O Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) nomeou o Professor Mário Teles de Figueiredo como Fellow desta prestigiada instituição, informou o Instituto Superior Técnico.

A nomeação como Fellow é «restrita todos os anos a não mais de 0,1% dos membros» e «distingue cientistas com um currículo extraordinário e reconhecidos pelos pares pelo relevante contributo prestado numa das áreas de interesse do IEEE», explica a mesma entidade, onde Mário Teles de Figueiredo é docente no Departamento de Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores do IST e investigador do Instituto de Telecomunicações

O professor foi, assim, distinguido por ter dado «contributos significativos para o reconhecimento de padrões e visão computacional».

Niemals ist das Wetter wirklich, weil, es ist ja nur, wo’s auch gerade und tatsächlich ist, aber nicht anderswo, weil, da isses dann anders, denn das Wetter dort ist ja auch nur ‘n Wetter und nichts weiter, also gemeinhin der Umstand der Welt außerhalb der Mauern, in welchem man lebt und das ist dann halt so…

Aber wenn’s so ist, oder auch nicht, egal, es ist sowieso so und nicht anders, von daher ist’s auch egal…

No âmbito do Projecto monIT, o Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) do Instituto Superior Técnico e a Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (CML) assinaram um protocolo que tem como objectivo disponibilizar informações relevantes sobre a radiação electromagnética, essencialmente associada a sistemas de comunicações móveis.

Estas entidades vão agora proceder à «medição do campo electromagnético existente em 14 escolas públicas do Ensino Básico e no edifício dos Paços do Concelho da CML, através da instalação de estações de medida (sondas medidoras de campo electromagnético). Serão ainda realizadas medições pontuais em outros locais do município», explicam os promotores do projecto.

Através da assinatura deste protocolo, a CML «pretende aumentar o conhecimento sobre a realidade da cidade neste domínio», sendo que os valores das radiações vão ser posteriormente divulgados através de um portal da Internet, especialmente criado para este fim.

O Projecto monIT conta com o apoio da Optimus, TMN e Vodafone e visa disponibilizar ao público toda a informação relevante sobre os níveis de exposição a campos electromagnéticos, designadamente os que são gerados pelas antenas de comunicações móveis.

Além dos resultados da monitorização sistemática em diversos locais públicos no País e de informação técnica específica, o Projecto monIT disponibiliza, através do portal http://monit.it.pt, informação «rigorosa e diversificada sobre a exposição às emissões electromagnéticas proveniente dos sistemas de comunicações móveis, usando uma linguagem acessível ao público em geral».

A Plataforma para a Construção Sustentável estabeleceu um protocolo com o Sistema Lidera para promover um conjunto de acções de colaboração entre as quais a realização de cursos de formação em «Avaliação da Sustentabilidade da Construção». A primeira edição realiza-se na Universidade de Aveiro, nos dias 27 e 28 de Janeiro de 2010. As inscrições estão abertas até 20 de Janeiro.

Este esforço de disseminação de boas práticas é efectuado no quadro da promoção do cluster Habitat Sustentável de que a Plataforma é entidade gestora.

O curso será leccionado pelo Prof. Dr. Manuel Pinheiro (IST) e realiza-se, nesta primeira edição, no campus da Universidade de Aveiro (edifício da reitoria) nos dias 27 e 28 de Janeiro de 2010. Os docentes e alunos da Universidade de Aveiro têm um desconto de 10% no custo da inscrição.

A iniciativa é centrada no sistema de avaliação LIDERA e dedicada a engenheiros, arquitectos promotores e gestores imobiliários e de outros empreendimentos na área do Habitat.

As inscrições estão abertas até 20/01/10.

PDF

Projecta Maria que no projectar é que está o ganho. Seja o projecto de um filtro, um  jogo de cowboys, de um rectificador, de uma linha de transmissão ou de uma empresa de tradução em tempo real.

Projecta Maria porque já que eles te levam o tempo e te dão cabo da cabeça ao menos que te retornem as notas.

Projecta Maria para um dia fazeres projectos (não de baloiços) como os que estão no cartoon.

♦

Oko Boga – Emanacja samego Światła Świata (Światłoświata) widzialna z Ziemi – setki lat temu astronomowie zauważyli tę niezwykłego kształtu Mgławicę – nazywa się M57 i wygląda jak Pierścień

[zdjęcie pochodzi ze strony: http://www.oa.uj.edu.pl/apod/apod/ap091105.html]
♦

Cały ten dział niezwykły był i będzie edytowany jak zwykle w comiesięcznych wpisach, ale obecnie pod powyższym tytułem awansuje na prawy margines nad kreskę – czyli do działu STRONY

