Die 16. GI/ITG-Fachtagung Kommunikation in Verteilten Systemen (KiVS 2009) befasst sich als wichtigstes deutschsprachiges Forum fur Forschung und Entwicklung auf den Gebieten Kommunikation und Verteilte Systeme mit einer grossen Vielfalt von innovativen und zukunftsorientierten Fragestellungen. Sie spannt dabei einen Bogen von allgegenwartigen verteilten Anwendungen uber Middleware-Konzepte und Protokolltechniken bis hin zu modernen Netztechniken mit ihren Mobilitats- und Sicherheitsfragen. Die KiVS dient der Standortbestimmung aktueller Entwicklungen, der Prasentation laufender Forschungsarbeiten und der Diskussion zukunftstrachtiger Ansatze fur die Kommunikation in Verteilten Systemen. "

Mobile Response 2008, the Second International Workshop on Mobile Infor- tion Technology for Emergency Response, aimed at a focussed exchange on how mobile information technology can be e?ectively used to the bene?t of em- gency response. The gap between the great potential bene?t that usable mobile IT could yield in the domain of emergency response and the speci?c design challenges for such technologies in this particularly unforgiving domain was the foundation of our decision to create a venue for researchers and practitioners from di?erent disciplines. During this year's workshopthe latest approachesand technical solutions in the area of mobile information technology for emergency response planning and execution were presented and demonstrated. We invited participation from research, industry and public rescue orga- zations to enable an in-depth discussion of the opportunities and drawbacks of new digital technologies for emergency response. The call for papers for the second Mobile Response workshop attracted over 25 submissions from 11 d- ferent countries, including international submissions from the USA, Brazil and Japan.AninternationalProgramCommitteewithexpertsonmobileinformation technology, emergency response and emergency response equipment selected 12 submissions for presentation during the workshop. The program was completed by two outstanding keynote presentations and one invited presentation on p- vailing topics of high interest to the scienti?c and practitioner communities.

The Transactions on Computational Science journal is part of the Springer series Lecture Notes in Computer Science, and is devoted to the gamut of computational science issues, from theoretical aspects to application-dependent studies and the va- dation of emerging technologies. The current issue is devoted to computer systems research and the application of such research, which naturally complement each other. The issue is comprised of Part 1: Computational Visualization and Optimization, and Part 2: Computational Methods for Model Design and Analysis. Part 1 - Computational Visualization and Optimization - is devoted to state-of-the-art research carried out in this area with the use of novel computational methods. It is c- prised of five papers, each addressing a specific computational problem in the areas of shared virtual spaces, dynamic visualization, multimodal user interfaces, computational geometry, and parallel simulation, respectively. Part 2 - Computational Methods for Model Design and Analysis - continues the topic with an in-depth look at selected computational science research in the areas of data representation and analysis. The four papers comprising this part cover such areas as efficient reversible logic design, missing data analysis, stochastic computation and neural network representation for eccentric sphere models. Each paper describes a detailed experiment or a case study of the methodology presented to amplify the impact of the contribution.

These proceedings contain the papers presented at ECIR 2009, the 31st - ropean Conference on Information Retrieval. The conference was organized by the Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse (IRIT), in cooperation with the Information Retrieval Specialist Group of the British Computer So- ety (BCS-IRSG) and was supported by the Special Interest Group on Infor- tion Retrieval (ACM SIGIR), the French Association of Information Retrieval (ARIA) and E-IRSG. It was held during April 6-9, 2007 in Toulouse, hosted by the Pierre Baudis congress center. ECIR 2009 con?rmed the growth trend of submissions, with 188 full-paper submissions. Many of these submissions came from outside Europe, and 25 countries were represented in the ?nal ECIR 2009 program, re?ecting the international po- larityandreputationoftheconferenceseries.Furthermorethetraditionalstrong focus on students was well preserved, with their participation being great. All submitted papers were reviewed by at least three members of the int- national Program Committee. Out of the 188 papers 42 were selected as full research papers and a further 18 were accepted as short research papers. Short papers were given 8 pages in the proceedings (instead of 12). Out of these 60 selected papers, 30 have a student as the primary author. The accepted papers themselves come from a mixture of universities, researchinstitutes and comm- cial organizations. There was also a separate call for posters. Each of the 60 poster submissions wasreviewedbythreeProgramCommitteemembers, aswithpapersubmissions. Twenty-?ve posters were accepted for presentation. Takentogether, thesepaperscoverthestateoftheartininformationretrieval, including topicssuchasretrievalmodels, evaluationandWeb search, andeme- ing topics such as learning to rank, expert search and opinion detect

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications, DASFAA 2009, held in Brisbane, Australia, in April 2009.

