Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Semantic gap'

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Library and Information Science, 2006.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-09, Section: A, page: 3205. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 30, 2008). Adviser: Elin K. Jacob.

This thesis explores the automatic extraction of musical information from live performances - with the intention of using that information to create novel, responsive and adaptive performance tools for musicians. We focus specifically on two forms of musical analysis - harmonic analysis and beat tracking. We present two harmonic analysis algorithms - specifically we present a novel chroma vector analysis technique which we later use as the input for a chord recognition algorithm. We also present a real-time beat tracker, based upon an extension of state of the art non-causal models, that is computationally efficient and capable of strong performance compared to other models. Furthermore, through a modular study of several beat tracking algorithms we attempt to establish methods to improve beat tracking and apply these lessons to our model. Building upon this work, we show that these analyses can be combined to create a beat-synchronous musical representation, with harmonic information segmented at the level of the beat. We present a number of ways of calculating these representations and discuss their relative merits. We proceed by introducing a technique, which we call Performance Following, for recognising repeated patterns in live musical performances. Through examining the real-time beat-synchronous musical representation, this technique makes predictions of future harmonic content in musical performances with no prior knowledge in the form of a score. Finally, we present a number of potential applications for live performances that incorporate the real-time musical analysis techniques outlined previously. The applications presented include audio effects informed by beat tracking, a technique for synchronising video to a live performance, the use of harmonic information to control visual displays and an automatic accompaniment system based upon our performance following technique.

The rapid growth of sensor data can potentially enable a better awareness of the environment for humans. In this regard, interpretation of data needs to be human-understandable. For this, data interpretation may include semantic annotations that hold the meaning of numeric data. This thesis is about bridging the gap between quantitative data and qualitative knowledge to enrich the interpretation of data. There are a number of challenges which make the automation of the interpretation process non-trivial. Challenges include the complexity of sensor data, the amount of available structured knowledge and the inherent uncertainty in data. Under the premise that high level knowledge is contained in ontologies, this thesis investigates the use of current techniques in ontological knowledge representation and reasoning to confront these challenges. Our research is divided into three phases, where the focus of the first phase is on the interpretation of data for domains which are semantically poor in terms of available structured knowledge. During the second phase, we studied publicly available ontological knowledge for the task of annotating multivariate data. Our contribution in this phase is about applying a diagnostic reasoning algorithm to available ontologies. Our studies during the last phase have been focused on the design and development of a domain-independent ontological representation model equipped with a non-monotonic reasoning approach with the purpose of annotating time-series data. Our last contribution is related to coupling the OWL-DL ontology with a non-monotonic reasoner. The experimental platforms used for validation consist of a network of sensors which include gas sensors whose generated data is complex. A secondary data set includes time series medical signals representing physiological data, as well as a number of publicly available ontologies such as NCBO Bioportal repository.

Data are produced in large quantities and in various forms around the globe everyday. Researchers advance their research depending on the availability of necessary data and the discovery of them. As people's demand to manage the data grows, however, three problems appear to hinder the attempts to effectively leverage the data. One is the semantic heterogeneity found in linking different data sources. Database designers create data with different semantics; even data within the same domain may differ in meaning. If users want to acquire all the obtainable information, they have to write different queries with different semantics. One solution to such a problem is the use of ontology. An ontology is defined as a specification for the concepts of an agent (or a community of agents) and the relationships between them (Gruber 1995). Concepts and relationships between concepts are extracted from the data to form knowledge network. Other parties wishing to connect their data to the knowledge network could share, enrich and distribute the vocabulary of the ontology. Users could also write queries to the ontology by any RDF query language (Brickly 2004). The use of ontology is part of the Web 3.0's effort to provide a semantic-sensitive global knowledge network. A second problem is about new ways to access data resources with ontology information. People used to build application-specific user interfaces to databases, which were offline. Now many choose to expose data in Web Services. Web services are a system to provide HTTP-based remote request calling services that are described in a machine-readable format (Haas and Brown 2004). They usually provide application (or web) programming interfaces to manage data. The question is Web Services are born in a world of applications relying on conventional ways to connect to data sources. For example, D2RQ (Bizer and Seaborne 2004) translates queries against ontology to SQL queries and it depends on JDBC to read from relational databases. Now the interfaces for these data sources are going to be changed. The Semantic Web world faces the challenge to lose data sources. If Web Services were going to spread over the Internet one day, this lack of connection would hold back me from applying the ontology to connect to heterogeneous data sources.A third problem (or constraint) is working within the specific project domain. I embed this within a humanities cyberinfrastructure that integrates Chinese biographical, historical and geographical data. The data sources come in various forms – local and remote relational databases and, RESTful Web Services. Working with both legacy databases and the new web application interfaces narrowed down my choice of solutions. Commercial products provide ways to "ontologicalize" the Web Services. I argue that they are heavyweight (e.g. unnecessary components bound with the product) and cost-prohibitive for small-scale projects like ours. Several mature open source solutions featuring working with relational databases provide no or very limited access to Web Services. For example, no clue is found in D2RQ to join Web Services into their system, while OpenLink Virtuoso answers calls for SOAP but cannot manage data from RESTful Web Services. I propose to build a connection between ontologies and Web Services. I devise the metadata to represent non-RDF Web Services in ontology, and I revise the code and create new data structures in D2RQ to support ontology queries to data from RESTful Web Services.
Les données sont produites en grandes quantités et sous diverses formes dans le monde et tous les jours. Les chercheurs avancer leurs recherches en fonction de la disponibilité des données nécessaires et la découverte de leur. Comme la demande des gens pour gérer les données croît, toutefois, trois problèmes semblent entraver les tentatives d'exploiter efficacement les données. La première est l'hétérogénéité sémantique dans reliant différentes sources de données. Concepteurs de créer des données de base de données avec une sémantique différente; même les données dans le même domaine peuvent avoir une signification différente. Si les utilisateurs souhaitent obtenir toute l'information obtenue, ils doivent écrire des requêtes différentes avec une sémantique différente. Une solution à ce problème est l'utilisation de l'ontologie. Une ontologie est définie comme une spécification pour les concepts d'un agent (ou d'une communauté d'agents) et les relations entre eux (Gruber 1995). Concepts et les relations entre les concepts sont extraites des données pour former réseau de connaissances. Les autres parties qui souhaitent se connecter leurs données au réseau de connaissances pourraient partager, enrichir et diffuser le vocabulaire de l'ontologie. Les utilisateurs peuvent aussi écrire des requêtes à l'ontologie par une requête RDF langue (Brickley 2004). L'utilisation de l'ontologie est une partie de l'effort de Web 3.0 pour fournir un réseau de connaissances sémantiques sensibles mondiale.Un deuxième problème est sur le point de nouvelles façons d'accéder aux données des ressources de l'information ontologie. Les gens de construire des interfaces utilisateur des applications spécifiques aux bases de données, qui ont été mises hors. Maintenant, de nombreux fournisseurs de données choisir pour exposer les données des services web. Les services web sont un système pour fournir la demande HTTP à distance d'appeler les services qui sont décrits dans un format lisible par machine (Haas and Brown 2004). Par exemple, D2RQ (Bizer and Seaborne 2004) se traduit par des requêtes sur l'ontologie de requêtes SQL, et cela dépend de JDBC pour lire à partir des bases de données relationnelles. Maintenant, les interfaces de ces sources de données vont être modifiées. Le monde du web sémantique doit relever le défi de perdre des sources de données. Si les services web ont été va se répandre sur Internet, un jour, ce manque de connexion tiendrait nous ramène de l'application de l'ontologie de se connecter à des sources de données hétérogènes.Un troisième problème (ou contrainte) est travailler dans le domaine des projets spécifiques. Nous incorporer cela dans une cyber-infrastructure qui intègre les sciences humaines chinois biographiques, des données historiques et géographiques. Les sources de données prennent des formes diverses - bases de données locales et distantes relationnelles et, les services web RESTful. Travailler avec les anciennes bases de données à la fois et l'application web de nouvelles interfaces rétréci vers le bas notre choix de solutions. Produits commerciaux offrent des moyens à ontologicalize les services web. Nous soutenons qu'ils sont lourds (par exemple, les composants inutiles liés au produit) et ils sont coûteuse pour les projets à petite échelle, comme notre projet. Plusieurs solutions open source mature offrant de travailler avec des bases de données relationnelles ne fournissent pas ou peu accès aux services Web. Nous proposons de construire un lien entre les ontologies et les services web. Nous trouver les métadonnées pour représenter les non-RDF services web dans l'ontologie, et nous revoir le code et créer de nouvelles structures de données en D2RQ à l'appui des requêtes ontologie à partir des données des services web RESTful.

