Multipurpose Image Quality Assessment for Both Human and Computer Vision Systems via Convolutional Neural Network

Computer vision algorithms have been widely used for many applications, including traffic monitoring, autonomous driving, robot path planning and navigation, object detection and medical image analysis, etc. Images and videos are typical input to computer vision algorithms and the performance of computer vision algorithms are highly correlated with the quality of input signal. The quality of videos and images are impacted by vision sensors; environmental conditions, such as lighting, rain, fog and wind. Therefore, it is a very active research issue to determine the failure mode of computer vision by automatically measuring the quality of images and videos. In the literature, many algorithms have been proposed to measure image and video qualities using reference images. However, measuring the quality of image and video without using a reference image, known as no-reference image quality assessment, is a very challenging problem. Most existing methods use a manual feature extraction and a classification technique to model image and video quality. Internal image statics are considered as feature vectors and classical machine learning techniques such as support vector machine and naive Bayes as the classifier. Using convolutional neural network (CNN) to learn the internal statistic of distorted images is a newly developed but efficient way to solve the problem. However, there are also new challenges in image quality assessment field. One of them is the wide spread of computer vision systems. Those systems, like human viewers, also demand a certain method to measure the quality of input images, but with their own standards. Inspired by the challenge, in this thesis, we propose to build an image quality assessment system based on convolutional neural network that can work for both human and computer vision system. In specific, we build 2 models: DAQ1 and DAQ2 with different design concept and evaluate their performance. Both models can work well with human visual system and outperform most former state-of-art Image Quality Assessment (IQA) methods. On computer vision system side, the models also show certain level of prediction power and reveal the potential of CNNs in facing this challenge. The performance in estimating image quality is first evaluated using 2 standard data-sets and against three state-of-the art image quality methods. Further, the performance in automatically detecting the failure mode computer vision algorithm is evaluated using Miovision's computer vision algorithm and datasets

Using gaming paratexts in the literacy classroom

This paper illustrates how digital game paratexts may effectively be used in the high school English to meet a variety of traditional and multimodal literacy outcomes. Paratexts are texts that refer to digital gaming and game cultures, and using them in the classroom enables practitioners to focus on and valorise the considerable literacies and skills that young people develop and deploy in their engagement with digital gaming and game cultures. The effectiveness of valorizing paratexts in this manner is demonstrated through two examples of assessment by students in classes where teachers had designed curriculum and assessment activities using paratexts

A review on massive e-learning (MOOC) design, delivery and assessment

MOOCs or Massive Online Open Courses based on Open Educational Resources (OER) might be one of the most versatile ways to offer access to quality education, especially for those residing in far or disadvantaged areas. This article analyzes the state of the art on MOOCs, exploring open research questions and setting interesting topics and goals for further research. Finally, it proposes a framework that includes the use of software agents with the aim to improve and personalize management, delivery, efficiency and evaluation of massive online courses on an individual level basis.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

VCU Media Lab

We propose the establishment of a VCU Media Lab – a professional creative media technology unit whose mission is to support the development, design, production and delivery of innovative media, multimedia, computer-based instruction, publications and tools in support of VCU education, research and marketing initiatives. This centrally administered, budgeted and resourced facility will acknowledge, refine, focus and expand media services that are currently being provided at VCU in a decentralized manner

Managing evolution and change in web-based teaching and learning environments

The state of the art in information technology and educational technologies is evolving constantly. Courses taught are subject to constant change from organisational and subject-specific reasons. Evolution and change affect educators and developers of computer-based teaching and learning environments alike – both often being unprepared to respond effectively. A large number of educational systems are designed and developed without change and evolution in mind. We will present our approach to the design and maintenance of these systems in rapidly evolving environments and illustrate the consequences of evolution and change for these systems and for the educators and developers responsible for their implementation and deployment. We discuss various factors of change, illustrated by a Web-based virtual course, with the objective of raising an awareness of this issue of evolution and change in computer-supported teaching and learning environments. This discussion leads towards the establishment of a development and management framework for teaching and learning systems

Fast computation of the performance evaluation of biometric systems: application to multibiometric

The performance evaluation of biometric systems is a crucial step when designing and evaluating such systems. The evaluation process uses the Equal Error Rate (EER) metric proposed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO/IEC). The EER metric is a powerful metric which allows easily comparing and evaluating biometric systems. However, the computation time of the EER is, most of the time, very intensive. In this paper, we propose a fast method which computes an approximated value of the EER. We illustrate the benefit of the proposed method on two applications: the computing of non parametric confidence intervals and the use of genetic algorithms to compute the parameters of fusion functions. Experimental results show the superiority of the proposed EER approximation method in term of computing time, and the interest of its use to reduce the learning of parameters with genetic algorithms. The proposed method opens new perspectives for the development of secure multibiometrics systems by speeding up their computation time.Comment: Future Generation Computer Systems (2012