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Books > Computing & IT > Computer software packages > Multimedia
The main objective of pervasive computing systems is to create environments where computers become invisible by being seamlessly integrated and connected into our everyday environment, where such embedded computers can then provide inf- mation and exercise intelligent control when needed, but without being obtrusive. Pervasive computing and intelligent multimedia technologies are becoming incre- ingly important to the modern way of living. However, many of their potential applications have not yet been fully realized. Intelligent multimedia allows dynamic selection, composition and presentation of the most appropriate multimedia content based on user preferences. A variety of applications of pervasive computing and - telligent multimedia are being developed for all walks of personal and business life. Pervasive computing (often synonymously called ubiquitous computing, palpable computing or ambient intelligence) is an emerging ?eld of research that brings in revolutionary paradigms for computing models in the 21st century. Pervasive c- puting is the trend towards increasingly ubiquitous connected computing devices in the environment, a trend being brought about by a convergence of advanced el- tronic - and particularly, wireless - technologies and the Internet. Recent advances in pervasive computers, networks, telecommunications and information technology, along with the proliferation of multimedia mobile devices - such as laptops, iPods, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and cellular telephones - have further stimulated the development of intelligent pervasive multimedia applications. These key te- nologiesarecreatingamultimediarevolutionthatwillhavesigni?cantimpactacross a wide spectrum of consumer, business, healthcare and governmental domains.
Peter Flynn has been an enthusiastic and skillful contributor in the world of SGML and XML for many years, and it is a pleasure to see him set some of his expertise down in writing as well. The range and power of SGML tools have taken a sharp upward turn: the first step leading to this was that the Web came along with HTML, and showed the whole world that pointy brackets and (at least somewhat) descriptive markup could make a difference. Soon afterward, 'HTML claustrophobia' began to grow and XML came to the rescue. Since XML is fundamentally an elegant subset of SGML that reduces complexity without reducing functionality, the movement to XML is great for SGML too. The massive interest in XML is bringing forth a huge variety of new, faster, more powerful, and cheaper software tools. Peter has caught the cusp of this change and shows in detail how SGML and XML tools fit together into integrated solutions that return value for your investment in structured information.
This book aims at capitalizing and transmitting know-how about the design of Augmented Environments (AE) from some of the most prominent laboratories in the field worldwide. The authors belong to the RUFAE network (Research on User- Friendly Augmented Environments, founded in 2002) who meet in research seminars to share experience; Writing this book was perceived as an opportunity to look back over the last few years to sum up important findings; and formalize their approach and experience, which they never had the time or opportunity to do. Although the authors of this book have very different backgrounds, striking similarities emerge in their approach and design principles: never-endingness, activity-orientedness, continuous design, realism are some of the pillars of this approach; enabling to deal with the complex, heterogeneous, multi-user and mul- purpose constructions which AE designers have to face. The book illustrates how these principles enabled them to construct robust, ef- cient, and user-friendly Augmented Environments in spite of the many challenges to make these operational. We hope their experience will help the reader. Primary audience: Academics, Students and Professionals involved in the CHI, CSCW, Ubicomp, Cooperative Building communities. Computer Scientists int- ested by end-users and applications, Social Scientists operating in the IT domain, IT & Organization Consultants. Secondary audience: Developers of office and conferencing applications or middleware, Architects of office buildings, Space Planners, Designers; Facility Managers; IT, furniture & building Business Communities.
This book provides readers with comprehensive details on how the WWW works, complete with definitions and standards. It discusses the latest versions of the transfer protocol (HTTP 1.1), the description language (HTML 4.0), the foundations of the description language (SGML and XML), style sheets (CSS1), web servers, and security (SSL and CGI). Issues of importance for the future development of the WWW are discussed, including virtual reality (VRML), portable network graphics (PNG), and MathML.
Agent technology has recently become one of the most vibrant and fastest growing areas in information technology. Within this booming area, intelligent information agents are attracting particular attention from the research and development community as well as from industry and user communities interested in everyday private and professional applications. This monographic text is the first systematic state-of-the-art survey on intelligent information agents. Eighteen coherently written chapters by leading authorities provide complementary coverage of the relevant issues organized in four parts: cooperative information systems and agents; rational information agents and electronic commerce; adaptive information agents; mobile agents and security. In addition, the volume editor has provided a detailed introductory survey chapter, motivational introductions to the four parts, and a comprehensive bibliography listing more than 700 entries.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Multimedia Modeling Conference, MMM 2012, held in Klagenfurt, Austria, in January 2012. The 38 revised regular papers, 12 special session papers, 15 poster session papers, and 6 demo session papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 142 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: annotation, annotation and interactive multimedia applications, event and activity, mining and mobile multimedia applications, search, summarization and visualization, visualization and advanced multimedia systems, and the special sessions: interactive and immersive entertainment and communication, multimedia preservation: how to ensure multimedia access over time, multi-modal and cross-modal search, and video surveillance.
