The concept of “smart city” is often used implying that the reader has a clear and
common notion of what it means. However, in the current literature it is very hard
to find a precise definition. What is even more interesting, it is not so easy to find a
precise definition of what a city is.
Wirelessmeshnetworkingisahotandgrowingtopic,stillinitsinfancyin
some ways, whilst already shown to be capable in others. From a military
beginning, mesh networks moved to civilian use and are now being
deployed worldwide as both local area networks (LANs) and metro-
politan area networks (MANs). However, these deployments are still
‘leading edge’ and it is not yet clear what the most enduring applications
of mesh will be – particularly as the market moves from early adopters
towards widespread take up.
This book was born from the perception that there is much more to spectrum use
and sharing than one sees reflected in publications, whether academic, commercial
or political. the former – in good research style – tend towards reductionism and
concentrate on specific, detailed aspects. commercial publications tend to empha-
size the positive aspects and they tend to put promise above practice. Given the ever
increasing pace of technology development and recent successes of new wireless
technologies, some pundits predict large-scale spectrum scarcity, potentially lead-
ing to economic catastrophe. Although economic theory has a hard time explaining
recent events that shook the world economy, the notion of spectrum scarcity is intui-
tively acceptable, even if not correct or immediately relevant.
Developers, manufacturers and marketers of products incorporating short-
range radio systems are experts in their fields—security, telemetry,
medical care, to name a few. Often they add a wireless interface just to
eliminate wires on an existing wired product. They may adapt a wireless
subsystem, which is easy to integrate electrically into their system, only to
find that the range is far short of what they expected, there are frequent
false alarms, or it doesn’t work at all. It is for these adapters of wireless
subsystems that this book is primarily intended.
This text, ESD Basics: From Semiconductor Manufacturing to Product Use was initiated on
the need to produce a text that addresses fundamentals of electrostatic discharge from the
manufacturing environment to today’s products. As the manufacturing world evolves, semi-
conductor networks scale, and systems are changing, the needs and requirements for reliabi-
lity and ESD protection are changing. A text is required that connects basic ESD phenomena
to today’s real world environment.
Welcome to the exciting, empowering world of home automation! If you have
ever wanted your home to do more than just protect you against the outside
elements and want to interface it to the digital domain, this book will show
you how. By demonstrating several easy-to-build projects, you will be able to
take the skills you learned from this book and expand upon and apply them
toward custom home automation projects of your own design.
District energy (DE) systems use central heating and/or cooling facilities to provide
heating and/or cooling services for communities. The advantages of district energy
over conventional heating and cooling include improved efficiency, reliability and
safety, reduced environmental impact, and for many situations better economics.
DE systems can be particularly beneficial when integrated with cogeneration plants
for electricity and heat, i.e., with combined heat and power (CHP) plants. One of
the main impediments to increased use of cogeneration-based district energy is a
lack of understanding of the behavior of integrated forms of such systems. This
book is aimed at providing information on district energy and cogeneration tech-
nologies, as well as systems that combine them.
