Digital Communicationss and Applications, 

Long considered the stuff of science fiction, a prosthetic hand capable of fully replicating all of that appendage's various functions is closer to becoming reality than ever before. This book provides a comprehensive report on exciting recent developments in hybrid control techniques--one of the most crucial hurdles to be overcome in creating smart prosthetic hands.

Coauthored by two of the world's foremost pioneering experts in the field, Fusion of Hard and Soft Control Strategies for Robotic Hand treats robotic hands for multiple applications. Itbegins withan overview of advances in main control techniques that have been made over the past decade before addressing the military context for affordable robotic hand technology with tactile and/or proprioceptive feedback for hand amputees. Kinematics, homogeneous transformations, inverse and differential kinematics, trajectory planning, and dynamic models of two-link thumb and three-link index finger are discussed in detail. The remainder of the book is devoted to the most promising soft computing techniques, particle swarm optimization techniques, and strategies combining hard and soft controls.

In addition, the book:

• Includes a report on exciting new developments in prosthetic/robotic hand technology, with an emphasis on the fusion of hard and soft control strategies
• Covers both prosthetic and non-prosthetic hand designs for everything from routine human operations, robotic surgery, and repair and maintenance, to hazardous materials handling, space applications, explosives disposal, and more
• Provides a comprehensive overview of five-fingered robotic hand technology kinematics, dynamics, and control
• Features detailed coverage of important recent developments in neuroprosthetics

Fusion of Hard and Soft Control Strategies for Robotic Hand is a must-read for researchers in control engineering, robotic engineering, biomedical sciences and engineering, and rehabilitation engineering.

• Shows how dissipative or lossy gain-compensation-matching circuits can offer an important trade-off between power gain, reflection coefficient, and operating frequency bandwidth
• Describes the design of broadband RF and microwave amplifiers using real frequency techniques (RFTs), supplying numerous examples based on the MATLAB(R) programming process
• Examines Class-E power amplifiers, Doherty amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, microwave gallium arsenide field-effect transistor (GaAs FET)-distributed amplifiers, and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) amplifiers for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications

Broadband RF and Microwave Amplifiers combines theoretical analysis with practical design to create a solid foundation for innovative ideas and circuit design techniques.

This brand new edition of one of the most authoritative books on risk assessment adds ten new chapters to its pages to keep readers up to date with the changes in the types of risk that individuals, businesses, and governments are being exposed to today. It leads readers through a risk assessment and shows them the proper tools to be used at various steps in the process. The book also provides readers with a toolbox of techniques that can be used to aid them in analyzing conceptual designs, completed designs, procedures, and operational risk.

Risk Assessment: Tools, Techniques, and Their Applications, Second Edition includes expanded case studies and real life examples; coverage on risk assessment software like SAPPHIRE and RAVEN; and end-of-chapter questions for students. Chapters progress from the concept of risk, through the simple risk assessment techniques, and into the more complex techniques. In addition to discussing the techniques, this book presents them in a form that the readers can readily adapt to their particular situation. Each chapter, where applicable, presents the technique discussed in that chapter and demonstrates how it is used.

• Expands on case studies and real world examples, so that the reader can see complete examples that demonstrate how each of the techniques can be used in analyzing a range of scenarios
• Includes 10 new chapters, including Bayesian and Monte Carlo Analyses; Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) Analysis; Threat Assessment Techniques; Cyber Risk Assessment; High Risk Technologies; Enterprise Risk Management Techniques
• Adds end-of-chapter questions for students, and provides a solutions manual for academic adopters
• Acts as a practical toolkit that can accompany the practitioner as they perform a risk assessment and allows the reader to identify the right assessment for their situation
• Presents risk assessment techniques in a form that the readers can readily adapt to their particular situation

Risk Assessment: Tools, Techniques, and Their Applications, Second Edition is an important book for professionals that make risk-based decisions for their companies in various industries, including the insurance industry, loss control, forensics, all domains of safety, engineering and technical fields, management science, and decision analysis. It is also an excellent standalone textbook for a risk assessment or a risk management course.

Electricity Markets: Theories and Applications offers students and practitioners a clear understanding of the fundamental concepts of the economic theories, particularly microeconomic theories, as well as information on some advanced optimization methods of electricity markets. The authors--noted experts in the field--cover the basic drivers for the transformation of the electricity industry in both the United States and around the world and discuss the fundamentals of power system operation, electricity market design and structures, and electricity market operations.

The text also explores advanced topics of power system operations and electricity market design and structure including zonal versus nodal pricing, market performance and market power issues, transmission pricing, and the emerging problems electricity markets face in smart grid and micro-grid environments. The authors also examine system planning under the context of electricity market regime. They explain the new ways to solve problems with the tremendous amount of economic data related to power systems that is now available. This important resource:

• Introduces fundamental economic concepts necessary to understand the operations and functions of electricity markets
• Presents basic characteristics of power systems and physical laws governing operation
• Includes mathematical optimization methods related to electricity markets and their applications to practical market clearing issues

Electricity Markets: Theories and Applications is an authoritative text that explores the basic concepts of the economic theories and key information on advanced optimization methods of electricity markets.