Image-based rendering (IBR) refers to a collection of techniques and representations that allow 3D scenes and objects to be visualized in a realistic way without full 3D model reconstruction. IBR uses images as the primary substrate. The potential for photorealistic visualization has tremendous appeal, and it is thus not surprising that IBR has been receiving increasing attention over the years. Applications such as video games, virtual travel, and E-commerce stand to benefit from this technology. Image-Based Rendering examines the theory, practice, and applications associated with image-based rendering and modeling. The authors bring together their backgrounds and research experiences in computer graphics, computer vision and signal processing to address the multi-disciplinary nature of IBR research. The topics to be covered vary from IBR basic concepts and representations on the theory side, to signal processing and data compression on the practical side. These theoretical and practical issues are further disseminated in several IBR systems built to-date. However, this book will not focus on the geometrical modeling aspect of IBR, since 3D modeling has been extensively treated elsewhere in the vision literature. One of the only titles devoted exclusively to the area of IBR, this book is intended for researchers, professionals, and general readers interested in the topics of computer graphics, computer vision, image processing, and video processing. Advanced-level students in EECS studying related disciplines will be able to seriously expand their knowledge about image-based rendering.
This volume brings together the advanced research results obtained by the European COST Action 2102 "Cross Modal Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication," primarily discussed at the PINK SSPnet-COST2102 International Conference on Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication and Enactment: The Processing Issues, held in Budapest, Hungary, in September 2010. The 40 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The volume is arranged into two scientific sections. The first section, Multimodal Signals: Analysis, Processing and Computational Issues, deals with conjectural and processing issues of defining models, algorithms, and heuristic strategies for data analysis, coordination of the data flow and optimal encoding of multi-channel verbal and nonverbal features. The second section, Verbal and Nonverbal Social Signals, presents original studies that provide theoretical and practical solutions to the modelling of timing synchronization between linguistic and paralinguistic expressions, actions, body movements, activities in human interaction and on their assistance for an effective human-machine interactions.
Education and Technology for a Better World was the main theme for WCCE 2009. The conference highlights and explores different perspectives of this theme, covering all levels of formal education as well as informal learning and societal aspects of education. The conference was open to everyone involved in education and training. Additionally players from technological, societal, business and political fields outside education were invited to make relevant contributions within the theme: Education and Technology for a Better World. For several years the WCCE (World Conference on Computers in Education) has brought benefits to the fields of computer science and computers and education as well as to their communities. The contributions at WCCE include research projects and good practice presented in different formats from full papers to posters, demonstrations, panels, workshops and symposiums. The focus is not only on presentations of accepted contributions but also on discussions and input from all participants. The main goal of these conferences is to provide a forum for the discussion of ideas in all areas of computer science and human learning. They create a unique environment in which researchers and practitioners in the fields of computer science and human learning can interact, exchanging theories, experiments, techniques, applications and evaluations of initiatives supporting new developments that are potentially relevant for the development of these fields. They intend to serve as reference guidelines for the research community.
In the third paper in this chapter, Mike Pratt provides an historical intro duction to solid modeling. He presents the development of the three most freqently used techniques: cellular subdivision, constructive solid modeling and boundary representation. Although each of these techniques devel oped more or less independently, today the designer's needs dictate that a successful system allows access to all of these methods. For example, sculptured surfaces are generally represented using a boundary represen tation. However, the design of a complex vehicle generally dictates that a sculptured surface representation is most efficient for the 'skin' while constructive solid geometry representation is most efficent for the inter nal mechanism. Pratt also discusses the emerging concept of design by 'feature line'. Finally, he addresses the very important problem of data exchange between solid modeling systems and the progress that is being made towards developing an international standard. With the advent of reasonably low cost scientific workstations with rea sonable to outstanding graphics capabilities, scientists and engineers are increasingly turning to computer analysis for answers to fundamental ques tions and to computer graphics for present~tion of those answers. Although the current crop of workstations exhibit quite impressive computational ca pability, they are still not capable of solving many problems in a reasonable time frame, e. g. , executing computational fluid dynamics and finite element codes or generating complex ray traced or radiosity based images. In the sixth chapter Mike Muuss of the U. S.
