7 research outputs found
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Neural Approaches to Feedback in Information Retrieval
Relevance feedback on search results indicates users\u27 search intent and preferences. Extensive studies have shown that incorporating relevance feedback (RF) on the top k (usually 10) ranked results significantly improves the performance of re-ranking. However, most existing research on user feedback focuses on words-based retrieval models. Recently, neural retrieval models have shown their efficacy in capturing relevance matching in retrieval but little research has been conducted on neural approaches to feedback. This leads us to study different aspects of feedback with neural approaches in the dissertation.
RF techniques are seldom used in real search scenarios since they can require significant manual efforts to obtain explicit judgments for search results. However, with mobile or voice-based intelligent assistants being more popular nowadays, user feedback of result quality could be collected potentially during their interactions with the assistants. We study both positive and negative RF to refine the re-ranking performance. Positive feedback aims to find more relevant results given some known relevant results while negative feedback targets identifying the first relevant result. In most cases, it is more beneficial to find the first relevant result compared with finding additional relevant results. However, negative feedback is much more challenging than positive feedback since relevant results are usually similar while non-relevant results could vary considerably.
We focus on the tasks of text retrieval and product search to study the different aspects of incorporating feedback for ranking refinement with neural approaches. Our contributions are: (1) we show that iterative relevance feedback (IRF) is more effective than top-k RF on answer passages and we further improve IRF with neural approaches; (2) we propose an effective RF technique based on neural models for product search; (3) we study how to refine re-ranking with negative feedback for conversational product search; (4) we leverage negative feedback in user responses to ask clarifying questions in open-domain conversational search. Our research improves retrieval performance by incorporating feedback in interactive retrieval and approaches multi-turn conversational information-seeking tasks with a focus on positive and negative feedback
A machine learning personalization flow
This thesis describes a machine learning-based personalization flow for streaming platforms: we match users and content like video or music, and monitor the results. We find that there are still many open questions in personalization and especially in recommendation. When recommending an item to a user, how do we use unobservable data, e.g., intent, user and content metadata as input? Can we optimize directly for non-differentiable metrics? What about diversity in recommendations? To answer these questions, this thesis proposes data, experimental design, loss functions, and metrics. In the future, we hope these concepts are brought closer together via end-to-end solutions, where personalization models are directly optimized for the desired metric
Evaluation Methodologies for Visual Information Retrieval and Annotation
Die automatisierte Evaluation von Informations-Retrieval-Systemen erlaubt
Performanz und Qualität der Informationsgewinnung zu bewerten. Bereits in
den 60er Jahren wurden erste Methodologien für die system-basierte
Evaluation aufgestellt und in den Cranfield Experimenten überprüft.
Heutzutage gehören Evaluation, Test und Qualitätsbewertung zu einem aktiven
Forschungsfeld mit erfolgreichen Evaluationskampagnen und etablierten
Methoden. Evaluationsmethoden fanden zunächst in der Bewertung von
Textanalyse-Systemen Anwendung. Mit dem rasanten Voranschreiten der
Digitalisierung wurden diese Methoden sukzessive auf die Evaluation von
Multimediaanalyse-Systeme übertragen. Dies geschah häufig, ohne die
Evaluationsmethoden in Frage zu stellen oder sie an die veränderten
Gegebenheiten der Multimediaanalyse anzupassen. Diese Arbeit beschäftigt
sich mit der system-basierten Evaluation von Indizierungssystemen für
Bildkollektionen. Sie adressiert drei Problemstellungen der Evaluation von
Annotationen: Nutzeranforderungen für das Suchen und Verschlagworten von
Bildern, Evaluationsmaße für die Qualitätsbewertung von
Indizierungssystemen und Anforderungen an die Erstellung visueller
Testkollektionen. Am Beispiel der Evaluation automatisierter
Photo-Annotationsverfahren werden relevante Konzepte mit Bezug zu
Nutzeranforderungen diskutiert, Möglichkeiten zur Erstellung einer
zuverlässigen Ground Truth bei geringem Kosten- und Zeitaufwand vorgestellt
und Evaluationsmaße zur Qualitätsbewertung eingeführt, analysiert und
experimentell verglichen. Traditionelle Maße zur Ermittlung der Performanz
werden in vier Dimensionen klassifiziert. Evaluationsmaße vergeben
üblicherweise binäre Kosten für korrekte und falsche Annotationen. Diese
Annahme steht im Widerspruch zu der Natur von Bildkonzepten. Das gemeinsame
Auftreten von Bildkonzepten bestimmt ihren semantischen Zusammenhang und
von daher sollten diese auch im Zusammenhang auf ihre Richtigkeit hin
überprüft werden. In dieser Arbeit wird aufgezeigt, wie semantische
Ähnlichkeiten visueller Konzepte automatisiert abgeschätzt und in den
Evaluationsprozess eingebracht werden können. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit
inkludieren ein Nutzermodell für die konzeptbasierte Suche von Bildern,
eine vollständig bewertete Testkollektion und neue Evaluationsmaße für die
anforderungsgerechte Qualitätsbeurteilung von Bildanalysesystemen.Performance assessment plays a major role in the research on Information
Retrieval (IR) systems. Starting with the Cranfield experiments in the
early 60ies, methodologies for the system-based performance assessment
emerged and established themselves, resulting in an active research field
with a number of successful benchmarking activities. With the rise of the
digital age, procedures of text retrieval evaluation were often transferred
to multimedia retrieval evaluation without questioning their direct
applicability. This thesis investigates the problem of system-based
performance assessment of annotation approaches in generic image
collections. It addresses three important parts of annotation evaluation,
namely user requirements for the retrieval of annotated visual media,
performance measures for multi-label evaluation, and visual test
collections. Using the example of multi-label image annotation evaluation,
I discuss which concepts to employ for indexing, how to obtain a reliable
ground truth to moderate costs, and which evaluation measures are
appropriate. This is accompanied by a thorough analysis of related work on
system-based performance assessment in Visual Information Retrieval (VIR).
