Since their first inception, automatic reading systems have evolved substantially, yet the recognition of handwriting remains an open research problem due to its substantial variation in appearance. With the introduction of Markovian models to the field, a promising modeling and recognition paradigm was established for automatic handwriting recognition. However, no standard procedures for building Markov model-based recognizers have yet been established. This text provides a comprehensive overview of the application of Markov models in the field of handwriting recognition, covering both hidden Markov models and Markov-chain or n-gram models. First, the text introduces the typical architecture of a Markov model-based handwriting recognition system, and familiarizes the reader with the essential theoretical concepts behind Markovian models. Then, the text reviews proposed solutions in the literature for open problems in applying Markov model-based approaches to automatic handwriting recognition.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computer Vision Systems, ICVS 2011, held in Sophia Antipolis, France, in September 2009. The 22 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 58 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on vision systems, control of perception, performance evaluation, activity recognition, and knowledge directed vision.

The two-volume set LNCS 6978 + 6979 constitutes the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing, ICIAP 2011, held in Ravenna, Italy, in September 2011. The total of 121 papers presented was carefully reviewed and selected from 175 submissions. The papers are divided into 10 oral sessions, comprising 44 papers, and three post sessions, comprising 77 papers. They deal with the following topics: image analysis and representation; image segmentation; pattern analysis and classification;forensics, security and document analysis; video analysis and processing; biometry; shape analysis; low-level color image processing and its applications; medical imaging; image analysis and pattern recognition; image and video analysis and processing and its applications.

String matching problems range from the relatively simple task of searching a single text for a string of characters to searching a database for approximate occurrences of a complex pattern. Recent years have witnessed a dramatic increase of interest in sophisticated string matching problems, especially in information retrieval and computational biology. This book presents a practical approach to string matching problems, focusing on the algorithms and implementations that perform best in practice. It covers searching for simple, multiple and extended strings, as well as regular expressions, and exact and approximate searching. It includes all the most significant new developments in complex pattern searching. The clear explanations, step-by-step examples, algorithm pseudocode, and implementation efficiency maps will enable researchers, professionals and students in bioinformatics, computer science, and software engineering to choose the most appropriate algorithms for their applications.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Third International ICST Conference on Forensic Applications and Techniques in Telecommunications, Information and Multimedia, E-Forensics 2010, held in Shanghai, China, in November 2010. The 32 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions in total. These, along with 5 papers from a collocated workshop of E-Forensics Law, cover a wide range of topics including digital evidence handling, data carving, records tracing, device forensics, data tamper identification, and mobile device locating.

The two volume set LNCS 6854/6855 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns, CAIP 2011, which took place in Seville, Spain, August 29-31, 2011. The 138 papers presented together with 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 286 submissions. The papers are organized in topical section on: motion analysis, image and shape models, segmentation and grouping, shape recovery, kernel methods, medical imaging, structural pattern recognition, Biometrics, image and video processing, calibration; and tracking and stereo vision.

This highly anticipated new edition provides a comprehensive account of face recognition research and technology, spanning the full range of topics needed for designing operational face recognition systems. After a thorough introductory chapter, each of the following chapters focus on a specific topic, reviewing background information, up-to-date techniques, and recent results, as well as offering challenges and future directions. Features: fully updated, revised and expanded, covering the entire spectrum of concepts, methods, and algorithms for automated face detection and recognition systems; provides comprehensive coverage of face detection, tracking, alignment, feature extraction, and recognition technologies, and issues in evaluation, systems, security, and applications; contains numerous step-by-step algorithms; describes a broad range of applications; presents contributions from an international selection of experts; integrates numerous supporting graphs, tables, charts, and performance data.

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 presents methods for estimating optical flow and scene flow motion with high accuracy, focusing on the practical application of these methods in camera-based driver assistance systems. Clearly and logically structured, the book builds from basic themes to more advanced concepts, culminating in the development of a novel, accurate and robust optic flow method. Features: reviews the major advances in motion estimation and motion analysis, and the latest progress of dense optical flow algorithms; investigates the use of residual images for optical flow; examines methods for deriving motion from stereo image sequences; analyses the error characteristics for motion variables, and derives scene flow metrics for movement likelihood and velocity; introduces a framework for scene flow-based moving object detection and segmentation; includes Appendices on data terms and quadratic optimization, and scene flow implementation using Euler-Lagrange equations, in addition to a helpful Glossary.

The two volume set LNCS 6854/6855 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns, CAIP 2011, which took place in Seville, Spain, August 29-31, 2011. The 138 papers presented together with 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 286 submissions. The papers are organized in topical section on: motion analysis, image and shape models, segmentation and grouping, shape recovery, kernel methods, medical imaging, structural pattern recognition, Biometrics, image and video processing, calibration; and tracking and stereo vision.

This groundbreaking text examines the problem of user authentication from a completely new viewpoint. Rather than describing the requirements, technologies and implementation issues of designing point-of-entry authentication, the book introduces and investigates the technological requirements of implementing transparent user authentication - where authentication credentials are captured during a user's normal interaction with a system. This approach would transform user authentication from a binary point-of-entry decision to a continuous identity confidence measure. Topics and features: discusses the need for user authentication; reviews existing authentication approaches; introduces novel behavioural biometrics techniques; examines the wider system-specific issues with designing large-scale multimodal authentication systems; concludes with a look to the future of user authentication.