The 39 revised full papers and 22 revised short papers presented together with 3 invited keynote papers, 9 demonstration papers, 3 tutorial abstracts, and one panel abstract were carefully reviewed and selected from 186 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on uncertain data and ranking, sensor networks, graphs, RFID and data streams, skyline and rising stars, parallel and distributed processing, mining and analysis, XML query, privacy, XML keyword search and ranking, Web and Web services, XML data processing, and multimedia.

Synchronization and Title Sequences proposes a semiotic analysis of the synchronization of image and sound in motion pictures using title sequences. Through detailed historical close readings of title designs that use either voice-over, an instrumental opening, or title song to organize their visuals-from Vertigo (1958) to The Player (1990) and X-Men: First Class (2011)-author Michael Betancourt develops a foundational framework for the critique and discussion of motion graphics' use of synchronization and sound, as well as a theoretical description of how sound-image relationships develop on-screen.

The authors reflect the preoccupation of academia with the latest trends in e-content and communication technologies, such as going mobile or discovering new, innovative interfaces. In addition, they introduce new learning methods with interactive media.

An increasing number of artists and programmers in visual effects and broadcast production now use mental ray, a high performance rendering engine for generating photorealistic images. This book details the aesthetics of rendering with mental ray. It describes the varieties of shader programming from the point of view of increasing perceptual complexity: from color to the output of the final image. It includes many example shaders, including the simplest shader possible in each category that can serve as a starting point for further customization.

The 7th International Conference on Entertainment Computing, under the auspices of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), was held September 25-27, 2008 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Based on the very successful first international workshop (IWEC 2002) and the following international conferences (ICEC 2003 through ICEC 2007), ICEC 2008 was an international forum for the exchange of experience and knowledge amongst researchers and developers in the field of entertainment computing. ICEC is the longest established and most prestigious conference in the field of entertainment computing. The conference provides an interdisciplinary forum for advanced research in entertainment computing, broadly defined. ICEC is truly international with leading experts from 14 nations representing academia and industry attending this year's conference. These leaders presented their newest research, insights, products and demonstrations. Although the field of entertainment computing is thought of as new, in fact modern digital computer games go back over 45 years with games such as Spacewar developed in 1961. This is not to say entertainment computing is limited to computer games. As evidenced by papers in this volume, entertainment computing covers virtually every aspect of today's recreational diversions.

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

With the widespread interest in digital entertainment and the advances in the tech- logies of computer graphics, multimedia and virtual reality technologies, a new area-- "Edutainment"--has been accepted as a union of education and computer entertainment. Edutainment is recognized as an effective way of learning through a medium, such as a computer, software, games or VR applications, that both educates and entertains. The Edutainment conference series was established and followed as a special event for the new interests in e-learning and digital entertainment. The main purpose of Edutainment conferences is the discussion, presentation, and information exchange of scientific and technological developments in the new community. The Edutainment conference series is a very interesting opportunity for researchers, engineers and graduate students who wish to communicate at these international annual events. The conference series includes plenary invited talks, workshops, tutorials, paper presen- tion tracks and panel discussions. The Edutainment conference series was initiated in Hangzhou, China in 2006. Following the success of the first event (Edutainment 2006 in Hangzhou, China) and the second one (Edutainment 2007 in Hong Kong, China), Edutainment 2008 was held June 25-27, 2007 in Nanjing, China. This year, we received 219 submissions from 26 different countries and regions, including United Arab Emirates, Canada, Thailand, New Zealand, Austria, Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Cuba, Australia, Hong Kong (China), Pakistan, M- ico, Czech Republic, USA, Malaysia, Italy, Spain, France, UK, The Netherlands, Taiwan (China), Japan, South Korea, and China.

