The crowd as a cameraman : on-stage display of crowdsourced mobile video at large-scale events

Recording videos with smartphones at large-scale events such as concerts and festivals is very common nowadays. These videos register the atmosphere of the event as it is experienced by the crowd and offer a perspective that is hard to capture by the professional cameras installed throughout the venue. In this article, we present a framework to collect videos from smartphones in the public and blend these into a mosaic that can be readily mixed with professional camera footage and shown on displays during the event. The video upload is prioritized by matching requests of the event director with video metadata, while taking into account the available wireless network capacity. The proposed framework's main novelty is its scalability, supporting the real-time transmission, processing and display of videos recorded by hundreds of simultaneous users in ultra-dense Wi-Fi environments, as well as its proven integration in commercial production environments. The framework has been extensively validated in a controlled lab setting with up to 1 000 clients as well as in a field trial where 1 183 videos were collected from 135 participants recruited from an audience of 8 050 people. 90 % of those videos were uploaded within 6.8 minutes

Dynamic Resource Management in Clouds: A Probabilistic Approach

Dynamic resource management has become an active area of research in the Cloud Computing paradigm. Cost of resources varies significantly depending on configuration for using them. Hence efficient management of resources is of prime interest to both Cloud Providers and Cloud Users. In this work we suggest a probabilistic resource provisioning approach that can be exploited as the input of a dynamic resource management scheme. Using a Video on Demand use case to justify our claims, we propose an analytical model inspired from standard models developed for epidemiology spreading, to represent sudden and intense workload variations. We show that the resulting model verifies a Large Deviation Principle that statistically characterizes extreme rare events, such as the ones produced by "buzz/flash crowd effects" that may cause workload overflow in the VoD context. This analysis provides valuable insight on expectable abnormal behaviors of systems. We exploit the information obtained using the Large Deviation Principle for the proposed Video on Demand use-case for defining policies (Service Level Agreements). We believe these policies for elastic resource provisioning and usage may be of some interest to all stakeholders in the emerging context of cloud networkingComment: IEICE Transactions on Communications (2012). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1209.515

The views of trainee clinical psychologists and student nurses about the involvement of clients with a learning disability in their training

The present study compares the views of trainee clinical psychologists (n=31) and student nurses (n=15) about user involvement in formal teaching. The study found no significant differences between group views. Eighty-two percent of the all participants thought that user involvement was important, but only 29% had had such involvement in their own teaching. Of these, the mean rating of usefulness was 2.2, indicating that it was not perceived as being particularly useful. The group were significantly more likely to identify the area of ‘service provision’ as an area of teaching for clients to be involved in and ‘gaining client perspective’ as a benefit of user involvement in teaching. Client difficulties, such as communication were identified by a significant number of participants as a drawback of involving clients in teaching. The implications of these findings, in terms of promoting meaningful user involvement in formal training programmes are discussed

Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major U.S. Cities

The underground commercial sex economy (UCSE) generates millions of dollars annually, yet investigation and data collection remain under resourced. Our study aimed to unveil the scale of the UCSE in eight major US cities. Across cities, the UCSE's worth was estimated between $39.9 and$290 million in 2007, but decreased since 2003 in all but two cities. Interviews with pimps, traffickers, sex workers, child pornographers, and law enforcement revealed the dynamics central to the underground commercial sex trade -- and shaped the policy suggestions to combat it

The Center for Teaching & Learning: July 1, 2014 - December 2015

Contents: From the Director New Center Supports Teaching and Learning CTL Supports Scholarly Publishing iCE Platform Fosters Interactive Learning Experience A Physical and Virtual Makeover for Scott Library Reaching Out to Our Users Exhibits & Special Events Staff Highlight

Career Development Program for Refugee and Migrant Youth

The Career Guidance for Refugee and Migrant Young People project is an initiative of the South Metropolitan Migrant Resource Centre funded by the Department of Education and Training. It aims to develop, pilot and evaluate a career development and planning program that specifically meets the learning levels and needs of refugee youth with low levels of education, cultural life skills and English language ability

Public Service Delivery: Role of Information and Communication Technology in Improving Governance and Development Impact

The focus of this paper is on improving governance through the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the delivery of services to the poor, i.e., improving efficiency, accountability, and transparency, and reducing bribery. A number of papers recognize the potential benefits but they also point out that it has not been easy to harness this potential. This paper presents an analysis of effective case studies from developing countries where the benefits have reached a large number of poor citizens. It also identifies the critical success factors for wide-scale deployment. The paper includes cases on the use of ICTs in the management of delivery of public services in health, education, and provision of subsidized food. Cases on electronic delivery of government services, such as providing certificates and licenses to rural populations, which in turn provide entitlements to the poor for subsidized food, fertilizer, and health services are also included. ICT-enabled provision of information to enhance rural income is also covered