Lynda Hardman
CWI, The Netherlands
From Linked Data to Stories:
Using explicit semantics to improve interactive information access
People have used narrative to communicate since before the emergence of written historical records. Narrative continues to form the basis of modern forms of video-based communication, such as feature films, documentaries and news items.
Users of video search engines, however, have to deduce the relations among the information contained in the clips to infer a coherent story from them. This leads to unnecessary cognitive effort that does not directly satisfy the viewer’s information need that led to the query. Viewers would be better served if a selection of relevant video clips were assembled into a coherent sequence that conforms to a familiar communication structure. This would require information about the content of the presentation and, additionally, about the communication structure, such as narrative or argument. The Linked Open Data cloud is a rich source of domain information and, in conjunction with annotations of media fragments, can be used to select related pieces of content. Information of how to assemble these fragments into a coherent whole is required.
We illustrate the construction of coherent video sequences based on argumentation structure, and explore what other communication structures may be possible. Examples are drawn from better contextualising news events (LinkedTV News), constructing a coherent video documentary and assessing the implications of a shale-gas drilling on the environment.
Short biography
Lynda Hardman is a member of the management team at CWI (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica) and Professor of Multimedia Discourse Interaction at Utrecht University. She graduated in Mathematics and Physics from Glasgow University in 1982. During several years in the software industry she was the development manager for Guide – the first hypertext authoring system for personal computers (1986). Her PhD thesis (UvA, 1998), on combining time-dependent documents (such as video sequences) along with interaction through links into a single model, contributed significantly to the first World Wide Web Consortium Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) recommendation. Since the development of the semantic web, Lynda has investigated improving human information access in applications using the rapidly expanding ‘linked open data cloud’ for creating linked-data driven, user-centric applications for exploring media content. Specifically, she is interested in using existing domain models in media annotations to enhance information exploration and in developing computational models of human communication to assist in this. In 2014, Lynda was named a Distinguished Scientist by the Association for Computing Machinery. She is president of Informatics Europe, whose mission is to foster the development of quality research and teaching in informatics.
Gerhard Widmer
JKU Linz, Austria
Computational Music Perception:
Teaching Computers to 'Understand' Music
The presentation intends to give the audience a glimpse of what it means for a computer to 'perceive' and in some (limited) sense 'understand' music, and what such musically literate machines can do for us. In particular, I will show how computers can give us new insights into the complex and subtle art of music performance; how they enable us to intuitively explore large sound and music collections; and how they will provide the basis for humans to interact with music in new ways. The goal of this presentation is not so much to explain the mathematical-algorithmic details of the underlying methods, but to motivate and inspire the conference participants to consider music as an exciting and rewarding and worthwhile field for computer science research.
Short biography
Gerhard Widmer should have become a pianist, but at age 15 decided that Beethoven was boring. He studied computer science (and some music) in Austria and the U.S., and is now a professor at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, where he heads the Institute for Computational Perception. He also founded and leads the Intelligent Music Processing and Machine Learning Group at the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI), Vienna. His research interests are in computational models of musical skills (notably: expressive music performance), and in the application of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning methods to real-world musical problems. He is considered a pioneer in inter-disciplinary research at the intersection of computer science, AI, and music, and has been awarded several research prizes, including the highest scientific award in the country of Austria, the "Wittgenstein Prize" (2009). He is a Fellow of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI), and the recipient of an ERC Advanced Grant (2015) of the European Research Council. His attitude towards Beethoven has also changed substantially, in the meantime.
Gerti Kappel
TU Wien, Austria
Cross-disciplinary Modeling - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Model-driven software engineering has gained momentum in academia as well as in industry for improving the development of evolving software by providing appropriate abstraction mechanisms in terms of software models and transformations thereof. With the rise of cyber-physical systems in general, and cyber-physical production systems in particular, the interplay between several engineering disciplines, such as software engineering, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, becomes a must. Thus, a shift from pure software models to cross-disciplinary models has to take place to develop the full potential of model-driven engineering for the whole production domain. Cross-disciplinary models are also essential to raise the level of flexibility of production systems in order to better react to changing requirements, since systems are no longer designed to be, but they have to be designed to evolve.
In this talk, we will have a look at current practice of cross-disciplinary modeling with special emphasis on good, bad, and ugly habits. We will point to ongoing work of (hopefully) improving this situation by applying and further developing model-driven techniques such as consistency management and co-evolution support for the production domain.
Short biography
Gerti Kappel is full professor at the Institute of Software Technology and Interactive Systems at TU Wien, chairing the Business Informatics Group. Until 2001, she was a full professor of computer science and head of the Department of Information Systems at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz. From 2004 to 2007, she acted as dean of studies for Business Informatics. She is a faculty member in the Doctoral College "Cyber-Physical Production Systems" funded by TU Wien. Since 2014, she is a board member of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Since beginning of 2016, she is also a member of the dean's team of the Faculty of Informatics responsible for research, diversity, and financial affairs. Her current research interests include Model Engineering, Web Engineering, and Process Engineering, with a special emphasis on cyber-physical production systems.
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