Ten years of MIREX: reflections, challenges and opportunities

The Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange (MIREX) has been run annually since 2005, with the October 2014 plenary marking its tenth iteration. By 2013, MIREX has evaluated approximately 2000 individual music information retrieval (MIR) algorithms for a wide range of tasks over 37 different test collections. MIREX has involved researchers from over 29 different contrives with a median of 109 individual participants per year. This pater summarizes the history of MIREX form its earliest planning meeting in 2001 to the present. It reflects upon the administrative, financial, and technological challenges MIREX has faced and describes how those challenges have been surmounted. We propose new funding models, a distributed evaluation framework, and more holistic user experience evaluation tasks-some evolutionary, some revolutionary-for the continued success of MIREX. We hope that this paper will inspire MIR community members to contribute their ideas so MIREX can have many more successful years to come

REST and Linked Data: a match made for domain driven development?

At a first glance there might appear to be an obvious alignment and overlap between the approaches prescribed by REST and Linked Data. On more detailed inspection divergences in scope and applicability present themselves, and for some aspects, incompatibility. In this paper we investigate these similarities and differences and suggest the coupling is worthy of a third look: in combination as a flexible environment in which the developer can focus on domain driven applications

Bioetika u budućnosti: ekološki odgoj od predškolske dobi. Dramsko glazbena radionica kao primjer

In today’s society, public opinion plays a large role in the adoption of various legal measures and regulations, including those related to the field of bioethics. This is why experts have a duty to inform the public in a timely and accurate manner, and it is up to educators to educate new generations to become responsible citizens who can make informed decisions. A few years ago, attempts were made to implement a project of health education and then one of civic education in schools. Those curricula predict the student will develop human, political, social, cultural, economic and environmental competences as a citizen of the class, school and local community. A spiral development model of introduction by educational cycles is envisaged, starting from the 1st grade of primary school. However, civic education is also addressed by the national curriculum for early and preschool education, which anticipates development of social and civic competences in children of this age. Bioethics and environmental issues are still not sufficiently transparent to the public. This is why proper environmental education from preschool age is very important. In preschool education, the proper approach is essential, and contemporary pedagogy emphasizes the importance of learning through play. The artistic fields are imposed as an ideal framework in which various contents can be accommodated. A drama music workshop that will help children develop awareness of various issues through play is, therefore, an ideal training ground for educating a responsible and informed citizen. One such drama music workshop was organized for the purpose of demonstration on the occasion of the First Osijek Days of Bioethics. The story used in the workshop is from a picture book by Aleix Cabrera and Rosa M. Curto: Niko and nutrition. Through the play and the story, the importance of proper nutrition was emphasized to children and made them aware that it is necessary to know what they actually eat and where and how food comes from. This paper uses the workshop as a starting point when discussing the role of artistic fields and educators in creating a responsible and informed citizen in fields of bioethics and environmental issues and the importance of early and preschool education in the process.U današnjem društvu javno mnijenje igra veliku ulogu u donošenju različitih zakonskih mjera i regulativa, pa tako i onih vezanih za područje bioetike. Zbog toga stručnjaci imaju obavezu pravovremenog i točnog informiranja javnosti, a na pedagozima je da odgoje nove generacije kako bi postali odgovorni građani koji mogu donositi informirane odluke. U školstvu se prije par godina pokušao provesti projekt zdravstvenog odgoja, a zatim i građanskog odgoja i obrazovanja. Tim kurikulumom predviđeno je da učenik kao građanin razredne, školske i lokalne zajednice razvije ljudskopravne, političke, društvene, kulturne, gospodarske i ekološke kompetencije. Predviđen je spiralno-razvojni model uvođenja po obrazovnim ciklusima, počevši od 1. razreda osnovne škole. No, građanskim odgojem ipak se bavi i nacionalni kurikulum za rani i predškolski odgoj koji predviđa razvoj socijalnih i građanskih kompetencija u djece rane i predškolske dobi. Problematika bioetike i okoliša još je uvijek nedovoljno transparentna u javnosti. Zbog toga je pravilan ekološki odgoj od predškolske dobi vrlo važan. Pri odgoju i obrazovanju u predškolskoj dobi bitan je pravilan pristup, a suvremena pedagogija naglašava važnost učenja kroz igru. Umjetnička područja nameću se kao idealan okvir u koji možemo smjestiti različite sadržaje. Dramsko glazbena radionica kojom će se djeci kroz igru razviti svijest o različitim problematikama predstavlja stoga idealan poligon za odgoj i obrazovanje odgovornog i informiranog građanina. Za potrebe demonstracije povodom Prvih osječkih dana bioetike organizirana je jedna takva dramsko glazbena radionica. Priča koja se koristila u radionici je iz slikovnice Aleix Cabrere i Rose M. Curto: Niko i prehrana. Njome se kroz igru i priču djeci naglasilo važnost pravilne prehrane i osvijestilo potrebu za time da znaju što zapravo jedu te odakle i na koji način dolazi hrana. Ovaj rad koristi održanu radionicu kao polaznu točku pri diskusiji o ulozi umjetničkih područja i pedagoga u stvaranju odgovornog i informiranog građanina u temama bioetike i zaštite okoliša te važnosti ranog i predškolskog odgoja u tom procesu

