Today the cost of solid-state two-dimensional imagers has dramatically dropped, introducing low cost systems on the market suitable for a variety of applications, including both industrial and consumer products. However, these systems can capture only a two-dimensional projection (2D), or intensity map, of the scene under observation, losing a variable of paramount importance, i.e., the arrival time of the impinging photons. Time-Of-Flight (TOF) Range-Imaging (TOF) is an emerging sensor technology able to deliver, at the same time, depth and intensity maps of the scene under observation. Featuring different sensor resolutions, RIM cameras serve a wide community with a lot of applications like monitoring, architecture, life sciences, robotics, etc. This book will bring together experts from the sensor and metrology side in order to collect the state-of-art researchers in these fields working with RIM cameras. All the aspects in the acquisition and processing chain will be addressed, from recent updates concerning the photo-detectors, to the analysis of the calibration techniques, giving also a perspective onto new applications domains.

This volume presents a parametric, packet-based, comprehensive model to measure and predict the audiovisual quality of Internet Protocol Television services as it is likely to be perceived by the user. The comprehensive model is divided into three sub-models referred to as the audio model, the video model, and the audiovisual model. The audio and video models take as input a parametric description of the audiovisual processing path, and deliver distinct estimates for both the audio and video quality. These distinct estimates are eventually used as input data for the audiovisual model. This model provides an overall estimate of the perceived audiovisual quality in total. The parametric description can be used as diagnostic information. The quality estimates and diagnostic information can be practically applied to enhance network deployment and operations. Two applications come to mind in particular: Network planning and network service quality monitoring. The audio model can be used indifferently for both applications. However, two variants of the video model have been developed in order to address particular needs of the applications mentioned above. The comprehensive model covers effects due to resolution, coding, and IP-packet loss in case of RTP-type transport. The model applied to quality monitoring is standardized under the ITU-T Recommendations P.1201 and P.1201.2.

This book covers the state of the art of laser micro- and nanotechnology. The physical fundamentals of different processes and the application are presented. The book deals with different materials like phase change and memory alloys, thin films, polymers etc. New phenomena and mechanisms of laser-matter interaction in nano-domains are explained. This book is helpful for students, postgraduates, engineers and researches working not only in the field of laser microtechnology but also in high-tech industry, like photonics, microelectronics, information technology.

The book presents a broad-scope analysis of piezoelectric electromechanical transducers and the related aspects of practical transducer design for underwater applications. It uses an energy method for analyzing transducer problems that provides the physical insight important for the understanding of electromechanical devices. Application of the method is first illustrated with transducer examples that can be modeled as systems with a single degree of freedom, (such as spheres, short cylinders, bars and flexural disks and plates made of piezoelectric ceramics). Thereupon, transducers are modeled as devices with multiple degrees of freedom. In all these cases, results of modeling are presented in the form of equivalent electromechanical circuits convenient for the calculation of the transducers' operational characteristics. Special focus is made on the effects of coupled vibrations in mechanical systems on transducer performance. The book also provides extensive coverage of acoustic radiation including acoustic interaction between the transducers. The book is inherently multidisciplinary. It provides essential background regarding the vibration of elastic passive and piezoelectric bodies, piezoelectricity, acoustic radiation, and transducer characterization. Scientists and engineers working in the field of electroacoustics and those involved in education in the field will find this material useful not only for underwater acoustics, but also for electromechanics, energy conversion and medical ultrasonics.

