This book focuses on the adoption of new technologies led by information and communication technologies by SMEs in developing countries. It identifies several factors that augment competitiveness of firms in the era of globalization. Contrary to the general belief, these factors are not uniform across developing world. Based on the empirical evidence from firms located in Malaysia, India, Nigeria, Jamaica, and Costa Rica, the study concludes that firms cannot remain competitive without institutional support. Since firms operate in different institutional and economic environment, form of support varies from one country to another.

This book presents cutting-edge results on stability analysis and control scheme designs for networked teleoperation systems. It highlights new research on commonly encountered nonlinear teleoperation systems, including the stability analysis of teleoperation systems with asymmetric time-varying delays, stability analysis of teleoperation systems with interval time delays, and so on. Moreover, the book presents several high-performance control scheme designs for teleoperation systems when the velocity is available and unavailable, and for systems with nonlinear input. The results presented here mark a substantial contribution to nonlinear teleoperation system theory, robotic control theory and networked control system theory. As such, the book will be of interest to university researchers, R&D engineers and graduate students in control theory and control engineering who wish to learn about the core principles, methods, algorithms, and applications of networked teleoperation systems, robotic systems and nonlinear control systems.

Broadband Satellite Communication Systems and the Challenges of Mobility is an essential reference for both academic and professional researchers in the field of telecommunications, computer networking and wireless networks.

Recently the request of multimedia services has been rapidly increasing and satellite networks appear to be attractive for a fast service deployment and for extending the typical service area of terrestrial systems. In comparison with traditional wide area networks, a characteristic of satellite communication systems is their ability in broadcasting and multicasting multimedia information flows anywhere over the satellite coverage. The papers presented in this volume highlight key areas such as Satellite Network Architectures, Services and Applications; Mobile Satellite Systems and Services; and Hybrid Satellite and Terrestrial Networks.

Mobility will inevitably be one of the main characteristics of future networks, terminals and applications and, thus, extending and integrating fixed network protocols and services to mobile systems represents one of the main issues of present networking. The secondary focus of this volume is on challenges of mobility, that is, on technologies, protocols and services for the support of seamless and nomadic user access to new classes of applications in person-to-person, device-to-device and device-to-person environments. The book comprises recent results of research and development in the following areas; Seamless mobility; Mobile ad hoc and sensor networks; Analysis, simulation and measurements of mobile and wireless systems; Integration and inter-working of wired and wireless networks; QoS in mobile and wireless networks; Future trends and issues concerning mobility.

This state -of-the-art volume contains a collection of papers from two of the workshops of the 18th IFIP World Computer Congress, held August 22-27, 2004, in Toulouse, France: the Workshop on Broadband Satellite Communication Systems, and the Workshop on the Challenges of Mobility.

A must-have compendium on biomedical telemetry for all biomedical professional engineers, researchers, and graduate students in the field Handbook of Biomedical Telemetry describes the main components of a typical biomedical telemetry system, as well as its technical challenges. Written by a diverse group of experts in the field, it is filled with overviews, highly-detailed scientific analyses, and example applications of biomedical telemetry. The book also addresses technologies for biomedical sensing and design of biomedical telemetry devices with special emphasis on powering/integration issues and materials for biomedical telemetry applications. Handbook of Biomedical Telemetry: * Describes the main components of a typical biomedical telemetry system, along with the technical challenges * Discusses issues of spectrum regulations, standards, and interoperability while major technical challenges related to advanced materials, miniaturization, and biocompatibility issues are also included * Covers body area electromagnetics, inductive coupling, antennas for biomedical telemetry, intra-body communications, non-RF communication links for biomedical telemetry (optical biotelemetry), as well as safety issues, human phantoms, and exposure assessment to high-frequency biotelemetry fields * Presents biosensor network topologies and standards; context-aware sensing and multi-sensor fusion; security and privacy issues in biomedical telemetry; and the connection between biomedical telemetry and telemedicine * Introduces clinical applications of Body Sensor Networks (BSNs) in addition to selected examples of wearable, implantable, ingestible devices, stimulator and integrated mobile healthcare system paradigms for monitoring and therapeutic intervention Covering biomedical telemetry devices, biosensor network topologies and standards, clinical applications, wearable and implantable devices, and the effects on the mobile healthcare system, this compendium is a must-have for professional engineers, researchers, and graduate students.