Although the computer's life has been relatively short, it has brought about an information revolution that is transforming our world on a scale that is still difficult to comprehend. This digital convergence is shaping society, technology and the media for the next millennium. Areas as diverse as home banking and shopping over the Internet; WWW access over mobile phone networks; and television systems such as Web TV which combine on-line services with television. But convergence is not just about technology. It is also about services and new ways of doing business and of interacting with society. Digital convergence heralds the 'Information Revolution'. Edited by John Vince and Rae Earnshaw this important new book on Digital Convergence: The Information Revolution is an edited volume of papers, bringing together state-of-the-art developments in the Internet and World Wide Web and should be compulsory reading for all those interested in and working in those areas.
The two-volume proceedings LNCS 7087 + 7088 constitute the proceedings of the 5th Pacific Rim Symposium, PSIVT 2011, held in Gwangju, Korea, in November 2011. The total of 71 revised papers was carefully reviewed and selected from 168 submissions. The topics covered are: image/video coding and transmission; image/video processing and analysis; imaging and graphics hardware and visualization; image/video retrieval and scene understanding; biomedical image processing and analysis; biometrics and image forensics; and computer vision applications.
The two-volume proceedings LNCS 7087 + LNCS 7088 constitute the proceedings of the 5th Pacific Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology, PSIVT 2011, held in Gwangju, Korea, in November 2011. The total of 71 revised papers was carefully reviewed and selected from 168 submissions. The topics covered are: image/video coding and transmission; image/video processing and analysis; imaging and graphics hardware and visualization; image/video retrieval and scene understanding; biomedical image processing and analysis; biometrics and image forensics; and computer vision applications.
2 chapter contains examples of intelligent agents, arranged according to their appli cation areas. Chapter 7 closes with a prospective view of the future development of intelligent agents. Everyone concerned with the Internet and the new possibilities of information and communication technology knows that nowadays there is no area that is devel oping faster. The authors are aware of the dynamics of this research area and its effects when they describe such a fast developing area in a slow, traditional me dium like a book. One thing is sure today: when the book appears on the market, new intelligent agents will already exist and some of the hypotheses made by this book will have been shown to be incorrect. Why, despite this, does it make sense to write a classical book on this subject? Is there an alternative? Experience shows that the majority of the people in business and public life who make decisions on the use of new technologies continue to prefer books and articles in periodicals rather than electronic sources such as the Internet. Or is there some other reason for the enormous success of Nicolas Negroponte's book Being Digital, which we thank for multimedia and many concepts of the digital and networked world, and even intelligent agents? Today, a book is still the only way to establish a new area."
ThisvolumecontainstheProceedingsofthe2ndInternationalSymposiumon Intelligent Interactive Multimedia Systems and Services (KES-IIMSS 2009) This second edition of the KES-IIMSS Symposium was organized by the Department of Information Technologies of University of Milan, Italy in c- junctionwithHanyangUniversity, KoreaandKESInternational. KES-IIMSS is a new series of international scienti?c symposia aimed at presenting novel research in the ?elds of intelligent multimedia systems relevant to the dev- opment of a new generation of interactive, user-centric services. The major theme underlying this year's symposium is the rapid integration of mul- media processing techniques within a new wave of user-centric services and processes. Indeed, pervasive computing has blurred the traditional disti- tion between conventional information technologies and multimedia proce- ing, making multimedia an integral part of a new generation of IT-based interactive systems. The aim of the KES-IIMSS symposium, following the general structure of KES events, is to provide an internationally respected forum for publishing high-quality results of scienti?c research while all- ing for timely dissemination of research breakthroughs and novel ideas via a number of autonomous special sessions and workshops on emerging - sues and topics identi?ed each year. IMSS 2009 co-located events include the International Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction in Knowled- based Environments, and three invited sessions respectively on Intelligent Systems for Healthcare, Design of Intelligent Environments for Supporting Human Interaction and Multimedia Techniques for Device and Ambient - telligence (MTDAI).
TO COMPUTER GRAPHICS BASED ONGKS Part I gives an introduction to basic concepts of computer graph ics and to the principles and concepts of GKS. The aims of this part are twofold: to provide the beginner with an overview of the terminology and concepts of computer graphics, based on GKS, and to give the computer graphics expert an introduc tion to the GKS standard. In the early chapters of this part, the main areas of computer graphics, the various classes of com puter graphics users, the interfaces of GKS and its underlying design concepts are discussed and important terms are defined. The later chapters give an informal introduction to the main concepts of GKS and their interrelationships: output, attributes, coordinate systems, transformations, input, segments, metafile, state lists, and error handling. This introduction to the GKS framework will prepare the ground for the detailed description of 2D GKS functions in Part III and the 3D extensions to GKS in Part IV. 1 WHAT IS COMPUTER GRAPHICS? 1. 1 Defmition of Computer Graphics The Data Processing Vocabulary of the International Organization for Stan dardization (ISO) ISO 84] defines Computer Graphics as follows: "Methods and techniques for converting data to and from a graphic display via computer. " This definition refers to three basic components of any computer graphics system - namely "data," "computer," and "display.""
