This two-volume set LNAI 7523 and LNAI 7524 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases: ECML PKDD 2012, held in Bristol, UK, in September 2012. The 105 revised research papers presented together with 5 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 443 submissions. The final sections of the proceedings are devoted to Demo and Nectar papers. The Demo track includes 10 papers (from 19 submissions) and the Nectar track includes 4 papers (from 14 submissions). The papers grouped in topical sections on association rules and frequent patterns; Bayesian learning and graphical models; classification; dimensionality reduction, feature selection and extraction; distance-based methods and kernels; ensemble methods; graph and tree mining; large-scale, distributed and parallel mining and learning; multi-relational mining and learning; multi-task learning; natural language processing; online learning and data streams; privacy and security; rankings and recommendations; reinforcement learning and planning; rule mining and subgroup discovery; semi-supervised and transductive learning; sensor data; sequence and string mining; social network mining; spatial and geographical data mining; statistical methods and evaluation; time series and temporal data mining; and transfer learning.

The two-volume set LNCS 7552 + 7553 constitutes the proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2012, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in September 2012. The 162 papers included in the proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 247 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: theoretical neural computation; information and optimization; from neurons to neuromorphism; spiking dynamics; from single neurons to networks; complex firing patterns; movement and motion; from sensation to perception; object and face recognition; reinforcement learning; bayesian and echo state networks; recurrent neural networks and reservoir computing; coding architectures; interacting with the brain; swarm intelligence and decision-making; mulitlayer perceptrons and kernel networks; training and learning; inference and recognition; support vector machines; self-organizing maps and clustering; clustering, mining and exploratory analysis; bioinformatics; and time weries and forecasting.

A fast and reasonably accurate perception of the environment is essential for successful navigation of an autonomous agent. Although many modes of sensing are applicable to this task and have been used, vision remains the most appealing due to its passive nature, good range, and resolution. Most vision techniques to recover depth for navigation use stereo. In the last few years, researchers have started studying techniques to combine stereo with the motion of the camera. Skifstad's dissertation proposes a new approach to recover depth information using known camera motion. This approach results in a robust technique for fast estimation of distances to objects in an image using only one translating camera. A very interesting aspect of the approach pursued by Skifstad is the method used to bypass the most difficult and computationally expensive step in using stereo or similar approaches for the vision-based depth esti mation. The correspondence problem has been the focus of research in most stereo approaches. Skifstad trades the correspondence problem for the known translational motion by using the fact that it is easier to detect single pixel disparities in a sequence of images rather than arbitrary disparities after two frames. A very attractive feature of this approach is that the computations required to detect single pixel disparities are local and hence can be easily parallelized. Another useful feature of the approach, particularly in naviga tion applications, is that the closer objects are detected earlier."

This book constitutes the proceedings of the First International Workshop on Similarity Based Pattern Recognition, SIMBAD 2011, held in Venice, Italy, in September 2011. The 16 full papers and 7 poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. The contributions are organized in topical sections on dissimilarity characterization and analysis; generative models of similarity data; graph-based and relational models; clustering and dissimilarity data; applications; spectral methods and embedding.

This book comprises the refereed proceedings of the International Conference, AIM/CCPE 2012, held in Bangalore, India, in April 2012. The papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions and focus on the various aspects of research and development activities in computer science, information technology, computational engineering, mobile communication, control and instrumentation, communication system, power electronics and power engineering.

The development of technologies for the identi?cation of individuals has driven the interest and curiosity of many people. Spearheaded and inspired by the Bertillon coding system for the classi?cation of humans based on physical measurements, scientists and engineers have been trying to invent new devices and classi?cation systems to capture the human identity from its body measurements. One of the main limitations of the precursors of today's biometrics, which is still present in the vast majority of the existing biometric systems, has been the need to keep the device in close contact with the subject to capture the biometric measurements. This clearly limits the applicability and convenience of biometric systems. This book presents an important step in addressing this limitation by describing a number of methodologies to capture meaningful biometric information from a distance. Most materials covered in this book have been presented at the International Summer School on Biometrics which is held every year in Alghero, Italy and which has become a ?agship activity of the IAPR Technical Committee on Biometrics (IAPR TC4). The last four chapters of the book are derived from some of the best p- sentations by the participating students of the school. The educational value of this book is also highlighted by the number of proposed exercises and questions which will help the reader to better understand the proposed topics.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Fuzzy Logic and Applications, WILF 2011 held in Trani, Italy in August 2011. The 34 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on advances in theory of fuzzy sets, advances in fuzzy systems, advances in classification and clustering; and applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition, MLDM 2011, held in New York, NY, USA. The 44 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 170 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on classification and decision theory, theory of learning, clustering, application in medicine, webmining and information mining; and machine learning and image mining.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computer Vision/Computer Graphics Collaboration Techniques, MIRAGE 2011, held in Rocquencourt, France, in October 2011. The 23 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics with focus on Computer Vision/Computer Graphics Collaboration Techniques involving image analysis/synthesis approaches especially concerning theoretical, computational, experimental or industrial aspects of model-based image analysis and image-based model synthesis.

From its early beginnings in the fifties and sixties, the field of neural networks has been steadily developing to become one of the most interdisciplinary areas of research within computer science. This volume contains selected papers from WIRN Vietri-98, the 10th Italian Workshop on Neural Nets, 21-23 May 1998, Vietri sul Mare, Salerno, Italy. This annual event, sponsored amongst others by the IEEE Neural Network Council and the INNS/SIG Italy, brings together the best of research from all over the world. The papers cover a range of key topics within neural networks, including pattern recognition, signal processing, hybrid systems, mathematical models, hardware and software design, and fuzzy techniques. It also includes two review talks on a "Morpho-Functional" " Model to Describe Variability Found at" "Hippocampal" " Synapses" and "Neural Networks and Speech" "Processing." By providing the reader with a comprehensive overview of recent research in this area, the volume makes a valuable contribution to the "Perspectives in Neural" "Computing" Series.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th Mexican Conference on Pattern Recognition, MCPR 2012, held in Huatulco, Mexico, in June 2012. The 31 revised full papers and 3 keynotes presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions and are organized in topical sections on image processing; computer vision and image recognition; pattern recognition and neural networks; and document processing and speech recognition.

This text provides a survey of the latest research into the Hough transform for line detection and its contemporary developments. Written with students in mind, this work can serve as a condensed textbook and as a reference for practitioners working in computer vision. The text also presents an overview and detailed elaboration of recent research related to PClines - a line parameterization based on parallel coordinates. A detailed analysis of the concept is given, including implementation details and measurements. One chapter discusses the detection of chessboard-like patterns, and sets of parallel lines and lines coincident with one (vanishing) point - a topic with many applications, such as 2D barcodes, aerial images, and architecture recognition. The work summarizes recent research in the field, and analyses new advances achieved using the PClines parameterization.

It is increasingly being recognized that the experimental and theoretical study of the complex system brain requires the cooperation of many disciplines, in cluding biology, medicine, physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, and others. In this way brain research has become a truly interdis ciplinary endeavor. Indeed, the most important progress is quite often made when different disciplines cooperate. Thus it becomes necessary for scientists to look across the fence surrounding their disciplines. The present book is written precisely in this spirit. It addresses graduate students, professors and scientists in a variety of fields, such as biology, medicine and physics. Be yond its mathematical representation the book gives ample space to verbal and pictorial descriptions of the main and, as I believe, fundamental new insights, so that it will be of interest to a general readership, too. I use this opportunity to thank my former students, some of whom are my present co-workers, for their cooperation over many years. Among them I wish to mention in particular M. Bestehorn, L. Borland, H. Bunz, A. Daf fertshofer, T. Ditzinger, E. Fischer, A. Fuchs, R. Haas, R. Honlinger, V. Jirsa, M. Neufeld, M. Ossig, D. Reimann, M. Schanz, G. Schoner, P. Tass, C. Uhl. My particular thanks go to R. Friedrich and A. Wunderlin for their constant help in many respects. Stimulating discussions with a number of colleagues from a variety of fields are also highly appreciated.

The presentation and interpretation of visual information is essential to almost every activity in human life and most endeavors of modern technology. This book examines the current status of what is known (and not known) about human vision, how human observers interpret visual data, and how to present such data to facilitate their interpretation and use. Written by experts who are able to cross disciplinary boundaries, the book provides an educational pathway through several models of human vision; describes how the visual response is analyzed and quantified; presents current theories of how the human visual response is interpreted; discusses the cognitive responses of human observers; and examines such applications as space exploration, manufacturing, surveillance, earth and air sciences, and medicine. The book is intended for everyone with an undergraduate-level background in science or engineering with an interest in visual science. This second edition has been brought up to date throughout and contains a new chapter on "Virtual reality and augmented reality in medicine."

