Multiple Media Correlation: Theory and Applications

This thesis introduces multiple media correlation, a new technology for the automatic alignment of multiple media objects such as text, audio, and video. This research began with the question: what can be learned when multiple multimedia components are analyzed simultaneously? Most ongoing research in computational multimedia has focused on queries, indexing, and retrieval within a single media type. Video is compressed and searched independently of audio, text is indexed without regard to temporal relationships it may have to other media data. Multiple media correlation provides a framework for locating and exploiting correlations between multiple, potentially heterogeneous, media streams. The goal is computed synchronization, the determination of temporal and spatial alignments that optimize a correlation function and indicate commonality and synchronization between media objects. The model also provides a basis for comparison of media in unrelated domains. There are many real-world applications for this technology, including speaker localization, musical score alignment, and degraded media realignment. Two applications, text-to-speech alignment and parallel text alignment, are described in detail with experimental validation. Text-to-speech alignment computes the alignment between a textual transcript and speech-based audio. The presented solutions are effective for a wide variety of content and are useful not only for retrieval of content, but in support of automatic captioning of movies and video. Parallel text alignment provides a tool for the comparison of alternative translations of the same document that is particularly useful to the classics scholar interested in comparing translation techniques or styles. The results presented in this thesis include (a) new media models more useful in analysis applications, (b) a theoretical model for multiple media correlation, (c) two practical application solutions that have wide-spread applicability, and (d) Xtrieve, a multimedia database retrieval system that demonstrates this new technology and demonstrates application of multiple media correlation to information retrieval. This thesis demonstrates that computed alignment of media objects is practical and can provide immediate solutions to many information retrieval and content presentation problems. It also introduces a new area for research in media data analysis

Internet of Things From Hype to Reality

The Internet of Things (IoT) has gained significant mindshare, let alone attention, in academia and the industry especially over the past few years. The reasons behind this interest are the potential capabilities that IoT promises to offer. On the personal level, it paints a picture of a future world where all the things in our ambient environment are connected to the Internet and seamlessly communicate with each other to operate intelligently. The ultimate goal is to enable objects around us to efficiently sense our surroundings, inexpensively communicate, and ultimately create a better environment for us: one where everyday objects act based on what we need and like without explicit instructions

RFID Technology in Intelligent Tracking Systems in Construction Waste Logistics Using Optimisation Techniques

Construction waste disposal is an urgent issue for protecting our environment. This paper proposes a waste management system and illustrates the work process using plasterboard waste as an example, which creates a hazardous gas when land filled with household waste, and for which the recycling rate is less than 10% in the UK. The proposed system integrates RFID technology, Rule-Based Reasoning, Ant Colony optimization and knowledge technology for auditing and tracking plasterboard waste, guiding the operation staff, arranging vehicles, schedule planning, and also provides evidence to verify its disposal. It h relies on RFID equipment for collecting logistical data and uses digital imaging equipment to give further evidence; the reasoning core in the third layer is responsible for generating schedules and route plans and guidance, and the last layer delivers the result to inform users. The paper firstly introduces the current plasterboard disposal situation and addresses the logistical problem that is now the main barrier to a higher recycling rate, followed by discussion of the proposed system in terms of both system level structure and process structure. And finally, an example scenario will be given to illustrate the system’s utilization

