Image Understanding by Socializing the Semantic Gap

Several technological developments like the Internet, mobile devices and Social Networks have spurred the sharing of images in unprecedented volumes, making tagging and commenting a common habit. Despite the recent progress in image analysis, the problem of Semantic Gap still hinders machines in fully understand the rich semantic of a shared photo. In this book, we tackle this problem by exploiting social network contributions. A comprehensive treatise of three linked problems on image annotation is presented, with a novel experimental protocol used to test eleven state-of-the-art methods. Three novel approaches to annotate, under stand the sentiment and predict the popularity of an image are presented. We conclude with the many challenges and opportunities ahead for the multimedia community

The Influence of Opinion Leaders towards the Purchase Intentions of Consumers in the Virtual Communities of Consumption

Tohoku University大滝精一課

Big data in education and organizational change: Evidence from private K12 schools in China

China is a time-honored civilization with a long history of private education. In China, private education has played an important role in preserving Chinese civilization. At the end of the 20th century, private education in China began to develop thanks to government support. As such, remarkable progress was made during the past decade. Due to specific conditions within the education industry, however, the administration of private edu-cation - and basic education, in particular - has remained rudimentary compared with other more mature service industries. To address the many problems in basic education, such as rig-id teaching methods, heavy teacher workloads and long, repetitive working hours, it is imper-ative in this information era to conduct innovative explorations with the help of the “internet of things” (IoT), big data and other scientific and technological means to carry out organiza-tional reform in schools and to establish contemporary organizational structures and manage-ment modes. Doing so will comprehensively improve the administration of basic education, which will in turn promote the quality of education and teaching. This thesis examines Tianli Education Group, a typical example of private, basic educa-tion in China. By adopting experimental research methods, the behavior of students and teachers in Tianli’s schools were experimentally analyzed. IoT technology was employed to collect data about student behavior at school. Likewise, after collecting and analyzing big data on the behavior of teachers at school, the content and processes of their work were analyzed. Based on these experiments, this thesis explores a new 5G era-appropriate mode of stu-dent selection and training that makes use of big data technology. It outlines the standard work scenario for teachers and improves both their work efficiency and salaries by “trimming staff and streamlining administration,” thus rekindling enthusiasm among teachers for their work. Finally, as a part of this thesis, a series of organizational changes were implemented at Tianli Education Group and its schools to boost organizational vitality, improve overall levels of education, teaching and operational efficiency, raise teachers’ salaries and enhance student happiness.A China é uma civilização muito antiga, com uma longa história de educação privada. A educação privada desempenhou um papel importante na preservação da civilização chinesa. No final do século 20, a educação privada na China começou a desenvolver-se com o apoio do governo. Nos últimos dez anos, devido ao apoio concedido temos assistido a um grande progresso. Contudo e em virtude das condições específicas da indústria da educação, a administração da educação privada – a educação básica em particular – permaneceu rudimentar quando comparada com outras indústrias de serviços. Para resolver os muitos problemas da educação básica, tais como os métodos rígidos de ensino, as cargas de trabalho pesadas e horas de trabalho repetitivas, torna-se imperativo nesta era da informação realizar pesquisas inovadoras com a ajuda da “Internet das Coisas”, do “Big Data” e meios científicos e tecnológicos que nos permitam realizar a reforma nas escolas e estabelecer estruturas organizacionais e métodos de gestão adaptados aos tempos em que vivemos. Os resultados destas pesquisas irão contribuir para melhorar de uma forma abrangente a administração da educação básica, o que por sua vez promoverá a qualidade da educação e do ensino. Esta tese estuda o Tianli Education Group, que consideramos um bom exemplo do ensino privado na educação básica na China. Adoptando métodos experimentais de pesquisa, o comportamento dos estudantes e professores das escolas Tianli foram analisados. Aplicamos a tecnologia da “Internet das Coisas” para recolher informações sobre comportamento dos alunos na escola. Da mesma forma, após a recolha e análise dos dados sobre o comportamento dos professores na escola, efetuamos a análise do conteúdo e dos processos do seu trabalho. Tendo por base estas experiências, esta tese explora na nova era 5G, um modo apropriado para seleção e formação dos alunos. Esta tese descreve o cenário padrão de trabalho para professores e melhora não somente a eficiência do trabalho como também os seus salários ao “reduzir o pessoal e simplificar a administração”, reacendendo assim o entusiasmo dos professores pelo seu trabalho. Finalmente, como parte desta tese, uma série de mudanças organizacionais foram implementadas nas escolas do grupo Tianli Education Group com a finalidade de impulsionar a vitalidade organizacional, melhorar todos os níveis gerais de educação, aumentar a eficiência operacional e de ensino, aumentar os salários dos professores e aumentar a felicidade dos alunos

Social Media and Public Health: Opportunities and Challenges

Social media has the potential to provide rapid insights into unfolding public health emergencies such as infectious disease outbreaks. They can also be drawn upon for rapid, survey-based insights into various health topics. Social media has also been utilised by medical professionals for the purposes of sharing scholarly works, international collaboration, and engaging in policy debates. One benefit of using social media platforms to gain insight into health is that they have the ability to capture unfiltered public opinion in large volumes, avoiding the potential biases introduced by surveys or interviews. Social media platforms can also be utilised to pilot surveys, for instance, though the use of Twitter polls. Social media data have also been drawn upon in medical emergencies and crisis situations as a public health surveillance tool. A number of software and online tools also exist, developed specifically to aide public health research utilising social media data. In recent years, ethical issues regarding the retrieval and analysis of data have also arisen

Social Media Marketing Strategies to Engage Generation Y Consumers

Consumers of the Generation Y cohort, also referred to as Millennials, include approximately 75 million Americans who have significant purchasing power. These consumers access social media on a daily basis, but they often ignore advertisements that are targeted to them. Previous studies on social media marketing to Generation Y consumers have focused on consumer input but lacked data from marketing professionals. The purpose of this phenomenological study of social media marketers in the United States was to determine successful strategies to engage Generation Y on social media. The study\u27s conceptual framework was attitude toward the ad. The data were gathered through semistructured telephone interviews conducted with 20 social media marketing professionals who were recruited through email and social media. The data were coded using inductive codes of reoccurring themes. Social media marketers were found to be most successful when remaining honest and transparent, and when personalizing their communications to their target audiences. Marketers reading this study can gain insight into the social media behavior of Generation Y consumers and can apply the strategies presented in this study in their social media campaigns. This study may promote social change by improving the relationship between social media marketers and Generation Y consumers, allowing Generation Y consumers to gain a stronger voice in marketing, and by highlighting the need for marketers to communicate and advertise more honestly with their consumers

The Palgrave Handbook of Digital Russia Studies

This open access handbook presents a multidisciplinary and multifaceted perspective on how the ‘digital’ is simultaneously changing Russia and the research methods scholars use to study Russia. It provides a critical update on how Russian society, politics, economy, and culture are reconfigured in the context of ubiquitous connectivity and accounts for the political and societal responses to digitalization. In addition, it answers practical and methodological questions in handling Russian data and a wide array of digital methods. The volume makes a timely intervention in our understanding of the changing field of Russian Studies and is an essential guide for scholars, advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying Russia today