Human Identification Based on Gait is the first book to address gait as a biometric. Biometrics is now in a unique position where it affects most people's lives. This is especially true of "gait," which is one of the most recent biometrics. Recognizing people by the way they walk and run implies analyzing movement which, in turn, implies analyzing sequences of images, thus requiring memory and computational performance that became available only recently. Human Identification Based on Gait introduces developments from distinguished researchers within this relatively new area of biometrics. This book clearly establishes how human gait is biometric. Human Identification Based on Gait is structured to meet the needs of professionals in industry, as well as advanced-level students in computer science.
Visual languages have long been lit pursuitofeffective communication 00 tween human and machine. Today, they are suecessfully employed for e: nd user progmmming, modeliog, rapid prototypmg, and design activities by people ofmany disciplines including arehitects, artists, children, engi neers, and scientists. Furthermore. with rapid advances ofthe Internet and Web technology, human human communication through the Web or eleo tronie mobile deviees is becoming more and moreprevalent This manuscript provides a comprehensive introduetion to diagmmmatiooI visual programming languages and the technologyofautomatie genemtion ofsnch languages. It covers a broad rangeofcontents from the underlying theoryofgraph grammars to the applications in various domains. Thecon tents were ex: l: l: aeted from the papers that my Ph. D. students and I have published in the last 10 years. and are updated and organized in a coherent fashion. The manuseript gives an in. -depth treatmentof all the topic areas. Pointers to related work and further readings are also faeilitated at the end ofeverychapterexeeptChapter 9. Rather than describing how to program visually, the manuscript discusses what are visual programming languages, and how sooh languages and their underlying foundations can be usefully applied to other fields incomputer science that need graphs as the p: rimary meansofrepresentation. Assuming the basic knowledge of computer programming and compiler co: nstruetion, the manuscript can be used as a textbook for senior orgradu ate computer science classes on visual languages, or a reference book for programming language classes, practitioners, and researchers inthe related field. The manuscript cannot be completed without the helps of many people.
Multimedia information systems are quite different from traditional information systems, especially in data types, modeling, delivery, and user interface. The large size of multimedia data and the high bandwidth requirement of multime dia streams require new storage, buffering, delivery, and networking schemes. The presentational nature of multimedia applications requires a proper syn chronization between multimedia streams, and the composition of multimedia documents in the distributed environment should overcome the heterogeneity of underlying systems. This book is edited for undergraduate and graduate students studying mul timedia information and applications, researchers and developers of various multimedia software and hardware systems, multimedia tool developers, user interface designers, and network protocol designers by including 17 chapters focused on the following major issues: * Disk scheduling and storage hierarchy. * Configuration of multimedia servers and buffer management. * Delivery scheduling for multimedia streams. * Supporting user interactions. Document modeling and temporal modeling of multimedia data. * * Integrated multimedia information system.
Multimedia computing has emerged in the last few years as a major area of research. Multimedia computer systems have opened a wide range of applications by combining a variety of information sources, such as voice, graphics, animation, images, audio, and full-motion video. Looking at the big picture, multimedia can be viewed as the merging of three industries: the computer, communications, and broadcasting industries. Research and development efforts in multimedia computing can be divided into two areas. As the first area of research, much effort has been centered on the stand-alone multimedia workstation and associated software systems and tools, such as music composition, computer-aided education and training, and interactive video. However, the combination of multimedia computing with distributed systems offers even greater potential. New applications based on distributed multimedia systems include multimedia information systems, collaborative and videoconferencing systems, on-demand multimedia services, and distance learning. Multimedia Tools and Applications is one of two volumes published by Kluwer, both of which provide a broad introduction to this fast moving area. This book covers selected tools applied in multimedia systems and key multimedia applications. Topics presented include multimedia application development techniques, techniques for content-based manipulation of image databases, techniques for selection and dissemination of digital video, and tools for digital video segmentation. Selected key applications described in the book include multimedia news services, multimedia courseware and training, interactive television systems, digital video libraries, multimedia messaging systems, and interactive multimedia publishing systems. The second book, Multimedia Systems and Techniques, covers fundamental concepts and techniques used in multimedia systems. The topics include multimedia objects and related models, multimedia compression techniques and standards, multimedia interfaces, multimedia storage techniques, multimedia communication and networking, multimedia synchronization techniques, multimedia information systems, scheduling in multimedia systems, and video indexing and retrieval techniques. Multimedia Tools and Applications, along with its companion volume, is intended for anyone involved in multimedia system design and applications and can be used as a textbook for advanced courses on multimedia.
