The Springer Handbook of Lasers and Optics provides fast, up-to-date, comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the wide fields of optics and lasers. It is written for daily use in the office or laboratory and offers explanatory text, data, and references needed for anyone working with lasers and optical instruments.

Each chapter or section is authored by respected experts and contains the basic principles, applications and latest information in the field. Among the subjects covered are geometrical and wave optics, linear and nonlinear optics, optical materials and components, detectors, incoherent and all essential types of coherent light sources, generation of ultrashort pulses, spectroscopic techniques, laser safety as well as current trends in such modern areas as quantum optics, femto- and attosecond physics, and nanooptics as well as optics beyond the diffraction limit.

This new edition features numerous updates and additions. Especially 4 new chapters on Fiber Optics, Integrated Optics, Frequency Combs and Interferometry reflect the changes since the first edition.

In addition, major complete updates for the chapters: Optical Materials and Their Properties, Optical Detectors, Nanooptics, andOptics far Beyond the Diffraction Limit
The 25 chapters are grouped into four parts which cover basic principles and materials, fabrication and properties of optical components, coherent and incoherent light sources, and, finally, selected applications and special fields such as terahertz photonics, x-ray optics and holography.

The handbook is written and compiled for physicists, engineers and other scientists at universities and in industrial research who develop and use optical techniques.

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. Part I contains an introduction to the energy method illustrated with examples of one degree of freedom transducers. It is self-sufficient and can be read independently.

This brief explains in detail fundamental concepts in acoustic cavitation and bubble dynamics, and describes derivations of the fundamental equations of bubble dynamics in order to support those readers just beginning research in this field. Further, it provides an in-depth understanding of the physical basis of the phenomena. With regard to sonochemistry, the brief presents the results of numerical simulations of chemical reactions inside a bubble under ultrasound, especially for a single-bubble system and including unsolved problems. Written so as to be accessible both with and without prior knowledge of fundamental fluid dynamics, the brief offers a valuable resource for students and researchers alike, especially those who are unfamiliar with this field. A grasp of fundamental undergraduate mathematics such as partial derivative and fundamental integration is advantageous; however, even without any background in mathematics, readers can skip the equations and still understand the fundamental physics of the phenomena using the book's wealth of illustrations and figures. As such, it is also suitable as an introduction to the field.

This book offers comprehensive coverage on the most important aspects of audio watermarking, from classic techniques to the latest advances, from commonly investigated topics to emerging research subdomains, and from the research and development achievements to date, to current limitations, challenges, and future directions. It also addresses key topics such as reversible audio watermarking, audio watermarking with encryption, and imperceptibility control methods. The book sets itself apart from the existing literature in three main ways. Firstly, it not only reviews classical categories of audio watermarking techniques, but also provides detailed descriptions, analysis and experimental results of the latest work in each category. Secondly, it highlights the emerging research topic of reversible audio watermarking, including recent research trends, unique features, and the potentials of this subdomain. Lastly, the joint consideration of audio watermarking and encryption is also reviewed. With the help of this concept, more secure audio watermarking systems can be developed, which meet the requirements for security and privacy in cloud-based networks and systems. Accordingly, the book serves as a tutorial suitable for readers with a general knowledge of audio signal processing as well as experts in related areas, helping these readers understand the basic principles and the latest advances, concepts and applications of audio watermarking.

Sonar performance modelling (SPM) is concerned with the prediction of quantitative measures of sonar performance, such as probability of detection. It is a multi-disciplinary subject, requiring knowledge and expertise in the disparate fields of underwater acoustics, acoustical oceanography, sonar signal processing and statistical detection theory. No books have been published on this subject, however, since the 3rd edition of Urick's classic work 25 years ago and so Dr Ainslie's book will fill a much-needed gap in the market. Currently, up-to-date information can only be found, in different forms and often with conflicting information, in various journals, conference and textbook publications. Dr Michael Ainslie is eminently qualified to write this unique book. He has worked on sonar performance modeling problems since 1983. He has written many peer reviewed research articles and conference papers related to sonar performance modeling, making contributions in the fields of sound propagation and detection theory.

