A proposal for media component brokerage

This paper describes how MPEG-4 object based video (obv) can be used to allow selected objects to be inserted into the play-out stream to a specific user based on a profile derived for that user. The application scenario described here is for personalized product placement, and considers the value of this application in the current and evolving commercial media distribution market given the huge emphasis media distributors are currently placing on targeted advertising. This level of application of video content requires a sophisticated content description and metadata system (e.g., MPEG-7). The scenario considers the requirement for global libraries to provide the objects to be inserted into the streams. The paper then considers the commercial trading of objects between the libraries, video service providers, advertising agencies and other parties involved in the service. Consequently a brokerage of video objects is proposed based on negotiation and trading using intelligent agents representing the various parties. The proposed Media Brokerage Platform is a multi-agent system structured in two layers. In the top layer, there is a collection of coarse grain agents representing the real world players – the providers and deliverers of media contents and the market regulator profiler – and, in the bottom layer, there is a set of finer grain agents constituting the marketplace – the delegate agents and the market agent. For knowledge representation (domain, strategic and negotiation protocols) we propose a Semantic Web approach based on ontologies. The media components contents should be represented in MPEG-7 and the metadata describing the objects to be traded should follow a specific ontology. The top layer content providers and deliverers are modelled by intelligent autonomous agents that express their will to transact – buy or sell – media components by registering at a service registry. The market regulator profiler creates, according to the selected profile, a market agent, which, in turn, checks the service registry for potential trading partners for a given component and invites them for the marketplace. The subsequent negotiation and actual transaction is performed by delegate agents in accordance with their profiles and the predefined rules of the market

Texas Business Review, June 1988

The Texas Economy: The Numbers Continue to Look Good; Houston: A Slow RecoveryBureau of Business Researc

Semantic focus and sentence comprehension

Contains fulltext : 6001.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Reaction time to detect a phoneme target in a sentence was found to be faster when the word in which the target occurred formed part of the semantic focus of the sentence. Focus was determined by asking a question before the sentence; that part of the sentence which comprised the answer to the sentence was assumed to be focussed. This procedure made it possible to vary position of focus within the sentence while holding all acoustic aspects of the sentence itself constant. It is argued that sentence understanding is facilitated by rapid identification of focussed information. Since focussed words are usually accented, it is further argued that the active search for accented words demonstrated in previous research should be interpreted as a search for semantic focus

How Children Search the Internet with Keyword Interfaces

Children are among the most frequent users of the Internet, yet searching and browsing the web can present many challenges. Studies over the past two decades on how children search were conducted with finite and predetermined content found in CD-ROM applications, online digital libraries, and web directories. However, with the current popularity of the open Internet and keyword-based interfaces for searching it, more critical analysis of the challenges children face today is needed. This paper presents the findings of our initial study to understand how children ages 7, 9, and 11 search the Internet using keyword interfaces in the home. Our research has revealed that although today’s children have been exposed to computers for most of their lives, spelling, typing, query formulation, and deciphering results are all still potential barriers to finding the information they need. frequent use of the Internet and exposure to technology at an early age, when asked ‘what frustrates you most about searching on the Internet’, several child participants in our study provided some revealing answers. Child (age 7): “Writing words is hard for me because I'm not really good at the writing.” Child (age 9): “It doesn’t do all the words you say.” Child (age 11): “It's hard because you have to find the right words to put in the box.&quot

Economic Calculation and the Limits of Organization

Economists have become increasingly frustrated with the textbook model of the firm. The "firm " of intermediate microeconomics is a production function, a mysterious "black box" whose insides are off-limits to respectable economic theory (relegated instead to the lesser disciplines of management, organization theory, industrial psychology, and the like). Though useful in certain contexts, the textbook model has proven unable to account for a variety of realworld business practices: vertical and lateral integration, geographic and product-line diversification, franchising, long-term commercial contracting, transfer pricing, research joint ventures, and many others. As an alternative to viewing the firm as a production function, economists are turning to a new body ofliterature that views the firm as anorganization, itself worthy of economic analysis. This emerging literature is the bestdeveloped part of what has come to be called the "new institutional economics."' The new perspective has deeply enhanced and enriched our understanding of firms and other organizations, such that we can no longer agree with Ronald Coase's 1988 statement that "[wlhy firms exist, what determines the number of firms, what determines what firms do... are not questions of interest to most economists " (Coase 1988a, p. 5).The new theory is not without its critics; Richard Nelson (1991), for example, objects that the new institutional economics tends to downplay discretionary differences among firms. Still, the new institutional economics-in particular, agency theory and transaction cost economics-has been *Peter G. Klein is assistant professor of economics at the University of Georgia. H