… This very concise book covering basics to applications will serve as a fundamental hands-on book for years to come. … we congratulate the authors for their diligence, oversight, and sincere dedication for assembling such a well-organized and long overdue book on the basics and applications of polarimetric radar imaging. …

—Wolfgang-Martin Boerner, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA

Written by two of the most recognized leaders in the field, this hands-on book presents polarimetric radar imaging and processing techniques and shows how to develop remote sensing applications using polarimetric imaging radar. It introduces polarimetric scattering mechanisms, speckle statistics and speckle filtering, polarimetric information analysis and extraction techniques, and applications typical to radar polarimetric remote sensing, such as terrain and forest classification. The authors focus on Cloude and Pottier target decomposition theory as well as the complex Wishart distribution. They also offer sample PolSAR data sets and software available for download.

About the Author

Retired - Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA Universite de Rennes, France University of Rochester, New York, USA

A cutting-edge guide to the latest innovations in laser technology

The latest addition to the Wiley Series in Lasers and Applications, Phase Conjugate Laser Optics provides a complete review of the state of the art of phase conjugate lasers, including laser demonstrations, performance, technology, and a selection of the most important class of nonlinear media. Comprehensive coverage of all aspects of phase conjugate lasers includes:

• Basic principles, properties, and materials
• Phase conjugate laser architectures
• Gas and liquid Brillouin phase-conjugating mirrors
• Solid-state materials
• Brillouin-like organic crystals and glasses
• Laser designs for high-energy and high-power operation
• Pulse compression
• Photorefractive conjugators and applications
• The nonlinear effects of liquid crystal
• Self-adaptive holographic loop resonators

Featuring the expertise of twenty-five scientific professionals, all of whom have made significant contributions to the fields of optical material sciences, laser physics, and laser engineering, Phase Conjugate Laser Optics represents an important resource for both researchers and students of laser technology.

About the Author

ARNAUD BRIGNON, PhD, received an engineer diploma in optical science from Ecole Superieure d’Optique and a doctorate in physical science from Paris-Orsay University. Currently an expert scientist with Thales Research & Technology, Dr. Brignon has been awarded the 2001 Top Young Innovators Prize by MIT, and the 2000 Fresnel Prize from the European Physical Society.

JEAN-PIERRE HUIGNARD, PhD, earned the engineer diploma in optical science from Ecole Superieure d’Optique and a doctorate in physical science from Paris-Orsay University. He currently serves as Senior Scientist at Thales. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and received a prize from the French Academy of Sciences.

"Heslin's analysis convincingly shows that Statius skillfully employs the literary past to revisit familiar questions and to offer new insights. In the process, Heslin reveals a coherently intriguing and interesting Achilleid." - Charles McNelis, Georgetown University, Classical World

As we follow Achilles' metamorphosis from wild boy to demure girl to lover to hero, Statius brilliantly illustrates a series of contrasting codes of behavior: male and female, epic and elegiac. This first full-length study of the poem addresses not only the narrative itself, but also sets the myth of Achilles on Scyros within a broad interpretive framework. The exploration ranges from the reception of the Achilleid in Baroque opera to the anthropological parallels that have emerged to explain Achilles' transvestism.

The Achilleid, a brief, unfinished epic on the life of Achilles, was composed in Latin by the poet Statius in the first century AD, and focuses on the attempt by Achil les' mother, the goddess Thetis, to save her son from the Trojan War by dressing him as a girl. This first book-length study of the poem offers a detailed interpretation of Statius's narrative and explores the ramifications of this unusual interlude in Achilles' career. It also addresses questions of the poem's reception and of gender in antiquity.

About the Author

P. J. Heslin is a lecturer in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham.

One of the biggest sources of pain in system development is “system integration and test.” This is frequently where projects sailing along with all-green progress reports and Earned Value Management System status summaries start to see these indicators increasingly turn to yellow and then to red. Projects that were thought to be 80 percent complete may be found to still have another 120 percent to go, increasing the relative costs of integration and test from 20 percent of the total to 120/200 = 60 percent of the total.

Managers often look at this 60 percent figure and say, “We need to find a way to speed up integration and test,” and invest in test tools to make testing go faster. But this is not the root cause of the cost escalation. That happened a lot earlier in the definition and validation (or more often the lack of these) of the system’s architecture. Components that were supposed to fit together did not. Unsuspected features in commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products were found to be incompatible, with no way to fix them and little vendor interest in doing anything about the problems. Nominal-case tests worked beautifully but the more frequent off-nominal cases led to system failures. Readiness tests for safety and security certification were unacceptable. Defect fixes caused regression tests to fail due to unanticipated side effects. Required response times were impossible to meet. And award fees for on-time delivery and expected career promotions faded away.

Develop a loving relationship with your adopted pet

Your fun and easy guide to the challenges and rewards of adopting a pet

Thinking about adopting or rescuing an animal? This friendly guide gives you a no-nonsense introduction to the process and helps you select the right companion for you and your family. You'll see how to handle everything from feeding, health care, and housetraining to obedience, behavior issues, and special needs for older and abused animals.

Discover how to

• Work with shelters and rescue groups
• Navigate the procedures and paperwork
• Find a supportive veterinarian
• Adopt a dog, cat, bird, critter, or exotic pet
• Help your pet adjust to its new home

About the Author

Eve Adamson is an award-winning pet writer and the author, coauthor, or contributor to more than 40 books including Labrador Retrievers For Dummies and Dachshunds For Dummies. She is a contributing editor for Dog Fancy magazine and writes frequently for many pet publications; among them are Your Dog, Dogs USA, Puppies USA, Cat Fancy, Cats USA, Kittens USA, Veterinary Practice News, and Popular Pets, including the issues on Guinea Pigs, Rats, and many issues on dog training and behavior. She writes the “Good Grooming” column for AKC Family Dog magazine and a breed profile column and a natural dog care column for Pet Product News, and she is a member of the Dog Writer’s Association of America and the Cat Writer’s Association of America.

