Studying Interaction Methodologies in Video Retrieval

So far, several approaches have been studied to bridge the problem of the Semantic Gap, the bottleneck in image and video retrieval. However, no approach is successful enough to increase retrieval performances significantly. One reason is the lack of understanding the user's interest, a major condition towards adapting results to a user. This is partly due to the lack of appropriate interfaces and the missing knowledge of how to interpret user's actions with these interfaces. In this paper, we propose to study the importance of various implicit indicators of relevance. Furthermore, we propose to investigate how this implicit feedback can be combined with static user profiles towards an adaptive video retrieval model

Pharmacists' Experiences with the Saskatchewan Medication Assessment Program

Objectives: The Saskatchewan Medication Assessment Program (SMAP) is a community pharmacy based medication assessment program introduced in 2013, which has not been formally evaluated. The objectives of this research were to (1) determine the extent to which pharmacists believe they are fulfilling the purposes of the SMAP; (2) describe pharmacists’ perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to fulfilling the purposes of the SMAP; and (3) determine strategies pharmacists would like to see implemented to assist them to provide the SMAP. Methods: Mixed methods study in which a web-based questionnaire was distributed by the Pharmacy Association of Saskatchewan. Pharmacists were eligible to participate if they practiced in a community pharmacy setting. The questionnaire consisted of a combination of 53 Likert-scale and free-text questions. Results: The survey had 228 respondents (response rate = 20.3%, n=228/1124). The majority of respondents were staff pharmacists (64.3%, n=128/199) who worked 31-40 hours per week (57.5%, n=115/200), and completed between one and five SMAP assessments in a typical month (79.2%, n=164/207). Most respondents were in agreement that the SMAP was meeting its intended purposes. For instance, 89.7% (n=192/214) of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that SMAP assessments improved medication safety for seniors. Pharmacists also agreed that they were confident in identifying drug related problems (88.2%, n=172/195) and that they were comfortable making recommendations to physicians (81.7%, n=156/191). However, respondents also revealed that they sometimes have trouble identifying drug related problems because they do not have enough of the patients medical history (67.2%, n=131/195) and that they do not regularly contact the physician to request additional patient information (89.7%, n=175/195). Respondents reported that a lack of time, patients not meeting eligibility criteria, and patients having difficulty coming into the pharmacy as common barriers for providing SMAP assessments. Respondents also reported that good teamwork, employer support, and a belief that SMAP assessments improve patient care helped them to provide SMAP assessments. Conclusions: Pharmacists in Saskatchewan perceive that the SMAP is fulfilling it’s intended purposes, however the findings revealed that community pharmacists experience several barriers to providing SMAP assessments that they wish to be addressed to improve the provision and quality of the program

