The prevailing orthodoxy according to which all macroeconomic theory should be reducible to microeconomics is criticized. Such a dogma excludes from economics the creation of new knowledge, which - as distinguished from the mere transmission of knowledge in education and training - is a social process not reducible to microeconomics. A mathematical extension of the Lucas theory to allow for the effects of creation of knowledge upon economic development is shown to improve essentially the prediction of business cycle data, when compared with the conventional real business cycle models of Kydland and Prescott, Hansen and Rogerson, and Danthine and Donaldson.

Compiled for professionals working in designing, building and implementing multimedia-related hardware and applications, this volume examines media and content processing, systems-based solutions and networking suport for multimedia data types.

Multimedia computing has emerged as a major area of research. Coupled with high-speed networks, multimedia computer systems have opened a spectrum of new applications by combining a variety of information sources, such as voice, graphics, animation, images, audio, and video. Handbook on Multimedia Computing provides a comprehensive resource on advanced topics in this field, considered here as the integration of four industries: computer, communication, broadcasting/entertainment, and consumer electronics. This indispensable reference compiles contributions from 80 academic and industry leaders, examining all the major subsets of multimedia activity. Four parts divide the text: Basic Concepts and Standards introduces basic multimedia terminology, taxonomy, and concepts, including multimedia objects, user interfaces, and standards Multimedia Retrieval and Processing Techniques addresses various aspects of audio, image, and video retrieval; indexing; and processing techniques and systems Multimedia Systems and Techniques covers critical multimedia issues, such as multimedia synchronization, operating systems for multimedia, multimedia databases, storage organizations, and processor architectures Multimedia Communications and Networking discusses networking issues, such as quality of service, resource management, and video transport An indispensable reference, Handbook on Multimedia Computing covers every aspect of multimedia applications and technology. It gives you the tools you need to understand and work in this fast-paced, continuously changing field.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Advanced Teleservices and High-Speed Communication Architectures (IWACA '94), held in Heidelberg, Germany in September 1994. The IWACA Workshop is a platform for the exchange among researchers and developers from both the multimedia applications and the high-speed telecommunication communities. The book presents revised versions of the 36 papers accepted for presentation at the workshop. They cover several aspects of multimedia applications and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), and focus on ATM-LANs and ATM for the wide area high-performance network of the future.

This conference in Enschede, The Netherlands, is the sixth in a series of international conferences and workshops under the title Protocols for Multimedia Systems, abbreviated as PROMS. The first PROMS workshop took place in June 1994 in Berlin, Germany, followed by workshops in Salzburg, Austria (October 1995) and Madrid, Spain (October 1996). In 1997, PROMS formed a temporary alliance with Multimedia Networking, a conference previously held in Aizu, Japan, in 1995. This led to the international conference on Protocols for Multimedia Systems – Multimedia Networking, PROMS MmNet, that took place in Santiago, Chile (November 1997). Since then PROMS has been announced as an international conference, although informal contacts and interactive sessions – as in a workshop – were retained as a desirable feature of PROMS. After a gap of three years, PROMS was organized in Cracow, Poland (October 2000), for the fifth time. We consider it a challenge to make this sixth edition of PROMS as successful as the previous events. The goal of the PROMS series of conferences and workshops is to contribute to scientific, strategic, and practical cooperation between research institutes and industrial companies in the area of multimedia protocols. This is also the goal of PROMS 2001. The basic theme of this conference continues to be multimedia protocols, both at the network and application level, although the increasing interest in wireless, mobility, and quality of service as interrelated topics with relevance to multimedia are reflected in the current program.