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Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) tools and techniques supply virtual environments that have key characteristics in common with our physical environment. Viewing and interacting with 3D objects is closer to reality than abstract mathematical and 2D approaches. Augmented Reality (AR) technology, a more expansive form of VR is emerging as a cutting-edge technology that integrates images of virtual objects into a real world. In that respect Virtual and Augmented reality can potentially serve two objectives: reflecting realism through a closer correspondence with real experience, and extending the power of computer-based technology to better reflect abstract experience. With the growing amount of digital data that can be stored and accessed there is a rising need to harness this data and transform it into an engine capable of developing our view and perception of the world and of boosting the economic activity across domain verticals. Graphs, pie charts and spreadsheet are not anymore the unique medium to convey the world. Advanced interactive patterns of visualization and representations are emerging as a viable alternative with the latest advances in emerging technologies such as AR and VR. And the potential and rewards are tremendous. This book discusses the opportunities and challenges facing the development of this technology.

When talking about modelling it is natural to talk about simulation. Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or systems over time. The objective is to generate a history of the model and the observation of that history helps us understand how the real-world system works, not necessarily involving the real-world into this process. A system (or process) model takes the form of a set of assumptions concerning its operation. In a model mathematical and logical assumptions are considered, and entities and their relationship are delimited. The objective of a model ¿ and its respective simulation ¿ is to answer a vast number of ¿what-if¿ questions. Some questions answered in this book are: What if the power distribution system does not work as expected? What if the produced ships were not able to transport all the demanded containers through the Yangtze River in China? And, what if an installed wind farm does not produce the expected amount of energyt? Answering these questions without a dynamic simulation model could be extremely expensive or even impossible in some cases and this book aims to present possible solutions to these problems.

The book presents some very interesting and excellent articles for this divergent title. The 22 chapters presented here cover core topics of computer science such as visualization of large databases, security, ontology, user interface, graphs, object oriented software developments, and on the engineering side filtering, motion dynamics, adaptive fuzzy logic, and hyper static mechanical systems. It also covers topics which are combination of computer science and engineering such as meta computing, future mobiles, colour image analysis, relative representation and recognition, and neural networks. The book will serve a unique purpose through these multi-disciplined topics to share different but interesting views on each of these topics.

Renewable Energy is energy generated from natural resources¿-¿such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat¿-¿which are naturally replenished. In 2008, about 18% of global final energy consumption came from renewables, with 13% coming from traditional biomass, such as wood burning. Hydroelectricity was the next largest renewable source, providing 3% (15% of global electricity generation), followed by solar hot water/heating, which contributed with 1.3%. Modern technologies, such as geothermal energy, wind power, solar power, and ocean energy together provided some 0.8% of final energy consumption.The book provides a forum for dissemination and exchange of up¿-¿to¿-¿date scientific information on theoretical, generic and applied areas of knowledge. The topics deal with new devices and circuits for energy systems, photovoltaic and solar thermal, wind energy systems, tidal and wave energy, fuel cell systems, bio energy and geo-energy, sustainable energy resources and systems, energy storage systems, energy market management and economics, off-grid isolated energy systems, energy in transportation systems, energy resources for portable electronics, intelligent energy power transmission, distribution and inter¿-¿connectors, energy efficient utilization, environmental issues, energy harvesting, nanotechnology in energy, policy issues on renewable energy, building design, power electronics in energy conversion, new materials for energy resources, and RF and magnetic field energy devices.

This book intends to bring together the most recent advances and applications of data mining research in the promising areas of medicine and biology from around the world. It consists of seventeen chapters, twelve related to medical research and five focused on the biological domain, which describe interesting applications, motivating progress and worthwhile results. We hope that the readers will benefit from this book and consider it as an excellent way to keep pace with the vast and diverse advances of new research efforts.

This book describes some devices that are commonly identified as tactile or force sensors. This is achieved with different degrees of detail, in a unique and actual resource, through the description of different approaches to this type of sensors. Understanding the design and the working principles of the sensors described here requires a multidisciplinary background of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, physics, biology, etc. An attempt has been made to place side by side the most pertinent information in order to reach a more productive reading not only for professionals dedicated to the design of tactile sensors, but also for all other sensor users, as for example, in the field of robotics. The latest technologies presented in this book are more focused on information readout and processing: as new materials, micro and sub-micro sensors are available, wireless transmission and processing of the sensorial information, as well as some innovative methodologies for obtaining and interpreting tactile information are also strongly evolving.