The newest volume of the eclectic biannual anthology from the Greenhorns, a grassroots network for recruiting, promoting and supporting new American farmers The New Farmer's Almanac, Vol. V is an antidote to the repeating story of helplessness in the face of climo-politico-econo-corona-chaos. In these pages, dozens of contributing writers and artists report from the seas, the borders, the woods, the fields, and the hives. Farmers, poets, grocers, gardeners, architects, activists, agitators-all join forces to re-vision the future of food systems and land use. This is our Grand Land Plan. The solutions unfurl before us. First, recovery: farmers and food networks reflect on local resiliency and logistics from the time of COVID-19. Next, resistance: we invite readers to consider arguments for land reform, for the localization of food systems, for policy change in the forest and on the farm, for solidarity and sovereignty. We share reporting on restoration projects, from interstate roadsides to intertidal zones to our civic institutions. There are lessons from honeybees. Designs for the seaweed commons and for sanctuary. Together, these thinkers turn their-and our-attention to the long future. The New Farmer's Almanac is a large-scale inquiry-both visual and literary. Along with words, readers will find field maps, farm comics, photo essays, portraits and prints, pearls from the archives, and dozens of other curiosities. Join us in exploring principles and strategies for just, adaptive, resourceful, and responsive land use for all. Contributors to Vol. V include farmer activist Karen Washington; oyster whisperer and ecologist Anamarija Frankic; Elizabeth Hoover of Good Warrior Seeds; permaculturist and author Tao Orion; conservation scientist and author Lauren Oakes; and soil scientists, regenerative farmers, savanna restorationists, landscape architects, poets, printmakers, illustrators, and photographers from around the US and Earth.

Describing several new biometric technologies, such as high-resolution fingerprint, finger-knuckle-print, multi-spectral backhand, 3D fingerprint, tongueprint, 3D ear, and multi-spectral iris recognition technologies, this book analyzes a number of efficient feature extraction, matching and fusion algorithms and how potential systems have been developed. Focusing on how to develop new biometric technologies based on the requirements of applications, and how to design efficient algorithms to deliver better performance, the work is based on the author’s research with experimental results under different challenging conditions described in the text. The book offers a valuable resource for researchers, professionals and postgraduate students working in the fields of computer vision, pattern recognition, biometrics, and security applications, amongst others.

The development of coherent radiation sources for sub-angstrom wavelengths - i.e. in the hard X-ray and gamma-ray range - is a challenging goal of modern physics. The availability of such sources will have many applications in basic science, technology and medicine and in particular, they may have a revolutionary impact on nuclear and solid state physics, as well as on the life sciences. The present state-of-the-art lasers are capable of emitting electromagnetic radiation from the infrared to the ultraviolet, while free electron lasers (X-FELs) are now entering the soft X-ray region. Moving further, i.e. into the hard X and/or gamma ray band, however, is not possible without new approaches and technologies. In this book we introduce and discuss one such novel approach -the radiation formed in a Crystalline Undulator - whereby electromagnetic radiation is generated by a bunch of ultra-relativistic particles channeling through a periodically bent crystalline structure. Under certain conditions, such a device can emit intensive spontaneous monochromatic radiation and even reach the coherence of laser light sources. Readers will be presented with the underlying fundamental physics and be familiarized with the theoretical, experimental and technological advances made during the last one and a half decades in exploring the various features of investigations into crystalline undulators. This research draws upon knowledge from many research fields - such as materials science, beam physics, the physics of radiation, solid state physics and acoustics, to name but a few. Accordingly, much care has been taken by the authors to make the book as self-contained as possible in this respect, so as to also provide a useful introduction to this emerging field to a broad readership of researchers and scientist with various backgrounds. This new edition has been revised and extended to take recent developments in the field into account. 

This book presents the design, analysis and testing of fully balanced RIAA phono amps and measurement tools. The content of this book extends a standard reference about RIAA phono amps "the sound of silence" by Burkhard Vogel. Here, the gap is filled between a semi-balanced engine (RIAA Phono-Amp Engine I) and a fully balanced engine, the RIAA Phono-Amp Engine II. In this new book on hand, "fully balanced" means that each phono-amp stage ends up in a balanced - or in other words symmetrical - solution, differentially amplified. Un-balanced / single-ended solutions are not in the scope.

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.

This book reports on the latest research and developments in the field of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). It introduces ten outstanding and innovative BCI projects, nominated as finalists for the BCI award 2012 by a jury of established researchers and discusses how each of the nominated projects reflects general worldwide trends in BCI development. At the core of the book, nine of these ten projects are described in detailed individual chapters. These include a focused introduction to each project, an easy to grasp description of the methods and a timely report on the most recent developments achieved since the submission to the award. Hence, this book provides a cutting-edge overview of the newest BCI research trends, from leading experts, in an easy to read format supported by explanatory pictures, graphs and figures.

The book focuses on an image processing technique known as binarization. It provides a comprehensive survey over existing binarization techniques for both document and graphic images. A number of evaluation techniques have been presented for quantitative comparison of different binarization methods. The book provides results obtained comparing a number of standard and widely used binarization algorithms using some standard evaluation metrics. The comparative results presented in tables and charts facilitates understanding the process. In addition to this, the book presents techniques for preparing a reference image which is very much important for quantitative evaluation of the binarization techniques. The results are produced taking image samples from standard image databases.

