Computer Sciences Commons^™

Safe Robot Driving, Chuck Thorpe, Romuald Aufrere, Justin David Carlson, David Duggins, Terrence W. Fong, Jay Gowdy, John Kozar, Robert Maclachlan, Colin Mccabe, Christoph Mertz, Arne Suppe, Chieh Chih Wang, Teruko Yata

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Navlab group at Carnegie Mellon University has a long history of development of automated vehicles and intelligent systems for driver assistance. The earlier work of the group concentrated on road following, cross-country driving, and obstacle detection. The new focus is on short-range sensing, to look all around the vehicle for safe driving. The current system uses video sensing, laser rangefinders, a novel light-stripe rangefinder, software to process each sensor individually, and a map-based fusion system. The complete system has been demonstrated on the Navlab 11 vehicle for monitoring the environment of a vehicle driving through a cluttered urban environment, …

Hci Research Issues In Electronic Commerce, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Sid Davis

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This article outlines a number of important research issues in human-computer interaction in the e-commerce environment. It highlights some of the challenges faced by users in browsing Web sites and conducting searches for information, and suggests several areas of research for promoting ease of navigation and search. Also, it discusses the importance of trust in the online environment, describing some of the antecedents and consequences of trust, and provides guidelines for integrating trust into Web site design. The issues discussed in this article are presented under three broad categories of human-computer interaction – Web usability, interface design, and trust – …

Detection Of Slide Transition For Topic Indexing, Chong-Wah Ngo, Ting-Chuen Pong, Thomas S. Huang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents an automatic and novel approach in detecting the transitions of slides for video sequences of technical lectures. Our approach adopts a foreground vs background segmentation algorithm to separate a presenter from the projected electronic slides. Once a background template is generated, text captions are detected and analyzed. The segmented caption regions as well as background templates together provide salient visual cues to decide whether a slide is flipped and replaced. The partitioning of videos according to slide changes not only structure the content of video according to topics, but also facilitate the synchronization of video, audio and …

Design And Implementation Of An Online Database Panel, Frenny Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

There is a growing need for administrative panels such as the one described in this project. More and more website administrators wish to make changes to their online business without having to directly modify the database file. This project provides the perfect solution for this scenario by placing all database access on the World Wide Web. Administrators can now use this software to add, edit, and delete tables, fields, and records. Additionally, users will be able to generate queries without knowledge of Structured Query Language. This project acts as a summary of my computer science education at this university by …

Factors Influencing Adoption Of Mobile Computing, Wenli Zhu, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Fan Zhao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The emergence of mobile computing combined with the increased popularity of the Internet is changing our daily lives. The increasing use of small portable computers, wireless networks and satellites un folds the new technology of mobile computing, which allows transmis sion of data to computers that are not physically linked to a network. As a result, people can communicate on the move. Mobile devices with new input and output methods and form factors are dramatically different from traditional desktop computers (Rodden et al., 1998). These technological changes make increasing demands on both the quality of user interface and the functionality …

Association Of 3d Visualization With Discrete Event Simulation, Krishna Chaitanya Kunam

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Three-dimensional visualization provides simulation users with imagery that is closely related to their direct human experience. 3D visualization of simulations therefore has several advantages: it assists the developer in verifying and debugging the simulation; it often aids the analyst in gaining a better understanding of system performance; and it is especially important in explaining simulation results to the customer. This work presents a method of associating 3D visualizations to discrete event simulations for process simulations. A software system called 3DGen is developed that automates the process of generating a 3D visualization for a discrete event simulation. The 3DGen system is …

An Interactive Decision Support System For Scheduling Fighter Pilot Training, Cuong T. Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. Air Force is developing Modular Aircraft Support System (MASS) program to replace the current Aerospace Ground Equipment (AGE). AGE supplies electricity, nitrogen, hydraulics and other support equipment to maintenance activities at the flight line. Current AGE makes up one-third of the deployment footprint. AGE is also mostly aircraft specific, and has reliability problems. The MASS alternative focuses on modularity based on a plug-and-play approach. The technological improvements and possible reduction in the footprint make MASS a good alternative. The AF has to determine now, whether MASS can supply similar functionality and decrease the deployment footprint to theater, while …

Portable High-Performance Indexing For Vector Product Format Spatial Databases, Engin Colak

Theses and Dissertations

Geo-spatial databases have an overall performance problem because of their complexity and large size. For this reason, many researchers seek new ways to improve the overall performance of geo-spatial databases. Typically, these research efforts are focused on complex indexing structures and query processing methods to capture the relationships between the individual features of fully-functional geo-spatial databases. Visualization applications, such as combat simulators and mission planning tools, suffer from the general performance problems associated with geo-spatial databases. This research focuses on building a high-performance geo-spatial database for visualization applications. The main approach is to simplify the complex data model and to …

My Library At Virginia Commonwealth University: Third Year Evaluation, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

My Library is a personalization tool that allows the library user to consolidate frequently used library resources and services. Since 1998, My Library has been available as a web page to users of the Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries. An evaluation of My Library use at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was completed and published in 2000. This article reports on a follow up study that took place between March 2000 and December 2001. The article also discusses the value of My Library as a teaching tool at VCU.

Chimes In April, Samuel Stinson

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Simulation Video Electric Single Particle Aerodynamic Relaxation Time Analyzers, Steve Farmer, Robert A. Sims

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

The simulation of physical parameters provides a virtual environment for the design and optimization of instrumentation. applying physical laws and theorems to natural phenomena defines the behavior of analytical processes. Simulation provides means for the adjustment of specific operating parameters while maintaining the repeatability of constant parameters. The video Electric Single Particle Aerodynamic Relaxation Time Analyzer (VESPART) is an instrument that provides the diameter and charge-to-mass (q/m) ratio of particles. The simulation of the VESPART requires the modeling of the physical environment and application of modeling to simulations. Simulation includes characterization of the various natural forces that "feet particle motion …

A Method For The Perceptual Optimization Of Complex Visualizations, Donald H. House, Colin Ware

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

A common problem in visualization applications is the display of one surface overlying another. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to do this clearly and effectively. Stereoscopic viewing can help, but in order for us to be able to see both surfaces simultaneously, they must be textured, and the top surface must be made partially transparent. There is also abundant evidence that all textures are not equal in helping to reveal surface shape, but there are no general guidelines describing the best set of textures to be used in this way. What makes the problem difficult to perceptually optimize is that …

Creating A User Friendly Website For The Boys & Girls Clubs Of Black Hawk County, Kimberly M. Carter

Graduate Research Papers

Website design can be overwhelming for many viewers. Many times viewers discontinue using sites, because it.is not easy to navigate through the site. In creating the website for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Black Hawk County, user-friendliness was the focal point of the project. The Chief Professional Officer along with the staff at the Boys & Girls Clubs assisted with the development of a website by providing information that was to be included on the site. To ensure a professional look the designer relied on the four basic principles of design: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. The design simplicity …

A Study Of The Influences Of Computer Interfaces And Training Approaches On End User Training Outcomes, Raj Gururajan

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Effective and efficient training is a key factor in determining the success of end user computing (EUC) in organisations. This study examines the influences of two application interfaces, namely icons and menus, on training outcomes. The training outcomes are measured in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and perceived ease of use. Effectiveness includes the keystrokes used to accomplish tasks, the accuracy of correct keystrokes, backtracks and errors committed. Efficiency includes the time taken to accomplish the given tasks. Perceived ease of use rates the ease of the training environment including training materials, operating system, application software and associated resources provided to …

Multimedia Tools For The Creation Of Online Learning Materials : A Critique, Victor Augustine Udosen

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

On Clustering And Retrieval Of Video Shots, Chong-Wah Ngo, Ting-Chuen Pong, Hong-Jiang Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Clustering of video data is an important issue in video abstraction, browsing and retrieval. In this paper, we propose a two-level hierarchical clustering approach by aggregating shots with similar motion and color features. Motion features are computed directly from 20 tensor histograms, while color features are represented by 30 color histograms. Cluster validity analysis is further applied to automatically determine the number of clusters at each level. Video retrieval can then be done directly based on the result of clustering. The proposed approach is found to be useful particularly for sports games, where motion and color are important visual cues …