Focusing on the production process of major agencies

학위논문(석사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 국제대학원 국제학과(국제지역학전공), 2023. 2. 박지환.As BTS became an undisputable sales juggernaut, the Korean idol industry also get global attention. When looking at the share of each country in the global idol market, Japan dominated until the early 2000s. However, the Korean idol industry, which grew through benchmarking Japan, has been receiving attention in Asia since the 2000s, and in the 2020s, it is receiving worldwide attention. The economic ramifications of Korean idols are huge, and what they eat, use, and the places they visit to attract the attention of fans and extend to other industries such as K-beauty and K-foods. This thesis analyzed the idol industry in South Korea and Japan. Among the three main actors that make up the idol industry which is 'idols (celebrities) - fans - agency', this research subject is limited to the agency or the production side. The research also focused on the management aspects of the agency, that is, the activities of the agency in the production process, to analyze the success factors of the two countries. It proves that the process of developing the idol industry in the two countries is very different. Specifically, the success of idols in both countries was explained in the framework of thorough management strategies and training systems of major agencies, the producers. First, in the management strategies of agencies, it argued that Korea had grown in a strategy keeping pace with globalization, glocalization, and logalization, and a strategy of storytelling using global platforms like YouTube, while Japan had grown in a strategy keeping pace with localization, and storytelling strategy that focused analog methods. Second, in terms of the training system, it argued that the industry grew in Korea through boot-camp style training, the pursuit of perfect idols-total manufacturing-, and a rat-race system based on meritocracy while in Japan, it grew through individual training, the pursuit of developing type idols-consuming intimacy- and a rat-race system based on human egalitarianism.방탄소년단(BTS)의 세계적인 성공과 함께 21세기 아이돌 산업은 한국을 견인하는 산업의 하나로 해를 거듭할수록 그 규모가 커지고 있다. 글로벌 아이돌시장에 있어 각국의 점유율을 살펴보면 1980년대까지만 해도 일본이 압도적이었다. 그러나 일본을 벤치마킹하면서 성장해 온 한국의 아이돌 산업은 2000년대부터 아시아에서 주목을 받고, 2020년대 이르러서는 세계적인 관심을 받고 있다. 한국 아이돌이 갖는 경제적 파생 효과는 엄청나며 그들이 먹은 것, 사용한 것, 가본 곳 등이 팬들의 관심을 끌고, K-beauty, K-foods 등으로 타산업에까지 영향을 뻗친다. 본 연구의 목적은 한국 아이돌산업은 왜 성공하고, 일본은 왜 정체하는지를 알아보는 것이다. 특히 왜 일본은 지역화의 길을 걷고, 한국은 세계화의 길을 걸었는지, 한국의 대표 기획사들의 전략은 무엇이고, 일본의 대표 기획사들의 전략은 무엇인지를 보다 깊이 알아본다. 아이돌 산업을 구성하는 3대 주체는 아이돌(연예인) – 팬 – 기획사 이다. 이 가운데 연구 대상을 기획사로 한정하고, 연구 내용 또한 기획사의 경영적 측면, 즉 생산과정에서의 기획사의 활동을 중심으로 양국 아이돌의 성공 요인을 분석하며 양국의 아이돌 산업을 발전시켜온 과정이 매우 다르다는 사실을 입증한다. 구체적으로는 양국 아이돌의 성공을 생산자인 주요 기획사들의 철저한 경영전략과 훈련시스템이라는 틀에서 설명하는데, 첫째 기획사들의 경영전략에 있어 한국은 국제화와 세방화(glocalization)에 발맞춘 전략과 세계적인 플랫폼 YouTube를 이용한 SNS스토리텔링 전략으로, 일본은 국내화와 아날로그 방식에 치중한 스토리텔링 전략으로 성장하였다고 주장했다. 둘째 훈련시스템 측면에서는 한국은 군대식 훈련, 완성형 아이돌 추구, 실력주의에 기반한 무한경쟁체제로, 일본은 개별 훈련, 성장형 아이돌을 추구하면서, 인간평등주의에 기반한 무한 경쟁체제로 산업을 키웠다고 주장한다.I. Introduction 1 1. Background 1 2. Literature Review 6 2.1 Hallyu (Korean Wave) and Japanese Culture 7 2.2 Localization, Globalization, Glocalization, and Logalization 14 2.3 Organizational Cultures 17 3. Research Methodology 20 II. Music Market Environment and Entertainment Agencies in Korea and Japan 23 1. Music Market Environment 23 2. Characteristics of Talent Agencies in Korea and Japan 29 2.1 JYP, YG, and HYBE in Korea & Hello Project! and AKB series in Japan 29 2.2 SM Entertainment and Johnny's Associates 38 2.2.1 SM Entertainment 39 2.2.2 Johnny's Associates 46 III. Strategies of Korea and Japan's Agencies 54 1. Management Strategies 55 1.1 Glocalization & Logalization (Korea) vs. Localization (Japan) 55 1.2 SNS Strategies of both countries 65 2. Organizational Cultures 72 2.1 NFOB vs. FOB 72 2.2 Modularization vs. Shokunin 75 3. Training Strategies 77 3.1 Boot-camp style training vs. Individual training 78 3.2 Total manufacturing vs. Consuming "Intimacy" 82 3.3 Rat-race 85 IV. Conclusion 90 Bibliography 93 Abstract in Korean 100석

