Towards a multimedia formatting vocabulary

Time-based, media-centric Web presentations can be described declaratively in the XML world through the development of languages such as SMIL. It is difficult, however, to fully integrate them in a complete document transformation processing chain. In order to achieve the desired processing of data-driven, time-based, media-centric presentations, the text-flow based formatting vocabularies used by style languages such as XSL, CSS and DSSSL need to be extended. The paper presents a selection of use cases which are used to derive a list of requirements for a multimedia style and transformation formatting vocabulary. The boundaries of applicability of existing text-based formatting models for media-centric transformations are analyzed. The paper then discusses the advantages and disadvantages of a fully-fledged time-based multimedia formatting model. Finally, the discussion is illustrated by describing the key properties of the example multimedia formatting vocabulary currently implemented in the back-end of our Cuypers multimedia transformation engine

A workflow for document level interoperability

This article describes a software environment called the Exchange Center that helps digital librarians manage the workflow of sourcing documents and metadata from various repositories. The software is built on Greenstone but does not require its use as the final digital library server. After describing the software architecture we provide two scenarios of its use: a private library of recipes, which ultimately involves collaboration with other cooks; and a digital library that aggregates the collections of various host institutions that use different repository software

Understanding and modeling of aesthetic response to shape and color in car body design

This study explored the phenomenon that a consumer's preference on color of car body may vary depending on shape of the car body. First, the study attempted to establish a theoretical framework that can account for this phenomenon. This framework is based on the (modern-) Darwinism approach to the so-called evolutionary psychology and aesthetics. It assumes that human's aesthetic sense works like an agent that seeks for environmental patterns that potentially afford to benefit the underlying needs of the agent, and this seeking process is evolutionary fitting. Second, by adopting the framework, a pattern called “fundamental aesthetic dimensions” was developed for identifying and modeling consumer’s aesthetic response to car body shape and color. Next, this study developed an effective tool that is capable in capturing and accommodating consumer’s color preference on a given car body shape. This tool was implemented by incorporating classic color theories and advanced digital technologies; it was named “Color-Shape Synthesizer”. Finally, an experiment was conducted to verify some of the theoretical developments. This study concluded (1) the fundamental aesthetics dimensions can be used for describing aesthetics in terms of shape and color; (2) the Color-Shape Synthesizer tool can be well applied in practicing car body designs; and (3) mapping between semantic representations of aesthetic response to the fundamental aesthetics dimensions can likely be a multiple-network structure

General Consumer Communication Tools for Improved Image Management and Communication in Medicine

We elected to explore new technologies emerging on the general consumer market that can improve and facilitate image and data communication in medical and clinical environment. These new technologies developed for communication and storage of data can improve the user convenience and facilitate the communication and transport of images and related data beyond the usual limits and restrictions of a traditional picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) network. We specifically tested and implemented three new technologies provided on Apple computer platforms. (1) We adopted the iPod, a MP3 portable player with a hard disk storage, to easily and quickly move large number of DICOM images. (2) We adopted iChat, a videoconference and instant-messaging software, to transmit DICOM images in real time to a distant computer for conferencing teleradiology. (3) Finally, we developed a direct secure interface to use the iDisk service, a file-sharing service based on the WebDAV technology, to send and share DICOM files between distant computers. These three technologies were integrated in a new open-source image navigation and display software called OsiriX allowing for manipulation and communication of multimodality and multidimensional DICOM image data sets. This software is freely available as an open-source project at http://homepage.mac.com/rossetantoine/OsiriX. Our experience showed that the implementation of these technologies allowed us to significantly enhance the existing PACS with valuable new features without any additional investment or the need for complex extensions of our infrastructure. The added features such as teleradiology, secure and convenient image and data communication, and the use of external data storage services open the gate to a much broader extension of our imaging infrastructure to the outside worl