This volume brings together the peer-reviewed contributions of the participants at the COST 2102 International Conference on "Cross-Modal Analysis of Speech, Gestures, Gaze and Facial Expressions" held in Prague, Czech Republic, October 15-18, 2008. The conference was sponsored by COST (European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research, www. cost. esf. org/domains_actions/ict) in the - main of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for disseminating the research advances developed within COST Action 2102: "Cross-Modal Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication" http://cost2102. cs. stir. ac. uk. COST 2102 research networking has contributed to modifying the conventional theoretical approach to the cross-modal analysis of verbal and nonverbal communi- tion changing the concept of face to face communication with that of body to body communication as well as developing the idea of embodied information. Information is no longer the result of a difference in perception and is no longer measured in terms of quantity of stimuli, since the research developed in COST 2102 has proved that human information processing is a nonlinear process that cannot be seen as the sum of the numerous pieces of information available. Considering simply the pieces of inf- mation available, results in a model of the receiver as a mere decoder, and produces a huge simplification of the communication process.

In the past few years, with the advances in microelectronics and digital te- nology, cameras became a widespread media. This, along with the enduring increase in computing power boosted the development of computer vision s- tems. The International Conference on Computer Vision Systems (ICVS) covers the advances in this area. This is to say that ICVS is not and should not be yet another computer vision conference. The ?eld of computer vision is fully covered by many well-established and famous conferences and ICVS di?ers from these by covering the systems point of view. ICVS 2008 was the 6th International Conference dedicated to advanced research on computer vision systems. The conference, continuing a series of successful events in Las Palmas, Vancouver, Graz, New York and Bielefeld, in 2008 was held on Santorini. In all, 128 papers entered the review process and each was reviewed by three independent reviewers using the double-blind review method. Of these, 53 - pers were accepted (23 as oral and 30 as poster presentation). There were also two invited talks by P. Anandan and by Heinrich H. Bultho ] ?. The presented papers cover all aspects of computer vision systems, namely: cognitive vision, monitor and surveillance, computer vision architectures, calibration and reg- tration, object recognition and tracking, learning, human-machine interaction and cross-modal systems."

Overthelastdecades, energyminimizationmethods havebecomeanestablished paradigm to resolve a variety of challenges in the ?elds of computer vision and pattern recognition. While traditional approaches to computer vision were often based on a heuristic sequence of processing steps and merely allowed very l- ited theoretical understanding of the respective methods, most state-of-the-art methods are nowadays based on the concept of computing solutions to a given problem by minimizing respective energies. This volume contains the papers presented at the 7th International Conf- ence on Energy Minimization Methods in Computer Vision and Pattern Rec- nition (EMMCVPR 2009), held at the University of Bonn, Germany, August 24-28, 2009. These papers demonstrate that energy minimization methods have become a mature ?eld of research spanning a broad range of areas from discrete graph theoretic approaches and Markov random ?elds to variational methods and partial di?erential equations. Application areas include image segmentation and tracking, shape optimization and registration, inpainting and image deno- ing, color and texture modeling, statistics and learning. Overall, we received 75 high-quality double-blind submissions. Based on the reviewer recommendations, 36paperswereselectedforpublication,18asoraland18asposterpresentations. Both oral and poster papers were attributed the same number of pages in the conference proceedings. Furthermore, we were delighted that three leading experts from the ?elds of computer vision and energy minimization, namely, Richard Hartley (C- berra, Australia), Joachim Weickert (Saarbruc ] ken, Germany) and Guillermo Sapiro(Minneapolis, USA)agreedtofurtherenrichtheconferencewithinspiring keynote lectures.

Welcome to the 2008EuropeanConference onComputer Vision. These proce- ings are the result of a great deal of hard work by many people. To produce them, a total of 871 papers were reviewed. Forty were selected for oral pres- tation and 203 were selected for poster presentation, yielding acceptance rates of 4.6% for oral, 23.3% for poster, and 27.9% in total. Weappliedthreeprinciples.First, sincewehadastronggroupofAreaChairs, the ?nal decisions to accept or reject a paper rested with the Area Chair, who wouldbeinformedbyreviewsandcouldactonlyinconsensuswithanotherArea Chair. Second, we felt that authors were entitled to a summary that explained how the Area Chair reached a decision for a paper. Third, we were very careful to avoid con?icts of interest. Each paper was assigned to an Area Chair by the Program Chairs, and each Area Chair received a pool of about 25 papers. The Area Chairs then identi?ed and rankedappropriatereviewersfor eachpaper in their pool, and a constrained optimization allocated three reviewers to each paper. We are very proud that every paper received at least three reviews. At this point, authors wereable to respond to reviews. The Area Chairs then needed to reach a decision. We used a series of procedures to ensure careful review and to avoid con?icts of interest. ProgramChairs did not submit papers. The Area Chairs were divided into three groups so that no Area Chair in the group was in con?ict with any paper assigned to any Area Chair in the group

This book contains 71 original, scienti?c articles that address state-of-the-art researchrelatedto scale space and variationalmethods for image processing and computer vision. Topics covered in the book range from mathematical analysis of both established and new models, fast numerical methods, image analysis, segmentation, registration, surface and shape construction and processing, to real applications in medical imaging and computer vision. The ideas of scale spaceandvariationalmethodsrelatedtopartialdi?erentialequationsarecentral concepts. The papers re?ect the newest developments in these ?elds and also point to the latest literature. All the papers were submitted to the Second International Conference on Scale Space and Variational Methods in Computer Vision, which took place in Voss, Norway, during June 1-5, 2009. The papers underwent a peer review process similar to that of high-level journals in the ?eld. We thank the authors, the Scienti?c Committee, the Program Committee and the reviewers for their hard work and helpful collaboration. Their contribution has been crucial for the e?cient processing of this book, and for the success of the conference.

This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, IbPRIA 2009, held in Povoa de Varzim, Portugal in June 2009.

The 33 revised full papers and 29 revised poster papers presented together with 3 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 106 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on computer vision, image analysis and processing, as well as pattern recognition.

A basic problem in computer vision is to understand the structure of a real world scene. This book covers relevant geometric principles and how to represent objects algebraically so they can be computed and applied. Recent major developments in the theory and practice of scene reconstruction are described in detail in a unified framework. Richard Hartley and Andrew Zisserman provide comprehensive background material and explain how to apply the methods and implement the algorithms. First Edition HB (2000): 0-521-62304-9

FromJune14-17,2008, theCenterforAdvancedGamingandSimulation(AGS), UtrechtUniversity, incollaborationwiththeNLGDFestivalofGames, organized a Workshop on Motion in Games in Utrecht. Motion plays a crucial role in c- puter games. Characters move around, objects are manipulated or move due to physical constraints, entities are animated, and the camera moves through the scene. Even the motion of the player nowadays is used as input to games. - tion is currently studied in many di?erent areas of research, including graphics and animation, gametechnology, robotics, simulation, computer vision, and also physics, psychology, and urban studies. The goal of the Motion in Games wo- shop was to bring together researchers from this variety of ?elds to present the most recent results and to initiate collaboration. TheMIG 2008workshophostedover30internationallyrenownedresearchers who all presentedtheir ongoingworkon topicssuch ascrowdsimulation, motion capture, path planning and facial animation. This volume is a collection of the paperspresentedduringthe workshop.Since this volumewaspublishedafterthe workshop, the authors of the papers adapted their content in order to include anydiscussionsthattookplaceduringtheworkshopitself.All?nalcontributions were carefully checked by the workshop organizers. The Motion in Games workshop was a very successful event that has set the starting point for interdisciplinary collaborations and for novel research ideas following the interesting discussions that took place. We are very happy with the outcomeofthe workshopandthe excellentcontributionsby the participants, collected in this volume. August 2008 Arjan Egges Arno Kamphuis Mark Overmars SponsoringInstitutions This workshop was sponsored by the GATE 1 2 project and the NLGD Festival of G

