This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Optical SuperComputing, OSC 2012, held in Bertinoro, Italy, in July 2012. The 11 papers presented together with 11 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book. Being an annual forum for research presentations on all facets of optical computing for solving hard computation tasks, OCS addresses the following topics of interest: design of optical computing devices, electro-optic devices for interacting with optical computing devices, practical implementations, analysis of existing devices and case studies, optical and laser switching technologies, applications and algorithms for optical devices, alpha particles, X-rays and nano-technologies for optical computing.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Multiple Classifier Systems, MCS 2013, held in Nanjing, China, in May 2013. The 34 revised papers presented together with two invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 59 submissions. The papers address issues in multiple classifier systems and ensemble methods, including pattern recognition, machine learning, neural network, data mining and statistics.

This unique text/reference discusses in depth the two integral components of reconstructive surgery; fracture detection, and reconstruction from broken bone fragments. In addition to supporting its application-oriented viewpoint with detailed coverage of theoretical issues, the work incorporates useful algorithms and relevant concepts from both graph theory and statistics. Topics and features: presents practical solutions for virtual craniofacial reconstruction and computer-aided fracture detection; discusses issues of image registration, object reconstruction, combinatorial pattern matching, and detection of salient points and regions in an image; investigates the concepts of maximum-weight graph matching, maximum-cardinality minimum-weight matching for a bipartite graph, determination of minimum cut in a flow network, and construction of automorphs of a cycle graph; examines the techniques of Markov random fields, hierarchical Bayesian restoration, Gibbs sampling, and Bayesian inference.

Optical remote sensing relies on exploiting multispectral and hyper spectral imagery possessing high spatial and spectral resolutions respectively. These modalities, although useful for most remote sensing tasks, often present challenges that must be addressed for their effective exploitation. This book presents current state-of-the-art algorithms that address the following key challenges encountered in representation and analysis of such optical remotely sensed data. Challenges in pre-processing images, storing and representing high dimensional data, fusing different sensor modalities, pattern classification and target recognition, visualization of high dimensional imagery.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Bioinformatics Research and Applications, ISBRA 2013, held in Charlotte, NC, USA, in May 2013. The 25 revised full papers presented together with 4 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 46 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of biomedical databases and data integration, high-performance bio-computing, biomolecular imaging, high-throughput sequencing data analysis, bio-ontologies, molecular evolution, comparative genomics and phylogenomics, molecular modeling and simulation, pattern discovery and classification, computational proteomics, population genetics, data mining and visualization, software tools and applications.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the International Workshop on Clinical Image-based Procedures: From Planning to Intervention, CLIP 2012, held in Nice, France, in conjunction with the 15th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2012. This successful workshop was a productive and exciting forum for the discussion and dissemination of clinically tested, state-of-the-art methods for image-based planning, monitoring and evaluation of medical procedures. The 16 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 24 submissions.

The purpose of this book is to present a methodology for designing and tuning fuzzy expert systems in order to identify nonlinear objects; that is, to build input-output models using expert and experimental information. The results of these identifications are used for direct and inverse fuzzy evidence in forecasting and diagnosis problem solving. The book is organised as follows: Chapter 1 presents the basic knowledge about fuzzy sets, genetic algorithms and neural nets necessary for a clear understanding of the rest of this book. Chapter 2 analyzes direct fuzzy inference based on fuzzy if-then rules. Chapter 3 is devoted to the tuning of fuzzy rules for direct inference using genetic algorithms and neural nets. Chapter 4 presents models and algorithms for extracting fuzzy rules from experimental data. Chapter 5 describes a method for solving fuzzy logic equations necessary for the inverse fuzzy inference in diagnostic systems. Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to inverse fuzzy inference based on fuzzy relations and fuzzy rules. Chapter 8 presents a method for extracting fuzzy relations from data. All the algorithms presented in Chapters 2-8 are validated by computer experiments and illustrated by solving medical and technical forecasting and diagnosis problems. Finally, Chapter 9 includes applications of the proposed methodology in dynamic and inventory control systems, prediction of results of football games, decision making in road accident investigations, project management and reliability analysis.

The three volume set LNCS 8226, LNCS 8227, and LNCS 8228 constitutes the proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICONIP 2013, held in Daegu, Korea, in November 2013. The 180 full and 75 poster papers presented together with 4 extended abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. These papers cover all major topics of theoretical research, empirical study and applications of neural information processing research. The specific topics covered are as follows: cognitive science and artificial intelligence; learning theory, algorithms and architectures; computational neuroscience and brain imaging; vision, speech and signal processing; control, robotics and hardware technologies and novel approaches and applications.

The two volume-set, LNCS 7930 and LNCS 7931, constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Work-Conference on the Interplay between Natural and Artificial Computation, IWINAC 2013, held in Mallorca, Spain, in June 2013. The 92 revised full papers presented in LNCS 7930 and LNCS 7931 were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The first part, LNCS 7930, entitled "Natural and Artificial Models in Computation and Biology," includes all the contributions mainly related to the methodological, conceptual, formal, and experimental developments in the fields of neurophysiology and cognitive science. The second part, LNCS 7931, entitled "Natural and Artificial Computation in Engineering and Medical Applications," contains the papers related to bioinspired programming strategies and all the contributions related to the computational solutions to engineering problems in different application domains, specially Health applications, including the CYTED "Artificial and Natural Computation for Health" (CANS) research network papers. In addition, this two volume-set reflects six interesting areas: cognitive robotics; natural computing; wetware computation; quality of life technologies; biomedical and industrial perception applications; and Web intelligence and neuroscience.

ICMCCA 2012 is the first International Conference on Multimedia Processing, Communication and Computing Applications and the theme of the Conference is chosen as 'Multimedia Processing and its Applications'. Multimedia processing has been an active research area contributing in many frontiers of today's science and technology. This book presents peer-reviewed quality papers on multimedia processing, which covers a very broad area of science and technology. The prime objective of the book is to familiarize readers with the latest scientific developments that are taking place in various fields of multimedia processing and is widely used in many disciplines such as Medical Diagnosis, Digital Forensic, Object Recognition, Image and Video Analysis, Robotics, Military, Automotive Industries, Surveillance and Security, Quality Inspection, etc. The book will assist the research community to get the insight of the overlapping works which are being carried out across the globe at many medical hospitals and institutions, defense labs, forensic labs, academic institutions, IT companies and security & surveillance domains. It also discusses latest state-of-the-art research problems and techniques and helps to encourage, motivate and introduce the budding researchers to a larger domain of multimedia.

The Euclidean shortest path (ESP) problem asks the question: what is the path of minimum length connecting two points in a 2- or 3-dimensional space? Variants of this industrially-significant computational geometry problem also require the path to pass through specified areas and avoid defined obstacles.

This unique text/reference reviews algorithms for the exact or approximate solution of shortest-path problems, with a specific focus on a class of algorithms called rubberband algorithms. Discussing each concept and algorithm in depth, the book includes mathematical proofs for many of the given statements. Suitable for a second- or third-year university algorithms course, the text enables readers to understand not only the algorithms and their pseudocodes, but also the correctness proofs, the analysis of time complexities, and other related topics.

Topics and features: provides theoretical and programming exercises at the end of each chapter; presents a thorough introduction to shortest paths in Euclidean geometry, and the class of algorithms called rubberband algorithms; discusses algorithms for calculating exact or approximate ESPs in the plane; examines the shortest paths on 3D surfaces, in simple polyhedrons and in cube-curves; describes the application of rubberband algorithms for solving art gallery problems, including the safari, zookeeper, watchman, and touring polygons route problems; includes lists of symbols and abbreviations, in addition to other appendices.

This hands-on guide will be of interest to undergraduate students in computer science, IT, mathematics, and engineering. Programmers, mathematicians, and engineers dealing with shortest-path problems in practical applications will also find the book a useful resource.

