An image retrieval system based on explicit and implicit feedback on a tablet computer

Our research aims at developing a image retrieval system which uses relevance feedback to build a hybrid search /recommendation system for images according to users’ inter ests. An image retrieval application running on a tablet computer gathers explicit feedback through the touchscreen but also uses multiple sensing technologies to gather implicit feedback such as emotion and action. A recommendation mechanism driven by collaborative filtering is implemented to verify our interaction design

The goodness-of-fit tests for geometric models

We propose two types of goodness-of-fit tests for geometric distribution and for a bivariate geometric distribution called BGD(B&D), based on their probability generating function (PGF). The first type is a special-case application of the general testing procedure for discrete distributions proposed by Kocherlakota and Kocherlakota (1986). The second type utilizes the supremum of the absolute value of the standardized difference between the PGF’s maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and its empirical counterpart as the test statistic. We verify the asymptotic properties of the test statistics for the first type of test and explore the asymptotic behaviors of the test statistics for the second type of test by calculating the empirical critical points and constructing the density curves. We compare the proposed tests with Chi-square and the empirical distribution function (EDF) related tests proposed in the literature in terms of significance level and power. Based on the comparison results, we recommend the second type of goodness-of fit test for both geometric distribution and BGD(B&D) because of its robustness, efficiency in computation and no need for selecting t. Real data sets are used for illustration

Automatic Geospatial Data Conflation Using Semantic Web Technologies

Duplicate geospatial data collections and maintenance are an extensive problem across Australia government organisations. This research examines how Semantic Web technologies can be used to automate the geospatial data conflation process. The research presents a new approach where generation of OWL ontologies based on output data models and presenting geospatial data as RDF triples serve as the basis for the solution and SWRL rules serve as the core to automate the geospatial data conflation processes

FastSal: a Computationally Efficient Network for Visual Saliency Prediction

This paper focuses on the problem of visual saliency prediction, predicting regions of an image that tend to attract human visual attention, under a constrained computational budget. We modify and test various recent efficient convolutional neural network architectures like EfficientNet and MobileNetV2 and compare them with existing state-of-the-art saliency models such as SalGAN and DeepGaze II both in terms of standard accuracy metrics like AUC and NSS, and in terms of the computational complexity and model size. We find that MobileNetV2 makes an excellent backbone for a visual saliency model and can be effective even without a complex decoder. We also show that knowledge transfer from a more computationally expensive model like DeepGaze II can be achieved via pseudo-labelling an unlabelled dataset, and that this approach gives result on-par with many state-of-the-art algorithms with a fraction of the computational cost and model size. Source code is available at https://github.com/feiyanhu/FastSal

Modeling of mass transfer performance of hot-air drying of sweet potato (Ipomoea Batatas L.) slices

In order to investigate the transfer characteristics of the sweet potato drying process, a laboratory convective hot air dryer was applied to study the influences of drying temperature, hot air velocity and thickness of sweet potato slice on the drying process. The experimental data of moisture ratio of sweet potato slices were used to fit the mathematical models, and the effective diffusion coefficients were calculated. The result showed that temperature, velocity and thickness influenced the drying process significantly. The Logarithmic model showed the best fit to experimental drying data for temperature and the Wang and Singh model were found to be the most satisfactory for velocity and thickness. It was also found that, with the increase of temperature from 60 to 80°C, the effective moisture diffusion coefficient varied from 2.962×10-10 to 4.694×10-10 m2×s-1, and it fitted the Arrhenius equation, the activation energy was 23.29 kJ×mol-1; with the increase of hot air velocity from 0.423 to 1.120 m×s-1, the values of effective moisture diffusion coefficient varied from 2.877×10-10 to 3.760×10-10 m2•s-1; with the increase of thickness of sweet potato slice from 0.002 m to 0.004 m, the values of effective moisture diffusion coefficient varied from 3.887×10-10 to 1.225×10-9 m2•s-1

Periodicity detection in lifelog data with missing and irregularly sampled data

Lifelogging is the ambient, continuous digital recording of a person’s everyday activities for a variety of possible applications. Much of the work to date in lifelogging has focused on developing sensors, capturing information, processing it into events and then supporting event-based access to the lifelog for applications like memory recall, behaviour analysis or similar. With the recent arrival of aggregating platforms such as Apple’s HealthKit, Microsoft’s HealthVault and Google’s Fit, we are now able to collect and aggregate data from lifelog sensors, to centralize the management of data and in particular to search for and detect patterns of usage for individuals and across populations. In this paper, we present a framework that detects both lowlevel and high-level periodicity in lifelog data, detecting hidden patterns of which users would not otherwise be aware. We detect periodicities of time series using a combination of correlograms and periodograms, using various signal processing algorithms. Periodicity detection in lifelogs is particularly challenging because the lifelog data itself is not always continuous and can have gaps as users may use their lifelog devices intermittingly. To illustrate that periodicity can be detected from such data, we apply periodicity detection on three lifelog datasets with varying levels of completeness and accuracy

O humor verbal como instrumento didático em manuais de Português Língua Estrangeira/Língua Segunda

