Neural Super-Resolution for Real-time Rendering with Radiance Demodulation

Rendering high-resolution images in real-time applications (e.g., video games, virtual reality) is time-consuming, thus super-resolution technology becomes more and more crucial in real-time rendering. However, it is still challenging to preserve sharp texture details, keep the temporal stability and avoid the ghosting artifacts in the real-time rendering super-resolution. To this end, we introduce radiance demodulation into real-time rendering super-resolution, separating the rendered image or radiance into a lighting component and a material component, due to the fact that the light component tends to be smoother than the rendered image and the high-resolution material component with detailed textures can be easily obtained. Therefore, we perform the super-resolution only on the lighting component and re-modulate with the high-resolution material component to obtain the final super-resolution image. In this way, the texture details can be preserved much better. Then, we propose a reliable warping module by explicitly pointing out the unreliable occluded regions with a motion mask to remove the ghosting artifacts. We further enhance the temporal stability by designing a frame-recurrent neural network to aggregate the previous and current frames, which better captures the spatial-temporal correlation between reconstructed frames. As a result, our method is able to produce temporally stable results in real-time rendering with high-quality details, even in the highly challenging 4 $\times$ 4 super-resolution scenarios

Designing and Evaluating Accessible E-Learning for Students with Visual Impairments in K-12 Computing Education

This dissertation explores the pathways for making K-12 computing education more accessible for blind or visually impaired (BVI) learners. As computer science (CS) expands into K-12 education, more concerted efforts are required to ensure all students have equitable access to opportunities to pursue a career in computing. To determine their viability with BVI learners, I conducted three studies to assess current accessibility in CS curricula, materials, and learning environments. Study one was interviews with visually impaired developers; study two was interviews with K-12 teachers of visually impaired students; study three was a remote observation within a computer science course. My exploration revealed that most of CS education lacks the necessary accommodations for BVI students to learn at an equitable pace with sighted students. However, electronic learning (e-learning) was a theme that showed to provide the most accessible learning experience for BVI students, although even there, usability and accessibility challenges were present in online learning platforms. My dissertation engaged in a human-centered approach across three studies towards designing, developing, and evaluating an online learning management system (LMS) with the critical design elements to improve navigation and interaction with BVI users. Study one was a survey exploring the perception of readiness for taking online courses between sighted and visually impaired students. The findings from the survey fueled study two, which employed participatory design with storytelling with K-12 teachers and BVI students to learn more about their experiences using LMSs and how they imagine such systems to be more accessible. The findings led to developing the accessible learning content management system (ALCMS), a web-based platform for managing courses, course content, and course roster, evaluated in study three with high school students, both sighted and visually impaired, to determine its usability and accessibility. This research contributes with recommendations for including features and design elements to improve accessibility in existing LMSs and building new ones

TLAD 2010 Proceedings:8th international workshop on teaching, learning and assesment of databases (TLAD)

This is the eighth in the series of highly successful international workshops on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases (TLAD 2010), which once again is held as a workshop of BNCOD 2010 - the 27th International Information Systems Conference. TLAD 2010 is held on the 28th June at the beautiful Dudhope Castle at the Abertay University, just before BNCOD, and hopes to be just as successful as its predecessors.The teaching of databases is central to all Computing Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems and Information Technology courses, and this year, the workshop aims to continue the tradition of bringing together both database teachers and researchers, in order to share good learning, teaching and assessment practice and experience, and further the growing community amongst database academics. As well as attracting academics from the UK community, the workshop has also been successful in attracting academics from the wider international community, through serving on the programme committee, and attending and presenting papers.This year, the workshop includes an invited talk given by Richard Cooper (of the University of Glasgow) who will present a discussion and some results from the Database Disciplinary Commons which was held in the UK over the academic year. Due to the healthy number of high quality submissions this year, the workshop will also present seven peer reviewed papers, and six refereed poster papers. Of the seven presented papers, three will be presented as full papers and four as short papers. These papers and posters cover a number of themes, including: approaches to teaching databases, e.g. group centered and problem based learning; use of novel case studies, e.g. forensics and XML data; techniques and approaches for improving teaching and student learning processes; assessment techniques, e.g. peer review; methods for improving students abilities to develop database queries and develop E-R diagrams; and e-learning platforms for supporting teaching and learning

TLAD 2010 Proceedings:8th international workshop on teaching, learning and assesment of databases (TLAD)

This is the eighth in the series of highly successful international workshops on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases (TLAD 2010), which once again is held as a workshop of BNCOD 2010 - the 27th International Information Systems Conference. TLAD 2010 is held on the 28th June at the beautiful Dudhope Castle at the Abertay University, just before BNCOD, and hopes to be just as successful as its predecessors.The teaching of databases is central to all Computing Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems and Information Technology courses, and this year, the workshop aims to continue the tradition of bringing together both database teachers and researchers, in order to share good learning, teaching and assessment practice and experience, and further the growing community amongst database academics. As well as attracting academics from the UK community, the workshop has also been successful in attracting academics from the wider international community, through serving on the programme committee, and attending and presenting papers.This year, the workshop includes an invited talk given by Richard Cooper (of the University of Glasgow) who will present a discussion and some results from the Database Disciplinary Commons which was held in the UK over the academic year. Due to the healthy number of high quality submissions this year, the workshop will also present seven peer reviewed papers, and six refereed poster papers. Of the seven presented papers, three will be presented as full papers and four as short papers. These papers and posters cover a number of themes, including: approaches to teaching databases, e.g. group centered and problem based learning; use of novel case studies, e.g. forensics and XML data; techniques and approaches for improving teaching and student learning processes; assessment techniques, e.g. peer review; methods for improving students abilities to develop database queries and develop E-R diagrams; and e-learning platforms for supporting teaching and learning

