The two-volume set LNAI 8265 and LNAI 8266 constitutes the proceedings of the 12th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2013, held in Mexico City, Mexico, in November 2013. The total of 85 papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 284 submissions. The first volume deals with advances in artificial intelligence and its applications and is structured in the following five sections: logic and reasoning; knowledge-based systems and multi-agent systems; natural language processing; machine translation; and bioinformatics and medical applications. The second volume deals with advances in soft computing and its applications and is structured in the following eight sections: evolutionary and nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms; neural networks and hybrid intelligent systems; fuzzy systems; machine learning and pattern recognition; data mining; computer vision and image processing; robotics, planning and scheduling and emotion detection, sentiment analysis and opinion mining.

This book constitutes the thoroughly reviewed post-proceeding of International Workshops on Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms in Agent Systems, COIN@AAMAS 2012, held in Valencia, Spain in June 2012. The 13 revised full papers presented together with 1 invited talk went through several rounds of reviewing and revision and were carefully selected for presentations. The papers are organized in topical sections on compliance and enforcement, norm emergence and social strategies, refinement, contextualisation and adaptation.

The two volume sets LNCS 8033 and 8034 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Visual Computing, ISVC 2013, held in Rethymnon, Crete, Greece, in July 2013. The 63 revised full papers and 35 poster papers presented together with 32 special track papers were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 220 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections: Part I (LNCS 8033) comprises computational bioimaging; computer graphics; motion, tracking and recognition; segmentation; visualization; 3D mapping, modeling and surface reconstruction; feature extraction, matching and recognition; sparse methods for computer vision, graphics and medical imaging; face processing and recognition. Part II (LNCS 8034) comprises topics such as visualization; visual computing with multimodal data streams; visual computing in digital cultural heritage; intelligent environments: algorithms and applications; applications; virtual reality.

This book constitutes the carefully refereed and revised selected papers of the 5th Canada-France ETS Symposium on Foundations and Practice of Security, FPS 2012, held in Montreal, QC, Canada, in October 2012. The book contains a revised version of 21 full papers, accompanied by 3 short papers. The papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 62 submissions. The papers are organized in topical section on cryptography and information theory, key management and cryptographic protocols, privacy and trust, policies and applications security, and network and adaptive security.

The theme of HumanCom is focused on the various aspects of human-centric computing for advances in computer science and its applications and provides an opportunity for academic and industry professionals to discuss the latest issues and progress in the area of human-centric computing. In addition, the conference will publish high quality papers which are closely related to the various theories and practical applications in human-centric computing. Furthermore, we expect that the conference and its publications will be a trigger for further related research and technology improvements in this important subject.

Bayesian Approach to Image Interpretation will interest anyone working in image interpretation. It is complete in itself and includes background material. This makes it useful for a novice as well as for an expert. It reviews some of the existing probabilistic methods for image interpretation and presents some new results. Additionally, there is extensive bibliography covering references in varied areas. For a researcher in this field, the material on synergistic integration of segmentation and interpretation modules and the Bayesian approach to image interpretation will be beneficial. For a practicing engineer, the procedure for generating knowledge base, selecting initial temperature for the simulated annealing algorithm, and some implementation issues will be valuable. New ideas introduced in the book include: New approach to image interpretation using synergism between the segmentation and the interpretation modules. A new segmentation algorithm based on multiresolution analysis. Novel use of the Bayesian networks (causal networks) for image interpretation. Emphasis on making the interpretation approach less dependent on the knowledge base and hence more reliable by modeling the knowledge base in a probabilistic framework. Useful in both the academic and industrial research worlds, Bayesian Approach to Image Interpretation may also be used as a textbook for a semester course in computer vision or pattern recognition.