A framework for the analysis and evaluation of enterprise models

Bibliography: leaves 264-288.The purpose of this study is the development and validation of a comprehensive framework for the analysis and evaluation of enterprise models. The study starts with an extensive literature review of modelling concepts and an overview of the various reference disciplines concerned with enterprise modelling. This overview is more extensive than usual in order to accommodate readers from different backgrounds. The proposed framework is based on the distinction between the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic model aspects and populated with evaluation criteria drawn from an extensive literature survey. In order to operationalize and empirically validate the framework, an exhaustive survey of enterprise models was conducted. From this survey, an XML database of more than twenty relatively large, publicly available enterprise models was constructed. A strong emphasis was placed on the interdisciplinary nature of this database and models were drawn from ontology research, linguistics, analysis patterns as well as the traditional fields of data modelling, data warehousing and enterprise systems. The resultant database forms the test bed for the detailed framework-based analysis and its public availability should constitute a useful contribution to the modelling research community. The bulk of the research is dedicated to implementing and validating specific analysis techniques to quantify the various model evaluation criteria of the framework. The aim for each of the analysis techniques is that it can, where possible, be automated and generalised to other modelling domains. The syntactic measures and analysis techniques originate largely from the disciplines of systems engineering, graph theory and computer science. Various metrics to measure model hierarchy, architecture and complexity are tested and discussed. It is found that many are not particularly useful or valid for enterprise models. Hence some new measures are proposed to assist with model visualization and an original "model signature" consisting of three key metrics is proposed.Perhaps the most significant contribution ofthe research lies in the development and validation of a significant number of semantic analysis techniques, drawing heavily on current developments in lexicography, linguistics and ontology research. Some novel and interesting techniques are proposed to measure, inter alia, domain coverage, model genericity, quality of documentation, perspicuity and model similarity. Especially model similarity is explored in depth by means of various similarity and clustering algorithms as well as ways to visualize the similarity between models. Finally, a number of pragmatic analyses techniques are applied to the models. These include face validity, degree of use, authority of model author, availability, cost, flexibility, adaptability, model currency, maturity and degree of support. This analysis relies mostly on the searching for and ranking of certain specific information details, often involving a degree of subjective interpretation, although more specific quantitative procedures are suggested for some of the criteria. To aid future researchers, a separate chapter lists some promising analysis techniques that were investigated but found to be problematic from methodological perspective. More interestingly, this chapter also presents a very strong conceptual case on how the proposed framework and the analysis techniques associated vrith its various criteria can be applied to many other information systems research areas. The case is presented on the grounds of the underlying isomorphism between the various research areas and illustrated by suggesting the application of the framework to evaluate web sites, algorithms, software applications, programming languages, system development methodologies and user interfaces

Occupational health and safety for informal sector workers: the case of street traders in Nigeria

This study examined two important types of occupational hazards in the street trading activities in Nigeria which are (i) injuries sustained from road traffic accident and (ii) harassment of traders through indiscriminate arrest, seizure and confiscation of merchandise and occasional incarceration of sellers in police cells without trials. The data for the study was generated from a 2011 national survey of 3,873 street traders in Nigeria which was made possible through a research grant provided by the Covenant University’s Centre for Research and Development. In addition to the descriptive statistics used in profiling the street traders, the binary logistic regression approach was also used to estimate the log of odds of experiencing occupational hazards in street trading activities. The study found out that 25% of the traders have suffered injury, while 49.1% have experienced harassment from public authority officials. Given these findings, policy measures that are capable of enhancing the safety of street traders, and stem urban-ward migration have been proposed

Think big, start small : restricted room for manoeuvre by practitioners in socio-spatial planning of peripheral regions in Third World Countries

