There's one resource we just can't get enough of: Time. In this issue of Make: , we celebrate that most fascinating and finite resource. First, build a miniature neomatrix word clock that colorfully spells out the time. Next, waste less time in the shop with a healthy helping of time-saving shop tips. Then, take a metaphorical trip to the past and dive into the history and theory behind modern mechanical clocks. Plus, 19 projects to make, including: 8 more crazy clocks to build 3D print an old-school bellows-style camera Program a wall-mounted display to track your social media stats Craft a 2-in-1 leather carrier for beer and wine for your next picnic Build a stylish motion-reactive LED table-top display and more!

This PhD thesis details the development of a new 1D ionospheric model to describe the upper atmospheres of extrasolar giant plants. The upper atmospheres of Hot Jupiters are subject to extreme radiation conditions that can result in rapid atmospheric escape. The composition and structure of these planets' upper atmospheres are affected by high-energy emissions from the host star. The nature of these emissions depends on the stellar type and age, making them important factors in understanding the behaviour of exoplanetary atmospheres.

This book explores the relations between physical parameters of extrasolar planets and their respective parent stars. Planetary parameters are often directly dependent upon their stellar counterparts. In addition, the star is almost always the only visible component of the system and contains most of the system mass. Consequently, the parent star heavily influences every aspect of planetary physics and astrophysics. Drs. Kaspar von Braun and Tabetha Boyajian use direct methods to characterize exoplanet host starts that minimize the number of assumptions needed to be made in the process. The book provides a background on interferometric techniques for stellar diameter measurements, illustrates the authors' approach on using additional data to fully characterize the stars, provides a comprehensive update on the current state of the field, and examines in detail a number of historically significant and well-studied exoplanetary systems.

The book presents a state-of-art overview of numerical schemes efficiently solving the acoustic conservation equations (unknowns are acoustic pressure and particle velocity) and the acoustic wave equation (pressure of acoustic potential formulation). Thereby, the different equations model both vibrational- and flow-induced sound generation and its propagation. Latest numerical schemes as higher order finite elements, non-conforming grid techniques, discontinuous Galerkin approaches and boundary element methods are discussed. Main applications will be towards aerospace, rail and automotive industry as well as medical engineering. The team of authors are able to address these topics from the engineering as well as numerical points of view.

The authors of "The Perfect Meal "examine all of the elements that contribute to the diner's experience of a meal (primarily at a restaurant) and investigate how each of the diner's senses contributes to their overall multisensory experience. The principal focus of the book is not on flavor perception, but on all of the non-food and beverage factors that have been shown to influence the diner's overall experience.

Examples are:

- the colour of the plate (visual)

- the shape of the glass (visual/tactile)

- the names used to describe the dishes (cognitive)

- the background music playing inside the restaurant (aural)

Novel approaches to understanding the diner's experience in the restaurant setting are explored from the perspectives of decision neuroscience, marketing, design, and psychology.

This book offers an overview of some recent advances in the Computational Bioacoustics methods and technology. In the focus of discussion is the pursuit of scalability, which would facilitate real-world applications of different scope and purpose, such as wildlife monitoring, biodiversity assessment, pest population control, and monitoring the spread of disease transmitting mosquitoes. The various tasks of Computational Bioacoustics are described and a wide range of audio parameterization and recognition tasks related to the automated recognition of species and sound events is discussed. Many of the Computational Bioacoustics methods were originally developed for the needs of speech, audio, or image processing, and afterwards were adapted to the requirements of automated acoustic recognition of species, or were elaborated further to address the challenges of real-world operation in 24/7 mode. The interested reader is encouraged to follow the numerous references and links to web resources for further information and insights. This book is addressed to Software Engineers, IT experts, Computer Science researchers, Bioacousticians, and other practitioners concerned with the creation of new tools and services, aimed at enhancing the technological support to Computational Bioacoustics applications. STTM, Speech Technology and Text Mining in Medicine and Health Care This series demonstrates how the latest advances in speech technology and text mining positively affect patient healthcare and, in a much broader sense, public health at large. New developments in text mining methods have allowed health care providers to monitor a large population of patients at any time and from any location. Employing advanced summarization techniques, patient data can be readily extracted from extensive clinical documents in electronic health records and immediately made available to the physician. These same summarization techniques can also aid the healthcare provider in extracting from the large corpora of medical literature the relevant information for treating the patient. The series topics include the design and acceptance of speech-enabled robots that assist in the operating room, studies of signal processing and acoustic modeling for speech and communication disorders, advanced statistical speech enhancement methods for creating synthetic voice, and technologies for addressing speech and language impairments. Titles in the Series consist of both authored books and edited contributions. All authored books and contributed works are peer-reviewed. The Series is for speech scientists and speech engineers, machine learning experts, biomedical engineers, medical speech pathologists, linguists, and healthcare professionals

This book discusses offshore platform integration technology, focusing on the floatover methodology and its applications. It also addresses topics related to safety and cost-effectiveness, as well as ensuring the success of a project through careful planning and established detailed operation procedure/working manuals, which are rarely found in the published literature. Unlike other publications in this area, the book not only includes details of technology development, but also presents real project cases in the discussion to make it more comprehensible. Each topic is illustrated with carefully created sketches to show the complex operation procedures.

