Realizing the growing importance of semantic adaptation and personalization of media, the editors of this book brought together leading researchers and practitioners of the field to discuss the state-of-the-art, and explore emerging exciting developments. This volume comprises extended versions of selected papers presented at the 1st International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalization (SMAP 2006), which took place in Athens in December 2006.

The emergence of content- and context-aware search engines, which not only personalize searching and delivery but also the content, has caused the emergence of new infrastructures capable of end-to-end ubiquitous transmission of personalized multimedia content to any device on any network at any time. Personalizing and adapting content requires pro

Semantics in Adaptive and Personalised Services, initially strikes one as a specific and perhaps narrow domain. Yet, a closer examination of the term reveals much more. On one hand there is the issue of semantics. Nowadays, this most often refers to the use of OWL, RDF or some other XML based ontology description language in order to represent the entities of problem. Still, semantics may also very well refer to the consideration of the meanings and concepts, rather than arithmetic measures, regardless of the representation used. On the other hand, there is the issue of adaptation, i.e. automated re-configuration based on some context. This could be the network and device context, the application context or the user context; we refer to the latter case as personalization. From a different perspective, there is the issue of the point of view from which to examine the topic. There is the point of view of tools, referring to the algorithms and software tools one can use, the point of view of the methods, referring to the abstract methodologies and best practices one can follow, as well as the point of view of applications, referring to successful and pioneering case studies that lead the way in research and innovation. Or at least so we thought. Based on the above reasoning, the editors identified key researchers and practitioners in each of the aforementioned categories and invited them to contribute a corresponding work to this book. However, as the authors’ contributions started to arrive, the editors also started to realize that although these categories participate in each chapter to different degrees, none of them can ever be totally obsolete from them. Moreover, it seems that theory and methods are inherent in the development of tools and applications and inversely the application is also inherent in the motivation and presentation of tools and methods.

Realizing the growing importance of semantic adaptation and personalization of media, the editors of this book brought together leading researchers and practitioners of the field to discuss the state-of-the-art, and explore emerging exciting developments. This volume comprises extended versions of selected papers presented at the 1st International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalization (SMAP 2006), which took place in Athens in December 2006.

Natural Computing in Computational Finance is a innovative volume containing fifteen chapters which illustrate cutting-edge applications of natural computing or agent-based modeling in modern computational finance. Following an introductory chapter the book is organized into three sections. The first section deals with optimization applications of natural computing demonstrating the application of a broad range of algorithms including, genetic algorithms, differential evolution, evolution strategies, quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithms and bacterial foraging algorithms to multiple financial applications including portfolio optimization, fund allocation and asset pricing. The second section explores the use of natural computing methodologies such as genetic programming, neural network hybrids and fuzzy-evolutionary hybrids for model induction in order to construct market trading, credit scoring and market prediction systems. The final section illustrates a range of agent-based applications including the modeling of payment card and financial markets. Each chapter provides an introduction to the relevant natural computing methodology as well as providing a clear description of the financial application addressed. The book was written to be accessible to a wide audience and should be of interest to practitioners, academics and students, in the fields of both natural computing and finance.

This book presents a specific and unified approach framework to three major components: Search Engines Performance, Link Analysis, and User’s Web Behavior. The book can be used by researchers in the fields of information sciences, engineering (especially software), computer science, statistics and management, who are looking for a unified theoretical approach to finding relevant information on the WWW and a way of interpreting it from a data perspective to a user perspective.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 4th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, BIOSTEC 2011, held in Rome, Italy, in January 2011. The 27 revised full papers presented together with one invited lecture were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 538 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics and are organized in four general topical sections on biomedical electronics and devices; bioinformatics models, methods and algorithms; bio-inspired systems and signal processing; health informatics.

Engineering Interactive Systems (EIS) 2008 was an international event combining the 2nd working conference on Human-Centred Software Engineering (HCSE 2008) and the 7th International Workshop on TAsk MOdels and DIAgrams (TAMODIA 2008). HCSE is a working conference that brings together researchers and practitioners - terested in strengthening the scientific foundations of user interface design and examining the relationship between software engineering and human-computer interaction and how to strengthen user-centred design as an essential part of so- ware engineering processes. As a working conference, substantial time is devoted to the open and lively discussion of papers. TAMODIA is an international workshop on models, such as task models and visual representations in Human-Computer Interaction (one of the most widely used notations in this area, ConcurTaskTrees, was developed in the town that hosted this year’s event). It focuses on notations used to describe user tasks ranging from textual and graphical forms to interactive, multimodal and multimedia tools.

This book constitutes the refereed and revised proceedings of the workshops and the doctoral consortium co-located with the 10th International Conference on Perspectives in Business Informatics Research (BIR), held in Riga, Latvia, in October 2011. The four workshops focused on Information Logistics and Knowledge Supply for Viable Enterprises (ILOG 2011), Alignment of Business Processes and Security Modeling (ABPSM 2011), Intelligent Educational Systems and Technology-Enhanced Learning (INTEL-EDU 2011), and User-Oriented Information Integration (UOII 2011). The two best papers from the doctoral consortium are also included.

Intelligent Decision Support Systems have the potential to transform human decision making by combining research in artificial intelligence, information technology, and systems engineering. The field of intelligent decision making is expanding rapidly due, in part, to advances in artificial intelligence and network-centric environments that can deliver the technology. Communication and coordination between dispersed systems can deliver just-in-time information, real-time processing, collaborative environments, and globally up-to-date information to a human decision maker. At the same time, artificial intelligence techniques have demonstrated that they have matured sufficiently to provide computational assistance to humans in practical applications. This book includes contributions from leading researchers in the field beginning with the foundations of human decision making and the complexity of the human cognitive system. Researchers contrast human and artificial intelligence, survey computational intelligence, present pragmatic systems, and discuss future trends. This book will be an invaluable resource to anyone interested in the current state of knowledge and key research gaps in the rapidly developing field of intelligent decision support.