Here is a selection of new books from Wiley-IEEE Press. Members receive a 15 percent discount by using the promotional code INSAL when ordering from http://www.wiley.com/IEEE.

Electric Power System Basics

By Steve Blume [October 2007, US $59.95, 240 pp.]

This book provides the fundamentals of how large interconnected power systems work. It explains how electricity is generated and transported over high-voltage lines, transformed to lower-voltage distribution lines, and finally made available for residential, commercial, and industrial use. Readers new to the operations of electric power systems can learn the key technical fundamentals, applicable issues, and regulatory aspects of regulated and deregulated power systems from engineering, operations, and reliability perspectives.

Streamlining Digital Signal Processing

Edited by Richard Lyons [September 2007, $74.95, 354 pp.]

Based on Lyons’s DSP Tips & Tricks column in IEEE Signal Processing magazine, this book provides the tools of the trade, practical shortcuts, and engineering designs from professionals in DSP. It also describes how to reduce costs, increase processing speed, and improve the performance of DSP systems. Other signal-processing topics include digital filtering, spectrum analysis, demodulation, the generation of special signals, and the approximation of high-speed functions.

Bayesian Bounds for Parameter Estimation and Nonlinear Filtering/Tracking

Edited by Harry L. Van Trees and Kristine L. Bell [August 2007, $110.95, 928 pp.]

This title addresses problems related to the theory and application of Bayesian bounds. Included is a collection of papers dealing with topics such as the estimation of multiple parameters based on noisy measurements and the estimation of a waveform, either discrete or continuous, based on noisy measurements.

Network Security: Current Status and Future Directions

Edited by Christos Douligeris and Dimitrios N. Ser­panos [July 2007, $84.95, 592 pp.]

This publication focuses on the status of security protocols, architectures, and policies, and also attempts to predict the future by analyzing research, proposals, and trends. It provides an extensive introduction to security issues and analyzes the state-of-the-art aspects of security, including denial-of-service and distributed denial-of-service attacks.

The Web’s Awake: An Introduction to the Field of Web Science and the Concept of Web Life

By Philip Tetlow [May 2007, $49.95, 264 pp.]

Few people have studied the Web’s fundamentals from a socio­technical perspective, leaving the virtual anatomy of the Web relatively unexplored. Tetlow investigates that gap, citing a number of similarities from studies relating to both real-world and digital systems. The author concludes that the Web has the potential to take on a life of its own.

Steve Blume on the Fundamentals of Electric Power Systems

Founder and chief executive officer of Applied Professional Training Inc., in Carlsbad, Calif., Steve Blume has been teaching people about electric power systems for almost two decades. APT offers courses in electric power and telecommunications to workers in those fields.

Now Blume, an IEEE senior member, is spreading his knowledge to a wider audience with his new book, Electric Power System Basics. “Lawyers, lobbyists, manufacturers, and many other nontechnical professionals can all use a basic understanding of how electric power systems work,” he says. His book is written in simple language, using hundreds of graphics to illustrate and simplify complex points.

Before he could teach others, Blume first spent years learning the basics himself. In 1978, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, he joined Sierra Pacific Power Co., in Carson City, Nev. In 15 years there, he rotated through many positions, learning the electric power business. Many of those jobs involved training co-workers, which became his favorite task. His passion for teaching inspired him to found APT in 1993.

APT has offered a basic course on electric power systems for a few years at conferences sponsored by the IEEE Power Engineering Society. In light of the course’s success, IEEE Press asked Blume to write a book. He accepted the offer as another opportunity to teach. “I want to give newcomers the fundamental information about power systems that took me years to learn,” he says.