IEEE Signal Processing Magazine

With a focus on practical design, the book is ideal for radio and core network planners, designers, optimizers and business development staff at operators and network equipment manufacturers. Extensive references also make it suitable for graduate and postgraduate students.

Andy Wilton is Senior Director and Chief Technologist of Motorola’s GSM Systems Division (GSD) and is responsible for technology management of GSM and UMTS products worldwide. His major activities are product innovation, technology sourcing, standards strategy and technical oversight of all GSD programs.

Tim Charity is Head of Applied Technology at Motorola’s Global Networks Services. He has led the creation of a service portfolio for GSM, CDMA, UMTS and WiMAX networks, and holds several patents relating to cellular technologies.

posted: 13 November 2008

Emerging Technologies in Wireless LANs – Theory, Design, and Deployment

Edited by Bing, Benny. Emerging Technologies in Wireless LANs – Theory, Design, and Deployment. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 853 pp. $99.00 (Hardbound).

Wireless LANs have become mainstream over the last few years. What started out as cable replacement for static desktops in indoor networks has been extended to fully mobile broadband applications involving moving vehicles, high-speed trains, and even airplanes. An increasing number of municipal governments around the world and virtually every major city in the United States are financing the deployment of 802.11 mesh networks, with the overall aim of providing ubiquitous Internet access and enhanced public services. This book is designed for a broad audience with different levels of technical background and can be used in a variety of ways: as a first course on wireless LANs, as a graduate-level textbook, or simply as a professional reference guide. It describes the key practical considerations when deploying wireless LANs and equips the reader with a solid understanding of the emerging technologies. The book comprises 38 high-quality contributions from prominent practitioners and scientists, and covers a broad range of important topics related to 802.11 networks, including quality of service, security, high-throughput systems, mesh networking, 802.11/cellular interworking, coexistence, cognitive radio resource management, range and capacity evaluation, hardware and antenna design, hotspots, new applications, ultra-wideband, and public wireless broadband.

Benny Bing is a research faculty member with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. He is an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE Senior Member, and the Editor of the IEEE Wireless Communications magazine.

posted: 23 July 2008

Essentials of UWB

Wood, Stephen and Roberto Aiello. Essentials of UWB. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 204 pp. $65.00 (Hardbound).

If you are involved in designing, building, selling, or regulating UWB devices, this concise and practical guide to UWB technology, standards, regulation, and intellectual property issues will quickly bring you up-to-speed. Packed with practical insights, implementation guidelines and application examples, Essentials of UWB is a must-have resource for wireless professionals working in the field.

Written by key figures in the development of UWB, the book describes UWB technology, and evaluates its suitability for applications in communications, radar, and imaging. UWB radios, protocols, and implementation are covered, and a thorough account of UWB industry organization completes the picture.

This is an invaluable guide for engineers involved in UWB device design, as well as for product marketing managers, sales support engineers, and technical managers. It will also appeal to engineers with a deeper technical understanding of UWB who want to gain knowledge of the broader environment and future evolutionary expectations.

Stephen Wood is a Technology Strategist at Intel Corporation. He was one of the original founders of the OFDM Alliance and has been President of WiMedia for the last three years.

Roberto Aiello is Founder and Chief Technical Officer of Staccato Communications, and former Founder, President, and CEO of Fantasma Networks. A recognized leader in the UWB community, Dr. Aiello built the first documented UWB network at Intervel Research, Paul Allen’s Research Laboratory.

posted: 7 August 2008

Fixed-Mobile Wireless Networks Convergence - Technologies, Solutions, Services

Ghetie, Joseph. Fixed-Mobile Wireless Networks Convergence - Technologies, Solutions, Services. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 413 pp. $99.00 (Hardbound).

Do you need to understand the technical solutions and associated services that allow multimedia communications between established mobile cellular networks and any form of fixed wireless communications? If so, this practical book, presenting the fundamentals of individual fixed and mobile wireless technologies in terms of architectures, standards, management capabilities, and quality of service issues, is essential reading.

