Blip, Ping, and Buzz

Blip, Ping, and Buzz
Author: Mark Denny
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2007-10-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780801886652

Have you ever wondered how stealth planes achieve "invisibility," how sunken ships are found, or how fishermen track schools of fish in vast expanses of ocean? Radar and sonar echolocation—a simple matter of sending, receiving, and processing signals. Weaving history with simple science, Mark Denny deftly reveals the world of radar and sonar to the curious reader, technology buff, and expert alike. He begins with an early history of the Chain Home radar system used during World War II and then provides accessible and engaging explanations of the physics that make signal processing possible. Basic diagrams and formulas show how electromagnetic and sound waves are transmitted, received, and converted into images, allowing you to literally see in the dark. A section on bioacoustic echolocation, with a focus on the superior sonar systems of bats and whales and a discussion of the advanced technology of next-generation airborne signal processors, opens the imagination to fascinating possibilities for the future.

Now Hear This

Now Hear This
Author: John Naylor
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2021-11-30
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030898776

This book explains the nature of sound both as a physical phenomenon and as a sensation, how it travels through air and water, and how the hearing system evolved to convert these vibrations into sensations. Drawing on physics, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, literature, history, anecdote, and personal experience, "Now Hear This" is a wide-ranging exploration of the nature of sound and hearing that opens up a fascinating world of sounds from the mundane to the unusual and seeks above all to persuade the reader of the wisdom of John Cage’s advice that “Wherever we are what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.”

Underwater Acoustic Signal Processing

Underwater Acoustic Signal Processing
Author: Douglas A. Abraham
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 860
Release: 2019-02-14
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3319929836

This book provides comprehensive coverage of the detection and processing of signals in underwater acoustics. Background material on active and passive sonar systems, underwater acoustics, and statistical signal processing makes the book a self-contained and valuable resource for graduate students, researchers, and active practitioners alike. Signal detection topics span a range of common signal types including signals of known form such as active sonar or communications signals; signals of unknown form, including passive sonar and narrowband signals; and transient signals such as marine mammal vocalizations. This text, along with its companion volume on beamforming, provides a thorough treatment of underwater acoustic signal processing that speaks to its author’s broad experience in the field.

The Basics of Sound

The Basics of Sound
Author: Christopher Cooper
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
Total Pages: 98
Release: 2014-07-15
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1477777660

Ticking clocks, claps of thunder, the human voice—sound is anything that can be heard. Hearing sound is one thing, but understanding just how it works and what its properties are is quite another. Answering these questions and others concerning supersonic speed and breaking the sound barrier, how the human voice and ear work, and the age-old question of whether a tree falling in the forest unobserved makes any noise, this volume provides an accessible yet detailed and amply illustrated guide to the science of sound. Also included are several fun projects, which allow readers to explore in a hands-on way the nature, quality, and behavior of sound.

Georges Perec’s Geographies

Georges Perec’s Geographies
Author: Charles Forsdick
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2019-10-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1787354423

Georges Perec, novelist, filmmaker and essayist, was one of the most inventive and original writers of the twentieth century. A fascinating aspect of his work is its intrinsically geographical nature. With major projects on space and place, Perec’s writing speaks to a variety of geographical, urban and architectural concerns, both in a substantive way, including a focus on cities, streets, homes and apartments, and in a methodological way, experimenting with methods of urban exploration and observation, classification, enumeration and taxonomy. Georges Perec’s Geographies is the first book to offer a rounded picture of Perec’s geographical interests. Divided into two parts, Part I, Perec’s Geographies, explores the geographies within Perec’s work in film, literature and radio, from descriptions of streets to the spaces of his texts, while Part II, Perecquian Geographies, explores geographies in a range of material and metaphorical forms, including photographic essays, soundscapes, theatre, dance and writing, created by those directly inspired by Perec. Georges Perec’s Geographies extends the body of Perec criticism beyond Literary and French Studies to disciplines including Geography, Urban Studies, Planning and Architecture to offer a complete and systematic examination of Georges Perec’s geographies. The diversity of readings and approaches will be of interest not only to Perec readers and fans but to students and researchers across these subjects.

