This open access book provides a concise explanation of the fundamentals and background of the surround sound recording and playback technology Ambisonics. It equips readers with the psychoacoustical, signal processing, acoustical, and mathematical knowledge needed to understand the inner workings of modern processing utilities, special equipment for recording, manipulation, and reproduction in the higher-order Ambisonic format. The book comes with various practical examples based on free software tools and open scientific data for reproducible research. The book's introductory section offers a perspective on Ambisonics spanning from the origins of coincident recordings in the 1930s to the Ambisonic concepts of the 1970s, as well as classical ways of applying Ambisonics in first-order coincident sound scene recording and reproduction that have been practiced since the 1980s. As, from time to time, the underlying mathematics become quite involved, but should be comprehensive without sacrificing readability, the book includes an extensive mathematical appendix. The book offers readers a deeper understanding of Ambisonic technologies, and will especially benefit scientists, audio-system and audio-recording engineers. In the advanced sections of the book, fundamentals and modern techniques as higher-order Ambisonic decoding, 3D audio effects, and higher-order recording are explained. Those techniques are shown to be suitable to supply audience areas ranging from studio-sized to hundreds of listeners, or headphone-based playback, regardless whether it is live, interactive, or studio-produced 3D audio material.

Submarine Optical Cable Engineering presents a summary and exposition from authors engaged in the submarine optical cable engineering field. It systematically discusses the theory and practice of engineering site selection, route survey, laying construction, system maintenance, and safety in operation and information management, all topics relating to the long-term development and progress of science and technology. As there are now more than 230 extant systems, with a total length of more than one million kilometers, this book compiles the wealth of experience that has accumulated regarding their construction stemming from the first inter ocean submarine cable system (TAT-8) built in 1988.

Noise is everywhere and in most applications that are related to audio and speech, such as human-machine interfaces, hands-free communications, voice over IP (VoIP), hearing aids, teleconferencing/telepresence/telecollaboration systems, and so many others, the signal of interest (usually speech) that is picked up by a microphone is generally contaminated by noise. As a result, the microphone signal has to be cleaned up with digital signal processing tools before it is stored, analyzed, transmitted, or played out. This cleaning process is often called noise reduction and this topic has attracted a considerable amount of research and engineering attention for several decades. One of the objectives of this book is to present in a common framework an overview of the state of the art of noise reduction algorithms in the single-channel (one microphone) case. The focus is on the most useful approaches, i.e., filtering techniques (in different domains) and spectral enhancement methods. The other objective of Noise Reduction in Speech Processing is to derive all these well-known techniques in a rigorous way and prove many fundamental and intuitive results often taken for granted. This book is especially written for graduate students and research engineers who work on noise reduction for speech and audio applications and want to understand the subtle mechanisms behind each approach. Many new and interesting concepts are presented in this text that we hope the readers will find useful and inspiring.

Poled polymers doped with nonlinear optically active chromophores combine the large second order nonlinearity of the dopant dye molecules with the optical quality of the polymer. The material design flexibility afforded to doped polymers makes them attractive in a large variety of devices and applications. This book addresses the critical science and technology issues in the development and application of poled polymers, with an emphasis on the stabilization of poled polymers and their special applications to second harmonic generation (SHG) and electro-optic (EO) devices.

This thesis proposes machine learning methods for understanding scenes via behaviour analysis and online anomaly detection in video. The book introduces novel Bayesian topic models for detection of events that are different from typical activities and a novel framework for change point detection for identifying sudden behavioural changes. Behaviour analysis and anomaly detection are key components of intelligent vision systems. Anomaly detection can be considered from two perspectives: abnormal events can be defined as those that violate typical activities or as a sudden change in behaviour. Topic modelling and change-point detection methodologies, respectively, are employed to achieve these objectives. The thesis starts with the development of learning algorithms for a dynamic topic model, which extract topics that represent typical activities of a scene. These typical activities are used in a normality measure in anomaly detection decision-making. The book also proposes a novel anomaly localisation procedure. In the first topic model presented, a number of topics should be specified in advance. A novel dynamic nonparametric hierarchical Dirichlet process topic model is then developed where the number of topics is determined from data. Batch and online inference algorithms are developed. The latter part of the thesis considers behaviour analysis and anomaly detection within the change-point detection methodology. A novel general framework for change-point detection is introduced. Gaussian process time series data is considered. Statistical hypothesis tests are proposed for both offline and online data processing and multiple change point detection are proposed and theoretical properties of the tests are derived. The thesis is accompanied by open-source toolboxes that can be used by researchers and engineers.

