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.

Web personalization can be defined as any set of actions that can tailor the Web experience to a particular user or set of users. This book talks about effective personalization, the usage and click-stream data (reflecting user behaviour), the site content, the site structure, domain knowledge, as well as user demographics and profiles.

This book introduces a novel approach for intelligent visualizations that adapts the different visual variables and data processing to human’s behavior and given tasks. Thereby a number of new algorithms and methods are introduced to satisfy the human need of information and knowledge and enable a usable and attractive way of information acquisition. Each method and algorithm is illustrated in a replicable way to enable the reproduction of the entire “SemaVis” system or parts of it. The introduced evaluation is scientifically well-designed and performed with more than enough participants to validate the benefits of the methods. Beside the introduced new approaches and algorithms, readers may find a sophisticated literature review in Information Visualization and Visual Analytics, Semantics and information extraction, and intelligent and adaptive systems. This book is based on an awarded and distinguished doctoral thesis in computer science.

"This book discusses the new technologies of semantic Web, transforming the way we use information and knowledge"--Provided by publisher.

Nowadays, more and more users are witnessing the impact of Hypermedia/Multimedia as well as the penetration of social applications in their life. Parallel to the evolution of the Internet and Web, several Hypermedia/Multimedia schemes and technologies bring semantic-based intelligent, personalized and adaptive services to the end users. More and more techniques are applied in media systems in order to be user/group-centric, adapting to different content and context features of a single or a community user. In respect to all the above, researchers need to explore and study the plethora of challenges that emergent personalisation and adaptation technologies bring to the new era. This edited volume aims to increase the awareness of researchers in this area. All contributions provide an in-depth investigation on research and deployment issues, regarding already introduced schemes and applications in Semantic Hyper/Multimedia and Social Media Adaptation. Moreover, the authors provide survey-based articles, so as potential readers can use it for catching up the recent trends and applications in respect to the relevant literature. Finally, the authors discuss and present their approach in the respective field or problem addressed.

Broad in scope, Semantic Multimedia Analysis and Processing provides a complete reference of techniques, algorithms, and solutions for the design and the implementation of contemporary multimedia systems. Offering a balanced, global look at the latest advances in semantic indexing, retrieval, analysis, and processing of multimedia, the book features the contributions of renowned researchers from around the world. Its contents are based on four fundamental thematic pillars: 1) information and content retrieval, 2) semantic knowledge exploitation paradigms, 3) multimedia personalization, and 4) human-computer affective multimedia interaction. Its 15 chapters cover key topics such as content creation, annotation and modeling for the semantic web, multimedia content understanding, and efficiency and scalability. Fostering a deeper understanding of a popular area of research, the text: Describes state-of-the-art schemes and applications Supplies authoritative guidance on research and deployment issues Presents novel methods and applications in an informative and reproducible way Contains numerous examples, illustrations, and tables summarizing results from quantitative studies Considers ongoing trends and designates future challenges and research perspectives Includes bibliographic links for further exploration Uses both SI and US units Ideal for engineers and scientists specializing in the design of multimedia systems, software applications, and image/video analysis and processing technologies, Semantic Multimedia Analysis and Processing aids researchers, practitioners, and developers in finding innovative solutions to existing problems, opening up new avenues of research in uncharted waters.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the First International Conference, UCMedia 2009, which was held on 9-11 December 2009 at Hotel Novotel Venezia Mestre Castellana in Venice, Italy. The conference`s focus was on forms and production, delivery, access, discovery and consumption of user centric media. After a thorough review process of the papers received, 23 were accepted from open call for the main conference and 20 papers for the workshops.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on GeoSpatial Semantics, GeoS 2005, held in Mexico City, Mexico in November 2005. The 15 revised full papers presented together with 4 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on theories for the semantics of geospatial information, formal representations for geospatial data, similarity comparison of spatial data sets, ontology-based spatial information retrieval, and geospatial semantic Web.

According to the W3C Semantic Web Activity [1]: The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across appli- tion, enterprise, and community boundaries. This statement clearly explains that the Semantic Web is about data sharing. Currently, the Web uses hyperlinks to connect Web pages. The Semantic Web goes beyond that and focuses on data and envisions the creation of the web of data. On the Semantic Web, anyone can say anything about any resource on the Web. This is fully based on the concept of semantic - notations, where each resource on the Web can have an assigned meaning. This is done through the use of ontologies as a formal and explicit representation of domain concepts and their relationships [2]. Ontologies are formally based on description logics. This enables agents and applications to reason over the data when searching the Web, which has not previously been possible. Web 2. 0 has gradually evolved from letting the Web users play a more active role. Unlike the initial version of the Web, where the users mainly “consumed” content, users are now offered easy-to-use services for content production and publication. Mashups, blogs, wikis, feeds, interface remixes, and social networking/tagging s- tems are examples of these well-known services. The success and wide adoption of Web 2. 0 was in its reliance on social interactions as an inevitable characteristic of the use and life of the Web. In particular, Web 2.