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This text greatly benefited from course material previously prepared by my
colleagues in the departments of electrical engineering and computer science
at City College of the City University of New York, in particular, P. Com-
bettes, I. Gladkova, B. Gross, and F. Thau. They provided either the starting
point for my subsequent efforts in this course, or the peer critique for the
early versions of this manuscript. I owe them many thanks and, of course, do
not hold them responsible for any of the remaining imperfections in the text.
The preparation of this book also owes a lot to my students. Their questions
and interest in the material contributed to many modifications in the order
and in the presentation of the different chapters. Their desire for working out
more applications led me to expand the scope of the examples and exercises
included in the text. To all of them, I am grateful.
I am also grateful to Erwin Cohen, who introduced me to the fine team at
CRC Press, and to Jerry Papke whose stewardship of the project from start to
end at CRC Press was most supportive and pleasant. The editorial and pro-
duction teams at CRC in particular, Samar Haddad, the project editor,
deserve credit for the quality of the final product rendering. Naomi
Fernandes and her colleagues at The MathWorks Inc. kindly provided me
with a copy of the new release of MATLAB for which I am grateful.
I dedicate this book to Azza, Tala, and Nigh whose support and love
always made difficult tasks a lot easier.

Jamal T. Manassah
New York, January 2001

© 2001 by CRC Press LLC