Adopting the term Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC), an analysis of the interworking between cellular networks and a variety of wireless technologies such as WLAN, WiMAX, RFID, and UWB is provided. An in-depth study of the convergent solutions offered by UMA and IMS is also given, in addition to the commercial realities of implementing convergent solutions. Up-to-date information about technical solutions, products, vendors, and current service offerings is included. You’ll also find criteria for analyzing and evaluating fixed-mobile convergent products and services, and numerous diagrams and feature/component tables. This practical text is ideal for engineers and practitioners in the field of telecommunications and wireless communications, as well as for graduate students of electrical and computer engineering.

Joseph Ghetie is a Network and Systems Engineer Consultant and Instructor for his own technical consulting and training business TCOM & NET. He previously worked for Telcordia Technologies (Bell Communications Research) for over 13 years, where he was responsible for developing architectures, requirements, and designing solutions for network management integration, providing consulting, and supporting management standards development. He has taught over 35 tutorials at major international conferences and symposia, and has authored 27 advanced technical courses in data communications, telecommunications, internet networking, network and service management, and wireless communications.

posted: 13 November 2008

Image Fusion: Algorithms and Applications

Stathaki, Tania. Image Fusion: Algorithms and Applications. Burlington, MA: Academic Press (Elsevier), 2008, 500 pp. $130.00 (Hardbound).

• Combines theory and practice to create a unique point of reference
• Contains contributions from leading experts in this rapidly-developing field
• Demonstrates potential uses in military, medical and civilian areas

The growth in the use of sensor technology has led to the demand for image fusion: signal processing techniques that can combine information received from different sensors into a single composite image in an efficient and reliable manner. This book brings together classical and modern algorithms and design architectures, demonstrating through applications how these can be implemented.

Image Fusion: Algorithms and Applications provides a representative collection of the recent advances in research and development in the field of image fusion, demonstrating both spatial domain and transform domain fusion methods including Bayesian methods, statistical approaches, ICA and wavelet domain techniques. It also includes valuable material on image mosaics, remote sensing applications and performance evaluation.

This book will be an invaluable resource to R&D engineers, academic researchers and system developers requiring the most up-to-date and complete information on image fusion algorithms, design architectures and applications.

Tania Stathaki, Communications and Signal Processing Group, Imperial College London, London UK.

posted: 2 September 2008

Iterative Receiver Design

Wymeersch, Henk. Iterative Receiver Design. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 254 pp. $85.00 (Hardbound).

Iterative processing is an important technique with applications in many fields, including digital communications, image processing, and machine learning. By exploiting the power of factor graphs, this detailed survey provides a general framework for systematically developing iterative algorithms for digital receivers, and highlights connections between important algorithms. Starting with basic concepts in digital communications, progressively more complex ideas are presented and integrated, resulting in the development of cutting-edge algorithms for iterative receivers. Real-world applications are covered in detail, including decoding for turbo and LDPC codes, and detection for multi-antenna and multi-user systems. This accessible framework will allow the reader to apply factor graphs to practical problems, leading to the design of new algorithms in applications beyond digital receivers.

With many examples and algorithms in pseudo-code, this book is an invaluable resource for graduate students and researchers in electrical engineering and computer science, and for practitioners in the communications industry.

Additional resources for this title are available online at www.cambridge.org/9780521873154.

Henk Wymeersch is a postdoctoral associate in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He obtained his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Ghent University, Belgium, in 2005. In 2006, he received the Alcatel Bell Scientific Award for “an original study of Information & Communication Technology, Concepts and Multimedia applications.”

posted: 17 July 2008

Multi-Resolution Methods for Modeling and Control of Dynamical Systems

Singla, Puneet and John L. Junkins. Multi-Resolution Methods for Modeling and Control of Dynamical Systems. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press (Taylor & Hall Group), 2009, 299 pp. $119.95 (Hardbound).

