Search

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th International Forum on Digital Multimedia Communication, IFTC 2023, held in Beijing, China, December 21–22, 2023. The 57 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 150 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: CCIS 2066: Image Processing, Media Computing, Metaverse and Virtual Reality, and Multimedia Communication. CCIS 2067: Quality Assessment, Source Coding, and Application of AI.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th International Forum on Digital Multimedia Communication, IFTC 2023, held in Beijing, China, December 21–22, 2023. The 57 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 150 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: CCIS 2066: Image Processing, Media Computing, Metaverse and Virtual Reality, and Multimedia Communication. CCIS 2067: Quality Assessment, Source Coding, and Application of AI.

This book presents revised selected papers from the 16th International Forum on Digital TV and Wireless Multimedia Communication, IFTC 2019, held in Shanghai, China, in September 2019.The 34 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 120 submissions. They were organized in topical sections on image processing; machine learning; quality assessment; telecommunications; video surveillance; virtual reality.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th International Forum on Digital Multimedia Communication, IFTC 2022, held in Shanghai, China, December 8–9, 2022.The 40 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 112 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: Computer Vision; Image Analysis; Quality Assessment; Video Processing; Machine Learning; and Big data.

The two-volume set LNCS 10735 and 10736 constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 18th Pacific-Rim Conference on Multimedia, PCM 2017, held in Harbin, China, in September 2017. The 184 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 264 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on: Best Paper Candidate; Video Coding; Image Super-resolution, Debluring, and Dehazing; Person Identity and Emotion; Tracking and Action Recognition; Detection and Classification; Multimedia Signal Reconstruction and Recovery; Text and Line Detection/Recognition; Social Media; 3D and Panoramic Vision; Deep Learning for Signal Processing and Understanding; Large-Scale Multimedia Affective Computing; Sensor-enhanced Multimedia Systems; Content Analysis; Coding, Compression, Transmission, and Processing.

The two-volume set LNCS 10735 and 10736 constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 18th Pacific-Rim Conference on Multimedia, PCM 2017, held in Harbin, China, in September 2017. The 184 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 264 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on: Best Paper Candidate; Video Coding; Image Super-resolution, Debluring, and Dehazing; Person Identity and Emotion; Tracking and Action Recognition; Detection and Classification; Multimedia Signal Reconstruction and Recovery; Text and Line Detection/Recognition; Social Media; 3D and Panoramic Vision; Deep Learning for Signal Processing and Understanding; Large-Scale Multimedia Affective Computing; Sensor-enhanced Multimedia Systems; Content Analysis; Coding, Compression, Transmission, and Processing.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Next Generation Computer Animation Techniques, AniNex 2017, held in Bournemouth, UK, in June 2017. The workshop was held in conjunction with the 11th International Conference on E-Learning and Games, Edutainment 2017. The 17 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 27 submissions. The papers are structured according to the four main themes: simulation and rendering for computer animation; character modeling and dynamics; user centered design and modeling; computer animation systems and virtual reality based applications.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the AVI 2016 Workshop on Road Mapping Infrastructures for Advanced Visual Interfaces Supporting Big Data Applications in Virtual Research Environments, AVI-BDA 2016, held in Bari, Italy, in June 2016. The 10 revised full papers in this volume present the elaborated outcome of the initial position papers capturing the results oft the roadmapping discussions in the workshop at which comments of several external reviewers for these full publications were also integrated.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 7th Pacific Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology, PSIVT 2015, held in Auckland, New Zealand, in November 2015.The total of 61 revised papers was carefully reviewed and selected from 133 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on color and motion, image/video coding and transmission, computational photography and arts, computer vision and applications, image segmentation and classification, video surveillance, biomedical image processing and analysis, object and pattern recognition, computer vision and pattern recognition, image/video processing and analysis, and pattern recognition.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the First COST Action IC1302 International KEYSTONE Conference on semantic Keyword-based Search on Structured Data Sources, IKC 2015, held in Coimbra, Portugal, in September 2015. The 13 revised full papers, 3 revised short papers, and 2 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 22 initial submissions. The paper topics cover techniques for keyword search, semantic data management, social Web and social media, information retrieval, benchmarking for search on big data.

