2016

Active and Assisted Living

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 15:44:25 GMT

Active and Assisted Living (AAL) systems aim at improving the quality of life and supporting independent and healthy living of older or impaired people by using a distributed network of sensors and actuators to create a ubiquitous technological layer, able to interact transparently with the users, observing and interpreting their actions and intentions, learning their preferences and adjusting the parameters of the system to improve their quality of life and work. This book provides a comprehensive review of the technologies and applications for AAL.

Topics covered include the current state of the art of smart environments and labs from an AAL point of view; ambient and wearable sensors for human health monitoring; computer vision for active and assisted living; data fusion for identifying lifestyle patterns; interoperable enhanced living environments; reasoning systems for AAL; person-environment interaction; data analytics for enabling connected health; human gait analysis for frailty detection; fall prevention and detection; supporting activities of daily living; outdoor mobility assistance; location and orientation technologies based on WiFi systems; health, wellbeing and engagement in life through AAL; tablet-based clinical decision support system for hospitalised older adults; smart, age-friendly cities and communities; privacy and ethical issues; and human-centred design. The book concludes with a case study on the design and implementation of a smart home technological platform for the delivery of AAL services.

With a wide range of chapters from international contributors, this book is essential reading for researchers and students in academics and industry developing AAL technologies, healthcare practitioners, and engineers with an interest in the field.

Code of Practice: Competence for Safety Related Systems Practitioners

Thu, 19 Jul 2018 19:31:13 GMT

This Code of Practice is designed to help companies assess and maintain the competence of their engineering staff particularly in safety critical areas and industries. It sets out the competencies expected and evidence required to prove competence in specific tasks and helps organisations create schemes for monitoring and measuring the competencies of its employees. Human error is still recognised as the most frequent cause of problems and the field of safety critical systems and functional safety continues to develop along with the complexity of systems.

The purpose of the Code of Practice is:

To help organisations with creating or developing a scheme for assessing the competence of people and teams undertaking safety critical functions
To demonstrate to clients that an organisation has the necessary competence to undertake particular activities and that a recognised competence measurement scheme has been used
To provide clear levels of expertise and competence required prior to recruiting engineers in safety critical roles. And subsequently for appraising / training those personnel
To help in implementing an overall competence management system (CMS) for an engineering division or organisation
To comply with regulatory requirements/relevant standards, showing duty of care and compliance to regulations and EU directives (specifically IEC 61508 and HSE requirements)
To provide evidence of best practice and high levels of competence to any industry regulator and to avoid potential litigation

Evaluation of Intelligent Road Transport Systems

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 01:45:28 GMT

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) use information and communications technologies (ICT) to deliver transport improvements instead of extending physical infrastructure, thereby saving money and reducing environmental impact. This book provides an overview of ICT-based intelligent road transport systems with an emphasis on evaluation methods and recent evaluation results of ITS development and deployment. Topics covered include: ITS evaluation policy; frameworks and methods for ITS evaluation; ITS impact evaluation; the network perspective; field operational tests (FOTs); assessing transport measures using cost-benefit and multicriteria analysis; technical assessment of the performance of in-vehicle systems; opportunities and challenges in the era of new pervasive technology; evaluation of automated driving functions; user-related evaluation of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and automated driving; evaluation of traffic management; performance assessment of a wet weather pilot system; case studies from China; heavy vehicle overload control benefit and cost. With chapters from an international panel of leading experts, this book is essential reading for researchers and advanced students from academia, industry and government working in intelligent road transport systems.

Energy Systems for Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 01:44:55 GMT

Electric and hybrid vehicles have been globally identified to be the most environmental friendly road transportation. Energy Systems for Electric and Hybrid Vehicles provides comprehensive coverage of the three main energy system technologies of these vehicles - energy sources, battery charging and vehicle-to-grid systems.

The book begins with a discussion of energy source systems, covering electrochemical energy sources, flywheel energy storage, hybrid energy sources, solar energy harvesting, electromagnetic energy regeneration and thermoelectric energy recovery. Then battery technologies are covered, including battery charging strategies and battery management techniques, emerging wireless charging techniques for electric vehicles and the concept of energy cryptography for secure wireless power transfer. Finally vehicle-to-X technology is discussed, embracing the vehicle-to-home, vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-grid energy systems, for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Combining insights from an international team of authors, this book is essential reading for researchers and advanced students developing electric/hybrid vehicles and intelligent transport systems in industry and academia.