Unifying the most important methodology in this field, Multi-Resolution Methods for Modeling and Control of Dynamical Systems explores existing approximation methods as well as develops new ones for the approximate solution of large-scale dynamical system problems. It brings together a wide set of material from classical orthogonal function approximation, neural network input-output approximation, finite element methods for distributed parameter systems, and various approximation methods employed in adaptive control and learning theory.

With sufficient rigor and generality, the book promotes a qualitative understanding of the development of key ideas. It facilitates a deep appreciation of the important nuances and restrictions implicit in the algorithms that affect the validity of the results produced. The text features benchmark problems throughout to offer insights and illustrate some of the computational implications. The authors provide a framework for understanding the advantages, drawbacks, and application areas of existing and new algorithms for input-output approximation. They also present novel adaptive learning algorithms that can be adjusted in real time to the various parameters of unknown mathematical models.

Features:

• Develops underlying approximation theory from first principles, building a rigorous foundation on which modern approximation methods can be broadly formulated
• Places both existing and new approximation methods in a common theoretical framework by combining classical methods from probability theory and estimation theory with methods from approximation theory
• Compares competing solutions of benchmark problems to provide a qualitative appreciation of several approaches
• Extends available methods to solve multi-resolution approximation problems in an N-dimensional space
• Assesses the reliability and limitations of approximation methods by focusing on benchmark problems where many traditional methods fail or perform poorly

Puneet Singla is currently at the University of Buffalo, New York.

John L. Junkins is currently at Texas A&M University, TX.

posted: 6 October 2008

Network Coding – An Introduction

Ho, Tracey and Desmond S. Lun. Network Coding – An Introduction. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 170 pp. $60.00 (Hardbound).

Network coding, with the potential to deliver increased network capacity, promises to have a significant impact on the way communications networks are designed, operated, and understood. This is the first book to present a unified and intuitive overview of the theory, applications, challenges, and future directions of this emerging field, making this a must-have resource for those working in wireless communications.

By explaining the ideas and practical techniques, Ho and Lun take an engineering-oriented approach, which starts with the basic ideas, models, and theory, then covers a core subset of results in detail with full proofs, while surveying others. The mathematical underpinnings, practical algorithms, and issues such as code selection, security, and network management are all covered. The key topics of inter-session (non-multicast) network coding, lossy networks, loss-less networks, and subgraph selection algorithms are discussed in detail. The result is an authoritative introduction to network coding that provides not only the background to support research efforts, but also the practical considerations for those involved in designing wireless systems.

Organized in a modular way so that you can quickly access your topic of interest, be it theoretical capacity bounds or practical implementation, this book is an essential resource for graduate students and researchers in electrical and computer engineering, as well as for practitioners in the communications industry.

Tracey Ho is Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the California Institute of Technology. In 2004, she was awarded her Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and, in 2005, was named one of the 35 top technology innovators under the age of 35 by Technology Review.

Desmond S. Lun is a Computational Biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a Research Fellow in Genetics at Harvard Medical School. In 2006, he was awarded his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

posted: 17 July 2008

Practical Signal Processing

Owen, Mark. Practical Signal Processing. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 336 pp. $75.00 (Hardbound).

The principles of signal processing are fundamental to the operation of everyday devices such as digital cameras, mobile telephones, and digital audio players. This book introduces the basic theory of digital signal processing, placing a strong emphasis on the use of techniques in real-world applications. The author uses intuitive arguments rather than mathematical ones wherever possible, reinforced by practical examples and diagrams.

The first part of the book covers sampling, quantization, the Fourier transform, filters, Bayesian methods and numerical considerations. These ideas are then developed in the second part, illustrating how they are used in audio, image, and video processing and compression, and in communications. The book concludes with methods for the efficient implementation of algorithms in hardware and software. Throughout, links between various signal processing techniques are stressed and real-world examples showing the advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches are presented, enabling the reader to choose the best solution to a given problem.

With over 200 illustrations and over 130 exercises (including solutions), this book will appeal to practitioners working in any branch of signal processing, as well as to undergraduate students of electrical and computer engineering.

