15316832
Multimedia search and retrieval: new concepts, system implementation, and application
We first present new concepts applicable to the design of multimedia search and retrieval schemes in general, and to MPEG-7 in particular, the multimedia description standard in progress. Raw multimedia data is assumed to exist in the form of programs that typically consist of a combination of media types such as visual, audio, and text. We partition each such media stream into smaller units based on actual physical events. These physical events within each media stream can then be effectively indexed for retrieval. The concept of logical events is introduced next; we define logical events as those that can provide different "views" of the content as may be desired by a user. Such events usually result from either the correlation of events that cross different media types, of by merging recursively chosen events from a lower level within each media type. We then address the related issue of how to develop a practical multimedia information retrieval system that exploits the aforementioned concepts of physical and logical events as well as other aspects such as storage, representation and indexing to enable efficient search, retrieval, and browsing. Finally, we implement the proposed concepts and solutions within a multimedia system that addresses a real application, effective browsing of broadcast news, and evaluate its performance.
2023739
Joint video scene segmentation and classification based on hidden Markov model
Video classification and segmentation are fundamental steps for efficient accessing, retrieval and browsing of large amounts of video data. We have developed a scene classification scheme using a hidden Markov model (HMM) based classifier. By utilizing the temporal behaviors of different scene classes, the HMM classifier can effectively classify video segments into one of the pre-defined scene classes. In this paper, we describe two approaches for joint video classification and segmentation based on a HMM, which works by searching for the most likely class transition path utilizing the dynamic programming technique.
826573
MediaAlert - a broadcast video monitoring and alerting system for mobile users
We present a system for automatic monitoring and timely dissemination of multimedia information to a range or mobile information appliances based on each user's interest profile. Multimedia processing algorithms detect and isolate relevant video segments from over twenty television broadcast programs based on a collection or words and phrases specified by the user. Content repurposing techniques are then used to convert the information into a form that is suitable for delivery to the user's mobile devices. Alerts are sent using a number of application messaging and network access protocols including email, short message service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), voice, session initiation protocol (SIP), fax, and pager protocols. The system is evaluated with respect to performance and user experiences. The MediaAlert system provides an effective and low-cost solution for the timely generation of alerts containing personal, business, and security information.
16274304
Face detection and tracking in video using dynamic programming
Face detection and tracking are important in video content analysis since the most important objects in most video are human beings. This paper proposes a new approach for combined face detection and tracking in video. The face detection algorithm is a fast template matching procedure using iterative dynamic programming (DP). Although the face detection algorithm is designed for frontal face, the same mechanism can also be applied to track non-frontal faces with online adapted face models. Due to the essence of template matching, the algorithm is capable of comparing the similarity among different faces, which makes it suitable for tracking the same face that occur at disjointed temporal locations in video. While the proposed face detection method provides comparable accuracy as the neural network based approach, it is much faster.
11845096
Integration of audio and visual information for content-based video segmentation
A video sequence usually consists of separate scenes, and each scene includes many shots. For video understanding purposes, it is most important to detect scene breaks. To analyze the content of each scene, detection of shot breaks is also required. Usually, a scene break is associated with a simultaneous change of image, motion, and audio characteristics, while a shot break is only accompanied with changes in image or motion or both. We propose to use audio information along with image and motion information to accomplish segmentation at different levels. Promising results have been obtained with videos digitized from TV programs.
17193716
Detecting news reporting using audio/visual information
This paper proposes an integrated approach to discriminate news reporting from everything else in broadcast news data based on both audio and visual information. The separation of news reporting segments from others not only can provide useful indices for video streams but also serves as a pre-processing step for tasks such as speaker identification and speech recognition so that only speech segments are passed on for further processing. A set of audio and visual features are adopted that aim at capturing the intrinsic properties of the underlying classes. Four types of classifiers (threshold fuzzy, Gaussian Mixture Model based, and Support Vector Machine) are tested. Some of the experimental results are presented and discussed in the paper.
7602869
Intergenerational Partnerships in the Design of a Digital Library of Geography Examination Resources
This paper describes the engagement of intergenerational partners in the design of a digital library of geographical resources (GeogDL) to help prepare Singapore students for a national examination in geography. GeogDL is built on top of G-Portal, a digital library providing services over geospatial and georeferenced Web content. Scenario-based design and claims analysis were employed as a means of refinement to the initial design of the GeogDL prototype.
18394118
Formalizing Real-Time Scheduling as Program Refinement
This paper shows how the feasibility of scheduling a realtime program consisting of a number of parallel processes (tasks) can be proved as a step in the refinement of the program from its specification. Verification of this step of refinement makes formal use of methods and results from real-time scheduling theory.
10909052
Trust in the preservation of digital information
An institutional guarantee can help address the major hurdle of digital preservation---winning people's trust.
17450841
An information concierge for the Web
WWW Information Collection, Collaging and Programming (WICCAP) system is a software system for the generation of logical views of web resources, and the extraction of desired information in the form of a structured document. It is designed to enable people to obtain information of interests in a simple and effective manner as well as to make information from the WWW accessible to applications so as to afford automation, inter-operation and Web-awareness among services. A key factor in making this system useful in practice is that it provides tools to automate and facilitate the process of constructing logical representation of websites, to identify and define information of interest, and to retrieving them. In this paper we present the design of the WICCAP system and its two main components, namely Mapping Wizard and Network Extraction Agent.
3730862
Distributed Resource Allocation in Stream Processing Systems
Distributed stream processing architecture has emerged as appealing solution to coping with the analysis of large amount of data from dispersed sources. A fundamental problem in such stream processing systems is how to best utilize the available resources so that the overall system performance is optimized. We consider a distributed stream processing system that consists of a network of cooperating servers, collectively providing processing services for multiple data streams. Each stream is required to complete a series of operations on various servers. We assume all servers have finite computing resources and all communication links have finite available bandwidth. The problem is to find distributed schemes to allocate the limited computing resources as well as the communication bandwidth in the system so as to achieve a maximum concurrent throughput for all output streams. We present a generalized multicommodity flow model for the above problem. We develop a distributed resource allocation algorithm that guarantees the optimality. We also provide detailed analysis on the complexity of the algorithm and demonstrate the performance using numerical experiments.