About the Author Stamatios V. Kartalopoulos is on the staff of the Advanced Optical Networking Center of Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs Innovations. His research interests and expertise include DWDM, IP, SONET/SDH and ATM systems and networks, ultrafast pattern recognition, access and enterprise systems, local area networks, satellite systems, protocols, intelligent signal processing, neural networks and fuzzy logic, control architectures, multitasking, and VLSI design. He has led and managed teams in these areas. He holds several patents, six of which (and eight pending) are in communications and optical communications systems. Dr. Kartalopoulos is the author of Understanding SONET/SDH and ATM (IEEE Press, 1999) and Understanding Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic (IEEE Press, 1996). He has published widely on the subject of networks and optical communications systems.