Searching Multimedia Databases by Content bridges the gap between the database and signal processing communities by providing the necessary background information for the reader and presenting it along with the intuition and mechanics of the best existing tools in each area. The first half of Searching Multimedia Databases by Content reviews the most successful database access methods, in increasing complexity, reaching up to spatial access methods and text retrieval. In all cases, the emphasis is on practical approaches that have been incorporated in commercial systems, or that seem very promising. The second half of the book uses the above access methods to achieve fast searching in a database of signals. A general methodology is presented, which suggests extracting a few good features from each multimedia object, thus mapping objects into points in a metric space. Finally, the book concludes by presenting some recent successful applications of the methodology on time series and color images. Searching Multimedia Databases by Content is targeted towards researchers and developers of multimedia systems. The book can also serve as a textbook for a graduate course on multimedia searching, covering both access methods as well as the basics of signal processing.

Intended for both researchers and practitioners, this book will be a valuable resource for studying and applying recent robust statistical methods. It contains up-to-date research results in the theory of robust statistics

Treats computational aspects and algorithms and shows interesting and new applications.

Some recent fuzzy database modeling advances for the non-traditional applications are introduced in this book. The focus is on database models for modeling complex information and uncertainty at the conceptual, logical, physical design levels and from integrity constraints defined on the fuzzy relations.
The database models addressed here are; the conceptual data models, including the ExIFO and ExIFO2 data models, the logical database models, including the extended NF2 database model, fuzzy object-oriented database model, and the fuzzy deductive object-oriented database model. Integrity constraints are defined on the fuzzy relations are also addressed. A continuing reason for the limited adoption of fuzzy database systems has been performance. There have been few efforts at defining physical structures that accomodate fuzzy information. A new access structure and data organization for fuzzy information is introduced in this book.

The problem of structure and motion recovery from image sequences is an important theme in computer vision. Considerable progress has been made in this field during the past two decades, resulting in successful applications in robot navigation, augmented reality, industrial inspection, medical image analysis, and digital entertainment, among other areas. However, many of these methods work only for rigid objects and static scenes. The study of non-rigid structure from motion is not only of academic significance, but also has important practical applications in real-world, nonrigid or dynamic scenarios, such as human facial expressions and moving vehicles.

This practical guide/reference provides a comprehensive overview of Euclidean structure and motion recovery, with a specific focus on factorization-based algorithms. The book discusses the latest research in this field, including the extension of the factorization algorithm to recover the structure of non-rigid objects, and presents some new algorithms developed by the authors. Readers require no significant knowledge of computer vision, although some background on projective geometry and matrix computation would be beneficial.

Topics and features: presents the first systematic study of structure and motion recovery of both rigid and non-rigid objects from images sequences; discusses in depth the theory, techniques, and applications of rigid and non-rigid factorization methods in three dimensional computer vision; examines numerous factorization algorithms, covering affine, perspective and quasi-perspective projection models; provides appendices describing the mathematical principles behind projective geometry, matrix decomposition, least squares, and nonlinear estimation techniques; includes chapter-ending review questions, and a glossary of terms used in the book.

This unique text offers practical guidance in real applications and implementations of 3D modeling systems for practitioners in computer vision and pattern recognition, as well as serving as an invaluable source of new algorithms and methodologies for structure and motion recovery for graduate students and researchers.

This text describes computer programs for simulating phenomena in hydrodynamics, gas dynamics, and elastic plastic flow in one, two, and three dimensions. Included in the two-dimensional program are Maxwell's equations, and thermal and radiation diffusion. The numerical procedures described in the text permit the exact conservation of physical properties in the solutions of the fundamental laws of mechanics. The author also treats materials, including the use of simulation programs to predict material behavior.

As audiences are increasingly no longer solely listeners but also active producer-consumers, and as video games and other interactive systems increasingly permeate our daily lives, understanding interactivity and its impact on the audience has never been more important. A collection of newly commissioned chapters on interactivity in music and sound edited by preeminent scholars in the field, this book marks the beginning of a journey into understanding the ways in which we interact with sound, and offers a new set of analytical tools for the growing field of interactive audio. What does it mean to interact with sound? How does interactivity alter our experience as creators and listeners? What makes interactive audio different from non-interactive audio? Where does interacting with audio fit into our understanding of sound and music? What does the future hold for interactive media when it comes to our musical and sonic experiences? And how do we begin to approach interactive audio from a theoretical perspective? The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio answers these questions by exploring the full range of interactive audio in video games, performance, education, environmental design, toys, and artistic practice. Examining these questions from a range of approaches - technological, emotional, psychological, and physical - the book provides a thorough overview of the fascinating experience of interactive sound.

