As information technology is rapidly progressing, an enormous amount of media can be easily exchanged through Internet and other communication networks. Increasing amounts of digital image, video, and music have created numerous information security issues and is now taken as one of the top research and development agendas for researchers, organizations, and governments worldwide. ""Multimedia Forensics and Security"" provides an in-depth treatment of advancements in the emerging field of multimedia forensics and security by tackling challenging issues such as digital watermarking for copyright protection, digital fingerprinting for transaction tracking, and digital camera source identification.

This book introduces the reader to a new method of data assimilation with deterministic constraints (exact satisfaction of dynamic constraints)-an optimal assimilation strategy called Forecast Sensitivity Method (FSM), as an alternative to the well-known four-dimensional variational (4D-Var) data assimilation method. 4D-Var works with a forward in time prediction model and a backward in time tangent linear model (TLM). The equivalence of data assimilation via 4D-Var and FSM is proven and problems using low-order dynamics clarify the process of data assimilation by the two methods. The problem of return flow over the Gulf of Mexico that includes upper-air observations and realistic dynamical constraints gives the reader a good idea of how the FSM can be implemented in a real-world situation.

This book offers a systematic introduction to an understanding-oriented approach to multimedia content analysis. It integrates the visual understanding and learning models into a unified framework, within which the visual understanding guides the model learning while the learned models improve the visual understanding. More specifically, it discusses multimedia content representations and analysis including feature selection, feature extraction, image tagging, user-oriented tag recommendation and understanding-oriented multimedia applications. The book was nominated by the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Computer Federation as an outstanding PhD thesis. By providing the fundamental technologies and state-of-the-art methods, it is a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers working in the field computer vision and machine learning.

Effective technologies and tools for e-collaboration are central to the development and evolution of modern work and educational landscapes. Studies on the design, implementation, and evaluation of e-collaboration applications help individuals and businesses in their pursuit of effective tools for increasingly virtual modes of communication. Advancing Collaborative Knowledge Environments: New Trends in E-Collaboration discusses the latest findings in knowledge-intensive, collaborative environments, focusing on frameworks and solutions for improving collaboration online. Uniting research on the effectiveness of instant messaging, the role of presence and awareness in real-time collaboration, and other key concepts, this reference is useful for those interested in frameworks for new collaboration technologies, as well as existing users of new technologies and applications.

Media and Politics provides students with a selection of readings that help them better understand how politics affect journalism and media, and how journalism and media, in turn, impact politics. The anthology also provides insight into the basic techniques and tenets for covering new stories, especially those of a political nature. The collection begins by providing a brief history of the development of modern journalism in the United States. Later chapters address the concept of newsworthiness, core standards of journalism, the difference in news items distributed across various media platforms, and performance and script editing techniques for radio and television. Students read about how audience perception of production values can impact their impressions of news videos and the social impact of the kinds of people most featured in news reports, as well as how they are featured. Additional chapters discuss the effects of presenting news from a human interest angle and video editing. Each chapter includes questions to stimulate critical thinking and encourage further consideration of the material. An engaging and timely resource, Media and Politics is well suited for courses in journalism, media, and political science.

Interest in the area of control of systems defined by partial differential Equations has increased strongly in recent years. A major reason has been the requirement of these systems for sensible continuum mechanical modelling and optimization or control techniques which account for typical physical phenomena. Particular examples of problems on which substantial progress has been made are the control and stabilization of mechatronic structures, the control of growth of thin films and crystals, the control of Laser and semi-conductor devices, and shape optimization problems for turbomachine blades, shells, smart materials and microdiffractive optics. This volume contains original articles by world reknowned experts in the fields of optimal control of partial differential equations, shape optimization, numerical methods for partial differential equations and fluid dynamics, all of whom have contributed to the analysis and solution of many of the problems discussed. The collection provides a state-of-the-art overview of the most challenging and exciting recent developments in the field. It is geared towards postgraduate students and researchers dealing with the theoretical and practical aspects of a wide variety of high technology problems in applied mathematics, fluid control, optimal design, and computer modelling.

In order to be useful and transfer adequate knowledge skills to the learner, a multimedia program design needs to have a sound pedagogical base. Technology-Assisted Problem Solving for Engineering Education: Interactive Multimedia Applications explores best practices in assisting students in understanding engineering concepts through interactive and virtual environments. A critical mass of leading international findings, this advanced publication delivers quality research using learning and consultancy for developing tactics to decipher dilemmas within the field.

