Standards-HyTime: a standard for structured hypermedia interchange

Some of the key concepts and features of HyTime, which is being developed as an American and an international standard (ISO/IEC 10744) for structured representation of hypermedia information, are introduced. HyTime is an application of ISO 8879 and is interchanged using ASN.1 (ISO 8824) for OSI compatibility. HyTime complements and enhances the utility of standards for individual multimedia objects, such as motion video and still pictures. HyTime is not a complete hyperdocument architecture. Its functions will be incorporated into architectures and applications designed by standards committees, industry groups, and others     

The Feasibility of Incremental Linguistic Annotation

This paper examines the feasibility of incremental annotation, i.e. using existing annotation on a text as the basis for further annotation rather than starting the new annotation from scratch. It contains a theoretical component, describing basic methodology and potential obstacles, as well as a practical component, describing an experiment which tests the efficiency of incremental annotation. Apart from guidelines for the execution of such pilot experiments, the experiment demonstrates that incremental annotation is most effective when supported by thorough pre-planning and documentation. Unplanned, opportunistic use of existing annotation is much less effective in its reduction of annotation time and furthermore increases the development time of the annotation software, so that this type of incremental annotation appears only practical for large amounts of heritage data.     

The GeoTiff data interchange standard for raster geographic images

The GeoTIFF interchange standard is an extension of the popular TIFF format, to support a geodetically sound raster data georeferencing capability. The geographic content supported in the GeoTIFF tag structure includes its cartographic projection, datum, ground pixel dimension, and other geographic variables, based upon the non-profit Petrotechnical Open Software Company (POSC)'s Epicentre 2.0 geodetic model. This paper is a review of the progress and status of the GeoTIFF initiative, as well as an overview of the main technical characteristics and principles of the GeoTIFF format.     

基于XML的B2B可扩展数据交换标准框架的设计与实现

面向石化领域的B2B电子商务活动中涉及多家大型和特大型企业之间的分布式异构数据交换。提出针对石化领域的电子商务中在线物资采购业务的数据交换标准框架的设计准则,并给出了实现系统的体系结构。该数据交换标准与国际相关标准兼容;所交换的数据以XML为载体;包括用于规范数据交换过程的工作流模型、用于规范业务活动过程中的用户角色和数据交换文档类型的业务过程模型、用于规范该领域电子商务数据交换的业务术语的业务词汇表,以及用于规范交换文档的模式——XML Schema和用于规范信息交互方式消息协议。此外,框架中的消息机制基于SOAP,提供对Web服务的可扩展性。     

An Integrated Framework for Semantic Annotation and Adaptation

Tools for the interpretation of significant events from video and video clip adaptation can effectively support automatic extraction and distribution of relevant content from video streams. In fact, adaptation can adjust meaningful content, previously detected and extracted, to the user/client capabilities and requirements. The integration of these two functions is increasingly important, due to the growing demand of multimedia data from remote clients with limited resources (PDAs, HCCs, Smart phones). In this paper we propose an unified framework for event-based and object-based semantic extraction from video and semantic on-line adaptation. Two cases of application, highlight detection and recognition from soccer videos and people behavior detection in domotic^* applications, are analyzed and discussed.Domotics is a neologism coming from the Latin word domus (home) and informatics.Marco Bertini has a research grant and carries out his research activity at the Department of Systems and Informatics at the University of Florence, Italy. He received a M.S. in electronic engineering from the University of Florence in 1999, and Ph.D. in 2004. His main research interest is content-based indexing and retrieval of videos. He is author of more than 25 papers in international conference proceedings and journals, and is a reviewer for international journals on multimedia and pattern recognition.Rita Cucchiara (Laurea Ingegneria Elettronica, 1989; Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, University of Bologna, Italy 1993). She is currently Full Professor in Computer Engineering at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy). She was formerly Assistant Professor (‘93–‘98) at the University of Ferrara, Italy and Associate Professor (‘98–‘04) at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. She is currently in the Faculty staff of Computer Engenering where has in charges the courses of Computer Architectures and Computer Vision.Her current interests include pattern recognition, video analysis and computer vision for video surveillance, domotics, medical imaging, and computer architecture for managing image and multimedia data.Rita Cucchiara is author and co-author of more than 100 papers in international journals, and conference proceedings. She currently serves as reviewer for many international journals in computer vision and computer architecture (e.g. IEEE Trans. on PAMI, IEEE Trans. on Circuit and Systems, Trans. on SMC, Trans. on Vehicular Technology, Trans. on Medical Imaging, Image and Vision Computing, Journal of System architecture, IEEE Concurrency). She participated at scientific committees of the outstanding international conferences in computer vision and multimedia (CVPR, ICME, ICPR, ...) and symposia and organized special tracks in computer architecture for vision and image processing for traffic control. She is in the editorial board of Multimedia Tools and Applications journal. She is member of GIRPR (Italian chapter of Int. Assoc. of Pattern Recognition), AixIA (Ital. Assoc. Of Artificial Intelligence), ACM and IEEE Computer Society.Alberto Del Bimbo is Full Professor of Computer Engineering at the Università di Firenze, Italy. Since 1998 he is the Director of the Master in Multimedia of the Università di Firenze. At the present time, he is Deputy Rector of the Università di Firenze, in charge of Research and Innovation Transfer. His scientific interests are Pattern Recognition, Image Databases, Multimedia and Human Computer Interaction. Prof. Del Bimbo is the author of over 170 publications in the most distinguished international journals and conference proceedings. He is the author of the “Visual Information Retrieval” monography on content-based retrieval from image and video databases edited by Morgan Kaufman. He is Member of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) and Fellow of IAPR (International Association for Pattern Recognition). He is presently Associate Editor of Pattern Recognition, Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, Multimedia Tools and Applications Journal, Pattern Analysis and Applications, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, and IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence. He was the Guest Editor of several special issues on Image databases in highly respected journals.Andrea Prati (Laurea in Computer Engineering, 1998; PhD in Computer Engineering, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, 2002). He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy), Faculty of Engineering, Dipartimento di Scienze e Metodi dell’Ingegneria, Reggio Emilia. During last year of his PhD studies, he has spent six months as visiting scholar at the Computer Vision and Robotics Research (CVRR) lab at University of California, San Diego (UCSD), USA, working on a research project for traffic monitoring and management through computer vision. His research interests are mainly on motion detection and analysis, shadow removal techniques, video transcoding and analysis, computer architecture for multimedia and high performance video servers, video-surveillance and domotics. He is author of more than 60 papers in international and national conference proceedings and leading journals and he serves as reviewer for many international journals in computer vision and computer architecture. He is a member of IEEE, ACM and IAPR.     

A Novel Framework for Semantic Annotation and Personalized Retrieval of Sports Video

Sports video annotation is important for sports video semantic analysis such as event detection and personalization. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for sports video semantic annotation and personalized retrieval. Different from the state of the art sports video analysis methods which heavily rely on audio/visual features, the proposed approach incorporates web-casting text into sports video analysis. Compared with previous approaches, the contributions of our approach include the following. 1) The event detection accuracy is significantly improved due to the incorporation of web-casting text analysis. 2) The proposed approach is able to detect exact event boundary and extract event semantics that are very difficult or impossible to be handled by previous approaches. 3) The proposed method is able to create personalized summary from both general and specific point of view related to particular game, event, player or team according to user's preference. We present the framework of our approach and details of text analysis, video analysis, text/video alignment, and personalized retrieval. The experimental results on event boundary detection in sports video are encouraging and comparable to the manually selected events. The evaluation on personalized retrieval is effective in helping meet users' expectations.     

Dealing With Complex Linguistic Annotations Within a Language Processing Framework

In this paper we present AWA, a general purpose Annotation Web Architecture for representing, storing, and accessing the information produced by different linguistic processors. The objective of AWA is to establish a coherent and flexible representation scheme that will be the basis for the exchange and use of linguistic information. In morphologically-rich languages as Basque it is necessary to represent and provide easy access to complex phenomena such as intraword structure, declension, derivation and composition features, constituent discontinousness (in multiword expressions) and so on. AWA provides a well-suited schema to deal with these phenomena. The annotation model relies on XML technologies for data representation, storage and retrieval. Typed feature structures are used as a representation schema for linguistic analyses. A consistent underlying data model, which captures the structure and relations contained in the information to be manipulated, has been identified and implemented. AWA is integrated into LPAF, a multilayered Language Processing and Annotation Framework, whose goal is the management and integration of diverse NLP components and resources. Moreover, we introduce EULIA, an annotation tool which exploits and manipulates the data created by the linguistic processors. Two real corpora have been processed and annotated within this framework.      