The objective of this research is to formally define a spatio-temporal conceptual model that captures data semantics required for temporal and geospatial applications. We show how the proposed model provides a metaphor that bridges the semantic gap between the real world and its spatio-temporal representation in information systems. Our multi-methodological research approach includes: (i) formally defining a spatio-temporal semantic model called ST USM (Spatio-Temporal Unifying Semantic Model); (ii) evaluating the proposed model using a case study and a laboratory study; and (iii) demonstrating practicality of our proposed model using a proof-of-concept prototype system. We describe a spatio-temporal conceptual modeling approach--applicable to any conventional conceptual model--that incorporates sequenced and nonsequenced space/time semantics. We have applied our annotation-based approach to the Unifying Semantic Model (USM)--a conventional conceptual model--to propose ST USM. ST USM is an upward-compatible, snapshot reducible, annotation-based spatio-temporal conceptual model that can comprehensively capture semantics related to space and time without adding any new spatio-temporal constructs. We provide formal semantics of ST USM via a mapping to conventional USM and constraints (expressed in first-order logic), from which the logical schema can be derived. To evaluate the proposed model, we conducted a case study at the US Geological Survey that helped us assess the extent to which the proposed formalism helps capture all the spatio-temporal data semantics for an application. We show that ST USM is ontologically expressive and leads to schemas that completely capture the requisite spatio-temporal semantics. We conducted a laboratory study and found that an annotation-based approach to capturing the spatio-temporal semantics does not adversely impact the schema comprehension as compared with conventional conceptual models (e.g., USM). This implies that annotations provide an intuitive straightforward mechanism to capture the spatio-temporal requirements and can be usefully employed to capture spatio-temporal semantics accurately. We describe DISTIL (DesIgn-support environment for SpaTIo-temporaL data), a web-based conceptual modeling prototype system that can help capture semantics of spatio-temporal data. Using DISTIL, we demonstrate that the annotation-based approach to capturing spatio-temporal requirements is straightforward to implement, satisfies ontology-based and cognition-based requirements, and integrates seamlessly into existing database design methodologies.

Learners often have difficulty finding and retrieving relevant learning materials to support their learning goals because of two main challenges. The vocabulary learners use to describe their goals is different from that used by domain experts in teaching materials. This challenge causes a semantic gap. Learners lack sufficient knowledge about the domain they are trying to learn about, so are unable to assemble effective keywords that identify what they wish to learn. This problem presents an intent gap. The work presented in this thesis focuses on addressing the semantic and intent gaps that learners face during an e-Learning recommendation task. The semantic gap is addressed by introducing a method that automatically creates background knowledge in the form of a set of rich learning-focused concepts related to the selected learning domain. The knowledge of teaching experts contained in e-Books is used as a guide to identify important domain concepts. The concepts represent important topics that learners should be interested in. An approach is developed which leverages the concept vocabulary for representing learning materials and this influences retrieval during the recommendation of new learning materials. The effectiveness of our approach is evaluated on a dataset of Machine Learning and Data Mining papers, and our approach outperforms benchmark methods. The results confirm that incorporating background knowledge into the representation of learning materials provides a shared vocabulary for experts and learners, and this enables the recommendation of relevant materials. We address the intent gap by developing an approach which leverages the background knowledge to identify important learning concepts that are employed for refining learners' queries. This approach enables us to automatically identify concepts that are similar to queries, and take advantage of distinctive concept terms for refining learners' queries. Using the refined query allows the search to focus on documents that contain topics which are relevant to the learner. An e-Learning recommender system is developed to evaluate the success of our approach using a collection of learner queries and a dataset of Machine Learning and Data Mining learning materials. Users with different levels of expertise are employed for the evaluation. Results from experts, competent users and beginners all showed that using our method produced documents that were consistently more relevant to learners than when the standard method was used. The results show the benefits in using our knowledge driven approaches to help learners find relevant learning materials.

This thesis presents work aimed at exploiting the grammar of film for the purpose of automated film understanding, and addresses the semantic gap that exists between the simplicity of features that can be currently computed in automated content indexing systems and the richness of semantics in user queries posed for media search and retrieval. The problem is set within the broader context of the need for enabling technologies for multimedia content management, and arises in response to the growing presence of multimedia data made possible by advances in storage, processing, and transmission technologies. The first demonstration of this philosophy uses the attributes of motion and shot length to define and compute a novel measure of film tempo. Tempo flow plots are defined and derived for a number of full length movies, and edge analysis is performed leading to the extraction of dramatic story sections and events signaled by their unique tempo. In addition to the development of this computable tempo measure, a study is conducted as to the usefulness of biasing it toward either of its constituents, namely motion or shot length. Thirdly, a refinement is made to the shot length normalizing mechanism, driven by the peculiar characteristics of shot length distribution exhibited by movies. The next aspect of film examined is film rhythm. In the rhythm model presented, motion behaviour is classified as being either nonexistent, fluid or staccato for a given shot. Shot neighbourhoods in movies are then grouped by proportional makeup of these motion behavioural classes to yield seven high-level rhythmic arrangements that prove adept at indicating likely scene content (e.g., dialogue or chase sequence). The second part of the investigation presents a novel computational model to detect editing patterns as either metric, accelerated, decelerated, or free.
It is also found that combined motion and editing rhythms allow us to determine that the media content has changed and hypothesize as to why this is so. Three such categories are presented along with their efficacy for capturing useful film elements (e.g., scene change precipitated by plot event). Finally, the first attempt to extract narrative structure, the prevalent 3-Act storytelling paradigm in film, is detailed. The identification of act boundaries in the narrative allows for structuralizing film at a level far higher than existing segmentation frameworks which include shot detection and scene identification, and provides a reliable basis for inferences about the semantic content of dramatic events in film. Additionally, the narrative constructs identified have analogues in many other domains, including news, training video, sitcoms, etc., making these ideas widely applicable. A novel act boundary posterior function for Act 1 and 2 is derived using a Bayesian formulation under guidance from film grammar, tested under many configurations, and the results are reported for experiments involving 25 full-length movies. The framework is shown to have a role in both the automatic and semi-interactive setting for semantic analysis of film.

The task of tagging, annotating or labelling image content automatically with semantic keywords is a challenging problem. To automatically tag images semantically based on the objects that they contain is essential for image retrieval. In addressing these problems, we explore the techniques developed to combine textual description of images with visual features, automatic region tagging and region-based ontology image retrieval. To evaluate the techniques, we use three corpora comprising: Lonely Planet travel guide articles with images, Wikipedia articles with images and Goats comic strips. In searching for similar images or textual information specified in a query, we explore the unification of textual descriptions and visual features (such as colour and texture) of the images. We compare the effectiveness of using different retrieval similarity measures for the textual component. We also analyse the effectiveness of different visual features extracted from the images. We then investigate the best weight combination of using textual and visual features. Using the queries from the Multimedia Track of INEX 2005 and 2006, we found that the best weight combination significantly improves the effectiveness of the retrieval system. Our findings suggest that image regions are better in capturing the semantics, since we can identify specific regions of interest in an image. In this context, we develop a technique to tag image regions with high-level semantics. This is done by combining several shape feature descriptors and colour, using an equal-weight linear combination. We experimentally compare this technique with more complex machine-learning algorithms, and show that the equal-weight linear combination of shape features is simpler and at least as effective as using a machine learning algorithm. We focus on the synergy between ontology and image annotations with the aim of reducing the gap between image features and high-level semantics. Ontologies ease information retrieval. They are used to mine, interpret, and organise knowledge. An ontology may be seen as a knowledge base that can be used to improve the image retrieval process, and conversely keywords obtained from automatic tagging of image regions may be useful for creating an ontology. We engineer an ontology that surrogates concepts derived from image feature descriptors. We test the usability of the constructed ontology by querying the ontology via the Visual Ontology Query Interface, which has a formally specified grammar known as the Visual Ontology Query Language. We show that synergy between ontology and image annotations is possible and this method can reduce the gap between image features and high-level semantics by providing the relationships between objects in the image. In this thesis, we conclude that suitable techniques for image retrieval include fusing text accompanying the images with visual features, automatic region tagging and using an ontology to enrich the semantic meaning of the tagged image regions.

This study explored the relationship between syntax and semantics in an effort to provide evidence against a strict theory of the Autonomy of Syntax. The evidence was provided by an acceptability survey given to 20 native, adult Mexicans who ranked both declarative and wh-questions which manifested a filler-gap relationship where the gap was located in an embedded noun clause. The main verbs were controlled for semantic depth by being ranked within verbal categories according to external evidence of markedness or semantic depth. The primary hypothesis was that semantically deeper verbs would add to the already increased strain on working memory associated with filler-gap processing, thereby resulting in decreased acceptability. The results of the survey showed that, while this hypothesis held true to some degree, further research will be required to confirm the results and to further understand the intricate interactions between syntax and semantics.