Graphics Gems V is the newest volume in "The Graphics Gems Series." It is intended to provide the graphics community with a set of practical tools for implementing new ideas and techniques, and to offer working solutions to real programming problems. These tools are written by a wide variety of graphics programmers from industry, academia, and research. The books in the series have become essential, time-saving tools for many programmers.
Key Features
* Latest collection of graphics tips in The Graphics Gems Series written by the leading programmers in the field
* Contains over 50 new gems displaying some of the most recent and innovative techniques in graphics programming
* Includes gems covering ellipses, splines, Bezier curves, and ray tracing
* Disk included containing source code from the gems available in both IBM and Macintosh versions

The advent of high-speed, affordable computers in the last two decades has given a new boost to the nonparametric way of thinking. Classical nonparametric procedures, such as function smoothing, suddenly lost their abstract flavour as they became practically implementable. In addition, many previously unthinkable possibilities became mainstream; prime examples include the bootstrap and resampling methods, wavelets and nonlinear smoothers, graphical methods, data mining, bioinformatics, as well as the more recent algorithmic approaches such as bagging and boosting. This volume is a collection of short articles - most of which having a review component - describing the state-of-the art of Nonparametric Statistics at the beginning of a new millennium.

Key features:

algorithic approaches
wavelets and nonlinear smoothers
graphical methods and data mining
biostatistics and bioinformatics
bagging and boosting
support vector machines
resampling methods
"

This volume of selected and peer-reviewed contributions on the latest developments in time series analysis and forecasting updates the reader on topics such as analysis of irregularly sampled time series, multi-scale analysis of univariate and multivariate time series, linear and non-linear time series models, advanced time series forecasting methods, applications in time series analysis and forecasting, advanced methods and online learning in time series and high-dimensional and complex/big data time series. The contributions were originally presented at the International Work-Conference on Time Series, ITISE 2016, held in Granada, Spain, June 27-29, 2016. The series of ITISE conferences provides a forum for scientists, engineers, educators and students to discuss the latest ideas and implementations in the foundations, theory, models and applications in the field of time series analysis and forecasting. It focuses on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research encompassing the disciplines of computer science, mathematics, statistics and econometrics.

Numerical partial differential equations (PDEs) are an important part of numerical simulation, the third component of the modern methodology for science and engineering, besides the traditional theory and experiment. This volume contains papers that originated with the collaborative research of the teams that participated in the IMA Workshop for Women in Applied Mathematics: Numerical Partial Differential Equations and Scientific Computing in August 2014.

See How to Unobtrusively Incorporate Good Teaching into Your Game's Mechanics Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games shows how to embed a tutorial directly into your game design mechanics so that your games naturally and comfortably teach players to have fun. The author deciphers years of research in game studies, education, psychology, human computer interaction, and user interface and experience that equip you to make dynamic tutorials that help players enjoy your games. The book links game design principles with psychology through the game tutorial. It offers easy-to-implement changes that can make a huge difference in how players receive your games. It explains how you can educate new players and engage experienced players at the same time through a combination of good design and basic understanding of human educational, motivational, and cognitive psychologies. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, this book improves your understanding of the science of learning and the art of teaching. It helps you design game mechanics, or tutorials, that teach people how to have fun with your games without ever feeling as though they re being instructed.

Learn the secrets behind independent animation from the "The King of Independent Animation - Academy Award-nominated Bill Plympton. This living legend breaks down how to make a career outside of the world of corporate animation - and without compromise. Learn time-saving techniques, the secrets to good storytelling, and the business-side of short and feature-length animation films.

Six Sigma statistical methodology using Minitab

"Problem Solving and Data Analysis using Minitab "presents example-based learning to aid readers in understanding how to use MINITAB 16 for statistical analysis and problem solving. Each example and exercise is broken down into the exact steps that must be followed in order to take the reader through key learning points and work through complex analyses. Exercises are featured at the end of each example so that the reader can be assured that they have understood the key learning points.

"Key features: "Provides readers with a step by step guide to problem solving and statistical analysis using Minitab 16 which is also compatible with version 15.Includes fully worked examples with graphics showing menu selections and Minitab outputs.Uses example based learning that the reader can work through at their pace.Contains hundreds of screenshots to aid the reader, along with explanations of the statistics being performed and interpretation of results.Presents the core statistical techniques used by Six Sigma Black Belts. Contains examples, exercises and solutions throughout, and is supported by an accompanying website featuring the numerous example data sets.

Making Six Sigma statistical methodology accessible to beginners, this book is aimed at numerical professionals, students or academics who wish to learn and apply statistical techniques for problem solving, process improvement or data analysis whilst keeping mathematical theory to a minimum.

