Vite matematiche : Protagonisti del’ 900 da Hilbert a Wiles = Mathematical Lives : Twentieth-century protagonists from Hilbert to Wiles
Presenting famous mathematicians alongside others less known to the general public - from Hilbert to Gödel, from Turing to Nash, from De Giorgi to Wiles - the portraits collected in this volume show us characters with a strong personal charisma, with vast cultural interests, passionate about defending the importance of their research, sensitive to beauty, attentive to the social and political problems of their time. The result is a fresco that documents the centrality of mathematics in the culture, not only scientific but also philosophical, artistic and literary, of our time, in a continuous game of exchanges and references, correspondences and suggestions.
Virtual Storytelling : Using Virtual Reality Technologies for Storytelling ; 4th International Conference, ICVS 2007, Saint-Malo, France, December 5-7, 2007, Proceedings
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Virtual Storytelling, ICVS 2007, held in Saint-Malo, France, in December 2007. The 12 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited papers and 7 poster and demo papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on authoring tools and story models, behavior modeling, user interactivity, an invited session: related EU projects, as well as the poster and demo session.
Virtual storytelling : Using virtual reality technologies for storytelling ; 3rd International Conference, VS 2005, Strasbourg, France, November 30-December 2, 2005, Proceedings
The 1st International Conference on Virtual Storytelling took place on September 27-28, 2001, in Avignon (France) in the prestigious Popes' Palace.
Trees in Patagonia
This book is a guide to the native trees and approximately 95% of the introduced arboreal species of Argentine and Chilean Patagonia. Introductory chapters convey an overview on what is termed 'Patagonia', as well as on the geology, climate, soils, and vegetation of Southern South America. Keys based on vegetative characters and richly illustrated descriptions of more than 170 species form the core of the manual. These chapters are followed by concise entries on afforestations, urban trees, and plantations of fruit trees in climatic enclaves. Renowned experts describe the most important National Parks of both Argentine and Chilean Patagonia. The last chapter is devoted to Carl Skottsberg and his remarkable expedition through Patagonia a hundred years ago.
The Local Langlands Conjecture for GL(2)
If F is a non-Archimedean local field, local class field theory can be viewed as giving a canonical bijection between the characters of the multiplicative group GL(1,F) of F and the characters of the Weil group of F. If n is a positive integer, the n-dimensional analogue of a character of the multiplicative group of F is an irreducible smooth representation of the general linear group GL(n,F). The local Langlands Conjecture for GL(n) postulates the existence of a canonical bijection between such objects and n-dimensional representations of the Weil group, generalizing class field theory. This conjecture has now been proved for all F and n, but the arguments are long and rely on many deep ideas and techniques. This book gives a complete and self-contained proof of the Langlands conjecture in the case n=2. It is aimed at graduate students and at researchers in related fields. It presupposes no special knowledge beyond the beginnings of the representation theory of finite groups and the structure theory of local fields. It uses only local methods, with no appeal to harmonic analysis on adele groups.
The Innermost Kernel : Depth Psychology and Quantum Physics. Wolfgang Pauli's Dialogue with C.G. Jung
"The Innermost Kernel" recounts the physicist and Nobel Laureate Wolfgang Pauli and his interest in Jungian psychology, philosophy and western world-view. It is also an exploration of the intellectual setting and context of Pauli's thinking, which has its starting point in the cultural and intellectual climate of fin-de-siècle Europe. As a contribution to the general history of quantum physics this study has a special focus on the psychological and philosophical issues discussed by physicists belonging to the Copenhagen school. The work is mainly based on the correspondence of the principle characters and explores some of the central issues discussed there, as for instance the subject-object relation, complementarity, the relation of conscious and unconscious, the process underlying concept-formation, the psychology of scientific discovery, the symbolic world of alchemy, the theories of archetypes and of synchronicity. Ultimately this book is about a remarkable scientist searching for a new understanding of the interrelatedness of man and world.
Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment ; 3rd International Conference, TIDSE 2006, Darmstadt, Germany, December 4-6, 2006, Proceedings
Contains the proceedings from the 3rd International Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment (TIDSE 2006). The contributions are grouped into six sections, which include subjects like virtual characters, story authoring, narrative systems, and examples of their application. During recent years, Interactive Digital Storytelling has evolved as a prospering - search topic, banding together formerly disjoined disciplines stemming from the arts and humanities as well as computer science. The subject of this book is of course strongly related to the notion of ‘storytelling’, which has been used as an effective means for the communication of knowledge and social values, ever since the early history of humankind. It also tries to build a bridge between current academic trends.
Technologies for E-Learning and Digital Entertainment: Third International Conference, Edutainment 2008 Nanjing, China, June 25-27, 2008 Proceedings
Includes e-learning platforms and tools, e-learning system for education, application of e-learning systems, e-learning resource management, interaction in game and education, integration of game and education, game design and development, virtual characters, animation and navigation, graphics rendering and digital media, as well as geometric modeling in games and virtual reality.
Technologies for E-Learning and Digital Entertainment ; 2nd International Conference, Edutainment 2007, Hong Kong, China, June 11-13, 2007, Proceedings
A total of 90 papers were selected, after peer review, for this volume. Topics of these papers fall into six diff- ent areas ranging from fundamental issues in geometry and imaging to virtual reality systems and their applications in entertainment and education. These topics include Virtual Reality in Games and Education, Virtual Characters in Games and Education, E-learning Platforms and Tools, Geometry in Games and Virtual Reality, Vision, Imaging and Video Technology, and Collaborative and Distributed Environments. We are grateful to the International Program Committee and the reviewers for their effort to get all the papers reviewed in a short period of time. We would also like to thank everyone who contributed to organizing the conference.
Talking faces : Audio driven talking faces
Talking face generation aims to synthesize a sequence of face images and voices of characters corresponding to their identities, it can serve several solutions; such as voice tone, facial expression, with a good lip synchronization. Therefore, we propose virtual news anchor based on real news anchor called Brooke Baldwin, which reads the texts by itself, reports tirelessly 24/7 for anyone in the world. Several methods and algorithms applied in this project using the dataset to simulate the voice, personalize facial expression and natural head poses to present a life-like image instead of a cold robot. Transfer learning and fine-tuning approaches used to serve this project by taking pre-trained models over LRW (Lip reading in the wild) dataset and fine-tune them to achieve our goal.
Stepping into Virtual Reality
Reviews the basic theoretical and practical concepts involved in the visual aspect of virtual environments. Part 2 provides more details on the components, structure and types of virtual worlds that can be created, including detailed explanations of the main modeling and animation techniques for virtual characters - one of the most important aspects in a virtual world. A review and discussion of the main types of VR system architectures defines the different alternatives for organizing and designing a VR application. The final part covers the main principles of Virtual Reality hardware using a generic classification of interaction devices based on a human-centered approach (via the five human senses: vision, sound, touch, smell and taste). The book closes with an overview of successful VR systems and applications and gives a glimpse of what lies in the future.
Sketching from the imagination : Characters
Sketches and drawings are the foundation of great art, where thoughts and concepts first come to life as an image. In Sketching from the Imagination: Characters, fifty talented artists share their sketches, inspirations, and approaches to creating characters. This book is a visually stunning collection packed with useful tips and creative insights- an invaluable resource that will inspire artists of all abilities.
Sketching for animation : Developing ideas, characters and layouts in your sketchbook - required reading range
Offers a wealth of examples, exercises and tips from an army of professional animators to help you develop essential sketching, technical drawing and ideation techniques. With interviews and in-depth case studies from some of today's leading animators, including Bill Plympton, Glen Keane, Tori Davis and John Canemaker, this is a unique guide to turning your sketchbook - the world's cheapest, most portable pre-visualisation tool - into your own personal animation armory.