Eve is an active supporter of the Iowa City/Coralville Animal Adoption Center, where she adopted her terrier, Sally, in 1999. She lives with her family in Iowa City, which includes partner Ben Minkler, sons Angus and Emmett, terriers Sally and Jack, a parakeet named Snugglebunny, a dwarf hamster named Mr. Hampy, and three little fish ceremoniously dubbed Little Fishies 1, 2, and 3. You can find out more about Eve and her most recent publications at her Web site, www.eveadamson.com.

Provides a clearly written, real-world source of basic
information and circuit designs for up-to-date analog/digital control system design techniques using microcontrollers!

Today's control system designers face an ever-increasing "need for speed" and accuracy in their system measurements and computations. New design approaches using microcontrollers and DSP are emerging, and designers must understand these new approaches, the tools available, and how best to apply them.

This practical text covers the latest techniques in microcontroller-based control system design, making use of the popular MSP430 microcontroller from Texas Instruments.

The book covers all the circuits of the system, including:
· Sensors and their output signals
· Design and application of signal conditioning circuits
· A-to-D and D-to-A circuit design
· Operation and application of the powerful and popular TI MSP430 microcontroller
· Data transmission circuits
· System power control circuitry

Written by an experienced microcontroller engineer and textbook author, the book is lavishly illustrated and includes numerous specific circuit design examples, including a fully tested and documented hands-on project using the MSP430 that makes use of the principles described. For students, engineers, technicians, and hobbyists, this practical text provides the answers you need to design modern control systems quickly and easily.

* Seasoned Texas Instruments designer provides a ground-up perspective on embedded control systems

* Pedagogical style provides a self-learning approach with examples, quizzes and review features

* CD-ROM contains source code and more!

This book treats the question of how far we have come in understanding intelligence and in duplicating it mechanically. The major facets of intelligence--reasoning, vision, language and learning are discussed as an approach to contrasting biological intelligence with current computer realizations.

From the reviews:

"...a useful reference for all biometric security professionals and researchers. The four coauthors have a distinguished combination of academic and professional experience....Overall, readers will be pleased with the style and substance of this book." -Computing Reviews

"This is a comprehensive reviews of its topic … . The thoroughness of the treatment of biometric methods is not obvious from the title. This feature will make the book particularly valuable in some robotics contexts. … The intended audience includes researchers, practicing engineers, and students … . The book is suggested as a reference book for a graduate course on biometrics. The material is clearly presented … . This will certainly be a standard reference work in its field." (Alex M. Andrew, Robotica, Vol. 22, 2004)

"The book is the first reference on automatic fingerprint recognition and provides an in-depth survey of the fingerprint state-of-the-art, presenting the most recent advances in fingerprints … . is ideally suited to researchers and students in biometrics, pattern recognition, forensics, image processing, and computer vision. In addition, it will be essential to developers of biometric solutions, biometric users … as well as to project managers and system integrators and administrators involved in the analysis, design, and management of finger-print-based biometric systems." (Computer Spectrum, Issue 4, 2003)

This handbook provides in-depth coverage of the most recent advances and practices. Readers will find comprehensive and authoritative coverage of all the major concepts, topics, and security methods associated with fingerprint recognition. Written with the same formula that made the success of the first edition, the book includes the most recent state-of-the-art techniques in the field, as well as enhanced and updated chapters covering sensor technology, performance evaluation, standards, and securing fingerprint systems. The accompanying DVD also provides FVC2004 DB. The second edition of this comprehensive and authoritative reference, written by leading international researchers, covers all critical aspects of fingerprint security systems and technology. It is an absolutely essential resource for all biometric security professionals, researchers, practitioners, developers, and systems administrators.

This Handbook contains surveys of state-of-the-art concepts, systems, applications, best practices as well as contemporary research in the intersection between IT and finance. Included are recent trends and challenges, IT systems and architectures in finance, essential developments and case studies on management information systems, service oriented architecture modelling, IT architectures for securities trading, IT-systems in banking, process-oriented systems in corporate treasuries, grid computing and networking. The IT applications in banking, trading and insurance cover risk management and controlling, financial portals, electronic payment and others. In addition, also finance-related IT applications in non-financial companies are considered. The concept-oriented part of the book focuses on IT methods in finance like financial models and modelling financial data, planning and processes, security, algorithms and complexity.

This book addresses the most important techniques in improving the correctness of software, including correctness by construction (top-down refinement), program proving, static analysis and dynamic, execution-based analysis (testing and debugging).

Three major software verification techniques are discussed: Semantic program synthesis and analysis, static program analysis and dynamic program analysis. The correctness by construction paradigm is illustrated using the VDM-SL and the corresponding CSK Toolbox. The discussion involves the synthesis of direct and/or indirect specification, interpreting the latter and carrying out high-level testing of the specification.

Problems are included in the text and one or more difficult exercises appear at the end of each chapter. Also, where appropriate, STAD’s handling of the concepts is illustrated.

Written for advanced students and professionals wishing to explore more than one technique, this comprehensive text will be invaluable with its unique integrated approach.

In this text you will explore how information systems are used in business, and, more importantly, how the role of information systems has grown as a result of the telecommunications revolution.

About the Author

Dr. Patrick McKeown has been at the University of Georgia since 1976. He received his bachelor¿s and master¿s degrees at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina of Chapel Hill. McKeon has published more than 30 textbooks and close to 50 articles in the areas of management science and information systems.