Evaluating the use of remote sensing data in the U.S. Agency for International Development Famine Early Warning Systems Network

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)'s Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) provides monitoring and early warning support to decision makers responsible for responding to food insecurity emergencies on three continents. FEWS NET uses satellite remote sensing and ground observations of rainfall and vegetation in order to provide information on drought, floods, and other extreme weather events to decision makers. Previous research has presented results from a professional review questionnaire with FEWS NET expert end-users whose focus was to elicit Earth observation requirements. The review provided FEWS NET operational requirements and assessed the usefulness of additional remote sensing data. We analyzed 1342 food security update reports from FEWS NET. The reports consider the biophysical, socioeconomic, and contextual influences on the food security in 17 countries in Africa from 2000 to 2009. The objective was to evaluate the use of remote sensing information in comparison with other important factors in the evaluation of food security crises. The results show that all 17 countries use rainfall information, agricultural production statistics, food prices, and food access parameters in their analysis of food security problems. The reports display large-scale patterns that are strongly related to history of the FEWS NET program in each country. We found that rainfall data were used 84% of the time, remote sensing of vegetation 28% of the time, and gridded crop models 10% of the time, reflecting the length of use of each product in the regions. More investment is needed in training personnel on remote sensing products to improve use of data products throughout the FEWS NET system. (C) 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). [DOI: 10.1117/1.JRS.6.063511

Artificial Intelligence in geospatial analysis: applications of self-organizing maps in the context of geographic information science.

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Information Management, specialization in Geographic Information SystemsThe size and dimensionality of available geospatial repositories increases every day, placing additional pressure on existing analysis tools, as they are expected to extract more knowledge from these databases. Most of these tools were created in a data poor environment and thus rarely address concerns of efficiency, dimensionality and automatic exploration. In addition, traditional statistical techniques present several assumptions that are not realistic in the geospatial data domain. An example of this is the statistical independence between observations required by most classical statistics methods, which conflicts with the well-known spatial dependence that exists in geospatial data. Artificial intelligence and data mining methods constitute an alternative to explore and extract knowledge from geospatial data, which is less assumption dependent. In this thesis, we study the possible adaptation of existing general-purpose data mining tools to geospatial data analysis. The characteristics of geospatial datasets seems to be similar in many ways with other aspatial datasets for which several data mining tools have been used with success in the detection of patterns and relations. It seems, however that GIS-minded analysis and objectives require more than the results provided by these general tools and adaptations to meet the geographical information scientist‟s requirements are needed. Thus, we propose several geospatial applications based on a well-known data mining method, the self-organizing map (SOM), and analyse the adaptations required in each application to fulfil those objectives and needs. Three main fields of GIScience are covered in this thesis: cartographic representation; spatial clustering and knowledge discovery; and location optimization.(...

Assessing the utility of geospatial technologies to investigate environmental change within lake systems

Over 50% of the world's population live within 3. km of rivers and lakes highlighting the on-going importance of freshwater resources to human health and societal well-being. Whilst covering c. 3.5% of the Earth's non-glaciated land mass, trends in the environmental quality of the world's standing waters (natural lakes and reservoirs) are poorly understood, at least in comparison with rivers, and so evaluation of their current condition and sensitivity to change are global priorities. Here it is argued that a geospatial approach harnessing existing global datasets, along with new generation remote sensing products, offers the basis to characterise trajectories of change in lake properties e.g., water quality, physical structure, hydrological regime and ecological behaviour. This approach furthermore provides the evidence base to understand the relative importance of climatic forcing and/or changing catchment processes, e.g. land cover and soil moisture data, which coupled with climate data provide the basis to model regional water balance and runoff estimates over time. Using examples derived primarily from the Danube Basin but also other parts of the World, we demonstrate the power of the approach and its utility to assess the sensitivity of lake systems to environmental change, and hence better manage these key resources in the future