The book reports on the 11th International Workshop on Railway Noise, held on 9 – 13 September, 2013, in Uddevalla, Sweden. The event, which was jointly organized by the Competence Centre Chalmers Railway Mechanics (CHARMEC) and the Departments of Applied Mechanics and Applied Acoustics at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, covered a broad range of topics in the field of railway noise and vibration, including: prospects, legal regulations and perceptions; wheel and rail noise; prediction, measurements and monitoring; ground-borne vibration; squeal noise and structure-borne noise; and aerodynamic noise generated by high-speed trains. Further topics included: resilient track forms; grinding, corrugation and roughness; and interior noise and sound barriers. This book, which consists of a collection of peer-reviewed papers originally submitted to the workshop, not only provides readers with an overview of the latest developments in the field, but also offers scientists and engineers essential support in their daily efforts to identify, understand and solve a number of problems related to railway noise and vibration, and to achieve their ultimate goal of reducing the environmental impact of railway systems.

This book presents the selected results of the XI Scientific Conference Selected Issues of Electrical Engineering and Electronics (WZEE) which was held in Rzeszów and Czarna, Poland on September 27-30, 2013. The main aim of the Conference was to provide academia and industry to discuss and present the latest technological advantages and research results and to integrate the new interdisciplinary scientific circle in the field of electrical engineering, electronics and mechatronics. The Conference was organized by the Rzeszów Division of Polish Association of Theoretical and Applied Electrical Engineering (PTETiS) in cooperation with Rzeszów University of Technology, the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Rzeszów University, the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

The book reports on the author’s original work to address the use of today’s state-of-the-art smartphones for human physical activity recognition. By exploiting the sensing, computing and communication capabilities currently available in these devices, the author developed a novel smartphone-based activity-recognition system, which takes into consideration all aspects of online human activity recognition, from experimental data collection, to machine learning algorithms and hardware implementation. The book also discusses and describes solutions to some of the challenges that arose during the development of this approach, such as real-time operation, high accuracy, low battery consumption and unobtrusiveness. It clearly shows that it is possible to perform real-time recognition of activities with high accuracy using current smartphone technologies. As well as a detailed description of the methods, this book also provides readers with a comprehensive review of the fundamental concepts in human activity recognition. It also gives an accurate analysis of the most influential works in the field and discusses them in detail. This thesis was supervised by both the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (primary institution) and University of Genoa (secondary institution) as part of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate in Interactive and Cognitive Environments.

This book is devoted to the analysis of measurement signals which requires specific mathematical operations like Convolution, Deconvolution, Laplace, Fourier, Hilbert, Wavelet or Z transform which are all presented in the present book. The different problems refer to the modulation of signals, filtration of disturbance as well as to the orthogonal signals and their use in digital form for the measurement of current, voltage, power and frequency are also widely discussed. All the topics covered in this book are presented in detail and illustrated by means of examples in MathCad and LabVIEW. This book provides a useful source for researchers, scientists and engineers who in their daily work are required to deal with problems of measurement and signal processing and can also be helpful to undergraduate students of electrical engineering.

The book addresses issues towards the design and development of Wireless Sensor Network based Smart Home and fusion of Real-Time Data for Wellness Determination of an elderly person living alone in a Smart Home. The fundamentals of selection of sensor, fusion of sensor data, system design, modelling, characterizations, experimental investigations and analyses have been covered. This book will be extremely useful for the engineers and researchers especially higher undergraduate, postgraduate students as well as practitioners working on the development of Wireless Sensor Networks, Internet of Things and Data Mining.

This book presents the state of the art in nonlinear nanostructures for ultrafast laser applications. Most recent results in two emerging fields are presented: (i) generation of laser-induced nanostructures in materials like metals, metal oxides and semiconductors, and (ii) ultrafast excitation and energy transfer in nanoscale physical, chemical and hybrid systems. Particular emphasis is laid on the up-to-date controversially discussed mechanisms of sub-wavelength ripple formation including models of self-organized material transport and multiphoton excitation channels, nonlinear optics of plasmonic structures (nanotips, nanowires, 3D-metamaterials), and energy localization and transport on ultrafast time scale and spatial nanoscale. High-resolution spectroscopy, simulation and characterization techniques are reported. New applications of ultrashort-pulsed lasers for materials processing and the use of nanostructured materials for characterizing laser fields and laser-matter-interactions are discussed.

