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Intelligent Multimedia Multi-Agent Systems focuses on building intelligent successful systems. The book adopts a human-centered approach and considers various pragmatic issues and problems in areas like intelligent systems, software engineering, multimedia databases, electronic commerce, data mining, enterprise modeling and human-computer interaction for developing a human-centered virtual machine. The authors describe an ontology of the human-centered virtual machine which includes four components: activity-centered analysis component, problem solving adapter component, transformation agent component, and multimedia based interpretation component. These four components capture the external and internal planes of the system development spectrum. They integrate the physical, social and organizational reality on the external plane with stakeholder goals, tasks and incentives, and organization culture on the internal plane. The human-centered virtual machine and its four components are used for developing intelligent multimedia multi-agent systems in areas like medical decision support and health informatics, medical image retrieval, e-commerce, face detection and annotation, internet games and sales recruitment. The applications in these areas help to expound various aspects of the human-centered virtual machine including, human-centered domain modeling, distributed intelligence and communication, perceptual and cognitive task modeling, component based software development, and multimedia based data modeling. Further, the applications described in the book employ various intelligent technologies like neural networks, fuzzy logic and knowledge based systems, software engineering artifacts like agents and objects, internet technologies like XML and multimedia artifacts like image, audio, video and text.

There is a tremendous interest in the design and applications of agents in virtually every area including avionics, business, internet, engineering, health sciences and management. There is no agreed one definition of an agent but we can define an agent as a computer program that autonomously or semi-autonomously acts on behalf of the user. In the last five years transition of intelligent systems research in general and agent based research in particular from a laboratory environment into the real world has resulted in the emergence of several phenomenon. These trends can be placed in three catego­ ries, namely, humanization, architectures and learning and adapta­ tion. These phenomena are distinct from the traditional logic­ centered approach associated with the agent paradigm. Humaniza­ tion of agents can be understood among other aspects, in terms of the semantics quality of design of agents. The need to humanize agents is to allow practitioners and users to make more effective use of this technology. It relates to the semantic quality of the agent design. Further, context-awareness is another aspect which has as­ sumed importance in the light of ubiquitous computing and ambi­ ent intelligence. The widespread and varied use of agents on the other hand has cre­ ated a need for agent-based software development frameworks and design patterns as well architectures for situated interaction, nego­ tiation, e-commerce, e-business and informational retrieval. Fi- vi Preface nally, traditional agent designs did not incorporate human-like abilities of learning and adaptation.

Engineering Intelligent Hybrid Multi-Agent Systems is about building intelligent hybrid systems. Included is coverage of applications and design concepts related to fusion systems, transformation systems and combination systems. These applications are in areas involving hybrid configurations of knowledge-based systems, case-based reasoning, fuzzy systems, artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms, and in knowledge discovery and data mining. Through examples and applications a synergy of these subjects is demonstrated. The authors introduce a multi-agent architectural theory for engineering intelligent associative hybrid systems. The architectural theory is described at both the task structure level and the computational level. This problem-solving architecture is relevant for developing knowledge agents and information agents. An enterprise-wide system modeling framework is outlined to facilitate forward and backward integration of systems developed in the knowledge, information, and data engineering layers of an organization. In the modeling process, software engineering aspects like agent oriented analysis, design and reuse are developed and described. Engineering Intelligent Hybrid Multi-Agent Systems is the first book in the field to provide details of a multi-agent architecture for building intelligent hybrid systems.

Human-Centered e-Business focuses on analysis, design and development of human-centered e-business systems. The authors illustrate the benefits of the human-centered approach in intelligent e-sales recruitment application, integrating data mining technology with decision support model for profiling transaction behavior of internet banking customers, user-centered context dependent data organization using XML, knowledge management, and optimizing the search process through human evaluation in an intelligent interactive multimedia application. The applications described in this work, facilitates both e-business analysis from a business professional's perspective, and human-centered system design from a system development perspective. These applications employ a range of internet and soft computing technologies.

Dear delegates,friendsand membersofthe growingKES professionalcommunity,w- come to the proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Knowledge-Based and IntelligentInformationandEngineeringSystemshostedbyLa TrobeUniversityin M- bourne Australia. The KES conference series has been established for almost a decade, and it cont- ues each year to attract participants from all geographical areas of the world, including Europe, the Americas, Australasia and the Paci?c Rim. The KES conferences cover a wide range of intelligent systems topics. The broad focus of the conference series is the theory and applications of intelligent systems. From a pure research?eld, intel- gent systems have advanced to the point where their abilities have been incorporated into many business and engineering application areas. KES 2005 provided a valuable mechanism for delegates to obtain an extensive view of the latest research into a range of intelligent-systems algorithms, tools and techniques. The conference also gave de- gates the chance to come into contact with those applying intelligent systems in diverse commercial areas. The combination of theory and practice represented a unique opp- tunity to gain an appreciation of the full spectrum of leading-edge intelligent-systems activity. The papers for KES 2005 were either submitted to invited sessions, chaired and organized by respected experts in their?elds, or to a general session, managed by an extensive International Program Committee, or to the Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing (IIHMSP) Workshop, managed by an International Workshop Technical Committee.