EGO: a personalised multimedia management tool

The problems of Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) sys- tems can be attributed to the semantic gap between the low-level data representation and the high-level concepts the user associates with images, on the one hand, and the time-varying and often vague nature of the underlying information need, on the other. These problems can be addressed by improving the interaction between the user and the system. In this paper, we sketch the development of CBIR interfaces, and introduce our view on how to solve some of the problems of the studied interfaces. To address the semantic gap and long-term multifaceted information needs, we propose a "retrieval in context" system. EGO is a tool for the management of image collections, supporting the user through personalisation and adaptation. We will describe how it learns from the user's personal organisation, allowing it to recommend relevant images to the user. The recommendation algorithm is detailed, which is based on relevance feedback techniques

Digital inclusion - the vision, the challenges and the way forward

This paper considers the vision and aspiration of digital inclusion, and then examines the current reality. It looks beyond the rhetoric to provide an analysis of the status quo, a consideration of some facilitators and challenges to progress and some suggestions for moving forward with renewed energy and commitment. The far-reaching benefits of digital inclusion and the crucial role it plays in enabling full participation in our digital society are considered. At the heart of the vision of universal digital inclusion is the deceptively simple goal to ensure that everyone is able to access and experience the wide-ranging benefits and transformational opportunities and impacts it offers. The reality is a long way from the vision: inequality of access still exists despite many national campaigns and initiatives to reduce it. The benefits and beneficiaries of a digital society are not just the individual but all stakeholders in the wider society. Research evidence has shown that the critical success factors for successful digital participation are (i) appropriate design and (ii) readily available and on-going ICT (Information and Communication Technology) support in the community. Challenges and proven solutions are presented. The proposition of community hubs in local venues to provide user-centred ICT support and learning for older and disabled people is presented. While the challenges to achieve digital inclusion are very considerable, the knowledge of how to achieve it and the technologies which enable it already exist. Harnessing of political will is necessary to make digital inclusion a reality rather than a vision. With the cooperation and commitment of all stakeholders actualisation of the vision of a digitally inclusive society, while challenging, can be achieved and will yield opportunities and rewards that eclipse the cost of implementation

An investigation into the perspectives of providers and learners on MOOC accessibility

An effective open eLearning environment should consider the target learner’s abilities, learning goals, where learning takes place, and which specific device(s) the learner uses. MOOC platforms struggle to take these factors into account and typically are not accessible, inhibiting access to environments that are intended to be open to all. A series of research initiatives are described that are intended to benefit MOOC providers in achieving greater accessibility and disabled learners to improve their lifelong learning and re-skilling. In this paper, we first outline the rationale, the research questions, and the methodology. The research approach includes interviews, online surveys and a MOOC accessibility audit; we also include factors such the risk management of the research programme and ethical considerations when conducting research with vulnerable learners. Preliminary results are presented from interviews with providers and experts and from analysis of surveys of learners. Finally, we outline the future research opportunities. This paper is framed within the context of the Doctoral Consortium organised at the TEEM'17 conference

Emerging technologies for learning (volume 1)

Collection of 5 articles on emerging technologies and trend

Balancing simplicity and functionality in designing user-interface for an interactive TV

Recent computer vision and content-based multimedia techniques such as scene segmentation, face detection, searching through video clips, and video summarisation are potentially useful tools in enhancing the usefulness of an interactive TV (iTV). However, the technical nature and the relative immaturity of these tools means it is difficult to represent new functionalities afforded by these techniques in an easy-to-use manner on a TV interface where simplicity is critical and the viewers are not necessarily proficient in using advanced or highly-sophisticated interaction using a remote control. By introducing multiple layers of interaction sophistication and the unobtrusive semi-transparent panels that can be immediately invoked without menu hierarchy or complex sequence of actions, we developed an iTV application featuring powerful content retrieval techniques yet providing a streamlined and simple interface that gracefully leverages these techniques. Initial version of the interface is ready for demonstration

Assistive robotics: research challenges and ethics education initiatives

Assistive robotics is a fast growing field aimed at helping healthcarers in hospitals, rehabilitation centers and nursery homes, as well as empowering people with reduced mobility at home, so that they can autonomously fulfill their daily living activities. The need to function in dynamic human-centered environments poses new research challenges: robotic assistants need to have friendly interfaces, be highly adaptable and customizable, very compliant and intrinsically safe to people, as well as able to handle deformable materials. Besides technical challenges, assistive robotics raises also ethical defies, which have led to the emergence of a new discipline: Roboethics. Several institutions are developing regulations and standards, and many ethics education initiatives include contents on human-robot interaction and human dignity in assistive situations. In this paper, the state of the art in assistive robotics is briefly reviewed, and educational materials from a university course on Ethics in Social Robotics and AI focusing on the assistive context are presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Traffic Profiling for Mobile Video Streaming

This paper describes a novel system that provides key parameters of HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) sessions to the lower layers of the protocol stack. A non-intrusive traffic profiling solution is proposed that observes packet flows at the transmit queue of base stations, edge-routers, or gateways. By analyzing IP flows in real time, the presented scheme identifies different phases of an HAS session and estimates important application-layer parameters, such as play-back buffer state and video encoding rate. The introduced estimators only use IP-layer information, do not require standardization and work even with traffic that is encrypted via Transport Layer Security (TLS). Experimental results for a popular video streaming service clearly verify the high accuracy of the proposed solution. Traffic profiling, thus, provides a valuable alternative to cross-layer signaling and Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) in order to perform efficient network optimization for video streaming.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in the proceedings of IEEE ICC'1

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Influenza research database: an integrated bioinformatics resource for influenza research and surveillance.

BackgroundThe recent emergence of the 2009 pandemic influenza A/H1N1 virus has highlighted the value of free and open access to influenza virus genome sequence data integrated with information about other important virus characteristics.DesignThe Influenza Research Database (IRD, http://www.fludb.org) is a free, open, publicly-accessible resource funded by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases through the Bioinformatics Resource Centers program. IRD provides a comprehensive, integrated database and analysis resource for influenza sequence, surveillance, and research data, including user-friendly interfaces for data retrieval, visualization and comparative genomics analysis, together with personal log in-protected 'workbench' spaces for saving data sets and analysis results. IRD integrates genomic, proteomic, immune epitope, and surveillance data from a variety of sources, including public databases, computational algorithms, external research groups, and the scientific literature.ResultsTo demonstrate the utility of the data and analysis tools available in IRD, two scientific use cases are presented. A comparison of hemagglutinin sequence conservation and epitope coverage information revealed highly conserved protein regions that can be recognized by the human adaptive immune system as possible targets for inducing cross-protective immunity. Phylogenetic and geospatial analysis of sequences from wild bird surveillance samples revealed a possible evolutionary connection between influenza virus from Delaware Bay shorebirds and Alberta ducks.ConclusionsThe IRD provides a wealth of integrated data and information about influenza virus to support research of the genetic determinants dictating virus pathogenicity, host range restriction and transmission, and to facilitate development of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics