12,095 research outputs found

    Colour technologies for content production and distribution of broadcast content

    Get PDF
    The requirement of colour reproduction has long been a priority driving the development of new colour imaging systems that maximise human perceptual plausibility. This thesis explores machine learning algorithms for colour processing to assist both content production and distribution. First, this research studies colourisation technologies with practical use cases in restoration and processing of archived content. The research targets practical deployable solutions, developing a cost-effective pipeline which integrates the activity of the producer into the processing workflow. In particular, a fully automatic image colourisation paradigm using Conditional GANs is proposed to improve content generalisation and colourfulness of existing baselines. Moreover, a more conservative solution is considered by providing references to guide the system towards more accurate colour predictions. A fast-end-to-end architecture is proposed to improve existing exemplar-based image colourisation methods while decreasing the complexity and runtime. Finally, the proposed image-based methods are integrated into a video colourisation pipeline. A general framework is proposed to reduce the generation of temporal flickering or propagation of errors when such methods are applied frame-to-frame. The proposed model is jointly trained to stabilise the input video and to cluster their frames with the aim of learning scene-specific modes. Second, this research explored colour processing technologies for content distribution with the aim to effectively deliver the processed content to the broad audience. In particular, video compression is tackled by introducing a novel methodology for chroma intra prediction based on attention models. Although the proposed architecture helped to gain control over the reference samples and better understand the prediction process, the complexity of the underlying neural network significantly increased the encoding and decoding time. Therefore, aiming at efficient deployment within the latest video coding standards, this work also focused on the simplification of the proposed architecture to obtain a more compact and explainable model

    Ausubel's meaningful learning re-visited

    Get PDF
    This review provides a critique of David Ausubel’s theory of meaningful learning and the use of advance organizers in teaching. It takes into account the developments in cognition and neuroscience which have taken place in the 50 or so years since he advanced his ideas, developments which challenge our understanding of cognitive structure and the recall of prior learning. These include (i) how effective questioning to ascertain previous knowledge necessitates in-depth Socratic dialogue; (ii) how many findings in cognition and neuroscience indicate that memory may be non-representational, thereby affecting our interpretation of student recollections; (iii) the now recognised dynamism of memory; (iv) usefully regarding concepts as abilities or simulators and skills; (v) acknowledging conscious and unconscious memory and imagery; (vi) how conceptual change involves conceptual coexistence and revision; (vii) noting linguistic and neural pathways as a result of experience and neural selection; and (viii) recommending that wider concepts of scaffolding should be adopted, particularly given the increasing focus on collaborative learning in a technological world

    Quantifying the Roles of Visual, Linguistic, and Visual-Linguistic Complexity in Verb Acquisition

    Full text link
    Children typically learn the meanings of nouns earlier than the meanings of verbs. However, it is unclear whether this asymmetry is a result of complexity in the visual structure of categories in the world to which language refers, the structure of language itself, or the interplay between the two sources of information. We quantitatively test these three hypotheses regarding early verb learning by employing visual and linguistic representations of words sourced from large-scale pre-trained artificial neural networks. Examining the structure of both visual and linguistic embedding spaces, we find, first, that the representation of verbs is generally more variable and less discriminable within domain than the representation of nouns. Second, we find that if only one learning instance per category is available, visual and linguistic representations are less well aligned in the verb system than in the noun system. However, in parallel with the course of human language development, if multiple learning instances per category are available, visual and linguistic representations become almost as well aligned in the verb system as in the noun system. Third, we compare the relative contributions of factors that may predict learning difficulty for individual words. A regression analysis reveals that visual variability is the strongest factor that internally drives verb learning, followed by visual-linguistic alignment and linguistic variability. Based on these results, we conclude that verb acquisition is influenced by all three sources of complexity, but that the variability of visual structure poses the most significant challenge for verb learning

    A Transcendent View of Things: The Persistence of Metaphysics in Modern German Lyric Poetry, 1771–1908

    Get PDF
    This dissertation explores the lyric poetry of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Eduard Mörike, and Rainer Maria Rilke, and it contends that these modern poets retain, albeit uneasily, a view of things as symbols of the transcendent divine. It thus disputes the secularization theory of post-Enlightenment aesthetics. This study specifically challenges the view of symbolism as mere metaphor—an image constructed of arbitrary signs (Nietzsche)—by showing how the epiphanies of modern lyric poetry remain grounded in the metaphysics of analogia, even where (as in Mörike) the writer seems to have left such entanglements behind. The modern poet’s desire to unveil a significant reality beyond subjective impression reveals that symbolic vision necessarily unfolds within the difference between the visible world and the transcendent divine. If signification entails likeness, yet lyric poetry always signifies in and through difference, then a constitutive analogy—that is, the simultaneity of likeness and even greater difference—emerges from within the dynamism of the lyric image itself. Part 1 begins by describing the symbolic image in Goethe’s lyric poetry to recover his view of things as expressing the “holy open mystery” of the cosmos. I show how his symbolism overcomes Enlightenment naturalism by depicting the antecedent order of analogia. Drawing primarily on Neoplatonic metaphysics, the Goethean symbol reveals the partial yet indisputable relatedness of things to the transcendent. Turning to Mörike, part 2 charts his transition to an equivocal understanding of symbol that would sever the image from its numinous source of significance by confining the image to the scope of the poet’s own gaze. Yet Mörike’s poetry also evinces a counter-veiling tendency to de-subjectivize the image, thus yielding a vision of things as they are prior to epistemic concerns, sentiment, and subjective preference. Part 3 contends that Rilke’s thing-poetry evinces a similar tendency to neutralize modernity’s biases against metaphysics. For his poetry recovers an apophatic understanding of symbolism as grounded in analogia that draws on Dionysian theology. His poems thus focus our attention on the thing’s unfathomable capacity for initiating a vision of the divine, of which the thing itself is a partial and fleeting manifestation.Doctor of Philosoph