The insecurity of modern-day software has created the need for security monitoring applications. Two serious deficiencies are commonly found in these applications. First, the absence of isolation from the system being monitored allows malicious software to tamper with them. Second, the lack of secure and reliable monitoring primitives in the operating system makes them easy to be evaded. A technique known as Virtual Machine Introspection attempts to solve these problems by leveraging the isolation and mediation properties of full-system virtualization. A problem known as semantic gap, however, occurs as a result of the low-level separation enforced by the hypervisor. This thesis proposes and investigates novel techniques to overcome the semantic gap, advancing the state-of-the-art on the syntactic and semantic view re-creation for applications that conduct passive and active monitoring of virtual machines. First, we propose a new technique for reconstructing a syntactic view of the guest OS kernel's heap state by applying a combination of static code and dynamic memory analysis. Our key contribution is the accuracy and completeness of our analysis. We also propose a new technique that allows out-of-VM applications to invoke and securely execute API functions inside the monitored guest's kernel, eliminating the need for the application to know details of the guest's internals. Our key contribution is the ability to overcome the semantic gap in a robust and secure manner. Finally, we propose a new virtualization-based event monitoring technique based on the interception of kernel data modifications. Our key contribution is the ability to monitor operating system events in a general and secure fashion.

L’introspection de machine virtuelle (VM) consiste à superviser les états et les activités de celles-ci depuis la couche de virtualisation, tirant ainsi avantage de son emplacement qui offre à la fois une bonne visibilité des états et des activités des VMs ainsi qu’une bonne isolation de ces dernières. Cependant, les états et les activités des VMs à superviser sont vus par la couche de virtualisation comme une suite binaire de bits et d’octets en plus des états des ressources virtuelles. L’écart entre la vue brute disponible à la couche de virtualisation et celle nécessaire pour la supervision de sécurité des VMs constitue un challenge pour l’introspection appelé « le fossé sémantique ». Pour obtenir des informations sémantiques sur les états et les activités des VMs à fin de superviser leur sécurité, nous présentons dans cette thèse un ensemble de techniques basé sur l’analyse binaire et la réutilisation du code binaire du noyau d’une VM. Ces techniques permettent d’identifier les adresses et les noms de la plupart des fonctions noyau d’une VM puis de les instrumenter (intercepter, appeler et analyser) pour franchir le fossé sémantique de manière automatique et efficiente même dans les cas des optimisations du compilateur et de la randomisation de l’emplacement du code noyau dans la mémoire de la VM
Virtual Machine Introspection (VMI) consists inmonitoring VMs security from the hypervisor layer which offers thanks to its location a strong visibility on their activities in addition to a strong isolation from them. However, hypervisor view of VMs is just raw bits and bytes in addition to hardware states. The semantic difference between this raw view and the one needed for VM security monitoring presents a significant challenge for VMI called “the semantic gap”. In order to obtain semantic information about VM states and activities for monitoring their security from the hypervisor layer, we present in this thesis a set of techniques based on analysis and reuse of VM kernel binary code. These techniques enable to identify addresses and names of most VM kernel functions then instrument (call, intercept and analyze) them to automatically bridge the semantic gap regardless of challenges presented by compiler optimizations and kernel base address randomization

Cette thèse consiste à explorer l'usage d'outils de support de la sémantique des données dans le domaine du multimédia. La première contribution concerne la génération de descriptions de haut-niveau. Nous proposons un langage de description de haut-niveau qui permet la définition d'événements et d'objets à partir de caractéristiques de bas-niveau. La deuxième contribution concerne l'exploration de certains types de raisonnement dans le contexte de la multimédia sémantique. Nous proposons un langage sémantique (fondé sur les graphes conceptuels flous) pour la description des vidéos et définissons des mécanismes de raisonnement sous-jacents. La troisième contribution porte sur l'indexation et la recherche sémantique dans les bases de données multimédia. Nous proposons un langage de requêtes issu des bases de données déductives pour l'expression de requêtes spatiotemporelles et sémantiques
This thesis is about to explore the use of tools to support semantics of data in the field of multimedia. The first contribution concerns the generation of high-level descriptions. We propose a description language that allows high-level definition of events and objects from low-level features. The second contribution is the exploration of certain types of uncertainty reasoning in the context of multimedia semantics. We propose a semantic language (based on fuzzy conceptual graphs) for descriptions of videos and define mechanisms underlying reasoning. The third contribution relates to the semantic indexing and retrieval in multimedia databases. We propose a query language from deductive databases for the expression of spatiotemporal and semantic queries

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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)
O grande volume de imagens disponível na Web gerado em diferentes domínios requer um conhecimento especializado para sua a análise e identificação. Nesse sentido, recentes avanços ocorreram com desenvolvimento de técnicas de recuperação de imagens baseadas nas características visuais. Entretanto, o gap semântico entre as características de baixo-nível das imagens e aquilo que a imagem representa ainda é um grande desafio. Uma solução para diminuir o gap semântico consiste em combinar a informação de características visuais das imagens com o conhecimento do domínio de tais imagens. Nesse sentido, ontologias podem auxiliar, já que estruturam o conhecimento. Desse modo, o presente trabalho apresenta uma nova abordagem denominada Recuperação Interativa de Imagens Guiada por Semântica (Semantic Interactive Image Retrieval – SIIR) que combina técnicas de recuperação de imagens baseadas no conteúdo (Content Based Image Retrieval – CBIR) e aprendizado não supervisionado, com o conhecimento definido em ontologias. Desse modo, o trabalho em questão propõe uma nova abordagem a fim de simular o papel dos biólogos na classificação de famílias de Angiospermas a partir de uma imagem e seu conteúdo. Para tanto, foi desenvolvida uma ontologia de estruturas e propriedades de plantas com flor e fruto, de modo a conceitualizar e relacionar tais atributos visando a classificação de famílias de Angiospermas. Para análise das características visuais foram utilizados métodos de extração de características de baixo-nível das imagens. Com relação ao aprendizado não supervisionado foi utilizado o algoritmo RL-Sim a fim de melhorar a eficácia da recuperação das imagens. A abordagem combina técnicas CBIR com ontologias ao utilizar um grafo bipartido e um grafo discriminativo de atributos. O grafo discriminativo de atributos permite a análise semântica utilizada para selecionar o atributo que melhor classifica a planta da imagem de busca. Os atributos selecionados são utilizados para formular uma interação com um usuário, de modo a melhorar a eficácia da recuperação e diminuir os esforços necessários na identificação da planta. O método proposto foi avaliado nos conjuntos de dados públicos Oxford Flowers 17 e 102 Classes, de modo que os resultados demonstram alta eficácia para ambos os conjuntos de dados quando comparados com outras abordagens.
A large amount of images is currently generated in many domains, thus requiring specialized knowledge on the identification and analysis. From one standpoint, many advances have been accomplished in the development of image retrieval techniques based on visual image properties. However, the semantic gap between low-level features and high level concepts still represents a challenge scenario. One another standpoint, knowledge has also been structured in many fields by ontologies. A promising solution for bridging the semantic gap consists in combining the information from low-level features with semantic knowledge. This work proposes a new approach denominated Semantic Interactive Image Retrieval (SIIR) which combines Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) and unsupervised learning with ontology techniques. We present a novel approach aiming to simulate the biologists role in the classification of Angiosperm families from image sources and their content. In order to achieve this goal, we developed a domain ontology from plant properties and structures, hence relating features from the Angiosperm families. In regard to Unsupervised Learning, we used the RL-Sim algorithm to improve image classification. The proposed approach combines CBIR techniques with ontologies using a bipartite graph and a discriminative attribute graph. Such graph structures allow a semantic analysis used for the selection of the attribute that best classify the plant. The selected attributes are used for formulating the user interactions, improving the effectiveness and reducing the user efforts required. The proposed method was evaluated on the popular Oxford Flowers 17 and 102 Classes datasets, yielding very high effectiveness results in both datasets when compared to other approaches.

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Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos
Complex data, like images, face semantic problems in your queries that might compromise results quality. Such problems have their source on the differences found between the semantic interpretation of the data and its low level machine language. In this representation are utilized feature vectors that describe intrinsic characteristics (like color, shape and texture) into qualifying attributes. Analyzing the similarity in complex data, perceives that these intrinsic characteristics complemented the representation of data, as well as is carried out by human perception and for this reason the use of multiple descriptors tend to improve the ability of discrimination data. In this context, another relevant fact is that in a data set, some subsets may present essential specific intrinsic characteristics to better show their rest of the data elements. Based in such premises, this work proposes the use of boundary conditions to identify these subsets and then use the best descriptor combination balancing for each of these, aiming to decrease the existing semantic gap in similarity queries. Throughout the conducted experiments the use of the proposed technique had better results when compared to use individual descriptor using the same boundary conditions and also using descriptors combination for the whole set without the use of boundary conditions.
Dados complexos, como imagens, enfrentam problemas semânticos em suas consultas que comprometem a qualidade dos resultados. Esses problemas são caracterizados pela divergência entre a interpretação semântica desses dados e a forma como são representados computacionalmente em características de baixo nível. Nessa representação são utilizados vetores de características que descrevem características intrínsecas (como cor, forma e textura) em atributos qualificadores. Ao analisar a similaridade em dados complexos percebe-se que essas características intrínsecas se complementam na representação do dado, bem como é realizada pela percepção humana e por este motivo a utilização de múltiplos descritores tende a melhorar a capacidade de discriminação dos dados. Nesse contexto, outro fato relevante é que em um conjunto de dados, alguns subconjuntos podem apresentar características intrínsecas específicas essenciais que melhor evidenciam seus elementos do restante dos dados. Com base nesses preceitos, este trabalho propõe a utilização de condições de contorno para delimitar estes subconjuntos e determinar o melhor balanceamento de múltiplos descritores para cada um deles, com o objetivo de diminuir o gap semântico nas consultas por similaridade. Em todos os experimentos realizados a utilização da técnica proposta sempre apresentou melhores resultados. Em comparação a utilização de descritores individuais com as mesmas condições de contorno e sem condições de contorno, e também a combinação de descritores para o conjunto todo sem a utilização de condições de contorno.