Modeling and Simulation: Theory and Practice provides a comprehensive review of both methodologies and applications of simulation and modeling. The methodology section includes such topics as the philosophy of simulation, inverse problems in simulation, simulation model compilers, treatment of ill-defined systems, and a survey of simulation languages. The application section covers a wide range of topics, including applications to environmental management, biology and medicine, neural networks, collaborative visualization and intelligent interfaces. The book consists of 13 invited chapters written by former colleagues and students of Professor Karplus. Also included are several short 'reminiscences' describing Professor Karplus' impact on the professional careers of former colleagues and students who worked closely with him over the years.

Since the first edition of this book was published seven years ago, the field of modeling and simulation of communication systems has grown and matured in many ways, and the use of simulation as a day-to-day tool is now even more common practice. With the current interest in digital mobile communications, a primary area of application of modeling and simulation is now in wireless systems of a different flavor from the traditional' ones. This second edition represents a substantial revision of the first, partly to accommodate the new applications that have arisen. New chapters include material on modeling and simulation of nonlinear systems, with a complementary section on related measurement techniques, channel modeling and three new case studies; a consolidated set of problems is provided at the end of the book.

Known for their visibility and tendency to generate controversy, first-person shooter (FPS) games are cultural icons and powder-kegs in American society. Contributors will examine a range of FPS games such as the Doom, Half-Life, System Shock, Deus Ex, Halo, Medal of Honor and Call of Duty franchises. By applying and enriching a broad range of perspectives, this volume will address the cultural relevance and place of the genre in game studies, game theory and the cultures of game players.

Guns, Grenades, and Grunts gathers scholars from all disciplines to bring the weight of contemporary social theory and media criticism to bear on the public controversy and intellectual investigation of first-person shooter games. As a genre, FPS games have helped shepherd the game industry from the early days of shareware distribution and underground gaming clans to contemporary multimillion dollar production budgets, Hollywood-style launches, downloadable content and worldwide professional gaming leagues. The FPS has been and will continue to be a staple of the game market.

The underlying technologies enabling the realization of recent advances in areas like mobile and enterprise computing are artificial intelligence (AI), modeling and simulation, and software engineering. A disciplined, multifaceted, and unified approach to modeling and simulation is now essential in new frontiers, such as Simulation Based Acquisition. This volume is an edited survey of international scientists, academicians, and professionals who present their latest research findings in the various fields of AI; collaborative/distributed computing; and modeling, simulation, and their integration. Whereas some of these areas continue to seek answers to basic fundamental scientific inquiries, new questions have emerged only recently due to advances in computing infrastructures, technologies, and tools. The book¿s principal goal is to provide a unifying forum for developing postmodern, AI-based modeling and simulation environments and their utilization in both traditional and modern application domains. Features and topics: * Blends comprehensive, advanced modeling and simulation theories and methodologies in a presentation founded on formal, system-theoretic and AI-based approaches * Uses detailed, real-world examples to illustrate key concepts in systems theory, modeling, simulation, object orientation, and intelligent systems * Addresses a broad range of critical topics in the areas of modeling frameworks, distributed and high-performance object-oriented simulation approaches, as well as robotics, learning, multi-scale and multi-resolution models, and multi-agent systems * Includes new results pertaining to intelligent and agent-based modeling, the relationship between AI-based reasoning and Discrete-Event System Specification, and large-scale distributed modeling and simulation frameworks * Provides cross-disciplinary insight into how computer science, computer engineering, and systems engineering can collectively provide a rich set of theories and methods enabling contemporary modeling and simulation This state-of-the-art survey on collaborative/distributed modeling and simulation computing environments is an essential resource for the latest developments and tools in the field for all computer scientists, systems engineers, and software engineers. Professionals, practitioners, and graduate students will find this reference invaluable to their work involving computer simulation, distributed modeling, discrete-event systems, AI, and software engineering.

What is it about the structure and organisation of science and technology that has led to the spectacularly successful growth of knowledge during this century? This book explores this important and much debated question in an innovative way, by using computer simulations. The computer simulation of societies and social processes is a methodology which is rapidly becoming recognised for its potential in the social sciences. This book applies the tools of simulation systematically to a specific domain: science and technology studies. The book shows how computer simulation can be applied both to questions in the history and philosophy of science and to issues of concern to sociologists of science and technology. Chapters in the book demonstrate the use of simulation for clarifying the notion of creativity and for understanding the logical processes employed by eminent scientists to make their discoveries. The book begins with three introductory chapters. The first introduces simulation for the social sciences, surveying current work and explaining the advantages and pitfalls of this new methodology. The second and third chapters review recent work on theoretical aspects of social simulation, introducing fundamental concepts such as self organisation and complexity and relating these to the simulation of scientific discovery."