Integrating Color And Spatial Features For Content-Based Video Retrieval, Tong Lin, Chong-Wah Ngo, Hong-Jiang Zhang, Qing-Yun Shi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we present a novel and efficient scheme for extracting, indexing and retrieving color images. Our motivation was to reduce the space overhead of partition-based approaches taking advantage of the fact that only a relatively low number of distinct values of a particular visual feature is present in most images. To extract color feature and build indices into our image database we take into consideration factors such as human color perception and perceptual range, and the image is partitioned into a set of regions by using a simple classifying scheme. The compact color feature vector and the spatial …

Exploiting Image Indexing Techniques In Dct Domain, Chong-Wah Ngo, Ting-Chuen Pong, Ronald T. Chin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper is concerned with the indexing and retrieval of images based on features extracted directly from the JPEG discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain. We examine possible ways of manipulating DCT coefficients by standard image analysis approaches to describe image shape, texture, and color. Through the Mandala transformation, our approach groups a subset of DCT coefficients to form ten blocks. Each block represents a particular frequency content of the original image. Two blocks are used to model rough object shape; nine blocks to describe subband properties; and one block to compute color distribution. As a result, the amount of data …

Research Issues In Human-Computer Interaction In The Web-Based Environment, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Sid Davis

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Internet and WWW are revolutionizing our daily lives and the way business is conducted. Since 1997, the Web has gradually evolved into a true economy and a new frontier for business. In this new Internet age, the design of a quality Web site is critical to the success of businesses. To attract and retain visitors, Web sites need to be human-centered, easy and quick to navigate, and speak the visitor’s language. User experience with the Web site is also important. The experience should be in line with the user’s goal and should feel natural to the user. Unfortunately, principles …

Video Partitioning By Temporal Slice Coherency, Chong-Wah Ngo, Ting-Chuen Pong, Roland T. Chin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We present a novel approach for video partitioning by detecting three essential types of camera breaks, namely cuts, wipes, and dissolves. The approach is based on the analysis of temporal slices which are extracted from the video by slicing through the sequence of video frames and collecting temporal signatures. Each of these slices contains both spatial and temporal information from which coherent regions are indicative of uninterrupted video partitions separated by camera breaks. Properties could further be extracted from the slice for both the detection and classification of camera breaks. For example, cut and wipes are detected by color-texture properties, …

Recent Advances In Content-Based Video Analysis, Chong-Wah Ngo, Ting-Chuen Pong, Hong-Jiang Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we present major issues in video parsing, abstraction, retrieval and semantic analysis. We discuss the success, the difficulties and the expectations in these areas. In addition, we identify important opened problems that can lead to more sophisticated ways of video content analysis. For video parsing, we discuss topics in video partitioning, motion characterization and object segmentation. The success in video parsing, in general, will have a great impact on video representation and retrieval. We present three levels of abstracting video content by scene, keyframe and key object representations. These representation schemes in overall serve as a good …

Babylon 5 Collectable Game Network Interface, Jeremy Tillman

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.

Hidden Markov Models For Visual Speech Synthesis In Limited Data, Harold A. Arb

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a new approach for estimating control points (facial locations that control movement) to allow the artificial generation of video with apparent mouth movement (visual speech) time-synced with recorded audio. First, Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are estimated for each visual speech category (viseme) present in stored video data, where a category is defined as the mouth movement corresponding to a given sound and where the visemes are further categorized as trisemes (a viseme in the context of previous and following visemes). Next, a decision tree is used to cluster and relate states in the HMMs that are similar …

A Semantic Interface To Scenario Component Reuse In Dod Simulation Systems, Lawrence A. Breighner