Språkrådet besvarar språkfrågor på internet via sin webbaserade frågelåda, men den ger inte så många svar som den skulle kunna. Jag har undersökt hur frågelådan bjuder in besökarna till dialog och hur den upprätthåller dialogen i enlighet med inbjudan. Jag har också undersökt hur den tekniska plattform som frågelådan vilar på bidrar till kommunikationen. Det visade sig att en del av frågelådans erbjudande är nästan omöjligt att ta del av på grund av tekniska och språkliga begränsningar, men också att det bör vara möjligt att med relativt enkla språkteknologiska medel minska det glapp som finns mellan frågelådan och dess sökare.

A l'heure actuelle, les images satellites constituent une source d'information incontournable face à de nombreux enjeux environnementaux (déforestation, caractérisation des paysages, aménagement du territoire, etc.). En raison de leur complexité, de leur volume important et des besoins propres à chaque communauté, l'analyse et l'interprétation des images satellites imposent de nouveaux défis aux méthodes de fouille de données. Le parti-pris de cette thèse est d'explorer de nouvelles approches, que nous situons à mi-chemin entre représentation des connaissances et apprentissage statistique, dans le but de faciliter et d'automatiser l'extraction d'informations pertinentes du contenu de ces images. Nous avons, pour cela, proposé deux nouvelles méthodes qui considèrent les images comme des données quantitatives massives dépourvues de labels sémantiques et qui les traitent en se basant sur les connaissances disponibles. Notre première contribution est une approche hybride, qui exploite conjointement le raisonnement à base d'ontologie et le clustering semi-supervisé. Le raisonnement permet l'étiquetage sémantique des pixels à partir de connaissances issues du domaine concerné. Les labels générés guident ensuite la tâche de clustering, qui permet de découvrir de nouvelles classes tout en enrichissant l'étiquetage initial. Notre deuxième contribution procède de manière inverse. Dans un premier temps, l'approche s'appuie sur un clustering topographique pour résumer les données en entrée et réduire de ce fait le nombre de futures instances à traiter par le raisonnement. Celui-ci n'est alors appliqué que sur les prototypes résultant du clustering, l'étiquetage est ensuite propagé automatiquement à l'ensemble des données de départ. Dans ce cas, l'importance est portée sur l'optimisation du temps de raisonnement et à son passage à l'échelle. Nos deux approches ont été testées et évaluées dans le cadre de la classification et de l'interprétation d'images satellites. Les résultats obtenus sont prometteurs et montrent d'une part, que la qualité de la classification peut être améliorée par une prise en compte automatique des connaissances et que l'implication des experts peut être allégée, et d'autre part, que le recours au clustering topographique en amont permet d'éviter le calcul des inférences sur la totalité des pixels de l'image
Satellite images have become a valuable source of information for Earth observation. They are used to address and analyze multiple environmental issues such as landscapes characterization, urban planning or biodiversity conservation to cite a few.Despite of the large number of existing knowledge extraction techniques, the complexity of satellite images, their large volume, and the specific needs of each community of practice, give rise to new challenges and require the development of highly efficient approaches.In this thesis, we investigate the potential of intelligent combination of knowledge representation systems with statistical learning. Our goal is to develop novel methods which allow automatic analysis of remote sensing images. We elaborate, in this context, two new approaches that consider the images as unlabeled quantitative data and examine the possible use of the available domain knowledge.Our first contribution is a hybrid approach, that successfully combines ontology-based reasoning and semi-supervised clustering for semantic classification. An inference engine first reasons over the available domain knowledge in order to obtain semantically labeled instances. These instances are then used to generate constraints that will guide and enhance the clustering. In this way, our method allows the improvement of the labeling of existing classes while discovering new ones.Our second contribution focuses on scaling ontology reasoning over large datasets. We propose a two step approach where topological clustering is first applied in order to summarize the data, in term of a set of prototypes, and reduces by this way the number of future instances to be treated by the reasoner. The representative prototypes are then labeled using the ontology and the labels automatically propagated to all the input data.We applied our methods to the real-word problem of satellite images classification and interpretation and the obtained results are very promising. They showed, on the one hand, that the quality of the classification can be improved by automatic knowledge integration and that the involvement of experts can be reduced. On the other hand, the upstream exploitation of topographic clustering avoids the calculation of the inferences on all the pixels of the image

Diese Arbeit bewertet verschiedene Argumente, die nicht nur leugnen, dass Gehirnzustände und bewusste Zustände ein und dasselbe sind, sondern auch behaupten, dass eine solche Identität unverständlich bleibt. Ich argumentiere, dass keiner der Ansätze einen Physikalismus unterminieren, da sie für ihre stillschweigenden Annahmen über die Verbindung zwischen Arten der Präsentation und ihrer Erklärung keine direkte oder unabhängige Begründung liefern. Meiner Ansicht nach sollte die Intelligibilität psychologischer Identität nicht ausschließlich auf einer Meinungsanalyse basieren. Der Haupteinwand sollt dann sein, warum man annehmen sollte, dass eine vollständig intelligible Erklärung auf Beschreibungen der kausalen Rollen als Modi von Präsentationen beruhen sollte. Ich schlage dazu vor, den Blick auf “psychologische Konzepte” zu werfen. Psychologische Konzepte sind Konzepte, die eine Beschreibung von funktionalen Rollen benutzen aber von Erfahrungsqualitäten handeln. Ich schlage vor, diese in Qualitätsraum-Modellen zu analysieren um aufzuklären, warum von phänomenalen Konzepten erwartet wird, dass diese sich durch Beschreibungen der kausalen bzw. funktionalen Rollen auf etwas beziehen sollten. Der Qualitätsraum soll hier verstanden werden als multidimensionaler Raum, der aus mehreren Achsen relativer Ähnlichkeit und Unterschieden in den Anordnungsstrukturen verschiedener Modalitäten bewusster Erfahrung besteht. In meinem Vorschlag ist es möglich, dass einige Achsen des Qualitätsraumes selbst aus ihrem eigenen Qualitätsraum bestehen, so dass wir in die Beschreibungen der funktionalen Rollen “hinein zoomen” und “heraus zoomen” können und damit klarer sehen, wie die Erklärung eines bestimmten Bewusstseinsaspekts gestaltet ist, wenn man ihn in Begriffen psychologischer Konzepte betrachtet.
This thesis evaluates several powerful arguments that not only deny that brain states and conscious states are one and the same thing, but also claim that such an identity is unintelligible. I argue that these accounts do not undermine physicalism because they don’t provide any direct or independent justification for their tacit assumptions about a link between modes of presentation and explanation. In my view intelligibility of psychophysical identity should not be based exclusively on the analysis of meaning. The main concern then should be why expect that fully intelligible explanation must be based on the descriptions of the causal roles as modes of presentation. To this effect I propose that we examine "psychological concepts". The psychological concepts are concepts that use descriptions of the functional roles but are about qualities of our experiences. I propose to analyze them in quality space models in order to unveil why phenomenal concepts are expected to refer via descriptions of the causal or functional roles. The quality space should be understood here as a multidimensional space consisting of several axes of relative similarity and differences among the structures of ordering in different modalities of conscious experience. On my proposal it is possible that some axes in the quality space consist of their own quality spaces so we could “zoom in” and “zoom out” into the descriptions of the functional roles and see more clearly what the explanation of certain aspects of consciousness looks like when thought of in terms of psychological concepts.

Étant donnée l'évolution technologique des capteurs embarqués à bord des satellites, le potentiel d'images satellitaires accessible s'accroît de telle manière que se pose maintenant la question de son exploitation la plus efficace possible. C'est l'objectif du projet CARTAM-SAT que de fluidifier la chaîne de traitement depuis les satellites jusqu'aux utilisateurs des images. La thèse s'inscrit dans ce cadre. Les traitements relatifs aux images ont évolué au cours des années. Les images basse résolution étaient traitées par une approche dite pixel alors que la haute résolution a permis le développement d'une approche dite objet. Cette dernière s'attache à analyser non plus des pixels isolés, mais des groupes de pixels représentatifs d'objets concrets sur le terrain. Ainsi, en principe, ces groupes de pixels sont dotés d'une sémantique propre au domaine de la télédétection. La représentation des connaissances a évolué parallèlement aux images satellitaires. Les standards de représentation ont profité de l'expansion du web pour donner naissance à des standards comme OWL. Celui-ci repose en grande partie sur les logiques de description qui permettent l'utilisation de raisonneurs automatiques capables d'inférer une connaissance implicite.Cette thèse se place à la jonction de ces deux sciences et propose une approche ontologique d'analyse des images satellitaires. Il s'agit de formaliser différents types de connaissances et de conceptualisations implicitement utilisés par les logiciels de traitement d'image et par les experts en télédétection, puis de raisonner automatiquement sur la description d'une image pour en obtenir une interprétation sémantique.Ce principe général est susceptible de nombreuses déclinaisons techniques. La mise en œuvre a consisté en la réalisation d'un prototype alliant une bibliothèque d'analyse d'images satellitaires et un raisonneur basé sur les ontologies. L'implémentation proposée dans la thèse permet d'explorer quatre déclinaisons techniques du principe qui mènent à des discussions sur la complémentarité des paradigmes d'analyse pixel et objet, la représentation de certaines relations spatiales et la place de la connaissance par rapport aux traitements.

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Content-Based Image Retrieval systems use visual information like color, shape and texture to represent images in feature vectors. The numerical representation found for the images is used in query execution through a metric to evaluate the distance between vectors. In general, there is an inconsistency in the evaluation of similarity between images according to human perception and the results computed by CBIR systems, which is called Semantic Gap. One way to overcome this problem is by the addition of a diversity factor in query execution, allowing the user to specify a degree of dissimilarity between the resulting images and changing the query result. Adding diversity in consultation, however, requires high computational cost and the reduction of possible subsets to be analyzed is a difficult task to be understood by the user. This masters degree thesis aims to make use of Visual Data Mining techniques applied to queries in CBIR systems, improving the interpretability of the measure of similarity and diversity, as well as the relevance of the result according to the judgment and prior knowledge of the user. The user takes an active role in the retrieval of images by their content, guiding its result and, consequently, reducing the Semantic Gap. Additionally, a better understanding of the diversity and similarity factors involved in the query is supported by visualization and interaction techniques.
Sistemas de recuperação de imagens por conteúdo (do Inglês, Content-Based Image Retrieval - CBIR) utilizam informações visuais de cor, forma e textura para representar as imagens em vetores de características. A representação numérica encontrada para as imagens é utilizada na execução da consulta através de uma métrica que avalie a distância entre os vetores. Em geral, existe uma inconsistência entre a percepção do ser humano na avaliação de similaridade entre imagens se comparada com a computada por sistemas CBIR, sendo esta descontinuidade denominada Gap Semântico. Adicionar um fator de diversidade na consulta tem-se mostrado como uma maneira de superar este problema, permitindo que o usuário especifique o grau de dissimilaridade entre as imagens resultantes e altere o resultado da consulta. Adicionar diversidade em consulta, no entanto, requer alto custo computacional e a redução das possibilidades de conjuntos para resposta é de difícil entendimento para o usuário. Este trabalho de mestrado propôs a utilização de técnicas de Mineração Visual de Dados (MVD) aplicadas sobre consultas em sistemas CBIR, melhorando a interpretabilidade da medida de similaridade e diversidade, assim como a relevância do resultado obtido. O usuário passa a exercer um papel ativo na consulta por conteúdo de imagens, permitindo que o mesmo dirija o processo, aproximando o resultado ao esperado pela cognição humana e reduzindo o gap semântico.

The correctness of model transformations is a crucial element for the model-driven engineering of high quality software. A prerequisite to verify model transformations at the level of the model transformation specification is that an unambiguous formal semantics exists and that the employed implementation of the model transformation language adheres to this semantics. However, for existing relational model transformation approaches it is usually not really clear under which constraints particular implementations are really conform to the formal semantics. In this paper, we will bridge this gap for the formal semantics of triple graph grammars (TGG) and an existing efficient implementation. Whereas the formal semantics assumes backtracking and ignores non-determinism, practical implementations do not support backtracking, require rule sets that ensure determinism, and include further optimizations. Therefore, we capture how the considered TGG implementation realizes the transformation by means of operational rules, define required criteria and show conformance to the formal semantics if these criteria are fulfilled. We further outline how static analysis can be employed to guarantee these criteria.

Revision of the author's Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Stellenbosch, 1988.
Opp. t.p.: "Münchener Universitätsschriften. Philosophische Fakultät Altertumskunde und Kulturwissenschaften." Includes bibliographical references.

Le paysage numérique de la culture française et mondiale subit de grands bouleversements depuis une quinzaine d’années avec des mutations historiques des médias, de leur format traditionnel au format numérique, tirant avantageusement parti des nouveaux moyens de communication et des dispositifs mobiles aujourd’hui popularisés. Aux côtés de formes culturelles ayant achevé, ou étant en passe d’achever, leur transition vers le numérique, la bande dessinée tâtonne encore pour trouver sa place dans l’espace du tout dématérialisé. En parallèle de l’émergence de jeunes auteurs créant spécifiquement pour ces nouveaux supports de lecture que sont ordinateurs, tablettes et smartphones, plusieurs acteurs du monde socio-économique s’intéressent à la valorisation du patrimoine existant. Les efforts se concentrent autant sur une démarche d’adaptation des œuvres aux nouveaux paradigmes de lecture que sur celle d’une indexation de leur contenu facilitant la recherche d’informations dans des bases d’albums numérisés ou dans des collections d’œuvres rares. La problématique est double, il s’agit premièrement d’être en mesure d’identifier la structure d’une planche de bande dessinée en se basant sur des extractions de primitives, issues d’une analyse d’image, validées et corrigées grâce à l’action conjointe de deux ontologies, la première manipulant les extractions d’images bas-niveau, la deuxième modélisant les règles de composition classiques de la bande dessinée franco-belge. Dans un second temps l’accent est mis sur l’enrichissement sémantique des éléments identifiés comme composants individuels d’une planche en s’appuyant sur les relations spatiales qu’ils entretiennent les uns avec les autres ainsi que sur leurs caractéristiques physiques intrinsèques. Ces annotations peuvent porter sur des éléments seuls (place d’une case dans la séquence de lecture) ou sur des liens entre éléments (texte prononcé par un personnage)
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the cultural industry, both in France and worldwide, has been through a massive and historical mutation. They have had to adapt to the emerging digital technology represented by the Internet and the new handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets. Although some industries successfully transfered a piece of their activity to the digital market and are about to find a sound business model, the comic books industry keeps looking for the right solution and has not yet produce anything as convincing as the music or movie offers. While many new young authors and writers use their creativity to produce specifically digital designed pieces of art, some other minds are focused on the preservation and the development of the already existing heritage. So far, efforts have been concentrated on the transfer from printed to digital support, with a special attention given to their specific features and how they can be used to create new reading conventions. There has also been some concerns about the content indexing, which is a hard task regarding the large amount of data created since the very beginning of the comics history. From a scientific point of view, there are several issues related to these goals. First, it implies to be able to identify the underlying structure of a comic books page. This comes through the extraction of the page's components, their validation and their correction based on the representation and reasoning capacities of two ontologies. The first one focus on the representation of the image analysis concepts and the second one represents the comic books domain knowledge. Secondly, a special attention is given to the semantic enhancement of the extracted elements, based on their spatial relations to each others and on their own characteristics. These annotations can be related to elements only (e.g. the position of a panel in the reading sequence), or to the bound between several elements (e.g. the text pronounced by a character)

Com o crescente aumento no número de imagens geradas em mídias digitais surgiu a necessidade do desenvolvimento de novas técnicas de recuperação desses dados. Um critério de busca que pode ser utilizado na recuperação das imagens é o da dissimilaridade, no qual o usuário deseja recuperar as imagens semelhantes à uma imagem de consulta. Para a realização das consultas são empregados vetores de características extraídos das imagens e funções de distância para medir a dissimilaridade entre pares desses vetores. Infelizmente, a busca por conteúdo de imagens em consultas simples tende a gerar resultados que não correspondem ao interesse do usuário misturados aos resultados significativos encontrados, pois em geral há uma descontinuidade semântica entre as características extraídas automaticamente e a subjetividade da interpretação humana. Com o intuito de tratar esse problema, diversos métodos foram propostos para a diminuição da descontinuidade semântica. O foco principal desta tese é o desenvolvimento de métodos escaláveis para a redução da descontinuidade semântica em sistemas recuperação de imagens por conteúdo em tempo real. Nesta sentido, são apresentados: a formalização de consultas por similaridade que permitem a utilização de múltiplos centros de consulta em espaços métricos como base para métodos de realimentação de relevância; um método exato para otimização dessas consultas nesses espaços; e um modelo para tratamento da diversidade em consultas por similaridade e heurísticas para sua otimização
The increasing number of images captured in digital media fostered the developmet of new methods for the recovery of these images. Dissimilarity is a criteria that can be used for image retrieval, where the results are images that are similar to a given reference. The queries are based on feature vectors automatically extracted from the images and on distance functions to measure the dissimilarity between pair of vectors. Unfortunately, the search for images in simple queries may result in images that do not fulfill the user interest together with meaningful images, due to the semantic gap between the image features and to the subjectivity of the human interpretation. This problem leaded to the development of many methods to deal with the semantic gap. The focus of this thesis is the development of scalable methods aiming the semantic gap reduction in real time for content-based image retrieval systems. For this purpose, we present the formal definition of similarity queries based on multiple query centers in metric spaces to be used in relevance feedback methods, an exact method to optimize these queries and a model to deal with diversity in nearest neighbor queries including heuristics for its optimization

