Rodrigo Laiola Guimaraes | Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo (original) (raw)

Conference Proceedings by Rodrigo Laiola Guimaraes

2016 IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia (ISM '16)

In this demo, we present an online code editor that dynamically identifies and patches simple mod... more In this demo, we present an online code editor that dynamically identifies and patches simple modifications in the source code of a Web document containing time-based elements (e.g., CSS3 and SVG animations, HTML5 audio and video) without the need to restart the playback of the whole document from the beginning. We hope that the functionalities shown in this demo can make learning to code more attractive.

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Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering (DocEng '16), 2016

Online subtitle databases allow users to easily find subtitle documents in multiple languages for... more Online subtitle databases allow users to easily find subtitle documents in multiple languages for thousands of films and TV series episodes. However, getting the subtitle document that gives satisfactory synchronization on the first attempt is like hitting the jackpot. The truth is that this process often involves a lot of trial- and-error because multiple versions of subtitle documents have distinct synchronization references, given that they are targeted at variations of the same audiovisual content. Building on our previous efforts to address this problem, in this paper we formalize and validate a two-phase subtitle synchronization framework. The benefit over current approaches lays in the usage of audio fingerprint annotations generated from the base audio signal as second-level synchronization anchors. This way, we allow the media player to dynamically fix during playback the most common cases of subtitle synchronization misalignment that compromise users' watching experience. Results from our evaluation process indicate that our framework has minimal impact on existing subtitle documents and formats as well as on the playback performance.

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Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '16), 2016

In this paper, we consider the use of technological instructional pacing supports to teach studen... more In this paper, we consider the use of technological instructional pacing supports to teach students with intellectual disability (ID). Based on a qualitative field study where 11 participants used our mobile-based educational platform, we found that although technology may help the instructor control the pace of the class, it also poses barriers to the development of students' autonomy and self-esteem. Our preliminary results also suggest that the balance between instructor-led and self-paced instruction based on technology is promising and would better fit both instructor's and students' needs. These findings provide insights into challenges and opportunities for the design of educational initiatives targeted at people with ID.

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Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference (W4A '16), 2016

Vocational training of people with disabilities (PwD) can potentially improve social and economic... more Vocational training of people with disabilities (PwD) can potentially improve social and economic prospects, but at the same time, it can be significantly challenging due to the need for specialized training and technology. Unfortunately, in developing countries this problem is magnified because, in general, low- income groups have limited access to appropriate content and assistive technologies. In this paper, we present initial findings from a qualitative field study of computer-mediated vocational training for low-income students with intellectual disability (ID) in Brazil’s largest urban area. The observations took place during 3 computer-based training sessions, which involved 23 students with ID. Based on data gathered from observations and semi- structured interviews with 2 instructors, we describe and discuss strategies they employ to teach heterogeneous groups of students with ID. We also examine some obstacles that our participants usually face during the classes at the computer lab and present suggestions for future initiatives that could better support instructors and students with ID in the learning process.

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Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference (W4A '16), 2016

Digital education has potential to provide different possibilities for personalization and conseq... more Digital education has potential to provide different possibilities for personalization and consequently reach a larger and more diverse number of people. Personalization is a key component of solutions addressing important and long-standing pedagogical challenges in education, such as dealing with heterogeneity of learning styles. In particular scenarios where accessibility support is required, personalization depends on the creation of different representations for individual pieces of content. In this light, the main goal of this article is to describe how we addressed the challenges involved in the construction of a platform that satisfies this requirement. Wethus present a system that supports the creation, adaptation, and delivery of personalized courses for people with multiple types of disabilities. More specifically, we introduce the technology, describe its main capabilities, and discuss the results of early evaluations by two instructors of an institution that provides vocational training for people with intellectual disabilities. Our initial results show that the tool was favorably assessed by the instructors and can potentially be adopted in this community.

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Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ‘15), 2015

In this paper, we report on a qualitative study that investigates the impact of using a popular M... more In this paper, we report on a qualitative study that investigates the impact of using a popular Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to complement the vocational training of students with intellectual disability (ID). We have been investigating this problem for several months in partnership with a Brazilian NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) for people with ID. Our methodology integrates different aspects of human-computer interaction (i.e., requirement gathering sessions and observation of real subjects). Potential users were involved since the beginning of this research, starting with focus groups and interviews with experts, followed by the observation of a traditional vocational training session, and then the assessment of a popular MOOC in the classroom. In this paper, we discuss the process and present our preliminary results, providing some indications on how MOOCs could better support instructors and students with ID.

