F-formation Detection: Individuating Free-standing Conversational Groups in Images

Detection of groups of interacting people is a very interesting and useful task in many modern technologies, with application fields spanning from video-surveillance to social robotics. In this paper we first furnish a rigorous definition of group considering the background of the social sciences: this allows us to specify many kinds of group, so far neglected in the Computer Vision literature. On top of this taxonomy, we present a detailed state of the art on the group detection algorithms. Then, as a main contribution, we present a brand new method for the automatic detection of groups in still images, which is based on a graph-cuts framework for clustering individuals; in particular we are able to codify in a computational sense the sociological definition of F-formation, that is very useful to encode a group having only proxemic information: position and orientation of people. We call the proposed method Graph-Cuts for F-formation (GCFF). We show how GCFF definitely outperforms all the state of the art methods in terms of different accuracy measures (some of them are brand new), demonstrating also a strong robustness to noise and versatility in recognizing groups of various cardinality.Comment: 32 pages, submitted to PLOS On

Grantees' Limited Engagement with Foundations' Social Media

It is not surprising that foundations are investing in social media tools. These tools can serve myriad functions for foundations, from promoting a culture of transparency to the public at large, to influencing thought leaders, to connecting with grantees

Social media as a data gathering tool for international business qualitative research: opportunities and challenges

Lusophone African (LA) multinational enterprises (MNEs) are becoming a significant pan-African and global economic force regarding their international presence and influence. However, given the extreme poverty and lack of development in their home markets, many LA enterprises seeking to internationalize lack resources and legitimacy in international markets. Compared to higher income emerging markets, Lusophone enterprises in Africa face more significant challenges in their internationalization efforts. Concomitantly, conducting significant international business (IB) research in these markets to understand these MNEs internationalization strategies can be a very daunting task. The fast-growing rise of social media on the Internet, however, provides an opportunity for IB researchers to examine new phenomena in these markets in innovative ways. Unfortunately, for various reasons, qualitative researchers in IB have not fully embraced this opportunity. This article studies the use of social media in qualitative research in the field of IB. It offers an illustrative case based on qualitative research on internationalization modes of LAMNEs conducted by the authors in Angola and Mozambique using social media to identify and qualify the population sample, as well as interact with subjects and collect data. It discusses some of the challenges of using social media in those regions of Africa and suggests how scholars can design their studies to capitalize on social media and corresponding data as a tool for qualitative research. This article underscores the potential opportunities and challenges inherent in the use of social media in IB-oriented qualitative research, providing recommendations on how qualitative IB researchers can design their studies to capitalize on data generated by social media.https://doi.org/10.1080/15475778.2019.1634406https://doi.org/10.1080/15475778.2019.1634406https://doi.org/10.1080/15475778.2019.1634406https://doi.org/10.1080/15475778.2019.1634406Accepted manuscriptPublished versio

Community and Social Media Use among Early PEV Drivers

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are now being offered for sale to consumers. Contemporaneously, multi-way social interactions among individuals, groups, businesses, governments, and other actors are increasingly facilitated by communication technologies: we take this to be “social media.” Can this confluence facilitate the formation of new interest-based communities among plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) buyers? How might this be important to promoting PEVs? This paper presents the results of 28 in-depth interviews with household PEV drivers in San Diego, California. These PEV drivers show wide variation in their descriptions of who they believe PEV drivers to be, conceptualizations of a PEV, uses of social media to engage other members of the community, and socially mediated and face-to-face interactions with other PEV drivers. Better understanding of the relationship between emerging PEV markets, social media and consumer-based communities will affect the ongoing management of transitions to electric-mobility

The Internet and Daily Life

Presents findings from a survey conducted in November and December 2003. Looks at Internet use compared to the traditional offline ways of communicating, transacting affairs, getting information, and finding entertainment

Peer to Peer: At the Heart of Influencing More Effective Philanthropy

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has had a long-standing commitment to increasing the effectiveness of grantmaking organizations, a commitment reflected in its Philanthropy Grantmaking Program. In 2015, the Foundation commissioned Harder+Company Community Research, in partnership with Edge Research, to conduct a field scan to inform its own strategies in this area as well as those of other organizations working to increase philanthropic effectiveness. Drawing on data from multiple sources, the field scan identified which knowledge sources and formats are most likely to be accessed by funders, how that knowledge is assessed by its users, and the ways in which knowledge is used to shape the practice of philanthropy