Robert Spence – författare

Compact but comprehensive, this textbook presents the essential concepts of electronic circuit theory.  As well as covering classical linear theory involving resistance, capacitance and inductance it treats practical nonlinear circuits containing components such as operational amplifiers, Zener diodes and exponential diodes.  The book’s straightforward approach highlights the similarity between the equations describing direct current (DC), alternating current (AC) and small-signal nonlinear behaviour, thus making the analysis of these circuits easier to comprehend. Introductory Circuits explains: the laws and analysis of DC circuits including those containing controlled sources;AC circuits, focusing on complex currents and voltages, and with extension to frequency domain performance;opamp circuits, including their use in amplifiers and switches;change behaviour within circuits, whether intentional (small-signal performance) or caused by unwanted changes in components.In addition to worked examples within the text a number of problems for student solution are provided at the end of each chapter, ranging in difficulty from the simple to the more challenging.  Most solutions for these problems are provided in the book, while others can be found on the accompanying website.Introductory Circuits is designed for first year undergraduate mechanical, biomedical, materials, chemical and civil engineering students who are taking short electrical engineering courses and find other texts on the subject too content-heavy for their needs.  With its clear structure and consistent treatment of resistive, reactive and small-signal operation, this volume is also a great supporting text for mainstream electrical engineering students.

A powerful new image presentation technique has evolved over the last twenty years, and its value demonstrated through its support of many and varied common tasks. Conceptually, Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) is basically simple, exemplified in the physical world by the rapid riffling of the pages of a book in order to locate a known image. Advances in computation and graphics processing allow RSVP to be applied flexibly and effectively to a huge variety of common tasks such as window shopping, video fast-forward and rewind, TV channel selection and product browsing. At its heart is a remarkable feature of the human visual processing system known as pre-attentive processing, one which supports the recognition of a known image within as little as one hundred milliseconds and without conscious cognitive effort.Knowledge of pre-attentive processing, together with extensive empirical evidence concerning RSVP, has allowed the authors to provide useful guidance to interaction designers wishing to explore the relevance of RSVP to an application, guidance which is supported by a variety of illustrative examples.

The majority of adolescent stutters have a long history of dysfluency and as they approach the final years of their schooling they may become apprehensive about their future, particulary in relation to further education, career options, job interviews etc. The treatment of this age group is further complicated by the experience of adolescence itself, and the problems presented by this group are very different to those posed by young children or adults who stutter. This book presents a Communication Skills Approach to the treatment of adolescent stuttering which has been developed over many years of clinical experience.

Information visualization is the act of gaining insight into data, and is carried out by virtually everyone. It is usually facilitated by turning data – often a collection of numbers – into images that allow much easier comprehension.Everyone benefits from information visualization, whether internet shopping, investigating fraud or indulging an interest in art. So no assumptions are made about specialist background knowledge in, for example, computer science, mathematics, programming or human cognition. Indeed, the book is directed at two main audiences. One comprises first year students of any discipline. The other comprises graduates – again of any discipline – who are taking a one- or two-year course of training to be visual and interaction designers.By focusing on the activity of design the pedagogical approach adopted by the book is based on the view that the best way to learn about the subject is to do it, to be creative: not to prepare for the ubiquitous examination paper.The content of the book, and the associated exercises, are typically used to support five creative design exercises, the final one being a group project mirroring the activity of a consultancy undertaking a design (not an implementation) for a client. Engagement with the material of this book can have a variety of outcomes. The composer of a school newsletter and the applicant for a multi-million investment should both be able to convey their message more effectively, and the curator of an exhibition will have new presentational techniques on their palette. For those students training to be visual/interaction designers the exercises have led to original and stimulating outcomes.