Grid research, rooted in distributed and high performance computing, started in mid-to-late 1990s. Soon afterwards, national and international research and development authorities realized the importance of the Grid and gave it a primary position on their research and development agenda. The Grid evolved from tackling data and compute-intensive problems, to addressing global-scale scientific projects, connecting businesses across the supply chain, and becoming a World Wide Grid integrated in our daily routine activities. This book tells the story of great potential, continued strength, and widespread international penetration of Grid computing. It overviews latest advances in the field and traces the evolution of selected Grid applications. The book highlights the international widespread coverage and unveils the future potential of the Grid.

For many years or decades, cochlear implants have been an exciting research area covering multiple disciplines which include surgery, engineering, audiology, speech language pathology, education and psychology, among others. Through these research studies, we have started to learn or have better understanding on various aspects of cochlear implant surgery and what follows after the surgery, the implant technology and other related aspects of cochlear implantation. Some are much better than the others but nevertheless, many are yet to be learnt. This book is intended to fill up some gaps in cochlear implant research studies. The compilation of the studies cover a fairly wide range of topics including surgical issues, some basic auditory research, and work to improve the speech or sound processing strategies, some ethical issues in language development and cochlear implantation in cases with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder. The book is meant for postgraduate students, researchers and clinicians in the field to get some updates in their respective areas.

The book provides general principles and new insights of some plant physiology aspects covering abiotic stress, plant water relations, mineral nutrition and reproduction. Plant response to reduced water availability and other abiotic stress (e.g. metals) have been analysed through changes in water absorption and transport mechanisms, as well as by molecular and genetic approach. A relatively new aspects of fruit nutrition are presented in order to provide the basis for the improvement of some fruit quality traits. The involvement of hormones, nutritional and proteomic plant profiles together with some structure/function of sexual components have also been addressed.Written by leading scientists from around the world it may serve as source of methods, theories, ideas and tools for students, researchers and experts in that areas of plant physiology.

As MRI has paved its role in diagnostic angiography. MRA has the potential to provide more physiological and pathophysiological data over the disease in addition to the anatomical information. This book is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the basics of MRI angiography. It starts with focus on the contrast agents that are mainly used in MR angiography with detailed discussion of advantage and limitations of different types of contrast. The second chapter is oriented more towards the technical consideration that contribute to good quality examination, both the non contrast and contrast based sequences from black to bright blood imaging , contrast enhanced MRA, review of clinical application of MRA in different body systems and MR venography. The second section reviews the clinical application of MRI mainly in the head and neck and brain ischemia imaging. The new high resolution intracranial plaque imaging of the branch athermanous disease, to the hemodynamic of intracranial atherosclerotic stroke and quantitative MRA imaging in neurovascular imaging, are the topics in this section. Also this section covers the future prospective and the new frontiers MRI angiography is exploring. In the third section, MRA of aortic disease in children with emphasis on cardiac MRA.

Wireless Sensor Networks came into prominence around the start of this millennium motivated by the omnipresent scenario of small-sized sensors with limited power deployed in large numbers over an area to monitor different phenomenon. The sole motivation of a large portion of research efforts has been to maximize the lifetime of the network, where network lifetime is typically measured from the instant of deployment to the point when one of the nodes has expended its limited power source and becomes in-operational - commonly referred as first node failure. Over the years, research has increasingly adopted ideas from wireless communications as well as embedded systems development in order to move this technology closer to realistic deployment scenarios. In such a rich research area as wireless sensor networks, it is difficult if not impossible to provide a comprehensive coverage of all relevant aspects. In this book, we hope to give the reader with a snapshot of some aspects of wireless sensor networks research that provides both a high level overview as well as detailed discussion on specific areas.

The recent development of communication and sensor technology results in the growth of a new attractive and challenging area - wireless sensor networks (WSNs). A wireless sensor network which consists of a large number of sensor nodes is deployed in environmental fields to serve various applications. Facilitated with the ability of wireless communication and intelligent computation, these nodes become smart sensors which do not only perceive ambient physical parameters but also be able to process information, cooperate with each other and self-organize into the network. These new features assist the sensor nodes as well as the network to operate more efficiently in terms of both data acquisition and energy consumption.Special purposes of the applications require design and operation of WSNs different from conventional networks such as the internet. The network design must take into account of the objectives of specific applications. The nature of deployed environment must be considered. The limited of sensor nodes¿ resources such as memory, computational ability, communication bandwidth and energy source are the challenges in network design. A smart wireless sensor network must be able to deal with these constraints as well as to guarantee the connectivity, coverage, reliability and security of network's operation for a maximized lifetime.This book discusses various aspects of designing such smart wireless sensor networks. Main topics includes: design methodologies, network protocols and algorithms, quality of service management, coverage optimization, time synchronization and security techniques for sensor networks.