Biosonar

Biosonar
Author: Annemarie Surlykke
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2014-07-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1461491460

Two groups of animals, bats and odontocetes (toothed whales), have independently developed the ability to orient and detect prey by biosonar (echolocation). This active mechanism of orientation allows these animals to operate under low light conditions. Biosonar is a conceptual overview of what is known about biosonar in bats and odontocetes. Chapters are written by bat and odontocetes experts, resulting in collaborations that not only examine data on both animals, but also compare and contrast mechanisms. This book provides a unique insight that will help improve our understanding of biosonar in both animal groups.

Bat Evolution, Ecology, and Conservation

Bat Evolution, Ecology, and Conservation
Author: Rick A. Adams
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 549
Release: 2013-09-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1461473977

Recent advances in the study of bats have changed the way we understand this illusive group of mammals. This volume consist of 25 chapters and 57 authors from around the globe all writing on the most recent finding on the evolution, ecology and conservation of bats. The chapters in this book are not intended to be exhaustive literature reviews, but instead extended manuscripts that bring new and fresh perspectives. Many chapters consist of previously unpublished data and are repetitive of new insights and understanding in bat evolution, ecology and conservation. All chapters were peer-reviewed and revised by the authors. Many of the chapters are multi-authored to provide comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the topics.

Human and Machine Hearing

Human and Machine Hearing
Author: Richard F. Lyon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 600
Release: 2017-05-02
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1108132626

Human and Machine Hearing is the first book to comprehensively describe how human hearing works and how to build machines to analyze sounds in the same way that people do. Drawing on over thirty-five years of experience in analyzing hearing and building systems, Richard F. Lyon explains how we can now build machines with close-to-human abilities in speech, music, and other sound-understanding domains. He explains human hearing in terms of engineering concepts, and describes how to incorporate those concepts into machines for a wide range of modern applications. The details of this approach are presented at an accessible level, to bring a diverse range of readers, from neuroscience to engineering, to a common technical understanding. The description of hearing as signal-processing algorithms is supported by corresponding open-source code, for which the book serves as motivating documentation.

Pigeon Guided Missiles

Pigeon Guided Missiles
Author: James Moore
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2011-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0752466763

During the Second World War, an American behavioural psychologist working with pigeons discovered that the birds could be trained to recognise an object and to peck at an image of it; when loaded into the nose-cone of a missile, these pecks could be translated into adjustments to the guidance fins, steering the projectile to its target. Pigeon-Guided Missiles reveals this and other fascinating tales of daring plans from history destined to change the world we live in, yet which ended in failure, or even disaster. Some became the victims of the eccentric figures behind them, others succumbed to financial and political misfortune, and a few were just too far ahead of their time. Discover why the great groundnut scheme cost British taxpayers £49 million, why the bid to build Minerva, a whole new country in the Pacific Ocean, sank, and why the first Channel Tunnel (started in 1881, over a century before the one we know today) hit a dead end.

Intelligent Feature Selection for Machine Learning Using the Dynamic Wavelet Fingerprint

Intelligent Feature Selection for Machine Learning Using the Dynamic Wavelet Fingerprint
Author: Mark K. Hinders
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2020-07-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3030493954

This book discusses various applications of machine learning using a new approach, the dynamic wavelet fingerprint technique, to identify features for machine learning and pattern classification in time-domain signals. Whether for medical imaging or structural health monitoring, it develops analysis techniques and measurement technologies for the quantitative characterization of materials, tissues and structures by non-invasive means. Intelligent Feature Selection for Machine Learning using the Dynamic Wavelet Fingerprint begins by providing background information on machine learning and the wavelet fingerprint technique. It then progresses through six technical chapters, applying the methods discussed to particular real-world problems. Theses chapters are presented in such a way that they can be read on their own, depending on the reader’s area of interest, or read together to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to practitioners, engineers and researchers seeking to leverage the latest advances in machine learning in order to develop solutions to practical problems in structural health monitoring, medical imaging, autonomous vehicles, wireless technology, and historical conservation.