Request-driven cross-media content adaptation technique

Devices, standards and software develop rapidly, but still often independently of each other. This creates problems in terms of content suitability on various devices. Also, in mobile environment, user and system-level applications must execute subject to a variety of resource constraints. In order to deal with these constraints, content adaptation is required. In this chapter, we justify the need of distributed cross media content adaptation and the potential of utilizing Web Services as the adaptation providers. We introduce request-driven context to complement constraint-driven and utility-driven approaches. We describe the request context mapping and propose a novel path’s determination scheme for determining the optimal service proxies to facilitate the adaptation tasks. To better illustrate the disjoint portions in content passing between service proxies, two communication models were associated. Then, within Web Services, we explain the related protocols and socket connection between adaptation’s services. We conclude with discussion regarding the strengths of the proposed architecture.

Performing self and other in architecture : Staging Zaha Hadid

London-based Iraqi-born architect, Zaha Hadid, is often portrayed as extravagant and exotic; an image reinforced by her sense of fashion and her passion for the clothes of Japanese designer, Issey Miyake. By examining some of the ways that Zaha Hadid has staged herself as an architect, this article links notions of performance with processes of becoming an architect. It argues that Hadid is marked by traces of otherness–gender, culture, race–which give rise to questions about the story of the master architect dominating a westernized history of architecture and art.

Working collaboratively in a group assignment using a Mediawiki for an architecture and construction management undergraduate unit

This paper describes an architecture and construction management unit which implements Mediawiki in teaching and learning. The main objective of using the Mediawiki is to engage students to work collaboratively online in a group assignment. It also aims to further develop student information technology skills and thus enhance their learning experience. One of the learning objectives of the unit is to develop the ability to communicate the results of student research in construction technology using appropriate digital media from which Mediawiki was chosen. This paper outlines the challenges and issues faced in the implementation of Mediawiki as a collaborative tool in a group assignment of an architecture and construction management unit. It also discusses how academic staff and students were supported through the process of learning to use the Mediawiki. Finally, potential future directions of using Mediawiki in teaching and learning are explored based on students’ comments and feedback.

A framework for elearning with social media using DRM

This paper provides a proposal for personal e-learning system (PELS) architecture in the context of social network environment. The main objective of PELS is to develop individual skills on a specific subject and share resources with peers. Our system architecture defines organization and management of personal learning environment that aids in creating, verifying and sharing learning artifacts and making money at the same time. We also focus on in our research one of the most interesting arenas in digital content or document management called Digital Right Management (DRAM) and its application to eLearning.

A cooperative cache architecture in support of caching multimedia objects in MANETs

This paper presents a cooperative caching architecture suitable for continuous media (CM) proxy caching in MANET environments. The proposed scheme introduces an application manager component, which is interposed between traditional Internet CM applications and the network layer. The application manager transparently performs data location and service migration of active CM streaming sessions so as to exploit nearby data sources based on the dynamic topology of a MANET. We propose two data location schemes - Cache-State - a link-state based scheme and Reactive - an on-demand scheme. Since service migration can occur frequently, the application manager uses soft-state signaling techniques to communicate between remote application managers by translating hard-state application signaling, such as Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) into soft-state messages. The proposed schemes are evaluated through simulation studies using the NS simulator. Simulation studies show that both Cache-State and Reactive schemes demonstrate significant QoS improvements and reduced bandwidth consumption.

IMCE : integrated media creation environment

We discuss the design and implementation of an integrated media creation environment, and demonstrate its efficacy in the generation of two simple home movies. The significance for the average user seeking to create home movies lies in the flexible and automatic application of film principles to the task, removal of tedious low-level editing by means of wellformed media transformations in terms of high-level film constructs (e.g. tempo), and content repurposing powered by those same transformations added to the rich semantic information maintained at each phase of the process.

