An Investigation on Text-Based Cross-Language Picture Retrieval Effectiveness through the Analysis of User Queries

Purpose: This paper describes a study of the queries generated from a user experiment for cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) from a historic image archive. Italian speaking users generated 618 queries for a set of known-item search tasks. The queries generated by user’s interaction with the system have been analysed and the results used to suggest recommendations for the future development of cross-language retrieval systems for digital image libraries. Methodology: A controlled lab-based user study was carried out using a prototype Italian-English image retrieval system. Participants were asked to carry out searches for 16 images provided to them, a known-item search task. User’s interactions with the system were recorded and queries were analysed manually quantitatively and qualitatively. Findings: Results highlight the diversity in requests for similar visual content and the weaknesses of Machine Translation for query translation. Through the manual translation of queries we show the benefits of using high-quality translation resources. The results show the individual characteristics of user’s whilst performing known-item searches and the overlap obtained between query terms and structured image captions, highlighting the use of user’s search terms for objects within the foreground of an image. Limitations and Implications: This research looks in-depth into one case of interaction and one image repository. Despite this limitation, the discussed results are likely to be valid across other languages and image repository. Value: The growing quantity of digital visual material in digital libraries offers the potential to apply techniques from CLIR to provide cross-language information access services. However, to develop effective systems requires studying user’s search behaviours, particularly in digital image libraries. The value of this paper is in the provision of empirical evidence to support recommendations for effective cross-language image retrieval system design.</p

Co-creating an educational space

In this paper I generate my living educational theory as an explanation of my educational influences in learning as I research my tutoring with practitioner researchers from a variety of workplace backgrounds. I will show how I have closely inter-related the teaching learning and research processes by providing opportunities for participants to accept responsibility for their own learning and to develop their capacity as learners and researchers. My PhD enquiry ‘How am I creating a pedagogy of the unique through a web of betweenness?’ (Farren, 2006) was integral to the development of my own practice as higher education educator. I clarified the meaning of my embodied values in the course of their emergence in practice. I try to provide an educational space where individuals can create knowledge in collaboration with others. I believe dialogue is fundamental to the learning process. It is a way of opening up to questions and assumptions rather than accepting ready-made solutions. The originality of the contribution is in the constellation of values and understandings I use as explanatory principles in my explanations of educational influence. This constellation includes the unusual combination of an educational response to the flow of energy and meaning in Celtic spirituality and the educational opportunities for learning opened up by digital technology

The Glasgow sustainable urban drainage system management project: Case studies (Belvidere hospital and Celtic FC stadium areas)

The Glasgow Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS) Management Project satisfies the first phase of the Glasgow Surface Water Management Project. This is Glasgow City Council’s contribution to the Transformation of Rural and Urban Spatial Structure (TRUST) project, one of the European Union’s (EU) interregional (INTERREG IIIB) funded research projects. The remit of this EU project comprises also other representative regions in Europe. The project shows also how SUDS can contribute to the overall catchment dynamics of cities such as Glasgow, ultimately relieving stress on the current predominantly combined sewer system. Fifty-seven sites within 46 areas of Glasgow were identified for investigation. A detailed soil chemistry analysis, a preliminary SUDS feasibility assessment and a desk study relating to historical planning issues that may be relevant for subsequent future development and regeneration options were undertaken. Detailed design and management guidelines were then drafted for selected representative demonstration areas (Belvidere Hospital and Celtic FC Stadium Areas) of high public and property developers interest, and education value. A combination of infiltration trenches or swales with ponds or underground storage were the most likely SUDS options for the majority of the demonstration areas. Soil contamination issues were considered when selecting SUDS because heavy metals such as lead and zinc can cause environmental health problems

The Glasgow sustainable urban drainage system management project: Case studies (Belvidere hospital and Celtic FC stadium areas)

