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 proceedings of the First International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Manufacturing, IRAM 2012, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in November 2012. The 64 revised full papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 102 initial submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections named: mobile robots, intelligent autonomous systems, robot vision and robust, autonomous agents, micro, meso and nano-scale automation and assembly, flexible manufacturing systems, CIM and micro-machining, and fabrication techniques.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 12th Italian Workshop on Neural Nets WIRN VIETRI-Ol, jointly organized by the International Institute for Advanced Scientific Studies "Eduardo R. Caianiello" (IIASS), the Societa Italiana Reti Neuroniche (SIREN), the IEEE NNC Italian RIG and the Italian SIG of the INNS. Following the tradition of previous years, we invited three foreign scientists to the workshop, Dr. G. Indiveri and Professors A. Roy and R. Sun, who respectively presented the lectures "Computation in Neuromorphic Analog VLSI Systems", "On Connectionism and Rule Extraction", "Beyond Simple Rule Extraction: Acquiring Planning Knowledge from Neural Networks" (the last two papers being part of the special session mentioned below). In addition, a review talk was presented, dealing with a very up-to-date topic: "NeuroJuzzy Approximator based on Mamdani's Model". A large part of the book contains original contributions approved by referees as oral or poster presentations, which have been assembled for reading convenience into three sections: Architectures and Algorithms, Image and Signal Processing, and Applications. The last part of the books contains the papers of the special Session "From Synapses to Rules". Our thanks go to Prof. B. Apolloni, who organized this section. Furthermore, two sections are dedicated to the memory of two great scientists who were friends in life, Professors Mark Aizerman and Eduardo R. Caianiello. The editors would like to thank the invited speakers, the review lecturers and all the contributors whose highly qualified papers helped with the success of the workshop.

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.

This book comprises the refereed proceedings of the International Conferences, SIP, WSE, and ICHCI 2012, held in conjunction with GST 2012 on Jeju Island, Korea, in November/December 2012. The papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions and focus on the various aspects of signal processing, image processing, and pattern recognition, and Web science and engineering, and human computer interaction.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on Search-Based Software Engineering, SSBSE 2013, held in St. Petersburg, Russia. The 14 revised full papers, 6 revised short papers, and 6 papers of the graduate track presented together with 2 keynotes, 2 challenge track papers and 1 tutorial paper were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 initial submissions. Search Based Software Engineering (SBSE) studies the application of meta-heuristic optimization techniques to various software engineering problems, ranging from requirements engineering to software testing and maintenance.

The three volume set LNCS 7583, 7584 and 7585 comprises the Workshops and Demonstrations which took place in connection with the European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV 2012, held in Firenze, Italy, in October 2012. The total of 179 workshop papers and 23 demonstration papers was carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the proceedings. They where held at workshops with the following themes: non-rigid shape analysis and deformable image alignment; visual analysis and geo-localization of large-scale imagery; Web-scale vision and social media; video event categorization, tagging and retrieval; re-identification; biological and computer vision interfaces; where computer vision meets art; consumer depth cameras for computer vision; unsolved problems in optical flow and stereo estimation; what's in a face?; color and photometry in computer vision; computer vision in vehicle technology: from earth to mars; parts and attributes; analysis and retrieval of tracked events and motion in imagery streams; action recognition and pose estimation in still images; higher-order models and global constraints in computer vision; information fusion in computer vision for concept recognition; 2.5D sensing technologies in motion: the quest for 3D; benchmarking facial image analysis technologies.

Roboticsis undergoingamajortransformationinscopeanddimension.From a largelydominantindustrialfocus,roboticsis rapidly expandinginto human environments and vigorouslyengaged in its new challenges. Interacting with, assisting, serving, and exploring with humans, the emerging robots will - creasingly touch people and their lives. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across - verse research areas and scienti?c disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neurosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are pr- ing an abundant source of stimulation and insights for the ?eld of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. TheSpringerTractsinAdvancedRobotics(STAR)isdevotedtobringingto the research community the latest advances in the robotics ?eld on the basis of their signi?cance and quality. Through a wide and timely dissemination of critical research developments in robotics, our objective with this series is to promotemoreexchangesandcollaborationsamongtheresearchersinthec- munity and contributeto further advancements inthis rapidlygrowing?eld. The monographwritten byAlejandro DizanVasquez Goveafocusesonthe practicalproblem of moving in a cluttered environment with pedestrians and vehicles. A frameworkbased on Hidden Markov models is developed to learn typical motion patterns which can be used to predict motion on the basis of sensor data. All the theoretical results have been implemented and validated with experiments, using both real and simulated data.

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 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.

The Distinguished Dissertation Series is published on behalf of the Conference of Professors and Heads of Computing and the British Computer Society, who annually select the best British PhD dissertations in computer science for publication. The dissertations are selected on behalf of the CPHC by a panel of eight academics. Each dissertation chosen makes a noteworthy contribution to the subject and reaches a high standard of exposition, placing all results clearly in the context of computer science as a whole. In this way computer scientists with significantly different interests are able to grasp the essentials - or even find a means of entry - to an unfamiliar research topic. This book investigates how information contained in multiple, overlapping images of a scene may be combined to produce images of superior quality. This offers possibilities such as noise reduction, extended field of view, blur removal, increased spatial resolution and improved dynamic range. Potential applications cover fields as diverse as forensic video restoration, remote sensing, video compression and digital video editing.The book covers two aspects that have attracted particular attention in recent years: image mosaicing, whereby multiple images are aligned to produce a large composite; and super-resolution, which permits restoration at an increased resolution of poor quality video sequences by modelling and removing imaging degradations including noise, blur and spacial-sampling. It contains a comprehensive coverage and analysis of existing techniques, and describes in detail novel, powerful and automatic algorithms (based on a robust, statistical framework) for applying mosaicing and super-resolution. The algorithms may be implemented directly from the descriptions given here. A particular feature of the techniques is that it is not necessary to know the camera parameters (such as position and focal length) in order to apply them. Throughout the book, examples are given on real image sequences, covering a variety of applications including: the separation of latent marks in forensic images; the automatic creation of 360 panoramic mosaics; and super-resolution restoration of various scenes, text, and faces in lw-quality video.