The book provides a detailed analysis of issues related to sub-threshold interconnect performance from the perspective of analytical approach and design techniques. Particular emphasis is laid on the performance analysis of coupling noise and variability issues in sub-threshold domain to develop efficient compact models. The proposed analytical approach gives physical insight of the parameters affecting the transient behavior of coupled interconnects. Remedial design techniques are also suggested to mitigate the effect of coupling noise. The effects of wire width, spacing between the wires, wire length are thoroughly investigated. In addition, the effect of parameters like driver strength on peak coupling noise has also been analyzed. Process, voltage and temperature variations are prominent factors affecting sub-threshold design and have also been investigated. The process variability analysis has been carried out using parametric analysis, process corner analysis and Monte Carlo technique. The book also provides a qualitative summary of the work reported in the literature by various researchers in the design of digital sub-threshold circuits. This book should be of interest for researchers and graduate students with deeper insights into sub-threshold interconnect models in particular. In this sense, this book will best fit as a text book and/or a reference book for students who are initiated in the area of research and advanced courses in nanotechnology, interconnect design and modeling.

This thesis primarily focuses on how to carry out intelligent sensing and understand the high-dimensional and low-quality visual information. After exploring the inherent structures of the visual data, it proposes a number of computational models covering an extensive range of mathematical topics, including compressive sensing, graph theory, probabilistic learning and information theory. These computational models are also applied to address a number of real-world problems including biometric recognition, stereo signal reconstruction, natural scene parsing, and SAR image processing.

During the last one and a half decades, wireless sensor networks have witnessed significant growth and tremendous development in both academia and industry.   “The Art of Wireless Sensor Networks: Volume 1: Fundamentals� focuses on the fundamentals concepts in the design, analysis, and implementation of wireless sensor networks. It covers the various layers of the lifecycle of this type of network from the physical layer up to the application layer. Its rationale is that the first volume covers contemporary design issues, tools, and protocols for radio-based two-dimensional terrestrial sensor networks. All the book chapters in this volume include up-to-date research work spanning various classic facets of the physical properties and functional behavior of wireless sensor networks, including physical layer, medium access control, data routing, topology management, mobility management, localization, task management, data management, data gathering, security, middleware, sensor technology, standards, and operating systems. This book will be an excellent source of information for both senior undergraduate and graduate students majoring in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, or any related discipline. In addition, computer scientists, researchers, and practitioners in both academia and industry will find this book useful and interesting.

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.  

“We live in the age of data. In the last few years, the methodology of extracting insights from data or "data science" has emerged as a discipline in its own right. The R programming language has become one-stop solution for all types of data analysis. The growing popularity of R is due its statistical roots and a vast open source package library. The goal of “Beginning Data Science with R� is to introduce the readers to some of the useful data science techniques and their implementation with the R programming language. The book attempts to strike a balance between the how: specific processes and methodologies, and understanding the why: going over the intuition behind how a particular technique works, so that the reader can apply it to the problem at hand. This book will be useful for readers who are not familiar with statistics and the R programming language.

This work introduces a new method for analysing measured signals: nonlinear mode decomposition, or NMD. It justifies NMD mathematically, demonstrates it in several applications and explains in detail how to use it in practice. Scientists often need to be able to analyse time series data that include a complex combination of oscillatory modes of differing origin, usually contaminated by random fluctuations or noise. Furthermore, the basic oscillation frequencies of the modes may vary in time; for example, human blood flow manifests at least six characteristic frequencies, all of which wander in time. NMD allows us to separate these components from each other and from the noise, with immediate potential applications in diagnosis and prognosis. Mat Lab codes for rapid implementation are available from the author. NMD will most likely come to be used in a broad range of applications.

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems can increase the spectral efficiency in wireless communications. However, the interference becomes the major drawback that leads to high computational complexity at both transmitter and receiver. In particular, the complexity of MIMO receivers can be prohibitively high. As an efficient mathematical tool to devise low complexity approaches that mitigate the interference in MIMO systems, lattice reduction (LR) has been widely studied and employed over the last decade. The co-authors of this book are world's leading experts on MIMO receivers, and here they share the key findings of their research over years. They detail a range of key techniques for receiver design as multiple transmitted and received signals are available. The authors first introduce the principle of signal detection and the LR in mathematical aspects. They then move on to discuss the use of LR in low complexity MIMO receiver design with respect to different aspects, including uncoded MIMO detection, MIMO iterative receivers, receivers in multiuser scenarios, and multicell MIMO systems.

