Automatic summarization of narrative video

The amount of digital video content available to users is rapidly increasing. Developments in computer, digital network, and storage technologies all contribute to broaden the offer of digital video. Only users’ attention and time remain scarce resources. Users face the problem of choosing the right content to watch among hundreds of potentially interesting offers. Video and audio have a dynamic nature: they cannot be properly perceived without considering their temporal dimension. This property makes it difficult to get a good idea of what a video item is about without watching it. Video previews aim at solving this issue by providing compact representations of video items that can help users making choices in massive content collections. This thesis is concerned with solving the problem of automatic creation of video previews. To allow fast and convenient content selection, a video preview should take into consideration more than thirty requirements that we have collected by analyzing related literature on video summarization and film production. The list has been completed with additional requirements elicited by interviewing end-users, experts and practitioners in the field of video editing and multimedia. This list represents our collection of user needs with respect to video previews. The requirements, presented from the point of view of the end-users, can be divided into seven categories: duration, continuity, priority, uniqueness, exclusion, structural, and temporal order. Duration requirements deal with the durations of the preview and its subparts. Continuity requirements request video previews to be as continuous as possible. Priority requirements indicate which content should be included in the preview to convey as much information as possible in the shortest time. Uniqueness requirements aim at maximizing the efficiency of the preview by minimizing redundancy. Exclusion requirements indicate which content should not be included in the preview. Structural requirements are concerned with the structural properties of video, while temporal order requirements set the order of the sequences included in the preview. Based on these requirements, we have introduced a formal model of video summarization specialized for the generation of video previews. The basic idea is to translate the requirements into score functions. Each score function is defined to have a non-positive value if a requirement is not met, and to increase depending on the degree of fulfillment of the requirement. A global objective function is then defined that combines all the score functions and the problem of generating a preview is translated into the problem of finding the parts of the initial content that maximize the objective function. Our solution approach is based on two main steps: preparation and selection. In the preparation step, the raw audiovisual data is analyzed and segmented into basic elements that are suitable for being included in a preview. The segmentation of the raw data is based on a shot-cut detection algorithm. In the selection step various content analysis algorithms are used to perform scene segmentation, advertisements detection and to extract numerical descriptors of the content that, introduced in the objective function, allow to estimate the quality of a video preview. The core part of the selection step is the optimization step that consists in searching the set of segments that maximizes the objective function in the space of all possible previews. Instead of solving the optimization problem exactly, an approximate solution is found by means of a local search algorithm using simulated annealing. We have performed a numerical evaluation of the quality of the solutions generated by our algorithm with respect to previews generated randomly or by selecting segments uniformly in time. The results on thirty content items have shown that the local search approach outperforms the other methods. However, based on this evaluation, we cannot conclude that the degree of fulfillment of the requirements achieved by our method satisfies the end-user needs completely. To validate our approach and assess end-user satisfaction, we conducted a user evaluation study in which we compared six aspects of previews generated using our algorithm to human-made previews and to previews generated by subsampling. The results have shown that previews generated using our optimization-based approach are not as good as manually made previews, but have higher quality than previews created using subsample. The differences between the previews are statistically significant

Visual object category discovery in images and videos

textThe current trend in visual recognition research is to place a strict division between the supervised and unsupervised learning paradigms, which is problematic for two main reasons. On the one hand, supervised methods require training data for each and every category that the system learns; training data may not always be available and is expensive to obtain. On the other hand, unsupervised methods must determine the optimal visual cues and distance metrics that distinguish one category from another to group images into semantically meaningful categories; however, for unlabeled data, these are unknown a priori. I propose a visual category discovery framework that transcends the two paradigms and learns accurate models with few labeled exemplars. The main insight is to automatically focus on the prevalent objects in images and videos, and learn models from them for category grouping, segmentation, and summarization. To implement this idea, I first present a context-aware category discovery framework that discovers novel categories by leveraging context from previously learned categories. I devise a novel object-graph descriptor to model the interaction between a set of known categories and the unknown to-be-discovered categories, and group regions that have similar appearance and similar object-graphs. I then present a collective segmentation framework that simultaneously discovers the segmentations and groupings of objects by leveraging the shared patterns in the unlabeled image collection. It discovers an ensemble of representative instances for each unknown category, and builds top-down models from them to refine the segmentation of the remaining instances. Finally, building on these techniques, I show how to produce compact visual summaries for first-person egocentric videos that focus on the important people and objects. The system leverages novel egocentric and high-level saliency features to predict important regions in the video, and produces a concise visual summary that is driven by those regions. I compare against existing state-of-the-art methods for category discovery and segmentation on several challenging benchmark datasets. I demonstrate that we can discover visual concepts more accurately by focusing on the prevalent objects in images and videos, and show clear advantages of departing from the status quo division between the supervised and unsupervised learning paradigms. The main impact of my thesis is that it lays the groundwork for building large-scale visual discovery systems that can automatically discover visual concepts with minimal human supervision.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Searching for qualitative research for inclusion in systematic reviews: a structured methodological review.

