Multimedia Solutions Research Articles

A New Model of Knowledge Acquisition: Distance Education

Taking into consideration the growing pace of globalization and the development of the technological sphere, it is significant to pay particular attention and use the ability of modern information technologies in order to significantly improve the quality and efficiency of education. Currently, the concept of distance education is gradually developing and spreading at all levels of the educational system. It involves the application of various technological achievements, such as: systems of synchronous, asynchronous, mixed acquisition of knowledge, the use of Internet platforms, multimedia solutions and the latest systems for organizing the educational process. Distance learning is the most flexible and affordable type of organization of classes. In addition, this type of learning meets the requirements of the new educational paradigm of the information society, namely: the support of open, person-oriented and continuous training of a person throughout his life; implementation of mass education of all strata of the population, regardless of their place of residence; diversifying and improving the process of acquiring knowledge by meeting the diverse needs of students from different social and demographic groups. The purpose of the article is to clarify the features of the use of distance education tools as a modern learning paradigm, their advantages and disadvantages, to study individual practical aspects of the use of distance education and to highlight the most promising directions for the development of this type of organization of the educational process. Methodology. In the course of writing the academic paper, an analytical method of working with materials was used on applying distance form of learning, as well as a questionnaire survey for practical clarification of certain aspects of distance learning from the viewpoint of its participants. Results. The viewpoint of scientists regarding the features of distance form of learning, its components, advantages and disadvantages was studied, as well as the standpoint of the participants of the educational process regarding the features of using distance education was clarified.

Biography in the Museum

This article presents the biography of Saint Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński (1822–1895), which is the basis for the exhibition in the museum dedicated to the memory of this outstanding nineteenth-century figure of the Polish Church. The cognitive and educational potential of Archbishop Feliński's life is emphasised in the narrative layer of the exhibition by means of modern multimedia solutions. The museum uses various forms of visual message, aimed both at viewers who prefer traditional exhibition solutions, as well as those with high skill levels and technological expectations. The Museum of St Zygmunt Feliński plays an important role in the historical education process and popularises the biography of the archbishop as a role model for life and action. By spreading the cult of the saint, it also meets the religious needs of visitors through contact with the material and spiritual heritage of the exhibition’s protagonist.

The Challenges for Live Performance Arts in the Digital Era and New Digimodern Art Hybrids

The paper is in the frame of the proposed topic about virtual reconstructions and interactive multimedia solutions especially for performance arts in the digital era and the newly opened possibilities and challenges. Examples from the world and Bulgarian practices for the emergence of different new digimodern art hybrids are analyzed.

Interview

interview

Multimedia Mathematical Communication in a Diverse Group of Students

The article tackles the problem of improving mathematical communication in a group of students with different visual impairment levels, under the guidance of a group leader or a teacher. Visually impaired persons face a problem while learning mathematics. The said problem results from the specific nature in which mathematical content (formulas, function graphs, geometrical figures and projections of solids) is recorded and presented. The effectiveness of learning mathematics is boosted when students work in a group moderated by a leader. This requires them to share documents, with the leader being able to keep track of the individual work of each participant, and with the group discussing specific solutions. In order for a visually impaired student to be able to participate in and contribute to the work of the group, either remotely or locally, all participants must use universal IT tools that support visually impaired students without complicating the work of others. This paper presents interactive multimedia solutions developed under two research projects carried out by the author. The said solutions support communication in mathematics. Results of qualitative surveys on new solutions are presented, confirming their usefulness and the measurable impact they exert on the efficiency of the group’s work concerning mathematical problems.

A comparison study of AR applications versus pseudo-holographic systems as virtual exhibitors for luxury watch retail stores

The market of luxury watches has been continuously growing across the world, regardless of economic crisis. However, consumers can purchase online, on the web pages of the luxury watchmakers, the same product they can acquire in physical retail stores, producing a significant reduction in the overall sales of the latter ones. To reduce this trend, retail stores should increase their added-value services, one of which could be the use of virtual exhibitors in the shop. In this paper, we have developed two multimedia solutions (an Augmented Reality application and a pseudo-holographic system) for the creation of virtual exhibitors, and we have carried out a comparative study (based on real users) to measure which system would produce the best impact on users when used in traditional luxury watch retail stores. Our primary hypothesis was that there would be significant differences between the use of the mobile AR application and the use of the pseudo-holographic system. Our secondary hypothesis was that user preference for the mobile AR application would be higher than for the pseudo-holographic system.