High-Speed Networking for Multimedia Applications presents the latest research on the architecture and protocols for high-speed networks, focusing on communication support for distributed multimedia applications. This includes the two major issues of ATM Networking and quality of service for multimedia applications. It is to be expected that most of the bandwidth in future high-speed networks will be taken up by multimedia applications, transmitting digital audio and video. Traditional networking protocols are not suitable for this as they do not provide guaranteed bandwidth, end-to-end delay or delay jitter, nor do they have addressing schemes or routing algorithms for multicast connections. High-Speed Networking for Multimedia Applications is a collection of high quality research papers which address these issues, providing interesting and innovative solutions. It is an essential reference for engineers and computer scientists working in this area. It is also a comprehensive text for graduate students of high-speed networking and multimedia applications.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2011, held in Vancouver, Canada, in November/December 2011. The 17 full papers, 14 short papers and 16 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 72 paper and poster submissions. In addition, the volume includes 6 workshops descriptions. The full and short papers have been organized into the following topical sections: interactive storytelling theory, new authoring modes, virtual characters and agents, story generation and drama managment, narratives in digital games, evaluation and user experience reports, tools for interactive storytelling.
Multimedia Database Systems: Design and Implementation Strategies is a compendium of the state-of-the-art research and development work pertaining to the problems and issues in the design and development of multimedia database systems. The chapters in the book are developed from presentations given at previous meetings of the International Workshop on Multi-Media Data Base Management Systems (IW-MMDBMS), and address the following issues: development of adequate multimedia database models, design of multimedia database query and retrieval languages, design of indexing and organization techniques, development of efficient and reliable storage models, development of efficient and dependable retrieval and delivery strategies, and development of flexible, adaptive, and reliable presentation techniques.
Rethinking Hypermedia: The Microcosm Approach is essentially the story of the Microcosm hypermedia research and development project that started in the late 1980's and from which has emerged a philosophy that re-examines the whole concept of hypermedia and its role in the evolution of multimedia information systems. The book presents the complete story of Microcosm to date. It sets the development of Microcosm in the context of the history of the subject from which it evolved, as well as the developments in the wider world of technology over the last two decades including personal computing, high-speed communications, and the growth of the Internet. These all lead us towards a world of global integrated information environments: the publishing revolution of the 20th century, in principle making vast amounts of information available to anybody anywhere in the world. Rethinking Hypermedia: The Microcosm Approach explains the role that open hypermedia systems and link services will play in the integrated information environments of the future. It considers issues such as authoring, legacy systems and data integrity issues, and looks beyond the simple hypertext model provided in the World Wide Web and other systems today to the world of intelligent information processing agents that will help us deal with the problems of information overload and maintenance. Rethinking Hypermedia: The Microcosm Approach will be of interest to all those who are involved in designing, implementing and maintaining hypermedia systems such as the World Wide Web by setting the groundwork for producing a system that is both easy to use and easy to maintain. Rethinking Hypermedia: The Microcosm Approach is essential reading for anyone involved in the provision of online information.
Information Retrieval (IR) has concentrated on the development of information management systems to support user retrieval from large collections of homogeneous textual material. A variety of approaches have been tried and tested with varying degrees of success over many decades of research. Hypertext (HT) systems, on the other hand, provide a retrieval paradigm based on browsing through a structured information space, following pre-defined connections between information fragments until an information need is satisfied, or appears to be. Information Retrieval and Hypertext addresses the confluence of the areas of IR and HT and explores the work done to date in applying techniques from one area, to the other leading to the development of hypertext information retrieval' (HIR) systems. An important aspect of the work in IR/HT and in any user-centred information system is the emergence of multimedia information and such multimedia information is treated as an integral information type in this text. The contributed chapters cover the development of integrated hypertext information retrieval models, and the application of IR and HT techniques in hypertext construction and the approaches that can be taken in searching HIR systems. These chapters are complemented by two overview chapters covering, respectively, information retrieval and hypertext research and developments. Information Retrieval and Hypertext is important as it is the first text to directly address the combined searching/browsing paradigm of information discovery which is becoming so important in modern computing environments. It will be of interest to researchers and professionals working in a range of areas related to information discovery. |
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