This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Algorithmic Decision Theory, ADT 2011, held in Piscataway, NJ, USA, in October 2011. The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions.

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.

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.

Computer communication networks have come of age. Today, there is hardly any professional, particularly in engineering, that has not been the user of such a network. This proliferation requires the thorough understanding of the behavior of networks by those who are responsible for their operation as well as by those whose task it is to design such networks. This is probably the reason for the large number of books, monographs, and articles treating relevant issues, problems, and solutions in this field. Among all computer network architectures, those based on broadcast mul tiple access channels stand out in their uniqueness. These networks appear naturally in environments requiring user mobility where the use of any fixed wiring is impossible and a wireless channel is the only available option. Because of their desirable characteristics multiple access networks are now used even in environments where a wired point-to-point network could have been installed. The understanding of the operation of multiple access network through their performance analysis is the focus of this book."

An important consideration in improving the performance of a distributed computer system is the balancing of the load between the host computers. Load balancing may be either static or dynamic; static balancing strategies are generally based on information about the system's average behavior rather than its actual current state, while dynamic strategies react to the current state when making transfer decisions. Although it is often conjectured that dynamic load balancing outperforms static, careful investigation shows that this view is not always valid. Recent research on the problem of optimal static load balancing is clearly and intuitively presented, with coverage of distributed computer system models, problem formulation in load balancing, and effective algorithms for implementing optimization. Providing a thorough understanding of both static and dynamic strategies, this book will be of interest to all researchers and practitioners working to optimize performance in distributed computer systems.

Distributed Constraint Satisfaction gives an overview of Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs), adapts related search algorithms and consistency algorithms for applications to multi-agent systems, and consolidates recent research devoted to cooperation in such systems. The techniques introduced are applied to various problems in multi-agent systems. Among the new approaches is a hybrid-type algorithm for weak-commitment search combining backtracking and iterative improvement. Also, an extension of the basic CSP formalization called "Partial CSP" is introduced in order to handle over-constrained CSPs.

This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the Second International Conference on Theoretical and Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science, ICTMF 2011, held in Singapore in May 2011. The conference was held together with the Second International Conference on High Performance Networking, Computing, and Communication systems, ICHCC 2011, which proceedings are published in CCIS 163. The 84 revised selected papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The topics covered range from computational science, engineering and technology to digital signal processing, and computational biology to game theory, and other related topices.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Security and Trust Management, STM 2010, held in Athens, Greece, in September 2010.
The 17 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. Focusing on high-quality original unpublished research, case studies, and implementation experiences, STM 2010 encouraged submissions discussing the application and deployment of security technologies in practice.

A new breed of engineer is developing in our contemporary society. These engineers are concerned with communications and computers, economics and regulation. These new engineers apply themselves to data-to its pack aging, transmission, and protection. They are data engineers. Formal curricula do not yet exist for their dedicated development. Rather they learn most of their tools "on the job" and their roots are in computer engineering, communications engineering, and applied mathe matics. There is a need to draw relevant material together and present it so that those who wish to become data engineers can do so, for the betterment of themselves, their employer, their country, and, ultimately, the world-for we share the belief that the most effective tool for world peace and stability is neither politics nor armaments, but rather the open and timely exchange of information. This book has been written with that goal in mind. Today numerous signs encourage us to expect broader information exchange in the years to come. The movement toward a true Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is perhaps the clearest of these. Also, the development offormal protocol layers reflects both a great deal of brilliance and compromise and also the desire for a common language among data engineers."

Resource Management for Distributed Multimedia Systems addresses the problems and challenges of handling several continuous- media data streams in networked multimedia environments. The work demonstrates how resource management mechanisms can be integrated into a stream handling system. The resulting system includes functions for Quality of Service (QoS) calculations, scheduling, determination of resource requirements, and methods to reduce resource requirements. The work explains the following: a suitable system architecture and resource management scheme that allows for the provision and enforcement of QoS guarantee, resource scheduling mechanisms for CPU and buffer space, mechanisms to measure and collect resource requirements, methods to extend resource management to future scenarios by allowing the reservation of resources in advance and offering sealing mechanisms. . Resource Management for Distributed Multimedia Systems is a comprehensive view of resource management for a broad technical audience that includes computer scientists and engineers involved in developing multimedia applications.

The success of first and second generation wireless systems has paved the way for further research opportunities towards the next generation systems. The two standards GSM and IS-95 based on TDMA and CDMA respectively, have deeply influenced our system-level understanding, bringing new perspectives on the problems associated with wireless networks and potential for innovations. This volume presents the proceedings of the second workshop on multiaccess, mobility and teletraffic for personal communications held in May 1996 in Paris, France where some important subjects on the next generation systems have been treated. These include topics dealing with information theoretic aspects, channel modeling, diversity, interference control, resource allocation, power control, packet multi-access, stochastic modeling of mobility and traffic, and wireless network control. The selected topics in this workshop and their presented set of solutions reflect the richness of the problems in wireless communications. Indeed, development of theoretical frameworks with considerable attention to the peculiar environment of wireless communications has been the prime objective of this workshop. To elaborate, consider the problem of multi-access methods which remains a challenge for researchers. A complete evaluation of an access scheme must consider different aspects such as propagation, interference, mobility and traffic modeling. Some common bases, paradigms and models are needed. For example, today, we do not have a common archetype like the A WGN channel as in classical statistical communication. Clearly, there is a need for justified assumptions and models.

This volume contains invited and contributed papers of the Ninth International Conference on Hot Carriers in Semiconductors (HCIS-9), held July 3 I-August 4, 1995 in Chicago, Illinois. In all, the conference featured 15 invited oral presentations, 60 contributed oral presentations, and 105 poster presentations, and an international contingent of 170 scientists. As in recent conferences, the main themes of the conference were related to nonlinear transport in semiconductor heterojunctions and included Bloch oscillations, laser diode structures, and femtosecond spectroscopy. Interesting questions related to nonlinear transport, size quantization, and intersubband scattering were addressed that are relevant to the new quantum cascade laser. Many lectures were geared toward quantum wires and dots and toward nanostructures and mesoscopic systems in general. It is expected that such research will open new horizons to nonlinear transport studies. An attempt was made by the program committee to increase the number of presen tations related directly to devices. The richness of nonlocal hot electron effects that were discussed as a result, in our opinion, suggests that future conferences should further encourage reports on such device research. On behalf of the Program and International Advisory Committees, we thank the participants, who made the conference a successful and pleasant experience, and the support of the Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, and the Beckman Institute of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We are also indebted to Mrs. Sara Starkey and Mrs."

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: computer, communications, and broadcasting industries. Research and development efforts 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 video conferencing systems, on-demand multimedia services, and distance learning. Multimedia Systems and Techniques is one of two volumes published by Kluwer, both of which provide a broad introduction into this fast moving area. The book 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 Systems and Techniques, together with its companion volume, Multimedia Tools and Applications, is intended for anyone involved in multimedia system design and applications and can be used as a textbook for advanced courses on multimedia.

Protection of enterprise networks from malicious intrusions is critical to the economy and security of our nation. This article gives an overview of the techniques and challenges for security risk analysis of enterprise networks. A standard model for security analysis will enable us to answer questions such as "are we more secure than yesterday" or "how does the security of one network configuration compare with another one". In this article, we will present a methodology for quantitative security risk analysis that is based on the model of attack graphs and the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). Our techniques analyze all attack paths through a network, for an attacker to reach certain goal(s).

This volume presents the refereed proceedings of the 7th International ICST Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, SecureComm 2011, held in London, UK, in September 2011. The 35 revised papers included in the volume were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. Topics covered include network intrusion detection; anonymity and privacy; wireless security; system security; DNS and routing security; and key management.

The areas of communications, computer networks, and signal processing have undergone rapid development over the past several years. The advent of VLSI circuitry and increasingly sophisticated computer hardware and software techniques have made possible the construction of systems and signal proces sors for. communications applications not contemplated only a short time ago. The increasing complexity of communication systems, both by themselves and in land-based or satellite networks, has created a greater need for finding use ful mathematical techniques for their analysis. The rapidly evolving technolo gies involved continue to find exciting new areas for application, and it remains a challenge for researchers to keep abreast of developments. In this volume researchers from a broad cross section of the areas of communications, signal processing, and computer networks have been invited to contribute articles to assist readers in learning about the current state of research and future research directions in their area. The authors were not given tight guidelines for their contributions and thus the character and emphasis of each chapter differs. Although the scope of the areas considered is necessarily limited in a volume of this size, the coverage here is quite broad and it is hoped that the reader will find the contents of this volume to be interesting, useful, and informative."

This book constitutes revised papers of the proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on System Analysis and Modeling, SAM 2012, held in Innsbruck, Austria, in October 2012. The 12 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 27 submissions. In addition, the book contains two keynote speeches in full-paper length. The contributions are organized in topical sections named: test and analysis, language enhancements, fuzzy subjects, components and composition, and configuring and product lines.

This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the 9th European Performance Engineering Workshop, EPEW 2012, held in Munich, Germany, and the 28th UK Performance Engineering Workshop, UKPEW 2012, held in Edinburgh, UK, in July 2012. The 15 regular papers and one poster presentation paper presented together with 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics from classical performance modeling areas such as wireless network protocols and parallel execution of scientific codes to hot topics such as energy-aware computing to unexpected ventures into ranking professional tennis players. In addition to new case studies, the papers also present new techniques for dealing with the modeling challenges brought about by the increasing complexity and scale of systems today.

The consecutive-k system was first studied around 1980, and it soon became a very popular subject. The reasons were many-folded, includ ing: 1. The system is simple and natural. So most people can understand it and many can do some analysis. Yet it can grow in many directions and there is no lack of new topics. 2. The system is simple enough to become a prototype for demonstrat ing various ideas related to reliability. For example, the interesting concept of component importance works best with the consecutive-k system. 3. The system is supported by many applications. Twenty years have gone and hundreds of papers have been published on the subject. This seems to be a good time for retrospect and to sort the scattered material into a book. Besides providing our own per spective, the book will also serve as an easy reference to the numerous ramifications of the subject. It is hoped that a summary of work in the current period will become the seed of future break-through."

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2012, held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in September 2012 in the context of the combined conference ALGO 2012. The 69 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 285 initial submissions: 56 out of 231 in track design and analysis and 13 out of 54 in track engineering and applications. The papers are organized in topical sections such as algorithm engineering; algorithmic aspects of networks; algorithmic game theory; approximation algorithms; computational biology; computational finance; computational geometry; combinatorial optimization; data compression; data structures; databases and information retrieval; distributed and parallel computing; graph algorithms; hierarchical memories; heuristics and meta-heuristics; mathematical programming; mobile computing; on-line algorithms; parameterized complexity; pattern matching, quantum computing; randomized algorithms; scheduling and resource allocation problems; streaming algorithms.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th VLDB Workshop on Secure Data Management held in Istanbul, Turkey, in August 27, 2012. The 12 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 22 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on privacy protection, access control, secure storage on the cloud, and trust on the Web.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2011, held in Palermo, Italy, in September 2010.
The 30 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 158 submissions. The book also includes 12 short papers, 8 poster papers, and 2 invited paper. There are many interesting papers on topics such as web 2.0 and social media, recommender systems, learning analytics, collaborative learning, interoperability of tools, etc.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 17th Collaboration Researchers' International Working Group Conference on Collaboration and Technology, held in Paraty, Brazil, in October 2011.
The 12 revised papers presented together with 6 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. They are grouped into four themes that represent current areas of interest in groupware research: theoretical foundation, empirical studies, methods and techniques, and tools for communication and cooperation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security, SAFECOMP 2011, held in Naples, Italy, in September 2011. The 34 full papers presented together were carefully reviewed and selected from 100 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on RAM evaluation, complex systems dependability, formal verification, risk and hazard analysis, cybersecurity and optimization methods.

Mit seinem Workshop 2011 zum Thema "Herausforderungen durch Echtzeitbetrieb" bietet der Fachausschuss Wissenschaftlern, Nutzern und Herstellern ein Forum an, auf dem neue Trends und Entwicklungen zu folgenden Programmschwerpunkten vorgestellt werden: Sicherheit, Mehrkernsysteme, Ausbildung, Entwurfsverfahren sowie Skalier- und Konfigurierbarkeit.