This volume constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 10th IFIP WG 13.8 International Conference on Culture, Technology, and Communication, CaTaC 2016, held in London, UK, in June 2016.The 9 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 22 submissions. The papers explore the intersections between culture, technology, and communication, applying different theoretical and methodological perspectives, genres, and styles. They deal with cultural attitudes towards technology and communication, interaction design, and international development.

Virtual reality (VR) is a multidisciplinary area of research aimed at interactive human–computer-mediated simulations of artificial environments. An important aspect of VR-based systems is the stimulation of the human senses – usually sight, sound, and touch – in such a way that a user feels a sense of presence in the virtual environment. Sometimes it is important to combine real and virtual objects in the same real or virtual environment. This approach is often referred to as augmented reality (AR), when virtual objects are integrated into a real environment. Typical VR applications include simulation, training, scientific visualization, and entertainment, whereas typical AR applications include computer-aided manufacturing or maintenance and computer-aided surgery or medicine.This book comprises a collection of research and position papers presented at Dagstuhl Seminar 13241 on Virtual Realities, held at Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany, in June 2013. The 13 papers in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 18 submissions. They are organized in topical sections on: VR environments; interactions and user experience; virtual humans; and tele-existence.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Adaptive Multimedia Retrieval, AMR 2012, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in October 2012.The 17 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers cover topics of state of the art contributions, features and classification, location context, language and semantics, music retrieval, and adaption and HCI.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Wired/Wireless Internet Communication, WWIC 2014, held in Paris, France, during May 27-28, 2014. The 22 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on wireless and wired networks; resource management and next generation services; next generation services, network architecture and applications.

This two-volume set of CCIS 391 and CCIS 392 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Information Computing and Applications, ICICA 2013, held in Singapore, in August 2013. The 126 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 665 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on Internet computing and applications; engineering management and applications; Intelligent computing and applications; business intelligence and applications; knowledge management and applications; information management system; computational statistics and applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Haptic and Audio Interaction Design, HAID 2013, held in Daejeon, Korea, in April 2013.The 14 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on non-intrusive and thermal haptics, new interfaces and interactions, emotion and affect, music, and mobile devices and applications.

This two-volume set of CCIS 391 and CCIS 392 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Information Computing and Applications, ICICA 2013, held in Singapore, in August 2013. The 126 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 665 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on Internet computing and applications; engineering management and applications; intelligent computing and applications; control engineering and applications; cloud and evolutionary computing; knowledge management and applications; computational statistics and applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on E-Learning and Games, Edutainment 2016, held in Hangzhou, China, in April 2016. The 36 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 60 submissions. They are organized in the following topical sections: E-learning and game; graphics, imaging and applications; intelligent data analytics and visualization.

The aim of this book is to collect and to cluster research areas in the field of serious games and entertainment computing. It provides an introduction and gives guidance for the next generation of researchers in this field.The 18 papers presented in this volume, together with an introduction, are the outcome of a GI-Dagstuhl seminar which was held at Schloß Dagstuhl in July 2015.

This volume constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of 11 international workshops held as part of the 8th Extended Semantic Web Conference, ESWC 2011, in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, in May 2010. The 22 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 75 submissions to the workshops during two rounds of reviewing and improvement. The papers are organized in topical sections on the following workshops: 1st International Workshop on eLearning Approaches for the Linked Data Age, 1st Workshop on High-Performance Computing for the Semantic Web, 3rd International Workshop on Inductive Reasoning and Machine Learning for the Semantic Web, 1st Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts, 1st Workshop on Ontology and Semantic Web for Manufacturing, 1st Workshop on Question Answering over Linked Data, 4th International Workshop on REsource Discovery, 6th International Workshop on Semantic Business Process Management, 1st Workshop on Semantic Publication, 1st Workshop on Semantics in Governance and Policy Modelling, and 1st International Workshop on User Profile Data on the Social Semantic Web.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Second International Conference, UCMedia 2010, which was held in Palma, Mallorca, Spain, in September 2010, accompanied by the 4th InterMedia Open Forum Workshop (IMOF). After a thorough review process 16 conference and 3 workshop papers were selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are grouped in topical sections on: personalised access to multimedia content; search and retrieval of networked multimedia content; multimedia, AMP, and user experience; video quality perception and user quality of experience; user generated content; content distribution; and content summarisation.