(Book). Offering tips and tricks on everything from recording and editing to mixing and mastering, this easy-to-use reference unlocks the secrets of Pro Tools, one of the most powerful computer-based digital audio production systems available. Providing step-by-step instruction, this fully illustrated guide covers getting up to speed, configuring and connecting equipment, and explains beginning and advanced techniques that will enable you to record, edit, reformat and reorganize music to match your own creative vision. Includes a CD-ROM with sample projects and exercises. "I have been waiting for a book like this for five years it's now a permanent part of my rack." Ed Cherney, Engineer/Producer (Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, CSN&Y, Hootie & the Blowfish)

Numerical computation, knowledge discovery and statistical data analysis integrated with powerful 2D and 3D graphics for visualization are the key topics of this book. The Python code examples powered by the Java platform can easily be transformed to other programming languages, such as Java, Groovy, Ruby and BeanShell. This book equips the reader with a computational platform which, unlike other statistical programs, is not limited by a single programming language.The author focuses on practical programming aspects and covers a broad range of topics, from basic introduction to the Python language on the Java platform (Jython), to descriptive statistics, symbolic calculations, neural networks, non-linear regression analysis and many other data-mining topics. He discusses how to find regularities in real-world data, how to classify data, and how to process data for knowledge discoveries. The code snippets are so short that they easily fit into single pages. Numeric Computation and Statistical Data Analysis on the Java Platform is a great choice for those who want to learn how statistical data analysis can be done using popular programming languages, who want to integrate data analysis algorithms in full-scale applications, and deploy such calculations on the web pages or computational servers regardless of their operating system. It is an excellent reference for scientific computations to solve real-world problems using a comprehensive stack of open-source Java libraries included in the DataMelt (DMelt) project and will be appreciated by many data-analysis scientists, engineers and students.

Information-Enabled Organization Transformation and Outsourcing.- Wirtschaftsinformatik: Von den Moden zum Trend.- MEMO: Eine werkzeuggestutzte Methode zum integrierten Entwurf von Geschaftsprozessen und Informationssystemen.- Integrierte Informationssysteme durch Modellierung von Geschaftsprozessen.- Unternehmensmodellierung - Basis fur Reengineering und Optimierung von Geschaftsprozessen.- Geschaftsprozess-Management und Qualitatssicherung am Beispiel des WIS-Projekts.- Strukturanalogien in Informationsmodellen.- Objektorientierte Spezifikation betrieblicher Informationssysteme.- Semantische Objektmodellierung anwendungsorientierter Informations systeme vom Standpunkt des Sicherheitsmanagements.- Vom Informationsmodell zum Anwendungssystem - Nutzenpotentiale fur den effizienten Einsatz von Informationssystemen.- Verfahren zur werkzeuggestutzten Integration von Datenbankschemata.- Formale Validierung von Verdichtungsoperationen in konzeptionellen Datenmodellen.- Simulation hierarchischer objekt- und transaktionsorientierter Modelle.- Aufbau einer gesamtbankweiten Geschaftsdatenbank als Grundlage fur ein globales Steuerungsinstrumentarium des Treasury und Controlling bei Sal. Oppenheim Jr. & Cie., Koeln.- Ein Entscheidungsmodell zur Automatisierung und Standardisierung in betrieblichen Informationssystemen.- Optimierung von Client/Server-Konfigurationen.- Die strategischen Implikationen von Informations- und Kommunikations technologien fur das Bankgeschaft.- Einsatz Neuronaler Netze in der Finanzprognose und -analyse.- Umgestaltung der Geschaftsprozesse und der betrieblichen Anwendungs systeme fur ein weltweit tatiges Unternehmen des Chemie-Anlagebaus.- Kundenorientierte Informationsgestaltung im oeffentlichen Personenverkehr.- Flexible Architekturen und wiederverwendbare Softwarebausteine fur die Anwendung der Zukunft - dargestellt an Systemen der Wurttembergischen Versicherung AG.- Die IV-Strategie des Energieversorgungsunternehmens RWE Energie.- Multinationale Informationsstrategien am Beispiel der Esso A. G.- Perspektiven fur den Einsatz objektorientierter Datenbanksysteme in CIM-orientierten Kosteninformationssystemen.- Datenbankgestutzte, vertragsbasierte Buchhaltung.- Funktionsintegration in heterogenen verteilten Informationssystemen - innovative Konzepte und Fallstudien.- Mobile Rechneranwendungen in dezentralen verteilten Systemumgebungen.- Podiumsdiskussion.- Abhangigkeit als Entscheidungskriterium zwischen internen und externen Organisationsformen der Informationsverarbeitung.- Diversifikationseffekte als Erklarung fur Downsizing und Outsourcing.- Redesign des Siemens-Nixdorf Service und die Erweiterung von Business Process Reengineering zu IT-enabled Business Innovation.- Geschaftsstrategie - Prozess - Informationssystem.- The Use of Worldwide Networking by Global Corporations.- Die Zukunft wird anders sein ! - Informationen verandern die Welt.- Autoren- und Adressverzeichnis.- Sponsorenverzeichnis.