This comprehensive and didactic overview explores the nonlinear effects from a physical point of view and discusses the implications for signal capacity. Enriched with practical considerations and experimental results, the book offers special chapters dealing with applications of nonlinear effects for signal processing, ultrafast-optical switching, wavelength conversion, nonlinear amplification, and optical phase-conjugation. Equipped with chapter-end summaries and problems, this valuable reference can also serve as a graduate-level textbook.

Smart cards have recently emerged as a key computer network and Internet security technology. These plastic cards contain an embedded microprocessor, allowing them to be programmed to perform specific duties. This extensively updated, second edition of the popular Artech House book, Smart Card Security and Applications, offers a current overview of the ways smart cards address the computer security issues of today's varied applications. Brand new discussions on multi-application operating systems, computer networks, and the Internet are included to keep technical and business professionals abreast of the very latest developments in this field. The book provides technical details on the newest protection mechanisms, features a discussion on the effects of recent attacks, and presents a clear methodology for solving unique security problems.

Miller and Childers have focused on creating a clear presentation of foundational concepts with specific applications to signal processing and communications, clearly the two areas of most interest to students and instructors in this course. It is aimed at graduate students as well as practicing engineers, and includes unique chapters on narrowband random processes and simulation techniques.
The appendices provide a refresher in such areas as linear algebra, set theory, random variables, and more. Probability and Random Processes also includes applications in digital communications, information theory, coding theory, image processing, speech analysis, synthesis and recognition, and other fields.
* Exceptional exposition and numerous worked out problems make the book extremely readable and accessible
* The authors connect the applications discussed in class to the textbook
* The new edition contains more real world signal processing and communications applications
* Includes an entire chapter devoted to simulation techniques

This book introduces new concepts and mechanisms regarding the usage of both social media interactions and artifacts for peer education in digital educational games. Digital games in general, and digital educational games in particular, represent an area with a high potential for interdisciplinary innovation, not only from an information technology standpoint, but also from social science, psychological and didactic perspectives. This book presents an interdisciplinary approach to educational games, which is centered on information technology and aims at: (1) improving digital management by focusing on the exchange of learning outcomes and solution assessment in a peer-to-peer network of learners; (2) achieving digital implementation by using forms of interaction to change the course of educational games; and (3) providing digital support by fostering group-formation processes in educational situations to increase both the effects of educational games and knowledge exchange at the individual level. In addition to a systematic analysis of the relationship between software architecture, educational games and social media applications, the book also presents the implemented IT systems' architectures and algorithmic solutions as well as the resulting applicable evaluation findings from the field of interactive multimedia learning.

This book describes Smart Cities and the information technologies that will provide better living conditions in the cities of tomorrow. It brings together research findings from 27 countries across the globe, from academia, industry and government. It addresses a number of crucial topics in state of the arts of technologies and solutions related to smart cities, including big data and cloud computing, collaborative platforms, communication infrastructures, smart health, sustainable development and energy management. Information Innovation Technology in Smart Cities is essential reading for researchers working on intelligence and information communication systems, big data, Internet of Things, Cyber Security, and cyber-physical energy systems. It will be also invaluable resource for advanced students exploring these areas.

This book features selected contributions in the areas of modeling, simulation, and optimization. The contributors discusses requirements in problem solving for modeling, simulation, and optimization. Modeling, simulation, and optimization have increased in demand in exponential ways and how potential solutions might be reached. They describe how new technologies in computing and engineering have reduced the dimension of data coverage worldwide, and how recent inventions in information and communication technology (ICT) have inched towards reducing the gaps and coverage of domains globally. The chapters cover how the digging of information in a large data and soft-computing techniques have contributed to a strength in prediction and analysis, for decision making in computer science, technology, management, social computing, green computing, and telecom. The book provides an insightful reference to the researchers in the fields of engineering and computer science. Researchers, academics, and professionals will benefit from this volume. Features selected expanded papers in modeling, simulation, and optimization from COMPSE 2016; Includes research into soft computing and its application in engineering and technology; Presents contributions from global experts in academia and industry in modeling, simulation, and optimization.