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

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

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

During the last ten to fifteen years, researchers have made considerable progress in the study of inorganic scintillators. New scintillation materials have been investigated, novel scintillation mechanisms have been discovered, and additional scintillator applications have appeared. Demand continues for new and improved scintillation materials for a variety of applications including nuclear and high energy physics, astrophysics, medical imaging, geophysical exploration, radiation detection, and many other fields. However, until now there have been no books available that address in detail the complex scintillation processes associated with these new developments. Now, a world leader in the theory and applications of scintillation processes integrates the latest scientific advances of scintillation into a new work, Physical Processes in Inorganic Scintillators. Written by distinguished researcher Piotr Rodnyi, this volume explores this challenging subject, explains the complexities of scintillation from a modern point of view, and illuminates the way to the development of better scintillation materials. This unique work first defines the fundamental physical processes underlying scintillation and governing the primary scintillation characteristics of light output, decay time, emission spectrum, and radiation hardness. The book then discusses the complicated mechanisms of energy conversion and transformation in inorganic scintillators. The section on the role of defects in energy transfer and scintillation efficiency will be of special interest. Throughout, the author does not offer complicated derivations of equations but, instead, presents useful equations with practical results.

This volume brings together many of the world's leading experts in the development of new imaging methodologies to detect, identify, and counter security threats to society. It covers three broadly defined but interrelated areas: the mathematics and computer science of automatic detection and identification; image processing techniques for radar and sonar; and detection of anomalies in biomedical and chemical images.

Over the years since the launch of the first of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRRs) in 1978, the data from these instruments have come to be used for a very wide range of non-meteorological applications. In this book, the author describes the satellite system, the instrument itself, the control of the spacecraft and the data-recovery arrangements. The book also covers various aspects of the processing of the data to extract useful environmental information. The applications of the data to marine problems, based primarily on the study of sea-surface temperatures from the thermal-infrared channels of the instrument, are considered, as well as the study of vegetation and a whole variety of other land-based and hydrological applications.

Contents:
Design of refractive and diffractive micro-optics, H.P. Herzig; diffaction theory of microrelief gratings, J. Turunen; binary optics fabrication, M.B. Stern; direct writing of continuous-relief micro-optics, M.T. Gale; refractive lenslet arrays, M.C. Hutley; replication, M.T. Gale; free space integrated optics, J. Jahns; stacked micro-optic systems, W. Singer and K.H. Brenner; laser beam shaping, J. Leger; hybrid refractive/diffractive optics, G.P. Behrmann and J.N. Mait; array generators, J.N. Gait; polarization transformation high spatial frequency surface relief, C.W. Haggans and R.K. Kostuk.

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.

Nonlinear Stochastic Processes addresses the frequently-encountered problem of incomplete information. The causes of this problem considered here include: missing measurements; sensor delays and saturation; quantization effects; and signal sampling. Divided into three parts, the text begins with a focus on H filtering and control problems associated with general classes of nonlinear stochastic discrete-time systems. Filtering problems are considered in the second part, and in the third the theory and techniques previously developed are applied to the solution of issues arising in complex networks with the design of sampled-data-based controllers and filters. Among its highlights, the text provides: * a unified framework for filtering and control problems in complex communication networks with limited bandwidth; * new concepts such as random sensor and signal saturations for more realistic modeling; and * demonstration of the use of techniques such as the Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs, difference linear matrix, and parameter-dependent matrix inequalities and sums of squares to handle the computational challenges inherent in these systems. The collection of recent research results presented in Nonlinear Stochastic Processes will be of interest to academic researchers in control and signal processing. Graduate students working with communication networks with lossy information and control of stochastic systems will also benefit from reading the book.

This book covers recent advances in image processing and imaging sciences from an optimization viewpoint, especially convex optimization with the goal of designing tractable algorithms. Throughout the handbook, the authors introduce topics on the most key aspects of image acquisition and processing that are based on the formulation and solution of novel optimization problems. The first part includes a review of the mathematical methods and foundations required, and covers topics in image quality optimization and assessment. The second part of the book discusses concepts in image formation and capture from color imaging to radar and multispectral imaging. The third part focuses on sparsity constrained optimization in image processing and vision and includes inverse problems such as image restoration and de-noising, image classification and recognition and learning-based problems pertinent to image understanding. Throughout, convex optimization techniques are shown to be a critically important mathematical tool for imaging science problems and applied extensively. Convex Optimization Methods in Imaging Science is the first book of its kind and will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students, industrial researchers and engineers and those generally interested in computational aspects of modern, real-world imaging and image processing problems.

