Semi-supervised learning for relevance feedback on image retrieval tasks

Relevance feedback approaches have been established as an important tool for interactive search, enabling users to express their needs. However, in view of the growth of multimedia collections available, the user efforts required by these methods tend to increase as well, demanding approaches for reducing the need of user interactions. In this context, this paper proposes a semi-supervised learning algorithm for relevance feedback to be used in image retrieval tasks. The proposed semi-supervised algorithm aims at using both supervised and unsupervised approaches simultaneously. While a supervised step is performed using the information collected from the user feedback, an unsupervised step exploits the intrinsic dataset structure, which is represented in terms of ranked lists of images. Several experiments were conducted for different image retrieval tasks involving shape, color, and texture descriptors and different datasets. The proposed approach was also evaluated on multimodal retrieval tasks, considering visual and textual descriptors. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Image segmentation through combined methods: watershed transform, unsupervised distance learning and normalized cut

Research on image processing has shown that combining segmentation methods may lead to a solid approach to extract semantic information from different sort of images. Within this context, the Normalized Cut (NCut) is usually used as a final partitioning tool for graphs modeled in some chosen method. This work explores the Watershed Transform as a modeling tool, using different criteria of the hierarchical Watershed to convert an image into an adjacency graph. The Watershed is combined with an unsupervised distance learning step that redistributes the graph weights and redefines the Similarity matrix, before the final segmentation step using NCut. Adopting the Berkeley Segmentation Data Set and Benchmark as a background, our goal is to compare the results obtained for this method with previous work to validate its performance.

Utilização de alvos codificados do tipo ARUCO na automação do processo de calibração de câmaras

This paper presents a proposal for the automation of the camera calibration process, locating and measuring image points in coded targets with sub-pixel precision. This automatic technique helps minimize localization errors, regardless of camera orientation and image scale. To develop this technique, several types of coded targets were analyzed and the ARUCO type was chosen due to its simplicity, ability to represent up to 1024 different targets and availability of source code implemented with the OpenCV library. ARUCO targets were generated and two calibration sheets were assembled to be used for the acquisition of images for camera calibration. The developed software can locate targets in the acquired images and it automatically extracts the coordinates of the four corners with sub-pixel accuracy. Experiments were conducted with real data showing that the targets are correctly identified unless excessive noise or fragmentation occurs mainly in the outer target square. The results with the calibration of a low cost camera showed that the process works and that the measurement accuracy of the corners achieves sub-pixel precision.

Discurso e história: representações do feminino em Ana Bolena

The central theme of this work is the construction of the identity of the female gender in the light of discourse analysis. To achieve this goal we used three different media productions made during the twentieth and twenty-first century that address the same historical character: Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII. From the research and analysis of images carefully selected to represent three different real moments of Anne Boleyn, it was possible to realize how the same scene may have different approaches and how such approaches are influenced not only by the author of the work, but also by a discursive game that coordinates what can or can't be said by a society. The study concludes that the discourse analysis, besides assisting in the understanding of life and speeches of the historical character in question, also provides subsidies to know the society not only at the time that Anne Boleyn lived, but also at the time when the media productions studied here were performed

Identidades em movimento: a representação feminina e as relações de gênero na obra de Angela Carter

Pós-graduação em Letras - FCLAS

Rastros em chão branco: o sertão de João Guimarães Rosa entre percepções e memórias de travessias

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

O paraíso atrasado: a construção do rural no Brasil através do imaginário geográfico

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Relatórios de minorias com crianças e imagens: contornos de uma pesquisa margarida

Pós-graduação em Educação - IBRC

Desejos, brasilidades e segredos: o negócio do sexo na relação entre clientela espanhola e travestis brasileiras

The gender ethinicization and the nationality sexualization are aspects that have been discussed in the relationship between Spanish clients and Brazilian transvestites in the brisk sex business in Spain. Sometimes, in these sexual relationships, which are also business relationships, erotic aspects are associated with exoticism that is not related only to nationality or race, but also to new sexual experiences that are more exciting than those considered conventional practices. Hence, the connection between Brazil and the transgender body, made by some Spanish clients, makes sense only when considering the dense sexual grammar involved in those relationships. These signs were structured based on continual colonial attributions, which have been given fresh meaning by the new migration flow resulting from the broad spread of images and insertion of Brazil into the sexual tourism route. Aiming at fully discussing this proposal, this research is based on the queer theory and on other studies in the literature that focus on the poststructuralist and post-colonial sex market. These tools were used to analyze the data gathered in an ethnographic study carried out in São Paulo, Madrid, and Barcelona, as well as data collected from Spanish websites about sexual interest in transvestites