Traditional performance measures are classified into four dimensions and
investigated according to their appropriateness for visual annotation
evaluation. One of the main ideas in this thesis adheres to the common
assumption on the binary nature of the score prediction dimension in
annotation evaluation. However, the predicted concepts and the set of true
indexed concepts interrelate with each other. This work will show how to
utilise these semantic relationships for a fine-grained evaluation
scenario. Outcomes of this thesis result in a user model for concept-based
image retrieval, a fully assessed image annotation test collection, and a
number of novel performance measures for image annotation evaluation
Evaluation Methodologies for Visual Information Retrieval and Annotation
Die automatisierte Evaluation von Informations-Retrieval-Systemen erlaubt
Performanz und Qualität der Informationsgewinnung zu bewerten. Bereits in
den 60er Jahren wurden erste Methodologien für die system-basierte
Evaluation aufgestellt und in den Cranfield Experimenten überprüft.
Heutzutage gehören Evaluation, Test und Qualitätsbewertung zu einem aktiven
Forschungsfeld mit erfolgreichen Evaluationskampagnen und etablierten
Methoden. Evaluationsmethoden fanden zunächst in der Bewertung von
Textanalyse-Systemen Anwendung. Mit dem rasanten Voranschreiten der
Digitalisierung wurden diese Methoden sukzessive auf die Evaluation von
Multimediaanalyse-Systeme übertragen. Dies geschah häufig, ohne die
Evaluationsmethoden in Frage zu stellen oder sie an die veränderten
Gegebenheiten der Multimediaanalyse anzupassen. Diese Arbeit beschäftigt
sich mit der system-basierten Evaluation von Indizierungssystemen für
Bildkollektionen. Sie adressiert drei Problemstellungen der Evaluation von
Annotationen: Nutzeranforderungen für das Suchen und Verschlagworten von
Bildern, Evaluationsmaße für die Qualitätsbewertung von
Indizierungssystemen und Anforderungen an die Erstellung visueller
Testkollektionen. Am Beispiel der Evaluation automatisierter
Photo-Annotationsverfahren werden relevante Konzepte mit Bezug zu
Nutzeranforderungen diskutiert, Möglichkeiten zur Erstellung einer
zuverlässigen Ground Truth bei geringem Kosten- und Zeitaufwand vorgestellt
und Evaluationsmaße zur Qualitätsbewertung eingeführt, analysiert und
experimentell verglichen. Traditionelle Maße zur Ermittlung der Performanz
werden in vier Dimensionen klassifiziert. Evaluationsmaße vergeben
üblicherweise binäre Kosten für korrekte und falsche Annotationen. Diese
Annahme steht im Widerspruch zu der Natur von Bildkonzepten. Das gemeinsame
Auftreten von Bildkonzepten bestimmt ihren semantischen Zusammenhang und
von daher sollten diese auch im Zusammenhang auf ihre Richtigkeit hin
überprüft werden. In dieser Arbeit wird aufgezeigt, wie semantische
Ähnlichkeiten visueller Konzepte automatisiert abgeschätzt und in den
Evaluationsprozess eingebracht werden können. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit
inkludieren ein Nutzermodell für die konzeptbasierte Suche von Bildern,
eine vollständig bewertete Testkollektion und neue Evaluationsmaße für die
anforderungsgerechte Qualitätsbeurteilung von Bildanalysesystemen.Performance assessment plays a major role in the research on Information
Retrieval (IR) systems. Starting with the Cranfield experiments in the
early 60ies, methodologies for the system-based performance assessment
emerged and established themselves, resulting in an active research field
with a number of successful benchmarking activities. With the rise of the
digital age, procedures of text retrieval evaluation were often transferred
to multimedia retrieval evaluation without questioning their direct
applicability. This thesis investigates the problem of system-based
performance assessment of annotation approaches in generic image
collections. It addresses three important parts of annotation evaluation,
namely user requirements for the retrieval of annotated visual media,
performance measures for multi-label evaluation, and visual test
collections. Using the example of multi-label image annotation evaluation,
I discuss which concepts to employ for indexing, how to obtain a reliable
ground truth to moderate costs, and which evaluation measures are
appropriate. This is accompanied by a thorough analysis of related work on
system-based performance assessment in Visual Information Retrieval (VIR).
