Multimedia services involve processing, transmission and retrieval of multiple forms of information. Multimedia services have gained momentum in the past few years due to the easy availability of computing power and storage media. Societyisdemandinghuman-likeintelligentbehaviour,suchasadaptationand generalization, from machines every day. With this view in mind, researchers are working on fusing intelligent paradigms such as arti?cial neural networks, swarm intelligence, arti?cial immune systems, evolutionary computing and multiagents with multimedia services. Arti?cial neural networks use neurons, interconnected using various schemes, for fusing learning in multimedia-based systems. Evolutionary c- puting techniques are used in tasks such as optimization. Typical multiagent systems are based on Belief-Desire-Intention model and act on behalf of the users. Typical examples of intelligent multimedia services include digital - braries, e-learning and teaching, e-government, e-commerce, e-entertainment, e-health and e-legal services. This book includes 15 chapters on advanced tools and methodologies pertaining to the multimedia services. The authors and reviewers have c- tributed immensely to this research-oriented book. We believe that this - search volume will be valuable to professors, researchers and students of all disciplines, such as computer science, engineering and management. We express our sincere thanks to Springer-Verlag for their wonderful e- torial support.
