209 research outputs found
Model-Driven Development of Interactive Multimedia Applications
The development of highly interactive multimedia applications is still a challenging and complex task. In addition to the application logic, multimedia applications typically provide a sophisticated user interface with integrated media objects. As a consequence, the development process involves different experts for software design, user interface design, and media design. There is still a lack of concepts for a systematic development which integrates these aspects.
This thesis provides a model-driven development approach addressing this problem. Therefore it introduces the Multimedia Modeling Language (MML), a visual modeling language supporting a design phase in multimedia application development. The language is oriented on well-established software engineering concepts, like UML 2, and integrates concepts from the areas of multimedia development and model-based user interface development.
MML allows the generation of code skeletons from the models. Thereby, the core idea is to generate code skeletons which can be directly processed in multimedia authoring tools. In this way, the strengths of both are combined: Authoring tools are used to perform the creative development tasks while models are used to design the overall application structure and to enable a well-coordinated development process. This is demonstrated using the professional authoring tool Adobe Flash.
MML is supported by modeling and code generation tools which have been used to validate the approach over several years in various student projects and teaching courses. Additional prototypes have been developed to demonstrate, e.g., the ability to generate code for different target platforms. Finally, it is discussed how models can contribute in general to a better integration of well-structured software development and creative visual design
Web-Mediated Education and Training Environments: A Review of Personalised Interactive Learning.
This chapter reviews the concept of personalised eLearning resources in relation to integrating interactivity into asynchronous learning. Personalised eLearning resources are learning resources which are selected to suit a specific student or traineeâs individual learning requirements. The affordance of personalised eLearning would provide educators with the opportunity to shift away from eLearning content that is retrieved and move towards the provision of personalised interactive content to provide a form of asynchronous learning to suit students at different degree levels. A basic introduction to the concept of ePedagogy in online learning environments is explored and the impacts these systems have on students learning experiences are considered. Issues, controversies, and problems associated with the creation of personalised interactive eLearning resources are examined, and suggested solutions and recommendations to the identified issues, controversies, and problems are reviewed. Personalised interactive asynchronous learning resources could potentially improve studentsâ learning experiences but more research on the human computer interface of these authoring tools is required before personalised eLearning resources are available for use by non-technical authors
Content-based indexing of low resolution documents
In any multimedia presentation, the trend for attendees taking pictures of slides that
interest them during the presentation using capturing devices is gaining popularity.
To enhance the image usefulness, the images captured could be linked to image or
video database. The database can be used for the purpose of file archiving, teaching
and learning, research and knowledge management, which concern image search.
However, the above-mentioned devices include cameras or mobiles phones have low
resolution resulted from poor lighting and noise. Content-Based Image Retrieval
(CBIR) is considered among the most interesting and promising fields as far as
image search is concerned. Image search is related with finding images that are
similar for the known query image found in a given image database. This thesis
concerns with the methods used for the purpose of identifying documents that are
captured using image capturing devices. In addition, the thesis also concerns with a
technique that can be used to retrieve images from an indexed image database. Both
concerns above apply digital image processing technique. To build an indexed
structure for fast and high quality content-based retrieval of an image, some existing
representative signatures and the key indexes used have been revised. The retrieval
performance is very much relying on how the indexing is done. The retrieval
approaches that are currently in existence including making use of shape, colour and
texture features. Putting into consideration these features relative to individual
databases, the majority of retrievals approaches have poor results on low resolution
documents, consuming a lot of time and in the some cases, for the given query image,
irrelevant images are obtained. The proposed identification and indexing method in
the thesis uses a Visual Signature (VS). VS consists of the captures slides textual
layoutâs graphical information, shapeâs moment and spatial distribution of colour.
This approach, which is signature-based are considered for fast and efficient
matching to fulfil the needs of real-time applications. The approach also has the
capability to overcome the problem low resolution document such as noisy image,
the environmentâs varying lighting conditions and complex backgrounds. We present
hierarchy indexing techniques, whose foundation are tree and clustering. K-means
clustering are used for visual features like colour since their spatial distribution give a good imageâs global information. Tree indexing for extracted layout and shape
features are structured hierarchically and Euclidean distance is used to get similarity
image for CBIR. The assessment of the proposed indexing scheme is conducted
based on recall and precision, a standard CBIR retrieval performance evaluation. We
develop CBIR system and conduct various retrieval experiments with the
fundamental aim of comparing the accuracy during image retrieval. A new algorithm
that can be used with integrated visual signatures, especially in late fusion query was
introduced. The algorithm has the capability of reducing any shortcoming associated
with normalisation in initial fusion technique. Slides from conferences, lectures and
meetings presentation are used for comparing the proposed techniqueâs performances
with that of the existing approaches with the help of real data. This finding of the
thesis presents exciting possibilities as the CBIR systems is able to produce high
quality result even for a query, which uses low resolution documents. In the future,
the utilization of multimodal signatures, relevance feedback and artificial intelligence
technique are recommended to be used in CBIR system to further enhance the
performance
Text-image synergy for multimodal retrieval and annotation
Text and images are the two most common data modalities found on the Internet. Understanding the synergy between text and images, that is, seamlessly analyzing information from these modalities may be trivial for humans, but is challenging for software systems. In this dissertation we study problems where deciphering text-image synergy is crucial for finding solutions. We propose methods and ideas that establish semantic connections between text and images in multimodal contents, and empirically show their effectiveness in four interconnected problems: Image Retrieval, Image Tag Refinement, Image-Text Alignment, and Image Captioning. Our promising results and observations open up interesting scopes for future research involving text-image data understanding.Text and images are the two most common data modalities found on the Internet. Understanding the synergy between text and images, that is, seamlessly analyzing information from these modalities may be trivial for humans, but is challenging for software systems. In this dissertation we study problems where deciphering text-image synergy is crucial for finding solutions. We propose methods and ideas that establish semantic connections between text and images in multimodal contents, and empirically show their effectiveness in four interconnected problems: Image Retrieval, Image Tag Refinement, Image-Text Alignment, and Image Captioning. Our promising results and observations open up interesting scopes for future research involving text-image data understanding.Text und Bild sind die beiden hĂ€ufigsten Arten von Inhalten im Internet. WĂ€hrend es fĂŒr Menschen einfach ist, gerade aus dem Zusammenspiel von Text- und Bildinhalten Informationen zu erfassen, stellt diese kombinierte Darstellung von Inhalten Softwaresysteme vor groĂe Herausforderungen. In dieser Dissertation werden Probleme studiert, fĂŒr deren Lösung das VerstĂ€ndnis des Zusammenspiels von Text- und Bildinhalten wesentlich ist. Es werden Methoden und VorschlĂ€ge prĂ€sentiert und empirisch bewertet, die semantische Verbindungen zwischen Text und Bild in multimodalen Daten herstellen. Wir stellen in dieser Dissertation vier miteinander verbundene Text- und Bildprobleme vor: âą Bildersuche. Ob Bilder anhand von textbasierten Suchanfragen gefunden werden, hĂ€ngt stark davon ab, ob der Text in der NĂ€he des Bildes mit dem der Anfrage ĂŒbereinstimmt. Bilder ohne textuellen Kontext, oder sogar mit thematisch passendem Kontext, aber ohne direkte Ăbereinstimmungen der vorhandenen Schlagworte zur Suchanfrage, können hĂ€ufig nicht gefunden werden. Zur Abhilfe schlagen wir vor, drei Arten von Informationen in Kombination zu nutzen: visuelle Informationen (in Form von automatisch generierten Bildbeschreibungen), textuelle Informationen (Stichworte aus vorangegangenen Suchanfragen), und Alltagswissen. âą Verbesserte Bildbeschreibungen. Bei der Objekterkennung durch Computer Vision kommt es des Ăfteren zu Fehldetektionen und InkohĂ€renzen. Die korrekte Identifikation von Bildinhalten ist jedoch eine wichtige Voraussetzung fĂŒr die Suche nach Bildern mittels textueller Suchanfragen. Um die FehleranfĂ€lligkeit bei der Objekterkennung zu minimieren, schlagen wir vor Alltagswissen einzubeziehen. Durch zusĂ€tzliche Bild-Annotationen, welche sich durch den gesunden Menschenverstand als thematisch passend erweisen, können viele fehlerhafte und zusammenhanglose Erkennungen vermieden werden. âą Bild-Text Platzierung. Auf Internetseiten mit Text- und Bildinhalten (wie Nachrichtenseiten, BlogbeitrĂ€ge, Artikel in sozialen Medien) werden Bilder in der Regel an semantisch sinnvollen Positionen im Textfluss platziert. Wir nutzen dies um ein Framework vorzuschlagen, in dem relevante Bilder ausgesucht werden und mit den passenden Abschnitten eines Textes assoziiert werden. âą Bildunterschriften. Bilder, die als Teil von multimodalen Inhalten zur Verbesserung der Lesbarkeit von Texten dienen, haben typischerweise Bildunterschriften, die zum Kontext des umgebenden Texts passen. Wir schlagen vor, den Kontext beim automatischen Generieren von Bildunterschriften ebenfalls einzubeziehen. Ăblicherweise werden hierfĂŒr die Bilder allein analysiert. Wir stellen die kontextbezogene Bildunterschriftengenerierung vor. Unsere vielversprechenden Beobachtungen und Ergebnisse eröffnen interessante Möglichkeiten fĂŒr weitergehende Forschung zur computergestĂŒtzten Erfassung des Zusammenspiels von Text- und Bildinhalten
Recent Trends in Communication Networks
In recent years there has been many developments in communication technology. This has greatly enhanced the computing power of small handheld resource-constrained mobile devices. Different generations of communication technology have evolved. This had led to new research for communication of large volumes of data in different transmission media and the design of different communication protocols. Another direction of research concerns the secure and error-free communication between the sender and receiver despite the risk of the presence of an eavesdropper. For the communication requirement of a huge amount of multimedia streaming data, a lot of research has been carried out in the design of proper overlay networks. The book addresses new research techniques that have evolved to handle these challenges
Description-driven Adaptation of Media Resources
The current multimedia landscape is characterized by a significant diversity in terms of available media formats, network technologies, and device properties. This heterogeneity has resulted in a number of new challenges, such as providing universal access to multimedia content. A solution for this diversity is the use of scalable bit streams, as well as the deployment of a complementary system that is capable of adapting scalable bit streams to the constraints imposed by a particular usage environment (e.g., the limited screen resolution of a mobile device). This dissertation investigates the use of an XML-driven (Extensible Markup Language) framework for the format-independent adaptation of scalable bit streams. Using this approach, the structure of a bit stream is first translated into an XML description. In a next step, the resulting XML description is transformed to reflect a desired adaptation of the bit stream. Finally, the transformed XML description is used to create an adapted bit stream that is suited for playback in the targeted usage environment. The main contribution of this dissertation is BFlavor, a new tool for exposing the syntax of binary media resources as an XML description. Its development was inspired by two other technologies, i.e. MPEG-21 BSDL (Bitstream Syntax Description Language) and XFlavor (Formal Language for Audio-Visual Object Representation, extended with XML features). Although created from a different point of view, both languages offer solutions for translating the syntax of a media resource into an XML representation for further processing. BFlavor (BSDL+XFlavor) harmonizes the two technologies by combining their strengths and eliminating their weaknesses. The expressive power and performance of a BFlavor-based content adaptation chain, compared to tool chains entirely based on either BSDL or XFlavor, were investigated by several experiments. One series of experiments targeted the exploitation of multi-layered temporal scalability in H.264/AVC, paying particular attention to the use of sub-sequences and hierarchical coding patterns, as well as to the use of metadata messages to communicate the bit stream structure to the adaptation logic. BFlavor was the only tool to offer an elegant and practical solution for XML-driven adaptation of H.264/AVC bit streams in the temporal domain
Data Science and Knowledge Discovery
Data Science (DS) is gaining significant importance in the decision process due to a mix of various areas, including Computer Science, Machine Learning, Math and Statistics, domain/business knowledge, software development, and traditional research. In the business field, DS's application allows using scientific methods, processes, algorithms, and systems to extract knowledge and insights from structured and unstructured data to support the decision process. After collecting the data, it is crucial to discover the knowledge. In this step, Knowledge Discovery (KD) tasks are used to create knowledge from structured and unstructured sources (e.g., text, data, and images). The output needs to be in a readable and interpretable format. It must represent knowledge in a manner that facilitates inferencing. KD is applied in several areas, such as education, health, accounting, energy, and public administration. This book includes fourteen excellent articles which discuss this trending topic and present innovative solutions to show the importance of Data Science and Knowledge Discovery to researchers, managers, industry, society, and other communities. The chapters address several topics like Data mining, Deep Learning, Data Visualization and Analytics, Semantic data, Geospatial and Spatio-Temporal Data, Data Augmentation and Text Mining
Intelligent Sensor Networks
In the last decade, wireless or wired sensor networks have attracted much attention. However, most designs target general sensor network issues including protocol stack (routing, MAC, etc.) and security issues. This book focuses on the close integration of sensing, networking, and smart signal processing via machine learning. Based on their world-class research, the authors present the fundamentals of intelligent sensor networks. They cover sensing and sampling, distributed signal processing, and intelligent signal learning. In addition, they present cutting-edge research results from leading experts
Barry Smith an sich
Festschrift in Honor of Barry Smith on the occasion of his 65th Birthday. Published as issue 4:4 of the journal Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization. Includes contributions by Wolfgang Grassl, Nicola Guarino, John T. Kearns, Rudolf LĂŒthe, Luc Schneider, Peter Simons, Wojciech Ć»eĆaniec, and Jan WoleĆski
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