Automatic TV advertisement detection from MPEG bitstream

The Centre for Digital Video Processing at Dublin City University conducts concentrated research and development in the area of digital video management. The current stage of development is demonstrated on our Web-based digital video system called Físchlár (Proceedings of the Content based Multimedia Information Access, RIAO 2000, Vol. 2, Paris, France, 12–14 April 2000, p. 1390), which provides for efficient recording, analysing, browsing and viewing of digitally captured television programmes. Advertisement breaks during or between television programmes are typically recognised by a series of ‘black’ video frames simultaneously accompanying a depression in audio volume which separate each advertisement from one another by recurrently occurring before and after each individual advertisement. It is the regular prevalence of these flags that enables automatic differentiation between what is programme and what is a commercial break. This paper reports on the progress made in the development of this idea into an advertisement detector system that automatically detects the commercial breaks from the bitstream of digitally captured television broadcasts

Developing methods to access sensitive industrial wastewater information in South Africa (with treatment in mind)

South Africa is a water stressed country, therefore it is important to understand water use and wastewater generation. Previous research and workshops have identified gaps in the characterisation and remediation of wastewaters in South Africa. Wastewater management can take advantage of wastewater as a valuable resource. However, treatment is required to recover this value, while characterisation is required to develop treatments. Yet wastewater characterisation information is often poorly reported. The nature of industrial wastewaters (in terms of volume, location and composition), and the norms of wastewater characterisation reporting (in terms of quality and accessibility) formed the basis for two research questions. A major component of this research was developing methods to access sensitive wastewater information. Relational approaches were based on building relationships through phone calls, emails, meetings and site visits. Formal, legal requests for were made with application in terms if the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA). Even though wastewater information is not confidential, it is not readily accessible. 87 people from 42 companies or institutions were contacted; 14% of interactions lead to shared data or a meeting, and 12% shared resources. Key industries of interest were: pulp and paper, fish processing, power generation, mining and petroleum. Previous estimates of South African industrial wastewater volumes ranged from 70 – 350 Mm3 /annum. The pulp and paper industry contributed between 28 and 43% of this volume; petroleum contributed 9 to 26%. Both industries were located inland and in coastal regions of South Africa. These industries were most concerned with COD. Mining and power generation contributed 10 – 15% and 7 – 14% respectively. These industries were located inland, and were concerned with total dissolved solids, and specifically sulphate, sodium and chlorides. The fish processing industry contributed between 0 and 23% of volumes, depending whether wastewaters released to a marine environment were included. Seven parameters were reported for over half of the streams considered (65 in total). These parameters were: pH, volume, electrical conductivity, nitrogen, sulphate, sodium and COD. Sulphate and sodium were dominant ions. Calcium was not measured, even though discharge limits were listed in environmental licenses. Characterisation information was reported for compliance and not for treatability. The parameters measured should be expanded to include important parameters for treatability. Industry, research institution and governmental bodies can work together to identify such parameters and develop locally relevant treatments. It is recommended that possible synergies between these groupings be enhanced to improve wastewater management. But an atmosphere of trust and transparency is required to facilitate synergistic relationships. The legal framework in South Africa can be used to motivate for transparency with respect to wastewaters

Geospatial Technologies Applied to International Boundaries – the Case Study of Guinea Bissau

Modern geospatial technologies applied to frontiers involve remote sensing data, namely satellite imagery, orthophoto or orthoimages, global navigation technology (GPS/GNSS), as well as Geographical Information System (GIS) tools, which have been used during the last decade for boundary delimitation, demarcation or revision. This paper intends to present the case study of Guinea Bissau boundary which was the first African Portuguese colonies to settle its boundaries. It was delimitated by a Franco– Portuguese convention signed in Paris on May 12, 1886, and ratified later in Lisbon, on August 31, 1887. The demarcation was completed between 1900 and 1905 and recorded in memoranda prepared by the commissioners. For historical reasons Tropical Research Institute (IICT) concentrates a unique, vast and diverse amount of information concerning the borders of those countries. The scope of this research is to explore new methodologies and approaches to study frontiers, making use of geospatial technologies. A Boundary Geographical Information System (BGIS) is being developed based on GIS technology which is a powerful tool to integrate various datasets, visualize, analyze and model spatial and territorial specificities. Historicaldiplomatic information will be articulated with the geospatial data, in order to be included into the geodatabase and to recover the location of the borderlines. The original analogue data was converted into digital format, and image processing techniques were applied to remove residual artifacts, improving the appearance of the documents and reducing storage volume. These methodologies prepared the images for the application of optical character recognition (OCR) before integrating them into the geodatabase. The main objective is to make this information useful and accessible, in a digital platform, to support local authorities, thus promoting cooperation and facilitating public access. The BGIS will be used for present and future management of Guinea Bissau boundaries and as an instrument for policy making