The contributions for this book have been gathered over several years from conferences held in the series of Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice, the latest of which was held in Ankara, Turkey. The essential aspect is that they concern practical applications rather than the derivation of mere theory, though simulations and visualization are important components. The topics range from mining, with its heavy engineering, to the delicate machining of holes in the human skull or robots for surgery on human flesh. Mobile robots continue to be a hot topic, both from the need for navigation and for the task of stabilization of unmanned aerial vehicles. The swinging of a spray rig is damped, while machine vision is used for the control of heating in an asphalt-laying machine. Manipulators are featured, both for general tasks and in the form of grasping fingers. A robot arm is proposed for adding to the mobility scooter of the elderly. Can EEG signals be a means to control a robot? Can face recognition be achieved in varying illumination?"

This volume contains original submissions on the development and application of molecular imaging computing. The editors invited authors to submit high-quality contributions on a wide range of topics including, but not limited to: • Image Synthesis & Reconstruction of Emission Tomography (PET, SPECT) and other Molecular Imaging Modalities • Molecular Imaging Enhancement • Data Analysis of Clinical & Pre-clinical Molecular Imaging • Multi-Modal Image Processing (PET/CT, PET/MR, SPECT/CT, etc.) • Machine Learning and Data Mining in Molecular Imaging. Molecular imaging is an evolving clinical and research discipline enabling the visualization, characterization and quantification of biological processes taking place at the cellular and subcellular levels within intact living subjects. Computational methods play an important role in the development of molecular imaging, from image synthesis to data analysis and from clinical diagnosis to therapy individualization. This work will bring readers from academia and industry up to date on the most recent developments in this field.

This book presents the cross-layer design and optimization of wake-up receivers for wireless body area networks (WBAN), with an emphasis on low-power circuit design. This includes the analysis of medium access control (MAC) protocols, mixer-first receiver design, and implications of receiver impairments on wideband frequency-shift-keying (FSK) receivers. Readers will learn how the overall power consumption is reduced by exploiting the characteristics of body area networks. Theoretical models presented are validated with two different receiver implementations, in 90nm and 40nm CMOS technology.

The book set develops a bridge between physiologic mechanisms and diagnostic human engineering. While the first volume is focused on the interface between physiologic mechanisms and the resultant biosignals, this second volume is devoted to the interface between biosignals and biomedical sensors. That is, in the first volume, the physiologic mechanisms determining biosignals are described from the basic cellular level up to their advanced mutual coordination level. This second volume, considers the genesis of acoustic and optic biosignals and the associated sensing technology from a strategic point of view. As a novelty, this book discusses heterogeneous biosignals within a common frame. This frame comprises both the biosignal formation path from the biosignal source at the physiological level to biosignal propagation in the body, and the biosignal sensing path from the biosignal transmission in the sensor applied on the body up to its conversion to a, usually electric, signal. Some biosignals arise in the course of the body’s vital functions while others map these functions that convey physiological data to an observer. It is highly instructive how sound and light beams interact with biological tissues, yielding acoustic and optic biosignals, respectively. Discussed phenomena teach a lot about the physics of sound and physics of light (as engineering sciences), and, on the other hand, biology and physiology (as live sciences). The highly interdisciplinary nature of biosignals and biomedical sensors is obviously a challenge. However, it is a rewarding challenge after it has been coped with in a strategic way, as offered here. The book is intended to have the presence to answer intriguing “Aha!� questions.

This thesis establishes an exciting new beginning for Laser Plasma Accelerators (LPAs) to further develop toward the next generation of compact high energy accelerators. Design, installation and commissioning of a new experimental setup at LBNL played an important role and are detailed through three critical components: e-beam production, reflection of laser pulses with a plasma mirror and large wake excitation below electron injection threshold. Pulses from a 40 TW peak power laser system were split into a 25 TW pulse and a 15 TW pulse. The first pulse was used for e-beam production in the first module and the second pulse was used for wake excitation in the second module to post-accelerate the e-beam. As a result, reliable e-beam production and efficient wake excitation necessary for the staged acceleration were independently demonstrated. These experiments have laid the foundation for future staging experiments at the 40 TW peak power level.