Disjunctive merging: Quota and Gmin merging operators

When aggregating information from a group of agents, accepting the pieces of information shared by all agents is a natural requirement. In this paper, we investigate such a unanimity condition in the setting of propositional merging. We discuss two interpretations of the unanimity condition. We show that the first interpretation is captured by existing postulates for merging. But the second interpretation is not, and this leads to the introduction of a new disjunction postulate (Disj). It turns out that existing operators satisfying (Disj) do not perform well with respect to the standard criteria used to evaluate merging operators: logical properties, computational complexity and strategy-proofness. To fill this gap, we introduce two new families of propositional merging operators, quota operators and Gmin operators, which satisfy (Disj), and achieve interesting trade-offs with respect to the logical, computational, and strategy-proofness criteria.     

Maintenance routing for train units: The interchange model

Train units need regular preventive maintenance. Given the train units that require maintenance in the forthcoming 1–3 days, the rolling stock schedule must be adjusted so that these urgent units reach the maintenance facility in time. In this paper, we present an integer programming model for solving this problem, give complexity results, suggest solution methods, and report our computational results based on practical instances of NS Reizigers, the main Dutch operator of passenger trains.     

The smart classroom: merging technologies for seamless tele-education

The smart classroom integrates voice-recognition, computer-vision, and other technologies to provide a tele-education experience similar to a real classroom experience.     

Photo annotation: a survey

Due to the large number of photos that are currently being generated, it is very important to have techniques to organize, search for, and retrieve such images. Photo annotation plays a key role in these mechanisms because it can link raw data (photos) to specific information that is essential for human beings to handle large amounts of content. However, the generation of photo annotation is still a difficult problem to solve as part of a well-known challenge called the semantic gap. In this paper, a literature review was conducted with the aim of investigating the most popular methods employed to produce photo annotations. Based on the papers surveyed, we identified that People (“Who?”), Location (“Where?”), and Event (“Where? When?”) are the most important features of photo annotation. We also established comparisons between similar photo annotation methods, highlighting key aspects of the most commonly used approaches. Moreover, we provide an overview of a general photo annotation process and present the main aspects of photo annotation representation comprising formats, context of usage, advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we discuss ways to improve photo annotation methods and present some future research guidelines.     

The PROMPT suite: interactive tools for ontology merging and mapping

Researchers in the ontology-design field have developed the content for ontologies in many domain areas. This distributed nature of ontology development has led to a large number of ontologies covering overlapping domains. In order for these ontologies to be reused, they first need to be merged or aligned to one another. We developed a suite of tools for managing multiple ontologies. These suite provides users with a uniform framework for comparing, aligning, and merging ontologies, maintaining versions, translating between different formalisms. Two of the tools in the suite support semi-automatic ontology merging: P is an interactive ontology-merging tool that guides the user through the merging process, presenting him with suggestions for next steps and identifying inconsistencies and potential problems. A P uses a graph structure of ontologies to find correlation between concepts and to provide additional information for P .     

GAT: a Graphical Annotation Tool for semantic regions

This article presents GAT, a Graphical Annotation Tool based on a region-based hierarchical representation of images. The proposed solution uses Partition Trees to navigate through the image segments which are automatically defined at different spatial scales. Moreover, the system focuses on the navigation through ontologies for a semantic annotation of objects and of the parts that compose them. The tool has been designed under usability criteria to minimize the user interaction by trying to predict the future selection of regions and semantic classes. The implementation uses MPEG-7/XML input and output data to allow interoperability with any type of Partition Tree. This tool is publicly available and its source code can be downloaded under a free software license.     

The semantic web as a Linguistic resource: Opportunities for natural language generation

This paper argues that, because the documents of the semantic web are created by human beings, they are actually much more like natural language documents than theory would have us believe. We present evidence that natural language words are used extensively and in complex ways in current ontologies. This leads to a number of dangers for the semantic web, but also opens up interesting new challenges for natural language processing. This is illustrated by our own work using natural language generation to present parts of ontologies.     

The Marching Intersections algorithm for merging range images

A new algorithm for the integration of partially overlapping range images into a triangular mesh is presented. The algorithm consists of three main steps: it locates the intersections between the range surfaces and a reference grid chosen by the user, then merges all nearly coincident and redundant intersections according to a proximity criterion, and, finally, reconstructs the merged surface(s) from the filtered intersection set. Compared with previous methods, which adopt a volumetric approach, our algorithm shows lower computational costs and improves the accuracy of the surfaces produced. It takes into account the quality of the input measurements and is able to patch small holes corresponding to the parts of the 3D scanned object that were not observed by the acquisition device. The algorithm has been tested on several datasets of range maps; graphical and numeric results are reported.     

Multiple annotation for biodiversity: developing an annotation framework among biology,linguistics and text technology

Language Resources and Evaluation - Biodiversity information is contained in countless digitized and unprocessed scholarly texts. Although automated extraction of these data has been gaining...