Representation, Analysis, and Recognition of 3D Humans

Computer Vision and Multimedia solutions are now offering an increasing number of applications ready for use by end users in everyday life. Many of these applications are centered for detection, representation, and analysis of face and body. Methods based on 2D images and videos are the most widespread, but there is a recent trend that successfully extends the study to 3D human data as acquired by a new generation of 3D acquisition devices. Based on these premises, in this survey, we provide an overview on the newly designed techniques that exploit 3D human data and also prospect the most promising current and future research directions. In particular, we first propose a taxonomy of the representation methods, distinguishing between spatial and temporal modeling of the data. Then, we focus on the analysis and recognition of 3D humans from 3D static and dynamic data, considering many applications for body and face.

Social Interaction Assistant: A Person-Centered Approach to Enrich Social Interactions for Individuals With Visual Impairments

Social interaction is a central component of human experience. The ability to interact with others and communicate effectively within an interactive context is a fundamental necessity for professional success as well as personal fulfillment. Individuals with visual impairment face significant challenges in social communication, which if unmitigated, may lead to lifelong needs for extensive social and economic support. Unfortunately, today’s multimedia technologies largely cater to the needs of the “able” population, resulting in solutions that mostly meet the needs of that community. Individuals with disabilities (such as visual impairment) have largely been absent in the design process, and have to adapt themselves (often unsuccessfully) to available solutions. In this paper, we propose a social interaction assistant for individuals who are blind or visually impaired, incorporating novel contributions in: 1) person recognition through batch mode active learning; 2) reliable multimodal person recognition through the conformal predictions framework; and 3) facial expression recognition through topic models. Moreover, individuals with visual impairments often have specific requirements that necessitate a personalized, adaptive approach to multimedia computing. To address this challenge, our proposed solutions place emphasis on understanding the individual user’s needs, expectations and adaptations toward designing, and developing and deploying effective multimedia solutions. Our empirical results demonstrate the significant potential in using person centered multimedia solutions to enrich the lives of individuals with disabilities.

Person-Centered Multimedia Computing: A New Paradigm Inspired by Assistive and Rehabilitative Applications

Human-centered multimedia computing (HCMC) focuses on a tight engagement of humans in the design, development, and deployment of multimedia solutions. However, people's abilities change over time due to a variety of reasons, including age, context, and geographical location. To address this challenge, the authors recently introduced the concept of person-centered multimedia computing, where the emphasis is on understanding the individual user's preferences and expectations toward designing, developing, and deploying effective solutions. Today's multimedia technology is largely geared toward the able population; individuals with disabilities have largely been absent in the design process and thus must adapt themselves (often unsuccessfully) to available solutions. Further, individuals with disabilities have specific and individualized requirements that necessitate a person-centered, adaptive approach to multimedia computing. Here, the authors present the person-centered multimedia computing approach inspired by assistive and rehabilitative applications.

A multimedia system to produce and deliver video fragments on demand on parliamentary websites

Parliamentary websites have become one of the most important windows for citizens and media to follow the activities of their legislatures and to hold parliaments to account. Therefore, most parliamentary institutions aim to provide new multimedia solutions capable of displaying video fragments on demand on plenary activities. This paper presents a multimedia system for parliamentary institutions to produce video fragments on demand through a website with linked information and public feedback that helps to explain the content shown in these fragments. A prototype implementation has been developed for the Canary Islands Parliament (Spain) and shows how traditional parliamentary streaming systems can be enhanced by the use of semantics and computer vision for video analytics. The semantic web technologies used make search capabilities on parliamentary websites available to users to retrieve video fragments on demand with accurate and timely information. In addition, video analytic techniques enable the automation of identifying representative keyframes to be annotated by parliamentary experts. As a result, parliaments are able to enhance citizens' access to information and ensure that these institutions are more open and accountable on their websites and; at the same time, the labor-intensive tasks of parliamentary experts are considerably reduced.