Digital Speech Processing Using Matlab deals with digital speech pattern recognition, speech production model, speech feature extraction, and speech compression. The book is written in a manner that is suitable for beginners pursuing basic research in digital speech processing. Matlab illustrations are provided for most topics to enable better understanding of concepts. This book also deals with the basic pattern recognition techniques (illustrated with speech signals using Matlab) such as PCA, LDA, ICA, SVM, HMM, GMM, BPN, and KSOM.

This book presents a novel approach to the analysis and design of all-digital phase-locked loops (ADPLLs), technology widely used in wireless communication devices. The authors provide an overview of ADPLL architectures, time-to-digital converters (TDCs) and noise shaping. Realistic examples illustrate how to analyze and simulate phase noise in the presence of sigma-delta modulation and time-to-digital conversion. Readers will gain a deep understanding of ADPLLs and the central role played by noise-shaping. A range of ADPLL and TDC architectures are presented in unified manner. Analytical and simulation tools are discussed in detail. Matlab code is included that can be reused to design, simulate and analyze the ADPLL architectures that are presented in the book.

This book, written by experts from universities and major industrial research laboratories, is devoted to the very hot topic of cognitive radio and networking for cooperative coexistence of heterogeneous wireless networks. Selected highly relevant advanced research is presented on spectrum sensing and progress toward the realization of accurate radio environment mapping, biomimetic learning for self-organizing networks, security threats (with a special focus on primary user emulation attack), and cognition as a tool for green next-generation networks. The research activities covered include work undertaken within the framework of the European COST Action IC0902, which is geared towards the definition of a European platform for cognitive radio and networks. Communications engineers, R&D engineers, researchers, and students will all benefit from this complete reference on recent advances in wireless communications and the design and implementation of cognitive radio systems and networks.

This book is aimed at presenting concepts, methods and algorithms ableto cope with undersampled and limited data. One such trend that recently gained popularity and to some extent revolutionised signal processing is compressed sensing. Compressed sensing builds upon the observation that many signals in nature are nearly sparse (or compressible, as they are normally referred to) in some domain, and consequently they can be reconstructed to within high accuracy from far fewer observations than traditionally held to be necessary.  Apart from compressed sensing this book contains other related approaches. Each methodology has its own formalities for dealing with such problems. As an example, in the Bayesian approach, sparseness promoting priors such as Laplace and Cauchy are normally used for penalising improbable model variables, thus promoting low complexity solutions. Compressed sensing techniques and homotopy-type solutions, such as the LASSO, utilise l1-norm penalties for obtaining sparse solutions using fewer observations than conventionally needed. The book emphasizes on the role of sparsity as a machinery for promoting low complexity representations and likewise its connections to variable selection and dimensionality reduction in various engineering problems.  This book is intended for researchers, academics and practitioners with interest in various aspects and applications of sparse signal processing.  

The VETOMAC-X Conference covered a holistic plethora of relevant topics in vibration and engineering technology including condition monitoring, machinery and structural dynamics, rotor dynamics, experimental techniques, finite element model updating, industrial case studies, vibration control and energy harvesting, and signal processing. These proceedings contain not only all of the nearly one-hundred peer-reviewed presentations from authors representing more than twenty countries, but also include six invited lectures from renowned experts: Professor K. Gupta, Mr W. Hahn, Professor A.W. Lees, Professor John Mottershead, Professor J.S. Rao, and Dr P. Russhard. This work is of interest to researchers and practitioners alike, and is an essential book for most of libraries of higher academic institutes.