In a first part of this study van den Ham reacts to the increased free-market thinking and makes in chapter 1 a plea for continued efforts in active, public socio-spatial development policies in order to contribute to sustainable poverty alleviation in remote areas. This policy should aim at lifting restrictions, both material and socio-cultural, of people to realise their human capabilities to qualitatively and sustainably change the conditions of life and livelihood. It is argued why, from a development practitioner's perspective, it is important to understand the dynamics in both development thinking and doing. A research construct is introduced to explore the framework within which development paradigms, policies and practices at normative ( "what for" and " for whom?" ), strategic ( "how ") and operational ( "what, where, when, by and with whom?" ) level change over time. This change is assumed to be influenced by key-development practitioner's 'inner-guiding' individual beliefs and values, acquired academic insights and practical, learning-by-doing experiences. In practice the proposed policies seem to be very much constrained or stimulated by the development practitioner's appreciated, influenceable and controllable environment which are subject to changing power relations between the state, the corporate sector and civil society.In chapter 2 Veenstra elaborates the above research framework by highlighting the various components on the three axes depicting (1) inward-looking personal perspectives, focusing on habitual life-attitudes and roles of both indigenous and expatriate development practitioners (2) outward-looking, professional knowledge bases expanding in substantive, procedural as well as politico-institutional sense and (3) problem and action orientations as tried-out in time at various levels.In chapter 3 van den Ham reviews at a glance the origins of international development co-operation and the elements that in practice impact upon the outcome of foreign-supported, expatriate-staffed development projects; they relate to identification, organisational setting, the role of expatriate practitioners, co-operation with local counterparts, the time dimension, the role models in transfer of knowledge and "voice, loyal and exit" strategies of the practitioners.In the second part of the book seven case studies from Africa and Asia, all within the framework of international development assistance, are presented and related to the framework that has been introduced in the previous three chapters. In chapter 4 Veenstra explores his sequential experiences and struggles with emic and etic aspects in the evolving design of development programmes and practices in five projects in Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Yemen, Indonesia and Cameroon with special reference to area development planning and natural resource management. Both in sub-sections 4.6 and 6.3 Veenstra sums up his conclusions from outer and inner learning rounds in socio-spatial planning practices. In reaching after 'sustainable' livelihoods, -particularly in agrarian societies under patrimonial resource control in Sierra Leone, West Africa, of the 1960s-, strategic and operational incommensurabilities, with hindsight, cropped up as related to large-scale 'hard' infrastructure and agro-technical innovations. After actuality had completed its developmental course, shortcomings were, later on, laid open inside and between knowledge bases used, of corresponding policy instruments (not) employed, of statutory powers (not) granted and skilled personnel, budgets plus equipment (not) available. Above all, incongruity made itself manifest among stakeholders' normative outlooks holding sway at various territorial levels for prioritising their own resource claims. So it happened that in spite of 'common-good and great cause' intentions, 'kleptocratic' life styles both of rural and urban élites in a 'soft-state' setting were to be, distrustfully, endured.In the case of socialist single-party Tanzania of the 1970s 'integrated' rural development pointed toward self-reliance, poverty alleviation and fair distribution of social and physical infrastructure. These laudable aims were thwarted, however, by a over-burdened state-apparatus and the rural populace, of necessity, exiting both into 'black-market' sales of its produce and clientship-like distribution channels for local provision of its basic services,- without revenues for the state coffers. So, both the Tanzanian bureaucracy and its open-handed foreign-aid advisors made themselves not responsive and trust-worthy, - in terms of the 'good local governance' fashion of the 1990s. Under these adversary working conditions expatriate area planners were willy-nilly forced to self containment, - for instance, in our 'remote' case of the neglected Shinyanga Region. Here, a prudent step-by-step integration both in planning and eventual implementation was intended 'from overseas' through initially restricting sectoral, time/space, problem and resource development perspectives to prioritised, low-level and small-scale, concentrated area project packages. So, 'for the time being', long-haul normative policy making, including its medium-term strategic issues, were put aside; socio-spatial arithmetics were to prevail through index-number, factor-, and flow-analysis methods; thus entrapped, both expatriate and indigenous planning officers felt their 'rationalising' efforts being frustrated by short-sighted detachment in public choice situations - like ostriches bury sometimes their heads in the sand.In entering the 1980s, this neutral technocratic habitus was, -depending on politico-institutional contexts-, re-shaped towards those of mediatory brokers and advocates on behalf of beneficiary target groups. In the Rada'-case of North Yemen, 1981/82, phased social differentiation and changing leadership-styles in the long run were accounted for, but immediately shifting gears from operational towards strategic models of resource management emerged as leading theme. Here, in promoting still sustainable livelihoods, foreign development practitioners were to manoeuvre between the 'devil and the deep blue sea' of conflicting policy sets:on the one hand, in response to self-interests of national government headquarters and of private enterprise including 'progressive