ViSOR: VIdeo Surveillance On-line Repository for annotation retrieval

Aim of the Visor Project [1] is to gather and make freely available a repository of surveillance and video footages for the research community on pattern recognition and multimedia retrieval. Th

Comparative analysis of interactive web services

The fact that interactive web services have entered all spheres of life motivated the authors to investigate how this new collaborative media influences modern information society. The paper discusses the results obtained by comparative analysis of different collaborative media. Interactivity was considered as one of the most important criteria for choosing between the many different inter¬ active web services. The authors analyzed the main characteristics of the cho¬ sen services, classified them into groups and compared them within those groups. The paper stresses the importance of today’ s most popular services, varying from search engines, all kinds of online communities, different types of leisure services to e-learning services, on the behavior and expectations of all participants in the global Internet-based communication. Search engines were analyzed according to ranking and credibility while Web community services were analyzed according to many of their interactive and communication pos¬ sibilities. The category of leisure services ranged from those services created for leisure time to those created for other purposes but used as leisure ser¬ vices. Also, the interactive services of the largest Croatian e-learning solution, implemented at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Univer¬ sity of Zagreb, were analyzed. The positive and negative sides of each of the analyzed groups of interactive web services were compared and synthesized, and their effects on media de¬ velopment and the society in general were analyzed. In the paper, the authors tried to emphasize the great social aspect of the Internet today and the services it provides. They showed how society has a great influence on the growth of the Internet, but also how the Internet has an even greater effect on the rela¬ tionships and activities within society. Thus, this paper does not only give an overview of the comparative analysis of interactive web services but also shows the mutual influence of the collaborative media and human creativity on the development of the information society. (IN CROATIAN: Činjenica da interaktivni mrežni servisi prožimaju sva područja današnjeg života potaknula je autore da analiziraju kolaborativne medije i njihov utjecaj na moderno informacijsko društvo. U radu su prikazani rezultati dobiveni metodom usporedne analize kolaborativnih medija. Interaktivnost je pritom smatrana jednim od najvažnijih kriterija za odabir mrežnih servisa koji će biti uključeni u istraživanje. Autori su analizirali glavne karakteristike odabranih servisa, klasificirali ih u skupine te ih unutar njih usporedili. Posebno je uzeta u obzir važnost utjecaja najpoznatijih internetskih servisa današnjice, počevši od pretraživača, raznih vrsta online zajednica, zatim servisa namijenjenih zabavi, do servisa specijaliziranih za izobrazbu u elektroničkoj okolini, na ponašanje i očekivanja svih sudionika u globalnoj komunikaciji utemeljenoj na internetskoj tehnologiji. Pretraživači su analizirani prema rangiranju i vjerodostojnosti ponuđenih rezultata. S druge strane, online zajednice analizirane su prema raznim ponuđenim mogućnostima interakcije i komunikacije. Kategorija “zabavnih” servisa obrađena je u dva oblika – jednom, u kojem su bili servisi za zabavu, te drugom, u kojem su se našli servisi koji nisu namijenjeni zabavi, ali se za nju koriste. Naposljetku su analizirani interaktivni servisi najveće hrvatske implementacije sustava za e-učenje – one na Filozofskom fakultetu Sveučilišta u Zagrebu. Autori su usporedili i sintetizirali pozitivne i negativne strane analiziranih interaktivnih servisa unutar svake skupine, a zatim su analizirali njihov utjecaj na razvoj medija i društva općenito. Autori su istraživanjem pokušali istaknuti današnji velik utjecaj interneta i njegovih servisa na društvo. Pritom su pokazali kako društvo snažno utječe na rast interneta, ali internet ima još veći utjecaj na odnose i aktivnosti u društvu. Stoga ovaj članak ne prikazuje samo rezultate usporedne analize interaktivnih mrežnih servisa nego također međusobni utjecaj kolaborativnih medija i ljudske kreativnosti na razvoj informacijskog društva.