Traditional performance measures are classified into four dimensions and
investigated according to their appropriateness for visual annotation
evaluation. One of the main ideas in this thesis adheres to the common
assumption on the binary nature of the score prediction dimension in
annotation evaluation. However, the predicted concepts and the set of true
indexed concepts interrelate with each other. This work will show how to
utilise these semantic relationships for a fine-grained evaluation
scenario. Outcomes of this thesis result in a user model for concept-based
image retrieval, a fully assessed image annotation test collection, and a
number of novel performance measures for image annotation evaluation
Context Aware Data Reduction for Highly Automated Driving
This research addresses the emerging challenge of data handling in the development of automated driving systems. The increasing volumes of data generated in the development and operation of these systems necessitate efficient handling strategies. A comprehensive review of the current state of the art reveals data reduction as a viable solution to manage these large data volumes. Further, an analysis of the state of the art establishes various challenges where established methodologies are insufficient, such as the open context. This leads to the primary research question of this dissertation:
(1) how to effectively implement data reduction while addressing these challenges.
The proposed solution in this work is a novel data reduction approach that integrates the concept of relevance, aiming to precisely define the informational needs within the data. This approach hypothesizes an enhanced control over performance loss in subsequent use cases, leading to two secondary research questions:
(2) How can relevance be formally defined to facilitate its use in data reduction?
(3) What is the impact of this data reduction method on the performance of subsequent use cases?
To answer the second question, the concept of relevance is extensively explored in the literature. A general relevance model for automated driving is developed, along with a methodology for deriving and validating use case-specific relevance models. Application of this methodology to a selected use case demonstrates its effectiveness.
Addressing the third question, an architecture for relevance-guided data reduction is proposed. A prototype implementing this architecture is evaluated in the contexts of perception and neural network training, focusing on semantic segmentation and object detection tasks. The findings indicate that relevance-guided data reduction can effectively control performance loss in perception tasks. However, in neural network training, a strong task dependency is observed, highlighting limitations of the approach and opportunities for future research.
In conclusion, this work represents a contribution in two areas. First, to overcoming the challenges of handling large amounts of automotive data and reducing this data to only those parts with relevant information. Second, to an explicit consideration of the wide variety of relevance concepts in the development of automated driving
Deliverable D1.6 Intelligent hypervideo analysis evaluation, final results
This deliverable describes the conducted evaluation activities for assessing the performance of a number of developed methods for intelligent hypervideo analysis and the usability of the implemented Editor Tool for supporting video annotation and enrichment. Based on the performance evaluations reported in D1.4 regarding a set of LinkedTV analysis components, we extended our experiments for assessing the effectiveness of newer versions of these methods as well as of entirely new techniques, concerning the accuracy and the time efficiency of the analysis. For this purpose, in-house experiments and participations at international benchmarking activities were made, and the outcomes are reported in this deliverable. Moreover, we present the results of user trials regarding the developed Editor Tool, where groups of experts assessed its usability and the supported functionalities, and evaluated the usefulness and the accuracy of the implemented video segmentation approaches based on the analysis requirements of the LinkedTV scenarios. By this deliverable we complete the reporting of WP1 evaluations that aimed to assess the efficiency of the developed multimedia analysis methods throughout the project, according to the analysis requirements of the LinkedTV scenarios
Governance Through Social Learning
Governance connotes the way an organization, an economy, or a social system co-ordinates and steers itself. Some insist that governing is strictly a top-down process guided by authority and coercion, while others emphasize that it emerges bottom-up through the workings of the free market. This book rejects these simplistic views in favour of a more distributed view of governance based on a mix of coercion, quid pro quo market exchange and reciprocity, on a division of labour among the private, public, and civic sectors, and on the co-evolution of these different integration mechanisms. This book is for both practitioners confronted with governance issues and for citizens trying to make sense of the world around them