Telecommunications Modeling, Policy and Technology Examines the newer and emerging models of telecommunications technology that play instrumental roles in providing international economic and societal interconnectivity. Advancing technology in the field imposes the need to develop new models to solve complex planning and decision making problems. The global, national, and local societal impact of the technology necessitates careful analysis of telecommunications policy at all of these levels. The book explores natural output of the new technical developments and applications with selective chapter treatment on novel business models to fill the emerging technical and business needs.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next big challenge for the research community. The IPv6 over low power wireless personal area network (6LoWPAN) protocol stack is considered a key part of the IoT. In 6LoWPAN networks, heavy network traffic causes congestion which significantly degrades network performance and impacts on quality of service aspects. This book presents a concrete, solid and logically ordered work on congestion control for 6LoWPAN networks as a step toward successful implementation of the IoT and supporting the IoT application requirements. The book addresses the congestion control issue in 6LoWPAN networks and presents a comprehensive literature review on congestion control for WSNs and 6LoWPAN networks. An extensive congestion analysis and assessment for 6LoWPAN networks is explored through analytical modelling, simulations and real experiments. A number of congestion control mechanisms and algorithms are proposed to mitigate and solve the congestion problem in 6LoWPAN networks by using and utilizing the non-cooperative game theory, multi-attribute decision making and network utility maximization framework. The proposed algorithms are aware of node priorities and application priorities to support the IoT application requirements and improve network performance in terms of throughput, end-to-end delay, energy consumption, number of lost packets and weighted fairness index.

Heterogeneous wireless networking, which is sometimes referred to as the fourth-generation (4G) wireless, is a new frontier in the future wireless communications technology and there has been a growing interest on this topic among researchers and engineers in both academia and industry. This book will include a set of research and survey articles featuring the recent advances in theory and applications of heterogeneous wireless networking technology for the next generation (e.g., fourth generation) wireless communications systems. With the rapid growth in the number of wireless applications, services and devices, using a single wireless technology such as a second generation (2G) and third generation (3G) wireless system would not be efficient to deliver high speed data rate and quality-of-service (QoS) support to mobile users in a seamless way. Fourth generation (4G) wireless systems are devised with the vision of heterogeneity in which a mobile user/device will be able to connect to multiple wireless networks (e.g., WLAN, cellular, WMAN) simultaneously. This book intends to provide a unified view on the state-of-the-art of protocols and architectures for heterogeneous wireless networking. The contributed articles will cover both the theoretical concepts and system-level implementation issues related to design, analysis, and optimization of architectures and protocols for heterogeneous wireless access networks.

This book describes the fundamental building-block of many new computer vision systems: dense and robust correspondence estimation. Dense correspondence estimation techniques are now successfully being used to solve a wide range of computer vision problems, very different from the traditional applications such techniques were originally developed to solve. This book introduces the techniques used for establishing correspondences between challenging image pairs, the novel features used to make these techniques robust, and the many problems dense correspondences are now being used to solve. The book provides information to anyone attempting to utilize dense correspondences in order to solve new or existing computer vision problems. The editors describe how to solve many computer vision problems by using dense correspondence estimation. Finally, it surveys resources, code and data, necessary for expediting the development of effective correspondence-based computer vision systems.