Processo e produção visual do graffitti na cidade de Bauru/SP - Brasil: um estudo etnográfico

The graffiti is a calligraphic inscription or a drawn painted or engraved over a supported not normally used for this purpose. This artistic manifestation has been gaining more notoriety as an element of expression, reflection and actuation in the urban environment, since it is present in the streets and public ways reaching many observers with different repertoires and looks. This recent movement in Brazil has its first records in the early 80’s, but it is noteworthy that this event continues in an emergence process, consolidating increasingly as an artistic movement, in broad development, elaborating new technics, readjust and re-signifying its elements, re-improving and generating different values for the spaces. With the purpose to map the graffiti artists in Bauru/SP – Brazil, it was done an ethnography that allows to point some specific local characteristics; the relation between the artist and the city, and; the relation between the townsman and the graffiti.

A estética japonesa na cultura brasileira: reflexões a partir de um estudo etnofotográfico sobre a performance ritual da festa da Cerejeira de Garça-SP

Aiming to understand the Japanese aesthetic in Brazilian culture and to produce a photographic exhibition of artistic and ethnographic nature, we performed a symbolic exegesis of the ritual performance of Garça Cherry Festival - SP (Brazil). The event takes place annually and is held in memory and honor of oriental culture. The festival features various elements of Japanese culture through expressive forms such as dance, music, costumes, martial arts and cooking. Therefore, the study was based on the anthropology of performance and visual anthropology with regard to symbolic exegesis of the party and look artistic and ethnographic photographic records of the proceedings. Such procedures supported the realization of artistic display that contributed, in turn, in promoting the local culture to a wider audience, and, methodologically, have contributed in visual identification and interpretation of the cultural elements of the ceremony.

O desejo e a indústria cultural no processo de subjetivação: diálogo sobre o corpo na educação física escolar

We analyzed the Cultural Industry and impositions for manners of production of capitalism in subjectivity, exposing the subject to alienated fragility. Because, the consumption doesn't just refer to the contemplation of images for subjects, but also about identification that subjects can have about images. The contemporary society is composed in individualist adoration by self, demanding pledge and self-control to reach the wanted body and idealized spread by media, disseminating idea of corporal pattern. So, we understood that the school physical education, being the field of knowledge of cultural corporal, has as function, also, to act as intercessor in relationship with media, above all when worked with pertinent subjects to corporeality contributing so that student, through exercise of critic, transform the society. Therefore, the educators need to extrapolate hesitation front media and make critical use of formative and informative possibilities, on consumption and impact on the body.

Cinquenta anos do Mini Cooper: uma viagem pelo tempo por meio da Ilustração

The use of images as a mean of human knowledge transmission dates from the earliest records of visual communication with the cave paintings. Throughout history, the communicating function remained and was extended for a variety of approaches, including illustration, which plays an important role by transmitting a content to be communicated on a creative and unique way. The advertising area relies largely on the communicative power of illustration, using it as a visual aid on different ways and medias. The advertising pieces aimed at the automotive sector – especially those developed by BMW for the Mini Cooper model – broadly employs illustrations to spread the word about the product and its attributes, seeking to communicate it using an original way. With a qualitative approach to the case study, this article analyzes the illustrations produced by the South African design studio Am I Collective as part of a video prepared by South African advertising agency Blackriver FC as a celebration campaign for the fifty years of vehicle Mini Cooper, celebrated on 2009, and it aims to identify the illustrations visuals and compositions used in the construction of the covered temporal panorama.

Marcas e lugares: um estudo sobre marcas turísticas no Rio de Janeiro

This paper, through a literature review, demonstrates the importance of the use of brands by men, initially as a form of expression and communication. History has shown that the visual language and the use of images in the form of the brands, proved a very efficient and direct interpretation, with accuracy to what it represents, setting the brand as a financially valued member. The paper deals with analysis of the Spanish example that argues the way that touristic points has been used to represent places in the whole world; then, at the same time, it measures the case of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro where brands are created for special events and there is not a representative tourist brand to this town; But when analyzing the places in the city, symbols like The Copacabana Promenade has a strong presence in the collective imagination, that's the reason why it has been used as an element of strong local identity and in the Industrial Design.

Design emocional e análise observacional: inter-relações entre produto e usuário

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)