Superflat architecture : culture and dimensionality

Takashi Murakami’s notion of ‘superflat’ art has specific roots in the western-influenced woodblock prints of nineteenth-century Edo and contemporary applications in the popular culture media of manga and anime. As applied to architecture, ‘superflatness’ is suggestive of a sensibility that derives its aesthetic qualities from a mixture of Japanese traditions and western architectural lineages. More intriguingly, the idea of superflat architecture implies a way of perceiving space and dimensionality that is distinctive to contemporary Japanese architects.

Interior architecture

Interior Architecture brought together eight very different artists who employed a range of processes and materials in their exploration of the body in space. What was refreshing about this exhibition was the fact that architecture was examined in relation to the lived body of the artist. Since contemporary discussions about architecture tend to either explore its relationship to media or (more concretely) the built versus the natural environment, it was significant that each artist instead examined architecture in the context of their personal experience of space

PGSW-OS: a novel approach for resource management in a semantic web operating system based on a P2P grid architecture

A web operating system is an operating system that users can access from any hardware at any location. A peer-to-peer (P2P) grid uses P2P communication for resource management and communication between nodes in a grid and manages resources locally in each cluster, and this provides a proper architecture for a web operating system. Use of semantic technology in web operating systems is an emerging field that improves the management and discovery of resources and services. In this paper, we propose PGSW-OS (P2P grid semantic Web OS), a model based on a P2P grid architecture and semantic technology to improve resource management in a web operating system through resource discovery with the aid of semantic features. Our approach integrates distributed hash tables (DHTs) and semantic overlay networks to enable semantic-based resource management by advertising resources in the DHT based upon their annotations to enable semantic-based resource matchmaking. Our model includes ontologies and virtual organizations. Our technique decreases the computational complexity of searching in a web operating system environment. We perform a simulation study using the Gridsim simulator, and our experiments show that our model provides enhanced utilization of resources, better search expressiveness, scalability, and precision. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Family violence happens to everybody: gender, mental health and violence in Australian media representations of filicide 2010–2014

This discussion of three cases of filicide reported and reviewed extensively by the Australian news media between 2010 and 2014 is concerned with the politics of representation and its links to material violence. Moving through the architecture of the coverage rather than focusing on it this article observes popular, if mostly tacit, assumptions about masculinity and femininity in representing ‘family violence’. It locates coverage patterns to illustrate perceptions of violence against women and children and inaccurate stereotyping of such family violence as the extraordinary consequences of mental illness, which are mostly reproduced by the Australian media. It is suggested that such media representations are part of a downplaying of family violence as a public issue of urgency.

Unlawful acts, unkind architecture and unhelpful perceptions: a case study of Market Square Mall, Geelong

On a quiet Sunday afternoon in January 2015, a 12 year old girl was assaulted in Geelong’s Market Square mall. The attack sparked a media furore over what should be done to address the ongoing safety and amenity issues of this intractable public space. The city’s mayor, Cr Darryn Lyons, responded to the situation by declaring the mall a ‘haunt for bogans and scumbags’ and renewed calls for its demolition. Such rhetoric highlights the exclusionary mindset that casts certain types of people as undesirable inhabitants of public spaces. It also bolsters negative public perceptions of the mall. Once formed, such attitudes are difficult to shift, despite an overall improvement in the area’s crime rates over recent years. Poor perceptions are further reinforced by the soulless nature of the mall’s built fabric and weak urban interfaces. Its formal language is one of hostility, not only towards would-be delinquents, but to all people. The space is furnished with cold stainless steel seats, CCTV cameras and limp, pavement water spouts, while its inactive edges consist of loading bays, security grilles and neglected facades. This paper considers how a more inclusive architecture might be utilised to create a kinder, more generous physical environment that reflects the public nature of the space. While not a quick fix, fostering an architecture that encourages a more equitable use of the mall may diminish the sense of fear, anxiety and suspicion that the space currently elicits, tackling the problem at both a structural and social level.

Iron phthalocyanine in non-aqueous medium forming layer-by-layer films: growth mechanism, molecular architecture and applications

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)