This thesis examines Iraqi Arabic D-linked content questions of the type “Which woman saw Ragheb?”. I develop a syntactic and semantic analysis of both the gap and resumptive strategies of such D-linked content questions. Chapter 1 provides background information on Iraqi Arabic. Chapter 2 develops the syntactic analysis: the gap strategy is treated as an instance of full DP-deletion, with the deletion site being structurally ambiguous between a D-N and a D-phi-N structure. I further propose that the resumptive strategy is an instance of remnant DP-deletion with a D-phi-N structure, and treat the resumptive pronoun as a stranded phi-element. Chapter 3 relates the two syntactic structures — D-N versus D-phi-N — to the semantic distinction between the pair-list interpretation versus a natural-function interpretation. A pair-list reading is found when a question such as “Which woman did every man invite?” is answered with a list such as: “John, Sue; Bill, Lucy, …”. A natural function reading would answer the same question with a relational noun: “His sister.” In contexts where both the gap and resumptive strategy are possible, we observe the following: the gap strategy is ambiguous between a a pair-list and a natural function reading; the resumptive strategy only allows a natural function reading. I propose that the semantic ambiguity of the gap strategy reflects its structural ambiguity: if the deletion site is D-N, this corresponds to the pair-list reading; if the deletion site is D-phi-N, this corresponds to the natural function reading. As for the resumptive strategy, in contexts where the gap strategy is also possible, it is unambiguously interpreted with a natural functional reading; this is consistent with the syntactic remnant DP-deletion, which requires a D-phi-N structure. I further show that, in contexts where only the resumptive strategy is possible, economy considerations allow syntactic remnant DP-deletion to be semantically ambiguous between a pair-list and a natural function reading. Chapter 4 examines the syntactic and semantic parallels between D-linked content questions and genitive interrogatives and argues that the latter are inherently D-linked.

Ce travail de recherche s’interroge sur la perception et la représentation discursive de référents exotiques perses filtrées par un regard occidental dans vingt récits de voyageurs français du XIXe siècle. Les énonciateurs-voyageurs, placés dans un contexte linguistique et culturel étranger, tentent de saisir et de transcrire leurs observations sur le terrain en fonction de leur intellect, leur cognition, leur expérience, leur sensation et sentiment. Cette représentation n’est pas plate, objective ou neutre. Une série d’éléments discursifs, langagiers, culturels, subjectifs et marqués par l’altérité viennent modifier la représentation que l’auteur-voyageur donne du référent et de l’univers référentiel auquel il est confronté. C’est à cette « façon occidentale » de voir les « choses orientales » et à l’intervention de l’idéologie (subjective ou intersubjective) que nous nous intéressons dans cette étude. Il ne s’agit pas pour autant d’établir une dichotomie entre une bonne ou une mauvaise vision du monde dans un espace décalé mais uniquement de relever sur le plan langagier et discursif, les éléments qui traduisent cet « écart sémantico-référentiel » dans la représentation du référent dans ce type de texte. Pour mener cette recherche nous avons dû articuler trois niveaux d’analyse : lexical, textuel et discursif. Un cadre historique, contextuel et théorique est d’abord élaboré pour laisser ensuite la place à la question de la représentation et des contraintes (textuelles, subjectives, idéologiques) de cette transmission de données majoritairement descriptives. Nous analysons les effets discursifs produits par l’usage des ressources linguistiques ainsi que par les positionnements énonciatifs des auteurs-voyageurs. Ces outils d’analyse langagiers et discursifs permettent de mettre en relief ce regard marqué par l’altérité dans vingt récits de voyageurs français. Les résultats de cette analyse critique discursive constituent autant de données concrètes à insérer dans le champ des études postcoloniales et de la critique de l’orientalisme
This work investigates the perception and the discursive representation of Persian exotic referents filtered by a western look in nineteen travel stroeis of French travelers of the nineteenth century. Traveler-enunciators, placed in a foreign linguistic and cultural context, attempt to transcribe what they see according to their intellect, cognition, experience and feelings. This representation is not flat, objective or neutral. A series of discursive, linguistic, cultural, subjective elements marked by alterity filter the perception or modify the representation that the author-traveler gives of the referent and the referential universe to which he is confronted. It is in this "western way" of seeing "oriental things" and the question of subjectivity in the representation of the other that we are interested in this study. It is not necessary to establish a dichotomy between a good or a bad vision of the world in a space shifted but only to raise linguistically and discursively the elements that translate this "semantic-referential gap" in the representation of the referent in this type of text. To carry out this research we had to articulate three levels of analysis: lexicon, textuality and discourse. Information on the context is first proposed to leave room for the question of the representation and the restrictions (textual, subjective, ideological) of this transmission of data mainly descriptive. We analyze the discursive effects produced by the use of these linguistic resources and by the enunciative positions. These linguistic and discursive analysis tools make it possible to highlight this look marked by otherness in nineteen travel stories. The results of this critical discursive analysis constitute so much concrete data to be inserted in the field of the postcolonial of Orientalism

This study describes the diachronic development of modality in South African English (henceforth SAfE) from the early 19th century up to its contemporary state (1820s to 1990s) in the registers of letters, news, fiction/narrative and non-fiction, on the basis of the theoretical framework of socio historical linguistics and the empirical approach of corpus linguistics. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are conducted for modal and quasi-modal verbs, by means of the newly compiled historical corpus of SAfE and ICE-SA (with the addition of Afrikaans corpora for comparison). The study explores general frequency changes, register-internal changes and macro- and micro semantic changes, with the focus of the main semantic analysis more strongly on the obligation and necessity cluster1. A set of parameters is compiled for analysing the strength of obligation in the modals must and should, and the quasi-modal HAVE to, and is applied in the micro semantic analyses. The findings are compared with the trends for modality in other native English’s, such as American, British and Australian English (cf. e.g. Mair & Leech, 2006; Collins, 2009a; Leech, 2011), in an attempt to present a complete and comprehensive description of SAfE modality, as opposed to the traditional approach of focusing on peculiar features. It is reported that the trends of modality in SAfE correspond to those of other native varieties in some cases, but do not correspond in others. The modals of SAfE for example have declined more and the quasi-modals have increased less over the 20th century than in other native varieties of English. One particular case, in which SAfE is reported to be unique among other varieties, is the quantitative and qualitative trends for must, which has some implications for the manifestation of the democratisation process. Must in SAfE has not declined significantly over the 20th century (as it has in other native varieties) and has become less face threatening, since uses with a median (weaker) degree of force are just as frequent as those with a higher degree of force by the 1990s (unlike in other native varieties, where must has become restricted to high-degree obligative contexts). Based on socio historical, as well as linguistic evidence (on both quantitative and qualitative levels), language contact with Afrikaans is posited as the main influence for the increased use of must in contexts that are not face threatening. Extrapolating from the semantic findings, some new insights are offered regarding the phase in which SAfE finds itself within Schneider’s (2003) model of the evolution of New English’s, and some support is offered for Bekker’s (2012:143) argument that “SAfE is ...the youngest of the colonial varieties of English”, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. Ultimately, this thesis offers a piece in the larger puzzle that is SAfE, both in terms of linguistic (textual) and socio historical (contextual) aspects.
PhD (English), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

This thesis synthezises theories from intermedia studies, semiotics, Gestalt psychology, cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology, cognitive poetics, reader response criticism, narratology and possible worlds-theories adjusted to literary studies. The aim is to provide a transdisciplinary explanatory model of the transaction between text and reader during the reading process resulting in the reader experiencing a mental, virtual world. Departing from Mitchells statement that all media are mixed media, this thesis points to Peirce’s tricotomies of different types of signs and to the relation between representamen (sign), object and interpretant, which states that the interpretant can be developed into a more complex sign, for example from a symbolic to an iconic sign. This is explained in cognitive science by the fact that our perceptions are multimodal. We can easily connect sounds and symbolic signs to images. Our brain is highly active in finding structures and patterns, matching them with structures already stored in memory. Cognitive semantics holds that such structures and schematic mental images form the basis for our understanding of concepts. In cognitive linguistics Lakoff and Johnsons theories of conceptual metaphors show that our bodily experiences are fundamental in thought and language, and that abstract thought is concretized by a metaphorical system grounded in our bodily, spatial experiences. Cognitive science has shown that we build situation models based on what the text describes. These mental models are simultaneously influenced by the reader’s personal world knowledge and earlier experiences. Reader response-theorists emphasize the number of gaps that a text leaves to the reader to fill in, using scripts. Eye tracking research reveals that people use mental imaging both when they are re-describing a previously seen picture and when their re-description is based purely on verbal information about a picture. Mental spaces are small conceptual packets constructed as we think and talk. A story is built up by a large number of such spaces and the viewpoint and focus changes constantly. There are numerous possible combinations and relations of mental spaces. For the reader it is important to separate them as well as to connect them. Mental spaces can also be blended. In their integration network model Fauconnier and Turner describe four types of blending, where the structures of the input spaces are blended in different ways. A similar act of separation and fusion is needed dealing with different diegetic levels and focalizations, the question of who tells and who sees in the text. Ryan uses possible worlds-theories from modal logic to describe fictional worlds as both possible and parallel worlds. While fictional worlds are comparable to possible worlds if seen as mental constructions created within our actual world, they must also be treated as parallel worlds, with their own actual, reference world from which their own logic stems. As readers we must recenter ourselves into this fictional world to be able to deal with states of affairs that are logically impossible in our own actual world. The principle of minimal departure states that during our recentering, we only make the adjustments necessary due to explicit statements in the text.

This research makes a methodological contribution to the development of faceted vocabularies and suggests a potentially significant tool for the development of more effective image retrieval systems. The research project applied an innovative experimental methodology to collect terms used by subjects in the description of images drawn from three domains. The resulting natural language vocabulary was then analyzed to identify a set of concepts that were shared across subjects. These concepts were subsequently organized as a faceted vocabulary that can be used to describe the shapes and relationships between shapes that constitute the internal spatial composition -- or internal contextuality -- of images. Because the vocabulary minimizes the terminological confusion surrounding the representation of the content and internal composition of digital images in Content-Based Image Retrieval [CBIR] systems, it can be applied to develop more effective image retrieval metrics and to enhance the selection of criteria for similarity judgments for CBIR systems. CBIR is a technology made possible by the binary nature of the computer. Although CBIR is used for the representation and retrieval of digital images, these systems make no attempt either to establish a basis for similarity judgments generated by query-by-pictorial-example searches or to address the connection between image content and its internal spatial composition. The disconnect between physical data (the binary code of the computer) and its conceptual interpretation (the intellectual code of the searcher) is known as the semantic gap. A descriptive vocabulary capable of representing the internal visual structure of images has the potential to bridge this gap by connecting physical data with its conceptual interpretation. This research project addressed three questions: Is there a shared vocabulary of terms used by subjects to represent the internal contextuality (i.e., composition) of images? Can the natural language terms be organized into concepts? And, if there is a vocabulary of concepts, is it shared across subject pairs? A natural language vocabulary was identified on the basis of term occurrence in oral descriptions provided by 21 pairs of subjects participating in a referential communication task. In this experiment, each subject pair generated oral descriptions for 14 of 182 images drawn from the domains of abstract art, satellite imagery and photo-microscopy. Analysis of the natural language vocabulary identified a set of 1,319 unique terms; these terms were collapsed into 545 concepts which were subsequently organized into a faceted vocabulary. Frequency of occurrence and domain distribution were tallied for each term and concept of the vocabulary. A shared-ness rating scale was devised to measure subject agreement on concept use. Rank ordering of concepts by shared-ness measure demonstrated which concepts were more broadly shared across subject pairs. To determine if the concepts generated by subject pairs were used consistently by each pair across the three domains the subjects were considered to be â judgesâ and the Spearman rank correlation was computed to indicate inter-rater reliability. Correlation analysis indicated that subject pairs tended to agree in the extent to which they used certain concepts across multiple domains and 14 concepts with the highest shared-ness sums would form the heart of a shared vocabulary. This faceted vocabulary can contribute to the development of more effective image retrieval metrics and interfaces to minimize the terminological confusion and conceptual overlap that currently exists in most CBIR systems. For both the user and the system, the concepts in the faceted vocabulary can be used to represent shapes and relationships between shapes (i.e., internal contextuality) that constitute the internal spatial composition of an image. Representation of internal contextuality would contribute to more effective image search and retrieval by facilitating the construction of more precise feature queries by the user as well as the selection of criteria for similarity judgments in CBIR applications. In addition, reliance of subjects on the use of analogy to describe images suggests that the faceted vocabulary of terms and concepts could be used to provide both the user and the CBIR system with a link to the visual shape represented by a verbal construct. Developing a visual vocabulary of shapes and relationships could be an important application of the controlled vocabulary that emerged from this study. Verbal access to concepts could serve as entry points leading into the visual vocabulary where shapes would be paired with specific low-level terms.

碩士
中原大學
通訊工程碩士學位學程
104
Although the image database retrieval system improves day by day, the poor retrieval results due to the semantic gap between the low-level image characteristics and high-level semantics still present a great challenge in the area of image retrieval. The proposed system in this thesis consists of three parts, including a preprocessing step to capture the region of interest (ROI) in an image, an image similarity measure for database retrieval, and the relevance feedback by users. Sometimes, the retrieval results are not satisfactory because the query image contains a great deal of non-ROI part which interferes the retrieval of real interesting objects. This study proposes a novel preprocessing approach for image retrieval to solve this problem. In image similarity measure, we use a pair of adjustable weights to combine two methods which mainly capture the structure (shape) features and color features of the image, respectively. The first method was proposed by others and the second one is proposed in this study. The similarity measure provides 30 most similar images to the query image by using Corel image database for image retrieval. Finally, relevance feedback information given by users is used to adjust the combining weights and improve the retrieval results. The experimental results show that the proposed preprocessing step eliminates the unwanted region and improves the retrieval accuracy over the original CBIR method. Also the combining retrieval method outperforms the two separate retrieval methods because one of the methods only considers the shape and structure information and ignores the color information, but the color information to the subjective impression from human eyes is very significant.

The recent phenomenon of "social tagging" or "distributed indexing" raises a number of questions regarding long-held beliefs and practices of the classification and indexing community. This workshop paper covers several of these issues, such as locus of authority, control, and meaning, and suggests we may be observing the emergence of a new paradigm of knowledge organization.

Contemporary philosopher, Joseph Levine, has argued that human phenomenological experience cannot be explained solely through the resources of neuroscience, and that a significant ‘explanatory gap’ exists between the rich features of human experience and scientific explanations of the mind. This thesis examines Guiseppina D’Oro’s novel suggestion that the gap exists, but that it is a semantic rather than an empirical problem. D’Oro argues that the ‘gap’ is a persistent philosophical problem because of its semantic nature, and that advances in neuroscience will fail to resolve the gap because its source is a conceptual distinction that is not marked by empirical difference. In the thesis I will discuss some virtues and difficulties with D’Oro’s thesis, and the implications her claim has more broadly for philosophers of mind.
Graduate
0422

MASTERS FACULTY OF HUMANITIES SCHOOL OF LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE STUDIES STUDENT NO: 0111542N
The study deals with term creation in translation comparing isiXhosa and isiZulu in relation to paraphrasing, borrowing, compounding, semantic transfer and derivation as five major processes used by translators in African Languages to compensate for terminology gap. The study is conducted within the Descriptive Translation Studies approach and it deals with how translator’s strategies are influenced by norms. The extracted source text terms in this study are from the English Constitution as the source text whilst the isiXhosa and isiZulu terms are extracted from the isiXhosa and isiZulu Constitutions respectively. The study has indicated that out of the five selected processes, paraphrasing is the most frequently chosen strategy in African Languages. With regard to borrowing, it has been shown that not all types of borrowing (as discussed by Cluver 1989) are possible in these languages and that every borrowed term has to be modified according to phonological, morphological and orthographical rules of these two languages. The study is concluded by arguing that term creation processes in translation are universal features of translated texts in African languages and they are effective translation strategies in languages of limited diffusion. In addition, translated texts are sources/ depositories of terminology and consequently they can play a role in language development activities.

Widespread adoption of virtualization has resulted in an increased interest in Virtual Machine (VM) introspection. To perform useful analysis of the introspected VMs, hypervisors must deal with the semantic gap between the low-level information available to them and the high-level OS abstractions they need. To bridge this gap, systems have proposed making assumptions derived from the operating system source code or symbol information. As a consequence, the resulting systems create a tight coupling between the hypervisor and the operating systems run by the introspected VMs. This coupling is undesirable because any change to the internals of the operating system can render the output of the introspection system meaningless. In particular, malicious software can evade detection by making modifications to the introspected OS that break these assumptions. Instead, in this thesis, we introduce Architectural Introspection, a new introspection approach that does not require information about the internals of the introspected VMs. Our approach restricts itself to leveraging constraints placed on the VM by the hardware and the external environment. To interact with both of these, the VM must use externally specified interfaces that are both stable and not linked with a specific version of an operating system. Therefore, systems that rely on architectural introspection are more versatile and more robust than previous approaches to VM introspection. To illustrate the increased versatility and robustness of architectural introspection, we describe two systems, Patagonix and P2, that can be used to detect rootkits and unpatched software, respectively. We also detail Attestation Contracts, a new approach to attestation that relies on architectural introspection to improve on existing attestation approaches. We show that because these systems do not make assumptions about the operating systems used by the introspected VMs, they can be used to monitor both Windows and Linux based VMs. We emphasize that this ability to decouple the hypervisor from the introspected VMs is particularly useful in the emerging cloud computing paradigm, where the virtualization infrastructure and the VMs are managed by different entities. Finally, we show that these approaches can be implemented with low overhead, making them practical for real world deployment.

