Though noise reduction and speech enhancement problems have been studied for at least five decades, advances in our understanding and the development of reliable algorithms are more important than ever, as they support the design of tailored solutions for clearly defined applications. In this work, the authors propose a conceptual framework that can be applied to the many different aspects of noise reduction, offering a uniform approach to monaural and binaural noise reduction problems, in the time domain and in the frequency domain, and involving a single or multiple microphones. Moreover,...

This SpringerBrief investigates the special challenges of broadcast design in cognitive radio (CR) ad hoc networks. It introduces two broadcast protocols in CR ad hoc networks: a quality-of-service based broadcast protocol under blind information and a fully-distributed broadcast protocol with collision avoidance. A novel unified analytical model is also presented to analyze the performance of the broadcast protocols. This is the first book dedicated to the unique broadcast design challenges in CR ad hoc networks. The authors also discuss the recent research on the performance analysis of...

This SpringerBrief examines the use of cheap commercial passive RFID tags to achieve accurate device-free object-tracking. It presents a sensitive detector, named Twins, which uses a pair of adjacent passive tags to detect uncooperative targets (such as intruders). Twins leverages a newly observed phenomenon called critical state that is caused by interference among passive tags. The author expands on the previous object tracking methods, which are mostly device-based, and reveals a new interference model and their extensive experiments for validation. A prototype implementation of the...

This SpringerBrief presents spatio-temporal data analytics for wind energy integration using stochastic modeling and optimization methods. It explores techniques for efficiently integrating renewable energy generation into bulk power grids. The operational challenges of wind, and its variability are carefully examined. A spatio-temporal analysis approach enables the authors to develop Markov-chain-based short-term forecasts of wind farm power generation. To deal with the wind ramp dynamics, a support vector machine enhanced Markov model is introduced. The stochastic optimization of economic...

This short book presents a framework for assessing the reliability and availability of visual quality control systems, placing particular emphasis on wavelet-based analysis. It presents experimental results pertaining to the sensitivity of visual quality control to noise, as an example of dependencies. The influencing parameters are analyzed and included in the reliability model. These parameters are divided between the software and the hardware group, with one condition representing a combination of software and hardware, and another representing a combination of hardware and environmental...

This SpringerBrief presents intelligent spectrum sharing technologies for future wireless communication systems. It explains the widely used opportunistic spectrum access and TV white space sharing, which has been approved by the FCC. Four new technologies to significantly increase the efficiency of spectrum sharing are also introduced. The four technologies presented are Dynamic Spectrum Co-Access, Incentivized Cooperative Spectrum Sharing, On-Demand Spectrum Sharing and Licensed Shared Spectrum Access. These technologies shed light on future wireless communication systems and pave the way...

This brief explores current research on dynamic spectrum auctions, focusing on fundamental auction theory, characteristics of the spectrum market, spectrum auction architecture and possible auction mechanisms. The brief explains how dynamic spectrum auctions, which enable new users to gain spectrum access and existing spectrum owners to obtain financial benefits, can greatly improve spectrum efficiency by resolving the artificial spectrum shortage. It examines why operators and users face significant challenges due to specialty of the spectrum market and the related requirements imposed on...

This brief presents four practical methods to effectively explore causal relationships, which are often used for explanation, prediction and decision making in medicine, epidemiology, biology, economics, physics and social sciences. The first two methods apply conditional independence tests for causal discovery. The last two methods employ association rule mining for efficient causal hypothesis generation, and a partial association test and retrospective cohort study for validating the hypotheses. All four methods are innovative and effective in identifying potential causal relationships...

This book presents theoretical and practical aspects of the interaction between low and high level image processing. Multiresolution analysis owes its popularity mostly to wavelets and is widely used in a variety of applications. Low level image processing is important for the performance of many high level applications. The book includes examples from different research fields, i.e. video surveillance; biomedical applications (EMG and X-ray); improved communication, namely teleoperation, telemedicine, animation, augmented/virtual reality and robot vision; monitoring of the condition of ship...