This volume constitutes the refereed post-workshop proceedings of two IFIP WG 13.7 workshops on Human-Computer Interaction and Visualization: the 7th HCIV Workshop on Non-formal Modelling for Interaction Design, held at the 29th European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics, ECCE 2011, in Rostock, Germany, in August 2011 and the 8th HCIV Workshop on HCI and Visualization, held at the 13th IFIP TC 13 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, INTERACT 2011, in Lisbon, Portugal, in September 2011. The 15 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this volume. They cover a wide range of topics in the fields of non-formal modeling, visualization and HCI and provide visions from researchers working at or across the borders between these domains that may help develop a holistic cross-discipline.

BlogTalk, the International Conference on Social Software, brings together different groups of people using and advancing the Internet and its usage: technical and conceptual developers, researchers with interdisciplinary backgrounds, and practitioners alike. The focus is on social software as an expression of a culture that is based on the exchange of information, ideas and knowledge. The present volume includes 6 papers from BlogTalk 2008 as well as 11 papers from BlogTalk 2009. The areas discussed include: forms and consequences of emerging social software practices; social software in enterprise and educational environments; the political impact of social software; applications, prototypes, concepts and standards.

This book constitutes the outcome of the Workshop on Measurement and Measurement Tools which was held as part of the Future Internet Research Experimentation (FIRE) initiative during the Future Internet Assembly conference (FIA) in May 2012. The 10 contributions included in this volume are invited extended versions of the presentations at the workshop. The book closes with a summary and conclusions of the findings in these papers.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the International Workshop on Multimodal Communication in Political Speech: Shaping Minds and Social Actions, held in Rome, Italy, during November 10-12, 2010. The 16 regular papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 33 submissions and presented with three key-notes. The purpose of the Political Speech workshops is to provide a forum for discussing research areas of persuasive agents and social signal processing. This book covers topics on multimodal aspects of political communication, including persuasion, fallacies, racist discourse, as well as music, autobiographic memories, metonymies, dominant postures, rhetorical strategies, interruptions, intonation, and voice appeal.

In recent years, Internet-based systems and applications have become pervasive and have been the focus of many ongoing research efforts. They range from semi-structured information, to multimedia systems and applications, to P2P and ad hoc information sharing networks and service-centric systems and applications. This book p- sents a collection of articles from the best papers presented at the SITIS 2006 International Conference, aiming to cover recent advanced research on distributed information systems, including both theoretical and applied solutions. This volume is designed for a professional audience practitioners and researchers in industry. It is also suitable as a reference or secondary text for advanced-level students in computer science and engineering. The articles in this book are a selection of papers presented at the IMRT and WITDS tracks of the international SITIS 2006 conference. The authors were asked to revise and extend their contributions to take into account the comments and discussions made at the conference. A large number of high-quality papers were submitted to SITIS 2006, demonstrating the growing interest of the - search community for Internet-Based and multimedia information systems. We would like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of many people. Our deepest gratitude goes to the authors who contributed their work. We appreciate the diligent work of the SITIS Committee members. We are grateful for the help, support and patience of the LNCS publishing team. Finally, thanks to Iwayan Wikacsana for his invaluable help. February 2007 Ernesto Damiani Kokou Yetongnon Richard Chbeir Albert Dipanda

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 6th International ICST Conference on Mobile Multimedia Communications (MOBIMEDIA 2010) held in Lisbon, Portugal, in September 2010, which was accompanied by the First International Workshop on Cognitive Radio and Cooperative Strategies for POWER Saving (C2POWER 2010), the Workshop on Impact of Scalable Video Coding on Multimedia Provisioning (SVCVision 2010), and the First International Workshop on Energy-efficient and Reconfigurable Transceivers (EERT 2010). The 59 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions and are organized in topical sections on advanced techniques for video transmission; multimedia distribution; modelling of wireless systems; cellular networks; mobility concepts for IMT-advances (MOBILIA); media independent handovers (MIH-4-MEDIA); and IP-based emergency applications and services for next generation networks (PEACE).

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 4th International Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval Symposium, CMMR 2007, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in August 2007 jointly with the International Computer Music Conference 2007, ICMC 2007. The 33 revised full papers presented were carefully selected during two rounds of reviewing and improvement. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the area, the papers address a broad variety of topics in computer science and engineering areas such as information retrieval, programming, human computer interaction, digital libraries, hypermedia, artificial intelligence, acoustics, signal processing, etc. CMMR 2007 has put special focus on the Sense of Sounds from the synthesis and retrieval point of view. This theme is pluridisciplinary by nature and associates the fields of sound modeling by analysis, synthesis, perception and cognition.

The 13th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia was held in Brisbane, Australia in September 2007. This was the first time that VSMM was sited in Australia. The Australian conference theme reflected the country's cultural heritage, both recent and past – Exchange and Experience in Space and Place. Of the many papers submitted under this theme we were able to identify three core sub-themes: Virtual Heritage, Applied Technologies and Virtual Environments. With a truly international flavor, these sub-themes covered the diverse areas of heritage site and artifact reconstruction and analysis, Australian Aboriginal cultural heritage, training, notions of spirituality, human – computer interaction in virtual environments, 3D modelling, remote collaboration and virtual agents. This made for rich, varied and lively conference session debates. Ninety-seven papers were submitted. Of these, 56 were accepted for inclusion in the general conference proceedings. Of these, 18 were further reviewed and selected for this Springer publication. The authors of these papers were invited to revise their papers following feedback from the conference before inclusion in this volume. Many people contributed to the conference. We first wish to thank the Virtual Systems and Multimedia Society, who provided strong support to the whole process of the preparation of the conference. In particular, we would like to express our thanks to Takeo Ojika, Mario Santana Quintero and Hal Thwaites for their generous support and guidance.

In diesem essential werden die übergeordneten Zielsetzungen der Applikationsentwicklung und ­einführung auf vier Evolutionsphasen verteilt, um unterschiedlichen Anforderungen gerecht zu werden. Durch den daraus resultierenden strategischen Applikationslebenszyklus (SALZ) können innovative Neuentwicklungen in frühen Phasen von technischen und architekturbezogenen Vorgaben befreit und agil entwickelt werden, während für operative Kernsysteme weiterhin ein ausführliches Änderungsmanagement betrieben wird. Damit bietet der SALZ auch die Grundlage, um in Unternehmen IT-Entwicklungsprojekte adaptiv mit unterschiedlichen Geschwindigkeiten zu realisieren. Alle Erkenntnisse werden am erfolgreichen Praxisbeispiel des Q-Cockpit-Projekts demonstriert.

This volume brings together the advanced research results obtained by the European COST Action 2102'Cross Modal Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication', primarily discussed at the PINK SSPnet-COST2102 International Conference on Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication and Enactment: The Processing Issues, held in Budapest, Hungary, in September 2010. The 40 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The volume is arranged into two scientific sections. The first section, Multimodal Signals: Analysis, Processing and Computational Issues, deals with conjectural and processing issues of defining models, algorithms, and heuristic strategies for data analysis, coordination of the data flow and optimal encoding of multi-channel verbal and nonverbal features. The second section, Verbal and Nonverbal Social Signals, presents original studies that provide theoretical and practical solutions to the modelling of timing synchronization between linguistic and paralinguistic expressions, actions, body movements, activities in human interaction and on their assistance for an effective human-machine interactions.

The idea of telematics appeared more than a decade ago and it is possible to define it, in a general and simple way, as a communication system for collecting, processing and distributing information. The transport services market is definitely the most important area for telematic applications. Transport-telematics issues constitute a field of knowledge of transport that integrates information technology and telecommunications in applications for managing and controlling traffic in transport systems, stimulating technical and organizational activities that ensure improved effectiveness and safe operation of such systems. Integrated and cooperating telematic applications constitute intelligent transport systems. The basis of such systems is to efficiently collect and process information and to manage its flow within the system. This enables supplying information from almost all areas of transport activities in real time. Intelligent transport––supported by a number of integrated telecommunications, IT measurement and control engineering solutions, and by appropriate tools and software––comprises telematic applications. They have an extensive range of use in many areas of transport, allowing the integration of the means and types of transport, including its infrastructure, business organization and management processes. This monograph is a collection of selected papers presented at the jubilee transport telematics conference, TST 2010, and is the result of the work of many scientists associated with this area of knowledge and who had spent years with the conference.