Our increasingly smart environments will sense, track and model users and provide them with personalized services. We can already embed computers in everyday objects such as shirt buttons and pencils; objects of all sizes, from wristwatches to billboards, will soon incorporate high-quality flexible displays; we have improved access to wireless Internet communication; and we are now transitioning from traditional linear to targeted interactive media. The convergence of these factors -- miniaturization, display technologies, wireless communication, and interactive media -- will allow us to leave our desktop computers and move to a radical computing paradigm, the ubiquitous display environment, where media and visual content will support a rich variety of display devices that enable users to interact with information artifacts in a seamless manner. This is one of the most exciting and important areas of technology development and this book addresses the challenge within the context of an educational and cultural experience. This is inherently a multidisciplinary field and the contributions span the related research aspects, including system architecture and communications issues, and intelligent user interface aspects such as aesthetics and privacy. On the scientific side, the authors integrate artificial intelligence, user modeling, temporal and spatial reasoning, intelligent user interfaces, and user-centric design methodologies in their work, while on the technological side they integrate mobile and wireless networking infrastructures, interfaces, group displays, and context-driven adaptive presentations. This book is of value to researchers and practitioners working on all aspects of ubiquitous display environments, and we hope it leads to innovations in human education, cultural heritage appreciation, and scientific development.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed conference proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Rough Sets and Knowledge Technology, RSKT 2013, held in Halifax, Canada in October 2013 as one of the co-located conferences of the 2013 Joint Rough Set Symposium, JRS 2013. The 69 papers (including 44 regular and 25 short papers) included in the JRS proceedings (LNCS 8170 and LNCS 8171) were carefully reviewed and selected from 106 submissions. The papers in this volume cover topics such as history and future of rough sets; foundations and probabilistic rough sets; rules, reducts, ensembles; new trends in computing; three-way decision rough sets; and learning, predicting, modeling.

This proposed text appears to be a good introduction to evolutionary computation for use in applied statistics research. The authors draw from a vast base of knowledge about the current literature in both the design of evolutionary algorithms and statistical techniques. Modern statistical research is on the threshold of solving increasingly complex problems in high dimensions, and the generalization of its methodology to parameters whose estimators do not follow mathematically simple distributions is underway. Many of these challenges involve optimizing functions for which analytic solutions are infeasible. Evolutionary algorithms represent a powerful and easily understood means of approximating the optimum value in a variety of settings. The proposed text seeks to guide readers through the crucial issues of optimization problems in statistical settings and the implementation of tailored methods (including both stand-alone evolutionary algorithms and hybrid crosses of these procedures with standard statistical algorithms like Metropolis-Hastings) in a variety of applications. This book would serve as an excellent reference work for statistical researchers at an advanced graduate level or beyond, particularly those with a strong background in computer science.

In the areas of image processing and computer vision, there is a particular need for software that can, given an unfocused or motion-blurred image, infer the three-dimensional shape of a scene. This book describes the analytical processes that go into designing such software, delineates the options open to programmers, and presents original algorithms. Written for readers with interests in image processing and computer vision and with backgrounds in engineering, science or mathematics, this highly practical text/reference is accessible to advanced students or those with a degree that includes basic linear algebra and calculus courses.

Deformable avatars are virtual humans that deform themselves during motion. This implies facial deformations, body deformations at joints, and global deformations. Simulating deformable avatars ensures a more realistic simulation of virtual humans. The research requires models for capturing of geometrie and kinematic data, the synthesis of the realistic human shape and motion, the parametrisation and motion retargeting, and several appropriate deformation models. Once a deformable avatar has been created and animated, the researcher must model high-level behavior and introduce agent technology. The book can be divided into 5 subtopics: 1. Motion capture and 3D reconstruction 2. Parametrie motion and retargeting 3. Musc1es and deformation models 4. Facial animation and communication 5. High-level behaviors and autonomous agents Most of the papers were presented during the IFIP workshop "DEFORM '2000" that was held at the University of Geneva in December 2000, followed by "A V AT ARS 2000" held at EPFL, Lausanne. The two workshops were sponsored by the "Troisu!me Cycle Romand d'Informatique" and allowed participants to discuss the state of research in these important areas. x Preface We would like to thank IFIP for its support and Yana Lambert from Kluwer Academic Publishers for her advice. Finally, we are very grateful to Zerrin Celebi, who has prepared the edited version of this book and Dr. Laurent Moccozet for his collaboration.