Managing the Internet of Things

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 01:26:47 GMT

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the evolution of the internet as the interconnection not just of computers, but also uniquely identifiable, pervasive embedded devices. Research has estimated there will be nearly 30 billion devices on the Internet of Things within the next decade. The implementation and deployment of the IoT brings with it management challenges around seamless integration, heterogeneity, scalability, mobility, security, and many other issues. This book explores these challenges and possible solutions.

Topics covered include topology control for building scalable energy efficient IoT; a survey of wireless sensor network operating systems; concepts, designs and implementation of wireless sensor network operating systems; OSIRIS - a framework for sensor-based monitoring systems; modeling and tracing events in RFID-enabled supply chains; a new clone detection approach in RFID-enabled supply chains; participatory sensing networks - a paradigm to achieve IoT applications; market structure analysis of the economics of IoT; and IoT and big data applications for urban planning and building smart cities.

This book is essential reading for researchers in academia and industry developing IoT technologies - an interdisciplinary area that brings together researchers in telecommunications, sensor networks, computing and security.

Cognitive Radio Engineering

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 01:17:17 GMT

A cognitive radio is a transceiver which is aware of its environment, its own technical capabilities and limitations, and those of the radios with which it may communicate; is capable of acting on that awareness and past experience to configure itself in a way that optimizes its performance; and is capable of learning from experience. In a real sense, a cognitive radio is an intelligent communications system that designs and redesigns itself in real time.

Cognitive Radio Engineering is both a text and a reference book about cognitive radio architecture and implementation, intended for readers who want to design and build working cognitive radios. It takes the reader from conceptual block diagrams through the design and evaluation of illustrative prototypes. An important goal is to bridge the divide between radio engineers, who often have little experience with the computational resource and timing issues inherent in cognitive radios, and computer engineers who often are unaware of RF issues like dynamic range, intermodulation products, and acquisition time.

Following a brief overview of cognitive radio history and a high-level look at cognitive radio operation, the book presents a detailed study of cognitive engine design and analysis. After treating RF subsystems the book considers computational platforms and computation issues in cognitive radios, followed by system integration, evaluation methods for cognitive radio, and cognitive radio design for networking. The book concludes with coverage of cognitive radio applications in communications.

Advances in Body-Centric Wireless Communication

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 01:14:31 GMT

Body centric wireless networking and communications is an emerging 4G technology for short (1-5 m) and very short (below 1 m) range communications systems, used to connect devices worn on (or in) the body, or between two people in close proximity. It has great potential for applications in healthcare delivery, entertainment, surveillance, and emergency services. This book brings together contributions from a multidisciplinary team of researchers in the field of wireless and mobile communications, signal processing and medical measurements to present the underlying theory, implementation challenges and applications of this exciting new technology.

Topics covered include: diversity and cooperative communications in body area networks; ultra wideband radio channel characterisation for body-centric wireless communication; sparse characterisation of body-centric radio channels; antenna / human body interactions in the 60 GHz band; antennas for ingestible capsule telemetry; in vivo wireless channel modelling; diversity and MIMO for efficient front-end design of body-centric wireless communications devices; on-body antennas and radio channels for GPS applications; textile substrate integrated waveguide technology for the next-generation wearable microwave systems; ultra wideband body-centric networks for localisation and motion capture application; down scaling to the nano-scale in body-centric nano-networks; and the road ahead for body-centric wireless communication and networks.

Advanced Relay Technologies in Next Generation Wireless Communications

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 01:12:18 GMT

Cooperative networks/relaying is a fundamental design approach that has been used to reduce path-loss and fading effects in conventional wireless communication systems. This book describes the use of this approach in new and emerging telecommunications technologies and new application areas.

Topics covered include spatial modulation for cooperative networks; relaying for massive MIMO; relaying for outdoor to indoor in mmWave communications; precoding techniques for relaying with interference; relaying in full-duplex radio communication systems; relay selection in modern communication systems; relaying in green communications systems; energy-efficient relaying; cognitive radio with relaying; relaying in non-ideal conditions; relaying and physical layer secrecy; relaying technologies for smart grid; simultaneous wireless and power transfer for interference relay channel; relaying in visible light communication systems; and on-ground and on-board signal processing for multibeam.

With contributions from an international panel of experts, this book is essential reading for researchers and advanced students in academia and industry working in telecommunications system design.