Turn your financial data into insightful decisions with this straightforward guide to financial modeling with Excel Interested in learning how to build practical financial models and forecasts but concerned that you don't have the math skills or technical know-how? We've got you covered! Financial decision-making has never been easier than with Financial Modeling in Excel For Dummies. Whether you work at a mom-and-pop retail store or a multinational corporation, you can learn how to build budgets, project your profits into the future, model capital depreciation, value your assets, and more. You'll learn by doing as this book walks you through practical, hands-on exercises to help you build powerful models using just a regular version of Excel, which you've probably already got on your PC. You'll also: Master the tools and strategies that help you draw insights from numbers and data you've already got Build a successful financial model from scratch, or work with and modify an existing one to your liking Create new and unexpected business strategies with the ideas and conclusions you generate with scenario analysis Don't go buying specialized software or hiring that expensive consultant when you don't need either one. If you've got this book and a working version of Microsoft Excel, you've got all the tools you need to build sophisticated and useful financial models in no time!

In 1997, the two hottest topics in information technology are the Internet and mobile communications. Each one has the enthusiastic attention of the consuming public, investors. and the technical community. In a time of rapid expansion, they both face technical obstacles to meeting the public's high expectations. This situation stimulates a high volume of research in both areas. To bring the Internet into the twenty-first century. the research community focuses on multimedia communications in which integrated systems store, transport. and process many types of information simultaneously. A major challenge is to meet the of each information service. This problem is separate performance requirements especially challenging when a system has to deliver broadband, real-time services such as full-motion video. Meanwhile. the mobile communications research community continues its long term struggle against the triple challenge of mobility. ether. and energy. "Mobility" refers to the changing locations of terminals. When terminals are mobile. networks have to determine their locations and dynamically establish routes for information. The networks also have to rearrange themselves in order to maintain links to terminals with active communications sessions. "Ether" refers to the problems of wireless communications including limited bandwidth. rapidly changing radio propagation conditions. mutual interference of radio signals. and vulnerability of systems to eavesdropping and unauthorized access. "Energy" refers to the fact that portable information devices carry their own power sources. The rate at which the batteries of cellular telephones and portable computers drain their energy has a strong effect on their utility."

The Digital Da Vinci book series opens with the interviews of music mogul Quincy Jones, MP3 inventor Karlheinz Brandenburg, Tommy Boy founder Tom Silverman and entertainment attorney Jay L. Cooper. A strong supporter of science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs in schools, The Black Eyed Peas founding member will.i.am announced in July 2013 his plan to study computer science. Leonardo da Vinci, the epitome of a Renaissance man, was an Italian polymath at the turn of the 16th century. Since the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the division of labor has brought forth specialization in the workforce and university curriculums. The endangered species of polymaths is facing extinction. Computer science has come to the rescue by enabling practitioners to accomplish more than ever in the field of music. In this book, Newton Lee recounts his journey in executive producing a Billboard-charting song like managing agile software development; M. Nyssim Lefford expounds producing and its effect on vocal recordings; Dennis Reidsma, Mustafa Radha and Anton Nijholt survey the field of mediated musical interaction and musical expression; Isaac Schankler, Elaine Chew and Alexandre Francois describe improvising with digital auto-scaffolding; Shlomo Dubnov and Greg Surges explain the use of musical algorithms in machine listening and composition; Juan Pablo Bello discusses machine listening of music; Stephen and Tim Barrass make smart things growl, purr and sing; Raffaella Folgieri, Mattia Bergomi and Simone Castellani examine EEG-based brain-computer interface for emotional involvement in games through music and last but not least, Kai Ton Chau concludes the book with computer and music pedagogy. Digital Da Vinci: Computers in Music is dedicated to polymathic education and interdisciplinary studies in the digital age empowered by computer science. Educators and researchers ought to encourage the new generation of scholars to become as well rounded as a Renaissance man or woman.