The grandest accomplishments of engineering took place in the twentieth century. The widespread development and distribution of electricity and clean water, automobiles and airplanes, radio and television, spacecraft and lasers, antibiotics and medical imaging, computers and the Internet are just some of the highlights from a century in which engineering revolutionized and improved virtually every aspect of human life.In this book, the authors provide a glimpse of the new trends of technologies pertaining to control, management, computational intelligence and network systems.

The grandest accomplishments of engineering took place in the twentieth century. The widespread development and distribution of electricity and clean water, automobiles and airplanes, radio and television, spacecraft and lasers, antibiotics and medical imaging, computers and the Internet are just some of the highlights from a century in which engineering revolutionized and improved virtually every aspect of human life.In this book, the authors provide a glimpse of new trends in technologies pertaining to devices, computers, communications and industrial systems.

This book is intended to introduce the reader to examples of the range of practical problems posed by "Global Warming". It includes 11 chapters split into 5 sections. Section 1 outlines the recent changes in the Indian Monsoon, the importance of greenhouse gases to life, and the relative importance of changes in solar radiation in causing the changes. Section 2 discusses the changes to natural hazards such as floods, retreating glaciers and potential sea level changes. Section 3 examines planning cities and transportation systems in the light of the changes, while section 4 looks at alternative energy sources. Section 5 estimates the changes to the carbon pool in the alpine meadows of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The 11 authors come from 9 different countries, so the examples are taken from a truly international set of problems.

Global warming resulting from the use of fossil fuels is threatening the environment and energy efficiency is one of the most important ways to reduce this threat. Industry, transport and buildings are all high energy-using sectors in the world and even in the most technologically optimistic perspectives energy use is projected to increase in the next 50 years. How and when energy is used determines society's ability to create long-term sustainable energy systems. This is why this book, focusing on energy efficiency in these sectors and from different perspectives, is sharp and also important for keeping a well-founded discussion on the subject.

This book is entitled to laser welding processes. The objective is to introduce relatively established methodologies and techniques which have been studied, developed and applied either in industries or researches. State-of-the art developments aimed at improving or next generation technologies will be presented covering topics such as monitoring, modelling, control, and industrial application. This book is to provide effective solutions to various applications for field engineers and researchers who are interested in laser material processing.

Neuroimaging has become a crucial technique for Neurosciences. Different structural, functional and neurochemical methods, developed in recent decades, have allowed a systematic investigation on the role of neural substrates involved in functions performed by the central nervous system, whether normal or pathological.This book includes contributions from the general area of the neuroimaging to the understanding of normal functions and abnormalities of the central nervous system.

This book contains a number of latest research developments on nanocrystals. It is a promising new research area that has received a lot of attention in recent years. Here you will find interesting reports on cutting-edge science and technology related to synthesis, morphology control, self-assembly and application of nanocrystals. I hope that the book will lead to systematization of nanocrystal science, creation of new nanocrystal research field and further promotion of nanocrystal technology for the bright future of our children.

Bayesian networks are a very general and powerful tool that can be used for a large number of problems involving uncertainty: reasoning, learning, planning and perception. They provide a language that supports efficient algorithms for the automatic construction of expert systems in several different contexts. The range of applications of Bayesian networks currently extends over almost all fields including engineering, biology and medicine, information and communication technologies and finance. This book is a collection of original contributions to the methodology and applications of Bayesian networks. It contains recent developments in the field and illustrates, on a sample of applications, the power of Bayesian networks in dealing the modeling of complex systems. Readers that are not familiar with this tool, but have some technical background, will find in this book all necessary theoretical and practical information on how to use and implement Bayesian networks in their own work. There is no doubt that this book constitutes a valuable resource for engineers, researchers, students and all those who are interested in discovering and experiencing the potential of this major tool of the century.

Electricity is more versatile in use because it is a highly ordered form of energy that can be converted efficiently into other forms. However, the disadvantage of electricity is that it cannot be easily stored on a large scale. One of the distinctive characteristics of the electric power sector is that the amount of electricity that can be generated is relatively fixed over short periods of time, although demand for electricity fluctuates throughout the day. Almost all electrical energy used today is consumed as it is generated. This poses no hardship in conventional power plants, where the fuel consumption is varied with the load requirements. However, the photovoltaic and wind, being intermittent sources of power, cannot meet the load demand all of the time. Wherever intermittent power sources reach high levels of grid penetration, energy storage becomes one option to provide reliable energy supplies.These devices can help to make renewable energy more smooth and reliable, though the power output cannot be controlled by the grid operators. They can balance micro grids to achieve a good match between generation and load demand, which can further regulate the voltage and frequency. Also, it can significantly improve the load availability, a key requirement for any power system. The energy storage, therefore, is a desired feature to incorporate with renewable power systems, particularly in stand alone power plants. The purpose of this book is twofold. At first, for the interested researcher it shows the importance of different Energy Storage devices, but secondly, and more importantly, it forms a first attempt at dissemination of knowledge to the wider non-expert community who may wish to consider Energy Storage device for specific application. Thus this book will be helpful to provide an indication of the tools necessary for an assessment to be made Energy Storage device more powerful.

