its Applications" in December 2013. It was the first workshop specifically focusing on the applications of compressed sensing. This book features contributions by the plenary and invited speakers of this workshop. To make this book accessible for those unfamiliar with compressed sensing, the book will not only contain chapters on various applications of compressed sensing written by plenary and invited speakers, but will also provide a general introduction into compressed sensing. The book is aimed at both graduate students and researchers in the areas of applied mathematics, computer science, and engineering as well as other applied scientists interested in the potential and applications of the novel methodology of compressed sensing. For those readers who are not already familiar with compressed sensing, an introduction to the basics of this theory will be included.

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

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.

Recently, we proposed a completely novel and efficient way to design differential beamforming algorithms for linear microphone arrays. Thanks to this very flexible approach, any order of differential arrays can be designed. Moreover, they can be made robust against white noise amplification, which is the main inconvenience in these types of arrays. The other well-known problem with linear arrays is that electronic steering is not really feasible. In this book, we extend all these fundamental ideas to circular microphone arrays and show that we can design small and compact differential arrays of any order that can be electronically steered in many different directions and offer a good degree of control of the white noise amplification problem, high directional gain, and frequency-independent response. We also present a number of practical examples, demonstrating that differential beamforming with circular microphone arrays is likely one of the best candidates for applications involving speech enhancement (i.e., noise reduction and dereverberation). Nearly all of the material presented is new and will be of great interest to engineers, students, and researchers working with microphone arrays and their applications in all types of telecommunications, security and surveillance contexts.

In the course of the years the volumes in the Acoustical Imaging Series have developed to become well-known and appreciated reference works. Offering both a broad perspective on the state of the art in the field as well as an in-depth look at its leading edge research, this Volume 30 in the Series contains again an excellent collection of contributions, presented in five major categories:

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.