Centralized vs. decentralized computing : organizational considerations and management options

The long-standing debate over whether to centralize or decentralize computing is examined in terms of the fundamental organizational and economic factors at stake. The traditional debate is examined and found to focus predominantly on issues of efficiency vs. effectiveness, with solutions based on a rationalistic strategy of optimizing in this tradeoff. A more behavioralistic assessment suggests that the driving issues in the debate are the politics of organization and resources, centering on the issue of control. The economics of computing deployment decisions is presented as an important issue, but one that often serves as a field of argument that is based on more political concerns. The current situation facing managers of computing, given the advent of small and comparatively inexpensive computers, is examined in detail, and a set of management options for dealing with this persistent issue is presented

A Survey on IT-Techniques for a Dynamic Emergency Management in Large Infrastructures

This deliverable is a survey on the IT techniques that are relevant to the three use cases of the project EMILI. It describes the state-of-the-art in four complementary IT areas: Data cleansing, supervisory control and data acquisition, wireless sensor networks and complex event processing. Even though the deliverable’s authors have tried to avoid a too technical language and have tried to explain every concept referred to, the deliverable might seem rather technical to readers so far little familiar with the techniques it describes

Relationship between accounting benefits and ERP user satisfaction in the context of the fourth industrial revolution

The importance of corporate social responsibility is shaping investment decisions and entrepreneurial actions in diverse perspectives. The rapid growth of SMEs has tremendous impacts on the environment. Nonetheless, the economic emergence plan of Cameroon has prompted government support of SMEs through diverse projects. This saw economic growth increased to 3.8% and unemployment dropped to 4.3% caused by the expansion of private sector investments. The dilemma that necessitated this study is the response strategy of SMEs operators towards environmental sustainability. This study, thus seeks to examine the effects of entrepreneurial intentions and actions on environmental sustainability. The research is a conclusive case study design supported by the philosophical underpins of objectivism ontology and positivism epistemology. Data was sourced from four hundred (400) SMEs operators purposively sampled from the Centre and Littoral regions of Cameroon using structured questionnaire. Data was analysed using the Structural Equation Modelling technique with the aid of statistical packages including: SPSS 24 and AMOS 23. The study revealed that entrepreneurial action has weak positive statistical significant impacts on environmental sustainability; whereas entrepreneurial intention has strong positive statistical significant effects on environmental sustainability. Entrepreneurial intention comprised of self-efficacy and perceived control whereas, entrepreneurial actions involved entrepreneurial alertness and uncertainty. This study concludes that entrepreneurs in Cameroon have sustainable intentions to protect the environment but; the current actions taken are inadequate. This research recommends that entrepreneurs should enhance efforts toward attaining the state of genuine sustainabilit

Developing an Efficient DMCIS with Next-Generation Wireless Networks

The impact of extreme events across the globe is extraordinary which continues to handicap the advancement of the struggling developing societies and threatens most of the industrialized countries in the globe. Various fields of Information and Communication Technology have widely been used for efficient disaster management; but only to a limited extent though, there is a tremendous potential for increasing efficiency and effectiveness in coping with disasters with the utilization of emerging wireless network technologies. Early warning, response to the particular situation and proper recovery are among the main focuses of an efficient disaster management system today. Considering these aspects, in this paper we propose a framework for developing an efficient Disaster Management Communications and Information System (DMCIS) which is basically benefited by the exploitation of the emerging wireless network technologies combined with other networking and data processing technologies.Comment: 6 page

A Secure Lightweight Approach of Node Membership Verification in Dense HDSN

In this paper, we consider a particular type of deployment scenario of a distributed sensor network (DSN), where sensors of different types and categories are densely deployed in the same target area. In this network, the sensors are associated with different groups, based on their functional types and after deployment they collaborate with one another in the same group for doing any assigned task for that particular group. We term this sort of DSN as a heterogeneous distributed sensor network (HDSN). Considering this scenario, we propose a secure membership verification mechanism using one-way accumulator (OWA) which ensures that, before collaborating for a particular task, any pair of nodes in the same deployment group can verify each other-s legitimacy of membership. Our scheme also supports addition and deletion of members (nodes) in a particular group in the HDSN. Our analysis shows that, the proposed scheme could work well in conjunction with other security mechanisms for sensor networks and is very effective to resist any adversary-s attempt to be included in a legitimate group in the network.Comment: 6 page