BACKGROUND: Qualitative systematic reviews or qualitative evidence syntheses (QES) are increasingly recognised as a way to enhance the value of systematic reviews (SRs) of clinical trials. They can explain the mechanisms by which interventions, evaluated within trials, might achieve their effect. They can investigate differences in effects between different population groups. They can identify which outcomes are most important to patients, carers, health professionals and other stakeholders. QES can explore the impact of acceptance, feasibility, meaningfulness and implementation-related factors within a real world setting and thus contribute to the design and further refinement of future interventions. To produce valid, reliable and meaningful QES requires systematic identification of relevant qualitative evidence. Although the methodologies of QES, including methods for information retrieval, are well-documented, little empirical evidence exists to inform their conduct and reporting. METHODS: This structured methodological overview examines papers on searching for qualitative research identified from the Cochrane Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group Methodology Register and from citation searches of 15 key papers. RESULTS: A single reviewer reviewed 1299 references. Papers reporting methodological guidance, use of innovative methodologies or empirical studies of retrieval methods were categorised under eight topical headings: overviews and methodological guidance, sampling, sources, structured questions, search procedures, search strategies and filters, supplementary strategies and standards. CONCLUSIONS: This structured overview presents a contemporaneous view of information retrieval for qualitative research and identifies a future research agenda. This review concludes that poor empirical evidence underpins current information practice in information retrieval of qualitative research. A trend towards improved transparency of search methods and further evaluation of key search procedures offers the prospect of rapid development of search methods

The psychology of religious experience : a qualitative approach

This study examined religious experience in ten evangelical participants recognized by peers. Supplementary information was obtained from two additional participants, one a mentor to a participant, and one religiously uninvolved. Through qualitative approaches in analyzing interview transcripts, a core category of religious experience emerged, and its relationships to other factors were delineated in a model. Typical questionnaire approaches measure linear relationships among religious and psychosocial variables. Such studies are limited because of extraneous effects of factors such as age or religious affiliation, because questionnaire items may not accurately reflect experiences, and because some relationships among variables are nonlinear. In contrast, the present study used an open-ended approach, with minimal pre-imposed structure. The core category of religious experience is conceptualized as a synergizing process, which includes elements such as cognitive learning, personal faith application, collective spiritual insight, complementary interactions with God, or being healed. It is a holistic, meaning-making process whose components cannot be meaningfully separated. Furthermore, it is embedded in a context of individual and cultural variables which effect considerable variation among individual religious experiences. Study findings challenge aspects of some theories of religious development, which propose hierarchical development, invariant sequence of stages, and universality. Although religious experience is presented as an ongoing process, the study emphasizes the uniqueness of individual experiences, variations in development, and influences of contextual variables. It is proposed that individuals are either engaged in or disengaged from the synergizing process, with an emphasis on the fluid processes leading to these states, rather than on placing persons into trait-like categories. Regarding generalization of results, it is proposed that the present model may represent the ideal evangelical experience or that of highly committed evangelicals. Persons may be affiliated with an evangelical denomination and not be actively involved in the process of religious experience identified by the model. Application of the model to dissimilar religious groups and to nonreligious processes is discussed. The study is relevant to broader issues of ontology, epistemology and methodology. Because it takes a postpositivist position in studying material typically associated with constructivist ideology, assumptions from both of these views are challenged and clarified

A case study using ECHO(Extraction and Classification of Homogeneous Objects) for analysis of multispectral scanner data

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

The assessment of comprehension skills and development of a programme for enhancing comprehension skills for fourth grade students in the State of Qatar

This study aimed to explore the reading comprehension learning needs of fourth grade pupils in Qatar; to identify and test assessment techniques that may be helpful in studying reading comprehension; and to investigate the effects on reading comprehension of a metacognitive teaching programme.Exploratory interviews with fourth grade teachers showed that they focus on pronunciation, word-recognition and grammar. Pupils are not taught the strategies of comprehension and thinking while they read. A need was identified for innovative assessment activities and interventions to enhance reading comprehension skills.A quasi-experimental research design was chosen to investigate the effect of a metacognitive teaching programme in which two groups of pupils were compared on various measures of comprehension performance, including reading self-awareness and strategy use before and after a three month teaching programme: the standard Qatar reading programme for the control group and the Reading and Thinking Strategy programme for the experimental group.Reading comprehension was measured by a comprehension test and cloze test developed by the researcher. Strategy use and reading awareness were assessed by think-aloud tasks, the Index of Reading Awareness (Paris, Cross and Lipson, 1984), a Self-perception scale (Henk and Melrick, 1998) and metacognitive interviews. The reliability and validity of all measures were tested with classes of 4th grade pupils from three randomly selected schools in Qatar. The reading strategy programme was applied in a single school selected from among the three that had been involved in piloting the instruments. Valid, usable data was collected from 64 pupils: 31 in the control and 33 in the experimental group.The experimental group made significantly greater gains over all measures than the control group in association with the intervention showing the effectiveness of the metacognitive approach. The significant gains in reading awareness experienced by the experimental group extended to individual strategies: evaluation, planning, regulation and conditional knowledge. The metacognitive interviews and think-aloud protocols supported these findings. Following the intervention, the experimental group made more use than the control group of evaluation, self-questioning, monitoring and planning, and unlike the control group, used strategies in combination. It is concluded that, by training pupils in metacognitive skills, teachers can improve reading comprehension and help them to become active learners in the reading process