In isiZulu and English abstract
Lolu cwaningo lucubungula amagalelo kaLawrence Molefe ekubhaIweni kwemidlalo yakhe emibili ethi Bengithi Lizokuna kanye nethi Bahlukumezekile Behlakaniphelana Nje. Inhloso yocwaningo kule midlalo ukubheka ukuthi abalingiswa bayo bethiwe kanjani na? Lolu cwaningo luhamba luthinte izinsiza kuhlaziya esingathi amathiyori (theories) nendlela aytha abalingiswa bakhe ngayo kanye nesitayela esisetshenziswe umbhali kule midlalo yakhe emibili. Kukhethwe le mibhalo kaLawrence Molefe ukuze sibone ukuthi ingabe kukhona okusha esingakufunda kuye uma sibheka indlela aytha ngayo abalingiswa bakhe nokuthi uhambisana kanjani kuyiphiramidi kaFreytagi (1863). Lo msebenzi wehlukaniswe waba yizahluko eziyisithupha . Lolu cwaningo lubhekelele indlela elandelwayo uma kwethiwa amagama ukuthi ingabe indlela efanele nokuthi okuphi okumelwe kulandelwe uma kwethiwa amagama. Kubhekwa ukuthi ikuphi lokhu kubaluleka okuqukethwe ukuba khona kwegama emuntwini. Kuyazeka nokho ukuthi lolu hlobo locwaningo lunalo izingqinamba okuhlangatshezwana nazo okungaba ukungatholi izinsiza ezifanele ezizoba nolwazi olwanele mayelana nokwethiwa kwamagama ikakhulukazi asuke ebhalwe ngesiZulu. Kuyatholakala ukuthi kwezinye izilimi akuyona inkinga kangakho ukuthola ulwazi olusuke luxhumene nalo mkhakha. Miningi imiqulu ekhiqiziwe ewusizo ngezilimi zesiNgisi ikakhulukazi. Lokhu kusho ukuthi kumele umcwaningi embule ambulule azame ukuthi abe nezindlela eziphusile azokwazi ukuzisebenzisa ukuqhuba ucwaningo lwakhe. Kubuye kubeke umcwaningi ethubeni lokuthi abheke phela ukuthi izinhloso zocwaningo lwakhe ziwela emkhakheni wesikhashana esifushane noma wesikhathi eside. Kodwa lokhu kuchaza ukuthi azibhekelele lezo zinhloso uma eqhuba ucwaningo lwakhe. Kubalulekile ukuthi umcwaningi abheke ukuthi iyiphi ithiyori yokwethiwa kwamagama angase ayilandele nokuthi athini manye mathiyori na. Lokhu kubuye kweyame esifundweni esitholakala ekwethiweni kwamagama. Kuhle futhi ukuthi sethulelwe ukubaluleka kocwaningo lapho kubhekwe ukuthi yini ezocwaningwa emagameni abalingiswa nokuthi yini edala ugqozi olungaka noma intshisekelo yokwazi kabanzi ngokwethiwa kwamagama ikakhulukazi esiZulu. Kubalulekile futhi ukuthi kubhekwe noma kwethulwe izinsizakuhlaziya ucwaningo oluzohamba phezu kwazo ekwethiweni kwamagama. Nakuba inhloso isekutheni kubhekelelwe lawo esiZulu, kodwa kuhle kuphinde kubhekwe nakwezinye izilimi ukuthi ingabe eyabo indlela ihluke kanjani kweyesiZulu na?Ucwaningo lubuye lulandelele imvelaphi yombhali wezincwadi ezisuke zizocwaningwa ukuze kutholakale kabanzi ngobungaye nezinhloso zakhe ekubhaleni nokuthi uma kubhekwa umlando wakhe yini emenza ahluke kwabanye ababhali. Uma kuqhutshwa ucwaningo kuhle ukugxila ezindleleni ezizosetshenziswa ekuqoqeni ulwazi nezizolandelwa. Akupheleli lapho, kuhle ukuthola ukuthi abanye ongoti noma osolwazi bathini ngokucwaningwa kokwethiwa kwamagama. Kubuye kubhekwe ukuthi ucwaningo luzobhekiswa emibhalweni eyimidlalo lapho kubhekwa ukuthi abalingiswa bawuqhubekisa kanjani umdlalo ngendlela abasuke bethiwe ngayo. Lana kubhekwa imidlalo emibili ebhalwe ngu Molefe ethi ‘Izwe Lizothini’ kanye nothi ‘Bahlukumezekile Behlakaniphelana Nje. Kuhle ukuthi ukuthi umcwaningi athulele abahloli bakhe nomeluleki isithombe ngokuba ethule imidlalo ngamafuphi. Lokhu kuyobasiza ukuba bakwazi ukubona indlela abethiwe ngayo abalingiswa ukuthi kukhona yini okumele akulungise noma anconywe kukho. Ubuye abheke ukuthi kuyisakhiwo nesizinda sayo le midlalo abalingiswa balukhuphula kanjani izinga. Ucwaningo kumele lubheke futhi isitayela sombhali emdlalweni yomibili Izwe Lizothini kanye nothi Bahlukumezekile Behlakaniphelana Nje ukuthi sihluke kanjani kwabanye ababhali nokuthi sime kanjani. Lolu cwaningo kumele manje liyiphothule indima yalo ngokuba lethule okusuke kuhlaziywa, okuphi okuncomekayo okuphawuliwe nokuthi lapho kunegebe okumele livalwe kanjani. Kumele iphothulwe ngokuba kunikwe umhlahlandela ekuthuthukiseni ucwaningo lwalolu hlobo ikakhulukazi olimini lwesiZulu.
This research analyses the impact by Lawrence Molefe made as an author for two drama books known as Izwe Lizothini and Bahlukumezekile Behlakaniphelana Nje. The primary aim of the research in these drama books is to see how much power and influence is in naming of the characters and how have they been named? The research also focuses on theories and ways that can be used in naming characters as well as the style the author used in his two drama books that would be analyzed. The researcher has chosen drama books from the author Lawrence Molefe to see whether is there anything new that can be learnt from him on how he has name his characters. This will go to as far as analyzing how the author has name his characters and how his style of naming does fit in Freytag’s pyramid (1863). This research is divided into six chapters. This research also focuses on acceptable ways and methods that are being followed and used when naming the characters or even children at large. Analysis focuses on the importance of giving a name to a human being. It is also known that this kind of research has some challenges that are usually experienced. Challenges such as relevant resources that can be used in assisting a research especially when research conducted in naming is written in isiZulu. It is well known that these kinds of resources are widely and abundantly available in other languages. There are many resources whether it is books, articles or journals on naming or onomastics in English available. This simply says that it is imperative for the researcher to go all out in finding important ways that would be used in conducting the research. This also gives a researcher an opportunity to look into the aims and objectives of the analysis. The researcher will also be mindful of whether the analysis will be based on the short term or long term period. This means that the researcher will have to take into consideration the aims and objectives of the research. It is imperative for the researcher to be mindful of the theory that will be used in analyzing naming or onomastics and also look at other theories of onomastics. This lies on the theme or lesson that will be found in naming or giving a name in a character. The analysis needs to focus on the theory that focuses on naming . The research analysis also focuses on what will be analyzed on naming the characters and what inspires the research to be conducted especially giving Zulu names. It is important to look at the resources that will be used when conducting the research on naming. Even though, at this stage the focus is on analyzing Zulu names, it is also vital to look at how different analysis is on naming specifically in other languages. The research analysis also looks at the biography of the author regarding drama books that he published. This allows readers to know more about the author and what inspired his love of writing. This go beyond on finding more about the author and what makes him different from other authors when analyzing his name giving his characters. When conducting research analysis, ways or methods of collecting data or information needs to be clearly explained. Again, it is outmost vital to read what other onomasticians or linguists say about how to analyze name giving or naming. The focus is also on analyzing two literary dramas where attention is given to the role that characters play in ensuring that the story is a success of course with the help of how they have been named. We look at the impact their names have in the drama by just being given names. x The researcher also gives a summary or an overview of story from each book so that the supervisor and co-supervisor have understood what the story is about so that they are able to see how characters have been named. This also allows the researcher to see whether is there any gap that needs to be closed when analyzing naming in isiZulu nor commend on the good work done. It also allows the researcher to look at how names of the characters have impacted on plot and the structure of the drama. Research analysis has also to focus on the naming style used by the author in his two drama books namely Izwe Lizothini and Bahlukumezekile Behlakaniphelana Nje and how does his style differ from other authors. At the end, the research summarizes the role and the impact of name giving and its analysis, what are recommendations on the gap identified during the research and how to close challenges identified. The research is concluded by giving way forward or guidelines that would ensure that more researchers engage in analyzing naming in isiZulu and perhaps other African languages.
African Languages
M.A. (African Languages)