Designing online software for teaching the concept of variable that facilitates mental interaction with the material: systemic approach

Our case study is a response to the need for research and reporting on specific strategies employed by software designers to produce effective multimedia instructional solutions. A systemic approach for identifying appropriate software features and conducting a formative evaluation that evaluates both the overall effectiveness of the multimedia instructional design and the effectiveness of specific features of the software is presented. The instructional software for teaching the concept of variable was designed as a research platform and tested with 90 undergraduate students at a Midwestern university. Behavior tracking and data collection instruments (pre-test, surveys, and delayed post-test) were embedded in the software. As a part of design-engineering-develop approach, two potential types of feedback, single try versus two tries, were tested in two experimental conditions. The results of the formative evaluation demonstrated preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of the designed software with either type of feedback for both high and low prior knowledge students. An innovative instructional strategy of helping the learner mindfully process the program feedback is described.

Il santuario di Giove Anxur a Terracina. Una ricostruzione tipologica come ausilio alla visita in situ

<p>The reconstructive study of Giove Anxur sanctuary in Terracina (Lazio, Italy) is part of a wider valorization project to develop a musealization intervention that provides in-site visit, aimed at understanding the existents archaeological structures and to the creation of digital contents and multimedia solutions useful to stimulate the curiosity and interest of the visitors. The entire project was done in collaboration with the Archaeological Superintendence of Lazio, the Officina Rambaldi and the Syremont spa, in order to make a digital movie that describes the historical and archaeological features of one the most important republican sanctuaries in central Italy. The planimetric reconstruction returns the spatial sense and architectural complexity of the various levels on which articulates the original path of cult.</p>

Research on the Visual Communication Design Based on Digital Multimedia

with the development of computer hardware and software performance improvement, digital multimedia technology has been applied to various fields, the effect of image visional transmission are mainly affected by the brightness, texture and color, and different image effects will produce different visual transmission effect. This paper starts from the brightness of the image, using the mathematical model of digital multimedia brightness change, and combined with MATLAB numerical simulation software, the digital multimedia visual effect design interface is developed. In order to verify the reliability of the design of digital multimedia solutions, image has been brightness correction in the digital multimedia visual effect interface, and then by changing the environment light, diffuse reflection and specular reflection light, we can change the effect of image digital communication. Finally, we will obtain better visual communication effect, to provide a theoretical reference for the development of digital multimedia technology.

Interactive Multimedia Solutions Developed for the Opening of the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre

This paper focuses on teamwork by the National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (NRU ITMO) and the Aleksandrinsky Theatre in preparation of opening of the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre. The Russian State Pushkin Academy Drama Theatre, also known as the Alexandrinsky Theatre, is the oldest national theatre in Russia. Many famous Russian actors performed on the Alexandrinsky’s stage and many great directors. May 2013 marked the opening of the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre. The theatre complex comprises three buildings: the new stages building, a media center, and the building housing a center of theatre education. Several plays shown simultaneously on multiple stages within the new complex’s buildings constituted the opening gala of the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre. The works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky were the plays’ un ifying theme. NRU ITMO employees developed several interactive theatre project solutions implemented for the opening of the Alexandrinsky Theatre’s New Stage.

Study on Virtual Reality Techniques Used in German Teaching

Virtual Reality (VR) by simulation study for multimedia teaching system, which provides the user with a simulation of a real-world environment for users to derive useful knowledge. Virtual Reality direction of research prospects is very large, but the difficulty is very great. In this paper, university network multimedia teaching system implementation, mainly images and multimedia information how to synchronize voice problems, and more due to network dissemination of information arising from end to end demonstrations and presentations jitter problems. Articles for both network multimedia teaching system in the main problems are given to solve the problem of multimedia information synchronization solutions and receive multimedia data buffering strategy.

Technological and non-technological innovations in B2B mobile services in Korea

This article examines the characteristics of business-to-business (B2B) mobile services in Korea in order to identify technological and non-technological innovations. A statistical analysis of 242 services was done to characterize B2B mobile services in Korea. Subsequently, service products were grouped into seven types based on service characteristics: mobile office/education solutions, network solutions, multimedia broadcast solutions, business analytical solutions, security and safety solutions, payment processing solutions and machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions for facility management. From a characteristics-based approach, ‘new’ service characteristics after 2009–2010 are linked with radical innovation while service characteristics prior to 2009–2010 (but have been ‘improved’) are linked with incremental innovation. A combination of ‘improved’ and ‘new’ service characteristics are linked with semi-radical innovation. Subsequently, incremental, radical and semi-radical innovations were distinguished. From the perspective of non-technological innovation, recombinative and customized innovations were identified to focus on the direct competences of service providers and users.

