Error resilience analysis of wireless image transmission using JPEG, JPEG 2000 and JPWL

The wireless extension of the JPEG 2000 standard formally known as JPWL is the newest international standard for still image compression. Different from all previous standards, this new standard was created specifically for wireless imaging applications. This paper examines the error resilience performance of the JPEG, JPEG 2000 and JPWL standards in combating multi-path and fading impairments in Rayleigh fading channels. Comprehensive objective and subjective results are presented in relation to the error resilience performance of these three standards under various conditions. The major findings in this paper reveal that a CRC approach is not a viable option for protecting wireless image data when not used in conjunction with an efficient retransmission strategy. In addition, the Reed-Solomon error correction codes in JPWL provide strong protection for wireless image transmission. However, any stronger protection beyond RS(64,32) yields diminishing returns

Responding to Lord Laming’s recommendation for further guidance on effective practice for Local Safeguarding Children Boards: A summary outline for consultation and a call for evidence

"Lord Laming published 'The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report' on 12 March 2009. In his report Lord Laming recommended that “The Department for Children, Schools and Families must provide further guidance to Local Safeguarding Children Boards on how to operate as effectively as possible following the publication of the Loughborough University research on Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs)”. The interim findings of the research from Loughborough University were published in June 2009. It is expected that the final report will be published by the end of March 2010... The publication of this summary outline [for consultation and a call for evidence] builds on the progress already made in addressing Lord Laming’s recommendations." - page 1

Geology Programs and Disciplinary Accreditation

This report raises the question of whether accreditation may be coming to the geology discipline, and attempts to quantify the positions on accreditation of academic department heads/chairs. The study makes a distinction between institutional and specialized (or disciplinary) accreditation and explores attitudes toward both types. Results of the analysis are presented with a discussion of two methods of data interpretation, a multivariate analysis technique and the Chi square test for heterogeneity or independence. The report concludes that there is currently insufficient support for establishing disciplinary accreditation in geology. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Exploratory study to explore the role of ICT in the process of knowledge management in an Indian business environment

In the 21st century and the emergence of a digital economy, knowledge and the knowledge base economy are rapidly growing. To effectively be able to understand the processes involved in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge management in the business environment is critical to the success of an organization. This study builds on the previous research of the authors on the enablers of knowledge management by identifying the relationship between the enablers of knowledge management and the role played by information communication technologies (ICT) and ICT infrastructure in a business setting. This paper provides the findings of a survey collected from the four major Indian cities (Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Villupuram) regarding their views and opinions about the enablers of knowledge management in business setting. A total of 80 organizations participated in the study with 100 participants in each city. The results show that ICT and ICT infrastructure can play a critical role in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge in an Indian business environment

ICMI 2012 chairs' welcome

Welcome to Santa Monica and to the 14th edition of the International Conference on Multimodal Interaction, ICMI 2012. ICMI is the premier international forum for multidisciplinary research on multimodal human-human and human-computer interaction, interfaces, and system development. We had a record number of submissions this year: 147 (74 long papers, 49 short papers, 5 special session papers and 19 demo papers). From these submissions, we accepted 15 papers for long oral presentation (20.3% acceptance rate), 10 papers for short oral presentation (20.4% acceptance rate) and 19 papers presented as posters. We have a total acceptance rate of 35.8% for all short and long papers. 12 of the 19 demo papers were accepted. All 5 special session papers were directly invited by the organizers and the papers were all accepted. In addition, the program includes three invited Keynote talks. One of the two novelties introduced at ICMI this year is the Multimodal Grand Challenges. Developing systems that can robustly understand human-human communication or respond to human input requires identifying the best algorithms and their failure modes. In fields such as computer vision, speech recognition, and computational linguistics, the availability of datasets and common tasks have led to great progress. This year, we accepted four challenge workshops: the Audio-Visual Emotion Challenge (AVEC), the Haptic Voice Recognition challenge, the D-META challenge and Brain-Computer Interface challenge. Stefanie Telex and Daniel Gatica-Perez are co-chairing the grand challenge this year. All four Grand Challenges will be presented on Monday, October 22nd, and a summary session will be happening on Wednesday, October 24th, afternoon during the main conference. The second novelty at ICMI this year is the Doctoral Consortium—a separate, one-day event to take place on Monday, October 22nd, co-chaired by Bilge Mutlu and Carlos Busso. The goal of the Doctoral Consortium is to provide Ph.D. students with an opportunity to present their work to a group of mentors and peers from a diverse set of academic and industrial backgrounds and institutions, to receive feedback on their doctoral research plan and progress, and to build a cohort of young researchers interested in designing multimodal interfaces. All accepted students receive a travel grant to attend the conference. From among 25 applications, 14 students were accepted for participation and to receive travel funding. The organizers thank the National Science Foundation (award IIS-1249319) and conference sponsors for financial support