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Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM '15), 2015

Anyone who ever downloaded subtitle files from the Internet has faced problems synchronizing them... more Anyone who ever downloaded subtitle files from the Internet has faced problems synchronizing them with the associated media files. Even with the efforts of communities on reviewing user-contributed subtitles and with mechanisms in movie players to automate the discovery of subtitles for a given media, users still face lip synchronization issues. In this work we conduct a study on several subtitle files associated with popular movies and TV series and analyze their differences. Based on that, we propose a two-phase subtitle synchronization method that annotates subtitles with audio fingerprints, which serve as synchronization anchors to the media player. Preliminary results obtained with our prototype suggest that our technique is effective and has minimal impact on the extension of subtitle formats and on media playback performance.

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Adjunct Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME '15), 2015

In this paper we present an online code playground that pays special attention to the temporal as... more In this paper we present an online code playground that pays special attention to the temporal aspect of Web documents. In particular, we consider the scenario in which modifications in a Web-based multimedia document are identified and patched in real-time, with no need to restart an ongoing presentation from the beginning. Our approach is especially useful when authoring complex Web documents containing time-based elements such as CSS3 and SVG animations, HTML5 audio and video.

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Proceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web (WebMedia '14), 2014

In this paper we report on our efforts to define a set of document extensions to Cascading Style ... more In this paper we report on our efforts to define a set of document extensions to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that allow for structured timing and synchronization of elements within a Web page. Our work considers the scenario in which the temporal structure can be decoupled from the content of the Web page in a similar way that CSS does with the layout, colors and fonts. Based on the SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) temporal model we propose CSS document extensions and discuss the design and implementation of a proof of concept that realizes our contributions. As HTML5 seems to move away from technologies like Flash and XML (eXtensible Markup Language), we believe our approach provides a flexible declarative solution to specify rich media experiences that is more aligned with current Web practices.

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Adjunct Proceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web (WebMedia '14), 2014

Learning about Web Design can be difficult and time consuming, yet students often do not learn fr... more Learning about Web Design can be difficult and time consuming, yet students often do not learn from their errors and struggle to understand some differences between document structure, styling, scripting and temporal synchronization. In this paper we present Ambulant Sketchbook, an easy-to-use Web playground designed to enable students to understand and learn from their errors. In particular, this application simplifies the process of learning how to write and debug Web documents by exploring aspects of immediate feedback, coding assistance, direct manipulation and playback control. We have deployed and used Ambulant Sketchbook in a course of Web Design Foundations over a 2- week span. Based on the positive feedback from a group of post- secondary students, we expect the functionalities and experiences discussed in this work can yield significant insights to be considered in the design of next generation authoring tools and in the process of teaching Web Media related disciplines.

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Proceedings of the 19th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web (WebMedia '13), 2013

Creating compelling multimedia productions is a non-trivial problem. The problem is compounded wh... more Creating compelling multimedia productions is a non-trivial problem. The problem is compounded when authors want to integrate community media assets: media fragments contributed by a potentially wide and anonymous recording community. In this paper, we report on a hybrid authoring approach that provides mixed support for automated creation and manual enhancement of personalized multimedia presentations. We target small-scale events (such as a high school music concert), where lightly annotated media assets are provided. Our assumption is that enthusiastic, but less experienced, editors (e.g., parents and family members) will want to highlight personal aspects of each event: a particular child, a particular instrument or a particular solo. This places a requirement on a system that helps users to select appropriate content of personal interest, and that helps building compelling presentations with minimum user effort. Based on a 4-years user-centered evaluation process, this paper provides useful insights into how a multimedia authoring system should be designed and architected for helping users in creating personalized video stories they care about.

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Proceedings of the 28th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC '13), 2013

Interactive tabletops offer a unique opportunity for exploring home videos and photos. Neverthele... more Interactive tabletops offer a unique opportunity for exploring home videos and photos. Nevertheless, there are still a number of unexplored challenges for effectively providing support for collocated group interaction around media. This paper reports on a user study involving 24 users, intended to better understanding the challenges ahead. Our volunteers (in couples) evaluated our media sharing application prototype, providing valuable feedback with regards to three key challenges: metaphor, digital ecosystem, and level of control. First, users appreciated the selected metaphor of physical photos, but without relinquishing software support, such as alignment and distribution of media items. Second, vertical auxiliary screens helped in supporting a bigger number of users and providing more comfort and a better viewing angle and stance. Third, the nature of the task (either storytelling or random exploration) had a strong influence on the control capabilities to be provided by the application. Fourth, personal spaces within the tabletop were useful for allowing independent navigation. We consider these results as relevant for the future developments of home media sharing applications for the living room.