Engineering Interactive Systems 2007 is an IFIP working conference that brings together researchers and practitioners interested in strengthening the scientific foun- tions of user interface design, examining the relationship between software engine- ing (SE) and human-computer interaction (HCI) and on how user-centerd design (UCD) could be strengthened as an essential part of the software engineering process. Engineering Interactive Systems 2007 was created by merging three conferences: * HCSE 2007 - Human-Centerd Software Engineering held for the first time. The HCSE Working Conference is a multidisciplinary conference entirely dedicated to advancing the basic science and theory of human-centerd software systems engineering. It is organized by IFIP WG 13.2 on Methodologies for User-Centerd Systems Design. * EHCI 2007 - Engineering Human Computer Interaction was held for the tenth time. EHCI aims to investigate the nature, concepts, and construction of user interfaces for software systems. It is organized by IFIP WG 13.4/2.7 on User Interface Engineering. * DSV-IS 2007 - Design, Specification and Verification of Interactive Systems was held for the 13th time. DSV-IS provides a forum where researchers wo- ing on model-based techniques and tools for the design and development of - teractive systems can come together with practitioners and with those working on HCI models and theories.

th Welcome to the 15 International Multimedia Modeling Conference (MMM 2009), held January 7-9, 2009 at EURECOM, Sophia-Antipolis, France. MMM is a leadinginternationalconference for researchersandindustry practitionersto share their new ideas, original research results and practical development ex- riences from all multimedia-related areas. MMM 2009 was held in co-operation with the ACM Special Interest Group on MultiMedia (ACM SIGMM). It was a great honor to host MMM 2009, one of the most long-standing th multimedia conferences, at EURECOM in Sophia-Antipolis, France. The 15 edition of MMM marked the return of the conference to Europe after numerous years of activity in Asia, and we are proud to have organized such a prestigious conference on the French Riviera. EURECOM is an engineering school in the domain of information and communication technology and a research center in communication systems. Since its creation in 1991 by TELECOM ParisTech and EPFL, it has developed strong international links with both academic and industrial partners. The heart of EURECOM is its internationally renowned research activities which focus on three areas: networking and security, mobile communications, and multimedia.

The Second Workshop of Blended Learning (WBL 2008), as part of the 7th Inter- tional Conference on Web-Based Learning (ICWL 2008), was held in Zhejiang N- mal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China during August 20-22, 2008. WBL 2008 provided an international forum for the dissemination of original results in the design, implementation, and evaluation of blended learning systems and related areas. In particular, the aim of WBL 2008 was to bring together researchers from academia as well as commercial developers from industry to explore ideas, exchange and share experiences, and further build the blended learning research network. The inspirations and new ideas were expected to emerge from intensive discussions during formal sessions and social activities. The main focus of WBL 2008 was on the most critical areas of blended learning, namely, 'e-Learning Platforms and Tools, ' 'Design, Model and Framework of e- Learning Systems, ' 'Practice and Experience Sharing, ' and 'Pedagogical Issues.' In total, the workshop selected 17 papers from authors of different countries for presen- tion and publication, a task which was not easy due to the high quality of the subm- ted papers. Using stringent selection criteria, submissions were rigorously reviewed based on their originality, significance, relevance, and clarity of presentation by an international Program Committee from Germany, Spain, UK, Italy, Ireland, Romania, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, and Macao.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International C- ference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2008) held in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2008. The objective of this conference series is to provide a forum for presentation of high-quality research in the ?eld of digital libraries. ICADL 2008 provided an opportunity for digital libraries researchers and practitioners in the Asia Paci?c area and beyond to gather to explore ideas, exchange and share experiences, and further build the research network in this region. ICADL 2008 was a truly international event, with presenters from 21 countries. A total of 63 papers were accepted for inclusion in the proceedings: 30 full papers, 20 short papers, and extended abstracts of 13 posters. Submissions were subject to a rigorous, blind peer-review process. The research topics cover the spectrum of digital libraries, including multimedia digital libraries, usab- ity and evaluation, information retrieval, ontologies, social tagging, metadata issues, multi- and cross-language retrieval, digital preservation, scholarly p- lishing and communities, and more. Additionally, three tutorials were o?ered in association with the conference by Andreas Rauber (Vienna University of Technology), David Bainbridge (University of Waikato), and George Buchanan (Swansea University).