Feedback with technologies in higher education: a systematic review

Il contributo presenta una review sistematica della letteratura riguardante l\u2019attivazione di processi di feedback nelle aule universitarie, attraverso l\u2019utilizzo diStudent Response Systems di varia tipologia. I nove articoli selezionatiattraverso la ricercapuntano a far emergere procedure di feedback pi\uf9 complesse, multidimensionalie multidirezionali, trasformative non solo rispetto agli apprendimenti ma anche al learning design. Strategie di feedback ricorsivo attraverso le tecnologie sono pi\uf9 difficili da attuare e necessitano di ecosistemi formativi complessi, strutturati a partire dapresupposti pedagogici fondati e scientificamente validati. Esse risultano efficaci non solo al fine di migliorare le pratiche e diminuire la dimensione trasmissiva della didattica universitaria, ma anche per strutturare vere e proprie posture dialogiche tra studenti e docentiche conducano ad una co-progettazione dei percorsi di insegnamento-apprendimento, all\u2019allineamento degli obiettivi e ad una co-strutturazione di nuovi costrutti di sapere.This contribution is a systematic review of the literature concerning the activation of feedback processes in university classes through the use of different types of Student Response Systems. The nine articles selected through the search aim at making more complex feedback procedures emerge, both multi-dimensional and multidirectional, transformative, not only in comparison to learning, but also to the learning design. Recursive feedback strategies through technologies are more difficult to realise and need complex training ecosystems, which are structured starting from valid pedagogic requirements and have been scientifically validated. They need active didactic strategies involving the students alongside the action. They are effective, not only in improving the practice and decreasing the transmissive dimension of university didactics, but also in structuring true dialogic postures between students and instructors, leading to a co-designing of the learning-teaching paths, to the alignment of the objectives, and to a co-structuring of new knowledge outcomes

A Design-Based Research Study Examining The Impact Of Collaboration Technology Tools In Mediating Collaboration

ABSTRACT A DESIGN-BASED RESEARCH STUDY EXAMINING THE IMPACT OF COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGY TOOLS IN MEDIATING COLLABORATION by KECIA J. WADDELL December 2015 Advisor: Dr. Monica W. Tracey Major: Instructional Technology Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Interactive collaboration technologies have expanded users\u27 capabilities to collaborate and have driven pedagogical paradigm shifts toward more learner-centered and interactive teaching and learning. Online learners may be not sufficiently prepared for the level of collaboration fluency expected by a globally competitive digital distributed knowledge economy. This is largely due in part by how collaboration technologies is used towards impacting learning goals and outcomes in practice by online learners themselves or by deliberate instructional design of the online environment. The purpose of this design-based research study was three-fold: (1) examine collaboration by exploring the perceptions of adult online learners regarding collaboration technology use and of a series instructional intervention videos that supported tool use; (2) track the iterative design, development, implementation, and evaluation of instructional screencasts designed to demonstrate and support the use of dynamic text editor functions and multimedia features for authentic collaboration learning tasks and learner-driven discussion board communication in two online discussion forum platforms: Blackboard Learn (BB) and Google Groups (GG); and (3) determine the impact of the instructional intervention on our educational problem identified as a behavior: organic learner-driven online discussion board collaboration. Participants were purposive sample of online learners enrolled in five graduate-level instructional technology online courses. Quantitative survey and qualitative reflective journal data was gathered in a three phased feedback loop. Findings indicated that collaboration is first a mindset supported not only by collaboration technology tools or learner technological self-efficacy, but by deliberate instructional design mediated by the cultural environment and the social context of the activity system

An Evaluation of the Impact of Professional Development on Accessibility to Online Courses by Students With Special Needs at a Regional Four-Year Public Institution of Higher Education in West Texas

Evaluation research, including qualitative and quantitative data, was used in this study to determine the impact of professional development on online courses’ accessibility by students with disabilities. The study focused on online courses and course content. Data collection took place in phases and included self-paced, online professional development and one-on-one support sessions, a pre- and postsurvey, and a focus group interview. The study took place at a regional 4-year public institution of higher education in West Texas. Change theory emerged as the primary theoretical lens guiding the research as the study unfolded

Survey of the State of the Art in Natural Language Generation: Core tasks, applications and evaluation

This paper surveys the current state of the art in Natural Language Generation (NLG), defined as the task of generating text or speech from non-linguistic input. A survey of NLG is timely in view of the changes that the field has undergone over the past decade or so, especially in relation to new (usually data-driven) methods, as well as new applications of NLG technology. This survey therefore aims to (a) give an up-to-date synthesis of research on the core tasks in NLG and the architectures adopted in which such tasks are organised; (b) highlight a number of relatively recent research topics that have arisen partly as a result of growing synergies between NLG and other areas of artificial intelligence; (c) draw attention to the challenges in NLG evaluation, relating them to similar challenges faced in other areas of Natural Language Processing, with an emphasis on different evaluation methods and the relationships between them.Comment: Published in Journal of AI Research (JAIR), volume 61, pp 75-170. 118 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl