This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 24th Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Canadian AI 2011, held in St. John's, Canada, in May 2011. The 23 revised full papers presented together with 22 revised short papers and 5 papers from the graduate student symposium were carefully reviewed and selected from 81 submissions. The papers cover a broad range of topics presenting original work in all areas of artificial intelligence, either theoretical or applied.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory, ALT 2012, held in Lyon, France, in October 2012. The conference was co-located and held in parallel with the 15th International Conference on Discovery Science, DS 2012. The 23 full papers and 5 invited talks presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 47 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on inductive inference, teaching and PAC learning, statistical learning theory and classification, relations between models and data, bandit problems, online prediction of individual sequences, and other models of online learning.

This two-volume set (CCIS 150 and CCIS 151) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing and Multimedia Applications, UCMA 2011, held in Daejeon, Korea, in April 2011. The 86 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 570 submissions. Focusing on various aspects of advances in multimedia applications and ubiquitous computing with computational sciences, mathematics and information technology the papers present current research in the area of multimedia and ubiquitous environment including models and systems, new directions, novel applications associated with the utilization, and acceptance of ubiquitous computing devices and systems.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference, MLDM 2012, held in Berlin, Germany in July 2012. The 51 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 212 submissions. The topics range from theoretical topics for classification, clustering, association rule and pattern mining to specific data mining methods for the different multimedia data types such as image mining, text mining, video mining and web mining.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding, HBU 2012, held in Vilamoura, Portugal, in October 2012. The 14 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 31 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on sensing human behavior; social and affective signals; human-robot interaction; imitation and learning from demonstration.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on String Processing and Information Retrieval, SPIRE 2012, held in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in October 2012. The 26 full papers, 13 short papers, and 3 keynote speeches were carefully reviewed and selected from 81 submissions. The following topics are covered: fundamentals algorithms in string processing and information retrieval; SP and IR techniques as applied to areas such as computational biology, DNA sequencing, and Web mining.

The two-volume set LNAI 7094 and LNAI 7095 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2011, held in Puebla, Mexico, in November/December 2011. The 96 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The first volume includes 50 papers representing the current main topics of interest for the AI community and their applications. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: automated reasoning and multi-agent systems; problem solving and machine learning; natural language processing; robotics, planning and scheduling; and medical applications of artificial intelligence.

Imaging for Forensics and Security: From Theory to Practice provides a detailed analysis of new imaging and pattern recognition techniques for the understanding and deployment of biometrics and forensic techniques as practical solutions to increase security. It contains a collection of the recent advances in the technology ranging from theory, design, and implementation to performance evaluation of biometric and forensic systems. This book also contains new methods such as the multiscale approach, directional filter bank, and wavelet maxima for the development of practical solutions to biometric problems.

The book introduces a new forensic system based on shoeprint imagery with advanced techniques for use in forensics applications. It also presents the concept of protecting the originality of biometric images stored in databases against intentional and unintentional attacks and fraud detection data in order to further increase the security.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization, EvoCOP 2011, held in Torino, Italy, in April 2011. The 22 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions. The papers present the latest research and discuss current developments and applications in metaheuristics - a paradigm to effectively solve difficult combinatorial optimization problems appearing in various industrial, economical, and scientific domains. Prominent examples of metaheuristics are evolutionary algorithms, simulated annealing, tabu search, scatter search, memetic algorithms, variable neighborhood search, iterated local search, greedy randomized adaptive search procedures, estimation of distribution algorithms, and ant colony optimization.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 23rd Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching, CPM 2012, held in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2012.
The 33 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 60 submissions. The papers address issues of searching and matching strings and more complicated patterns such as trees, regular expressions, graphs, point sets, and arrays. The goal is to derive non-trivial combinatorial properties of such structures and to exploit these properties in order to either achieve superior performance for the corresponding computational problems or pinpoint conditions under which searches cannot be performed efficiently. The meeting also deals with problems in computational biology, data compression and data mining, coding, information retrieval, natural language processing, and pattern recognition.

The two-volume set LNCS 7367 and 7368 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Neural Networks, ISNN 2012, held in Shenyang, China, in July 2012. The 147 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The contributions are structured in topical sections on mathematical modeling; neurodynamics; cognitive neuroscience; learning algorithms; optimization; pattern recognition; vision; image processing; information processing; neurocontrol; and novel applications.

The three-volume set LNCS 7510, 7511, and 7512 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2012, held in Nice, France, in October 2012. Based on rigorous peer reviews, the program committee carefully selected 252 revised papers from 781 submissions for presentation in three volumes. The third volume includes 79 papers organized in topical sections on diffusion imaging: from acquisition to tractography; image acquisition, segmentation and recognition; image registration; neuroimage analysis; analysis of microscopic and optical images; image segmentation; diffusion weighted imaging; computer-aided diagnosis and planning; and microscopic image analysis.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Workshop on Mesh Processing in Medical Image Analysis, MeshMed 2012, held in Nice, France, in October 2012 in conjunction with MICCAI 2012, the 15th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention. The book includes 16 submissions, 8 were selected for presentation along with the 3 plenary talks representative of the meshing, and 8 were selected for poster presentations. The papers cover a broad range of topics, including statistical shape analysis and atlas construction, novel meshing approaches, soft tissue simulation, quad dominant meshing and mesh based shape descriptors. The described techniques were applied to a variety of medical data including cortical bones, ear canals, cerebral aneurysms and vascular structures.

