This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, MABS 2005, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands in July 2005 as an associated event of AAMAS 2005, the main international conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. The 12 revised full papers presented together with 1 invited talk were carefully reviewed. The papers are organized in topical sections on coalition emergence, theories and models, applications, and environments.

The 31st International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science (WG 2005) was held on the campus "Ile du Saulcy" of the Univ- sity Paul Verlaine-Metz in France. The workshop was organized by the La- ratoire d'Informatique Th eorique et Appliqu ee (LITA) and it took place June 23 - 25 2005. The 94 participants of WG 2005 came from universities and - search institutes of 18 di?erent countries. The WG 2005 workshop continues the series of 30 previous WG workshops. Since 1975, WG has taken place 20 times in Germany, four times in The Neth- lands, twotimesinAustriaaswellasonceinItaly, inSlovakia, inSwitzerlandand inCzechRepublic, andhas nowbeen heldfor the ?rsttime inFrance.The wo- shop aims at uniting theory and practice by demonstrating how graph-theoretic concepts can be applied to various areas in computer science, or by extracting new problems from applications. The goal is to present recent research results and to identify and explore directions of future research. The talks were given in the "Petit Th eatre." They showed how recent research results from algori- mic graph theory can be used in computer science and which graph-theoretic questions arise from new developments in computer science. There were two fascinating invited lectures by Georg Gottlob (Vienna, Austria) and Gregory Kucherov (Nancy, France)."

Molecular simulation is a widely used tool in biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. This book contains a collection of articles by leading researchers who are developing new methods for molecular modelling and simulation. Topics addressed here include: multiscale formulations for biomolecular modelling, such as quantum-classical methods and advanced solvation techniques; protein folding methods and schemes for sampling complex landscapes; membrane simulations; free energy calculation; and techniques for improving ergodicity. The book is meant to be useful for practitioners in the simulation community and for those new to molecular simulation who require a broad introduction to the state of the art.

Conceptual modeling is fundamental to any domain where one must cope with complex real-world situations and systems because it fosters communication - tween technology experts and those who would bene?t from the application of those technologies. Conceptual modeling is the key mechanism for und- standing and representing the domains of information system and database - gineering but also increasingly for other domains including the new "virtual" e-environmentsandtheinformationsystemsthatsupportthem.Theimportance of conceptual modeling in software engineering is evidenced by recent interest in "model-drivenarchitecture"and"extremenon-programming".Conceptualm- eling also plays a prominent rolein various technical disciplines and in the social sciences. The Annual International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (referred to as the ER Conference) provides a central forum for presenting and discussing current research and applications in which conceptual modeling is the major emphasis. In keeping with this tradition, ER 2005, the 24th ER Conference, spanned the spectrum of conceptual modeling including research and practice in areas such as theories of concepts and ontologies underlying conceptual m- eling, methods and tools for developing and communicating conceptual models, and techniques for transforming conceptual models into e?ective (information) system implementations. Moreover, new areas of conceptual modeling incl- ing Semantic Web services and the interdependencies of conceptual modeling with knowledge-based, logical and linguistic theories and approaches were also addressed.

Stochastic hydrogeology, which emerged as a research area in the late 1970s, involves the study of subsurface, geological variability on flow and transport processes and the interpretation of observations using existing theories. Lacking, however, has been a rational framework for modeling the impact of the processes that take place in heterogeneous media and for incorporating it in predictions and decision-making. This book provides this important framework. It covers the fundamental and practical aspects of stochastic hydrogeology, coupling theoretical aspects with examples, case studies, and guidelines for applications.

During its 30-year existence, the International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science has become a distinguished and high-quality computer science event. The workshop aims at uniting theory and practice by demonstrating how graph-theoretic concepts can successfully be applied to v- ious areas of computer science and by exposing new theories emerging from applications. In this way, WG provides a common ground for the exchange of information among people dealing with several graph problems and working in various disciplines. Thereby, the workshop contributes to forming an interdis- plinary research community. The original idea of the Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in C- puter Science was ingenuity in all theoretical aspects and applications of graph concepts, wherever applied. Within the last ten years, the development has strengthened in particular the topic of structural graph properties in relation to computational complexity. This workshop has become pivotal for the c- munity interested in these areas.An aimspeci?c to the 30thWG was to support the central role of WG in both of the prementioned areas on the one hand and on the other hand to promote its originally broader scope. The 30th WG was held at the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef, which serves as the main meeting point of the German Physical Society. It o?ers a secluded setting for research conferences, seminars, and workshops, and has proved to be especiallystimulatingforfruitful discussions.Talksweregiveninthenewlecture hall with a modern double rear projection, interactive electronic board, and full video conferencing equipment.

Biomedical research is at a critical point at present. The research has led to an enormous amount of data and models describing these data, but - proachesforapplication,formalizationand integrationof this knowledgefrom the molecular to the system level are still topics of ongoing research and c- tainly far from fully developed. Also in cardiology the di?erent anatomical and physiological constituents as well as the coupling between them are being researchedin increasing detail and areoften described using computer-based models. But for this domain an integrative framework is still missing. The application of computer-based modeling as a research, development and clinical tool often necessitates the coupling of various models from di?- ent levels. Describing the interactions between these models, which are both physically sound and computationally e?cient, determines the applicability of such promising computer-based attempts. Myhopeisthatthisbookwillcontributetothecomprehension,spreadand impact of computer-based modeling in cardiology,both from a teaching point of view and by summarizing knowledge from several, commonly delimited topics relating to the cardiac manifoldness. The book evolved from revision and extension of my professorial disser- tion(Habilitationsschrift)"MathematicalModelingoftheMammalianHeart" written in 2002. This dissertation was based on notes for the lectures "C- putational Biology: Bioelectromagnetism and Biomechanics," "Simulation of Physical Fields in the Human Body," and "Anatomical, Physical and Fu- tional Models of the Human Body," which I gaveat the Universita t Karlsruhe (TH) from 1998 to 2003. Salt Lake City, 1 February 2004 Frank B. Sachse VI Preface Acknowledgement Manypeople meritmy gratitudefor their assistanceandsupportin this work.

This volume presents revised versions of the papers presented at the 4th International Workshop on Multi-agent Based Simulation (MABS 2003), a workshop federated with the2ndInternationalJointConferenceonAutonomousAgentsandMulti-agentSystems (AAMAS 2003), which was held in Melbourne, Australia, in July 2003. In addition to the papers presented at the workshop, three additional papers have been included in this volume (Robertson, Noto et al., and Marietto et al.). Multiagent Based Simulation (MABS) is a vibrant interdisciplinary area which brings together researchers active within the agent-based social simulation community (ABSS) and the multiagent systems community (MAS). These two communities have different, indeed somewhat divergent, goals. The focus of ABSS is on simulating and synthesizing social behaviors in order to understand observed social systems (human, animal and even electronic) via the development and testing of new models and c- cepts. MAS focuses instead on the solution of hard engineering problems related to the construction, deployment and ef?cient operation of multiagent-based systems.

Studies of surfaces and interactions between dissimilar materials or phases are vital for modern technological applications. Computer simulation methods are indispensable in such studies and this book contains a substantial body of knowledge about simulation methods as well as the theoretical background for performing computer experiments and analyzing the data.

The book is self-contained, covering a range of topics from classical statistical mechanics to a variety of simulation techniques, including molecular dynamics, Langevin dynamics and Monte Carlo methods. A number of physical systems are considered, including fluids, magnets, polymers, granular media, and driven diffusive systems. The computer simulation methods considered include both standard and accelerated versions. The simulation methods are clearly related to the fundamental principles of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.

The 29th International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science(WG2003)washeldintheMennorodeconferenceCenterinElspeet, The Netherlands.TheworkshopwasorganizedbytheCenterforAlgorithmicSystems of the Institute of Information and Computing Sciences of Utrecht University. The workshop took place June 19-21, 2003. The 72 participants of WG 2003 came from universities and research institutes from 18 di?erent countries and ?ve di?erent continents. The workshop looks back at a long tradition. It was ?rst held in 1975, and has been held 20 times in Germany, twice in Austria, and once in Italy, Slo- kia, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic, and has now been held for the third time in The Netherlands. The workshop aims at uniting theory and practice by demonstrating how graph-theoretic concepts can be applied to various areas in computerscience, orbyextractingnewproblemsfromapplications.Itisdevoted to the theoretical and practical aspects of graph concepts in computer science. The goal is to present recent research results and to identify and explore - rections of future research. The talks given at the workshop showed how recent research results from algorithmic graph theory can be used in computer science and which graph-theoretic questions arise from new developments in computer scienc