The four-volume set LNCS 7724--7727 constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 11th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV 2012, held in Daejeon, Korea, in November 2012. The total of 226 contributions presented in these volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 869 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on object detection, learning and matching; object recognition; feature, representation, and recognition; segmentation, grouping, and classification; image representation; image and video retrieval and medical image analysis; face and gesture analysis and recognition; optical flow and tracking; motion, tracking, and computational photography; video analysis and action recognition; shape reconstruction and optimization; shape from X and photometry; applications of computer vision; low-level vision and applications of computer vision.

The four-volume set LNCS 7724--7727 constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 11th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV 2012, held in Daejeon, Korea, in November 2012. The total of 226 contributions presented in these volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 869 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on object detection, learning and matching; object recognition; feature, representation, and recognition; segmentation, grouping, and classification; image representation; image and video retrieval and medical image analysis; face and gesture analysis and recognition; optical flow and tracking; motion, tracking, and computational photography; video analysis and action recognition; shape reconstruction and optimization; shape from X and photometry; applications of computer vision; low-level vision and applications of computer vision.

The challenge behind the processing of digital images is the huge amounts of data that has to be processed in an extremely short period of time. This book is a broad-ranging technical survey of computational and analytical methods and tools for digital image analysis and interpretation. The ultimate goal is to create a rich set of computational methods for image analysis and interpretation that can achieve rapid response times. This book will serve as an excellent up-to-date resource for computer scientists and engineers in digital imaging and analysis.

Mobile Intention Recognition addresses problems of practical relevance for mobile system engineers: how can we make mobile assistance systems more intelligent? How can we model and recognize patterns of human behavior which span more than a limited spatial context? This text provides an overview on plan and intention recognition, ranging from the late 1970s to very recent approaches. This overview is unique as it discusses approaches with respect to the specificities of mobile intention recognition. This book covers problems from research on mobile assistance systems using methods from artificial intelligence and natural language processing. It thus addresses an extraordinary interdisciplinary audience.

The book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Adaptive and Natural Computing Algorithms, ICANNGA 2013, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April 2013. The 51 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 91 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on neural networks, evolutionary computation, soft computing, bioinformatics and computational biology, advanced computing, and applications.

Implicit definition and description of geometric objects and surfaces plays a critical role in the appearance and manipulation of computer graphics. In addition, the mathematical definition of shapes, using an implicit form, has pivotal applications for geometric modeling, visualization and animation. Until recently, the parametric form has been by far the most popular geometric representation used in computer graphics and computer-aided design. Whereas parametric objects and the techniques associated with them have been exhaustively developed, the implicit form has been used as a complementary geometric representation, mainly in the restricted context of specific applications. However, recent developments in graphics are changing this situation, and the community is beginning to draw its attention to implicit objects. This is reflected in the current research of aspects related to this subject. Employing a coherent conceptual framework, Implicit Objects in Computer Graphics addresses the role of implicitly defined objects in the following parts: mathematical foundations of geometric models, implicit formulations for the specification of shapes, implicit primitives, techniques for constructing and manipulating implicit objects, modeling, rendering and animating implicit objects.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Chinese Conference on Image and Graphics Technologies and Applications, IGTA 2013, held in Beijing, China, in April 2013. The 40 papers and posters presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 89 submissions. The papers address issues such as the generation of new ideas, new approaches, new techniques, new applications and new evaluation in the field of image processing and graphics.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Discrete Geometry for Computer Imagery, DGCI 2013, held in Seville, Spain, in March 2013. The 34 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from 56 submissions and focus on geometric transforms, discrete and combinatorial tools for image segmentation and analysis, discrete and combinatorial topology, discrete shape representation, recognition and analysis, models for discrete geometry, morphological analysis and discrete tomography.

The two-volume set LNCS 8297 and LNCS 8298 constitutes the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Swarm, Evolutionary and Memetic Computing, SEMCCO 2013, held in Chennai, India, in December 2013. The total of 123 papers presented in this volume was carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the proceedings. They cover cutting-edge research on swarm, evolutionary and memetic computing, neural and fuzzy computing and its application.

This book covers the statistical models and methods that are used to understand human genetics, following the historical and recent developments of human genetics. Starting with Mendel's first experiments to genome-wide association studies, the book describes how genetic information can be incorporated into statistical models to discover disease genes. All commonly used approaches in statistical genetics (e.g. aggregation analysis, segregation, linkage analysis, etc), are used, but the focus of the book is modern approaches to association analysis. Numerous examples illustrate key points throughout the text, both of Mendelian and complex genetic disorders. The intended audience is statisticians, biostatisticians, epidemiologists and quantitatively- oriented geneticists and health scientists wanting to learn about statistical methods for genetic analysis, whether to better analyze genetic data, or to pursue research in methodology. A background in intermediate level statistical methods is required. The authors include few mathematical derivations, and the exercises provide problems for students with a broad range of skill levels. No background in genetics is assumed.

The LNCS journal Transactions on Rough Sets is devoted to the entire spectrum of rough sets related issues, from logical and mathematical foundations, through all aspects of rough set theory and its applications, such as data mining, knowledge discovery, and intelligent information processing, to relations between rough sets and other approaches to uncertainty, vagueness, and incompleteness, such as fuzzy sets and theory of evidence. Volume XVI includes extensions of papers from the Rough Sets and Knowledge Technology Conference which was held in Banff, Canada, in October 2011. In addition this book contains a long paper based on a PhD thesis. The papers cover both theory and applications of rough, fuzzy and near sets. They offer a continuation of a number of research streams which have grown out of the seminal work by Zdzislaw Pawlak during the first decade of the 21st century.

This book focuses on use of voice as a biometric measure for personal authentication. In particular, "Speaker Recognition" covers two approaches in speaker authentication: speaker verification (SV) and verbal information verification (VIV). The SV approach attempts to verify a speaker's identity based on his/her voice characteristics while the VIV approach validates a speaker's identity through verification of the content of his/her utterance(s). SV and VIV can be combined for new applications. This is still a new research topic with significant potential applications. The book provides with a broad overview of the recent advances in speaker authentication while giving enough attention to advanced and useful algorithms and techniques. It also provides a step by step introduction to the current state of the speaker authentication technology, from the fundamental concepts to advanced algorithms. We will also present major design methodologies and share our experience in developing real and successful speaker authentication systems. Advanced and useful topics and algorithms are selected with real design examples and evaluation results. Special attention is given to the topics related to improving overall system robustness and performances, such as robust endpoint detection, fast discriminative training theory and algorithms, detection-based decoding, sequential authentication, etc. For example, the sequential authentication was developed based on statistical sequential testing theory. By adding enough subtests, a speaker authentication system can achieve any accuracy requirement. The procedure of designing the sequential authentication will be presented. For any presented technique, we will provide experimental results to validate the usefulness. We will also highlight the important developments in academia, government, and industry, and outline a few open issues. As the methodologies developed in speaker authentication span several diverse fields, the tutorial book provides an introductory forum for a broad spectrum of researchers and developers from different areas to acquire the knowledge and skills to engage in the interdisciplinary fields of user authentication, biometrics, speech and speaker recognition, multimedia, and dynamic pattern recognition.

Pattern recognition presents one of the most significant challenges for scientists and engineers, and many different approaches have been proposed. The aim of this book is to provide a self-contained account of probabilistic analysis of these approaches. The book includes a discussion of distance measures, nonparametric methods based on kernels or nearest neighbors, Vapnik-Chervonenkis theory, epsilon entropy, parametric classification, error estimation, free classifiers, and neural networks. Wherever possible, distribution-free properties and inequalities are derived. A substantial portion of the results or the analysis is new. Over 430 problems and exercises complement the material.

The two-volume set LNCS 7732 and 7733 constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Multimedia Modeling, MMM 2012, held in Huangshan, China, in January 2013. The 30 revised regular papers, 46 special session papers, 20 poster session papers, and 15 demo session papers, and 6 video browser showdown were carefully reviewed and selected from numeroues submissions. The two volumes contain papers presented in the topical sections on multimedia annotation I and II, interactive and mobile multimedia, classification, recognition and tracking I and II, ranking in search, multimedia representation, multimedia systems, poster papers, special session papers, demo session papers, and video browser showdown.