This book explores how Asia's fast-growing cities can fulfil their potential as engines of economic prosperity and provide a livable environment for all citizens. But for this to happen, major challenges that reduce urban communities' quality of life and economic opportunities must be addressed. These include poor planning, a lack of affordable housing, inequalities, pollution, climate vulnerabilities, and urban infrastructure deficits. The book's 19 articles unwrap these challenges and present solutions focused on smart and inclusive planning, sustainable transport and energy, innovative financing, and resilience and rejuvenation.
This report draws on the experience of Gui'an New District in the People's Republic of China to explain how intelligent transport systems can be planned, designed, and implemented. High-quality transport systems are essential for developing cities in the Asia and Pacific region to transform into safe, sustainable urban centers. Intelligent transport systems have a key role to play in boosting the operation and maintenance of urban transport modes by providing data collection, processing, and communications systems. Using Gu'ian New District as a case study, the report demonstrates how intelligent transport systems can save time, money, and lives if properly planned and implemented.
We live in a noisy world! In all applications (telecommunications, hands-free communications, recording, human-machine interfaces, etc.) that require at least one microphone, the signal of interest is usually contaminated by noise and reverberation. As a result, the microphone signal has to be "cleaned" with digital signal processing tools before it is played out, transmitted, or stored. This book is about speech enhancement. Different well-known and state-of-the-art methods for noise reduction, with one or multiple microphones, are discussed. By speech enhancement, we mean not only noise reduction but also dereverberation and separation of independent signals. These topics are also covered in this book. However, the general emphasis is on noise reduction because of the large number of applications that can benefit from this technology. The goal of this book is to provide a strong reference for researchers, engineers, and graduate students who are interested in the problem of signal and speech enhancement. To do so, we invited well-known experts to contribute chapters covering the state of the art in this focused field. TOC:Introduction.- Study of the Wiener Filter for Noise Reduction.- Statistical Methods for the Enhancement of Noisy Speech.- Single- und Multi-Microphone Spectral Amplitude Estimation Using a Super-Gaussian Speech Model.- From Volatility Modeling of Financial Time-Series to Stochastic Modeling and Enhancement of Speech Signals.- Single-Microphone Noise Suppression for 3G Handsets Based on Weighted Noise Estimation.- Signal Subspace Techniques for Speech Enhancement.- Speech Enhancement: Application of the Kalman Filter in the Estimate-Maximize (EM) Framework.- Speech Distortion Weighted Multichannel Wiener Filtering Techniques for Noise Reduction.- Adpative Microphone Arrays Employing Spatial Quadratic Soft Constraints and Spectral Shaping.- Single-Microphone Blind Dereverberation.- Separation and Dereverberation of Speech Signals with Multiple Microphones.- Frequency-Domain Blind Source Separation.- Subband Based Blind Source Separation.- Real-Time Blind Source Separation for Moving Speech Signals.- Separation of Speech by Computational Auditory Scene Analysis
At the meeting of the International Tropical Timber Organization held in Bali in 1990, ITTO adopted the target of ensuring that all tropical timber marketed internationally should, by the year 2000, come from forests that are managed sustainably. This study is an attempt to determine whether the member countries of the ITTO have a legal and administrative basis for managing their production forests in ways which will allow these forests to contribute to biological diversity conservation. It also attempts to assess the extent to which such management is already applied on the ground through member country studies. A set of guidelines on ways in which management of production forests could be improved is included.
The definitive reference for space engineers on rendezvous and docking/berthing (RVD/B) related issues, this book answers key questions such as: How does the docking vehicle accurately approach the target spacecraft? What technology is needed aboard the spacecraft to perform automatic rendezvous and docking, and what systems are required by ground control to supervise this process? How can the proper functioning of all rendezvous-related equipment, systems and operations be verified before launch? The book provides an overview of the major issues governing approach and mating strategies, and system concepts for rendezvous and docking/berthing. These issues are described and explained such that aerospace engineers, students and even newcomers to the field can acquire a basic understanding of RVD/B. The author would like to extend his thanks to Dr Shufan Wu, GNC specialist and translator of the book's Chinese edition, for his help in the compilation of these important errata.
This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the Rothamsted Millennium Conference "Interactions in the Root Environment - an Integrated Approach". The meeting brought together scientists from a range of disciplines interested in the relationship between soil biology and plant growth, reflected by the contents of the volume. Topics range from root development and nutrient flow, plant-microbe and plant-plant signaling, methods for studying bacterial and fungal diversity, to the exploitation of rhizosphere interactions for biological control of diseases and soil remediation. Authors include many internationally-recognized experts in their field and the contributions range from reviews to research papers. The volume presents a timely and wide-ranging overview of the interactions between plants, microbes and soil. It should prove an indispensable resource for students and others seeking an introduction to the topic, in addition to scientists already conversant with the area of research.
A unique and comprehensive text on the philosophy of model-based data analysis and strategy for the analysis of empirical data. The book introduces information theoretic approaches and focuses critical attention on a priori modeling and the selection of a good approximating model that best represents the inference supported by the data. It contains several new approaches to estimating model selection uncertainty and incorporating selection uncertainty into estimates of precision. An array of examples is given to illustrate various technical issues. The text has been written for biologists and statisticians using models for making inferences from empirical data.
Biopolymer-Based Composites: Drug Delivery and Biomedical Applications presents a comprehensive review on recent developments in biopolymer-based composites and their use in drug delivery and biomedical applications. The information contained in this book is critical for the more efficient use of composites, as detailed up-to-date information is a pre-requirement. The information provided brings cutting-edge developments to the attention of young investigators to encourage further advances in the field of bio-composite research. Currently, biopolymers are being investigated for the design of various drug delivery and biomedical devices due to their non-toxic, biodegradable and biocompatible nature. Mostly, biopolymer-based solid orals, gels, hydrogel beads, and transdermal matrices have been designed in order to control drug/protein release in simulated bio-fluids. - Presents the most updated information in the field of pharmaceutical and biological sciences - Contains color figures and illustrations to help users understand key topics - Useful guide for young researchers working towards new innovations - Includes chapters covered by eminent scientists in the field