This book explores emerging trends in wearable sensors for sport and highlights the developments taking place. Drawing on the literature both the approaches and principals for the use of sensors in sport are outlined, and together with references to key works the reader finds this useful in considering such endeavours. The development of wearable technologies is fast paced and accompanying that is an exponential growth in the use and development of computing resources, thus while the review is comprehensive on content not all works can be included and given publication times will inevitably be somewhat dated. The illumination through trends, examples and principles are an aid for anyone considering the use of sensors and wearables in sports.

Aero and Vibroacoustics of Automotive Turbochargers is a topic involving aspects from the working fields of thermodynamics of turbomachinery, aerodynamics, rotordynamics, and noise propagation computation. In this broadly interdisciplinary subject, thermodynamics of turbomachinery is used to design the turbocharger and to determine its operating conditions. Aerodynamics is needed to study the compressor flow dynamics and flow instabilities of rotating stall and surge, which can produce growling and whining-type noises. Rotordynamics is necessary to study rotor unbalance and self-excited oil-whirl instabilities, which lead to whistling and constant tone-type noises in rotating floating oil-film type bearings. For the special case of turbochargers using ball bearings, some high-order harmonic and wear noises also manifest in the rotor operating range. Lastly, noise propagation computation, based on Lighthill's analogy, is required to investigate airborne noises produced by turbochargers in passenger vehicles. The content of this book is intended for advanced undergraduates, graduates in mechanical engineering, research scientists and practicing engineers who want to better understand the interactions between these working fields and the resulting impact on the interesting topic of Aero and Vibroacoustics of Automotive Turbochargers.

The 34 chapters of the 2nd edition of How to Gain Gain give a detailed insight into a collection (54) of the most common gain producing, constant current generating possibilities, and electronic noise creation of triodes for audio pre-amplifier purposes. These chapters also offer complete sets of formulae to calculate gain, frequency and phase responses, and signal-to-noise ratios of certain building blocks built-up with this type of vacuum valve (tube). In all cases detailed derivations of the gain formulae are also presented. All what is needed are the data sheet valve characteristic figures of the triode's mutual conductance, the gain factor and the internal plate (anode) resistance. To calculate frequency and phase responses of gain stages the different data sheet based input and output capacitances have to be taken into account too. To calculate transfer functions and signal-to-noise ratios for any kind of triode driven gain stage, including all its bias setting, frequency, phase, and electronic noise influencing components, example Mathcad 11 worksheets as an essential simulation tool for each chapter allow easy follow-up and application of the respective formulae. Free download of all worksheets is guaranteed from the editor's web-site.

In their 112-year history, the many special characteristics of Calcium Aluminate Cements have led to their use in all kinds of applications that are beyond the capabilities of other cements, such as Portland cements. This encompasses characteristics such as chemical resistance, rapid hardening properties, high temperature resistance, and an ideal component for blended systems and many more. The first International conference on calcium aluminate cements was held in London in 1990 and since then there have been further events in Edinburgh (2001) and twice in Avignon, France (2008 and 2014). This volume presents the fifth conference in this series and once again provides essential reading for anyone interested in the subject. This volume contains over 60 international contributions with the most up to date information about calcium aluminates and their unique properties. Topics covered include new types, hydration and durability studies including blended systems, the latter are now widely used and some of these have significantly different hydration chemistry to the pure calcium aluminates. A variety of applications of these interesting cements is covered, including traditional applications such as concretes for contrasting marine situations (seabed and coastal), temperature-resistant refractory applications, formulated blended systems within the building chemistry sector along with the necessary admixtures and the many uses in corrosive biogenic situations that give sewage system infrastructure a considerably longer lifespan. Other new applications are also explored including 3D printing, thermochemical storage encapsulation, oil well cements, and ettringite-based repair systems. The peer-reviewed papers presented in these proceedings include a wide variety of techniques used by the authors to deliver new understanding of aspects of these cements and will undoubtedly drive future research into the various aspects of these cements.