farmers', in favour of politico-institutional stability and free-market economic growth guided 'from above'; andon the other hand, in response to local community interests of deprived peasants and herdsmen in favour of equalisation, citizen participation and resource mobilisation 'from below', in combination with local value patterns and natural resources to be left in a well balanced order.After a decade of Rada'-development efforts, i.e. 1975-85, it was concluded that in spite (or because) of selectively applied, concentrated area project packages local village life remained principally unchanged; that at a higher level of district government implementation capacity improved through ad hoc foreign assistance; but that at the higher sub-national level of the province strategic planning and governance did not find their co-ordinating niche, neither divergent statesman-like leadership. Therefore, the two case-studies of Aceh in Indonesia, 1977-1986, and of the Tikar water catchment basin around 1990 in Cameroon, West Africa, refrained initially from formulating a e state, corporate sector and civil society was rather modest.In sub-sections 6.1 and 6.2 van den Ham concludes that the views of the key-players in the development projects can very much be traced to their previous experiences. The extent to which their views can be 'translated' into new approaches towards local area development is only to a small extent influenced by the 'power' of either the normative/inward-looking or the academic/outward-looking perspective of the concerned development practitioners. Effectuating the aspired 'real' participatory development, -implying redistribution of resources and (decision-making) power-, within the context of 'foreign' projects would for example run up against the resistance of vested interests; such an approach, whatever its desirability, can therefore not be pursued. Political room for manoeuvre turns out to be the determining factor in the normative domain. However, there is usually (limited) room at the strategic and operational levels. There it appears that the design and implementation of the advocated strategies and practices is guided by the (normative) disposition of the key players towards the essence of development and their perception of the (strategic) role of the various actors in the development process. These are fed by a commensurate cognitive outlook on reality as well as their practical experiences. Again, substantive 'objective' knowledge bases appear to play only a rather limited role in the actual formulation of programmes and practices. Hence, the foreign-funded socio-spatial development projects 'ploughed through' with limited, isolated and above all 'accidental' (because very much depending on the individual practitioner involved and very specific local conditions capacitating or constraining the potential actors) experiments.With a view towards the future van den Ham outlines in sub-section 6.4 a changing context for local development practitioners. As in sub-section 6.5 van den Ham explains, this changing context poses new challenges to, and requires new roles to be played by (teams of) future development practitioners. It is suggested that specific capabilities are required to more structurally and successfully address the socio-spatial inequalities from the local level upwards. Development practitioners should not only be technically trained in a number of skills that have traditionally been linked to the function of regional development officer. They rather should start with acquiring a thorough understanding of the dynamic way normative, strategic and operational dispositions are achieved in practice and can be influenced in an effective and legitimate way. Empathy towards other stakeholder's dispositions and potential contributions as actors in their own right, as well as self-critically reflecting on their own positioning, should development practitioners make more conscious of the link between personal or inner change, and social or outer change. This (un-)conscious reflection on implementation will contribute again to reshaping the perspectives on intended societal advancement and results in new approaches to deal with the outstanding issues.However, development practitioners should be aware that neither their own understanding of reality and their way to deal with it, nor the other stakeholder's positioning and his/her use of the results are fixed or value-neutral. These are all very much influenced by personal and professional life history, inner normative guidelines of individual beliefs as well as values, economic interests, gender, class - all very much time-, space- and context-bound possibilities and constraints. Therefore, it is for development practitioners highly important that they are capable of opening up space for public dialogue on the directions of development. They should be able to analyse the diverse options of the participants and identify the potential conflict of interest that will occur among the various stakeholders, before certain positions getting accepted as "appreciated' and translating them in (normatively) disputable strategies, projects and programmes.In addition to the 'traditional' technical skills in economics, regional science, physical geography, public administration, data management etc., communicative and analytical skills as well as abilities in the field of conflict prevention and resolution are needed to (help) translating the normative dispositions in strategic and operational terms. Next to engaging actor groups in shaping development processes, local development practitioners should also be able to facilitate reconciliation of the claims of people living in poverty with those of other contesting actor groups and to integrate them in the framework of (central) state policies. Thus, the development practitioner should facilitate that lower-level needs, aspirations and potentials meet response at the higher influenceable/strategic and appreciated/normative levels with the ultimate aim of creating an effectively enabling environment that continuously facilitates and supports people to build sustainably upon their own strengths.</p

1990-1995 Brock Campus News

A compilation of the administration newspaper, Brock Campus News, for the years 1990 through 1995. It had previously been titled The Blue Badger