Scalable Networks

This timely book offers a mixture of theory, experiments, and simulations that provides qualitative and quantitative insights in the field of sensor and actuator networking. The chapters are selected in a way that makes the book comprehensive and self-contained. It covers a wide range of recognized problems in sensor networks, striking a balance between theoretical and practical coverage. The book is appropriate for graduate students and practitioners working as engineers, programmers, and technologists.

Wireless sensor networks is a rapidly developing area. New applications are emerging and breakthroughs are being made in solving the underlying scientific problems.

This book presents an exciting new synthesis of directed and undirected, discrete and continuous graphical models. Combining elements of Bayesian networks and Markov random fields, the newly introduced hybrid random fields are an interesting approach to get the best of both these worlds, with an added promise of modularity and scalability. The authors have written an enjoyable book–-rigorous in the treatment of the mathematical background, but also enlivened by interesting and original historical and philosophical perspectives.

Optical networks based on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) tech­ nology offer the promise to satisfy the bandwidth requirements of the Inter­ net infrastructure, and provide a scalable solution to support the bandwidth needs of future applications in the local and wide areas. In a waveleng- routed network, an optical channel, referred to as a lightpath, is set up between two network nodes for communication. Using WDM technology, an optical fiber link can support multiple non-overlapping wavelength channels, each of which can be operated at the data rate of 10 Gbps or 40 Gbps today.

Optical networks based on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) tech­ nology offer the promise to satisfy the …