Mark Owen received his Ph.D. in Speech Recognition from Cambridge University in 1992, after which he worked in industry on digital signal processing applications in video, audio, and radar. He is currently a freelance consultant in this and related fields.

posted: 23 July 2008

Quantization Noise – Roundoff Error in Digital Computation, Signal Processing, Control, and Communications

Widrow, Bernard and István Kollár. Quantization Noise – Roundoff Error in Digital Computation, Signal Processing, Control, and Communications. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 751 pp. $85.00 (Hardbound).

If you are working in digital signal processing, control, or numerical analysis, you will find this authoritative treatment of quantization noise (roundoff error) to be an invaluable resource.

Do you know where the theory of quantization noise comes from, and under what circumstances it is true? Expert authors, including the founder of the field and formulator of the theory of quantization noise, Bernard Widrow, answer these and other important practical questions. They describe and analyze uniform quantization, floating-point quantization, and their applications in detail.

Key features include:

• heuristic explanations along with rigorous proofs;
• worked examples, so that theory is understood through examples;
• focus on practical cases, engineering approach;
• analysis of floating-point roundoff;
• dither techniques and implementation issues analyzed;
• program package for MATLAB® available on the web, for simulation and analysis of fixed-point and floating-point roundoff;
• homework problems and solutions manual; and
• actively maintained website with additional text on special topics on quantization noise.

The additional resources are available online through www.cambridge.org/9780521886710.

Bernard Widrow, an internationally recognized authority in the field of quantization, is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, California. He pioneered the field and one of his papers on the topic is the standard reference. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the AAAS, a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and the winner of numerous prestigious awards.

István Kollár is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary. A Fellow of the IEEE, he has been doing research on theory and practice of quantization and roundoff for the last 30 years. He is the author of about 135 scientific publications and has been involved in several industrial development projects.

posted: 7 August 2008

Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists

Yanofsky, Noson S. and Mirco A. Mannucci. Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 384 pp. $70.00 (Hardbound).

The multidisciplinary field of quantum computing strives to exploit some of the uncanny aspects of quantum mechanics to expand our computational horizons. Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists takes readers on a tour of this fascinating area of cutting-edge research. Written in an accessible yet rigorous fashion, this book employs ideas and techniques familiar to every student of computer science. The reader is not expected to have any advanced mathematics or physics background. After presenting the necessary prerequisites, the material is organized to look at different aspects of quantum computing from the specific standpoint of computer science. There are chapters on computer architecture, algorithms, programming languages, theoretical computer science, cryptography, information theory, and hardware. The text has step-by-step examples, more than two hundred exercises with solutions, and programming drills that bring the ideas of quantum computing alive for today’s computer science students and researchers.

Nason S. Yanofsky is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York and at the PhD Program in Computer Science at the Graduate Center of CUNY.

Mirco A. Mannucci is the founder and CEO of HoloMathics, LLC, a research and development company with a focus on innovative mathematical modeling. He also serves as Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at George Mason University and the University of Maryland.

posted: 2 September 2008

Reporting Results – A Practical Guide for Engineers and Scientists

Van Aken, David C. and William F. Hosford. Reporting Results – A Practical Guide for Engineers and Scientists. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 152 pp. $19.99 (Softbound).

This brief guide is ideal for science and engineering students and professionals to help them communicate technical information clearly, accurately, and effectively. The focus is on the most common communication forms, including laboratory reports, research articles, and oral presentations, and on common issues that arise in classroom and professional practice. This book will be especially useful to students in a first chemistry or physics laboratory course. Advanced courses will often use the same formatting as is required for submission to technical journals or for technical report writing, which is the focus of this book. Good communication skills are required in all forms of technical writing and presentation. This book is designed to help the reader develop effective communication skills. It is also an ideal reference on stylistic and grammar issues. Unlike most texts, which concentrate only on writing style, this book also treats oral presentations, graphing, and analysis of data.