This book provides state-of-the-art and interdisciplinary topics on solving matrix eigenvalue problems, particularly by using recent petascale and upcoming post-petascale supercomputers. It gathers selected topics presented at the International Workshops on Eigenvalue Problems: Algorithms; Software and Applications, in Petascale Computing (EPASA2014 and EPASA2015), which brought together leading researchers working on the numerical solution of matrix eigenvalue problems to discuss and exchange ideas - and in so doing helped to create a community for researchers in eigenvalue problems. The topics presented in the book, including novel numerical algorithms, high-performance implementation techniques, software developments and sample applications, will contribute to various fields that involve solving large-scale eigenvalue problems.

Emerging business models, value configurations, and information technologies interact over time to create competitive advantage. Modern information technology has to be studied, understood, and applied along the time dimension of months and years, where changes are the rule. Such changes created by interactions between business elements and resources are very well suited for system dynamics modeling. ""Business Dynamics in Information Technology"" presents business-technology alignment processes, interaction processes, and decision processes, helping the reader study information technology from a dynamic, rather than a static, perspective. By introducing two simple tools from system dynamic modeling - causal loops and reference modes - the dynamic perspective will become important to both students and practitioners in the future.

Designing Effective and Usable Multimedia Systems presents research and development and industrial experience of usability engineering for multimedia user interfaces. The book discusses the methods, tools and guidelines for multimedia use and implementation and covers the following topics in detail: Design methods for multimedia (MM) systems; Social and cognitive models for MM interaction; Empirical studies of the effects of MM on learning and behavior; Design and prototyping support tools; Intelligent MM Systems and Design support; Usability evaluation. GBP/LISTGBP Designing Effective and Usable Multimedia Systems contains the proceedings of the International Working Conference on Designing Effective and usable Multimedia Systems, sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), held in Stuttgart, Germany, in September 1998. It is essential reading for computer scientists, software developers, information systems managers and human scientists, especially those working in the applied disciplines such as human factors and interface design.

This volume is the Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Entertainment Computing (IWEC 2002). Entertainment has been taking very important parts in our life by refreshing us and activating our creativity. Recently by the advancement of computers and networks new types of entertainment have been emerging such as video games, entertainment robots, and network games. As these new games have a strong power to change our lives, it is good time for people who work in this area to discuss various aspects of entertainment and to promote entertainment related researches. Based on these considerations, we have organized a first workshop on entertainment computing. This workshop brings together researchers, developers, and practitioners working in the area of entertainment computing. It covers wide range of entertainment computing such as theoretical issues, hardware/software issues, systems, human interfaces, and applications. The particular areas covered by the workshop are: 1. Computers & Games Computer game algorithms, modeling of players, web technologies for networked games, human interface technologies for game applications. 2. Home/Arcade Games and Interactive Movies Video game computer technologies, motion capture technologies, real-time computer graphics technologies, interactive movie systems, story generation for games/movies, human factors of video games.

This third volume in the series deals with such topics as information systems practice and theory, information systems and the accounting/auditing environment, and differing perspectives on information systems research.

Object-oriented database management systems (OODBMS) are used to imple ment and maintain large object databases on persistent storage. Regardless whether the underlying database model follows the object-oriented, the rela tional or the object-relational paradigm, a key feature of any DBMS product is content based access to data sets. On the one hand this feature provides user-friendly query interfaces based on predicates to describe the desired data. On the other hand it poses challenging questions regarding DBMS design and implementation as well as the application development process on top of the DBMS. The reason for the latter is that the actual query performance depends on a technically meaningful use of access support mechanisms. In particular, if chosen and applied properly, such a mechanism speeds up the execution of predicate based queries. In the object-oriented world, such queries may involve arbitrarily complex terms referring to inheritance hierarchies and aggregation paths. These features are attractive at the application level, however, they increase the complexity of appropriate access support mechanisms which are known to be technically non-trivial in the relational world."

This book focuses on the use of farm level, micro- and macro-data of cooperative systems and networks in developing new robust, reliable and coherent modeling tools for agricultural and environmental policy analysis. The efficacy of public intervention on agriculture is largely determined by the existence of reliable information on the effects of policy options and market developments on farmers' production decisions and in particular, on key issues such as levels of agricultural and non-agricultural output, land use and incomes, use of natural resources, sustainable-centric management, structural change and the viability of family farms. Over the last years, several methods and analytical tools have been developed for policy analysis using various sets of data. Such methods have been based on integrated approaches in an effort to investigate the above key issues and have thus attempted to offer a powerful environment for decision making, particularly in an era of radical change for both agriculture and the wider economy.