Thebookpresentsa cross-sectionofstate-of-the-artresearchonmultimodalc- pora, a highly interdisciplinary area that is a prerequisite for various specialized disciplines. A number of the papers included are revised and expanded versions ofpapersacceptedtotheInternationalWorkshoponMultimodal Corpora: From Models of Natural Interaction to Systems and Applications, held in conjunction th with the 6 International Conference for Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC) on May 27, 2008, in Marrakech, Morocco. This international workshop series started in 2000 and has since then grown into a regular satellite event of the bi-annual LREC conference, attracting researchers from ?elds as diverse as psychology, arti?cial intelligence, robotics, signal processing, computational linguisticsandhuman-computerinteraction. Tocomplement theselected papers from the 2008 workshop, we invited well-known researchers from corpus coll- tioninitiativestocontributetothisvolume. Wewereabletoobtainseveninvited research articles, including contributions from major international multimodal corpus projects like AMI and SmartWeb, which complement the six selected workshop contributions. All papers underwent a special review process for this volume, resulting in signi?cant revisions and extensions based on the experts' advice. While we were pleased that the 2006 edition of the workshop resulted in a special issue of the Journal of Language Resources and Evaluation, published in 2007, we felt that this was the time for another major publication, given not onlytherapidprogressandincreasedinterestin this researchareabut especially in order to acknowledge the di?culty of disseminating results across discipline borders. The Springer LNAI series is the perfect platform for doing so. We also created the website www. multimodal-corpora.

Welcome to the proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, held September 14-16, 2009 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) are interactive characters that exhibit hum- like qualities and communicate with humans or with each other using natural human modalities such as speech and gesture. They are capable of real-time perception, cognition and action, allowing them to participate in a dynamic physical and social environment. IVA is an interdisciplinary annual conference and the main forum for p- senting research on modeling, developing and evaluating IVAs with a focus on communicative abilities and social behavior. The development of IVAs requires expertise in multimodal interaction and several AI ?elds such as cognitive m- eling, planning, vision and natural language processing. Computational models are typically based on experimental studies and theories of human-human and human-robot interaction; conversely, IVA technology may provide interesting lessons for these ?elds. The realization of engaging IVAs is a challenging task, so reusable modules and tools are of great value. The ?elds of application range from robot assistants, social simulation and tutoring to games and artistic - ploration.

In an effort to extend traditional human-computer interfaces research has introduced embodied agents to utilize the modalities of everyday human-human communication, like facial expression, gestures and body postures. However, giving computer agents a human-like body introduces new challenges. Since human users are very sensitive and critical concerning bodily behavior the agents must act naturally and individually in order to be believable. This dissertation focuses on conversational gestures. It shows how to generate conversational gestures for an animated embodied agent based on annotated text input. The central idea is to imitate the gestural behavior of a human individual. Using TV show recordings as empirical data, gestural key parameters are extracted for the generation of natural and individual gestures. The gesture generation task is solved in three stages: observation, modeling and generation. For each stage, a software module was developed. For observation, the video annotation research tool ANVIL was created. It allows the efficient transcription of gesture, speech and other modalities on multiple layers. ANVIL is application-independent by allowing users to define their own annotation schemes, it provides various import/export facilities and it is extensible via its plug-in interface. Therefore, the tool is suitable for a wide variety of research fields. For this work, selected clips of the TV talk show Das Literarische Quartett'' were transcribed and analyzed, arriving at a total of 1,056 gestures. For the modeling stage, the NOVALIS module was created to compute individual gesture profiles from these transcriptions with statistical methods. A gesture profile models theaspects handedness, timing and function of gestures for a single human individual using estimated conditional probabilities. The profiles are based on a shared lexicon of 68 gestures, assembled from the data. Finally, for generation, the NOVA generator was devised to create gestures based on gesture profiles in an overgenerate-and-filter approach. Annotated text input is processed in a graph-based representation in multiple stages where semantic data is added, the location of potential gestures is determined by heuristic rules, and gestures are added and filtered based on a gesture profile. NOVA outputs a linear, player-independent action script in XML.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: History of Inernational Relations, grade: 1,3, University of Constance, course: Proseminar Literatur, language: English, abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the Franco-German relationship putting a strong focus on the two different railroad systems. The first two chapters will analyze Germany's and France's railroad systems from their early starts until the beginning of the First World War in a compressed way. In the following step, the fourth chapter, both systems will be compared and contrasted to each other. It's intended to show similarities and differences. A railway network can in general be regarded as a mirror of its national economy. A sustainable growth in a country's economy can hardly fail to benefit its railroads. In the 19th century Germany's railroads benefitted from a boosting economy whereas the French economy did not take into the same direction. This had remarkable effects on the commerce via rail and the French railroad network in total.1 This study will not compare the years after 1914 when the railways where primarily used to lead to the front. Each country's economy and its inner political movements had comparatively minor effects in contrast to the military strategies and decisions. A major challenge will be undoubtedly to fit all the necessary complexity into a single format. Therefore all comparisons shall be divided into three different aspects. At first the administrations of France and Germany shall be put opposite to each other starting with the railroads early years until the beginning of the 20th century. Additionally the two countries' economies and their effects on the railroad construction will be analyzed. At last the military strategies will be examined, for example during the Franco-Prussian War and the remaining pre-war times. In the 5th chapter current railroad issues of the two countries will be regarded. Mutual interests,

Unterrichtsentwurf aus dem Jahr 2011 im Fachbereich BWL - Didaktik, Wirtschaftspadagogik, Note: 2,3, Universitat Konstanz, Sprache: Deutsch, Anmerkungen: Das Thema dieses Unterrichtsentwurfs wird durch die Richtlinien und Lehrplane fur das Wirtschaftsgymnasium in Baden-Wurttemberg legitimiert. Das Thema der heutigen Stunde: Schlechtleistung bei der Erfullung von Kaufvertragen" ist unter der Lehrplaneinheit 3 Rechtliche und okonomische Grundlagen des Handelns privater Haushalte" einzuordnen., Abstract: Das Thema dises Unterrichtsentwurfs wird durch die Richtlinien und Lehrplane fur das Wirtschaftsgymnasium in Baden-Wurttemberg legitimiert. Das Thema der heutigen Stunde: Schlechtleistung bei der Erfullung von Kaufvertragen" ist unter der Lehrplaneinheit 3 Rechtliche und okonomische Grundlagen des Handelns privater Haushalte" einzuordnen.

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2010 im Fachbereich BWL - Didaktik, Wirtschaftspadagogik, Note: 2,3, Universitat Konstanz, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Das Berufsbildungssystem Frankreichs wird allgemein als schulisch und staatlich gesteuert beschrieben. Zu Beginn der 70er Jahre des 20. Jahrhunderts setzte sich in Frankreich die Erkenntnis durch, dass sich eine wachsende Kluft zwischen dem Bildungssystem und den Beschaftigungspolitiken der Unternehmen bildete, die sich nachteilig fur die Eingliederungschancen Jugendlicher in den Arbeitsmarkt auswirkte. Ende der 70er und Anfang der 80er wurden daher mehrere staatliche Programme und Reformen umgesetzt, die die hohe Jugendarbeitslosigkeit, speziell der benachteiligten Bevolkerungsschichten, bekampfen sollte. Alle franzosischen Initiativen teilten sich das gemeinsame Ziel, Lernwege offener zu gestalten und Bildungsversagen sowie Bildungssackgassen zu bekampfen. Ott/Deissinger bezeichnen diese Massnahmen als Offnung der Subsysteme." Ein zentraler Schritt in der Bildungshistorie Frankreichs, um dieser Forderung nachzukommen, stellt die Einfuhrung des Berufsabiturs (baccalaureat professionnel) dar. Die vorliegende Arbeit soll zeigen, wie die verschiedenen Reformbemuhungen sich auf mogliche Bildungswege ausgewirkt haben. Im Detail soll aufgezeigt, auf welcher Grundlage das Berufsabitur eingefuhrt wurde und welche neuen Moglichkeiten sich fur Frankreichs Jugendliche ergeben haben. Anschliessend soll diese Arbeit Frankreichs Berufsbildungssystem mit Hinblick auf den europaischen Qualifikationsrahmen durchleuchten. Ein zentrales Anliegen dieses EQR war die Forderung der Durchlassigkeit in den verschiedenen Bildungssystemen der Mitgliedsstaaten. Die vorliegende Studie soll untersuchen, inwieweit das Land dieser Forderung bis heute nachgekommen i