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Proceedings of International Conference on Making Sense of Converging Media (AcademicMindTrek '13), 2013

Online video sharing systems, such as YouTube, do not provide users enough support to explore com... more Online video sharing systems, such as YouTube, do not provide users enough support to explore community videos that portray people within their social circle. Such services typically consider each video clip as an isolated object, and not as part of a set of related clips. Even though social networks archive media based on higher-order social relationships, they do not provide support for searching and navigating media content that was captured at a particular event by different people. The contribution of this paper is a web-based interface, and the underlying system infrastructure, that allow for socially-aware exploration of media assets from an event. The system combines the best from both video sharing systems and social networks, allowing users to explore and navigate (fragments of) video clips based on their own personal/social interests. The work resulted, as well, in the identification of key requirements for this novel type of socially-aware interfaces. This paper reports on comparative results from a two-phased study conducted during the last four years. The research effort includes a full implementation and deployment of a system, and a series of experiments and user trials that confirmed that our design decisions enable users to explore and view videos they care about.

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Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS '12), 2012

This paper describes a web-based narrative system able to generate video compilations, framed as ... more This paper describes a web-based narrative system able to generate video compilations, framed as event stories, from a shared repository of video recordings of the event itself and possibly of related events. For this, it employs narrative techniques informed by TV documentary. The generated stories are dynamically personalised, in that the system is able to adapt them to the choices and preferences expressed by the active viewers during narration. The system has been prototyped for the case of school concerts. User evaluations indicate that experiences founded on story navigation rather than sharing individual media assets is a rewarding one and point to further areas of development in interactive storytelling in the context of user generated content.

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Proceedings of the 18th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web (WebMedia '12), 2012

Long before the first transmission in color of a World Cup in 1970, people used to gather around ... more Long before the first transmission in color of a World Cup in 1970, people used to gather around the few existing radio and TV sets to watch together and talk about their favorite programs. Decades later, not only the technology has significantly changed but also people's consumption and commenting habits. Nowadays, one can easily watch an online video on demand and share comments with others asynchronously. However, current video commenting facilities do not take into account the temporal nature of videos. Viewers can only add comments that will then appear statically underneath the video. Motivated by a survey research on current media watching and commenting practices, we report on our findings from the evaluation of an online video commenting system that allows users to add synchronized comments to third-party videos. Our results indicate that users appreciate the functionalities of our system and find it better to comment when compared to existing tools. Ultimately, we hope that our work can bring insights to be considered in the design of next generation online video commenting tools.

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Using high-quality video cameras on mobile devices, it is relatively easy to capture a significan... more Using high-quality video cameras on mobile devices, it is relatively easy to capture a significant volume of video content for community events such as local concerts or sporting events. A more difficult problem is selecting and sequencing individual media fragments that meet the personal interests of a viewer of such content. In this paper, we consider an infrastructure that supports the just-in-time delivery of personalized content. Based on user profiles and interests, tailored video mash-ups can be created at view-time and then further tailored to user interests via simple end-user interaction. Unlike other mash-up research, our system focuses on client-side compilation based on personal (rather than aggregate) interests. This paper concentrates on a discussion of language and infrastructure issues required to support just-in-time video composition and delivery. Using a high school concert as an example, we provide a set of requirements for dynamic content delivery. We then provide an architecture and infrastructure that meets these requirements. We conclude with a technical and user analysis of the just-in-time personalized video approach.

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The wide availability of relatively high-quality cameras makes it easy for many users to capture ... more The wide availability of relatively high-quality cameras makes it easy for many users to capture video fragments of social events such as concerts, sports events or community gatherings. The wide availability of simple sharing tools makes it nearly as easy to upload individual fragments to on-line video sites. These shared fragments have the value of immediacy, but they are unable to capitalize on complementary content created by others. This article reports on a 10-month evaluation process intended to investigate socially-aware authoring tools. The results provide a set of guidelines for developing novel multimedia sharing applications, where relationships among people on both sides of the camera are important. The resulting prototype software enables community-based users to navigate through a large common content space and to generate highly personalized videos of targeted interest within a social circle. The videos are constructed from a collection of independent recordings of the event, managing the complex interpersonal relationships and time-variant social context within a community of diverse (but related) users. As part of the evaluation process, users were asked to reflect on the prototype application, based on their experiences on using it with their own content recorded at a high school concert. According to the results, a system like ours is a valid alternative for social interactions when apart.

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Proceedings of the 11th ACM symposium on Document engineering (DocEng '11), 2011

The evolution in media support within W3C standards has led to the development of HMTL5. HTML5 pr... more The evolution in media support within W3C standards has led to the development of HMTL5. HTML5 provides extensive support for audio/video/timed-text within an interoperable browser context. This workshop examines the impact of HTML5 on research and systems support for multimedia documents. We will consider issues such as extensibility, adaptivity and maintenance, and will discuss the future needs for Multimedia in a Web context.

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Proceedings of the ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci '11), 2011

Social multimedia is changing the way people interact with each other, transforming old practices... more Social multimedia is changing the way people interact with each other, transforming old practices on political activism, social participation and interpersonal relationships. Sharing dynamically created video segments is a prime example of this social transformation. This paper reports on a long field trial studying social practices around personal videos within a tight social circle. Our results show that users appreciate

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HT '11 Proceedings of the 22nd ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia, 2011

This paper introduces an evaluated approach to the automatic generation of video narratives from ... more This paper introduces an evaluated approach to the automatic generation of video narratives from user generated content gathered in a shared repository. In the context of social events, end-users record video material with their personal cameras and upload the content to a common repository. Video narrative techniques, implemented using Narrative Structure Language (NSL) and ShapeShifting Media, are employed to automatically generate movies recounting the event. Such movies are personalized according to the preferences expressed by each individual end-user, for each individual viewing. This paper describes our prototype narrative system, MyVideos, deployed as a web application, and reports on its evaluation for one specific use case: assembling stories of a school concert by parents, relatives and friends. The evaluations carried out through focus groups, interviews and field trials, in the Netherlands and UK, provided validating results and further insights into this approach.

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2016 IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia (ISM '16)

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Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering (DocEng '16), 2016

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Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '16), 2016

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Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference (W4A '16), 2016

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Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference (W4A '16), 2016

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Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ‘15), 2015

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Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM '15), 2015

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Adjunct Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME '15), 2015

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Proceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web (WebMedia '14), 2014

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Adjunct Proceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web (WebMedia '14), 2014

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Proceedings of the 19th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web (WebMedia '13), 2013

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Proceedings of the 28th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC '13), 2013

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Proceedings of International Conference on Making Sense of Converging Media (AcademicMindTrek '13), 2013

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Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS '12), 2012

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Proceedings of the 18th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web (WebMedia '12), 2012

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Proceedings of the 11th ACM symposium on Document engineering (DocEng '11), 2011

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Proceedings of the ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci '11), 2011

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HT '11 Proceedings of the 22nd ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia, 2011

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Agent Technology for Intelligent Mobile Services and Smart Societies, Fernando Koch, Felipe Meneguzzi and Kiran Lakkaraju (Eds.). Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Germany, 46-55. ISBN: 978-3-662-46240-9, 2014

Shared Message Boards foster communication practices within restricted groups that typically do n... more Shared Message Boards foster communication practices within restricted groups that typically do not emerge in traditional social networks. In this article, we describe an experiment in which a Shared Message Board technology was employed to support carpooling activities in a large company in Brazil. Based on the results extracted from the platform and from two user studies, we identified important elements influencing the adoption of this technology as well as other activities where it can be effectively used in order to promote the development of smart enterprises.

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Together Anywhere, Together Anytime: Technologies for Intimate Interactions, 2012

Many of the TA2 concept demonstrators study synchronous interactions among groups of users. But n... more Many of the TA2 concept demonstrators study synchronous interactions among groups of users. But not everyone is available at the same time as the rest of their social circle. For this reason, we also studied asynchronous togetherness: being together when it suits you best.

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Together Anywhere, Together Anytime: Technologies for Intimate Interactions, 2012

Social multimedia is changing the way people interact with each other, transforming old practices... more Social multimedia is changing the way people interact with each other, transforming old practices on political activism, social participation and interpersonal relationships. Sharing dynamically created video segments is a prime example of this social transformation. This chapter reports on a long field trial studying social practices around personal videos within a tight social circle. Our results show that users appreciate the importance of video sharing for feeling more connected with group members and for building shared experiences.

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Iee Proceedings - Systems Biology, 2009

This chapter reports on the Ambulant Annotator, a middleware extension for Personal Digital Recor... more This chapter reports on the Ambulant Annotator, a middleware extension for Personal Digital Recorders (PDR), in the form of a lightweight authoring tool, which allows the viewer to personalize television content and share it with others. Traditionally, social interactive television ...

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IBM Journal of Research and Development, 59, 6 (November/December 2015), Paper 2, 7 pages, Nov 2015

Vocational training can bring significant benefits for people with disabilities (PwD), particular... more Vocational training can bring significant benefits for people with disabilities (PwD), particularly in terms of self-esteem and autonomy. Nevertheless, only a small fraction of Brazilians with disabilities actually work, due to lack of job qualifications. In this paper, we report on the early progress of an ongoing research agenda that investigates new educational and social engagement technologies to facilitate the qualification and inclusion of PwD in the Brazilian labor market. Based on our experiences working with multiple disability populations in a series of exploratory studies, we discuss relevant aspects to be considered in the design and implementation of a vocational training platform targeted at PwD.