Product development of high or new and emerging technology products and systems is a challenging area in which to work. It involves multiple disciplines, endless series of tradeoffs, dilemmas, and dead-ends. Yet, it also involves captivating moments of insight and sheer excitement in juggling technological challenges together with psychological, social, organizational, financial and legal questions. This places stringent requirements to the related process control in all the levels as in idea cultivation, project management, quality control or usability and design. Have you ever considered ...
*How to efficiently organize and manage the multiple, parallel development projects of ICT?
*How to systematically channel your team's creativity to high quality products and services?
*How your company can best benefit from university research?
*What are the meaning and realization of quality systems in modern ICT organizations and processes?
*How to design user interfaces to maximize product usability and market value?
*How to maximize the benefits of Internet in your product development and marketing?
*What are the roles and important practices of patenting, and licensing in the US and Europe?

This book aims to give you a top-down treatment in these and many other important topics of ICT product and service development. Our primary objective is to provide you with an eagle-eye view both in theory and in practice and to trace the state-of-the-art development. Book authors come both from universities and industry giving thus a theory and practice balancing touch for the material.

Handbook of Product and Service Development in Communication and Information Technology includes various practical telecommunication product development cases based on tracking multi-national companies' way of living and flourishing in telecommunication business. An important case we frequently refer to is Nokia's way to work. Fortunately enough, this book has been written in HUT, only a kilometer away from Nokia's headquarters, and actually much, much nearer in a research cooperational sense.

Third International Conference on Recent Trends in Information, Telecommunication and Computing - ITC 2012. ITC 2012 will be held during Aug 03-04, 2012, Kochi, India. ITC 2012, is to bring together innovative academics and industrial experts in the field of Computer Science, Information Technology, Computational Engineering, and Communication to a common forum. The primary goal of the conference is to promote research and developmental activities in Computer Science, Information Technology, Computational Engineering, and Communication. Another goal is to promote scientific information interchange between researchers, developers, engineers, students, and practitioners.

Fully updated, revised, and expanded, this second edition of Modern Cable Television Technology addresses the significant changes undergone by cable since 1999--including, most notably, its continued transformation from a system for delivery of television to a scalable-bandwidth platform for a broad range of communication services. It provides in-depth coverage of high speed data transmission, home networking, IP-based voice, optical dense wavelength division multiplexing, new video compression techniques, integrated voice/video/data transport, and much more.
Intended as a day-to-day reference for cable engineers, this book illuminates all the technologies involved in building and maintaining a cable system. But it's also a great study guide for candidates for SCTE certification, and its careful explanations will benefit any technician whose work involves connecting to a cable system or building products that consume cable services.
*Written by four of the most highly-esteemed cable engineers in the industry with a wealth of experience in cable, consumer electronics, and telecommunications.
*All new material on digital technologies, new practices for delivering high speed data, home networking, IP-based voice technology, optical dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), new video compression techniques, and integrated voice/video/data transport.
*Covers the latest on emerging digital standards for voice, data, video, and multimedia.
*Presents distribution systems, from drops through fiber optics, an covers everything from basic principles to network architectures.

This book reports on the latest advances on the theories, practices, standards and strategies that are related to the modern technology paradigms, the Mobile Cloud computing (MCC) and Big Data, as the pillars and their association with the emerging 5G mobile networks. The book includes 15 rigorously refereed chapters written by leading international researchers, providing the readers with technical and scientific information about various aspects of Big Data and Mobile Cloud Computing, from basic concepts to advanced findings, reporting the state-of-the-art on Big Data management. It demonstrates and discusses methods and practices to improve multi-source Big Data manipulation techniques, as well as the integration of resources availability through the 3As (Anywhere, Anything, Anytime) paradigm, using the 5G access technologies.