David C. Van Aken is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. His research interests include the physical metallurgy of ferrous alloys, experimental and theoretical aspects of phase transformations, and the mechanical behavior of structural materials.

William F. Hosford is a Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Professor Hosford’s research interests include explorations into the quantitative relationship between anisotropic yielding behavior and crystallographic texture, sheet metal forming of deformation textures in body-centered cubic metals, as well as the spheroidization of medium carbon steels.

posted: 27 June 2008

Resource Allocation for Wireless Networks – Basics, Techniques, and Applications

Han, Zhu and K. J. Ray Liu. Resource Allocation for Wireless Networks – Basics, Techniques, and Applications. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 545 pp. $99.00 (Hardbound).

Merging the fundamental principles of resource allocation with the state of the art in research and application examples, Han and Liu present a novel and comprehensive perspective for improving wireless system performance. Cross-layer multiuser optimization in wireless networks is described systematically. Starting from the basic principles, such as power control and multiple access, coverage moves to the optimization techniques for resource allocation, including formulation and analysis and game theory. Advanced topics, such as dynamic resource allocation and resource allocation in antenna-array processing and in cooperative, sensor, personal-area, and ultrawide-band networks, are then discussed. Unique in its scope, timeliness, and innovative author insights, this invaluable work will help graduate students and researchers understand the basics of wireless resource allocation while highlighting modern research topics and will help industrial engineers improve system optimization.

Zhu Han is currently an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Boise State University, Idaho. In 2003, he was awarded his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. Zhu Han has also worked for a period in industry, as an R & D Engineer for JDSD. Dr. Han is PHY/MAC Symposium Vice Chair of the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, 2008.

K. J. Ray Liu is a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher of the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Liu is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including best paper awards from IEEE Signal Processing Society (twice), IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, and EURASIP, as well as recognitions from University of Maryland, including the university-level Invention of the year Award and college-level Poole and Kent Company Senior Faculty Teaching Award.

posted: 17 July 2008

Saddlepoint Approximations with Applications

Butler, Ronald W. Saddlepoint Approximations with Applications. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 564 pp. $95.00 (Hardbound).

Modern statistical methods use models that require the computation of probabilities from complicated distributions, which can lead to intractable computations. Saddlepoint approximations can be the answer. Written from the user’s point of view, this book explains in clear, simple language how such approximate probability computations are made, taking readers from the very beginnings to current applications.

The book aims to make the subject accessible to the widest possible audience by using graduated levels of difficulty in which the core material is presented in Chapters 1-6 at an elementary mathematical level. Readers are guided in applying the methods in various computations that will build their skills and deepen their understanding when later complemented with discussion of theoretical aspects. Chapters 7-9 address the p* and r* formulas of higher-order asymptotic inference, developed through the Danish approach to the subject by Barndorff-Nielson and others. These provide a readable summary of the literature and an overview of the subject beginning with the original work of Fisher. Later chapters address special topics where saddlepoint methods have had substantial impact through particular applications. These include applications in multivariate testing, applications to stochastic systems and applied probability, bootstrap implementation in the transform domain, and Bayesian computation and inference.

No previous background in the area is required, as the book introduces the subject from the very beginning. Many data examples from real applications show the methods at work and demonstrate their practical value. Ideal from real applications show the methods at work and demonstrate their practical value. Ideal for graduate students and researchers in statistics, biostatistics, electrical engineering, econometrics, applied mathematics, and other fields where statistical and probabilistic modeling are used; this is both an entry-level text and a valuable reference.

Ronald W. Butler is Professor of Statistical Science and the Charles F. Frensley Chair in Mathematical Sciences at Southern Methodist University.

posted: 23 July 2008

Security and Cooperation in Wireless Networks – Thwarting Malicious and Selfish Behavior in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing

Buttyán, Levente and Jean-Pierre Hubaux. Security and Cooperation in Wireless Networks – Thwarting Malicious and Selfish Behavior in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 485 pp. $80.00 (Hardbound).