This textbook provides a detailed introduction to the use of software in combination with simple and economical hardware (a sound level meter with calibrated AC output and a digital recording system) to obtain sophisticated measurements usually requiring expensive equipment. It emphasizes the use of free, open source, and multiplatform software. Many commercial acoustical measurement systems use software algorithms as an integral component; however the methods are not disclosed. This book enables the reader to develop useful algorithms and provides insight into the use of digital audio editing tools to document features in the signal. Topics covered include acoustical measurement principles, in-depth critical study of uncertainty applied to acoustical measurements, digital signal processing from the basics, and metrologically-oriented spectral and statistical analysis of signals. The student will gain a deep understanding of the use of software for measurement purposes; the ability to implement software-based measurement systems; familiarity with the hardware necessary to acquire and store signals; an appreciation for the key issue of long-term preservation of signals; and a full grasp of the often neglected issue of uncertainty in acoustical measurements. Pedagogical features include in-text worked-out examples, end-of-chapter problems, a glossary of metrology terms, and extensive appendices covering statistics, proofs, additional examples, file formats, and underlying theory.

This volume collects the papers from the World Conference on Acoustic Emission 2015 (WCAE-2015) in Hawaii. The latest research and applications of Acoustic Emission (AE) are explored, with particular emphasis on detecting and processing of AE signals, development of AE instrument and testing standards, AE of materials, engineering structures and systems, including the processing of collected data and analytical techniques as well as experimental case studies.

The proceedings published in this book document and foster the goals of the 11th International Space Conference on "Protection of Materials and Structures from Space Environment" ICPMSE-11 to facilitate exchanges between members of the various engineering and science disciplines involved in the development of space materials. Contributions cover aspects of interaction with space environment of LEO, GEO, Deep Space, Planetary environments, ground-based qualification and in-flight experiments, as well as lessons learned from operational vehicles that are closely interrelated to disciplines of atmospheric sciences, solar-terrestrial interactions and space life sciences.

This book is a reprint of the topical issue “UV Astronomy 2011” published by the journal Astrophysics and Space Science. Papers included in that topical issue cover four main topics of UV astronomy: stellar physics and evolution, planets, Milky Way and other galaxies and finally, UV instrumentation with an update on the current status of the main missions and technologies. This builds on the remarkable progress made in the field since the earlier topical issue: “Space Astronomy: the UV window to the Universe” which appeared in 2008.

On the assessment of geoacoustic parameters in shallow water environments / Jean-Claude Le Gac, Yann Stéphan, Thierry Garlan, N. Weber.- Bayesian inversion of seabed reflection data / Stan E. Dosso, Charles W. Holland- Backpropagation techniques in ocean acoustic inversion: time reversal, retrogation and adjoint modelling - a review / Matthias Meyer, Jean-Pierre Hermand.- Acoustic inversion at low kHz frequencies using an active, vertical line array / Paul C. Hines, Matt Coffin.- Dispersion of broadband acoustic normal modes in the context of long range sediment tomography / Gopu Potty, James Miller- Characterization of local seabed properties using synthetized horizontal array data / Peter L. Nielsen, Mark Fallat, Christopher Harrison.- Characterization of a range-dependent environment from towed array data / Mark Fallat, Peter Nielsen, Stan E. Dosso, Martin Siderius.- Accounting for bias in horizontal wavenumber estimates due to source motion / Kyle M. Becker.- Acoustic clutter from buried submarine mud volcanoes / Charles W. Holland, Anthony L. Gerig, Piero Boni.- Nonlinear acoustical methods in the detection of gassy sediments / Jaroslaw Tegowski, Zygmunt Klusek, Jaromir Jakacki.- Acoustic scattering from submerged and buried objects / Ilkka Karasalo, Patrik Skogqvist.- High-frequency bistatic scattering experiments using proud and buried targets / Philippe Blondel, Peter F. Dobbins, Nic Jayasundere, Mario Cosci.- A sediment probe for the rapid assessment of seabed characteristics / John Osler, Arnold Furlong, Harold Christian.- Continuous acoustic monitoring of physiological and environmental processes in seagrass prairies with focus on photosynthesis / Jean-Pierre Hermand.- Shallow water tomography in a highly variable scenario / Cristiano Soares, Sergio M. Jesus, Emanuel Coelho.- Inversions of reflection loss measumements of a smooth water/sand interface / Marcia J. Isakson, Tracianne Neilsen, AndrewWorley.-Estimation of transmission loss and its uncertainty / Peter Gerstoft, Chen-Fen Huang, William Hodgkiss.- A forward model for geoacoustic inversion based on ray tracing and plane-wave refection coefficients / Jens M. Hovem, Hefeng Dong, Xiukun Li.- Inversion of the propeller harmonics from a light aircraft for the geoacoustic properties of marine sediments / Michael J. Buckingham, Eric M. Giddens, Fernardo Simonet.- Inversion of shallow water ambient noise data by means of differential evolution as a global search method / Dick G. Simons, Camiel van Moll, Chris H. Harrison.- Reflection Loss and Sub-bottom Profiling with Ambient Noise / Chris Harrison.- Inversion of geoacoustic model parameters using ship radiated noise / Ross N. Chapman, Reza M. Dizaji, R. Lyn Kirlin.- Matched-field processing of humpback whale song off eastern Australia / Aaron Thode, Peter Gerstoft, Melanie Guerra, M. Dale Stokes, Michael Noad, Douglas Cato.- Inversions of horizontal and vertical line array data for the estimation of geoacoustic model parameters / Dag Tollefsen, Michael J. Wilmut, Ross N. Chapman.- Issues of enrironment variability in inverse problems in ocean acoustics / David P. Knobles, M. Gray, Robert A. Koch, Adam Cook

