The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the highest energy collider ever built. It resides near Geneva in a tunnel 3.8m wide, with a circumference of 26.7km, which was excavated in 1983-1988 to initially house the electron-positron collider LEP. The LHC was approved in 1995, and it took until 2010 for reliable operation. By now, a larger set of larger integrated luminosities have been accumulated for physics analyses in the four collider experiments: ATLAS, CMS, LHCb and ALICE.The LHC operates with an extended cryogenic plant, using a multi-stage injection system comprising the PS and SPS accelerators (still in use for particle physics experiments at lower energies). The beams are guided by 1232 superconducting high field dipole magnets.Intense works are underway in preparation of the High Luminosity LHC, aimed at upgrading the LHC and detectors for collecting ten times more luminosity, and extending the collider life to the early 2040's. So far, the (HL-)LHC project represents a cumulation of around one hundred thousand person-years of innovative work by technicians, engineers, and physicists from all over the world; probably the largest scientific effort ever in the history of humanity. The book is driven by the realisation of the unique value of this accelerator complex and by the recognition of the status of high energy physics, described by a Standard Model — which still leaves too many questions unanswered to be the appropriate theory of elementary particles and their interactions.Following the Introduction are: three chapters which focus on the initial decade of operation, leading to the celebrated discovery of the Higgs Boson, on the techniques and physics of the luminosity upgrade, and finally on major options - of using the LHC in a concurrent, power economic, electron-hadron scattering mode, when upgraded to higher energies or eventually as an injector for the next big machine. The various technical and physics chapters, provided by 61 authors, characterise the fascinating opportunities the LHC offers for the next two decades ahead (possibly longer), with the goal to substantially advance our understanding of nature.

This book provides a broad overview of both the technical challenges in sensor network development, and the real-world applications of distributed sensing. Important aspects of distributed computing in large-scale networked sensor systems are analyzed in the context of human behavior understanding, including topics on systems design tools and techniques. Additionally, the book examines a varied range of applications. Features: contains valuable contributions from an international selection of leading experts in the field; presents a high-level introduction to the aims and motivations underpinning distributed sensing; describes decision-making algorithms in the presence of complex sensor networks; provides a detailed analysis of the design, implementation, and development of a distributed network of homogeneous or heterogeneous sensors; reviews the application of distributed sensing to human behavior understanding and autonomous intelligent vehicles; includes a helpful glossary and a list of acronyms.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Activity Monitoring by Multiple Distributed Sensing, AMMDS 2014, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 2014, as a satellite event of ICPR 2014, the 22nd International Conference on Pattern Recognition. The 9 revised full papers included in the volume investigate the challenges that arise when distributed sensor networks are used to track, monitor, and understand the activity, intent, and motives of human beings. Application areas include human-computer interaction, user interface design, robot learning, and surveillance.