Advances in neural networks--ISNN 2004

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Josep Lladós, Young-Bin Kwon (eds

1 Thisbookcontainsrefereedandimprovedpaperspresentedatthe5thIAPR - ternational Workshop on Graphics Recognition (GREC 2003). GREC 2003 was held in the Computer Vision Center, in Barcelona (Spain) during July 30–31, 2003. TheGRECworkshopisthemainactivityoftheIAPR-TC10,theTechnical 2 Committee on Graphics Recognition . Edited volumes from the previous wo- shops in the series are available as Lecture Notes in Computer Science: LNCS Volume 1072 (GREC 1995 at Penn State University, USA), LNCS Volume 1389 (GREC 1997 in Nancy, France), LNCS Volume 1941 (GREC 1999 in Jaipur, India), and LNCS Volume 2390 (GREC 2001 in Kingston, Canada). Graphics recognition is a particular ?eld in the domain of document ana- sis that combines pattern recognition and image processing techniques for the analysis of any kind of graphical information in documents, either from paper or electronic formats. Topics of interest for the graphics recognition community are: vectorization; symbol recognition; analysis of graphic documents with - agrammatic notation like electrical diagrams, architectural plans, engineering drawings, musical scores, maps, etc. ; graphics-based information retrieval; p- formance evaluation in graphics recognition; and systems for graphics recog- tion. Inadditiontotheclassicobjectives,inrecentyearsgraphicsrecognitionhas faced up to new and promising perspectives, some of them in conjunction with other, a?ne scienti?c communities. Examples of that are sketchy interfaces and on-line graphics recognition in the framework of human computer interaction, or query by graphic content for retrieval and browsing in large-format graphic d- uments, digital libraries and Web applications. Thus, the combination of classic challenges with new research interests gives the graphics recognition ?eld an active scienti?c community, with a promising future.

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R.C. Tinsley and H.R. Kobel

Xenopus, the African clawed frog, is one of the three most widely cited vertebrate animals in the biological literature, yet almost all knowledge is based on laboratory experience of a single species, Xenopus laevis from South Africa. Despite the occurrence of these frogs in habitats ranging from rainforest to semi-desert and from lowland swamps to alpine lakes in sub-Saharan Africa, the rest of the genus was until recently considered relatively uniform and uninteresting. During the past twenty years, field research has transformed our knowledge of these animals in their natural environment, and currently seventeen species are recognized. This book is the first attempt to describe their biology and natural history. The first five chapters cover systematics, ecology, distribution, and species interactions. The second section covers behaviour, sensory perception, and development. The next section focuses on infections and defence, followed by a final group of chapters on evolutionary and phylogenetic aspects. The aim of this volume is to provide a reference work for researchers working with Xenopus in the lab and to highlight for them and others the potential of Xenopus for future work in evolutionary biology, genetics, behaviour, immunology, parasitology, and ecology.

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A. Treves, G.C. Perola, L. Stella, (eds

Transitions from the innermost shells of iron, especially the K- and L-shelllines, provide a powerful tool for probing the physical characteristics of hot plasmas in X-ray sources. Their strength and purity allow important conclusions to be drawn even with modest energy resolution. They should also help in studying the regions around black holes and neutron stars. In this book the state of the art and themost recent theoretical and experimental observations are presented. The book will be a valuable source for future satellite missions. It addresses both researchers and graduate students in astrophysics.

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Kenji Takahashi

Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Aspartic Proteinases, held in Gifu, Japan, September 1993. The purpose of the conference was to present and discuss new information on the structure, function, and biology, and related topics, including biomedical implications, of aspartic proteinases. The papers (plenary and poster) are grouped into four categories, i.e., gastric, non- gastric, retroviral, and microbial aspartic proteinases. A few of the topics: comparison of the active site specificity of the aspartic proteinases based on a systematic series of peptide substrates; discovery of inhibitors of human renin with high oral bioavailability; and inhibitor-resistant mutants of the HIV-1 aspartic protease.