At the same time as Denmark and Sweden were locked in a battle for supremacy in northern Europe, several other countries around Europe engaged in struggles for dominance. One conflict that had profound impact on much of the Continent as well as Scandinavia was the fight for hegemony between France and Austria after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. In Flattering Alliances we learn about how those clashes dragged the Scandinavian kingdoms into European top-level politics, and forced them to take part in the diplomatic game, constantly negotiating risks and profits. The historians Peter Lindstroem and Svante Norrhem discuss the role of diplomacy, how the Great Powers bound allies to their side, and how the Scandinavian countries and their political elites responded. Much of the diplomatic strategising centred on family alliances, patronage, and economic politics -- something quite different from what we expect from today's official negotiations. This book will be invaluable reading for anyone with an interest in international relations in the early modern period, particularly in Europe, as the authors take a fresh look at the history of diplomacy and the nature of state formation.

It is with greatpleasure that we present the proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC 2009), which was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. ISVC o?ers a common umbrella for the four main areas of visual c- puting includingvision,graphics,visualization,andvirtualreality.Thegoalisto provide a forum for researchers, scientists, engineers, and practitioners throu- out the world to present their latest research ?ndings, ideas, developments, and applications in the broader area of visual computing. This year, the program consisted of 16 oral sessions, one poster session, 7 special tracks, and 6 keynote presentations. Also, this year ISVC hosted the Third Semantic Robot Vision Challenge.The responseto the call for papers was verygood;wereceivedover320submissionsfor themainsymposiumfromwhich we accepted 97 papers for oral presentation and 63 papers for poster presen- tion. Special track papers were solicited separately through the Organizing and Program Committees of each track. A total of 40 papers were accepted for oral presentation and 15 papers for poster presentation in the special tracks. All papers were reviewed with an emphasis on potential to contribute to the state of the art in the ?eld. Selection criteria included accuracy and originality of ideas, clarity and signi?cance of results, and presentation quality. The review process was quite rigorous, involving two to three independent blind reviews followed by several days of discussion. During the discussion period we tried to correct anomalies and errors that might have existed in the initial reviews.