Over the past decade, the field of image processing has made tremendous advances. One type of image processing that is currently of particular interest is "tomographic imaging," a technique for computing the density function of a body, or discontinuity surfaces of this function. Today, tomography is widely used, and has applications in such fields as medicine, engineering, physics, geophysics, and security. The Radon Transform and Local Tomography clearly explains the theoretical, computational, and practical aspects of applied tomography. It includes sufficient background information to make it essentially self-contained for most readers.

An up-to-date, expert guide to modern digital image databases

This volume presents the state of the art in digital image database design, with a concentration on storage and retrieval techniques, and includes a set of selected application case studies.

Chapters by experts from around the world explore a variety of techniques for accessing images based on color, texture, shape, and semantic descriptions. Underlying principles are stressed, including compression, indexing, storage organization, and transmission.

Image Databases also features detailed coverage of these important issues:

• Hierarchical storage management
• Database support
• Search at multiple abstraction levels
• Content extraction from compressed imagery
• Standards for representation and search

Case studies cover important application areas including:

• Photographic images
• Satellite imagery
• Images in the oil industry
• Medical imagery

A wide range of introductory material and an extensive bibliography makes Image Databases an excellent text for graduate-level students. It also serves as a valuable reference for developers and researchers in the field, and as a guide for helping IT professionals more fully understand the discipline.

The perception-action cycle is the circular flow of information that takes place between the organism and its environment in the course of a sensory-guided sequence of behaviour towards a goal. Each action causes changes in the environment that are analyzed bottom-up through the perceptual hierarchy and lead to the processing of further action, top-down through the executive hierarchy, toward motor effectors. These actions cause new changes that are analyzed and lead to new action, and so the cycle continues. The Perception-action cycle: Models, architectures and hardware book provides focused and easily accessible reviews of various aspects of the perception-action cycle. It is an unparalleled resource of information that will be an invaluable companion to anyone in constructing and developing models, algorithms and hardware implementations of autonomous machines empowered with cognitive capabilities. The book is divided into three main parts. In the first part, leading computational neuroscientists present brain-inspired models of perception, attention, cognitive control, decision making, conflict resolution and monitoring, knowledge representation and reasoning, learning and memory, planning and action, and consciousness grounded on experimental data. In the second part, architectures, algorithms, and systems with cognitive capabilities and minimal guidance from the brain, are discussed. These architectures, algorithms, and systems are inspired from the areas of cognitive science, computer vision, robotics, information theory, machine learning, computer agents and artificial intelligence. In the third part, the analysis, design and implementation of hardware systems with robust cognitive abilities from the areas of mechatronics, sensing technology, sensor fusion, smart sensor networks, control rules, controllability, stability, model/knowledge representation, and reasoning are discussed.

The book gives a comprehensive introduction to nano-optics The book is of interest to physicists, biologists and chemists The book may suggest directions to doctoral thesis investigations This volume presents a considerable number of interrelated contributions dealing with the new scientific ability to shape and control matter and electromagnetic fields on a sub-wavelength scale. The topics range from the fundamental ones, such as photonic metamateriials, plasmonics and sub-wavelength resolution to the more applicative, such as detection of single molecules, tomography on a micro-chip, fluorescence spectroscopy of biological systems, coherent control of biomolecules, biosensing of single proteins, terahertz spectroscopy of nanoparticles, rare earth ion-doped nanoparticles, random lasing, and nanocoax array architecture. The various subjects bridge over the disciplines of physics, biology and chemistry, making this volume of interest to people working in these fields. The emphasis is on the principles behind each technique and on examining the full potential of each technique. The contributions that appear in this volume were presented at a NATO Advanced Study Institute that was held in Erice, Italy, 3-18 July, 2011. The pedagogical aspect of the Institute is reflected in the topics presented in this volume.

Spectacular advances during the last decade have altered the related disciplines of computing and telecommunications beyond all recognition. The developments in the"enabling technologies,"which have made these advances possible, have been less obvious to the casual observer. The subject of this book is one of these technologies--the coding of still images and picture sequences (video).
Digital Compression of Still Images and Video is general in approach and covers all the recognized coding algorithms; explaining their basic theory in enough detail that the reader will understand the principles involved. Results which have been achieved with coding algorithms by researchers in all parts of the world are also discussed. A brief historical review of the area is included to orient those new to the field, and the work is supported by references spanning the period from the earliest work on time/frequency analysis, to the latest topic of research interest--image sequence transmission using asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) techniques.
This book will make an excellent reference for graduates and researchers working on image coding and transmission, and will also be of use to those in the related areas of computer vision and multimedia developments. It is essential reading for the rapidly increasing number of technical and professional staff in the industrial environment who, maybe for the first time, are coming to grips with image coding.
Key Features
* Provides complete and up-to-date coverage of all digital image and video coding (compression) techniques
* Includes more than 850 references covering relevant work from the 1940s to the present
* Presents information on new directions in coding
* Contains details on current coding standards
* Describes and explains all algorithms in use for image coding

This work provides a basic understanding of the physical background and engineering considerations required for the design of IR systems, examining all components and combining them into examples of current surveillance systems. This second edition presents: new coverage of state-of-the-art optical systems, including lightweight mirrors and adaptive optics; planar-hybrid and Z-technology focal planes; the design of a ground-based IR astronomical telescope and the performance equations of laser-radar systems; and more.

This book provides comprehensive coverage of the protocols of communication systems. The book is divided into four parts. Part I covers the basic concepts of system and protocol design and specification, overviews the models and languages for informal and formal specification of protocols, and describes the specification language SDL. In the second part, the basic notions and properties of communication protocols and protocol stacks are explained, including the treatment of the logical correctness and the performance of protocols. In the third part, many methods for message transfer, on which specific communication protocols are based, are explained and formally specified in the SDL language. The fourth part provides for short descriptions of some specific protocols, mainly used in IP networks, in order to acquaint a reader with the practical use of communication methods presented in the third part of the book. The book is relevant to researchers, academics, professionals and students in communications engineering. Provides comprehensive yet granular coverage of the protocols of communication systems Allows readers the ability to understand the formal specification of communication protocols Specifies communication methods and protocols in the specification language SDL, giving readers practical tools to venture on their own

This work describes all the major devices used in photonic systems. It provides a thorough overview of the field of photonics, detailing practical examples of photonic technology in a wide range of applications. Photonic systems and devices are discussed with a mathematical rigor that is precise enough for design purposes yet highly readable.

This work examines a broad spectrum of the latest topics in visual science, relating basic studies to applications and delineating points of intersection among the various disciplines that study the mechanisms of vision. It discusses, among other topics: the Purkinje-image eyetracker; the principles of high-definition television; and the role of stabilized-image technology in revealing how eye movements control both luminous and chromatic perceptions.

This book presents a unified framework for the tractable analysis of large-scale, multi-antenna wireless networks using stochastic geometry. This mathematical analysis is essential for assessing and understanding the performance of complicated multi-antenna networks, which are one of the foundations of 5G and beyond networks to meet the ever-increasing demands for network capacity. Describing the salient properties of the framework, which makes the analysis of multi-antenna networks comparable to that of their single-antenna counterparts, the book discusses effective design approaches that do not require complex system-level simulations. It also includes various application examples with different multi-antenna network models to illustrate the framework's effectiveness.

In the area of Digital Image Processing the new area of "Time-Varying Image Processing and Moving Oject Recognition" is contributing to impressive advances in several fields. Presented in this volume are new digital image processing and recognition methods, implementation techniques and advanced applications such as television, remote sensing, biomedicine, traffic, inspection, and robotics. New approaches (such as digital transforms, neural networks) for solving 2-D and 3-D problems are described. Many papers concentrate on motion estimation and recognition i.e. tracking of moving objects. Overall, the book describes the state-of-the-art (theory, implementation, applications) of this developing area, together with future trends. The work will be of interest not only to researchers, professors and students in university departments of engineering, communications, computers and automatic control, but also to engineers and managers of industries concerned with computer vision, manufacturing, automation, robotics and quality control.

Bivectors occur naturally in the description of elliptically polarized homogeneous and inhomogeneous plane waves. The description of a homogeneous plane wave generally involves a vector (the unit vector along the propagation direction) and a bivbector (the complex amplitude of the wave). Inhomogeneous plane waves are described in terms of two bivectors - the complex amplitude and the complex slowness. The use of bivectors and their associated ellipses is essential for the presentation of the 'directional ellipse' method given in this book, in deriving all possible inhomogeneous plane wave solutions in a given context.
The purpose of this book is to give an extensive treatment of the properties of bivectors and to show how these may be applied to the theory of homogeneous and inhomogeneous plane waves. For each chapter there are exercises with answers, many of which present further useful properties which are referred to afterwards. The material in this book is suitable for senior undergraduate and first year graduate students. It will also prove useful for researchers interested in homogeneous and inhomogeneous plane waves.