Arti?cialLifehascomealongway. Sincetheinceptionofthe?eldabout16years ago with a seminal workshop at the Santa Fe Institute, the ?eld has developed quickly. Itsinterdisciplinaryrootshavebeenbothablessingandacurse. Critical people would say that nothing was new in the ideas of Arti?cial Life, since many other disciplines had addressed the very same questions, though probably under di?erent names. Other critics would state that the di?culty of interacting in an interdisciplinary way with colleagues from so many other and divergent ?elds would be so great that true progress could not come from such an enterprise, as those involved would be too busy understanding - or misunderstanding - each other. Admirers, on the other hand, would speak of a bold new attack on the most fascinating questions of science with this new approach. Others would say that new perspectives were opened by the questions the area of Arti?cial Life askedsopointedly. Forthoseinvolvedinthise?ortoversomeyears, ithasalways been very interesting and fascinating to work on these questions. From our discussions it also seems that Arti?cial Life is beginning to become mainstream. Evolutionarybiology, computationalandsystemsbiology, andc- putational social science, to name a few, are disciplines bene?tting from ideas hedgedinArti?cialLife. This, plusthesuccessofopen-endedevolutionarygames in the entertainment industry, the sensibility achieved with decades of work - hind us in arti?cial evolutionary approaches with ?xed ?tness measures, and the development of technology towards a networked, asynchronous, world of inter- tingentities, haveallconspiredtopreparethe?oorforAliferesearchcominginto its own. Notably the concept of emergence of new qualities from the interaction of entities without this quality has been a huge success in recent y

A complete guide to creating usable, realistic game characters with two powerful tools

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The refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on User Modeling, UM 2003, held in Johnstown, PA, USA in June 2003. The 20 revised full papers and 28 revised poster papers presented together with 12 abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from 106 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on adaptive hypermedia, adaptive Web, natural language and dialogue, plan recognition, evaluation, emerging issues of user modeling, group modeling and cooperation, applications, student modeling, learning environments - natural language and paedagogy, and mobile and ubiquitous computing.

The refereed proceedings of the 4th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context, CONTEXT 2003, held in Stanford, CA, USA in June 2003. The 31 full papers and 15 short papers presented were carefully reviewed, selected, and revised for inclusion in the book. The papers presented deal with the interdisciplinary topic of modeling and using context from various points of view, ranging through cognitive science, formal logic, artifical intelligence, computational intelligence, philosophical and psychological aspects, and information processing. Highly general philosophical and theoretical issues are complemented by specific applications in various fields.

Designed for senior electrical engineering students, this textbook explores the theoretical concepts of digital signal processing and communication systems by presenting laboratory experiments using real-time DSP hardware. The experiments are designed for the Texas Instruments TMS320C6701 Evaluation Module or TMS320C6711 DSK but can easily be adapted to other DSP boards. Each chapter begins with a presentation of the required theory and concludes with instructions for performing experiments to implement the theory. In the process of performing the experiments, students gain experience in working with software tools and equipment commonly used in industry.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, MABS 2002, held as part of the AAMAS 2002 conference in Bologna, Italy, in July 2002. The 12 revised full papers presented together with an invited paper were carefully selected during two rounds of reviewing and improvement. The papers are organized in topical sections on emergence, alliances, and groups; MABS platforms and languages; and MABS applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 28th International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science, WG 2002, held in Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic in June 2002. The 36 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from initially 61 submissions during two rounds of reviewing and improvement. The papers provide a wealth of new results for various classes of graphs, graph computations, graph algorithms, and graph-theoretical applications in various fields.

