Book Review: Operational Amplifier Characteristics and Applications

Signal Analysis: ATHANASIOS PAPOULIS (McGraw-Hill, International Student Edition, 1977,431 pp., £6.95) This is the paperback version of a book published in 1977, which has earned a high reputation as a well-written and informative work covering the mathematical background to electronic communication systems. The material is handled at a fairly high level, particularly in the later chapters. However, it is presented with a clarity which enables a reader with relatively modest mathematical skills to follow the arguments and achieve a worthwhile degree of understanding; wherever appropriate, points are illustrated by diagrams. The book is divided into three main sections, which are relatively self-contained, but neverthless form a logical sequence with many cross references. The first starts with a fairly lengthy introduction which provides a thorough review of the basics and forms a valuable revision course for readers whose grasp of the theory may have faded with time. The main theme of this section covers topics such as z-transforms, Fourier transforms and Fourier series, together with their application in the analysis of analogue and digital filters and the digital simulation of analogue systems. The second section is devoted to three specialised topics, which are certainly very relevant to modem communications systems and are concerned with the effects of bandwidth limitation and time limitation ('windowing') and frequency modulation. In the third section, emphasis is placed on the analysis of systems dealing with random signals. The areas covered include the smoothing of data, correlation and spectral estimation. The book concludes with a number of problems, and their solutions, relating to the matter covered in each of the chapters, providing the reader with opportunities to test his understanding. Overall, this book is of greater relevance to postgraduate rather than undergraduate teaching. Regrettably, the copy reviewed was impaired by rather obvious errors such as the binding ofthe contents pages in the wrong order, and the quoting of incorrect page numbers in the index. A. V.LORD, Research Fellow.Department ofElectrical Engineeringand Electronics. UMIST.