“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.

The Sun, which is our own star at the center of the Solar System, gives rise to all life on Earth and is the driver of photosynthesis in plants and the source of all food and energy for living things. As seen with the naked eye, the Sun appears as a static and quiet yellow disk in the sky. However, it is a stormy and ever-changing star that contributes much more than light and heat. For example, it is the source of the beautiful northern lights and can affect our technology-based society in many ways. Our Explosive Sun: A Visual Feast of our Source of Light and Life is a great introduction to the Sun for general readers as well as scientists who are not solar physicists. The book presents the basic properties of the Sun, describes how it has fascinated humans throughout history, and shows how it influences our current technologies. The book includes a large number of illustrations and video materials for SpringerExtras, along with a PowerPoint presentation that provides a useful resource for teachers and lectures.

This volume documents the contributions presented at the Seventh Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (Sociedad Española de Astronomía, SEA). The event bought together 301 participants who presented 161 contributed talks and 120 posters, the greatest number of contributions in the history of the meeting. The fact that most exciting items of the current astronomical research were addressed in the meeting is proof of the good health of the SEA, a consolidated organization founded fifteen years ago in Barcelona.

This complete reference to marine renewable energy covers aspects of resource characterization and physical effects of harvesting the ocean's vast and powerful resources-from wave and tidal stream to ocean current energy. Experts in each of these areas contribute their insights to provide a cohesive overview of the marine renewable energy spectrum based on theoretical, numerical modeling, and field-measurement approaches. They provide clear explanations of the underlying physics and mechanics, and give close consideration to practical implementation aspects, including impacts on the physical system. Engineers, researchers, and students alike will find invaluable tools and studies that will aid them in realizing significant sustainable energy production from near-shore and ocean environments.

This book provides an introduction to the physics of interstellar gas in the Galaxy. It deals with the diffuse interstellar medium which supplies a complex environment for exploring the neutral gas content of a galaxy like the Milky Way and the techniques necessary for studying this non-stellar component. After an initial exposition of the phases of the interstellar medium and the role of gas in a spiral galaxy, the authors discuss the transition from atomic to molecular gas. They then consider basic radiative transfer and molecular spectroscopy with particular emphasis on the molecules useful for studying low-density molecular gas. Observational techniques for investigating the gas and the dust component of the diffuse interstellar medium throughout the electromagnetic spectrum are explored emphasizing results from the recent Herschel and Planck missions. A brief exposition on dust in the diffuse interstellar medium is followed by a discussion of molecular clouds in general and high-latitude molecular clouds in particular. Ways of calibrating CO observations with the molecular hydrogen content of a cloud are examined along with the dark molecular gas controversy. High-latitude molecular clouds are considered in detail as vehicles for applying the techniques developed in the book. Given the transient nature of diffuse and translucent molecular clouds, the role of turbulence in the origin and dynamics of these objects is examined in some detail. The book is targeted at graduate students or postdocs who are entering the field of interstellar medium studies.