Oscillator Circuits

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 00:56:56 GMT

An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit that produces a periodic (often a sine wave, a square wave, or a pulse trains) or a non-periodic (a double-mode wave or a chaotic wave) oscillating electronic signal. Oscillators convert direct current from a power supply to an alternating current signal, and are widely used in many electronic devices. This book surveys recent developments in the design, analysis and applications of this important class of circuits.

Topics covered include an introduction to recent developments; analysis of bifurcation in oscillatory circuits; fractional-order oscillators; memristive and memcapacitive astable multivibrators; piecewise-constant oscillators and their applications; master-slave synchronization of hysteresis neural-type oscillators; multimode oscillations in coupled hard-oscillators; wave propagation of phase difference in coupled oscillator arrays; coupled oscillator networks with frustration; graph comparison and synchronization in complex networks; experimental studies on reconfigurable network of chaotic oscillators; fundamental operation and design of high-frequency tuned power oscillator; ring oscillators and self-timed rings in true random number generators; and attacking on-chip oscillators in cryptographic applications.

Providing an overview of the state-of-the-art in oscillator circuits, this book is essential reading for researchers, advanced students and circuit designers working in circuit theory and modelling, especially nonlinear circuit engineering.

Optical MEMS for Chemical Analysis and Biomedicine

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 00:56:23 GMT

Optical MEMS are micro-electromechanical systems merged with micro-optics. They allow sensing or manipulating optical signals on a very small size scale using integrated mechanical, optical, and electrical systems and hold great promise specifically in biomedical applications, among others.

This book describes the current state of optical MEMS in chemical and biomedical analysis with topics covered including fabrication and manufacturing technology for optical MEMS; electrothermally-actuated MEMS scanning micromirrors and their applications in endoscopic optical coherence tomography imaging; electrowetting-based microoptics; microcameras; biologically inspired optical surfaces for miniaturized optical systems; tuning nanophotonic cavities with nanoelectromechanical systems; quantum dot nanophotonics - micropatterned excitation, microarray imaging and hyperspectral microscopy; photothermal microfluidics; optical manipulation for biomedical applications; polymer-based optofluidic lenses; and nanostructured aluminum oxide-based optical biosensing and imaging.

Bringing together topics representing the most exciting progress made and current trends in the field in recent years, this book is an essential addition to the bookshelves of researchers and advanced students working on developing, manufacturing or applying optical MEMS and other sensors.

Nano-Scaled Semiconductor Devices

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 00:54:44 GMT

The rapid evolution of integrated circuit technology has brought with it many new materials and processing steps at the nano-scale which boost the electrical performance of devices, resulting in faster and more functionally-complex electronics. However, working at this reduced scale can bring second order effects that degrade efficiency and reliability.

This book describes methods for the characterization, modelling, and simulation prediction of these second order effects in order to optimise performance, energy efficiency and new uses of nano-scaled semiconductor devices. The devices and materials covered include bulk MOSFETs, silicon-on-insulator FET devices, FinFET devices, tunneling FETs, nanowires, quantum dots, amorphous and SiGe alloys, photodetectors and micro-machined bolometers, and CMOS process-compatible silicon-in-package. The modeling and characterisation methods include computer-aided-design tools; classical, semi-classical, and quantum-semi-classical approaches; impact of technology process on device modeling; measurement and extraction of basic electrical parameters; parasitic effects and de-embedding under non-conventional bias conditions; lifetime and failure mechanisms; bias temperature instability; time-dependent breakdown mechanisms; and new approaches for device characterization including magneto-conductance and magneto-tunneling.

Nano-Scaled Semiconductor Devices is essential reading for researchers and advanced students in academia, and industry working on electronic devices, nanotechnology and semiconductor characterization. The book also covers a review on applications with a high societal impact, such as; chain food production, smart and green urban environments, water decontamination, and energy efficiency, which may serve as a reference for governmental and environmental institutions working on green and sustainable world environment initiatives.

Nano-CMOS and Post-CMOS Electronics

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 00:54:11 GMT

The demand for ever smaller and portable electronic devices has driven metal oxide semiconductor-based (CMOS) technology to its physical limit with the smallest possible feature sizes. This presents various size-related problems such as high power leakage, low-reliability, and thermal effects, and is a limit on further miniaturization. To enable even smaller electronics, various nanodevices including carbon nanotube transistors, graphene transistors, tunnel transistors and memristors (collectively called post-CMOS devices) are emerging that could replace the traditional and ubiquitous silicon transistor. This book explores these nanoelectronics at the device level including modelling and design.

Topics covered include high-k dielectrics; high mobility n and p channels on gallium arsenide and silicon substrates using interfacial misfit dislocation arrays; anodic metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors; graphene transistors; junction and doping free transistors; nanoscale gigh-k/metal-gate CMOS and FinFET based logic libraries; multiple-independent-gate nanowire transistors; carbon nanotubes for efficient power delivery; timing driven buffer insertion for carbon nanotube interconnects; memristor modeling; and neuromorphic devices and circuits.

This book is essential reading for researchers, research-focused industry designers/developers, and advanced students working on next-generation electronic devices and circuits.

Nano-CMOS and Post-CMOS Electronics

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 00:53:38 GMT

Topics covered include self-healing analog and radio frequency circuits; on-chip gate delay variability measurement in scaled technology node; nanoscale finFET devices for PVT aware SRAM; data stability and write ability enhancement techniques for finFET SRAM circuits; low-leakage techniques for nanoscale CMOS circuits; thermal effects in carbon nanotube VLSI interconnects; lumped electro-thermal modeling and analysis of carbon nanotube interconnects; high-level synthesis of digital integrated circuits in the nanoscale mobile electronics era; SPICEless RTL design optimization of nanoelectronic digital integrated circuits; green on-chip inductors for three-dimensional integrated circuits; 3D network-on-chips; and DNA computing.

This book is essential reading for researchers, research-focused industry designers/developers, and advanced students working on next-generation electronic devices and circuits.

Nanobiosensors for Personalized and Onsite Biomedical Diagnosis

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 00:14:25 GMT

Nanobiosensors have been successful for in vitro as well as in vivo detection of several biomolecules and it is expected that this technology will revolutionize point-of-care and personalized diagnostics, and will be extremely applicable for early disease detection and therapeutic applications. This book describes the emerging nanobiosensor technologies which are geared towards onsite clinical applications and those which can be used as a personalised diagnostic device. Biosensor technologies and materials covered include electrochemical biosensors; implantable microbiosensors; microfluidic technology; surface plasmon resonance-based technologies; optical and fibre-optic sensors; lateral flow biosensors; lab on a chip; nanomaterials based (graphene, nanoparticles, nanocomposites, and other carbon nanomaterial) sensors; metallic nanobiosensors; wearable and doppler-based non-contact vital signs biosensors; and technologies for smartphone based disease diagnosis. Clinical applications of these technologies covered in this book include detection of various protein biomarkers, small molecules, cancer and bacterial cells; detection of foodborne pathogens; generation and optimisation of antibodies for biosensor applications; microRNAs and their applications in diagnosis for osteoarthritis; detection of circulating tumor cells; online heartbeat monitoring; analysis of drugs in body fluids; sensing of nucleic acids; and monitoring oxidative stress.

Biomedical Nanomaterials

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 00:11:40 GMT

Nanomaterials are able to penetrate nanoscale pores of tissues, possess prolonged circulation, enter cells, and have increased surface area per volume allowing for greater drug loading. For these reasons, nanomaterials are finding numerous uses in medicine including fighting cancer, promoting tissue regeneration, reversing aging, inhibiting infection, limiting inflammation or scar tissue growth, and many others.

This book describes the engineering applications and challenges of using nanostructured surfaces and nanomaterials in healthcare. Topics covered include biomimetic coating of calcium phosphates on Ti metals; surface modifications of orthopedic implant materials using an electroplating process; design, fabrication and application of carbon-based nano biomaterials; usage of stem cells in bone and cartilage tissue engineering; nanobiomaterials and 3D bioprinting for osteochondral regeneration; self- assembled peptide hydrogels for biomedical applications; antimicrobial properties of nanomaterials; nanoparticle enhanced radiation therapy for bacterial infection; nanomaterials used in implant technology and their toxicity; challenges of risk assessment of nanomaterials in consumer products and current regulatory status; and the clinical rationale for silicon nitride bioceramics in orthopedics.

With contributions from an international selection of researchers this book is essential reading for researchers in industry and academia working at the interfaces of healthcare, engineering and nanotechnology.

Wide Area Monitoring, Protection and Control Systems

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 00:06:05 GMT

Wide area monitoring, protection and control systems (WAMPACs) have been recognized as the most promising enabling technologies to meet challenges of modern electric power transmission systems, where reliability, economics, environmental and other social objectives must be balanced to optimize the grid assets and satisfy growing electrical demand. To this aim WAMPAC requires precise phasor and frequency information, which are acquired by deploying multiple time synchronized sensors, known as Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), providing precise synchronized information about voltage and current phasors, frequency and rate-of-change-of-frequency.