The Glasgow Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS) Management Project satisfies the first phase of the Glasgow Surface Water Management Project. This is Glasgow City Council’s contribution to the Transformation of Rural and Urban Spatial Structure (TRUST) project, one of the European Union’s (EU) interregional (INTERREG IIIB) funded research projects. The remit of this EU project comprises also other representative regions in Europe. The project shows also how SUDS can contribute to the overall catchment dynamics of cities such as Glasgow, ultimately relieving stress on the current predominantly combined sewer system. Fifty-seven sites within 46 areas of Glasgow were identified for investigation. A detailed soil chemistry analysis, a preliminary SUDS feasibility assessment and a desk study relating to historical planning issues that may be relevant for subsequent future development and regeneration options were undertaken. Detailed design and management guidelines were then drafted for selected representative demonstration areas (Belvidere Hospital and Celtic FC Stadium Areas) of high public and property developers interest, and education value. A combination of infiltration trenches or swales with ponds or underground storage were the most likely SUDS options for the majority of the demonstration areas. Soil contamination issues were considered when selecting SUDS because heavy metals such as lead and zinc can cause environmental health problems

Adaptive Probabilistic Flooding for Multipath Routing

In this work, we develop a distributed source routing algorithm for topology discovery suitable for ISP transport networks, that is however inspired by opportunistic algorithms used in ad hoc wireless networks. We propose a plug-and-play control plane, able to find multiple paths toward the same destination, and introduce a novel algorithm, called adaptive probabilistic flooding, to achieve this goal. By keeping a small amount of state in routers taking part in the discovery process, our technique significantly limits the amount of control messages exchanged with flooding -- and, at the same time, it only minimally affects the quality of the discovered multiple path with respect to the optimal solution. Simple analytical bounds, confirmed by results gathered with extensive simulation on four realistic topologies, show our approach to be of high practical interest.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Faclair na Gàidhlig and Corpas na Gàidhlig: New Approaches Make Sense

For minority languages in the twenty-first century increasingly overshadowed by their global counterparts, language maintenance and revitalisation are of paramount importance. Closely linked to these issues is the question of corpus planning. This essay will focus on two projects in Scottish Gaelic which will play a major part in preserving and maintaining the language by providing it with high quality lexicographical and research resources: Faclair na Gàidhlig and Corpas na Gàidhlig respectively ; the essay concludes with a brief case study on Gaelic numerals which illustrates how Corpas na Gàidhlig can powerfully enhance our understanding of Gaelic

Deep Learning Techniques for Music Generation -- A Survey

This paper is a survey and an analysis of different ways of using deep learning (deep artificial neural networks) to generate musical content. We propose a methodology based on five dimensions for our analysis: Objective - What musical content is to be generated? Examples are: melody, polyphony, accompaniment or counterpoint. - For what destination and for what use? To be performed by a human(s) (in the case of a musical score), or by a machine (in the case of an audio file). Representation - What are the concepts to be manipulated? Examples are: waveform, spectrogram, note, chord, meter and beat. - What format is to be used? Examples are: MIDI, piano roll or text. - How will the representation be encoded? Examples are: scalar, one-hot or many-hot. Architecture - What type(s) of deep neural network is (are) to be used? Examples are: feedforward network, recurrent network, autoencoder or generative adversarial networks. Challenge - What are the limitations and open challenges? Examples are: variability, interactivity and creativity. Strategy - How do we model and control the process of generation? Examples are: single-step feedforward, iterative feedforward, sampling or input manipulation. For each dimension, we conduct a comparative analysis of various models and techniques and we propose some tentative multidimensional typology. This typology is bottom-up, based on the analysis of many existing deep-learning based systems for music generation selected from the relevant literature. These systems are described and are used to exemplify the various choices of objective, representation, architecture, challenge and strategy. The last section includes some discussion and some prospects.Comment: 209 pages. This paper is a simplified version of the book: J.-P. Briot, G. Hadjeres and F.-D. Pachet, Deep Learning Techniques for Music Generation, Computational Synthesis and Creative Systems, Springer, 201