Arti?cial intelligence has recently been re-energized to provide the clues needed to resolve complicated problems. AI is also expected to play a central role in enhancing a wide variety of daily activities. JSAI (The Japanese Society for Arti?cial Intelligence) is responsible for boosting the activities of AI researchers in Japan, and their series of annual conferences o?ers attractive forums for the exposition of the latest achievements and inter-group communication. In the past, the best papers of the conferences were published in the LNAI series. This book consists of award papers from the 22nd annual conference of the JSAI (JSAI 2008) and selected papers from the three co-located workshops. Eight papers were selected among more than 400 presentations at the conference and 18 papers were selected from the 34 presentations at the co-located wo- shops; Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics 5 (LENLS 2008), the 2nd International Workshop on Juris-informatics (JURISIN 2008), and the First International Workshop on Laughter in Interaction and Body Movement (LIBM 2008). The award papers from JSAI 2008 were selected through a r- orous selection process. In the process, papers recommended by session chairs, session commentators, and PC members were carefully reviewed, before the ?nal decision was made.

This book contains the best papers of the Second International Conference on So- ware and Data Technologies (ICSOFT 2007), held in Barcelona, Spain. It was org- ized by the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Communication and Control (INSTICC), co-sponsored by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), in cooperation with the Interdisciplinary Institute for Collaboration and Research on Enterprise Systems and Technology (IICREST). The purpose of ICSOFT 2007 was to bring together researchers and practitioners int- ested in information technology and software development. The conference tracks were "Software Engineering," "Information Systems and Data Management," "Programming Languages," "Distributed and Parallel Systems" and "Knowledge Engineering." Being crucial for the development of information systems, software and data te- nologies encompass a large number of research topics and applications: from imp- mentation-related issues to more abstract theoretical aspects of software engineering; from databases and data warehouses to management information systems and kno- edge-base systems; next to that, distributed systems, pervasive computing, data quality and other related topics are included in the scope of this conference.

The two volume set LNCS 4843 and LNCS 4844 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV 2007, held in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2007.

The 46 revised full papers, 3 planary and invited talks, and 130 revised poster papers of the two volumes were carefully reviewed and seleceted from 551 submissions. The papers of this volume are organized in topical sections on shape and texture, fitting, calbration, detection, image and video processing, applications, face and gesture, tracking, camera networks, face/gesture/action detection and recognition, learning, motion and tracking, retrival and search, human pose estimation, matching, face/gesture/action detection and recognition, low level vision and phtometory, motion and tracking, human detection, and segmentation.

This book includes selected papers from VISIGRAPP 2007, the Joint Conference on Computer Vision and Computer Graphics, comprising two component conferences, namely, the International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (VISAPP) and the International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and App- cations (GRAPP), held in Barcelona, Spain, during March 8-11, 2007. We received quite a high number of paper submissions: 382 in total for both conf- ences. We had contributions from more than 50 countries in all five continents. This confirms the success and global dimension of these jointly organized conferences. After a rigorous double-blind evaluation method, a total of 78 submissions were accepted as full papers. From those, 18 got selected for inclusion in this book. To ensure the sci- tific quality of the contributions, these were selected from papers that were evaluated with the highest scores by the VISIGRAPP Program Committee members and then they were extended and revised by the authors. Special thanks go to all contributors and re- rees, without whom this book would not have been possible. VISIGRAPP 2007 included four invited keynote lectures, presented by internati- ally recognized researchers. The presentations represented an important contribution to increasing the overall quality of the conference. We would like to express our - preciation to all invited keynote speakers, in alphabetical order: Jake K. Aggarwal (The University of Texas at Austin/USA), Andre Gagalowicz (INRIA/France), Wo- gang Heidrich (University of British Columbia/Canada), Mel Slater (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya/Spain)."

