Automatic Annotation of Images from the Practitioner Perspective

This paper describes an ongoing project which seeks to contribute to a wider understanding of the realities of bridging the semantic gap in visual image retrieval. A comprehensive survey of the means by which real image retrieval transactions are realised is being undertaken. An image taxonomy has been developed, in order to provide a framework within which account may be taken of the plurality of image types, user needs and forms of textual metadata. Significant limitations exhibited by current automatic annotation techniques are discussed, and a possible way forward using ontologically supported automatic content annotation is briefly considered as a potential means of mitigating these limitations

The scholarly impact of TRECVid (2003-2009)

This paper reports on an investigation into the scholarly impact of the TRECVid (TREC Video Retrieval Evaluation) benchmarking conferences between 2003 and 2009. The contribution of TRECVid to research in video retrieval is assessed by analyzing publication content to show the development of techniques and approaches over time and by analyzing publication impact through publication numbers and citation analysis. Popular conference and journal venues for TRECVid publications are identified in terms of number of citations received. For a selection of participants at different career stages, the relative importance of TRECVid publications in terms of citations vis a vis their other publications is investigated. TRECVid, as an evaluation conference, provides data on which research teams ‘scored’ highly against the evaluation criteria and the relationship between ‘top scoring’ teams at TRECVid and the ‘top scoring’ papers in terms of citations is analysed. A strong relationship was found between ‘success’ at TRECVid and ‘success’ at citations both for high scoring and low scoring teams. The implications of the study in terms of the value of TRECVid as a research activity, and the value of bibliometric analysis as a research evaluation tool, are discussed

Mind the Gap: Another look at the problem of the semantic gap in image retrieval

This paper attempts to review and characterise the problem of the semantic gap in image retrieval and the attempts being made to bridge it. In particular, we draw from our own experience in user queries, automatic annotation and ontological techniques. The first section of the paper describes a characterisation of the semantic gap as a hierarchy between the raw media and full semantic understanding of the media's content. The second section discusses real users' queries with respect to the semantic gap. The final sections of the paper describe our own experience in attempting to bridge the semantic gap. In particular we discuss our work on auto-annotation and semantic-space models of image retrieval in order to bridge the gap from the bottom up, and the use of ontologies, which capture more semantics than keyword object labels alone, as a technique for bridging the gap from the top down

Bridging the Semantic Gap in Multimedia Information Retrieval: Top-down and Bottom-up approaches

Semantic representation of multimedia information is vital for enabling the kind of multimedia search capabilities that professional searchers require. Manual annotation is often not possible because of the shear scale of the multimedia information that needs indexing. This paper explores the ways in which we are using both top-down, ontologically driven approaches and bottom-up, automatic-annotation approaches to provide retrieval facilities to users. We also discuss many of the current techniques that we are investigating to combine these top-down and bottom-up approaches

The model of understanding education and lifelong learning in Turkish modernization of Ahmet Midhat

The literary works of Ahmet Midhat Efendi like novels, stories, drama, travel writings in addition to subjects over education, pedagogy, sociology, philosophy and other fields have taken a vital place in Turkish literature. While the first Turkish modernizers gave priority to take the country out of the hard situation by reforming military and political areas, Ahmet Midhat argued that the social change and transformation can be achieved by educating individuals. Ahmet Midhat who tried to improve his educational background by spending personal efforts, always attempted to make education a constant activity for himself and people around him even during the times he was outside Istanbul for journalism, writing, familial issues and other reasons.The purpose of this paper is to show what kind of social benefit based theoretical methods were employed to concretize Ahmet Midhat’s educational view in his novels and stories by associating it with lifelong learning.In this study, the aim is to show by which theoretical methods lifelong learning is concretized in Ahmet Midhat’s novels and stories that are based on social benefit, and to demonstrate its relationship with educational conception.In the study, Ahmet Midhat’s novels which are especially handling directly family and education subjects like “Çingene”, “Felatun Bey ile Rakım Efendi”, “Diplomalı Kız” are taken as basis. To achieve this aim, a survey research has been made while scanning the works mentioned above. Moreover, the relationship between the given data and lifelong education has been tried to be put forward.At the end of the paper, Ahmet Midhat Efendi’s novels have been examined and it’s been evident that his lifelong learning approach is enough for educational process. Ahmet Midhat who aimed to build his own audience and to educate them has achieved two things in his novels: Firstly, the idealized characters told in Midhat’s novels and stories, who tried improving degree of their knowledge and enriching their lives, reached the success in different fields were given in theoretical level.   This technique which is used by the author in his novels has an aesthetic basis as a social aspect of literature. Secondly, the author gives encyclopedic information to the audience by going out of the fictional text. Furthermore, since the author is using traditional storytelling as a way to establish a dialogue with the audience, it’s obvious that he views the reader as the subject of the lifelong learning. His style which is criticized to be a dry didacticism is mostly originates from his perception of authorship, which is regarded as a school

