Photo annotation and retrieval through speech

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 36).In this thesis I describe the development of a speech-based annotation and retrieval system for digital photographs. The system uses a client/server architecture which allows photographs to be captured and annotated on various clients, such as mobile camera phones or the web, and then processed, indexed and stored on networked servers. For speech-based retrieval we have developed a mixed grammar recognition approach which allows the speech recognition system to construct a single finite-state network combining context-free grammars for recognizing and parsing query carrier phrases and metadata phrases, with an unconstrained statistical n-gram model for recognizing free-form search terms. Experiments demonstrating successful retrieval of photographs using purely speech-based annotation and retrieval are presented.by Brennan P. Sherry.M.Eng

Energy transitions, sub-national government and regime flexibility : how has devolution in the United Kingdom affected renewable energy development?

We acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council for funding the research on which this paper was based (Grant Number RES-062-23-2526).Peer reviewedPostprin

Rescaling the Governance of Renewable Energy : Lessons from the UK Devolution Experience

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium ‘Scale in environmental governance: power reconfiguration, democratic legitimacy and institutional (mis-)fit’, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Berlin 7-8 March 2013. We would like to thank the symposium participants, special issue editors and three anonymous referees for their comments and advice.Peer reviewe

Alternative liquid fuels in Britain in the inter-war period (1918-1938):Insights for future energy transitions

Against a backdrop of growing interest in the development of low carbon alternatives to petroleum derived liquid fuels, this paper provides an analysis of earlier experiences of the emergence and evolution of alternative liquid fuels. We argue such analyses can provide useful insights for future energy transitions and in particular the governance of such transitions. This paper focusses on two alternatives to petrol manufactured in the UK during the inter-war period (1918-1938). The two fuels were power alcohol, made by the Distillers Company Ltd. (DCL) and sold as Discol between 1921 and 1973, and a petrol-from-coal made by Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. (ICI), which was blended with petroleum derived petrol and sold between 1935 and 1958. Here we examine the background to the emergence of these fuels, the actors involved and their combined roles. We find both fuels received government support during a time of rapid growth in the motor industry, fluctuating economic conditions, fears of absolute oil shortages, and the desire to develop the UK’s chemical industry. Both fuels were considerably affected by changing political thinking around energy security and oil major hegemony; governance of fuel distribution in particular had significant effects on both fuels. We discuss how changing modes of governance, between market and state logics, created hybrid governance conditions. These conditions reflected state intervention to support new fuels and a failure to regulate the market for fuel distribution. Therefore, whilst hybrid governance provided government with the flexibility to respond quickly to changing circumstances, unresolved tensions between policies made it more difficult for alternative fuels to thrive

Do the ends justify the means? Problematizing social acceptance and instrumentally-driven community engagement in proposed energy projects

Proposed energy projects across rural working landscapes play an important role in energy transitions. While community engagement has been increasingly a part of these projects, instrumental motivations for engagement and the emphasis placed on achieving social acceptance has remained uncritically examined. Here, we aim to highlight relationships between actor rationale, the structuring of engagement processes, and how communities perceive the driving forces behind engagement practices. To do so, we draw on lived experiences of communities facing proposed shale gas and wind energy projects across rural working landscapes in the UK and Canada, respectively. We find that engagement is often perceived by community members as insincere, insufficient, ineffective and instrumentally-driven. We suggest that a more community-centered approach to engagement is necessary and will require a move beyond existing engagement and acceptance practice and frameworks. This can include creating more inclusive decision-making processes where powers are balanced and designing community engagement to incorporate multiple rationales beyond achieving social acceptance of energy projects.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Alternative liquid fuels in Britain in the inter-war period (1918-1938): Insights for future energy transitions

Against a backdrop of growing interest in the development of low carbon alternatives to petroleum derived liquid fuels, this paper provides an analysis of earlier experiences of the emergence and evolution of alternative liquid fuels. We argue such analyses can provide useful insights for future energy transitions and in particular the governance of such transitions. This paper focusses on two alternatives to petrol manufactured in the UK during the inter-war period (1918-1938). The two fuels were power alcohol, made by the Distillers Company Ltd. (DCL) and sold as Discol between 1921 and 1973, and a petrol-from-coal made by Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. (ICI), which was blended with petroleum derived petrol and sold between 1935 and 1958. Here we examine the background to the emergence of these fuels, the actors involved and their combined roles. We find both fuels received government support during a time of rapid growth in the motor industry, fluctuating economic conditions, fears of absolute oil shortages, and the desire to develop the UK’s chemical industry. Both fuels were considerably affected by changing political thinking around energy security and oil major hegemony; governance of fuel distribution in particular had significant effects on both fuels. We discuss how changing modes of governance, between market and state logics, created hybrid governance conditions. These conditions reflected state intervention to support new fuels and a failure to regulate the market for fuel distribution. Therefore, whilst hybrid governance provided government with the flexibility to respond quickly to changing circumstances, unresolved tensions between policies made it more difficult for alternative fuels to thrive

Is an independent Scottish electricity system good for renewable energy and Scotland?

At the beginning of 2013 five academics from different UK universities published a paper on the prospects for renewable energy in the context of the debate about Scottish independence (Toke et al 2013). The conclusion was that it would likely be rather more expensive to reach the Scottish Government’s renewable energy targets in the case of an independent Scotland as opposed to Scotland remaining within the Union. Since the paper was published, there have been significant developments in UK electricity policy, and as a result we now wish to adjust our conclusions with respect to the prospects for renewables in the case of Scottish independence, or ‘devo plus’ circumstances, where Scotland has an independently managed and financed electricity system. In short, we now suggest that with a UK nuclear new build programme going ahead, an independent Scottish electricity system could deliver the Scottish renewable electricity target at lower electricity prices for the consumer than if this was achieved as part of the continued union of the electricity system between Scotland and the rest of the UK