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 proceedings, LNCS 6927 and LNCS 6928, constitute the papers presented at the 13th International Conference on Computer Aided Systems Theory, EUROCAST 2011, held in February 2011 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. The total of 160 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the books. The contributions are organized in topical sections on concepts and formal tools; software applications; computation and simulation in modelling biological systems; intelligent information processing; heurist problem solving; computer aided systems optimization; model-based system design, simulation, and verification; computer vision and image processing; modelling and control of mechatronic systems; biomimetic software systems; computer-based methods for clinical and academic medicine; modeling and design of complex digital systems; mobile and autonomous transportation systems; traffic behaviour, modelling and optimization; mobile computing platforms and technologies; and engineering systems applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Image and Signal Processing, ICISP 2012, held in Agadir, Morocco, in June 2012. The 75 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 158 submissions. The contributions are grouped into the following topical sections: multi/hyperspectral imaging; image itering and coding; signal processing; biometric; watermarking and texture; segmentation and retieval; image processing; pattern recognition.

The three-volume set LNCS 7510, 7511, and 7512 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2012, held in Nice, France, in October 2012. Based on rigorous peer reviews, the program committee carefully selected 252 revised papers from 781 submissions for presentation in three volumes. The second volume includes 82 papers organized in topical sections on cardiovascular imaging: planning, intervention and simulation; image registration; neuroimage analysis; diffusion weighted imaging; image segmentation; computer-assisted interventions and robotics; and image registration: new methods and results.

The seven-volume set comprising LNCS volumes 7572-7578 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV 2012, held in Florence, Italy, in October 2012. The 408 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 1437 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on geometry, 2D and 3D shapes, 3D reconstruction, visual recognition and classification, visual features and image matching, visual monitoring: action and activities, models, optimisation, learning, visual tracking and image registration, photometry: lighting and colour, and image segmentation.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour, SAB 2012, held in Odense, Denmark, in August 2012. The 22 full papers as well as 22 poster papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 66 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: animat approach and methodology; perception and motor control; evolution; learning and adaptation, and collective and social behaviour.

The two volume set LNCS 7491 and 7492 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN 2012, held in Taormina, Sicily, Italy, in September 2012. The total of 105 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 226 submissions. The meeting began with 6 workshops which offered an ideal opportunity to explore specific topics in evolutionary computation, bio-inspired computing and metaheuristics. PPSN 2012 also included 8 tutorials. The papers are organized in topical sections on evolutionary computation; machine learning, classifier systems, image processing; experimental analysis, encoding, EDA, GP; multiobjective optimization; swarm intelligence, collective behavior, coevolution and robotics; memetic algorithms, hybridized techniques, meta and hyperheuristics; and applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 34th Symposium of the German Association for Pattern Recognition, DAGM 2012, and the 36th Symposium of the Austrian Association for Pattern Recognition, OAGM 2012, held in Graz, Austria, in August 2012. The 27 revised full papers and 23 revised poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 98 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on segmentation, low-level vision, 3D reconstruction, recognition, applications, learning, and features.

Ziel des Workshops "Bildverarbeitung fur die Medizin" ist die Prasentation aktueller Forschungsergebnisse und die Vertiefung des Gesprachs zwischen Wissenschaftlern, Industrie und Anwendern. Die Beitrage dieses Bandes behandeln alle Bereiche der medizinischen Bildverarbeitung, darunter insbesondere die Themen molekulare Bildgebung, Animation, patientenindividuelle Simulation und Planung, computerunterstutzte Diagnose, biomechanische Modellierung, Bildverarbeitung in der Telemedizin, bildgestutzte Roboter und chirurgische Simulatoren.

The NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition in Nondestructive Evaluation (NOE) of Materials was held August 19-22, 1987 at the Manoir St-Castin, Lac Beauport, Quebec, Canada. Modern signal processing, pattern recognition and artificial intelligence have been playing an increasingly important role in improving nondestructive evaluation and testing techniques. The cross fertilization of the two major areas can lead to major advances in NOE as well as presenting a new research area in signal processing. With this in mind, the Workshop provided a good review of progress and comparison of potential techniques, as well as constructive discussions and suggestions for effective use of modern signal processing to improve flaw detection, classification and prediction, as well as material characterization. This Proceedings volume includes most presentations given at the Workshop. This publication, like the meeting itself, is unique in the sense that it provides extensive interactions among the interrelated areas of NOE. The book starts with research advances on inverse problems and then covers different aspects of digital waveform processing in NOE and eddy current signal analysis. These are followed by four papers of pattern recognition and AI in NOE, and five papers of image processing and reconstruction in NOE. The last two papers deal with parameter estimation problems. Though the list of papers is not extensive, as the field of NOE signal processing is very new, the book has an excellent collection of both tutorial and research papers in this exciting new field.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the first Workshop on Applications of Discrete Geometry and Mathematical Morphology, WADGMM 2010, held at the International Conference on Pattern Recognition in Istanbul, Turkey, in August 2010. The 11 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 25 submissions. The book was specifically designed to promote interchange and collaboration between experts in discrete geometry/mathematical morphology and potential users of these methods from other fields of image analysis and pattern recognition.

Current cameras are poor imitations of the human eye and close descen dants in their design of ideas and a technology that are more than a century old. People in computer vision have traditionally used off-the-shelf cameras that were not meant for the uses they were intended for by these researchers: off-the-shelf cameras are designed to capture images to be printed on paper or looked at on a television screen, not for guiding robots or making 3D models of the environment or even surveilling a large area where very large field of views, high geometric and photometric accuracies are necessary. Quite a significant part of the efforts in computer vision has been targeted at overcoming algorithmically these problems. The authors of this book convince us that it is possible to abandon the traditional route of using standard cameras and to follow the path of designing new cameras explicitly for solving the tasks at hand in computer vision applications. This leads to different design concepts and allows to alleviate many of the difficulties encountered in the processing of the images taken with the "traditional" cameras."