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Revista Deficiência Intelectual, 2014

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ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (TOMCCAP), 9, 1s (October 2013), Article 35, 23 pages, Oct 2013

Creating compelling multimedia productions is a nontrivial task. This is as true for creating pro... more Creating compelling multimedia productions is a nontrivial task. This is as true for creating professional content as it is for nonprofessional editors. During the past 20 years, authoring networked content has been a part of the research agenda of the multimedia community. Unfortunately, authoring has been seen as an initial enterprise that occurs before 'real' content processing takes place. This limits the options open to authors and to viewers of rich multimedia content for creating and receiving focused, highly personal media presentations. This article reflects on the history of multimedia authoring. We focus on the particular task of supporting socially-aware multimedia, in which the relationships within particular social groups among authors and viewers can be exploited to create highly personal media experiences. We provide an overview of the requirements and characteristics of socially-aware multimedia authoring within the context of exploiting community content. We continue with a short historical perspective on authoring support for these types of situations. We then present an overview of a current system for supporting socially-aware multimedia authoring within the community content. We conclude with a discussion of the issues that we feel can provide a fruitful basis for future multimedia authoring support. We argue that providing support for socially-aware multimedia authoring can have a profound impact on the nature and architecture of the entire multimedia information processing pipeline.

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ACM SIGMultimedia Records (PhD Thesis Summaries), 7, 2 (October 2015), 16-17., Oct 2015

Creating compelling multimedia productions is a non- trivial problem. This is true for both profe... more Creating compelling multimedia productions is a non- trivial problem. This is true for both professional and personal content. For professional content, extensive production support is typically available during creation. Content assets are well structured, content fragments are professionally produced with high quality, and production assets are often highly annotated (within the scope of the production model). For personal content, nearly none of these conditions exist: content is a collection of assets that are structured only by linear recording time, of mediocre technical quality (on an absolute scale), and with only basic automatic annotations. These conditions limit the options open to casual authors and to viewers of rich multimedia content in creating and receiving focused, highly personal media presentations. The problem is compounded when authors want to integrate community media assets: media fragments donated from a potentially wide and anonymous recording community. In this thesis we reflect on the traditional multimedia authoring workflow and we argue that a fresh new look is required. Our experimental methodology aims at meeting the requirements needed for social communities that are not addressed by traditional authoring and sharing applications. We focus on the particular task of supporting socially-aware multimedia authoring, in which the relationships within particular social groups can be exploited to create highly personal media experiences. Our framework is centered on empowering users in telling stories and commenting on personal media artifacts, considering the long-term social context of the user. The work has been evaluated through a number of prototype tools that allow users to explore, create, enrich and share rich multimedia artifacts. Results from our evaluation process provide useful insights into how a socially-aware multimedia authoring and sharing system should be designed and architected, for helping users in recalling personal memories and in nurturing their close circle relationships. The work reported in this thesis has been carried out at the VU University Amsterdam and at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), under the auspices of the group Distributed and Interactive Systems (DIS). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. ICT-2007-214793.

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Technical Report. Project Together Anywhere, Together Anytime (TA2), 2012

The goal of the TA2 project has been to improve social communication amongst groups of people tha... more The goal of the TA2 project has been to improve social communication amongst groups of people that are separated in time and space. A series of demonstrators of telecommunication, multimedia and gaming applications were developed and evaluated in close cooperation with different groups of users. This deliverable presents the main findings from a series of user evaluations of the TA2 demonstrators that were carried out during 2011 and 2012. It builds on previous project deliverables D8.1 Evaluation plan, D8.4 Evaluation of TA2 concepts and D8.7 User evaluations. This work is intended to fill the gap that exists in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), which typically focuses on applications for individual use or for one-to-one communication and in the field of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) or computer mediated communication (CMC), which typically concentrates on communication and cooperation in task-related contexts.

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Technical Report. Project Together Anywhere, Together Anytime (TA2), 2011

The main purpose of this report is to document the intelligent audio capture and data analysis co... more The main purpose of this report is to document the intelligent audio capture and data analysis components developed within the TA2 project, reflect the challenges and evaluations. The described components are used by several higher level components of the TA2 system. These include the audio communication engine, the orchestration and composition engine. The semantic information is used for higher-level stream manipulation and automatic editing, for example to cut close-up shots from single persons who are currently speaking or to focus on a group of two persons having a dialogue. The document is divided into three main chapters, reflecting the division between different concept demonstrators and architectural components within the TA2 system. Chapter 2 (Intelligent Audio Capture) describes an acoustic audio capturing interface for immersive multi-channel group communication. The interface extracts directional information that allows multiple participants to be tracked in a consumer environment using a MIMO setup (multiple microphones and speakers) and provides noise reduction and acoustic echo compensation. Chapter 3 (Data Analysis for Synchronous Scenarios) summarizes analysis approaches enabling multimodal stream manipulation for open, unconstrained environments. They comprise the detection and tracking of multiple faces, identification and recognition of multiple persons, estimation of head poses, depth information and visual focus of attention, detection and localisation of verbal and paralinguistic events, detection of some hand gestures (pointing and wiping), as well as the detection, recognition and tracking of specified patterns (on a sheet of paper). Chapter 4 (Multimedia Structuring and Content Extraction) reports on several novel techniques devised to enhance the content annotation stage in the MyVideos concept demonstrator. It comprises the techniques on content synchronisation, detection of rapid camera movements, detection of heavy unsteadiness or people crossing the picture close to the camera, face detection and tracking, semantic information integration into MyVideos database for further exploitation.

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Monograph in the course of Seminars on Interactive Digital TV, 2006

Os atuais padrões para TV digital definem um conjunto de linguagens para a especificação de aplic... more Os atuais padrões para TV digital definem um conjunto de linguagens para a especificação de aplicações . Através dessas linguagens são definidas as relações entre os eventos de uma aplicação, onde incluem - se os eventos de interatividade com o usuário e de sincronismo entre os objeto s que compõem a apresentação . No contexto geral, pode - se afirmar que as linguagens atuais, baseadas em Java e baseadas em HTML+Scripts, definem as aplicações como programas, exigindo que o autor especifique uma sucessão de comandos para obter o resultado d esejado. Para permitir a especificação das aplicações em um nível mais alto de abstração, linguagens declarativas, como SMIL e NCL podem ser utilizadas. Nessas linguagens o autor deve especificar o conjunto de tarefas a serem realizadas, sem que seja neces sário mencionar a implementação dessas tarefas. Além do uso de linguagens voltadas para o domínio da aplicação, este trabalho aborda o uso de ferramentas destinadas a o desenvolvimento de aplicações para TV digital, com o objetivo de utilizar a autoria gráf ica em substituição a autoria textual.

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Monograph in the course of Foundations of Hypermedia Systems, 2005

Com o advento da adoção de um padrão de TV digital pelo Brasil, tem crescido o interesse pela aná... more Com o advento da adoção de um padrão de TV digital pelo Brasil, tem crescido o interesse pela análise das possíveis alternativas nas mais diversas áreas que irão compor esse sistema. Nesse contexto, existe uma grande variedade de linguagens que podem ser utiliz adas no desenvolvimento de programas multimídia/hipermídia interativos. Dentre os paradigmas de programação existentes, as linguagens declarativas estão despontando como a nova aposta para a autoria em TV digital interativa. Cabe então a análise rigorosa p ara que a melhor decisão seja tomada visando atender aos requisitos e necessidades desse novo sistema que será implantado no país. Esta monografia tem como objetivo levantar os pontos positivos e negativos encontrados na elaboração de conteúdo hipermídia i nterativo em XHTML, SMIL/GR i NS e NCL/Maestro, bem como fazer um estudo comparativo entre essas linguagens.

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Monograph in the course of High Speed Networks, 2005

O desempenho das redes de comunicação tem evoluído, e isso tem permitido a implementação de novos... more O desempenho das redes de comunicação tem evoluído, e isso tem permitido a implementação de novos serviços que foram originalmente desenvolvidos para outros tipos de redes. Esse advent o é usualmente chamado de convergência de redes, ou, convergência tecnológica e o resultado disso pode ser uma significante economia em infraestrutura, desenvolvimento, suporte e custos de gerenciamento. Nesse contexto, este trabalho descreve um conjunto d e mecanismos de encapsulamento para integração de serviços existentes em redes IP e MPEG. São detalhados os mecanismos de transporte de fluxos MPEG - 2 e MPEG - 4 através de datagramas IP, assim como detalhados maneiras de datagramas IP serem transportados atr avés de redes MPEG.

