ACM CIVR 2008 July 7-9, 2008 Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada http://www.civr2008.org ACM International Conference on Image and Video Retrieval You are cordially invited to the 2008 ACM International Conference on Image and Video Retrieval (CIVR), held on July 7-9, 2008 (http://www.civr2008.org) at Sheraton Fallsview Hotel and Conference Centre in the scenery city of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. ACM CIVR is the dedicated annual professional meeting for communicating the state-of-the-art in image and video retrieval research and technology. As in previous years, starting with the first CIVR conference in 2002 and continuing on to the first ACM-branded CIVR in 2007, the conference seeks to illuminate the state of the art in image and video retrieval between researchers and practitioners throughout the world and provide an international forum for the discussion of challenges in the fields of image and video retrieval. In a nutshell, ACM CIVR covers all aspects of image and video retrieval: from underlying technologies and theories, to applications and practice. The exciting three-day conference consists of three major parts: the regular and special sessions tracks on Monday and Tuesday, a full Practitioner’s Day on Wednesday, and the VideoOlympics exhibition showcasing live-action video search and retrieval on Tuesday evening. We are excited to host two research keynote presentations by Prof. Jiawei Han of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Prof. Alberto Del Bimbo of University of Florence, who will give unique perspectives from their research work in academia. In addition, one high-profile application keynote will be given by Dr. Edward Chang of Google Research China. The conference comprises several different technical program elements: regular track full papers, special sessions full papers, a panel, and Video Olympics. The VideoOlympics exhibition is back on popular demand after its huge success in CIVR 2007. This exhibition event (note that we do not call it a competition) will run on the Tuesday evening, and we encourage all attendees to come and cheer on the 11 teams of brave researchers who will put on a show with their latest and greatest technologies. We invite all attendees to actively participate in all CIVR ’08 has to offer. We hope this conference will leave a long lasting impression on all the participants, much the same way as the Niagara Falls that will inspire you. Jiebo Luo CIVR’08 General Chair Kodak Research Laboratories Ling Guan CIVR’08 General Co-chair Ryerson University Lei Zhang CIVR’08 Publicity Chair Microsoft Research Asia