The work presented in this book focuses on modeling audiovisual quality as perceived by the users of IP-based solutions for video communication like videotelephony. It also extends the current framework for the parametric prediction of audiovisual call quality. The book addresses several aspects related to the quality perception of entire video calls, namely, the quality estimation of the single audio and video modalities in an interactive context, the audiovisual quality integration of these modalities and the temporal pooling of short sample-based quality scores to account for the perceptual quality impact of time-varying degradations.

This book is an accessible guide to adaptive signal processing methods that equips the reader with advanced theoretical and practical tools for the study and development of circuit structures and provides robust algorithms relevant to a wide variety of application scenarios. Examples include multimodal and multimedia communications, the biological and biomedical fields, economic models, environmental sciences, acoustics, telecommunications, remote sensing, monitoring and in general, the modeling and prediction of complex physical phenomena. The reader will learn not only how to design and implement the algorithms but also how to evaluate their performance for specific applications utilizing the tools provided. While using a simple mathematical language, the employed approach is very rigorous. The text will be of value both for research purposes and for courses of study.

Blind deconvolution is a classical image processing problem which has been investigated by a large number of researchers over the last four decades. The purpose of this monograph is not to propose yet another method for blind image restoration. Rather the basic issue of deconvolvability has been explored from a theoretical view point. Some authors claim very good results while quite a few claim that blind restoration does not work. The authors clearly detail when such methods are expected to work and when they will not. In order to avoid the assumptions needed for convergence analysis in the Fourier domain, the authors use a general method of convergence analysis used for alternate minimization based on three point and four point properties of the points in the image space. The authors prove that all points in the image space satisfy the three point property and also derive the conditions under which four point property is satisfied. This provides the conditions under which alternate minimization for blind deconvolution converges with a quadratic prior. Since the convergence properties depend on the chosen priors, one should design priors that avoid trivial solutions. Hence, a sparsity based solution is also provided for blind deconvolution, by using image priors having a cost that increases with the amount of blur, which is another way to prevent trivial solutions in joint estimation. This book will be a highly useful resource to the researchers and academicians in the specific area of blind deconvolution.

Popular music plays a substantial role in most people’s life. The demand and financial revenue of Rock and Pop concerts is large and still increasing with the decreased revenue on recorded music. Based on the first ever scientific investigations on recommendable acoustics for amplified music conducted by the author, this book sets forward precise guidelines for acoustical engineers to optimize the acoustics in existing or future halls for amplified music. Gives precise guidelines on how to design the acoustics in venues that present amplified music Debates essential construction details, including placement of sound system and use of possible building materials, in the architectural design of new venues or the renovation of old ones Portrays 75 well-known European Rock & Pop venues, their architecture and acoustic properties. 20 venues were rated for their acoustics by music professionals leading to an easy-to-use assessment methodology �Acoustics are important within pop and rock venues to ensure a great experience for audiences and performers. This book fills an important gap of knowledge on the acoustics of venues. It will be of value to sound engineers as well as building owners and operators and building design professionals�. Rob Harris, Arup Acoustics �With this book, many future amplified music concerts will sound better, for the joy of audiences and musicians alike. This enormous work demonstrates a rare degree of passion and insight, from the hand of the key researcher in the field�. Dr. Per V. Brüel

During the last few years cavity-optomechanics has emerged as a new field of research. This highly interdisciplinary field studies the interaction between micro and nano mechanical systems and light. Possible applications range from novel high-bandwidth mechanical sensing devices through the generation of squeezed optical or mechanical states to even tests of quantum theory itself. This is one of the first books in this relatively young field. It is aimed at scientists, engineers and students who want to obtain a concise introduction to the state of the art in the field of cavity optomechanics. It is valuable to researchers in nano science, quantum optics, quantum information, gravitational wave detection and other cutting edge fields. Possible applications include biological sensing, frequency comb applications, silicon photonics etc. The technical content will be accessible to those who have familiarity with basic undergraduate physics.

This book provides developers, engineers, researchers and students with detailed knowledge about the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. HEVC is the successor to the widely successful H.264/AVC video compression standard, and it provides around twice as much compression as H.264/AVC for the same level of quality. The applications for HEVC will not only cover the space of the well-known current uses and capabilities of digital video – they will also include the deployment of new services and the delivery of enhanced video quality, such as ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) and video with higher dynamic range, wider range of representable color, and greater representation precision than what is typically found today. HEVC is the next major generation of video coding design – a flexible, reliable and robust solution that will support the next decade of video applications and ease the burden of video on world-wide network traffic. This book provides a detailed explanation of the various parts of the standard, insight into how it was developed, and in-depth discussion of algorithms and architectures for its implementation.