Web-based learning has attracted ongoing attention for its rapid development in recent years. It introduces not just global and distributed, but virtual learning environments to the students. To the educators, it creates a lot of opportunities, and at the same time challenges. Special learning tools/systems, learning resource management, and personalized learning materials, etc., are the hot research topics at present. After four successful previous annual conferences, ICWL 2002 in Hong Kong, ICWL 2003 in Australia, ICWL 2004 in China, and ICWL 2005 in Hong Kong, the Fifth International Conference on Web-Based Learning (ICWL 2006) was held in Penang, Malaysia during July 19-21, 2006. ICWL 2006 was a continued attempt to address many of the above-mentioned issues. The conference program was organized in a single-track 3-day workshop. It included a tutorial, a keynote talk, and oral/poster paper presentations in several sessions dedicated to specific topics. Session topics included “Personalization in E-Learning,” “Designs, Model and Framework of E-Learning Systems,” “Implementations and Evaluations of E-Learning Systems,” “Tools in E-Learning,” and “Learning Resource Deployment, Organization and Management. ” We received a total of 99 submissions from all over the world. The Program Committee selected 34 papers as regular papers for presentation, an acceptance rate of about 34. 3%. Due to the high-quality submissions, the committee decided to further invite nine papers for poster presentations. Finally, 32 papers (including the keynote speech) were selected for this post-conference proceedings.

This volume is based on the contributions to the International Workshop on the Web and Databases (WebDB'98), held in Valencia, Spain, March 27 and 28, 1998, in conjunction with the Sixth International Conference on Extending Database Technology (EDBT'98). In response to the workshop call for papers, 37 manuscripts were submitted to the program committee. The review process was conducted entirely by- mail. While the quality of submissions was generally high, only 16 papers could be accepted for presentation within the limited time allowed by the workshop schedule. Authors of workshop papers were invited to submit extended versions oftheirpapersforpublicationinthesepost-workshopproceedings.The13papers appearing in this volume were submitted and selected after a second round of reviews. We would like to thank the program committee of WebDB'98, all those who submitted their work, all additional reviewers, and the conference o?cials of EBDT'98 for their invaluable support. Special thanks go to Paolo Merialdo, who actively participated in the organization of the workshop.

Mobile Response 2008, the Second International Workshop on Mobile Infor- tion Technology for Emergency Response, aimed at a focussed exchange on how mobile information technology can be e?ectively used to the bene?t of em- gency response. The gap between the great potential bene?t that usable mobile IT could yield in the domain of emergency response and the speci?c design challenges for such technologies in this particularly unforgiving domain was the foundation of our decision to create a venue for researchers and practitioners from di?erent disciplines. During this year's workshopthe latest approachesand technical solutions in the area of mobile information technology for emergency response planning and execution were presented and demonstrated. We invited participation from research, industry and public rescue orga- zations to enable an in-depth discussion of the opportunities and drawbacks of new digital technologies for emergency response. The call for papers for the second Mobile Response workshop attracted over 25 submissions from 11 d- ferent countries, including international submissions from the USA, Brazil and Japan.AninternationalProgramCommitteewithexpertsonmobileinformation technology, emergency response and emergency response equipment selected 12 submissions for presentation during the workshop. The program was completed by two outstanding keynote presentations and one invited presentation on p- vailing topics of high interest to the scienti?c and practitioner communities.

This volume comprises papers from the following three workshops that were part of the complete program for the International Conference on Extending Database Technology (EDBT) held in Prague, Czech Republic, in March 2002: XML-Based Data Management (XMLDM) Second International Workshop on Multimedia Data and Document Engineering (MDDE) Young Researchers Workshop (YRWS) Together, the three workshops featured 48 high-quality papers selected from approximately 130 submissions. It was, therefore, difficult to decide on the papers that were to be accepted for presentation. We believe that the accepted papers substantially contribute to their particular fields of research. The workshops were an excellent basis for intense and highly fruitful discussions. The quality and quantity of papers show that the areas of interest for the workshops are highly active. A large number of excellent researchers are working in relevant fields producing research output that is not only of interest to other researchers but also for industry. The organizers and participants of the workshops were highly satisfied with the output. The high quality of the presenters and workshop participants contributed to the success of each workshop. The amazing environment of Prague and the location of the EDBT conference also contributed to the overall success. Last, but not least, our sincere thanks to the conference organizers – the organizing team was always willing to help and if there were things that did not work, assistance was quickly available.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed joint post-proceedings of nine workshops held as part of the 10th International Conference on Extending Database Technology, EDBT 2006, held in Munich, Germany in March 2006. The 70 revised full papers presented were selected from numerous submissions during two rounds of reviewing and revision.

This volume brings together, through a peer-revision process, the advanced research results obtained by the European COST Action 2102: Cross-Modal Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication, primarily discussed for the first time at the Second COST 2102 International Training School on “Development of Multimodal Int- faces: Active Listening and Synchrony” held in Dublin, Ireland, March 23–27 2009. The school was sponsored by COST (European Cooperation in the Field of Sci- tific and Technical Research, www.cost.esf.org) in the domain of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for disseminating the advances of the research activities developed within the COST Action 2102: “Cross-Modal Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication” (cost2102.cs.stir.ac.uk) COST Action 2102 in its third year of life brought together about 60 European and 6 overseas scientific laboratories whose aim is to develop interactive dialogue systems and intelligent virtual avatars graphically embodied in a 2D and/or 3D interactive virtual world, capable of interacting intelligently with the environment, other avatars, and particularly with human users.

The First Future Internet Symposium was held during September 28–30, 2008 in Vienna, Austria. FIS 2008 provided a forum for leading researchersand pr- titioners to meet and discuss the wide-ranging scienti?c and technical issues related to the design of a new Internet. The sentiment shared in Vienna was that we are at the beginning of something very exciting and challenging and that FIS 2008 has played a role in forming a community to address this. With overa billionusers,today's Internet is arguablythe most successful- man artifact ever created. The Internet's physical infrastructure, software, and content now play an integralpart in the lives of everyoneon the planet, whether they interact with it directly or not. Now nearing its?fth decade, the Int- net has shown remarkable resilience and?exibility in the face of ever-increasing numbers of users, data volume, and changing usage patterns, but faces gr- ing challenges in meetings the needs of our knowledge society. Globally, many major initiatives are underway to address the need for more scienti?c research, physical infrastructure investment, better education, and better utilization of the Internet. Japan, the USA and Europe are investing heavily in this area. The EU is shaping around the idea of the Future Internet its research programmes for the Seventh Framework. EU commissioners, national government ministers, industry leadersand researchersmet in Bled, Slovenia during March 31–April2, 2008, to begin developing a vision of a future Internet that will meet Europe's needs a decade from now, and beyond. Abroadprogrammeofscienti?cresearchisessentialtosupportingtheaimsof the Future Internetinitiative.

The workshop on an Infrastructure for Mobile and Wireless Systems was held in Scottsdale, Arizona on October 15, 2001 and was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and sponsored by the Telecommunications and Information Technology Institute of the College of Engineering at Florida International U- versity (FIU), to establish a common infrastructure for the discipline of mobile and wireless networking, and to serve its rapidly emerging mobile and wireless community of researchers and practitioners. The workshop provides a single, cohesive, and high-quality forum for disseminating research and experience in this emerging?eld. Of signi?cance is the integration of many diverse com- nities. The areas of mobile and wireless networking combine the best of both worlds, namely academia and industry. The objective of the workshop is to -?ne and establish a common infrastructure of the discipline and to develop a consensus-based document that will provide a foundation for implementation, standardization, and further research. Workshop Program Chairs Dr. Birgitta K¨ onig-Ries (Universit¨at Karlsruhe), and Dr. Peter Scheuermann (Northwestern University) and Vice Program Chair Dr. S. A. M. Makki (Queensland University of Technology), assembled a truly - pressive program committee. Together with the program committee, they worked diligently to select papers and speakers that met the criteria of high quality and relevance to our various?elds of interest. It takes time and e?ort to review a - per carefully, and every member of the program committee is to be commended for his/her contribution to the success of this workshop.

The interest in mobile information technology for emergency response (ER) comes from the simple fact that an important part of this work is done in the?eld. With little or no infrastructure to rely on, ER operatives have to make do with the tools they bring along. Of course, ER organizations build, invest in and do rely on infrastructure for their operations and this includes sophisticated stationary information technology. The systems used for dispatching ER units are a good example for this. While such systems are very important to support strategic planning and decision making, the e?ects of emergency response work eventuallyhaveto be createdonsite. And this includes bothobtaining the inf- mation required for taking informed decisions as well as implementing decisions through targeted actions in the?eld. All of this is of course not new. The tra- o? between responding quickly with the available resources to the situation at hand and responding with more deliberation to strategic goals and constraints is not inherent to the use of information technology but to responding to em- gencies in general. What is new is that current and foreseeable innovations in mobile information technology have the potential to o?er substantially better support for emergency response?eld work, resulting in better solutions for this trade-o?. By providing better gathering, communication and processing of re- vant informationbetweenall actorsinvolved,we believe that mobile information technology can be a valuable tool in the hands of ER professionals to increase the speed, precision, e?ciency and e?ectiveness of their operations.

Since its establishment in 1995, the ERCIM Working Group “User Interfaces for 1 All” (WG UI4ALL) has systematically promoted the proactive realization of the design for all principles in HCI. Its activities have included the organization of a se- 2 ries of very successful workshops that have contributed to consolidate recent work and stimulate further discussion on the state of the art in user interfaces for all and its increasing range of applications in the upcoming Information Society. Such wo- shops have brought together, in a new scientific community, researchers and teams working not only in the different ERCIM organizations, but also in organizations beyond ERCIM and the European boundaries, who share common interests and as- rations and contribute to the endeavors towards making the Information Society equally accessible to all citizens. This volume contains the proceedings of the last ERCIM “User Interfaces for All” Workshop. The work of the ERCIM WG UI4ALL led in 2001 to the establishment of the - ternational Conference on Universal Access in Human–Computer Interaction 3 (UAHCI), which takes place in the context of the HCI International Conference se- 4 ries. UAHCI has established an international forum for the dissemination and - change of scientific information on theoretical, methodological and empirical research that addresses all issues related to the attainment of universal access in the devel- ment of interactive software, attracting participants from a broad range of disciplines and fields of expertise.

The 8th ERCIM Workshop “User Interfaces for All” was held in Vienna, Austria, on 28–29 June 2004, building upon the results of the seven previous workshops held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 30–31 October 1995; Prague, Czech Republic, 7–8 Nov- ber 1996; Obernai, France, 3–4 November 1997; Stockholm, Sweden, 19–21 October 1998; Dagstuhl, Germany, 28 November – 1 December 1999; Florence, Italy, 25–26 October 2000; and Paris (Chantilly), France, 24–25 October 2002. The concept of “User Interfaces for All” targets a proactive realization of the “- signforall”principleinthe?eldofhuman-computerinteraction(HCI),andinvolvesthe developmentof user interfaces to interactiveapplicationsand e-services, which provide universalaccess andusabilityto potentiallyall users. In thetraditionofits predecessors, the 8th ERCIM Workshop “User Interfaces for All” aimed to consolidate recent work and to stimulate further discussion on the state of the art in “User Interfaces for All” and its increasing range of applications in the upcoming Information Society. The emphasis of the 2004 event was on “User-Centered Interaction Paradigms for Universal Access in the Information Society. ” The requirement for user-centered u- versal access stems from the growing impact of the fusion of the emerging techno- gies and from the different dimensions of diversity that are intrinsic to the Information Society. These dimensions become evident when considering the broad range of user characteristics, the changing nature of human activities, the variety of contexts of use, the increasing availability and diversi?cation of information, knowledge sources and e-services, the proliferation of technological platforms, etc.

The objective of the workshops associated with ER 2001, the 20th International Con- rence on Conceptual Modeling, was to give participants the opportunity to present and discuss emerging hot topics, thus adding new perspectives to conceptual modeling. This, the 20th ER conference, the?rst of the 21st century, was also the?rst one in Japan. The conference was held on November 27-30, 2001 at Yokohama National University with 192 participants from 31 countries. ER 2001 encompasses the entire spectrum of c- ceptual modeling, from theoretical aspects to implementations, including fundamentals, applications, and software engineering. In particular, ER 2001 emphasized e-business and reengineering. To meet this objective, we selected the following four topics and planned four international workshops: – International Workshop on Conceptual Modeling of Human/Organizational/Social Aspects of Manufacturing Activities (HUMACS 2001) Manufacturing enterprises have to confront a host of demands. The competitive climate, enhanced by communication and knowledge sharing, will require incr- singly rapid responses to market forces. Customer demands for higher quality, better services, and lower cost will force manufacturers to reach new levels of?exibility and adaptability. Sophisticated customers will demand products customized to meet their needs. Industries have so far sought to cope with these challenges primarily through advances in traditional capital by installing more powerful hardware and software technology. Attention to the role of humans combined with organizational and social schemes in manufacturing has only been marginal. The workshop HUMACS 2001 aimed to challenge the relevance of this last point.