The 2002 IFIP Workshop on Internet Technologies, Applications, and Societal Impact (WITASI 2002), held in Wroclaw, Poland, October 10-11, 2002, presents different research aspects of the Internet, both technical and societal. The workshop aims at getting together scientists and practitioners from different research areas to work together on Internet development and reflect on Internet consequences to the economy and society. The papers presented in these proceedings describe state-of-the-art research in such areas of Internet applications as languages, mobility, multimedia, quality of service, voice over IP, and wireless access. A total of 40 papers were submitted to WITASI 2002 out of which 18 papers were selected for presentation at the workshop and inclusion in the proceedings. The workshop also includes 4 invited papers. WIT ASI 2002 was sponsored by IFIP -the International Federation for Information Processing. It was organized by Working Group WG 6.4 on Internet Applications Engineering of the Technical Committee TC 6 on Communication Systems. Locally, WITASI 2002 was organized by the Institute of Control and Systems Engineering, Wroclaw University of Technology.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Articulated Motion and Deformable Objects, AMDO 2002, held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain in November 2002.The 21 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. Among the topics addressed are geometric and physical deformable objects, motion analysis, articulated models and animation, visualization of deformable models, 3D recovery from motion, single or multiple human motion analysis and synthesis, applications of deformable models and motion analysis, face tracking, recovery and recognition models.

1.1. INTRODUCTION Plastic covering, either framed or floating, is now used worldwide to protect crops from unfavorable growing conditions, such as severe weather and insects and birds. Protected cultivation in the broad sense, including mulching, has been widely spread by the innovation of plastic films. Paper, straw, and glass were the main materials used before the era of plastics. Utilization of plastics in agriculture started in the developed countries and is now spreading to the developing countries. Early utilization of plastic was in cold regions, and plastic was mainly used for protection from the cold. Now plastic is used also for protection from wind, insects and diseases. The use of covering techniques started with a simple system such as mulching, then row covers and small tunnels were developed, and finally plastic houses. Floating mulch was an exception to this sequence: it was introduced rather recently, although it is a simple structure. New development of functional and inexpensive films triggered widespread use of floating mulch. Table 1.1. The use a/plastic mulch in the world (after Jouet, 2001).

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Cellular Automata for Research and Industry, ACRI 2002, held in Geneva, Switzerland in October 2002.The 31 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited paper were carefully reviewed and selected from around 50 submissions. The topics covered range from theoretical issues to applications in various fields, including lattice gases, pattern recognition, cryptography, and authentication. Less known models receive attention as well, such as probabilistic, asynchronous, and multi-level automata. Among novel applications and models are highway traffic, population and growth dynamics, environmental applications, and collective intelligence.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2002, held in Tampere, Finland in October 2002.The 30 revised full papers presented with abstracts of various invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from close to 130 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on semantics and meta-models, principles of ontology, web environments, theory and methods, methods and tools, applications for practice, applying ontology in conceptual modeling, applying ontology in coneptual modeling, systems and data integration, quality assessment, and XML and object systems.

This special volume collects invited articles by participants of the Third International Workshop on Methods for Macromolecular Modeling, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Oct. 12-14, 2000. Leading developers of methods for biomolecular simulations review advances in Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics methods, free energy computational methods, fast electrostatics (particle-mesh Ewald and fast multipole methods), mathematics, and molecular neurobiology, nucleic acid simulations, enzyme reactions, and other essential applications in biomolecular simulations. A Perspectives article by the editors assesses the directions and impact of macromolecular modeling research, including genomics and proteomics. These reviews and original papers by applied mathematicians, theoretical chemists, biomedical researchers, and physicists are of interest to interdisciplinary research students, developers and users of biomolecular methods in academia and industry.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Mining Web Data, WEBKDD 2001 held in San Francisco, CA, USA in August 2001.The seven revised full papers went through two rounds of reviewing an improvement. The book addresses key issues in mining Web log data for e-commerce. The papers are devoted to predicting user access, recommender systems and access modeling, and acquiring and modeling data and patterns.

This volume summarizes the results of a priority program launched by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) called KONDISK-Dynamics and Control of Systems with Mixed Continuous and Discrete Dynamics. The program was motivated by the need for a more comprehensive approach to hybrid systems both in the computer science and the control engineering communities. Technical systems nowadays are composed of physical components with mostly continuous dynamics and computerized control systems where the reaction to discrete events plays a major role, implemented in Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Distributed Control Systems (DCSs) or real-time computer systems. Several practical examples of systems with mixed continuous-discrete dynamics are presented, such as a conveyor belt, an annealing furnace, a membranous filtration process, a titration plant, a diesel engine, robotic arms, a chemical reactor, tank systems, or an aircraft elevator system.