Agricultural Drought Risk Assessment of Rainfed Agriculture in the Sudan Using Remote Sensing and GIS: The Case of El Gedaref State

Hitherto, most research conducted to monitor agricultural drought on the African continent has focused only on meteorological aspects, with less attention paid to soil moisture, which describes agricultural drought. Satellite missions dedicated to soil moisture monitoring must be used with caution across various scales. The rainfed sector of Sudan takes great importance due to it is high potential to support national food security. El Gedaref state is significant in Sudan given its potentiality of the agricultural sector under a mechanized system, where crop cultivation supports livelihood sources for about 80% of its population and households, directly through agricultural production and indirectly through labor workforce. The state is an essential rainfed region for sorghum production, located within Sudan's Central Clay Plain (CCP). Enhancing soil moisture estimation is key to boosting the understanding of agricultural drought in the farming lands of Sudan. Soil moisture measuring stations/sensors networks do not exist in the El Gedaref agricultural rainfed sector. The literature shows a significant gap in whether soil moisture is sufficient to meet the estimated water demands of cultivation or the start of the growing season. The purpose of this study is to focus principally on agricultural drought. The soil moisture data retrieved from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission launched by NASA in 2015 were compared against in situ data measurements over the agricultural lands. In situ points (at 5 cm, 10 cm, and 20 cm depths) corresponding to 9×9 km SMAP pixel foot-print are rescaled to conduct a point-to-pixel evaluation of SMAP product over two locations, namely Samsam and Kilo-6, during the rainy season 2018. Four errors were measured; Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), Mean Bias Error (MBE), unbiased RMSE (ubRMSE), Mean Absolute Bias Error (MABE), and the coefficient of determination R2. SMAP improve (significantly at the 5% level for SM). The results indicated that the SMAP product meets its soil moisture accuracy requirement at the top 5 cm and in the root zone (10 and 20 cm) depths at Samsam and Kilo-6. SMAP demonstrates higher performance indicated by the high R2 (0.96, 0.88, and 0.97) and (0.85, 0.94, and 0.94) over Samsam and Kilo-6, respectively, and met its accuracy targeted by SMAP retrieval domain at ubRMSE 0.04 m3m-3 or better in all locations, and most minor errors (MBE, MABE, and RMSE). The possibility of using SMAP products was discussed to measure agricultural drought and its impacts on crop growth during various growth stages in both locations and over the CCP entirely. The croplands of El Gedaref are located within the tropical savanna (AW, categorization following the Köppen climate classification), warm semi-arid climate (BSh), and warm desert climate (BWh). The areas of interest are predominantly rainfed agricultural lands, vulnerable to climate change and variability. The Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS), SMAP at the top surface of the soil and the root zone, and Soil Water Deficit Index (SWDI) derived from SMAP were analyzed against the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The results indicate that the NDVI val-ues disagree with rainfall patterns at the dekadal scale. At all isohyets, SWDI in the root zone shows a reliable and expected response of capturing seasonal dynamics concerning the vegetation index (NDVI) over warm desert climates during 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively. It is concluded that SWDI can be used to monitor agricultural drought better than rainfall data and SMAP data because it deals directly with the available water content of the crops. SWDI monitoring agricultural drought is a promising method for early drought warning, which can be used for agricultural drought risk management in semi-arid climates. The comparison between sorghum yield and the spatially distributed water balance model was assessed according to the length of the growing period. Late maturing (120 days), medium maturing (90-95 days), and early maturing variety (80-85 days). As a straightforward crop water deficit model. An adapted WRSI index was developed to characterize the effect of using different climatic and soil moisture remote sensing input datasets, such as CHIRPS rainfall, SMAP soil moisture at the top 5 cm and the root zone, MODIS actual evapotranspiration on key WRSI index parameters and outputs. Results from the analyses indicated that SMAP best captures season onset and length of the growing period, which are critical for the WRSI index. In addition, short-, medium-, and long-term sorghum cultivar planting scenarios were con-sidered and simulated. It was found that over half of the variability in yield is explained by water stress when the SMAP at root zone dataset is used in the WRSI model (R2=0.59–0.72 for sorghum varieties of 90–120 days growing length). Overall, CHIRPS and SMAP root zone show the highest skill (R2=0.53–0.64 and 0.54–0.56, respectively) in capturing state-level crop yield losses related to seasonal soil moisture deficit, which is critical for drought early warning and agrometeorological risk applications. The results of this study are important and valuable in supporting the continued development and improvement of satellite-based soil moisture sensing to produce higher accuracy soil moisture products in semi-arid regions. The results also highlight the growing awareness among various stakeholders of the impact of drought on crop production and the need to scale up adaptation measures to mitigate the adverse effects of drought