Theses and Dissertations

The Department of Defense utilizes various simulation systems to model employment of forces and weapons systems in operational environments. The data files that model these environments and weapons systems are extremely large and complex, and require many person-hours to develop. Compounding the problem, these data files are distributed across multiple systems in a heterogeneous environment. Currently, there is no automated means of identifying and retrieving reusable portions of these files for reuse in a new scenario under development. This work develops a multi-agent system that catalogs the files, and provides the user with a means of identifying and retrieving reusable …

Pakej Pembelajaran Pintar 3b Bermultimedia, Sharif Intan Sharinah

Student Works (2000-2009)

Pembangunan perisian melalui web atau CD semakin mendapat perhatian dewasa ini khususnya di kalangan pembangun sistem di mana penggunaan ke atasnya juga mendapat sambutan yang menggalakkan khususnya di kalangan pelajar samada pada peringkat tinggi, pertengahan ataupun rendah. Projek yang dibangunkan ini dikenali dengan Pakej Pembelajaran Pintar Bahasa Inggeris, Bahasa Melayu dan Bahasa Arab Bermultimedia berasaskan web. Ia dibangunkan khususnya bagi kegunaan pelajar-pelajar sekolah rendah bagi memudahkan sesi pembelajaran dari segi pengetahuan dalam pelbagai bahasa pertuturan. Pakej ini dibangunkan adalah bertujuan untuk mcmahirkan serta memberi peluang kepada pengguna untuk lebih mudah mempelajari 3 jenis bahasa pertuturan dalam masa yang singkat. Dari …

Advanced Searchers???, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Log analysis from 2001 focused on use and popularity of advanced search features of an online library catalog (OPAC).

Tackling The Deficit - It Solutions For Art Appreciation - Needs Study And Provision Project At Primary School Level., Séan Ó Hargáin

Theses

This project looks at the changing environment in terms of the approach to the Visual Arts curriculum at Primary School level. It aims to provide an innovative solution to the art appreciation area, which is being given equal status with the art creation area, which traditionally has been the main focus of the curriculum.

The Project includes a review of the curricular climate, both at home and abroad. In this context it focusses particularly on the role of Information Technology in addressing access problems from those living remote from major population, and therefore major artistic centres.

Primary Research included involved …

Development Of A Networked Interactive Information Environment Within A National Park, John Clifton

Theses

For the most part, the Killarney National Park (KNP) currently disseminates information to visitors in paper format and by word of mouth in a non-coherent fashion. Society as a whole is moving towards an Information Age delivered through an electronic medium. This project aims to facilitate the KNP in delivering a new electronically presented information experience to its global visitors.

Electronic media facilitate the delivery of in-depth multimedia as well as multilingual information. This information will be made available on demand to visitors and delivered through a variety of media including information points and handheld devices to facilitate the various …

The Partial Evaluation Approach To Information Personalization, Naren Ramakrishnan, Saverio Perugini

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Information personalization refers to the automatic adjustment of information content, structure, and presentation tailored to an individual user. By reducing information overload and customizing information access, personalization systems have emerged as an important segment of the Internet economy. This paper presents a systematic modeling methodology— PIPE (‘Personalization is Partial Evaluation’) — for personalization. Personalization systems are designed and implemented in PIPE by modeling an information-seeking interaction in a programmatic representation. The representation supports the description of information-seeking activities as partial information and their subsequent realization by partial evaluation, a technique for specializing programs. We describe the modeling methodology at a …

The Design Of 3d Cyberspace As User Interface: Advantages And Limitations, Maria Borisovna Quick

Theses : Honours

Virtual reality propagandists, technologists and the Internet community have long debated the issue of the usability of online three-dimensional (3D) environments. A lot of work was published about the benefits of 3D spaces for human-computer interaction and information visualisation due to their realism (Anders, Kalawsky, Crossley, Davies, McGrath, Rejman-Greene, 1998, Hamit, 1993, Heim, 1992, Aukstakalnis, Blatner, Roth, 1992). This topic also receives continuous industry support including standardisation of Virtual Reality Modeling Language ( VRML, VRML Consortium, 1997) and the more recent Macromedia & Intel alliance "to bring web 3D to the mainstream" (200 1, Intel Corporation). The actual implementation …