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 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 first volume includes 91 papers organized in topical sections on abdominal imaging, computer-assisted interventions and robotics; computer-aided diagnosis and planning; image reconstruction and enhancement; analysis of microscopic and optical images; computer-assisted interventions and robotics; image segmentation; cardiovascular imaging; and brain imaging: structure, function and disease evolution.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Artificial Immune Systems, ICARIS 2012, held in Taormia, Italy, in August 2012. The 19 revised selected papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book. In addition 4 papers of the workshop on bio and immune inspired algorithms and models for multi-level complex systems are included in this volume. Artificial immune systems (AIS) is a diverse and maturing area of research that bridges the disciplines of immunology, biology, medical science, computer science, physics, mathematics and engineering. The scope of AIS ranges from modelling and simulation of the immune system through to immune-inspired algorithms and in silico, in vitro and in vivo solutions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Vision and Graphics, ICCVG 2012, held in Warsaw, Poland, in September 2012. The 89 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on computer graphics, computer vision and visual surveillance.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Chinese Conference on Pattern Recognition, CCPR 2012, held in Beijing, China, in September 2012. The 82 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 137 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on pattern recognition theory; computer vision; biometric recognition; medical imaging; image and video analysis; document analysis; speech processing; natural language processing and information retrieval.

The three volume set LNAI 7506, LNAI 7507 and LNAI 7508 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2012, held in Montreal, Canada, in October 2012. The 197 revised full papers presented were thoroughly reviewed and selected from 271 submissions. They present the state-of-the-art developments in robotics, automation and mechatronics. This volume covers the topics of robotics for rehabilitation and assistance; mechatronics and integration technology in electronics and information devices fabrication; man-machine interactions; manufacturing; micro and nano systems; mobile robots and intelligent autonomous systems; motion control; multi-agent systems and distributed control; and multi-sensor data fusion algorithms.

The five volume set LNCS 7663, LNCS 7664, LNCS 7665, LNCS 7666 and LNCS 7667 constitutes the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICONIP 2012, held in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012. The 423 regular session papers presented 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 5 volumes represent 5 topical sections containing articles on theoretical analysis, neural modeling, algorithms, applications, as well as simulation and synthesis.

The five volume set LNCS 7663, LNCS 7664, LNCS 7665, LNCS 7666 and LNCS 7667 constitutes the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICONIP 2012, held in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012. The 423 regular session papers presented 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 5 volumes represent 5 topical sections containing articles on theoretical analysis, neural modeling, algorithms, applications, as well as simulation and synthesis.

The five volume set LNCS 7663, LNCS 7664, LNCS 7665, LNCS 7666 and LNCS 7667 constitutes the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICONIP 2012, held in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012. The 423 regular session papers presented 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 5 volumes represent 5 topical sections containing articles on theoretical analysis, neural modeling, algorithms, applications, as well as simulation and synthesis.

Representations of humans in virtual environments are called Avatars. This book brings together work from a variety of relevant disciplines to detail how humans interact in computer-generated environments. It contains contributions from several key people in the field, including Microsoft Researchs Virtual World Group, and presents their findings in a way that is accessible to readers who are new to the field. Coverage details Internet-based virtual worlds that have been widely used by the public as well as networked VR systems that have been primarily used in pilot studies and research.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Engineering Applications of Neural Networks, EANN 2012, held in London, UK, in September 2012. The 49 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers describe the applications of neural networks and other computational intelligence approaches to intelligent transport, environmental engineering, computer security, civil engineering, financial forecasting, virtual learning environments, language interpretation, bioinformatics and general engineering.

A detailed description of a new approach to perceptual analysis and processing of medical images is given. Instead of traditional pattern recognition a new method of image analysis is presented, based on a syntactic description of the shapes selected on the image and graph-grammar parsing algorithms. This method of "Image Understanding" can be found as a model of mans' cognitive image understanding processes. The usefulness for the automatic understanding of the merit of medical images is demonstrated as well as the ability for giving useful diagnostic descriptions of the illnesses. As an application, the production of a content-based, automatically generated index for arranging and for searching medical images in multimedia medical databases is presented.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Search-Based Software Engineering, SSBSE 2012, held in Riva del Garda, Italy in collocation with the 28th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance. The 15 revised full papers, 3 revised short papers, and 2 papers of the graduate track presented together with 2 keynote talks and 1 tutorial paper were carefully reviewed and selected from 38 initial submissions. Search-based Software Engineering (SBSE) studies the application of meta-heuristic optimization techniques to various software engineering problems, ranging from requirements engineering to software testing and maintenance. The papers present current research in all areas of Search Based Software Engineering, including theoretical work, research on SBSE applications, empirical studies, and reports on industrial experience.

The five volume set LNCS 7663, LNCS 7664, LNCS 7665, LNCS 7666 and LNCS 7667 constitutes the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICONIP 2012, held in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012. The 423 regular session papers presented 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 5 volumes represent 5 topical sections containing articles on theoretical analysis, neural modeling, algorithms, applications, as well as simulation and synthesis.