    Efficient localization of the cortical language network and its functional neuroanatomy in dyslexia

    Get PDF
    The functional neuroanatomy of language localization in dyslexia has primarily been studied in the context of reading. However, dyslexia is sometimes referred to as a “language-based learning disability,” yet the functional signature of the core language comprehension network in dyslexia is far less understood. This thesis presents a series of studies designed to compare the functionality of the brain regions supporting linguistic processing between typical and impaired readers in order to characterize the cortical language network in dyslexia. First, we investigate the extent to which the efficiency (or quality of data vs. amount of scan time) of a functional language localizer based on passive spoken language comprehension can be maximized in Chapter 2. By demarcating the language network based on smaller amounts of data and testing stability and reliability within this framework, we found that scan time can be substantially reduced without sacrificing functional specialization for language. In Chapter 3, we apply the spoken language localizer to determine differences in functional organization of language in dyslexia and provide evidence that the core spoken language comprehension network is not markedly different between typical readers and those with dyslexia. We compared the individual activations from whole-brain analysis and functional profiles in the canonical language-selective regions and found that the functional response of localized language regions in individuals with dyslexia was as selective as in typically reading adults. Chapter 4 follows up on the functional evidence reported in Chapter 3 to examine the structural connectivity within the same functional language network and additionally found essentially no differences between controls and dyslexia, further supporting the observations made in Chapter 3 that core linguistic processing is intact in dyslexia. All together, these findings converge on the suggestion that individuals with dyslexia do not rely on a separate cognitive architecture for language, potentially revealing important new insight into the dissociation of language specialization abilities and reading difficulty in dyslexia

    Special Topics in Information Technology

    Get PDF
    This open access book presents thirteen outstanding doctoral dissertations in Information Technology from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Information Technology has always been highly interdisciplinary, as many aspects have to be considered in IT systems. The doctoral studies program in IT at Politecnico di Milano emphasizes this interdisciplinary nature, which is becoming more and more important in recent technological advances, in collaborative projects, and in the education of young researchers. Accordingly, the focus of advanced research is on pursuing a rigorous approach to specific research topics starting from a broad background in various areas of Information Technology, especially Computer Science and Engineering, Electronics, Systems and Control, and Telecommunications. Each year, more than 50 PhDs graduate from the program. This book gathers the outcomes of the thirteen best theses defended in 2020-21 and selected for the IT PhD Award. Each of the authors provides a chapter summarizing his/her findings, including an introduction, description of methods, main achievements and future work on the topic. Hence, the book provides a cutting-edge overview of the latest research trends in Information Technology at Politecnico di Milano, presented in an easy-to-read format that will also appeal to non-specialists

    Charms and Charming

    Get PDF
    In the book are presented studies of 18 renowned researchers focussing on the verbal aspects of everyday magic, placing in the centre the richest and most poetic manifestation of verbal magic – the charm or incantatio. Incantations are in Europe well spread folklore genre, which contain very old magical elemrnts. The book covers wide spectrum of regions, from United Kingdom to Russia and Iran, and includes also Slovenia. The researchers have devoted their attention to phenomenological and theoretical studies of incantatio, and have discussed various topics, from the origin of charms and ancient European magical practices, to the receptions and diffusions of different types of charms

    Publishing Sacrobosco’s De sphaera in Early Modern Europe

    Get PDF
    This open access volume focuses on the cultural background of the pivotal transformations of scientific knowledge in the early modern period. It investigates the rich edition history of Johannes de Sacrobosco’s Tractatus de sphaera, by far the most widely disseminated textbook on geocentric cosmology, from the unique standpoint of the many printers, publishers, and booksellers who steered this text from manuscript to print culture, and in doing so transformed it into an established platform of scientific learning. The corpus, constituted of 359 different editions featuring Sacrobosco’s treatise on cosmology and astronomy printed between 1472 and 1650, represents the scientific European shared knowledge concerned with the cosmological worldview of the early modern period until far after the publication of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543. The contributions to this volume show how the academic book trade influenced the process of homogenization of scientific knowledge. They also describe the material infrastructure through which such knowledge was disseminated, and thus define the premises for the foundation of modern scientific communities
    corecore