Deployment of electronic multimedia technical documentation solutions: a longitudinal study in partnership with a defence contractor

This paper details the research relationship and activity between the university and a commercial client working within the defence industry over a ten-year period. The investigative core deals with the contractor’s requirement to address the paper to electronic conversion of technical documentation and maintenance procedures, and the financial requirements of reducing ongoing customer support cost, whilst providing a competitive advantage. From initial projects involving optical media/laptop computer multimedia applications, to the use and deployment of smart phone and PDA devices, and more recently the use of wearable computing systems/head mounted display/augmented reality assistance, the research study has tracked technological changes over the period, and the impact of the same on working practice. An additional factor common to many engineering industries is the capture and retention of acquired knowledge of an ageing workforce, directly connected to the cost of customer support.

An Examination of the Application Scenarios of Enterprise Wikis

Multiple companies are already social software enabled. Enterprise wikis are the most frequently used type. The best-known example of a wiki is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Using Wikipedia as an example, multiple companies establish an internal wiki encyclopedia. There are also other purposes for which enterprise wikis can be used. Some companies use the wiki as a news portal, discussion platform, or as a project management tool. In research there is still no adequate systematization of the possible uses of wikis. Therefore, this paper examines the different application scenarios of enterprise wikis and to explore application scenario-related motivational factors. To examine the application scenarios of wikis, a qualitative-oriented case study on the internal wiki of the company, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH was conducted. Also, the Atlassian Confluence based wiki called ‘TeamWeb’ in which was introduced in 2008 and has gradually established itself as a global Intranet. A peculiarity of this is that it is not strictly specified, how the staff work with it. In this way, over time many different application scenarios have been established, and now about 56,000 wiki pages in TeamWeb. These wiki pages were analyzed and categorized to application scenarios. The results are discussed further in the article.

Editorial: advances in multimedia and ubiquitous technologies for the new era

Recent advances in pervasive computers, networks, telecommunication, and information technology, along with the proliferation of multimedia-capable mobile devices, such as laptops, portable media players, personal digital assistants, and cellular telephones, have stimulated the development of intelligent and pervasive multimedia applications in a ubiquitous environment. The new multimedia standards (for example, MPEG-21) facilitate the seamless integration of multiple modalities into interoperable multimedia frameworks, transforming the way people work and interact with multimedia data. These key technologies and multimedia solutions interact and collaborate with each other in increasingly effective ways, contributing to the multimedia revolution and having a significant impact across a wide spectrum of consumer, business, healthcare, education, and governmental domains. This conference provides an opportunity for academic and industry professionals to discuss recent progress in the area of multimedia and ubiquitous environment including models and systems, new directions, novel applications associated with the utilization and acceptance of ubiquitous computing devices and systems. We have received 41 manuscripts. After the pre-review process, 28 manuscripts were selected for the first review. Sixteen manuscripts were finally selected for this special Multimed Tools Appl (2013) 63:1–5 DOI 10.1007/s11042-012-1104-2

Quality of experience for HTTP adaptive streaming services

The growing consumer demand for mobile video services is one of the key drivers of the evolution of new wireless multimedia solutions requiring exploration of new ways to optimize future wireless networks for video services towards delivering enhanced quality of experience (QoE). One of these key video enhancing solutions is HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS), which has recently been spreading as a form of Internet video delivery and is expected to be deployed more broadly over the next few years. As a relatively new technology in comparison with traditional push-based adaptive streaming techniques, deployment of HAS presents new challenges and opportunities for content developers, service providers, network operators and device manufacturers. One of these important challenges is developing evaluation methodologies and performance metrics to accurately assess user QoE for HAS services, and effectively utilizing these metrics for service provisioning and optimizing network adaptation. In that vein, this article provides an overview of HAS concepts, and reviews the recently standardized QoE metrics and reporting framework in 3GPP. Furthermore, we present an end-to-end QoE evaluation study on HAS conducted over 3GPP LTE networks and conclude with a discussion of future challenges and opportunities in QoE optimization for HAS services.