Selection Methods in Plant Breeding
Written for plant breeders, researchers and post-graduate students, this book provides a comprehensive review of the methods and underlying theoretical foundations used for selection in plant breeding programmes. The authors review basic elements of population and quantitative genetic theory, and consider in a unique way the tackling of the problems presented by soil heterogeneity and intergenotypic competition when selecting quantitative characters.
Planning Chinese Characters : Reaction, Evolution or Revolution?
The whole world has been watching the vast changes that are currently occurring in China, but few people are aware that at the same time, to ensure the writing system serves these changes well, Chinese characters have also undergone significant reform. While focusing on current problems, developments and possible solutions, this book also details the major implementation of language planning programs for the modernization of the Chinese writing system that have occurred over the last century. The volume provides a broad and in-depth analysis of the conflict between one of the world’s oldest surviving script systems and the latest developments in communication technology. Comprehensive in coverage, interdisciplinary in structure, with copious references to assist readers in locating a wide range of resources.
Interactive storytelling ; 1st Joint International Conference on interactive digital storytelling, ICIDS 2008 Erfurt, Germany, November 26-29, 2008 Proceedings
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First Joint International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2008, held in Erfurt, Germany, in November 2008.The 19 revised full papers, 5 revised short papers, and 5 poster papers presented together with 3 invited lectures and 8 demo papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 62 submission. The papers are organized in topical sections on future perspectives on interactive digital storytelling, interactive storytelling applications, virtual characters and agents, user experience and dramatic immersion, architectures for story generation, models for drama management and interacting with stories, as well as authoring and creation of interactive narrative.
Intelligent Virtual Agents ; Vol.3661 : 5th International Working Conference, IVA 2005, Kos, Greece, September 12-14, 2005, Proceedings
The origin of the Intelligent Virtual Agents conference dates from a successful workshop on Intelligent Virtual Environments held in Brighton at the 13th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI'98). This workshop was followed by a second one held in Salford in Manchester in 1999. Subsequent events took place in Madrid, Spain in 2001 and Irsee, Germany in 2003 and attracted participants from both sides of the Atlantic as well as Asia. th This volume contains the proceedings of the 5 International Working Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, IVA 2005, held on Kos Island, Greece, September 12–14, 2005, which highlighted once again the importance and vigor of the research field. A half-day workshop under the title “Socially Competent IVA’s: We are not alone in this (virtual) world!” also took place as part of this event. IVA 2005 received 69 submissions from Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia. The papers published here are the 26 full papers and 14 short papers presented at the conference, as well as one-page descriptions of the 15 posters and the descriptions of the featured invited talks by Prof. Justine Cassell, of Northwestern University and Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn, of the University of Hertfordshire. We would like to thank a number of people that have contributed to the success of this conference. First of all, we thank the authors for their high-quality work and their willingness to share their ideas.
Intelligent technologies for interactive entertainment ; 1st International Conference, INTETAIN 2005, Madonna di Campaglio, Italy, November 30 - December 2, 2005, Proceedings
Constitutes the proceedings of the First International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment, 2005 held in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy. The papers included in this title cover topics such as intelligent interactive games, intelligent music, interactive cinema, edutainment, interactive art, and interactive real TV.
I numeri nel cuore = Numbers in the heart
An extremely varied gallery of ironic reflections on the academic world, of mild anecdotes, of calm provocations, of travel notes, of portraits of famous mathematicians, suspended between joke and seriousness, between dream and reality. Two exquisite fantasies by Arthur Porges and Arthur Koestler open the collection, followed by short stories written by professional mathematicians, who have literature as a hobby, inspired by characters and facts, emotions and fantasies related to the world of mathematics.
Group 13 Chemistry I : Fundamental New Developments
Depending on the use of the elements, the resulting work can be described under any heading of chemistry. The group 13 elements have been special in this regard due to the very unique characters of the constituent elements. Thus, there is a dramatic change in the properties of the elements when proceeding through the series, B, A1, Ga, In, T1. This difference is one of the main reasons why these elements have seen, and continue to see, such widespread usage in such disparate applications as organic synthesis, electronic and structural materials, and catalysis, to name but a few.



