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Final Report of Summer Internship Program, 2003

Neste trabalho a caracterização e a otimização da medida da matriz de correção de órbita para a d... more Neste trabalho a caracterização e a otimização da medida da matriz de correção de órbita para a determinação da óptica do anel de armazenamento do LNLS são investigadas. É realizado um estudo dos conceitos físicos envolvidos e das características desse anel. Com o uso de corretoras, pequenas perturbações são criadas nas trajetórias dos elétrons do feixe, e os monitores de posição são utilizados para medida desses distúrbios. Durante o processo avaliamos a repetibilidade das medidas com e sem ciclagem das corretoras para um mesmo feixe, a sensibilidade à variação da força de um par de quadrupólos, a linearidade da rede magnética e a repetibilidade da máquina de injeção para injeção. Com base nas medidas realizadas futuramente será utilizada uma ferramenta para a determinação dos parâmetros da rede magnética. Estudos preliminares [1] e os resultados das simulações mostram que a determinação destes parâmetros levam ao melhoramento da simetria do anel, assim como a uma maior eficiência de injeção e a um maior tempo de vida do feixe de elétrons armazenados.

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Doctoral thesis

Creating compelling multimedia productions is a non-trivial problem. This is true for both profes... more Creating compelling multimedia productions is a non-trivial problem. This is true for both professional and personal content. For professional content, extensive production support is typically available during creation. Content assets are well structured, content fragments are professionally produced with high quality, and production assets are often highly annotated (within the scope of the production model). For personal content, nearly none of these conditions exist: content is a collection of assets that are structured only by linear recording time, of mediocre technical quality (on an absolute scale), and with only basic automatic annotations. These conditions limit the options open to casual authors and to viewers of rich multimedia content in creating and receiving focused, highly personal media presentations. The problem is compounded when authors want to integrate community media assets: media fragments donated from a potentially wide and anonymous recording community. In this thesis we reflect on the traditional multimedia authoring workflow and we argue that a fresh new look is required. Our experimental methodology aims at meeting the requirements needed for social communities that are not addressed by traditional authoring and sharing applications. We focus on the particular task of supporting socially-aware multimedia authoring, in which the relationships within particular social groups can be exploited to create highly personal media experiences. Our framework is centered on empowering users in telling stories and commenting on personal media artifacts, considering the long-term social context of the user. The work has been evaluated through a number of prototype tools that allow users to explore, create, enrich and share rich multimedia artifacts. Results from our evaluation process provide useful insights into how a socially-aware multimedia authoring and sharing system should be designed and architected, for helping users in recalling personal memories and in nurturing their close circle relationships.

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Master's dissertation, 2007

With the advent of adoption of an interactive digital TV standard by the Brazilian government, th... more With the advent of adoption of an interactive digital TV standard by the Brazilian government, the interest for the analysis of possible alternatives in several areas that compose a digital TV system has increas ed. In the case of Brazil, NCL is the declarative language adopted for modeling i nteractive applications in the Brazilian Terrestrial Digital TV Syste m (ISDTV-T – International System for Digital TV ). In that context, this work presents Composer , an authoring tool to create NCL documents for interactive digita l TV. In the same way that in the HyperProp editor, in which it is base d, in Composer the abstractions are defined using views that allow to simulate a specific type of edition (structural, temporal, layout and textual). Those visions work i n a synchronized way, in order to offer an integrated authoring tool. Beside s having the user and the functional interface remodeled, mainly its temporal view, problems of representation and edition of media objects, relationship proble ms, amongst then the interactive relationships, and live edition are tr eated. In summary, the proposed system tries to make easier the creation of documents for digital TV abstracting from the author all, or at least some c omplexity of programming in NCL using this authoring tool.

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Undergraduate Final Project, 2004

Um processo de tomada de decisão envolve a identificação de um conjunto de alternativas para a de... more Um processo de tomada de decisão envolve a identificação de um conjunto de alternativas para a decisão, a análise destas alternativas com base em um conjunto de restrições e critérios e a seleção da alternativa que apresenta a melhor avaliação. Processos de tomada de decisão estão presentes no nosso dia a dia e, em particular, no dia a dia de organizações como empresas, corporações e instituições governamentais. Este projeto de graduação descreve a infraestrutura computacional de gerenciamento e comunicação de dados do MultiJADE, um ambiente para construção de sistemas computacionais para o apoio a tomada de decisão em processos concorrentes e distribuídos. A metodologia empregada envolveu uma ampla análise de caracterização dos processos concorrentes e distribuídos de tomada de decisão, e resultou na implementação dos mecanismos de comunicação e armazenamento de dados de um sistema de arquitetura “Centralizada”, no qual atuam um agente coordenador e agentes especialistas, sendo que todos se comunicam através de um “Servidor Controlador”.

