It is my pleasure and privilege to write the foreword for this book, whose results I have been following and awaiting for the last few years. This monograph represents the outcome of an ambitious project oriented towards advancing our knowledge of the way the human visual system processes images, and about the way it combines high...

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Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the next version of the protocol that is used for communications on the Internet. IPv6 is a protocol that has been in existence for many years, but it has not yet replaced IPv4. IPv4 has some limitations that were not anticipated when it was first created. Because IPv6 overcomes many of these...

I was first exposed to what would become the Internet way back in 1969, while I was still an undergraduate at Brandeis University working on ARPANet, the forerunner to the present Internet, which operated at the then blazing speed of 2,400 bps, ultimately increased to 50 Kbps (see http://www.computerhistory.org/internet_history/). I...

There are many examples of the amazing evolutionary adaptations in the animal kingdom that aid survival, but the ability of animals to hibernate is one of the most incredible. Most vertebrates must keep warm, because hypothermia or loss of body heat is potentially fatal, but some have evolved to withstand a massive drop in...

There is no escaping the reality that businesses live on the Web today. From banks to bookstores, from auctions to games, the Web is the place where most businesses ply their trade. For consumers, the Web has become the place where they do the majority of their business as well. For example, nearly 50 percent of all retail music sales in the...

Why did I...

This book covers the organization, design, and architecture of computers. Architecture is the ‘‘art or science of building; a method or style of building,’’ according to Webster’s. A computer architect develops the functional and performance specifications for the various blocks of a computer system and...

Color is one of the most fascinating areas to study. Color forms an integral part of nature, and we humans are exposed to it every day. We all have an intuitive understanding of what color is, but by studying the underlying physics, chemistry, optics, and human visual perception, the true beauty and complexity of color can be...

Malware. In my almost 15 years in information security, malware has become the most powerful tool in a cyber attacker’s arsenal. From sniffing financial records and stealing keystrokes to peer-to-peer networks and auto updating functionality, malware has become the key component in almost all successful attacks. This has not always been...

Structural design in fire conditions is conceptually similar to structural design in normal temperature conditions, but often more difficult because of internal forces induced by thermal expansion, strength reduction due to elevated temperatures, much larger deflections, and numerous other factors. Before making any design decisions it is...