A rapid synthesis of the evidence on interventions supporting self-management for people with long-term conditions. (PRISMS Practical systematic RevIew of Self-Management Support for long-term conditions)

Background: Despite robust evidence concerning self-management for some long-term conditions (LTCs), others lack research explicitly on self-management and, consequently, some patient groups may be overlooked. Aim: To undertake a rapid, systematic overview of the evidence on self-management support for LTCs to inform health-care commissioners and providers about what works, for whom, and in what contexts. Methods: Self-management is ‘the tasks . . . individuals must undertake to live with one or more chronic conditions . . . [including] . . . having the confidence to deal with medical management, role management and emotional management of their conditions’. We convened an expert workshop and identified characteristics of LTCs potentially of relevance to self-management and 14 diverse exemplar LTCs (stroke, asthma, type 2 diabetes mellitus, depression, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, dementia, epilepsy, hypertension, inflammatory arthropathies, irritable bowel syndrome, low back pain, progressive neurological disorders and type 1 diabetes mellitus). For each LTC we conducted systematic overviews of systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of self-management support interventions (‘quantitative meta-reviews’); and systematic overviews of systematic reviews of qualitative studies of patients’ experiences relating to self-management (‘qualitative meta-reviews’). We also conducted an original systematic review of implementation studies of self-management support in the LTCs. We synthesised all our data considering the different characteristics of LTCs. In parallel, we developed a taxonomy of the potential components of self-management support. Results: We included 30 qualitative systematic reviews (including 515 unique studies), 102 quantitative systematic reviews (including 969 RCTs), and 61 studies in the implementation systematic review. Effective self-management support interventions are multifaceted, should be tailored to the individual, their culture and beliefs, a specific LTC and position on the disease trajectory, and underpinned by a collaborative/communicative relationship between the patient and health-care professional (HCP) within the context of a health-care organisation that actively promotes self-management. Self-management support is a complex intervention and although many components were described and trialled in the studies no single component stood out as more important than any other. Core components include (1) provision of education about the LTC, recognising the importance of understanding patients’ pre-existing knowledge and beliefs about their LTC; (2) psychological strategies to support adjustment to life with a LTC; (3) strategies specifically to support adherence to treatments; (4) practical support tailored to the specific LTC, including support around activities of daily living for disabling conditions, action plans in conditions subject to marked exacerbations, intensive disease-specific training to enable self-management of specific clinical tasks; and (5) social support as appropriate. Implementation requires a whole-systems approach which intervenes at the level of the patient, the HCP and the organisation. The health-care organisation is responsible for providing the means (both training and time/material resources) to enable HCPs to implement, and patients to benefit from, self-management support, regularly evaluating self-management processes and clinical outcomes. More widely there is a societal need to address public understanding of LTCs. The lack of public story for many conditions impacted on patient help-seeking behaviour and public perceptions of need. Conclusions: Supporting self-management is inseparable from the high-quality care for LTCs. Commissioners and health-care providers should promote a culture of actively supporting self-management as a normal, expected, monitored and rewarded aspect of care. Further research is needed to understand how health service managers and staff can achieve this culture change in their health-care organisations. Study registration: This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42012002898. Funding: The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme

Implementation of supply chain management theory in practice : an empirical investigation in Ireland

Since its introduction by management consultants in the early 1980s, the supply chain management (SCM) concept has risen to prominence in both academic and commercial circles. A substantial body of academic knowledge has been, and continues to be, developed in the broad SCM domain. There is significant evidence that the effective implementation of SCM can result in improvements in the performance of firms. However, there is also evidence of a divergence between theory and practice in terms of SCM understanding and adoption. The fundamental purpose of the research described in this thesis is to disentangle the rhetoric from the reality in relation to SCM adoption in practice with specific reference to the situation in Ireland.Based on a comprehensive literature review the thesis posits a new definitional construct for SCM – the Four Fundamentals – and sets out four research questions. Answering these questions requires that a methodologically pluralist approach be adopted based on the author’s multi-paradigmatic philosophical positionality. In line with this, the empirical work comprises three main phases: focussed interviews, focus groups and a questionnaire survey. All phases use the author’s definitional construct as their basis.The data collected during the various stages of the empirical research allowed this definitional construct to be further developed. In addition, the findings suggest that, while levels of SCM understanding are generally quite high, there is room for improvement in relation to how this understanding is implemented in practice. In this context, a number of critical success factors and/or barriers to implementation are identified, as are a number of practical measures that could be implemented at policy/supply chain/firm level to improve the level of effective SCM adoption. There are some limitations in the author’s research and their identification allows some potentially fruitful future research avenues to be identified.This research contributes to the extant scholarly knowledge in the field by providing a profile of the current level of adoption of SCM theory in practice in an Irish context, as well as by contributing to scholarly rationalisation and understanding of the process of realising SCM theory in a practical context