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Spatio-temporal Image Analysis for Longitudinal and Time-Series Image Data, STIA 2012, held in conjunction with MICCAI 2012 in Nice, France, in October 2012. The 13 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 22 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: longitudinal registration and transport; spatio-temporal analysis for shapes; spatio-temporal analysis under appearance changes; and spatio-temporal analysis for biology.

Data analysis and inference have traditionally been research areas of statistics. However, the need to electronically store, manipulate and analyze large-scale, high-dimensional data sets requires new methods and tools, new types of databases, new efficient algorithms, new data structures, etc. - in effect new computational methods.
This monograph presents new intelligent data management methods and tools, such as the support vector machine, and new results from the field of inference, in particular of causal modeling. In 11 well-structured chapters, leading experts map out the major tendencies and future directions of intelligent data analysis. The book will become a valuable source of reference for researchers exploring the interdisciplinary area between statistics and computer science as well as for professionals applying advanced data analysis methods in industry and commerce. Students and lecturers will find the book useful as an introduction to the area.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th Chinese Conference on Biometric Recognition, CCBR 2012, held in Guangzhou, China, in December 2012. The 46 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 80 submissions. The papers address the problems in face, iris, hand biometrics, speaker, handwriting, gait, soft biometrics, security and other related topics, and contribute new ideas to research and development of reliable and practical solutions for biometric authentication.

The two-volume set LNCS 6753/6754 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Image and Recognition, ICIAR 2011, held in Burnaby, Canada, in June 2011. The 84 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 147 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on image and video processing; feature extraction and pattern recognition; computer vision; color, texture, motion and shape; tracking; biomedical image analysis; biometrics; face recognition; image coding, compression and encryption; and applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Rough Sets, Fuzzy Sets, Data Mining, and Granular Computing, RSFDGrC 2011, held in Moscow, Russia in June 2011.
The 49 revised full papers presented together with 5 invited and 2 tutorial papers were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 83 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on rough sets and approximations, coverings and granules, fuzzy set models, fuzzy set applications, compound values, feature selection and reduction, clusters and concepts, rules and trees, image processing, and interactions and visualization.

Soft computing comprises various paradigms dedicated to approximately solving real-world problems, e.g. in decision making, classification or learning; among these paradigms are fuzzy sets, rough sets, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and others.

It is well understood now in the soft computing community that hybrid approaches combining various paradigms are very promising approaches for solving complex problems. Exploiting the potential and strength of both neural networks and rough sets, this book is devoted to rough-neuro computing which is also related to the novel aspect of computing based on information granulation, in particular to computing with words. It provides foundational and methodological issues as well as applications in various fields.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Swarm, Evolutionary, and Memetic Computing, SEMCCO 2012, held in Bhubaneswar, India, in December 2012. The 96 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 310 initial submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics in swarm, evolutionary, memetic and other intelligent computing algorithms and their real world applications in problems selected from diverse domains of science and engineering.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Self-Organizing Maps, WSOM 2011, held in Espoo, Finland, in June 2011. The 36 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on plenaries; financial and societal applications; theory and methodology; applications of data mining and analysis; language processing and document analysis; and visualization and image processing.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 9th International Gesture Workshop, GW 2011, held in Athens, Greece, in May 2011. The 24 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. They are ordered in five sections named: human computer interaction; cognitive processes; notation systems and animation; gestures and signs: linguistic analysis and tools; and gestures and speech.

Image processing and machine vision are fields of renewed interest in the commercial market. People in industry, managers, and technical engineers are looking for new technologies to move into the market. Many of the most promising developments are taking place in the field of image processing and its applications. The book offers a broad coverage of advances in a range of topics in image processing and machine vision.

The two volumes, LNCS 6686 resp. LNCS 6687, constitute the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Work-Conference on the Interplay between Natural and Artificial Computation, IWINAC 2011, held in La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain, in May/June 2011. The 108 revised full papers presented in LNCS 6686 resp. LNCS 6687 were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The first part, LNCS 6686, entitled "Foundations on Natural and Artificial Computation," 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 6687, entitled "New Challenges on Bioinspired 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.