As wireless networking becomes almost ubiquitous, it is important to anticipate potential malicious and selfish misdeeds. This self-contained text is the first to provide a scholarly description of security and non-cooperative behavior in wireless networks.

The major networking trends are analyzed and their implications explained in terms of security and cooperation. Key problems such as cheating with identities, illegitimate access to confidential data, attacks against privacy, and “stealing of bandwidth” are described along with the existing security techniques and putative methods of protection for the future. The fundamental questions of security: user and device identification; establishment of security associations; secure and cooperative routing in multi-hop networks; fair bandwidth distribution; privacy protection, and so on, are approached from a theoretical perspective and supported by real-world examples including ad hoc, mesh, vehicular, sensor, and RFID networks. The important relationships between trust, security, and cooperation are also discussed.

End of chapter homework problems test the reader and open new directions of thought; and two tutorials in the appendices, on cryptographic protocols and game theory, provide a review of the background material required to grasp the core concepts.

Ideal for senior undergraduates and graduate students of electrical engineering and computer science, this book will also be an invaluable resource on thwarting malicious and selfish behavior for researchers and practitioners in the wireless industry.

Levente Buttyán is an Associate Professor in the Department of Telecommunications, Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), Hungary.

Jean-Pierre Hubaux is a Professor at the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.

posted: 23 July 2008

Signal Processing for Communications

Prandoni, Paolo and Martin Vetterli. Signal Processing for Communications. Lausanne, Switzerland: EPFL Press, 2008, 371 pp. $79.00 (Hardbound).

With a novel, less classical approach to the subject, the authors have written a book with the conviction that signal processing should be taught to be fun. The treatment is therefore less focused on the mathematics and more on the conceptual aspects, the idea being to allow the readers to think about the subject at a higher conceptual level, thus building the foundations for more advanced topics.

The book remains an engineering text, with the goal of helping students solve real-world problems. In this vein, the last chapter pulls together the individual topics as discussed throughout the book into an in-depth look at the development of an end-to-end communication system, namely, a modem for communicating digital information over an analog channel.

Richly illustrated with examples and exercised in each chapter, the book offers a fresh approach to the teaching of signal processing to upper-level undergraduates.

After studies in Padua and Berkeley, Paolo Prandoni received his Doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in the Audiovisual Communications Laboratory in 1999. His interests have included musical timbre, audio modeling and compression, communication system design and image analysis. He is now the founder and Director of Quividi, a company based in Paris, France, and is a visiting lecturer in signal processing at the EPFL.

Martin Vetterli works at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) on signal processing and communications, with an emphasis on wavelet theory and applications, image and video compression, joint source-channel coding, self-organized communication systems and sensor networks. He has won many prizes including the Swiss National Latsis Prize in 1996, the SPIE Presidential Award in 1999, and the IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award in 2001. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of SIAM, and has held numerous editorial roles. He is the author of two other books and more than 150 research articles.

posted: 21 August 2008

Stochastic Approximation – A Dynamical Systems Viewpoint

Borkar, Vivek S. Stochastic Approximation – A Dynamical Systems Viewpoint. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 164 pp. $70.00 (Hardbound).

This simple, compact toolkit for designing and analyzing stochastic approximation algorithms requires only basic literacy in probability and differential equations. Yet these algorithms have powerful applications – for example, in control and communications engineering, artificial intelligence and economic modeling.

The dynamical systems viewpoint treats an algorithm as a noisy discretization of a limiting differential equation and argues that, under reasonable hypotheses, it tracks the asymptotic behavior of the differential equation with probability one. The limiting differential equation, which can usually be obtained by inspection, is easier to analyze.

Novel topics covered in the book include finite-time behavior, multiple timescales and asynchronous implementation. A separate chapter gives a useful taxonomy of applications, with concrete examples from engineering and economics. Notably it covers several variants of stochastic gradient-based optimization schemes, fixed-point solvers, which are commonplace in learning algorithms for approximate dynamic programming, and some models of collective behavior. Three appendices give self-contained summaries of background material from analysis, differential equations and probability.

