Video genre categorization and representation using audio-visual information

International audienceWe propose an audio-visual approach to video genre classification using content descriptors that exploit audio, color, temporal, and contour information. Audio information is extracted at block-level, which has the advantage of capturing local temporal information. At the temporal structure level, we consider action content in relation to human perception. Color perception is quantified using statistics of color distribution, elementary hues, color properties, and relationships between colors. Further, we compute statistics of contour geometry and relationships. The main contribution of our work lies in harnessingn the descriptive power of the combination of these descriptors in genre classification. Validation was carried out on over 91 h of video footage encompassing 7 common video genres, yielding average precision and recall ratios of 87% to 100% and 77% to 100%, respectively, and an overall average correct classification of up to 97%. Also, experimental comparison as part of the MediaEval 2011 benchmarkingn campaign demonstrated the efficiency of the proposed audiovisual descriptors over other existing approaches. Finally, we discuss a 3-D video browsing platform that displays movies using efaturebased coordinates and thus regroups them according to genre

Design and semantics of form and movement (DeSForM 2006)

Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM) grew from applied research exploring emerging design methods and practices to support new generation product and interface design. The products and interfaces are concerned with: the context of ubiquitous computing and ambient technologies and the need for greater empathy in the pre-programmed behaviour of the ‘machines’ that populate our lives. Such explorative research in the CfDR has been led by Young, supported by Kyffin, Visiting Professor from Philips Design and sponsored by Philips Design over a period of four years (research funding £87k). DeSForM1 was the first of a series of three conferences that enable the presentation and debate of international work within this field: • 1st European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM1), Baltic, Gateshead, 2005, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 2nd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM2), Evoluon, Eindhoven, 2006, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 3rd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM3), New Design School Building, Newcastle, 2007, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. Philips sponsorship of practice-based enquiry led to research by three teams of research students over three years and on-going sponsorship of research through the Northumbria University Design and Innovation Laboratory (nuDIL). Young has been invited on the steering panel of the UK Thinking Digital Conference concerning the latest developments in digital and media technologies. Informed by this research is the work of PhD student Yukie Nakano who examines new technologies in relation to eco-design textiles

Big Data Computing for Geospatial Applications

The convergence of big data and geospatial computing has brought forth challenges and opportunities to Geographic Information Science with regard to geospatial data management, processing, analysis, modeling, and visualization. This book highlights recent advancements in integrating new computing approaches, spatial methods, and data management strategies to tackle geospatial big data challenges and meanwhile demonstrates opportunities for using big data for geospatial applications. Crucial to the advancements highlighted in this book is the integration of computational thinking and spatial thinking and the transformation of abstract ideas and models to concrete data structures and algorithms

A computational approach to the art of visual storytelling

For millennia, humanity as been using images to tell stories. In modern society, these visual narratives take the center stage in many different contexts, from illustrated children’s books to news media and comic books. They leverage the power of compounding various images in sequence to present compelling and informative narratives, in an immediate and impactful manner. In order to create them, many criteria are taken into account, from the quality of the individual images to how they synergize with one another. With the rise of the Internet, visual content with which to create these visual storylines is now in abundance. In areas such as news media, where visual storylines are regularly used to depict news stories, this has both advantages and disadvantages. Although content might be available online to create a visual storyline, filtering the massive amounts of existing images for high quality, relevant ones is a hard and time consuming task. Furthermore, combining these images into visually and semantically cohesive narratives is a highly skillful process and one that takes time. As a first step to help solve this problem, this thesis brings state of the art computational methodologies to the age old tradition of creating visual storylines. Leveraging these methodologies, we define a three part architecture to help with the creation of visual storylines in the context of news media, using social media content. To ensure the quality of the storylines from a human perception point of view, we deploy methods for filtering and raking images according to news quality standards, we resort to multimedia retrieval techniques to find relevant content and we propose a machine learning based approach to organize visual content into cohesive and appealing visual narratives

Computer integrated documentation

The main technical issues of the Computer Integrated Documentation (CID) project are presented. The problem of automation of documents management and maintenance is analyzed both from an artificial intelligence viewpoint and from a human factors viewpoint. Possible technologies for CID are reviewed: conventional approaches to indexing and information retrieval; hypertext; and knowledge based systems. A particular effort was made to provide an appropriate representation for contextual knowledge. This representation is used to generate context on hypertext links. Thus, indexing in CID is context sensitive. The implementation of the current version of CID is described. It includes a hypertext data base, a knowledge based management and maintenance system, and a user interface. A series is also presented of theoretical considerations as navigation in hyperspace, acquisition of indexing knowledge, generation and maintenance of a large documentation, and relation to other work

Variable Format: Media Poetics and the Little Database

This dissertation explores the situation of twentieth-century art and literature becoming digital. Focusing on relatively small online collections, I argue for materially invested readings of works of print, sound, and cinema from within a new media context. With bibliographic attention to the avant-garde legacy of media specificity and the little magazine, I argue that the “films,” “readings,” “magazines,” and “books” indexed on a series of influential websites are marked by meaningful transformations that continue to shape the present through a dramatic reconfiguration of the past. I maintain that the significance of an online version of a work is not only transformed in each instance of use, but that these versions fundamentally change our understanding of each historical work in turn. Here, I offer the analogical coding of these platforms as “little databases” after the little magazines that served as the vehicle of modernism and the historical avant-garde. Like the study of the full run of a magazine, these databases require a bridge between close and distant reading. Rather than contradict each other as is often argued, in this instance a combined macro- and microscopic mode of analysis yields valuable information not readily available by either method in isolation. In both directions, the social networks and technical protocols of database culture inscribe the limits of potential readings. Bridging the material orientation of bibliographic study with the format theory of recent media scholarship, this work constructs a media poetics for reading analog works situated within the windows, consoles, and networks of the twenty-first century

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is a natural development from virtual reality (VR), which was developed several decades earlier. AR complements VR in many ways. Due to the advantages of the user being able to see both the real and virtual objects simultaneously, AR is far more intuitive, but it's not completely detached from human factors and other restrictions. AR doesn't consume as much time and effort in the applications because it's not required to construct the entire virtual scene and the environment. In this book, several new and emerging application areas of AR are presented and divided into three sections. The first section contains applications in outdoor and mobile AR, such as construction, restoration, security and surveillance. The second section deals with AR in medical, biological, and human bodies. The third and final section contains a number of new and useful applications in daily living and learning