Research in information managment at Dublin City University

The Information Management Group at Dublin City University has research themes such as digital multimedia, interoperable systems and database engineering. In the area of digital multimedia, a collaboration with our School of Electronic Engineering has formed the Centre for Digital Video Processing, a university designated research centre whose aim is to research, develop and evaluate content-based operations on digital video information. To achieve this goal, the range of expertise in this centre covers the complete gamut from image analysis and feature extraction through to video search engine technology and interfaces to video browsing. The Interoperable Systems Group has research interests in federated databases and interoperability, object modelling and database engineering. This report describes the research activities of the major groupings within the Information Management community in Dublin City University

Context-aware person identification in personal photo collections

Identifying the people in photos is an important need for users of photo management systems. We present MediAssist, one such system which facilitates browsing, searching and semi-automatic annotation of personal photos, using analysis of both image content and the context in which the photo is captured. This semi-automatic annotation includes annotation of the identity of people in photos. In this paper, we focus on such person annotation, and propose person identification techniques based on a combination of context and content. We propose language modelling and nearest neighbor approaches to context-based person identification, in addition to novel face color and image color content-based features (used alongside face recognition and body patch features). We conduct a comprehensive empirical study of these techniques using the real private photo collections of a number of users, and show that combining context- and content-based analysis improves performance over content or context alone

Dublin City University at QA@CLEF 2008

We describe our participation in Multilingual Question Answering at CLEF 2008 using German and English as our source and target languages respectively. The system was built using UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture) as underlying framework

Interdependence between emerging and major markets

In this paper, we investigate the price spillover effects among two developed markets, (the US and the UK ), and two developing markets, (Irish and Portuguese), using a new testing method suggested by Lee (2002). We find that there are interrelationships between any two of the Irish, the UK and Portuguese markets and that the co-movements between the emerging markets and the US are statistically significant but weak. We also found that the US market is slightly influenced by the UK but not vice versa

Distance learning courses in engineering in the EU-27

The European Union is facing a scarcity of skilled professionals in the field of nuclear energy, especially at the higher educational levels. This is mainly due to the worldwide reduction in public acceptance of everything nuclear in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents, occurred in 1979 and 1986 respectively. These accidents have led to a decreased interest in nuclear education and thus to a “generational gap”, where the skilled nuclear workforce is on the verge of retirement or has already retired, and the new generation of nuclear workers does not have the numbers to cover the needs of the industry. The present report, commissioned by the CAPTURE Action of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, has the aim of complementing other European initiatives in the field of nuclear Education & Training by analyzing the availability of eLearning courses in nuclear and nuclear-related fields across the EU-27. This report gives an overview of the eLearning tools and frameworks available on the market and analyzes the main types of eLearning. A list of the eLearning courses offered by Universities in Europe is presented, along with contact details and websites (situation as of the15th of April 2013). An electronic version of the list of courses will be published on the CAPTURE website (http://capture.jrc.ec.europa.eu/), and it will be updated every six months.JRC.F.4-Nuclear Reactor Integrity Assessment and Knowledge Managemen

QRM: a Case for Convergence: a Reminder that Quality Risk Management Must Work With Other Risk Management Systems

This article reflects that Quality Risk Management (QRM) is operating in a different technological environment since the ICH Q9: Quality Risk Management [1] guidance was first published in 2005. This paper explores the array of risk management systems that influence operations in a typical modern high-tech manufacturing facility. These ‘other’ risk management systems, either directly or indirectly, inform both the risk assessments and the control strategies developed by QRM. Convergence is another word for coming together. In order to assure that QRM can fully align and converge within operations, it must also ensure that it can align with these allied risk management systems

US Ireland Partnership Program: BEACONS: Biosafety for Environmental Contaminants Using Novel Sensors

BEACONS is a unique collaboration between the United States, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, that aims to develop a novel sample preparation device coupled to a portable sensor which will be capable of rapidly analyzing for the presence of major aquatic toxins and associated organisms in water samples. It harnesses the substantial complementary expertise of the international partners and their institutions to address a problem that has world-wide implications for human health and aquatic related industries. The results will be used for the generation of a commercially applicable prototype device that could have the potential to be applied to a wide range of different analytical problems. The program will involve significant exchange of personnel and expertise and will generate novel scientific data and approaches linked with the solution of a key problem for all the partners\u27 jurisdictions. This project will develop a set of easily portable instruments that can be utilized for biotoxin and toxic organism detection, and be adapted subsequently for monitoring of other potentially harmful organisms and their toxins. A key element for any field deployable sensing instrument is the acquisition and preparation of samples. Thus, the proposed research includes development of a sample preparation platform and associated protocols for concentration and delivery of targeted toxin and nucleic acid sequences to a hand-held detection device. The expected outcome is the development of a sample preparation module and assay methods for an optical detection device, based on planar waveguide technology, capable of measuring in real time the presence of both toxin producing organisms and the toxins themselves in coastal and fresh water samples. The sample preparation module will involve the integration of novel microfluidics with peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) and engineered broad affinity, highly stable capture antibodies. Resultant extracts will be introduced into the detection system, which will employ an array-based, planar waveguide technology previously incorporated into a hand-held device by a commercial partner and made available to project collaborators for development of assays for toxins and organisms. They will utilize highly specific, engineered antibodies for capturing toxin molecules and PNAs as capture probes to detect the corresponding toxigenic organisms. This technology is expected to provide new and improved means of assessing the potential risks associated with contamination of coastal and fresh water fishery resources by algal biotoxins. The US-Ireland Partnership Program has been endorsed at the highest political levels by the three jurisdictions (U.S., Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland). The added value for the U.S. from the BEACONS proposal includes a combination of significant intellectual and financial contributions from Ireland. Moreover, the project will involve a well coordinated exchange of researchers between the participating organizations. In particular, the opportunities of exchange visits for young scientists employed on the project will be important from both scientific and cultural perspectives. A critical element of detecting any analyte is sample processing. Therefore, in addition to stronger international collaborations and training of young scientists, this project aims to provide a new portable and flexible platform that can be adapted for the sensor-based detection of other biotoxins and/or microbes