This book is devoted to the investigation of the main issues related to the sustainable realization of tele-laboratories, where real and virtual instrumentation can be shared and used in a collaborative environment. The book contains peer reviewed chapters and each presents a self-contained treatment within a framework providing an up-to-date picture of the state-of-the-art and of the most recent developments of this multi-faceted topic.

Accessing remote instrumentation worldwide is one of the goals of e-Science. The task of enabling the execution of complex experiments that involve the use of distributed scientific instruments must be supported by a number of different architectural domains, which inter-work in a coordinated fashion to provide the necessary functionality. These domains embrace the physical instruments, the communication network interconnecting the distributed systems, the service oriented abstractions and their middleware. The Grid paradigm (or, more generally, the Service Oriented Architecture -- SOA), viewed as a tool for the integration of distributed resources, plays a significant role, not only to manage computational aspects, but increasingly as an aggregator of measurement instrumentation and pervasive large-scale data acquisition platforms. In this context, the functionality of a SOA allows managing, maintaining and exploiting heterogeneous instrumentation and acquisition devices in a unified way, by providing standardized interfaces and common working environments to their users, but the peculiar aspects of dealing with real instruments of widely different categories may add new functional requirements to this scenario. On the other hand, the growing transport capacity of core and access networks allows data transfer at unprecedented speed, but new challenges arise from wireless access, wireless sensor networks, and the traversal of heterogeneous network domains. The book focuses on all aspects related to the effective exploitation of remote instrumentation and to the building complex virtual laboratories on top of real devices and infrastructures. These include SOA and related middleware, high-speed networking in support of Grid applications, wireless Grids for acquisition devices and sensor networks, Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning for real-time control, measurement instrumentation and methodology, as well as metrology issues in distributed systems.

Grid architectures, which are viewed as tools for the integration of distributed resources, play a significant role as managers of computational resources, but also as aggregators of measurement instrumentation and pervasive large-scale data acquisition platforms. The functionality of a grid architecture allows managing, maintaining, and exploiting hetereogeneous instrumentation and acquisition devices in a unifed way by providing standardized interfaces and common work environments to their users. This result is achieved through the properties of isolation from the physical network and from the peculiarites of the instrumentation granted by standard middleware together with secure and flexibile mechanisms which seek, access, and aggregate distributed resources. This book focuses on a number of aspects related to the effective exploitation of remote instrumentation on the grid. These include middleware architecture, high speed networking in support of grid applications, wireless grid for acquisition devices and sensor networks, quality of service provisioning for real time control, and measurement instrumentation.

Imaging for Forensics and Security: From Theory to Practice provides a detailed analysis of new imaging and pattern recognition techniques for the understanding and deployment of biometrics and forensic techniques as practical solutions to increase security. It contains a collection of the recent advances in the technology ranging from theory, design, and implementation to performance evaluation of biometric and forensic systems. This book also contains new methods such as the multiscale approach, directional filter bank, and wavelet maxima for the development of practical solutions to biometric problems. The book introduces a new forensic system based on shoeprint imagery with advanced techniques for use in forensics applications. It also presents the concept of protecting the originality of biometric images stored in databases against intentional and unintentional attacks and fraud detection data in order to further increase the security.

Multimedia Content Analysis: Theory and Applications covers the latest in multimedia content analysis and applications based on such analysis. As research has progressed, it has become clear that this field has to appeal to other disciplines such as psycho-physics, media production, etc. This book consists of invited chapters that cover the entire range of the field. Some of the topics covered include low-level audio-visual analysis based retrieval and indexing techniques, the TRECVID effort, video browsing interfaces, content creation and content analysis, and multimedia analysis-based applications, among others. The chapters are written by leading researchers in the multimedia field.

A practical and fascinating book on a topic at the forefront of communications technology. Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are on the verge of revolutionizing digital signal processing. Novel FPGA families are replacing ASICs and PDSPs for front-end digital signal processing algorithms at an accelerating rate. The efficient implementation of these algorithms is the main goal of this book. It starts with an overview of today's FPGA technology, devices, and tools for designing state-of-the-art DSP systems. Each of the book’s chapter contains exercises. The VERILOG source code and a glossary are given in the appendices.

This groundbreaking resource offers a comprehensive overview of cutting-edge video-based eye monitoring algorithms, as well as human factor algorithms and experiments. Helping to apply the skills in Intelligent Human Machine Interaction (IHMI), this practical reference shows how the core low-level building blocks are implemented and how they are linked with human factor algorithms and human-machine interfaces (HMI) in smart vehicles, sensitive environments and medical facilities.

Focuses on System Identification applications of the adaptive methods presented. but which can also be applied to other applications of adaptive nonlinear processes. Covers recent research results in the area of adaptive nonlinear system identification from the authors and other researchers in the field.

-Presents state-of-the-art in visual media retrieval. -Coverage of adaptive content-based retrieval systems and techniques in image and video database applications. -Includes a novel machine-controlled interactive retrieval (MCIR) method that optimizes image search in distributed digital libraries over the Internet.

Satellite Communications and Navigation Systems publishes the proceedings of the 2006 Tyrrhenian International Workshop on Digital Communications. The book focuses on the integration of communication and navigation systems in satellites.