This book "Communications and Networking" focuses on the issues at the lowest two layers of communications and networking and provides recent research results on some of these issues. In particular, it first introduces recent research results on many important issues at the physical layer and data link layer of communications and networking and then briefly shows some results on some other important topics such as security and the application of wireless networks. In summary, this book covers a wide range of interesting topics of communications and networking. The introductions, data, and references in this book will help the readers know more abut this topic and help them explore this exciting and fast-evolving field.

Due to demands placed on natural resources globally and subsequent deterioration of the environment, there is a need to source and develop appropriate technology to satisfy this requirement. For decades mankind has largely depended on natural resources such as fossil fuels to meet the ever increasing energy demands. Realizing the finite nature of these resources, emphasis is now shifting to investigating alternate energy source governed by environmentally friendly principles. The abundance of biomass and associated favorable techno-economics has recently changed global perceptions of harnessing biomass as a valuable resource rather than a waste. To this end this book aims to make a contribution to exploring further this area of biomass research and development in the form of a compilation of chapters and covering areas of ecological status of different types of biomass and the roles they play in ecosystems, current status of biomass utilization and deriving energy and other value added products from biomass. In this context biomass can be defined as large plants and trees and different groups of microorganisms. This book will serve as an invaluable resource for scientists and environmental managers in planning solutions for sustainable development.

In the last decades, the Shape Memory Alloys, with their peculiar thermo-mechanical properties, high corrosion and extraordinary fatigue resistance, have become more popular in research and engineering applications. This book contains a number of relevant international contributions related to their properties, constitutive models and numerical simulation, medical and civil engineering applications, as well as aspects related to their processing.

SAW devices are widely used in multitude of device concepts mainly in MEMS and communication electronics. As such, SAW based micro sensors, actuators and communication electronic devices are well known applications of SAW technology. For example, SAW based passive micro sensors are capable of measuring physical properties such as temperature, pressure, variation in chemical properties, and SAW based communication devices perform a range of signal processing functions, such as delay lines, filters, resonators, pulse compressors, and convolvers. In recent decades, SAW based low-powered actuators and microfluidic devices have significantly added a new dimension to SAW technology. This book consists of 20 exciting chapters composed by researchers and engineers active in the field of SAW technology, biomedical and other related engineering disciplines. The topics range from basic SAW theory, materials and phenomena to advanced applications such as sensors actuators, and communication systems. As such, in addition to theoretical analysis and numerical modelling such as Finite Element Modelling (FEM) and Finite Difference Methods (FDM) of SAW devices, SAW based actuators and micro motors, and SAW based micro sensors are some of the exciting applications presented in this book. This collection of up-to-date information and research outcomes on SAW technology will be of great interest, not only to all those working in SAW based technology, but also to many more who stand to benefit from an insight into the rich opportunities that this technology has to offer, especially to develop advanced, low-powered biomedical implants and passive communication devices.

Character recognition is one of the pattern recognition technologies that are most widely used in practical applications. This book presents recent advances that are relevant to character recognition, from technical topics such as image processing, feature extraction or classification, to new applications including human-computer interfaces. The goal of this book is to provide a reference source for academic research and for professionals working in the character recognition field.

This book aims to explore the latest practices and research works in the area of sensor fusion. The book intends to provide a collection of novel ideas, theories, and solutions related to the research areas in the field of sensor fusion. This book is a unique, comprehensive, and up-to-date resource for sensor fusion systems designers. This book is appropriate for use as an upper division undergraduate or graduate level text book. It should also be of interest to researchers, who need to process and interpret the sensor data in most scientific and engineering fields. The initial chapters in this book provide a general overview of sensor fusion. The later chapters focus mostly on the applications of sensor fusion. Much of this work has been published in refereed journals and conference proceedings and these papers have been modified and edited for content and style. With contributions from the world's leading fusion researchers and academicians, this book has 22 chapters covering the fundamental theory and cutting-edge developments that are driving this field.