Michael Kipp – författare

Welcome to the proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, held September 14–16, 2009 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) are interactive characters that exhibit hum- like qualities and communicate with humans or with each other using natural human modalities such as speech and gesture. They are capable of real-time perception, cognition and action, allowing them to participate in a dynamic physical and social environment. IVA is an interdisciplinary annual conference and the main forum for p- senting research on modeling, developing and evaluating IVAs with a focus on communicative abilities and social behavior. The development of IVAs requires expertise in multimodal interaction and several AI ?elds such as cognitive m- eling, planning, vision and natural language processing. Computational models are typically based on experimental studies and theories of human–human and human–robot interaction; conversely, IVA technology may provide interesting lessons for these ?elds. The realization of engaging IVAs is a challenging task, so reusable modules and tools are of great value. The ?elds of application range from robot assistants, social simulation and tutoring to games and artistic - ploration.

Welcome to the proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, held September 14–16, 2009 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) are interactive characters that exhibit hum- like qualities and communicate with humans or with each other using natural human modalities such as speech and gesture. They are capable of real-time perception, cognition and action, allowing them to participate in a dynamic physical and social environment. IVA is an interdisciplinary annual conference and the main forum for p- senting research on modeling, developing and evaluating IVAs with a focus on communicative abilities and social behavior. The development of IVAs requires expertise in multimodal interaction and several AI ?elds such as cognitive m- eling, planning, vision and natural language processing. Computational models are typically based on experimental studies and theories of human–human and human–robot interaction; conversely, IVA technology may provide interesting lessons for these ?elds. The realization of engaging IVAs is a challenging task, so reusable modules and tools are of great value. The ?elds of application range from robot assistants, social simulation and tutoring to games and artistic - ploration.

Thebookpresentsa cross-sectionofstate-of-the-artresearchonmultimodalc- pora, a highly interdisciplinary area that is a prerequisite for various specialized disciplines. A number of the papers included are revised and expanded versions ofpapersacceptedtotheInternationalWorkshoponMultimodal Corpora:From Models of Natural Interaction to Systems and Applications, held in conjunction th with the 6 International Conference for Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC) on May 27, 2008, in Marrakech, Morocco. This international workshop series started in 2000 and has since then grown into a regular satellite event of the bi-annual LREC conference, attracting researchers from ?elds as diverse as psychology, arti?cial intelligence, robotics, signal processing, computational linguisticsandhuman-computerinteraction. Tocomplement theselected papers from the 2008 workshop, we invited well-known researchers from corpus coll- tioninitiativestocontributetothisvolume. Wewereabletoobtainseveninvited research articles, including contributions from major international multimodal corpus projects like AMI and SmartWeb, which complement the six selected workshop contributions.All papers underwent a special review process for this volume, resulting in signi?cant revisions and extensions based on the experts' advice. While we were pleased that the 2006 edition of the workshop resulted in a special issue of the Journal of Language Resources and Evaluation, published in 2007, we felt that this was the time for another major publication, given not onlytherapidprogressandincreasedinterestin this researchareabut especially in order to acknowledge the di?culty of disseminating results across discipline borders. The Springer LNAI series is the perfect platform for doing so. We also created the website www. multimodal-corpora.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - Topic: History of Inernational Relations, grade: 1,3, University of Constance, course: Proseminar Literatur, language: English, abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the Franco-German relationshipputting a strong focus on the two different railroad systems. The first twochapters will analyze Germany s and France s railroad systems from theirearly starts until the beginning of the First World War in a compressed way. In the following step, the fourth chapter, both systems will be compared andcontrasted to each other. It s intended to show similarities and differences. Arailway network can in general be regarded as a mirror of its nationaleconomy. A sustainable growth in a country s economy can hardly fail tobenefit its railroads. In the 19th century Germany s railroads benefitted from aboosting economy whereas the French economy did not take into the samedirection. This had remarkable effects on the commerce via rail and theFrench railroad network in total.1This study will not compare the years after 1914 when the railways whereprimarily used to lead to the front. Each country s economy and its innerpolitical movements had comparatively minor effects in contrast to themilitary strategies and decisions. A major challenge will be undoubtedly to fit all the necessary complexity intoa single format. Therefore all comparisons shall be divided into three differentaspects. At first the administrations of France and Germany shall be putopposite to each other starting with the railroads early years until thebeginning of the 20th century. Additionally the two countries economies andtheir effects on the railroad construction will be analyzed. At last the militarystrategies will be examined, for example during the Franco-Prussian War andthe remaining pre-war times. In the 5th chapter current railroad issues of the two countries will be regarded. Mutual interests, alliances, but also rivalries and conflicts are a constant partin the history of two railroad networks, even to this day. They both sharemixed railroad systems combining private, public and economic interests. The ultimate 6th chapter will summarize the obtained results.