The automatic analysis of signals and images together with the characterization and elaboration of their representation features is still a challenging activity in many relevant scientific and hi-tech fields such as medicine, biotechnology, and chemistry. Multidimensional and multisource signal processing can generate a number of information patterns which can be useful to increase the knowledge of several domains for solving complex problems. Furthermore, advanced signal and image manipulation allows relating specific application problems into pattern recognition problems, often implying also the development of KDD and other computational intelligence procedures. Nevertheless, the amount of data produced by sensors and equipments used in biomedicine, biotechnology and chemistry is usually quite huge and structured, thus strongly pushing the need of investigating advanced models and efficient computational algorithms for automating mass analysis procedures. Accordingly, signal and image understanding approaches able to generate automatically expected outputs become more and more essential, including novel conceptual approaches and system architectures. The purpose of this third edition of the International Conference on Mass Data Analysis of Signals and Images in Medicine, Biotechnology, Chemistry and Food Industry (MDA 2008; www.mda-signals.de) was to present the broad and growing scientific evidence linking mass data analysis with challenging problems in medicine, biotechnology and chemistry. Scientific and engineering experts convened at the workshop to present the current understanding of image and signal processing and interpretation methods useful for facing various medical and biological problems and exploring the applicability and effectiveness of advanced techniques as solutions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Energy Minimization Methods in Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, EMMCVPR 2007, held in Ezhou, China in August 2007.

The 22 revised full papers and 15 poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 140 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on algorithms, applications, image parsing, image processing, motion, shape, and three-dimensional processing.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns, CAIP 2007, held in Vienna, Austria, in August 2007.

The 120 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 251 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on motion detection and tracking, medical imaging, biometrics, colour, curves and surfaces beyond two dimensions, reading characters, words, lines etc., image segmentation, shape, im age registration and matching, signal decomposition and invariants, as well as features and classification.

Affect and emotion play an important role in our everyday lives: They are present whatever we do, wherever we are, and wherever we go, without us being aware of them for much of the time. When it comes to interaction, be it with humans, technology, or humans via technology, we suddenly become more aware of emotion, either by seeing the other's emotional expression, or by not getting an emotional response while anticipating one.

Given this, it seems only sensible to explore affect and emotion in human-computer interaction, to investigate the underlying principles, to study the role they play, to develop methods to quantify them, and to finally build applications that make use of them. This is the research field for which, over ten years ago, Rosalind Picard coined the phrase "affective computing."

The present book provides an account of the latest work on a variety of aspects related to affect and emotion in human-technology interaction. It covers theoretical issues, user experience and design aspects as well as sensing issues, and reports on a number of affective applications that have been developed in recent years.

Welcome to the 2008EuropeanConference onComputer Vision. These proce- ings are the result of a great deal of hard work by many people. To produce them, a total of 871 papers were reviewed. Forty were selected for oral pres- tation and 203 were selected for poster presentation, yielding acceptance rates of 4.6% for oral, 23.3% for poster, and 27.9% in total. Weappliedthreeprinciples.First, sincewehadastronggroupofAreaChairs, the ?nal decisions to accept or reject a paper rested with the Area Chair, who wouldbeinformedbyreviewsandcouldactonlyinconsensuswithanotherArea Chair. Second, we felt that authors were entitled to a summary that explained how the Area Chair reached a decision for a paper. Third, we were very careful to avoid con?icts of interest. Each paper was assigned to an Area Chair by the Program Chairs, and each Area Chair received a pool of about 25 papers. The Area Chairs then identi?ed and rankedappropriatereviewersfor eachpaper in their pool, and a constrained optimization allocated three reviewers to each paper. We are very proud that every paper received at least three reviews. At this point, authors were able to respond to reviews. The Area Chairs then needed to reach a decision. We used a series of procedures to ensure careful review and to avoid con?icts of interest. ProgramChairs did not submit papers. The Area Chairs were divided into three groups so that no Area Chair in the group was in con?ict with any paper assigned to any Area Chair in the group

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Scale Space Methods and Variational Methods in Computer Vision, SSVM 2007, emanated from the joint edition of the 4th International Workshop on Variational, Geometric and Level Set Methods in Computer Vision, VLSM 2007 and the 6th International Conference on Scale Space and PDE Methods in Computer Vision, Scale-Space 2007, held in Ischia Italy, May/June 2007.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Computer Vision/Computer Graphics collaboration techniques involving image analysis/synthesis approaches MIRAGE 2007, held in Rocquencourt, France, in March 2007.