Synthesis of Satellite Microwave Observations for Monitoring Global Land-Atmosphere CO2 Exchange

This dissertation describes the estimation, error quantification, and incorporation of land surface information from microwave satellite remote sensing for modeling global ecosystem land-atmosphere net CO2 exchange. Retrieval algorithms were developed for estimating soil moisture, surface water, surface temperature, and vegetation phenology from microwave imagery timeseries. Soil moisture retrievals were merged with model-based soil moisture estimates and incorporated into a light-use efficiency model for vegetation productivity coupled to a soil decomposition model. Results, including state and uncertainty estimates, were evaluated with a global eddy covariance flux tower network and other independent global model- and remote-sensing based products

Evaluating the Use of Remote Sensing Data in the U.S. Agency for International Development Famine Early Warning Systems Network

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)'s Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) provides monitoring and early warning support to decision makers responsible for responding to food insecurity emergencies on three continents. FEWS NET uses satellite remote sensing and ground observations of rainfall and vegetation in order to provide information on drought, floods, and other extreme weather events to decision makers. Previous research has presented results from a professional review questionnaire with FEWS NET expert end-users whose focus was to elicit Earth observation requirements. The review provided FEWS NET operational requirements and assessed the usefulness of additional remote sensing data. We analyzed 1342 food security update reports from FEWS NET. The reports consider the biophysical, socioeconomic, and contextual influences on the food security in 17 countries in Africa from 2000 to 2009. The objective was to evaluate the use of remote sensing information in comparison with other important factors in the evaluation of food security crises. The results show that all 17 countries use rainfall information, agricultural production statistics, food prices, and food access parameters in their analysis of food security problems. The reports display large-scale patterns that are strongly related to history of the FEWS NET program in each country. We found that rainfall data were used 84% of the time, remote sensing of vegetation 28% of the time, and gridded crop models 10% of the time, reflecting the length of use of each product in the regions. More investment is needed in training personnel on remote sensing products to improve use of data products throughout the FEWS NET system

Ground, Proximal, and Satellite Remote Sensing of Soil Moisture

Soil moisture (SM) is a key hydrologic state variable that is of significant importance for numerous Earth and environmental science applications that directly impact the global environment and human society. Potential applications include, but are not limited to, forecasting of weather and climate variability; prediction and monitoring of drought conditions; management and allocation of water resources; agricultural plant production and alleviation of famine; prevention of natural disasters such as wild fires, landslides, floods, and dust storms; or monitoring of ecosystem response to climate change. Because of the importance and wide‐ranging applicability of highly variable spatial and temporal SM information that links the water, energy, and carbon cycles, significant efforts and resources have been devoted in recent years to advance SM measurement and monitoring capabilities from the point to the global scales. This review encompasses recent advances and the state‐of‐the‐art of ground, proximal, and novel SM remote sensing techniques at various spatial and temporal scales and identifies critical future research needs and directions to further advance and optimize technology, analysis and retrieval methods, and the application of SM information to improve the understanding of critical zone moisture dynamics. Despite the impressive progress over the last decade, there are still many opportunities and needs to, for example, improve SM retrieval from remotely sensed optical, thermal, and microwave data and opportunities for novel applications of SM information for water resources management, sustainable environmental development, and food security