Ideal for graduate students, researchers and practitioners in electrical engineering and computer science, especially those working in control, communications, signal processing and machine learning, this book is also relevant to economics, probability and statistics.

Vivek S. Borkar is currently a Professor at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai, India.

posted: 6 October 2008

Stochastic Resonance – From Suprathreshold Stochastic Resonance to Stochastic Signal Quantization

McDonnell, Mark D., Nigel G. Stocks, Charles E. M. Pearce, and Derek Abbott. Stochastic Resonance – From Suprathreshold Stochastic Resonance to Stochastic Signal Quantization. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 424 pp. $160.00 (Hardbound).

Stochastic resonance occurs when random noise provides a signal processing benefit, and has been observed in many physical and biological systems. Many aspects have been hotly debated by scientists for nearly 30 years, with one of the main questions being whether biological neurons utilize stochastic resonance. This book addresses in detail various theoretical aspects of stochastic resonance with a focus on its extension to suprathreshold stochastic resonance, in the context of stochastic signal quantization theory. Models in which suprathreshold stochastic resonance occur support significantly enhanced “noise benefits”, and exploitation of the effect may prove extremely useful in the design of future engineering systems such as distributed sensor networks, nano-electronics, and biomedical prosthetics.

For the first time, this book reviews and systemizes the topic in a way that brings clarity to a range of researchers from computational neuroscientists through to electronic engineers. To set the scene, the initial chapters review stochastic resonance and outlines some of the controversies and debates that have surrounded it. The book then discusses the suprathreshold stochastic resonance effect as a form of stochastic quantization. Next, it considers various extensions, such as optimization and tradeoffs for stochastic quantizers. On the topic of biomedical prosthetics, the book culminates in a chapter on the application of suprathreshold stochastic resonance to the design of cochlear implants. Each chapter ends with a review summarizing the main points, and open questions to guide researchers into finding new research directions.

Mark D. McDonnell is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Telecommunications Research, University of South Australia, and is also appointed at the University of Adelaide. His research interests include computational neuroscience, information theory, and bio-inspired engineering.

Nigel G. Stocks is a Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick. His research lies in stochastic nonlinear systems and biomimetics.

Charles E. M. Pearce is Elder Professor of Mathematics in the School of Mathematics at the University of Adelaide, and is Editor of several journals.

Derek Abbott is a Professor in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide. He has received several awards, and has been Editor or Guest Editor on a number of journals.

posted: 6 October 2008

Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks – Theory and Applications

Li, Xiang-Yang. Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks – Theory and Applications. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 582 pp. $99.00 (Hardbound).

Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks describes the theory of ad hoc networks. It also demonstrates techniques for designing efficient algorithms and systematically analyzing their performance.

Li develops the fundamental understanding required to tackle problems in these networks by first reviewing relevant protocols, then formulating problems mathematically, and solving them algorithmically. Wireless MAC protocols, including various IEEE 802.11 protocols, 802.16, Bluetooth, and protocols for wireless sensor networks are treated in detail. Channel assignment for maximizing network capacity is covered; topology control methods are explored at length; and routing protocols for unicast, broadcast, and multicast are described and evaluated. Cross-layer optimization is also considered.

The result is a detailed account of the various algorithmic, graph-theoretical, computational-geometric, and probabilistic approaches to attack problems faced in these networks, delivering an understanding that will allow readers to develop practical solutions for themselves. This title is an invaluable resource for graduate students and researchers in electrical engineering and computer science departments, as well as for practitioners in the communications industry.

Xiang-Yang Li is currently an associate professor of computer science at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He also holds a visiting professorship or adjunct-professorship at TianJing University, WuHan University, and NanJing University, in China. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 2001 from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A leading researcher in the field of wireless networks, he has made important contributions in the areas of network topology and routing. His current research interests include cooperation, energy efficiency, and distributed algorithms for wireless ad hoc sensor networks.

posted: 23 July 2008