User centred evaluation of a recommendation based image browsing system

In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to recommend images by mining user interactions based on implicit feedback of user browsing. The underlying hypothesis is that the interaction implicitly indicates the interests of the users for meeting practical image retrieval tasks. The algorithm mines interaction data and also low-level content of the clicked images to choose diverse images by clustering heterogeneous features. A user-centred, task-oriented, comparative evaluation was undertaken to verify the validity of our approach where two versions of systems { one set up to enable diverse image recommendation { the other allowing browsing only { were compared. Use was made of the two systems by users in simulated work task situations and quantitative and qualitative data collected as indicators of recommendation results and the levels of user's satisfaction. The responses from the users indicate that they nd the more diverse recommendation highly useful

PLACE Events 2016-2017

This document describes PLACE events at Linfield College for 2016-2017

Development of limiting dilution viability pcr method to assess the effectiveness of selected biocides to treat indoor fungi growth

Indoor fungal contamination should be treated with cost-effective and green methods. Biocides have direct biological effect on living organisms but the evidence on their control of indoor fungal contamination is scarce. Using conventional cultivation to evaluate their effectiveness is time consuming while polymerase chain reaction (PCR) provides a fast and reliable alternative. The incorporation of serial dilution technique and viability information in PCR has made it suitable to evaluate the effectiveness of biocides. Thus, this study aimed to assess the antifungal ability of biocides, zinc salicylate (ZS), calcium benzoate (CB) and potassium sorbate (KS) to treat indoor fungal contamination through developing limiting dilution viability PCR (vPCR). These biocides were selected as they successfully controlled the growth of indoor waterborne fungi previously. Indoor air sampling revealed that higher educational building of computer studies (Building A) and of civil engineering studies (Building B) were contaminated by 509 CFU/m3 and 805.7 CFU/m3 of indoor airborne fungi, respectively. Two indoor fungi, Talaromyces spp. and Aspergillus niger were identified. They were subjected to biocides-treatment and subsequent conventional cultivation and limiting dilution vPCR due to their potential risks against humans’ health. The limiting dilution vPCR was developed by incorporating the pre-treatment of propidium monoazide (PMA) before deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extraction and the serial dilution of the DNA template in PCR. This approach was proven to effectively enumerate the effectiveness of biocides to treat indoor fungi. KS was shown to have the best effectiveness (100%) to prevent the growth of Talaromyces spp, followed by ZS (80.8%) and CB (no effect). KS also showed the best effectiveness against A. niger (100%) at the early stage of the study but its effect reduced with time. ZS showed durable effect (66.67%) against A. niger Day 9 cultures. Inconstant results were indicated by cultivation method. This study has provided a cheaper, more accurate and suitable approach to determine the effectiveness of treatment of indoor fungi than cultivation methods

Application of palm shell activated carbon filter as a medium of indoor air contaminant adsorbent for indoor air quality improvement

For decades, the inclusion of activated carbon (AC) adsorption technique through filtration has gained significant interest on improvement of indoor air quality (IAQ) by reducing level of pollutant. The interest of reseachers in palm shell AC (PSAC) keep increase owing to the fact that this material has superior characteristic as compared to commercial AC. However, the investigation of PSAC performance for air filtration are still limited and no research could be found on relating the effect of burner for carbonization on PSAC properties. Therefore, the current research was focused on producing PSAC by using new fabricated burner, exploring the effect of combination of physical and chemical activation towards PSAC properties and investigating of PSAC air filter performance used in Mechanical Ventilation Air Conditioning (MVAC) system. Preliminary studies began with IAQ monitoring in different building condition. The present data revealed that at certain situation, the buildings environment was below than satisfactory level and required mitigation plan by introducing new air filtration media in MVAC system. The best quality of charcoal was obtained by Horizontal burner with less fume formation during carbonization process compare to other design. The physical properties analysis of palm shell charcoal showed the carbonization time (CT) 2 hours gained better charcoal properties and highly recommended to continue into the activation process. After the activation process, PSAC physical+chemical shows significantly higher pore development, surface area and adsorption capacity compare to the other process. The lowest density and the highest porosity up to 0.4632 g/cm and 7.11% was calculated while the highest Iodine number of 1091.05 mg/g and BET surface area of 713.7 m 3 /g was obtained respectively in PSAC physical+chemical. Meanwhile, microstructure and composition analysis shows that, PSAC physical+chemical fully produced honeycomb form of porosity and comprised of C, O, K and Ca contents for high adsorption capacity. The improvement of IAQ in the buildings was achieved with the application of PSAC air filter which shows low concentration of CO2 with 302 ppm, CO with 0.4 ppm , TVOC with 0.1 ppm and PM10 with 0.02mg/m 2 respectively compare to the commercial filter

ISP-friendly Peer-assisted On-demand Streaming of Long Duration Content in BBC iPlayer

In search of scalable solutions, CDNs are exploring P2P support. However, the benefits of peer assistance can be limited by various obstacle factors such as ISP friendliness - requiring peers to be within the same ISP, bitrate stratification - the need to match peers with others needing similar bitrate, and partial participation - some peers choosing not to redistribute content. This work relates potential gains from peer assistance to the average number of users in a swarm, its capacity, and empirically studies the effects of these obstacle factors at scale, using a month-long trace of over 2 million users in London accessing BBC shows online. Results indicate that even when P2P swarms are localised within ISPs, up to 88% of traffic can be saved. Surprisingly, bitrate stratification results in 2 large sub-swarms and does not significantly affect savings. However, partial participation, and the need for a minimum swarm size do affect gains. We investigate improvements to gain from increasing content availability through two well-studied techniques: content bundling - combining multiple items to increase availability, and historical caching of previously watched items. Bundling proves ineffective as increased server traffic from larger bundles outweighs benefits of availability, but simple caching can considerably boost traffic gains from peer assistance.Comment: In Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 201

A dataset of continuous affect annotations and physiological signals for emotion analysis

From a computational viewpoint, emotions continue to be intriguingly hard to understand. In research, direct, real-time inspection in realistic settings is not possible. Discrete, indirect, post-hoc recordings are therefore the norm. As a result, proper emotion assessment remains a problematic issue. The Continuously Annotated Signals of Emotion (CASE) dataset provides a solution as it focusses on real-time continuous annotation of emotions, as experienced by the participants, while watching various videos. For this purpose, a novel, intuitive joystick-based annotation interface was developed, that allowed for simultaneous reporting of valence and arousal, that are instead often annotated independently. In parallel, eight high quality, synchronized physiological recordings (1000 Hz, 16-bit ADC) were made of ECG, BVP, EMG (3x), GSR (or EDA), respiration and skin temperature. The dataset consists of the physiological and annotation data from 30 participants, 15 male and 15 female, who watched several validated video-stimuli. The validity of the emotion induction, as exemplified by the annotation and physiological data, is also presented.Comment: Dataset available at: https://rmc.dlr.de/download/CASE_dataset/CASE_dataset.zi

The Faculty Notebook, March & May 2006

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost