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The Art of Structures to be
published in English
Building on the success of the French
and Italian editions of the classic L'art
des structures by Professor Aurelio Muttoni, the EPFL Press has
announced the publication of the English edition of this work, revised
and updated, for Sping 2010. This work, dedicated to the
conception of architectural structures, aims to facilitate the dialogue
between architects and engineers. The book describes the full spectrum
of supporting structures and their function, showing how loads are
sustained and ultimately transferred to the ground. The book
favors the intuitive approach; the basics of equilibrium are thus
explained by a visual study of the internal forces of both historic and
modern structures, by the use of simple graphical tools.
 | |  | |  | | With the challenges our society faces concerning energy and the environment, it is particularly vital to develop a more rational use of our resources, both renewable and non-renewable. A sustainable use of the available resources is only possible if engineers can rely on coherent indicators, among which the exergy efficiency is bound to play a major role. | Photovoltaic technology has now developed to the extent that it is close to fulfilling the vision of a “solar-energy world,” as devices based on this technology are becoming efficient, low-cost and durable. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of thin-film silicon, the most prevalent PV material, in terms of its semiconductor nature, starting out with the physical properties, but concentrating on device applications. | The use of neural implants for stimulation and recording show excellent promise in restoring certain functions to the central nervous system; and neuroprostheses remain one of the most important tools of neuroscientists for the elucidation of the brain’s function. |
With a novel, less classical approach to the subject, the authors have
written a book with the conviction that signal processing should be
taught to be fun. The treatment is therefore less focused on the
mathematics and more on the conceptual aspects, the idea being to allow
the readers to think about the subject at a higher conceptual level,
thus building the foundations for more advanced topics.
The book remains an engineering text, with the goal of helping students
solve real-world problems. In this vein, the last chapter pulls
together the individual topics as discussed throughout the book into an
in-depth look at the development of an end-to-end communication system,
namely, a modem for communicating digital information over an analog
channel.
Richly illustrated with examples and exercises in each chapter, the
book offers a fresh approach to the teaching of signal processing to
upper-level undergraduates.
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About the
authors:
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After studies in Padua and Berkeley, Paolo Prandoni
received his Doctorate from the EPFL in the Audiovisual Communications
Laboratory in 1999. His interests have included musical timbre, audio
modelling and compression, communication system design and image
analysis. He is now the founder and Director of Quividi, a
company based in Paris, France, and is a visiting lecturer in signal
processing at the EPFL. |
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Martin Vetterli
works at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)
on signal processing and communications, with an emphasis on wavelet
theory and applications, image and video compression, joint
source-channel coding, self-organized communication systems and sensor
networks. He is currently a Vice-President of EPFL, in charge of
international relations. He has won many prizes including the Swiss
National Latsis Prize in 1996, the SPIE Presidential award in 1999, and
the IEEE Signal Processing Technical Achievement Award in 2001. He is a
fellow of the IEEE, a member of SIAM, and has held numerous editorial
roles. He is the author of two other books and more than 150 research
articles. |
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