This volume presents the proceedings of the 11th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Management of Multimedia and Mobile Networks and Services (MMNS 2008), which was held on Samos, Greece during September 22-26 as part of the 4th International Week on Management of Networks and Services (Manweek 2008). As in the previous three years, the Manweek umbrella - lowed an international audience of researchers and scientists from industry and academia - who are researching and developing management systems - to share views and ideas and present their state-of-the-art results. The other events co-located with Manweek 2008 were the 19th IFIP/IEEE International Workshop on Distributed Systems: Operations and Management (DSOM 2008), the 8th IEEE Workshop on IP Operations and Management (IPOM2008), the Third IEEE International Workshop on Modeling Autonomic CommunicationsEnvironments(MACE2008),the4thIEEE/IFIPInternational Workshop on End-to-End Virtualization and Grid Management (EVGM 2008) andthe5thInternationalWorkshoponNext-GenerationNetworkingMiddleware (NGNM 2008). Under this umbrella, MMNS again proved itself as a top public venue for dissemination of results and intellectual collaboration with speci?c emphasis on the management of emerging mobile and wireless networks. The objective of the conference is to bring together researchers and scientists from academia and industry interested in state-of-the-artmanagementof convergedmultimedia networks and services across heterogeneous networking infrastructures.

The European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2008) was the third event of a series that started in 2006. The two first editions were organized by Pro- Learn (http://www.prolearn-project.org/), a European Network of Excellence. In 2008, several members of Kaleidoscope, the other European Network of Excellence (http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/pub/), joined as co-chair, committee members, reviewers and authors. These two networks are no longer funded, but our aim was to turn EC-TEL into a sustainable series of high-quality events and thereby to contribute to the scientific landscape of technology-enhanced learning. A new network, named STELLAR, will be launched in 2009, with members from both existing networks as well as new members and will support the future editions of this conference. The scope of EC-TEL 2008 covered the different fields of learning technologies: e- cation, psychology, computer science. The contributions in this volume address the - sign of innovative environments, computational models and architectures, results of empirical studies on socio-cognitive processes, field studies regarding the use of te- nologies in context, collaborative processes, pedagogical scenarios, reusable learning objects and emerging objects, groups and communities, learning networks, interaction analysis, metadata, personalization, collaboration scripts, learning adaptation, collabo- tive environments, resources, tangible tools, as well as learning management systems.

From first installation to advanced image manipulation techniques, Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition explains how anyone can utilizeGIMP: a free, open source image manipulation program. You will learn how to install GIMP on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X platforms. Once you've installed the application, you'll learn about the interface and configuration options, and then jump into a quick and simple project to familiarize yourself.

With fourcolor graphics and screenshots throughout, you'll learn how to prepare camera images for display on web pagesincluding processes like rescaling, cropping, and balancing color. Utilizing layers, paths, and masks are also covered in extensive detail. Of course, you will also learn how to draw lines and shapes; utilize patterns and gradients; and even create your own brushes, patterns, and gradients.

GIMP expert and author Akkana Peck teaches you how to touch up digital photographs, smudging away blemishes, fixing redeye, and stitching panoramic images. You'll learn how to tap into the powerful filters, effects, and plugins that are available for GIMP and automate tasks using scripts. The entire book is approached in a projectbased manner, and as you progress, numerous projects will help strengthen your newly acquired abilities. What you'll learn Install GIMP on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Explore the interface and configuration options. Prepare your camera images for use on the Web, including rescaling, cropping, and balancing color. Learn basic techniques such as drawing lines and shapes, utilizing patterns, and making use of gradients. Master advanced techniques such as layers, paths, and masks. Create your own brushes, patterns, and gradients. Discover tricks for fixing blemishes, removing redeye, and stitching together panoramic images. Who this book is for

This book is for graphics designers, digital photographers, and hobbyists. It's is aimed at those who need to utilize a full-featured image manipulation program but don't have hundreds of dollars to pay for Photoshop. GIMP is also the preferred image manipulation application for the open source advocate. GIMP is available on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

The 13th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia was held in Brisbane, Australia in September 2007. This was the first time that VSMM was sited in Australia. The Australian conference theme reflected the country's cultural heritage, both recent and past - Exchange and Experience in Space and Place. Of the many papers submitted under this theme we were able to identify three core sub-themes: Virtual Heritage, Applied Technologies and Virtual Environments. With a truly international flavor, these sub-themes covered the diverse areas of heritage site and artifact reconstruction and analysis, Australian Aboriginal cultural heritage, training, notions of spirituality, human - computer interaction in virtual environments, 3D modelling, remote collaboration and virtual agents. This made for rich, varied and lively conference session debates. Ninety-seven papers were submitted. Of these, 56 were accepted for inclusion in the general conference proceedings. Of these, 18 were further reviewed and selected for this Springer publication. The authors of these papers were invited to revise their papers following feedback from the conference before inclusion in this volume. Many people contributed to the conference. We first wish to thank the Virtual Systems and Multimedia Society, who provided strong support to the whole process of the preparation of the conference. In particular, we would like to express our thanks to Takeo Ojika, Mario Santana Quintero and Hal Thwaites for their generous support and guidance.

Since the time when interactive television emerged as a medium for the home environment, ithasbeenpermanentlyevolving.Changingrequirementsanduser behavior, e.g., the demand for being mobile and have access to information and entertainmentanywhereandanytime, arechallenginginteractiveTV.Newkinds of interactive services have to be conceived for the increasing mobile, ubiquitous requirements of the di?erent user groups. In these changing environments, a better understanding of emerging contexts and their implications is essential. This gave birth to the idea for the theme of the EuroITV 2008 Conference: "Changing Television Environments." EuroITV 2008, the 6th edition of the - ropean Conference on Interactive Television, was organized and hosted by the HCI and Usability Unit, ICT&S Center, University of Salzburg, Austria. The EuroITV Conference Series started at Brighton University in 2003 and 2004. It was followed by Aalborg University in 2005, Athens University of Economics and Business in 2006 and by CWI (Centrum Voor Wiskunde en Informatica) in Amsterdam 2007. We would like to thank all former Chairs for making this greatconference series happen andfor providing us with the opportunity to host EuroITV 2008.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Adaptive Multimedia Retrieval, AMR 2006, held in Geneva, Switzerland in July 2006. The papers cover ontology-based retrieval and annotation, ranking and similarity measurements, music information retrieval, visual modeling, adaptive retrieval, structuring multimedia, as well as user integration and profiling.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Entertainment Computing, ICEC 2007, held in Shanghai, China, in September 2007, under the auspices of IFIP.

The 48 revised full papers and 16 poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on augmented, virtual and mixed reality, computer games, image processing, mesh and modeling, digital storytelling and interactive systems, sound, music and creative environments, video processing, rendering, computer animation and networks, game based interfaces, as well as robots and cyber pets.

Der etablierte Workshop "Bildverarbeitung fur die Medizin" und seine erfolgreichen Veranstaltungen: Ziel ist auch 2007 wieder die Darstellung aktueller Forschungsergebnisse und die Vertiefung der Gesprache zwischen Wissenschaftlern, Industrie und Anwendern. Die Beitrage - einige in engl. Sprache - behandeln alle Bereiche der medizinischen Bildverarbeitung, u.a. Bildgebung, CAD, Segmentierung, Bildanalyse, Therapieplanung und klinische Anwendung.

The14theditionoftheInternationalConferenceonDiscreteGeometryforC- puterImagerywasheldinLyon, France, April16-18,2008.DGCI2008attracted many researchers from all around the world. Indeed, 76 papers were submitted, from 24 di?erent countries (13 European and 11 non European), con?rming the international status of the conference. Once reviewed, 45 papers were accepted for publication in the present LNCS volume. In all, 23 papers were scheduled for oral presentation in single-track sessions, and 22 papers were presented as posters, with preliminary plenary sessions with very short presentations of these posters. Three invited speakers gave lectures on topics ranging from connected ?elds to the theoreticalfoundations of discrete geometry: Dinesh Manocha (U- versityofNorthCarolinaatChapelHill, USA), UllrichKo ]the(UniversityofH- delberg, Germany) and Jean-Pierre Reveilles (University of Auvergne, France). Building on the experience of the previous editions, this edition was the - casion to remodel the paper selection process in order to improve the overall quality of the conference. These changes were based on an update and red- nition of the topics covered by the conference, in such a way that most of the present-day works in discrete geometry naturally 't in one topic. The members ofthe ProgramCommittee werethen chosenfor their expertisein these di?erent topics.Theysupervisedthereviewingprocessofthepapersrelatedtotheirtop

RenderMan has long been associated with top-end film production and is an essential tool for creating many of the effects and images in recent animated films (such as Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles). RenderMan is widely available and, with the demand for higher quality images, is now used by computer-based artists at all levels of the graphics industry.

Intended to provide a straightforward and easy introduction to the basic techniques involved, this book provides an excellent grounding, enabling readers to confidently move to more advanced texts. This second edition includes a new chapter on global illumination, and, with plenty of illustrations and hands-on examples, Ian Stephenson: gives an overview of RenderMan, explains how scenes are described, illustrates (among other things) how to create surfaces; colour; lighting; shadows; and depth of field, using RIB and the C API, introduces the techniques involved in creating shaders, applying textures and using global illumination.