The two-volume set LNAI 8467 and LNAI 8468 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, ICAISC 2014, held in Zakopane, Poland in June 2014. The 139 revised full papers presented in the volumes, were carefully reviewed and selected from 331 submissions. The 69 papers included in the first volume are focused on the following topical sections: Neural Networks and Their Applications, Fuzzy Systems and Their Applications, Evolutionary Algorithms and Their Applications, Classification and Estimation, Computer Vision, Image and Speech Analysis and Special Session 3: Intelligent Methods in Databases. The 71 papers in the second volume are organized in the following subjects: Data Mining, Bioinformatics, Biometrics and Medical Applications, Agent Systems, Robotics and Control, Artificial Intelligence in Modeling and Simulation, Various Problems of Artificial Intelligence, Special Session 2: Machine Learning for Visual Information Analysis and Security, Special Session 1: Applications and Properties of Fuzzy Reasoning and Calculus and Clustering.

A color time-varying image can be described as a three-dimensional vector (representing the colors in an appropriate color space) defined on a three-dimensional spatiotemporal space. In conventional analog television a one-dimensional signal suitable for transmission over a communication channel is obtained by sampling the scene in the vertical and tem poral directions and by frequency-multiplexing the luminance and chrominance informa tion. In digital processing and transmission systems, sampling is applied in the horizontal direction, too, on a signal which has been already scanned in the vertical and temporal directions or directly in three dimensions when using some solid-state sensor. As a conse quence, in recent years it has been considered quite natural to assess the potential advan tages arising from an entire multidimensional approach to the processing of video signals. As a simple but significant example, a composite color video signal, such as the conven tional PAL or NTSC signal, possesses a three-dimensional spectrum which, by using suitable three-dimensional filters, permits horizontal sampling at a rate which is less than that re quired for correctly sampling the equivalent one-dimensional signal. More recently it has been widely recognized that the improvement of the picture quality in current and advanced television systems requires well-chosen signal processing algorithms which are multidimen sional in nature within the demanding constraints of a real-time implementation.

The Language of Mathematics was awarded the E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize for outstanding dissertations in the fields of logic, language, and information. It innovatively combines techniques from linguistics, philosophy of mathematics, and computation to give the first wide-ranging analysis of mathematical language. It focuses particularly on a method for determining the complete meaning of mathematical texts and on resolving technical deficiencies in all standard accounts of the foundations of mathematics. "The thesis does far more than is required for a PhD: it is more like a lifetime's work packed into three years, and is a truly exceptional achievement." Timothy Gowers

Video segmentation is the most fundamental process for appropriate index ing and retrieval of video intervals. In general, video streams are composed 1 of shots delimited by physical shot boundaries. Substantial work has been done on how to detect such shot boundaries automatically (Arman et aI. , 1993) (Zhang et aI. , 1993) (Zhang et aI. , 1995) (Kobla et aI. , 1997). Through the inte gration of technologies such as image processing, speech/character recognition and natural language understanding, keywords can be extracted and associated with these shots for indexing (Wactlar et aI. , 1996). A single shot, however, rarely carries enough amount of information to be meaningful by itself. Usu ally, it is a semantically meaningful interval that most users are interested in re trieving. Generally, such meaningful intervals span several consecutive shots. There hardly exists any efficient and reliable technique, either automatic or manual, to identify all semantically meaningful intervals within a video stream. Works by (Smith and Davenport, 1992) (Oomoto and Tanaka, 1993) (Weiss et aI. , 1995) (Hjelsvold et aI. , 1996) suggest manually defining all such inter vals in the database in advance. However, even an hour long video may have an indefinite number of meaningful intervals. Moreover, video data is multi interpretative. Therefore, given a query, what is a meaningful interval to an annotator may not be meaningful to the user who issues the query. In practice, manual indexing of meaningful intervals is labour intensive and inadequate.