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 6th International Workshop on Haptic and Audio Interaction Design, HAID 2011 held in Kusatsu, Japan, in August 2011. The 13 regular papers and 1 keynote presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on haptic and audio interactions, crossmodal and multimodal communication and emerging multimodal interaction technologies and systems.

This book uses a mathematical approach to deriving the laws of science and technology, based upon the concept of Fisher information. The approach that follows from these ideas is called the principle of Extreme Physical Information (EPI). The authors show how to use EPI to determine the theoretical input/output laws of unknown systems. Will benefit readers whose math skill is at the level of an undergraduate science or engineering degree.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Energy Minimization Methods in Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, EMMCVPR 2011, held in St. Petersburg, Russia in July, 2011. The book presents 30 revised full papers selected from a total of 52 submissions. The book is divided in sections on discrete and continuous optimization, segmentation, motion and video, learning and shape analysis.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Conceptual Structures, ICCS 2011, held in Derby, UK, in July 2011. The 18 full papers and 4 short papers presented together with 12 workshop papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The volume also contains 3 invited talks. ICCS focuses on the useful representation and analysis of conceptual knowledge with research and business applications. It advances the theory and practice in connecting the user's conceptual approach to problem solving with the formal structures that computer applications need to bring their productivity to bear. Conceptual structures (CS) represent a family of approaches that builds on the successes of artificial intelligence, business intelligence, computational linguistics, conceptual modelling, information and Web technologies, user modelling, and knowledge management. Two of the workshops contained in this volume cover CS and knowledge discovery in under-traversed domains and in task specific information retrieval. The third addresses CD in learning, teaching and assessment.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Artificial Immune Systems, ICARIS 2011, held in Cambridge, UK, in July 2011. The 37 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on immunoinformatics and computational immunology; theory of immunological computation; and applied immunological computation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Information Processing in Medical Imaging, IPMI 2011, held at Kloster Irsee, Germany, in July 2011. The 24 full papers and 39 poster papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 224 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on segmentation, statistical methods, shape analysis, registration, diffusion imaging, disease progression modeling, and computer aided diagnosis. The poster sessions deal with segmentation, shape analysis, statistical methods, image reconstruction, microscopic image analysis, computer aided diagnosis, diffusion imaging, functional brain analysis, registration and other related topics.

The recent emergence of Local Binary Patterns (LBP) has led to significant progress in applying texture methods to various computer vision problems and applications. The focus of this research has broadened from 2D textures to 3D textures and spatiotemporal (dynamic) textures. Also, where texture was once utilized for applications such as remote sensing, industrial inspection and biomedical image analysis, the introduction of LBP-based approaches have provided outstanding results in problems relating to face and activity analysis, with future scope for face and facial expression recognition, biometrics, visual surveillance and video analysis.

"Computer Vision Using Local Binary Patterns" provides a detailed description of the LBP methods and their variants both in spatial and spatiotemporal domains. This comprehensive reference also provides an excellent overview as to how texture methods can be utilized for solving different kinds of computer vision and image analysis problems. Source codes of the basic LBP algorithms, demonstrations, some databases and a comprehensive LBP bibliography can be found from an accompanying web site.

Topics include: local binary patterns and their variants in spatial and spatiotemporal domains, texture classification and segmentation, description of interest regions, applications in image retrieval and 3D recognition - Recognition and segmentation of dynamic textures, background subtraction, recognition of actions, face analysis using still images and image sequences, visual speech recognition and LBP in various applications.

Written by pioneers of LBP, this book is an essential resource for researchers, professional engineers and graduate students in computer vision, image analysis and pattern recognition. The book will also be of interest to all those who work with specific applications of machine vision.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Ergonomics and Health Aspects of Work with Computers, EHAWC 2011, held within the framework of the 14th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2011, incorporating 12 thematically similar conferences. A total of 4039 contributions was submitted to HCII 2011, of which 1318 papers were accepted for publication. The 25 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. They are organized in topical sections on quality of working life; health and well-being; and interactive devices and interfaces.

This Three-Volume-Set constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Software Engineering and Computer Systems, ICSECS 2011, held in Kuantan, Malaysia, in June 2011. The 190 revised full papers presented together with invited papers in the three volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on software engineering; network; bioinformatics and e-health; biometrics technologies; Web engineering; neural network; parallel and distributed e-learning; ontology; image processing; information and data management; engineering; software security; graphics and multimedia; databases; algorithms; signal processing; software design/testing; e- technology; ad hoc networks; social networks; software process modeling; miscellaneous topics in software engineering and computer systems.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Information Processing in Computer-Assisted Interventions IPCAI 2011, held in Berlin, Germany, on June 22, 2011. The 17 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 29 submissions. The focus of the conference is the use of information technology in interventional medicine, including real-time modeling and analysis, technology, human-machine interfaces, and systems associated with operating rooms and interventional suites. It also covers the overall information flow associated with intervention planning, execution, follow-up, and outcome analysis; as well as training and skill assessment for such procedures.

This two volume set LNCS 6791 and LNCS 6792 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 21th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2011, held in Espoo, Finland, in June 2011.
The 106 revised full or poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. ICANN 2011 had two basic tracks: brain-inspired computing and machine learning research, with strong cross-disciplinary interactions and applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, AIS 2011, held in Burnaby, BC, Canada, in June 2011, colocated with the International Conference on Image Analysis and Recognition, IACIAR 2011.
The 40 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 62 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on autonomous and intelligent systems, intelligent and advanced control systems, intelligent sensing and data analysis, human-machine interaction, and intelligent circuit analysis and signal processing.

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.