Insight Centre for Data Analytics (DCU) at TRECVid 2014: instance search and semantic indexing tasks

Insight-DCU participated in the instance search (INS) and semantic indexing (SIN) tasks in 2014. Two very different approaches were submitted for instance search, one based on features extracted using pre-trained deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and another based on local SIFT features, large vocabulary visual bag-of-words aggregation, inverted index-based lookup, and geometric verification on the top-N retrieved results. Two interactive runs and two automatic runs were submitted, the best interactive runs achieved a mAP of 0.135 and the best automatic 0.12. Our semantic indexing runs were based also on using convolutional neural network features, and on Support Vector Machine classifiers with linear and RBF kernels. One run was submitted to the main task, two to the no annotation task, and one to the progress task. Data for the no-annotation task was gathered from Google Images and ImageNet. The main task run has achieved a mAP of 0.086, the best no-annotation runs had a close performance to the main run by achieving a mAP of 0.080, while the progress run had 0.043

An adaptive approach for image organisation and retrieval

We propose and evaluate an adaptive approach towards content-based image retrieval (CBIR), which is based on the Ostensive Model of developing information needs. We use ostensive relevance to capture the user's current interest and tailor the retrieval accordingly. Our approach supports content-assisted browsing, by incorporating an adaptive query learning scheme based on implicit feedback from the user. Textual and colour features are employed to characterise images. Evidence from these features are combined using the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence combination. Results from a user-centred, task-oriented evaluation show that the ostensive interface is preferred over a traditional interface with manual query facilities. Its strengths are considered to lie in its ability to adapt to the user's need, and its very intuitive and fluid way of operation