This volume deals with topical problems concerning technology and design in construction of modern metamaterials. The authors construct the models of mechanical, electromechanical and acoustical behavior of the metamaterials, which are founded upon mechanisms existing on micro-level in interaction of elementary structures of the material. The empiric observations on the phenomenological level are used to test the created models. The book provides solutions, based on fundamental methods and models using the theory of wave propagation, nonlinear theories and composite mechanics for media with micro- and nanostructure. They include the models containing arrays of cracks, defects, with presence of micro- and nanosize piezoelectric elements and coupled physical-mechanical fields of different nature. The investigations show that the analytical, numerical and experimental methods permit evaluation of the qualitative and quantitative properties of the materials of this sort, with diagnosis of their effective characteristics, frequency intervals of effective energetic cutting and passing, as well as effective regimes of damage evaluation by the acoustic methods.

Principles of Nuclear Rocket Propulsion provides an understanding of the physical principles underlying the design and operation of nuclear fission-based rocket engines. While there are numerous texts available describing rocket engine theory and nuclear reactor theory, this is the first book available describing the integration of the two subject areas. Most of the book's emphasis is primarily on nuclear thermal rocket engines, wherein the energy of a nuclear reactor is used to heat a propellant to high temperatures and then expel it through a nozzle to produce thrust. Other concepts are also touched upon such as a section devoted to the nuclear pulse rocket concept wherein the force of externally detonated nuclear explosions is used to accelerate a spacecraft. Future crewed space missions beyond low earth orbit will almost certainly require propulsion systems with performance levels exceeding that of today's best chemical engines. A likely candidate for that propulsion system is the solid core Nuclear Thermal Rocket or NTR. Solid core NTR engines are expected to have performance levels which significantly exceed that achievable by any currently conceivable chemical engine. The challenge is in the engineering details of the design which includes not only the thermal, fluid, and mechanical aspects always present in chemical rocket engine development, but also nuclear interactions and some unique materials restrictions.

What is a musical instrument? What are the musical instruments of the future? This anthology presents thirty papers selected from the fifteen year long history of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME). NIME is a leading music technology conference, and an important venue for researchers and artists to present and discuss their explorations of musical instruments and technologies. Each of the papers is followed by commentaries written by the original authors and by leading experts. The volume covers important developments in the field, including the earliest reports of instruments like the reacTable, Overtone Violin, Pebblebox, and Plank. There are also numerous papers presenting new development platforms and technologies, as well as critical reflections, theoretical analyses and artistic experiences. The anthology is intended for newcomers who want to get an overview of recent advances in music technology. The historical traces, meta-discussions and reflections will also be of interest for longtime NIME participants. The book thus serves both as a survey of influential past work and as a starting point for new and exciting future developments.

The impact of mining is too big to ignore in a world of oversubscribed water. This is true of conventional mining as much as - or even more than - hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The legacy issues of such mining on water have not been fully appreciated, especially the irretrievable effects mining has had on communities and ecosystems around the world through its impact on water. Yet this is not an 'us-or-them' problem: the wealth, influence and technical knowledge of mining interests can and must be part of the solution. All of the contributions to this volume either consider the deficiencies of existing governance structures and the need for better ones, or explore the use of new techniques to identify and evaluate social and environmental impacts. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Water International.

This book provides an overview of paste tailings disposal at mine sites. It deals comprehensively with the characterization of sulphide-rich tailings, geotechnical and microstructural behaviour, surface tailings disposal applications, underground paste backfilling, and case studies. The authors place emphasis on the characterization, monitoring, disposal and treatment, as well as environmental considerations of problematic sulphidic tailings. The framework is supported by worldwide case studies.

Offshore drilling and constructions require exact knowledge of the geophysical properties of the seabed and sub-seabed, as unexpected objects can slow down or halt projects. This book presents the state-of-the-art in acoustic exploration of the seabed and sub-seabed, from initial designs in the 1980s to commercial contracting and operation of the Acoustic Corer (TM) in the last decade. The Acoustic Corer (TM) is a high-definition commercial acoustic sub-bottom imaging system, producing an "acoustic core" within which sub-seabed sedimentary characteristics and discrete buried objects larger than 0.5 m can be identified and mapped. It makes use of the innovative JYG-cross design, inspired by seismic reflection and uses Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) multi-angle scattering in and within the seabed to deliver unprecedented imagery. This book was written by the inventor of these concepts, a known specialist in seabed acoustics, with help from an experienced academic and author. It is intended first and foremost as a "how-to" guide for offshore industries looking at techniques to make the installation of different types of structures safe and efficient.

This monograph analyses in detail the physical aspects of the elastic waves radiation during deformation or fracture of materials. It presents the methodological bases for the practical use of acoustic emission device, and describes the results of theoretical and experimental researches of evaluation of the crack growth resistance of materials, selection of the useful AE signals. The efficiency of this methodology is shown through the diagnostics of various-purpose industrial objects. The authors obtain results of experimental researches with the help of the new methods and facilities.