MC2: MPEG-7 content modelling communities

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityThe use of multimedia content on the web has grown significantly in recent years. Websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr cater for enormous amounts of multimedia content uploaded by users. This vast amount of multimedia content requires comprehensive content modelling otherwise retrieving relevant content will be challenging. Modelling multimedia content can be an extremely time consuming task that may seem impossible particularly when undertaken by individual users. However, the advent of Web 2.0 and associated communities, such as YouTube and Flickr, has shown that users appear to be more willing to collaborate in order to take on enormous tasks such as multimedia content modelling. Harnessing the power of communities to achieve comprehensive content modelling is the primary focus of this research. The aim of this thesis is to explore collaborative multimedia content modelling and in particular the effectiveness of existing multimedia content modelling tools, taking into account the key development challenges of existing collaborative content modelling research and the associated modelling tools. Four research objectives are pursued in order to achieve this; first, design a user experiment to study users’ tagging behaviour with existing multimedia tagging tools and identify any relationships between such user behaviour; second, design and develop a framework for MPEG-7 content modelling communities based on the results of the experiment; third, implement an online service as a proof of concept of the framework; fourth, validate the framework through the online service during a repeat of the initial user experiment. This research contributes first, a conceptual model of user behaviour visualised as a fuzzy cognitive map and, second, an MPEG-7 framework for multimedia content modelling communities (MC2) and its proof of concept as an online service. The fuzzy cognitive model embodies relationships between user tagging behaviour and context and provides an understanding of user priorities in the description of content features and the relationships that exist between them. The MC2 framework, developed based on the fuzzy cognitive model, is deep-rooted in user content modelling behaviour and content preferences. A proof of concept of the MC2 framework is implemented as an online service in which all metadata is modelled using MPEG-7. The online service is validated, first, empirically with the same group of users and through the same experiment that led to the development of the fuzzy cognitive model and, second, functionally against the folksonomy and MPEG-7 content modelling tools used in the initial experiment. The validation demonstrates that MC2 has the advantages without the shortcomings of existing multimedia tagging tools by harnessing the ease of use of folksonomy tools while producing comprehensive structured metadata.Supported by UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

An integrated ranking algorithm for efficient information computing in social networks

Social networks have ensured the expanding disproportion between the face of WWW stored traditionally in search engine repositories and the actual ever changing face of Web. Exponential growth of web users and the ease with which they can upload contents on web highlights the need of content controls on material published on the web. As definition of search is changing, socially-enhanced interactive search methodologies are the need of the hour. Ranking is pivotal for efficient web search as the search performance mainly depends upon the ranking results. In this paper new integrated ranking model based on fused rank of web object based on popularity factor earned over only valid interlinks from multiple social forums is proposed. This model identifies relationships between web objects in separate social networks based on the object inheritance graph. Experimental study indicates the effectiveness of proposed Fusion based ranking algorithm in terms of better search results.Comment: 14 pages, International Journal on Web Service Computing (IJWSC), Vol.3, No.1, March 201

Semantic Web Tools and Decision-Making

Semantic Web technologies are intertwined with decision-making processes. In this paper the general objectives of the semantic web tools are reviewed and characterized, as well as the categories of decision support tools, in order to establish an intersection of utility and use. We also elaborate on actual and foreseen possibilities for a deeper integration, considering the actual implementation, opportunities and constraints in the decision-making context.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Semantic technologies: from niche to the mainstream of Web 3? A comprehensive framework for web Information modelling and semantic annotation

Context: Web information technologies developed and applied in the last decade have considerably changed the way web applications operate and have revolutionised information management and knowledge discovery. Social technologies, user-generated classification schemes and formal semantics have a far-reaching sphere of influence. They promote collective intelligence, support interoperability, enhance sustainability and instigate innovation. Contribution: The research carried out and consequent publications follow the various paradigms of semantic technologies, assess each approach, evaluate its efficiency, identify the challenges involved and propose a comprehensive framework for web information modelling and semantic annotation, which is the thesis’ original contribution to knowledge. The proposed framework assists web information modelling, facilitates semantic annotation and information retrieval, enables system interoperability and enhances information quality. Implications: Semantic technologies coupled with social media and end-user involvement can instigate innovative influence with wide organisational implications that can benefit a considerable range of industries. The scalable and sustainable business models of social computing and the collective intelligence of organisational social media can be resourcefully paired with internal research and knowledge from interoperable information repositories, back-end databases and legacy systems. Semantified information assets can free human resources so that they can be used to better serve business development, support innovation and increase productivity

Knowledge Discovery and Management within Service Centers

These days, most enterprise service centers deploy Knowledge Discovery and Management (KDM) systems to address the challenge of timely delivery of a resourceful service request resolution while efficiently utilizing the huge amount of data. These KDM systems facilitate prompt response to the critical service requests and if possible then try to prevent the service requests getting triggered in the first place. Nevertheless, in most cases, information required for a request resolution is dispersed and suppressed under the mountain of irrelevant information over the Internet in unstructured and heterogeneous formats. These heterogeneous data sources and formats complicate the access to reusable knowledge and increase the response time required to reach a resolution. Moreover, the state-of-the art methods neither support effective integration of domain knowledge with the KDM systems nor promote the assimilation of reusable knowledge or Intellectual Capital (IC). With the goal of providing an improved service request resolution within the shortest possible time, this research proposes an IC Management System. The proposed tool efficiently utilizes domain knowledge in the form of semantic web technology to extract the most valuable information from those raw unstructured data and uses that knowledge to formulate service resolution model as a combination of efficient data search, classification, clustering, and recommendation methods. Our proposed solution also handles the technology categorization of a service request which is very crucial in the request resolution process. The system has been extensively evaluated with several experiments and has been used in a real enterprise customer service center

BlogForever D2.6: Data Extraction Methodology

This report outlines an inquiry into the area of web data extraction, conducted within the context of blog preservation. The report reviews theoretical advances and practical developments for implementing data extraction. The inquiry is extended through an experiment that demonstrates the effectiveness and feasibility of implementing some of the suggested approaches. More specifically, the report discusses an approach based on unsupervised machine learning that employs the RSS feeds and HTML representations of blogs. It outlines the possibilities of extracting semantics available in blogs and demonstrates the benefits of exploiting available standards such as microformats and microdata. The report proceeds to propose a methodology for extracting and processing blog data to further inform the design and development of the BlogForever platform