Artech House

Antennas and propagation for body-centric wireless communications.

Engineers from Europe, Asia, and North America describe the possibilities, technology, and problems associated with person-to-person communications systems involving wearable hardware, embedded software, digital signal processing, and biomedical engineering. Among their topics are electromagnetic properties and modeling of the human body, antennas and propagation for microwave frequencies, the human body as a transmission channel, and space and military and tele-medicine and tele-care applications. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Delay- and disruption-tolerant networking.

A researcher and a professor at Trinity College Dublin introduce delay- and disruption-tolerant networking (DTN) techniques for achieving reliable networking under stressed and unreliable conditions. After explaining why the current internet protocol suite is not always adequate, the authors describe the bundle protocol being developed by the Internet Research Task Force, the Licklider transmission protocol, the wwwoffle proxy, TierStore, the LTP-T protocol, TP-Planet, Fidonet, erasure coding, and Postmanet. A lake water quality monitoring project and deep-space mission simulation model illustrate application of the bundle and Licklider protocols to a network. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Engineering wireless-based software systems and applications.

Computer engineers Gao, Simon Shim, Xiao Su (all San Jose State U., California), and Hsing Mei (Fu Jen Catholic U., Taiwan) offer a textbook for a graduate or undergraduate course on designing wireless-based software applications systems or mobile computing, or on wireless electronic commerce systems. They address design and construction issues in system analysis and modeling, system application architectures, mobile client design, design principles, development techniques, and design trade-offs that are needed to meet user and system requirements. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Geographic information systems demystified.

A marketing manager with a Maine environmental company, Galati presents a practical introduction to GIS technology, explaining the fundamentals, the theoretical background, and applications and environments. Among his topics are how GIS works, the structure of geographic data, the elliptoid, the map projections, thematic mapping, and the environment. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

GNSS receivers for weak signals.

Global navigational satellite systems (GNSSs) have a wide variety of applications, including positioning wireless devices, tracking during ionispheric scintillation, and determining the orbit of satellites, all of which involve weak signals. Ziedan (geomatics engineering, U. of Calgary and computer systems and engineering, Zagazig U., Egypt) examines weak signals and introduces new, more efficient receiver algorithms designed for weak signals and various dynamic conditions. He overviews GNSS principles and weak-signal processing and techniques, signal models, signal acquisition, fine acquisition, bit synchronization, data detection, code and carrier tracking, and navigation message decoding. He also offers a summary of the algorithms and their performance. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Intelligent systems modeling and decision support in bioengineering.

Mahfouf (intelligent systems engineering, U. of Sheffield) summarizes his research and results over more than two decades in intelligent systems and biomedicine, the synergy between which, he says, has had and will continue to have a significant impact on the quality of human life. He looks at modeling and controlling anesthesia, modeling and decision support in the intensive care unit, and identifying human physiological markers for physical stress. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Introduction to GPS; the Global Positioning System, 2d ed.

Featuring over 90 illustrations, this resource for students and practitioners provides a concise overview of the Global Position System (GPS) and its applications. Without going into any advanced mathematics, El-Rabbany (Ryerson U., Toronto, Canada) describes the GPS system and its components and elucidates its signal structure. Other topics include measurement errors and biases; ambiguity resolution techniques; and integration with other satellite navigation systems. The second edition features a new chapter on GPS satellite orbit. The volume concludes with a list of useful Websites. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Laser space communications.

Having worked 25 years in radar and laser communications development for private companies, Aviv says that laser communication technology provides privacy and interconnectivity with little power demand, compact size, low weight, and no requirement for an assigned frequency. He describes the engineering aspects of laser space communications systems that allow electrical engineers to design laser data links in a variety of environments. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Practical MMIC design.

An associate editor of IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques describes the design, layout, and fabrication of microwave monolithic integrated circuits (MMICs). Marsh discusses the design of resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transistors, transmission lines, amplifiers, oscillators, switches, and filters. The opening chapters consider the choice of component technology, the economic issues associated with manufacturing an MMIC design through a foundry, and the tradeoffs of designing multifunction MMICs. A few black and white photographs and a glossary are provided. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Problem solving in electromagnetics, microwave circuit, and antenna design for communications engineering.

Warnick (electrical and computer engineering, Brigham Young U.) and Russer (high-frequency engineering, Technical U. Munich) present a collection of problems and solutions in electromagnetic field theory and its applications for use in graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses, or as a reference for experienced engineers. The early chapters deal with fundamental field theory topics such as electromagnetic sources, Maxwell's equation, and static and quasi-static analysis. On this foundation, the later chapters discuss such topics as waveguides and transmission lines, antenna analysis, and numerical methods. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Road user charging and electronic toll collection.

Since being introduced in 1987, electronic toll collection on roads has become a hotly debated political issue in the management of traffic congestion. Pickford (a UK transport consultant) and Blythe (intelligent transport systems, U. of Newcastle) trace the history of "tolling," distinguish between it and road use or congestion pricing technologies, and discuss standards and the relationship between electronic charging technologies and policy. They draw on studies and international case examples of these solutions. The volume includes b&w photos of emerging options such as satellite-based systems, and a glossary of abbreviations for transportation planners and engineers. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Security for mobile networks and platforms.

Written by a security architect at Intel and two security experts working in Europe, this book describes hardware and software security approaches employed on mobile platforms, wireless protocols, and network security aspects of wireless area networks. After introducing authorization and cryptographic techniques, the authors explain communication stacks, web services, managed runtimes, certification schemes, the TLS protocol, IPsec, Bluetooth, and the IEEE 802.11 standard and countermeasures. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)