The definitive book on Oracle's Rdb database.
Written by a team of bestselling database experts, including a principal product architect, this is unquestionably the definitive book on Oracle's Rdb8, the latest version of the powerful database for advanced enterprise applications. Rdb: A Comprehensive Guide, Third Edition teaches administrators, programmers, database designers and IT managers the critical components and functions of the new version 8 and explains how to develop powerful Rdb8 programs. The book specifically addresses new Rdb8 management, tuning and scalability tools and describes the new Rdb/NT Workbench for Windows NT. No other source gives readers the authoritative and timely information provided by Rdb: A Comprehensive Guide, Third Edition.

Only book on Rdb8
Written by Rdb8 experts from Oracle, including the principal product architect
Explains how to use Rdb8 on both Windows NT and OpenVMS

Growth curve models in longitudinal studies are widely used to model population size, body height, biomass, fungal growth, and other variables in the biological sciences, but these statistical methods for modeling growth curves and analyzing longitudinal data also extend to general statistics, economics, public health, demographics, epidemiology, SQC, sociology, nano-biotechnology, fluid mechanics, and other applied areas. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to growth measurement. The selected papers in this volume build on presentations from the GCM workshop held at the Indian Statistical Institute, Giridih, on March 28-29, 2016. They represent recent trends in GCM research on different subject areas, both theoretical and applied. This book includes tools and possibilities for further work through new techniques and modification of existing ones. The volume includes original studies, theoretical findings and case studies from a wide range of applied work, and these contributions have been externally refereed to the high quality standards of leading journals in the field.

This monograph presents urban simulation methods that help in better understanding urban dynamics. Over historical times, cities have progressively absorbed a larger part of human population and will concentrate three quarters of humankind before the end of the century. This "urban transition" that has totally transformed the way we inhabit the planet is globally understood in its socio-economic rationales but is less frequently questioned as a spatio-temporal process. However, the cities, because they are intrinsically linked in a game of competition for resources and development, self organize in "systems of cities" where their future becomes more and more interdependent. The high frequency and intensity of interactions between cities explain that urban systems all over the world exhibit large similarities in their hierarchical and functional structure and rather regular dynamics. They are complex systems whose emergence, structure and further evolution are widely governed by the multiple kinds of interaction that link the various actors and institutions investing in cities their efforts, capital, knowledge and intelligence. Simulation models that reconstruct this dynamics may help in better understanding it and exploring future plausible evolutions of urban systems. This would provide better insight about how societies can manage the ecological transition at local, regional and global scales. The author has developed a series of instruments that greatly improve the techniques of validation for such models of social sciences that can be submitted to many applications in a variety of geographical situations. Examples are given for several BRICS countries, Europe and United States. The target audience primarily comprises research experts in the field of urban dynamics, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students.

Recent decades have seen a very rapid success in developing numerical methods based on explicit control over approximation errors. It may be said that nowadays a new direction is forming in numerical analysis, the main goal of which is to develop methods ofreliable computations. In general, a reliable numerical method must solve two basic problems: (a) generate a sequence of approximations that converges to a solution and (b) verify the accuracy of these approximations. A computer code for such a method must consist of two respective blocks: solver and checker.
In this book, we are chiefly concerned with the problem (b) and try to present the main approaches developed for a posteriori error estimation in various problems.
The authors try to retain a rigorous mathematical style, however, proofs are constructive whenever possible and additional mathematical knowledge is presented when necessary. The book contains a number of new mathematical results and lists a posteriori error estimation methods that have been developed in the very recent time.
- computable bounds of approximation errors
- checking algorithms
- iteration processes
- finite element methods
- elliptic type problems
- nonlinear variational problems
- variational inequalities

Computing is transforming how we interact with music. New theories and new technologies have emerged that present fresh challenges and novel perspectives for researchers and practitioners in music and human-computer interaction (HCI). In this collection, the interdisciplinary field of music interaction is considered from multiple viewpoints: designers, interaction researchers, performers, composers, audiences, teachers and learners, dancers and gamers. The book comprises both original research in music interaction and reflections from leading researchers and practitioners in the field. It explores a breadth of HCI perspectives and methodologies: from universal approaches to situated research within particular cultural and aesthetic contexts. Likewise, it is musically diverse, from experimental to popular, classical to folk, including tango, laptop orchestras, composition and free improvisation.

As Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) gains a wider global acceptance, the need for understanding its life cycle becomes inevitable, not only for developers, but also for users. Service Life Cycle Tools and Technologies: Methods, Trends and Advances compiles the latest research on SOC life cycles, detailing methodologies and applications in this emerging field. The development of service-oriented applications not only depends on constructing service providers, but also composition and delivery. Service requesters, service providers, and developers, alike, will benefit from the views and models in a service life cycle. This volume offers research that has been conducted in both industry and academia to address issues in the SOC domain, including service discovery, service composition, and service management. It serves as a vital reference for those on either side of the service field.