This book provides an overview of this emerging technology. Topics covered include an introduction to WAMPACs; reliability-based substation monitoring systems placement; system integrity protection scheme based on PMU technology; new methodologies for large scale power system dynamic analysis; a fuzzy-based knowledge discovery paradigm for on-line optimal power flow analysis; and false data injection attacks and countermeasures for wide area measurement system.

Smarter Energy

Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:57:20 GMT

This book presents cutting-edge perspectives and research results in smart energy spanning multiple disciplines across four main topics: smart metering, smart grid modeling, control and optimization, and smart grid communications and networking.

Chapters from an international panel of experts in the field cover: privacy-preserving data aggregation in smart metering systems; smart price-based scheduling of flexible residential appliances; smart tariffs for demand response from smart metering platforms; decentralized models for real-time renewable integration in future grid; distributed and decentralized control in future power systems; multiobjective optimization for smart grid system design; frequency regulation of smart grid via dynamic demand control and battery energy storage systems; distributed frequency control and demand-side management; game theory approaches for demand side management in the smart grid; energy storage systems and grid integration; overview of research in the ADVANTAGE project; big data analysis of power grid from random matrix theory; a model-driven evaluation of demand response communication protocols for smart grid; energy efficient smart grid communications; and cyber security of smart grid state estimation.

Power Distribution Automation

Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:44:51 GMT

Utilities around the world are under increasing pressure to provide reliable and good quality power supply to their retail customers, and to reduce their operational costs. These concerns call for real time monitoring and control of the distribution system, which can be accomplished by deploying distribution automation (DA) systems, a key enabling technology for smart grids.

This book provides a detailed description of all the major components of a DA system, including communication infrastructure and analysis tools. Topics covered include communication systems for distribution automation; load flow analysis; short circuit analysis; state estimation; feeder reconfiguration for loss reduction, service restoration, and load balancing; volt-var control; fault location; fault type identification; and economic analysis/cost benefit analysis.

Concluding with an international case study (Enexis, one of the major Distribution System Operators in The Netherlands) showing how DA has been implemented in practice, this book is essential reading for researchers and advanced students working in power engineering and practitioners engaged in distribution automation, such as utility engineers, vendors, and consultants.

Periodic Control of Power Electronic Converters

Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:44:19 GMT

A key issue for power electronic converters is the ability to tackle periodic signals in electrical power processing to precisely and flexibly convert and regulate electrical power.

This book provides complete analysis and synthesis methods for periodic control systems. It covers the control, compensation, and filtering of periodic signals in power electronic power processing and proposes a unified framework for housing periodic control schemes for power converters, providing a general proportional-integral-derivative control solution to periodic signal compensation in extensive engineering applications - a perfect periodic control solution for power electronic conversion. It provides a number of demonstrative practical examples of the application of periodic control to: standalone constant-voltage-constant-frequency (CVCF) singlephase Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) inverters; standalone CVCF singlephase High Frequency Link (HFL) inverters; standalone CVCF three-phase PWM inverters; grid-connected single-phase inverters; grid-connected singlephase "Cycloconverter" type HFL rectifiers; grid-connected three-phase PWM inverters; programmable AC power sources; shunt active power filters; and UPS systems.

Periodic Control of Power Electronic Converters is of key importance for researchers and engineers in the field of power electronic converter systems and their applications, for control specialists exploring new applications of control theory in power electronics, and for advanced university students in these fields.

Methane and Hydrogen for Energy Storage

Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:37:47 GMT

Commercial energy storage has moved from the margins to the mainstream as it fosters flexibility in our smarter, increasingly integrated energy systems. Natural gas has been identified by many as the fuel to take us to the no-carbon horizon; where a hydrogen economy waits on development. These two actors are already connected in precursor applications as transitional solutions for hydrogen handling and transportation are sought ahead of a fully established hydrogen infrastructure.

This monograph explores some of leading advances in methane and hydrogen storage as well as the interesting link between these two important elements in our evolving energy system mosaic. Topics covered include: hydrogen absorption for storage; power-to-gas for energy system integration and storage; methanation for power-to-gas applications; production of hydrogen from methane decarbonisation into power to gas scenarios; power-to-gas in an ancillary service market; methane in MOFs: where, why and how; thermal management as a key in storing adsorbed natural gas; and gas hydrate potential and development for methane storage.