Effect of body mass index on the incidence of perineal trauma.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between perineal trauma at childbirth and maternal body mass index (BMI), and estimate the risk of perineal trauma among different BMI groups. METHODS: Data were retrospectively assessed from all vaginal deliveries in a UK tertiary maternity unit between 1999 and 2014. Associations between BMI at booking and first- and second-degree tears (minor perineal trauma), third- and fourth-degree tears (obstetric anal sphincter injuries [OASIS]), and frequency of instrumental deliveries were assessed. Multivariate logistic regression included the factors BMI (weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters), age, ethnicity, smoking, parity, pregnancy length, episiotomies, instrumental delivery, and birth weight. RESULTS: Data from 45 557 deliveries were used. Compared with women with a normal BMI (<25), odds of minor perineal trauma were significantly reduced among women with obesity (BMI 30 to <35; odds ratio [OR] 0.91, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.84-0.99) or severe obesity (BMI ≥35; OR 0.87, 95% CI 0.77-0.98). OASIS was not significantly associated with BMI. Instrumental delivery rates were higher among women with normal BMI (5936/27 107; 22.0%) than among those with severe obesity (284/2032; 14.0%). CONCLUSION: Increased BMI at booking was associated with a reduced incidence of minor perineal trauma at delivery, but was not associated with OASIS

In Karakoç’s Poetry, Meaning and Use of the Concept of God in Terms of Islamic Sufism Epistemology

Bu çalışmada modern Türk şiirinde metafizik duyuşu önemli ölçüde şiirinde yansıtmaya çalışan Sezai Karakoç’un, Tanrı kavramının algılanma biçimi üzerinde durulmuştur. Modernite sürecinde hayatın kıyısına itilen Tanrı’nın, Karakoç’un şiirinde tekrar merkezi bir konuma yerleştirilmeye çalışıldığı ve insanın, eşyanın, doğanın Tanrı’nın merkezde olduğu geleneksel anlayışa göre yeniden konumlandırıldığı görülmüştür. Şiirlerde Tanrı anlayışının, daha çok tasavvufun varlık tasavvuru doğrultusunda düşünüldüğü tespit edilmiştir. Varlığın, “mutlak varlık” ve “izafi varlık” olarak ikiye ayrıldığı tasavvufun epistemolojisinin Karakoç’un pek çok şiirinde benzer şekilde kabul edildiği görülmüştür. Çalışmada temel kaynak olarak Karakoç’un Gün Doğmadan adlı toplu şiirleri esas alınmış, kısmen de düşünce yazılarından yararlanılmıştır.In this work, the conceptualisation of God in Sezai Karakoç, who, in his poem, tries to reflect the metaphysical feeling significantly in modern Turkish poetry is going to be discussed. It has been seen that God, who was pushed to the shore of life in the modernity process, has been attempted to place in a central position again in Karakoç poetry. It has been seen that human being, matter and nature have been repositioned according to the traditional understanding that God is at the center. In poems, it has been found that the concept of God is considered more like the God in understanding of Being in Tasavvuf. It is seen that the epistemology of Tasavvuf, in which the entity is divided into two as “absolute being” and “relative being”, is accepted in many poems of Karakoç in a similar way. As a basic source in the study, Karakoç’s collective poems called Gün Doğmadan were taken as basis and partly as a result of thought writings