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Summer School on Multimedia Semantics (SSMS '10), 2010

A key research question in multimedia is how to provide mechanisms for adding semantic annotation... more A key research question in multimedia is how to provide mechanisms for adding semantic annotations to given media assets. Content analysis focuses on automatic tools, social networks can help in describing the media, and professionals might provide high-quality annotations. In general, tagging is a very critical process, and all these solutions have benefits and drawbacks based on parameters such as required effort, quality, validity, and usefulness of the annotations. In the literature, the tagging process is normally situated in one of the following extremes: • It is carried out with considerable effort, manually, by people dedicated to this job (e.g. museum catalogues); on the one hand this approach allows the development of richer services on top of such repositories, however, it has the drawback of requiring significant effort; • It is carried out automatically, but normally with very simplistic and limited sets of tags (ontology), thus having limited value in providing for richer services; • It is assumed a resolved issue in the presentation of services that are based on comprehensive (rich) tagging; and • More recently, it is opened to the “general public”, and is based on “folksonomies” – i.e. not relying on a controlled vocabulary; the success of this approach in different domains is still to be evaluated. While less automatic approaches have tackled different aspects of tagging on the multimedia workflow [1], a number of research efforts also have addressed the potential of automatic processes in content analysis based on events, semantic understanding from aggregated end-user comments, media composition based on narrative constructs, and content adaptation depending on the end-user context. In my work I discuss the effect of tagging in the context of a pan-European project called Together Anywhere, Together Anytime (TA2 - http://www.ta2-project.eu). This project studies new forms of computer-mediated social communications. In particular, I concentrate on how tagging affects automatic and manual authoring processes in an asynchronous Web-based social communication system called MyVideos. MyVideos is a community-based video sharing environment in which users can combine video assets contributed by other members to create and share personalized videos within a restrict social group. With regards to the manual (or directed) authoring approach, tagging is essential in finding the relevant footage for a particular edit. End-users have particular editing aims and tagging might help them find, as quickly as possible, footage that is relevant to meet those aims. Therefore, we need to understand the editing needs of an end-user with regards to both the overall end product (the video compilation) and the current task at hand (the propose now). If the editing needs are very limited, it is possible that simple ontologies and not too robust annotations could be sufficient. If the editing needs are ambitious, then more complex ontologies and more precise annotations might be required. I regard as essential here the issue of editing intent. This issue is further nuanced by the size of the repository. For example, if the number of media objects is not too high, then simple annotations might suffice even for ambitious editing aims. With regards to automatic authoring, tagging is crucial in the automatic construction of the video compilation. Without appropriate tagging, certain compilations could simply not be achievable. Nevertheless, in the automatic editing process, a professional editor is assumed (to construct the narrative structures and provide some of the required annotations). Then, any investigation of the annotation process uses to consider that, at one end, annotation could be entirely carried out by the professional editor, whereas at the other end, it could be entirely carried out by the end-users themselves. Here, too, tagging depends on the narrative intent. Complex compilations, more certainly, require more comprehensive tagging. An obvious issue for investigation regards the tradeoff between the efforts required in providing rich annotations and the satisfaction of the final compilation. This requires the development of a number of narrative structures, with different levels of ambition, and their evaluation with repositories of different complexities of annotations. In my work I take a hybrid approach and try to define the thresholds and boundaries of what we can expect from automatic annotation processes, and how manual approaches can be used in annotating community-contributed media assets within MyVideos.

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2nd PEACH Summer School on Presence, 2008

Television-watching has always been a social activity. In the living room people watch television... more Television-watching has always been a social activity. In the living room people watch television together and outside home people talk about last night’s soccer match or even call each other to recommend an interesting program. Nevertheless, the pressures of daily life and the increase in the number of separated households make joint television viewing increasingly difficult. In this context, we have been working on the Authoring from the Couch paradigm [1], an entertainment-oriented authoring approach in which the authoring task is performed incidentally. This new mechanism is an extension of the traditional television-watching experience that permits an end-user to enrich broadcast content by including personalized overlays (e.g. audio commentary and text) [2], and share it with others through recommendation messages. In these messages the encoded original content remains unaltered, in such a way that digital rights on content reuse are respected. Personal digital devices, like pen-enabled tablet PCs and mobile phones, are used for annotating and navigating through the audiovisual content from the couch. Finally, these recommendations can be forwarded to a peer group using an asynchronous communication technology such as MMS, e-mail, blog posting, and RSS feeds. In order to extend the capabilities of this innovative paradigm, we are interested in new concepts to increase social interaction and improve user experience, especially with regards to synchronous communication aspects. For instance, when watching television presentation commands are negotiated verbally among collocated viewers. While in an asynchronous context such problem is avoided, in a synchronous experience we can imagine multiple devices controlling the presentation at the same time. On the other hand, for non-collocated viewers the system should enable them to watch the same TV show at the same time. In this case, a presence approach, as a virtual couch, needs to be considered in order to make users feel more connected.

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