Koncept članstva u bh. bibliotekama: od samoupravljanja k participaciji

The aim of this paper is to examine the possibilities and scope of the participatory model of BIH libraries in the period of self-governing socialism for the purpose of rethinking the way of doing business and relations with library users through a new, participatory approach. Participatory activities in pre-war BIH libraries and theoretical assumptions of participatory librarianship can serve as a starting point for considering the current model of involving library users in their capacity as its members. The results of this paper will try to show that the participatory library model always depends on certain socio-political aspects of government, starting from different methodologies and ways of cooperation, but also that certain type of understanding of participation further implies wider civic engagement or verification of the existing social situation. The importance of this analysis is in a better understanding of the two types of participatory approaches in libraries that, due to redefining relationships with users, can lead to different forms of social action and management.Cilj ovog rada jeste propitati mogućnosti i domete učesničkog modela djelovanja bh. biblioteka u periodu samoupravnog socijalizma za potrebe reosmišljavanja načina poslovanja i odnosa s korisnicima/cama biblioteke kroz novi, participativni pristup. Učesničko djelovanje u prijeratnim bh. bibliotekama i teorijske postavke participatornog bibliotekarstva mogu poslužiti kao polazna tačka za promišljanje modela uključivanja korisnika/ca biblioteke u svojstvu njenih članova/ica. Rezultati ovog rada nastojat će pokazati da učesnički bibliotečki model uvijek zavisi od pojedinih društveno-političkih aspekata državnog uređenja, polazi od različitih metodologija i načina suradnje, ali i da određena vrsta shvatanja učešća dalje implicira širi građanski angažman ili pak verifikaciju postojećeg društvenog stanja. Važnost je ove analize u boljem razumijevanju dvije vrste učesničkog pristupa u bibliotekama koji zbog redefiniranja odnosa s korisnicima/cama mogu polučiti različite oblike društvenog djelovanja i upravljanja

Croatian-English code-switching patterns of Croatian Facebook users

After the extensive research and the related discussion, certain conclusions arise. The nature of Facebook language can be described as hybrid because the traditional lines between standard and vernacular varieties are blurred. Depending on who they consider they primary audience, the authors of Facebook posts adjust their linguistic choices accordingly, i.e. according to the linguistic expectations of the audience. In-group membership and individual and group identity construction are one of the main causes for CS. Except the audience, the authors also use CS depending on the domain which they are writing about. The most frequent domains that trigger CS are music, movies, Internet- and pop-culture, and CS most often bears the referential function to these domains. The switches are most often produced by young adults, as was shown by the data collected in the questionnaire. English is, therefore, primarily the language of young subculture-members and students of foreign languages, whose presence was recorded in the corpus and the questionnaire. The rest of the participants and CS-producers use English as an often-occurring phenomenon in the Croatian culture (which nowadays is under an ever-growing influence of English transmitted through the Internet, advertisements, music and other modern media) and under the influence of their competence in English as a universal means of communication in specific occasions (English as a lingua franca). English-culture concepts are omnipresent in their everyday lives, in some cases even without any associations with a particular subculture-group or without a high level of proficiency in English. It has also been noted that Facebook posts are both synchronous and asynchronous communication, or simply put - they are quasi-synchronous modes, on the basis of which we can state that Facebook users engaged in writing in comments, status updates and posts can spontaneously, but also via editing produce language on Facebook. For sure it can be stated that they are to a certain degree bilingual, but some of them, with their simple and in Croatian often used English constructions, can not be classified as prototypical bilinguals. Therefore, it can be concluded that code-switching patterns of Facebook users in Croatia are the patterns of minimal bilingualism and that their CS does not imply everyday successful offline communication in English. It can be stated that CS in Facebook posts is an indicator of minimal bilingualism, rather than conventionalized bilingualism. In order to specify the degree of bilingualism and provide a more detailed analysis of CS patterns of Croatian users of English on Facebook, future work should include studying private domains of FMC (Facebook chat and private asynchronous messages), and over an even longer period of time. Also, a case study on a small number of participants could be conducted. Other age groups could be targeted as subjects of the research. Namely, teenagers, young adults, adults and seniors in order to observe each groups’ frequency of Croatian-English CS. Due to the recent trends in usage of English in both international communication and, as is the case in this paper, within the Croatian language, or together with Croatian in the same conversation (excluding anglicisms), it can be assumed that the role of English will be ever-growing. However, the question remains to which level it will spread and in what ways Croatian will adapt and/or resist its influence

Can SDN Technology Be Transported to Software-Defined WSN/IoT?

© 2016 IEEE. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are essential elements of the Internet of Things ecosystem, as such, they encounter numerous IoT challenging architectural, management and application issues. These include inflexible control, manual configuration and management of sensor nodes, difficulty in an orchestration of resources, and virtualizing sensor network resources for on-demand applications and services. Addressing these issues presents a real challenge for WSNs and IoTs. By separating the network control plane from the data forwarding plane, Software-defined networking (SDN) has emerged as network technology that addresses similar problems of current switched-networks. Despite the differences between switched network and wireless sensor network domains, the SDN technology has a real potential to revolutionize WSNs/IoTs and address their challenging issues. However, very little has been attempted to bring the SDN paradigm to WSNs. This paper identifies weaknesses of existing research efforts that aims to bring the benefits of SDN to WSNs by mapping the control plane, the OpenFlow protocol, and the functionality between the two network domains. In particular, the paper investigates the difficulties and challenges in the development of software-defined wireless sensor networking (SDWSN). Finally, the paper proposes VSensor, SDIoT controller, SFlow components with specific and relevant functionality for an architecture of an SDWSN or SDIoT infrastructure