This book presents novel graph-theoretic methods for complex computer vision and pattern recognition tasks. It presents the application of graph theory to low-level processing of digital images, presents graph-theoretic learning algorithms for high-level computer vision and pattern recognition applications, and provides detailed descriptions of several applications of graph-based methods to real-world pattern recognition tasks.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference, VISIGRAPP 2011, the Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Theory and Applications (VISAPP), on Imaging Theory and Applications (IMAGAPP), on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (GRAPP), and on Information Visualization Theory and Applications (IVAPP), held in Vilamoura, Portugal, in March 2011. The 15 revised full papers presented together with one invited paper were carefully reviewed and selected. The papers are organized in topical sections on computer graphics theory and applications; imaging theory and applications; information visualization theory and applications; and computer vision theory and applications.

Ricci Flow for Shape Analysis and Surface Registration introduces the beautiful and profound Ricci flow theory in a discrete setting. By using basic tools in linear algebra and multivariate calculus, readers can deduce all the major theorems in surface Ricci flow by themselves. The authors adapt the Ricci flow theory to practical computational algorithms, apply Ricci flow for shape analysis and surface registration, and demonstrate the power of Ricci flow in many applications in medical imaging, computer graphics, computer vision and wireless sensor network. Due to minimal pre-requisites, this book is accessible to engineers and medical experts, including educators, researchers, students and industry engineers who have an interest in solving real problems related to shape analysis and surface registration.

Image segmentation is generally the first task in any automated image understanding application, such as autonomous vehicle navigation, object recognition, photointerpretation, etc. All subsequent tasks, such as feature extraction, object detection, and object recognition, rely heavily on the quality of segmentation. One of the fundamental weaknesses of current image segmentation algorithms is their inability to adapt the segmentation process as real-world changes are reflected in the image. Only after numerous modifications to an algorithm's control parameters can any current image segmentation technique be used to handle the diversity of images encountered in real-world applications. Genetic Learning for Adaptive Image Segmentation presents the first closed-loop image segmentation system that incorporates genetic and other algorithms to adapt the segmentation process to changes in image characteristics caused by variable environmental conditions, such as time of day, time of year, weather, etc. Image segmentation performance is evaluated using multiple measures of segmentation quality. These quality measures include global characteristics of the entire image as well as local features of individual object regions in the image. This adaptive image segmentation system provides continuous adaptation to normal environmental variations, exhibits learning capabilities, and provides robust performance when interacting with a dynamic environment. This research is directed towards adapting the performance of a well known existing segmentation algorithm (Phoenix) across a wide variety of environmental conditions which cause changes in the image characteristics. The book presents a large number of experimental results and compares performance with standard techniques used in computer vision for both consistency and quality of segmentation results. These results demonstrate, (a) the ability to adapt the segmentation performance in both indoor and outdoor color imagery, and (b) that learning from experience can be used to improve the segmentation performance over time.

Yulia Levakhina gives an introduction to the major challenges of image reconstruction in Digital Tomosynthesis (DT), particularly to the connection of the reconstruction problem with the incompleteness of the DT dataset. The author discusses the factors which cause the formation of limited angle artifacts and proposes how to account for them in order to improve image quality and axial resolution of modern DT. The addressed methods include a weighted non-linear back projection scheme for algebraic reconstruction andnovel dual-axis acquisition geometry. All discussed algorithms and methods are supplemented by detailed illustrations, hints for practical implementation, pseudo-code, simulation results and real patient case examples."