Multi-agent systems have numerous civilian, homeland security, and military applications; however, for all these applications, communication bandwidth, sensing range, power constraints, and stealth requirements preclude centralized command and control. The alternative is distributed coordination, which is more promising in terms of scalability, robustness, and flexibility. Distributed Coordination of Multi-agent Networks introduces problems, models, and issues such as collective periodic motion coordination, collective tracking with a dynamic leader, and containment control with multiple leaders, and explores ideas for their solution. Solving these problems extends the existing application domains of multi-agent networks; for example, collective periodic motion coordination is appropriate for applications involving repetitive movements, collective tracking guarantees tracking of a dynamic leader by multiple followers in the presence of reduced interaction and partial measurements, and containment control enables maneuvering of multiple followers by multiple leaders. The authors models for distributed coordination arise from physical constraints and the complex environments in which multi-agent systems operate; they include Lagrangian models more realistic for mechanical-systems modeling than point models and fractional-order systems which better represent the consequences of environmental complexity. Other issues addressed in the text include the time delays inherent in networked systems, optimality concerns associated with the deisgn of energy-efficent algorithms, and the use of sampled-data settings in systems with intermittent neightbor-neighbor contact. Researchers, graduate students, and engineers interested in the field of multi-agent systems will find this monograph useful in introducing them to presently emerging research directions and problems in distributed coordination of multi-agent networks. The Communications and Control Engineering series reports major technological advances which have potential for great impact in the fields of communication and control. It reflects research in industrial and academic institutions around the world so that the readership can exploit new possibilities as they become available.

The book illustrates the theoretical results of fractional derivatives via applications in signals and systems, covering continuous and discrete derivatives, and the corresponding linear systems. Both time and frequency analysis are presented. Some advanced topics are included like derivatives of stochastic processes. It is an essential reference for researchers in mathematics, physics, and engineering.

A collection of lectures on a variety of modern subjects in wave scattering, including fundamental issues in mesoscopic physics and radiative transfer, recent hot topics such as random lasers, liquid crystals, lefthanded materials and time-reversal, as well as modern applications in imaging and communication.
There is a strong emphasis on the interdisciplinary aspects of wave propagation, including light and microwaves, acoustic and elastic waves, propagating in a variety of "complex" materials (liquid crystals, media with gain, natural media, magneto-optical media, photonic and phononic materials, etc.). It addresses many different items in contemporary research: mesoscopic fluctuations, localization, radiative transfer, symmetry aspects, and time-reversal. It also discusses new (potential) applications in telecommunication, soft matter and imaging.

This book provides an excellent mix of theory and practice. Starting with information theory and classical coding theory, the text covers the message passing concept that forms the basis of modern coding techniques, including turbo codes and Low Density Parity Check (LDPe codes, and then discusses a large number of turbo code combinations - including industry standards such as DVB-RCS, 3GPP, and CDMA2000. Numerous implementation issues and examples of commercially available turbo codes and products are explored in detail. This comprehensive treatment of the topic will enable the reader to select, evaluate, and implement the turbo code suitable for their application. Programs for the simulation of several turbo coding schemes, including those in DVB-RCS and 3GPP standards, are included in the accompanying CD-ROM. These C programs can be easily used for simulation and performance evaluation and serve as a starting point for a design effort. FPGA, ASIC, and DSP sample implementations are also presented. Source files, instead of executables, are included so that the reader can modify the programs and tailor them to his/her needs. Practising engineers involved in the design of communication circuits and systems and graduate students conducting research in the area of digital communications will benefit from this balanced and insightful treatment. The coverage of different system level concepts, various wireless and satellite communications standards, and the available turbo code products makes this work a valuable reference for engineering managers.

This volume reviews approaches to and topologies of Ku-band transmitters. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of these transmitters along with critical design criteria necessary to enhance system performance. Readers will learn to analyze, design and characterize transceiver modules.

This book introduces an efficient resource management approach for future spectrum sharing systems. The book focuses on providing an optimal resource allocation framework based on carrier aggregation to allocate multiple carriers' resources efficiently among mobile users. Furthermore, it provides an optimal traffic dependent pricing mechanism that could be used by network providers to charge mobile users for the allocated resources. The book provides different resource allocation with carrier aggregation solutions, for different spectrum sharing scenarios, and compares them. The provided solutions consider the diverse quality of experience requirement of multiple applications running on the user's equipment since different applications require different application performance. In addition, the book addresses the resource allocation problem for spectrum sharing systems that require user discrimination when allocating the network resources.