Usporedna analiza interaktivnih mrežnih servisa

The fact that interactive web services have entered all spheres of life motivated the authors to investigate how this new collaborative media influences modern information society. The paper discusses the results obtained by comparative analysis of different collaborative media. Interactivity was considered as one of the most important criteria for choosing between the many different interactive web services. The authors analyzed the main characteristics of the chosen services, classified them into groups and compared them within those groups. The paper stresses the importance of today’s most popular services, varying from search engines, all kinds of online communities, different types of leisure services to e-learning services, on the behavior and expectations of all participants in the global Internet-based communication. Search engines were analyzed according to ranking and credibility while Web community services were analyzed according to many of their interactive and communication possibilities. The category of leisure services ranged from those services created for leisure time to those created for other purposes but used as leisure services. Also, the interactive services of the largest Croatian e-learning solution, implemented at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb, were analyzed.The positive and negative sides of each of the analyzed groups of interactive web services were compared and synthesized, and their effects on media development and the society in general were analyzed. In the paper, the authors tried to emphasize the great social aspect of the Internet today and the services it provides. They showed how society has a great influence on the growth of the Internet, but also how the Internet has an even greater effect on the relationships and activities within society. Thus, this paper does not only give an overview of the comparative analysis of interactive web services but also shows the mutual influence of the collaborative media and human creativity on the development of the information society.Činjenica da interaktivni mrežni servisi prožimaju sva područja današnjeg života potaknula je autore da analiziraju kolaborativne medije i njihov utjecaj na moderno informacijsko društvo. U radu su prikazani rezultati dobiveni metodom usporedne analize kolaborativnih medija. Interaktivnost je pritom smatrana jednim od najvažnijih kriterija za odabir mrežnih servisa koji će biti uključeni u istraživanje. Autori su analizirali glavne karakteristike odabranih servisa, klasificirali ih u skupine te ih unutar njih usporedili. Posebno je uzeta u obzir važnost utjecaja najpoznatijih internetskih servisa današnjice, počevši od pretraživača, raznih vrsta online zajednica, zatim servisa namijenjenih zabavi, do servisa specijaliziranih za izobrazbu u elektroničkoj okolini, na ponašanje i očekivanja svih sudionika u globalnoj komunikaciji utemeljenoj na internetskoj tehnologiji. Pretraživači su analizirani prema rangiranju i vjerodostojnosti ponuđenih rezultata. S druge strane, online zajednice analizirane su prema raznim ponuđenim mogućnostima interakcije i komunikacije. Kategorija “zabavnih” servisa obrađena je u dva oblika – jednom, u kojem su bili servisi za zabavu, te drugom, u kojem su se našli servisi koji nisu namijenjeni zabavi, ali se za nju koriste. Naposljetku su analizirani interaktivni servisi najveće hrvatske implementacije sustava za e-učenje – one na Filozofskom fakultetu Sveučilišta u Zagrebu. Autori su usporedili i sintetizirali pozitivne i negativne strane analiziranih interaktivnih servisa unutar svake skupine, a zatim su analizirali njihov utjecaj na razvoj medija i društva općenito. Autori su istraživanjem pokušali istaknuti današnji velik utjecaj interneta i njegovih servisa na društvo. Pritom su pokazali kako društvo snažno utječe na rast interneta, ali internet ima još veći utjecaj na odnose i aktivnosti u društvu. Stoga ovaj članak ne prikazuje samo rezultate usporedne analize interaktivnih mrežnih servisa nego također međusobni utjecaj kolaborativnih medija i ljudske kreativnosti na razvoj informacijskog društva

Cloud-assisted body area networks: state-of-the-art and future challenges

Body area networks (BANs) are emerging as enabling technology for many human-centered application domains such as health-care, sport, fitness, wellness, ergonomics, emergency, safety, security, and sociality. A BAN, which basically consists of wireless wearable sensor nodes usually coordinated by a static or mobile device, is mainly exploited to monitor single assisted livings. Data generated by a BAN can be processed in real-time by the BAN coordinator and/or transmitted to a server-side for online/offline processing and long-term storing. A network of BANs worn by a community of people produces large amount of contextual data that require a scalable and efficient approach for elaboration and storage. Cloud computing can provide a flexible storage and processing infrastructure to perform both online and offline analysis of body sensor data streams. In this paper, we motivate the introduction of Cloud-assisted BANs along with the main challenges that need to be addressed for their development and management. The current state-of-the-art is overviewed and framed according to the main requirements for effective Cloud-assisted BAN architectures. Finally, relevant open research issues in terms of efficiency, scalability, security, interoperability, prototyping, dynamic deployment and management, are discussed

Information Delivery Systems:An Exploration of Web Pull and Push Technologies

The Web is alive with news stories, pictures, music, and videos. How will organizations, managers, and other users find out what content is available, then locate it, analyze it, and make it meaningful? In this tutorial, we identify and classify eight types of information delivery systems (IDS) that we refer to as alpha, beta, gamma and delta and push technologies. For pull technologies we explain surfing the Web , search engines, spiders and bots, personal agents, and finally evolutionary agents. For push technologies we explain Webcasting, channels and subscriptions, and data mining methods for determining preferences and filtering topics. We also examine the role of the evolutionary agents in push technologies. Throughout the paper, we provide examples of current pull and push technologies in each of the categories for pull and push. We include both personal and corporate applications. We then examine the managerial and social implications of higher-level IDS and suggest what is in store for users of information delivery systems in the future

Computer-Based Data Processing and Management for Blackfoot Phonetics and Phonology

More than half of the 6000 world languages have never been adequately described. We propose to create a database system to automatically capture and manage interested sound clips in Blackfoot (an endangered language spoken in Alberta, Canada, and Montana) for a phonetic and phonological analysis. Taking Blackfoot speeches as input, the system generates a list of audio clips containing a sequence of sounds or certain accent patterns based on research interests. Existing computational linguistic techniques such as information processing and artificial intelligence are extended to tackle issues specific to Blackfoot linguistics, and database techniques are adopted to support better data management and linguistic queries. This project is innovative because application of technology in Native American phonetics and phonology is underdeveloped. It enhances humanity with the digital framework to document and analyze endangered languages and can also benefit the research in other languages