At the beginning of the 1990s research started in how to combine soft comput ing with reconfigurable hardware in a quite unique way. One of the methods that was developed has been called evolvable hardware. Thanks to evolution ary algorithms researchers have started to evolve electronic circuits routinely. A number of interesting circuits - with features unreachable by means of con ventional techniques - have been developed. Evolvable hardware is quite pop ular right now; more than fifty research groups are spread out over the world. Evolvable hardware has become a part of the curriculum at some universi ties. Evolvable hardware is being commercialized and there are specialized conferences devoted to evolvable hardware. On the other hand, surprisingly, we can feel the lack of a theoretical background and consistent design methodology in the area. Furthermore, it is quite difficult to implement really innovative and practically successful evolvable systems using contemporary digital reconfigurable technology."

This book contains extended versions of papers presented at the international Conference VIPIMAGE 2009 - ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Computational Vision and Medical Image, that was held at Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Portugal, from 14th to 16th of October 2009. This conference was the second ECCOMAS thematic conference on computational vision and medical image processing. It covered topics related to image processing and analysis, medical imaging and computational modelling and simulation, considering their multidisciplinary nature. The book collects the state-of-the-art research, methods and new trends on the subject of computational vision and medical image processing contributing to the development of these knowledge areas.

Mathematical Nonlinear Image Processing deals with a fast growing research area. The development of the subject springs from two factors: (1) the great expansion of nonlinear methods applied to problems in imaging and vision, and (2) the degree to which nonlinear approaches are both using and fostering new developments in diverse areas of mathematics. Mathematical Nonlinear Image Processing will be of interest to people working in the areas of applied mathematics as well as researchers in computer vision. Mathematical Nonlinear Image Processing is an edited volume of original research. It has also been published as a special issue of the Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision. (Volume 2, Issue 2/3).

With the ubiquity of new information technology and media, more effective and friendly methods for human computer interaction (HCI) are being developed which do not rely on traditional devices such as keyboards, mice and displays. The first step for any intelligent HCI system is face detection, and one of most friendly HCI systems is hand gesture. Face Detection and Gesture Recognition for Human-Computer Interaction introduces the frontiers of vision-based interfaces for intelligent human computer interaction with focus on two main issues: face detection and gesture recognition. The first part of the book reviews and discusses existing face detection methods, followed by a discussion on future research. Performance evaluation issues on the face detection methods are also addressed. The second part discusses an interesting hand gesture recognition method based on a generic motion segmentation algorithm. The system has been tested with gestures from American Sign Language with promising results. We conclude this book with comments on future work in face detection and hand gesture recognition.Face Detection and Gesture Recognition for Human-Computer Interaction will interest those working in vision-based interfaces for intelligent human computer interaction. It also contains a comprehensive survey on existing face detection methods, which will serve as the entry point for new researchers embarking on such topics. Furthermore, this book also covers in-depth discussion on motion segmentation algorithms and applications, which will benefit more seasoned graduate students or researchers interested in motion pattern recognition.

Traditionally, scientific fields have defined boundaries, and scientists work on research problems within those boundaries. However, from time to time those boundaries get shifted or blurred to evolve new fields. For instance, the original goal of computer vision was to understand a single image of a scene, by identifying objects, their structure, and spatial arrangements. This has been referred to as image understanding. Recently, computer vision has gradually been making the transition away from understanding single images to analyz ing image sequences, or video understanding. Video understanding deals with understanding of video sequences, e. g. , recognition of gestures, activities, fa cial expressions, etc. The main shift in the classic paradigm has been from the recognition of static objects in the scene to motion-based recognition of actions and events. Video understanding has overlapping research problems with other fields, therefore blurring the fixed boundaries. Computer graphics, image processing, and video databases have obvious overlap with computer vision. The main goal of computer graphics is to gener ate and animate realistic looking images, and videos. Researchers in computer graphics are increasingly employing techniques from computer vision to gen erate the synthetic imagery. A good example of this is image-based rendering and modeling techniques, in which geometry, appearance, and lighting is de rived from real images using computer vision techniques. Here the shift is from synthesis to analysis followed by synthesis.