The 55 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 198 submissions. The papers cover foundational and methodological issues such as model-based imaging and analysis, image-based modeling and 3D reconstruction, data driven animation, image and video-based lighting and rendering, model-based vision approaches, model-based indexing and database retrieval, model-based object tracking in image sequences, model-based image and shape analysis, model-based video compression techniques. Application issues addressed are human/computer interfaces, video-games and entertainment industry, media productions from and for films, broadcasts and games, post-production, computer animation, virtual effects, realistic 3D simulation, virtual prototyping, multimedia applications, multimedia database classification, virtual and augmented reality, medical and biomedical applications.

Bjorn Gottfried introduces the notion of positional-contrast. It defines how patterns can be robustly dealt with. That is, the new representation distinguishes patterns by how they relate with regard to spatial relations. This notion can be applied for several purposes, including pattern recognition, motion analysis, and texture analysis.

GeometricModelingandProcessing(GMP)isabiennialinternationalconference on geometric modeling, simulation and computing, which provides researchers and practitioners with a forum for exchanging new ideas, discussing new app- cations, and presenting new solutions. Previous GMP conferences were held in Pittsburgh (2006), Beijing (2004), Tokyo (2002), and Hong Kong (2000). This, the 5th GMP conference, was held in Hangzhou, one of the most beautiful cities in China. GMP 2008 received 113 paper submissions, covering a wide spectrum of - ometric modeling and processing, such as curves and surfaces, digital geometry processing, geometric feature modeling and recognition, geometric constraint solving, geometric optimization, multiresolution modeling, and applications in computer vision, image processing, scienti?c visualization, robotics and reverse engineering. Each paper was reviewed by at least three members of the program committee andexternalreviewers.Basedonthe recommendations ofthe revi- ers, 34 regular papers were selected for oral presentation, and 17 short papers were selected for poster presentation. All selected papers are included in these proceedings. We thank all authors, external reviewers and program committee members for their great e?ort and contributions, which made this conference a success.

This book includes selected papers of the VISAPP and GRAPP International Conferences 2006, held in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, February 25-28, 2006.

The 27 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 314 submissions. The topics include geometry and modeling, rendering, animation and simulation, interactive environments, image formation and processing, image analysis, image understanding, motion, tracking and stereo vision.

The two volume set LNCS 4843 and LNCS 4844 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV 2007, held in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2007.

The 46 revised full papers, 3 planary and invited talks, and 130 revised poster papers of the two volumes were carefully reviewed and seleceted from 551 submissions. The papers of this volume are organized in topical sections on shape and texture, fitting, calbration, detection, image and video processing, applications, face and gesture, tracking, camera networks, face/gesture/action detection and recognition, learning, motion and tracking, retrival and search, human pose estimation, matching, face/gesture/action detection and recognition, low level vision and phtometory, motion and tracking, human detection, and segmentation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Advanced Concepts for Intelligent Vision Systems, ACIVS 2007, held in Delft, The Netherlands, August 28-31, 2007.

The 45 revised full papers and 55 revised poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from around 221 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on noise reduction and restoration, segmentation, motion estimation and tracking, video processing and coding, camera calibration, image registration and stereo matching, biometrics and security, medical imaging, image retrieval and image understanding, as well as classification and recognition.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2007, held in Regensburg, Germany, September 3 - 5, 2007.

The 39 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 63 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on theoretical and methodological issues, algorithms and technologies, implementation and validation aspects, applications, and supply chain management.