A presente dissertação focaliza-se na utilização do humor verbal como instrumento didático no ensino e aprendizagem de Português Língua Estrangeira/ Língua Segunda (PLE/PL2). Na comunicação interpessoal, o humor pode constituir uma fonte de dificuldades para aprendentes de língua estrangeira/segunda, porque dele podem fazer parte as ambiguidades de sentido, as referências culturais, históricas ou contextuais. Para uma atuação efetiva nos registos humorísticos, os aprendentes devem ter mais exposição a materiais humorísticos na sua aprendizagem. No contexto do ensino de LE/L2, o humor pode ser um instrumento importante ao serviço dos aspetos linguísticos e socioculturais da língua meta, promovendo ainda um ambiente de aprendizagem que incentive participações. O nosso interesse foi examinar a presença do humor verbal e o seu aproveitamento didático em manuais de PLE/PL2, na medida em que os manuais ainda podem ser considerados como um dos principais recursos didáticos no atual contexto educativo. Antes de proceder à análise, fizemos uma breve exposição dos estudos que abordam o humor no contexto do ensino de LE/L2, apontando as necessidades e os benefícios potenciais da sua incorporação nas aulas e salientando a necessidade do seu uso apropriado, de modo a evitar possíveis efeitos negativos. Além disso, verificou-se que havia pouca atenção dispensada ao humor verbal nos documentos oficiais relativos ao ensino de PLE/PL2, quer como instrumento didático, quer como parte da competência comunicativa plena. Através duma análise quantitativa e qualitativa dos textos humorísticos encontrados no conjunto de vinte e oito manuais de PLE/PL2, procuramos dar respostas às seguintes perguntas: (1) quando os autores usam textos humorísticos nos manuais de PLE/PL2, estão conscientes de que estão a usá-los como instrumento didático? (2) Como se correlacionam os tipos de texto humorístico, os objetivos didáticos, as funções didáticas nas atividades? (3) Qual é a diferença no uso dos textos humorísticos entre os manuais de PLE/PL2 destinados às diferentes faixas etárias, e aos diferentes níveis de proficiência do público-alvo? Neste trabalho, afirmamos a convicção de que o humor verbal pode e deve estar presente nas aulas de PLE/PL2, uma vez que este discurso pode ser um recurso muito proveitoso tanto para o professor como para os aprendentes.This dissertation focuses on the use of verbal humor as a didactic tool in teaching and learning Portuguese as a foreign/second language (PLE/PL2). In interpersonal communication, humor can be a source of difficulties for language learners, because ambiguities of meaning, cultural, historical or contextual references can be part of it. For an effective performance in humorous communicative situations, it is necessary that learners have more exposure to humorous materials in their learning. In the context of foreign/second language teaching, humor can be an important tool to teach linguistic and sociocultural aspects of the target language, and to promote a learning environment that encourages participation. Our interest was to examine the presence of verbal humor and its didactic use in PLE/PL2 manuals, as the manuals can still be considered as one of the main teaching resources in the current educational context. Before proceeding to the analysis, we made a brief presentation of the studies that address humor in the context of foreign/second language teaching, pointing out the needs and potential benefits of its inclusion into the classes and emphasizing the need for its appropriate use in order to avoid possible negative effects. In addition, it was found that little attention was paid to verbal humor in official documents concerning the teaching of PLE/PL2, either as a didactic tool or as part of full communicative competence. Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the humorous texts found in twenty-eight PFL/PSL manuals, we try to provide answers to the following questions: (1) when the authors use humorous texts in the manuals, they are aware of using them as a teaching tool? (2) How are the types of humorous text, didactic objectives, didactic functions correlated in activities? (3) What is the difference between the use of humorous texts between the manuals for different age groups, and the different levels of proficiency of the target audience? In this work we affirm the conviction that verbal humor can and should be present in the PFL/PSL classes, since it can be a very useful resource for both the teacher and the learners

Periodicity detection and its application in lifelog data

Wearable sensors are catching our attention not only in industry but also in the market. We can now acquire sensor data from different types of health tracking devices like smart watches, smart bands, lifelog cameras and most smart phones are capable of tracking and logging information using built-in sensors. As data is generated and collected from various sources constantly, researchers have focused on interpreting and understanding the semantics of this longitudinal multi-modal data. One challenge is the fusion of multi-modal data and achieving good performance on tasks such activity recognition, event detection and event segmentation. The classical approach to process the data generated by wearable sensors has three main parts: 1) Event segmentation 2) Event recognition 3) Event retrieval. Many papers have been published in each of the three fields. This thesis has focused on the longitudinal aspect of the data from wearable sensors, instead of concentrating on the data over a short period of time. The following aspects are several key research questions in the thesis. Does longitudinal sensor data have unique features than can distinguish the subject generating the data from other subjects ? In other words, from the longitudinal perspective, does the data from different subjects share more common structure/similarity/identical patterns so that it is difficult to identify a subject using the data. If this is the case, what are those common patterns ? If we are able to eliminate those similarities among all the data, does the data show more specific features that we can use to model the data series and predict the future values ? If there are repeating patterns in longitudinal data, we can use different methods to compute the periodicity of the recurring patterns and furthermore to identify and extract those patterns. Following that we could be able to compare local data over a short time period with more global patterns in order to show the regularity of the local data. Some case studies are included in the thesis to show the value of longitudinal lifelog data related to a correlation of health conditions and training performance

A Study on the Psychological Characteristics and Intervention of “Lie Flat” Young College Students in Xi’an China

In the past two years, the term “Lying flat” has become popular rapidly. Lacking willpower, academic anxiety, employment pressure and other factors are the reasons for young people gradually lying flat. In order to escape the standard of success of social monism, people who immersed in the virtual world isolated themselves in the personal world. In order to ignore the external voices, they covered their ears. Rather than say not caring about the outside world’s opinions, they are more likely to be stubborn in their own “Intention”. The times are progressing. Young people are also the followers of the times and the trailblazers in life. Our young people should strive for self-improvement, keep the fervour for life, and pay attention to the psychology of the “Lying down” young people, it is of great significance to interfere with the growth of “Lying flat” youth, we should face up to the spiritual essence reflected by the phenomenon of “Lying flat”. The posture of the striver is always the same in the turn of the times. It is necessary to create a fair competition environment, strengthen the psychological supervision of the youth, and establish correct values, thus helping the “Lying flat” youth change into the “Struggling” youth