Start Atlantis w 2001 roku

Księżyc w cieniu pióropusza promu
Źródło: Pat McCracken, NASA

Opis: Dlaczego cień startowego pióropusza promu kosmicznego miałby być skierowany w stronę Księżyca? Na początku 2001 roku, podczas startu Atlantis Słońce, Ziemia, Księżyc i rakieta ustawiły się właściwie, by zaszła ta fotogeniczna koincydencja. Po pierwsze, by pióropusz promu kosmicznego rzucał długi cień, musiało to być o wschodzie bądź zachodzie Słońca. Następnie, właśnie o zachodzie, cienie są najdłuższe i rozciągają się aż po horyzont. I na koniec, podczas pełni Słońce i Księżyc są po przeciwnych stronach nieba. Na przykład tuż po zachodzie horyzontu, a po przeciwnej stronie Księżyc jest lekko ponad horyzontem. Zatem, gdy Atlantis się wznosił tuż po zachodzie, jego cień rzutował się na przeciwną Słońcu stronę horyzontu, gdzie akurat był Księżyc w pełni. Słońce jest lekko poniżej

Pod tym szyldem na stronach Blogu znajdziecie wszelkie zagadki i tajemnice, rzeczy magiczne i fascynujące, niekiedy dziwaczne, niekiedy śmieszne, ale kto wie czy one kiedyś nie okażą się prawdziwe. Tutaj jest miejsce na szalone hipotezy i dziwaczne teorie oraz wszelakie skrajności.  Obejmą one zarówno dziedzinę sił psi, jak i realne dziwne zdarzenia oraz odkrycia i pomysły twórczej interpretacji zastanej Rzeczy Istności.

Czerwony Księżyc – bywa, jakby był w krwi skąpany – a jest wtedy emanacją kraszu – czyli czerwonego istu-krwi Swąta

Sprawom Tajnym i Tajemnym  patronuje Kraina Księżyca, a sprawom Tajowym, czyli świętym tajemnicom Wiary Przyrodzonej patronuje Starosłowiańska Świątynia Światła Świata

Bywa też Księżyc Niebieski – wcielenie swątowego juchoru-ichoru (hvaru, chwareny) – boskiej krwi królewskiej – błękitnej maści Świata

Bywa Księżyc Złoty – jak płoń-niepłoń, bo połączone święte płyny żywe Świata nazywane są istem

i wreszcie Księżyc zwyczajny czyli płonący płenią-płynem srebrzystą płonią własną – przejrzystym lkśnieniem – typowym też dla ziemskich wód

Księżyc Halloween
Źródło i prawa autorskie: Miguel Claro

Opis: Oświetlający krajobraz całą długą noc 2. listopada Księżyc w pełni jest gdzieniegdzie na północnej półkuli nazywany w tym tygodniu Księżycem Łowców. Jednak ten dramatyczny widok lśniącego obiektu niebieskiego uchwycono w Sobreda, w Portugalii kilka nocy wcześniej, w Halloween. Zgodnie z duchem tego czasu wykorzystano mały trik. Obraz w rzeczywistości łączy dwa cyfrowe zdjęcia – jedno o krótkiej, a drugie o długiej ekspozycji. Połączono je, by ukazać szczegóły jasnej księżycowej powierzchni oraz słabsze fragmenty ciemnych, okalających chmur w jednym ujęciu. Oczywiście można rozpoznać w chmurach pewne duchopodobne kształty, które nawiedzały okolicę w ubiegłym tygodniu wraz z Księżycem Halloween.

 [zdjęcie pochodzi ze strony: http://www.oa.uj.edu.pl/apod/apod/ap091105.html]

A team of researchers has implemented support for ‘trusted computing’ in a commercially available version of the open source operating system Linux, breaking new ground in the global drive toward more secure computing environments.

The latest release of openSUSE, a Linux version sponsored by software maker Novell, comes packaged with software that allows users to set up a trusted computing (TC) environment on their computer, enhancing security beyond the antivirus programs and firewalls that frequently prove inadequate at keeping bugs, viruses and spyware at bay.

Promoted and developed by major chipmakers and software companies in the international Trusted Computing Group, trusted computing uses both hardware and software to create a trusted and secure environment, whether on a home PC, a web server, in a data centre or over a corporate network. At the core of the technology is the trusted platform module (TPM), which is a chip that, among other security-boosting features, generates and manages cryptographic keys, verifies the identity of the computer on a network and protects software and data from malicious changes.

Awakening the dormant chip

Many new laptops and increasing numbers of desktop PCs and servers already have TPM chips as standard, while chipmakers such as Intel and AMD have started incorporating the technology directly into their latest generation of processors. However, most TPM chips are currently lying dormant, awaiting activation with the arrival of software that can make use of their enhanced security features.

“The hardware is there… what is needed are operating systems and software to exploit it,” says Herbert Petautschnig, a researcher at Austrian technology group Technikon.

Technikon led a consortium of 23 research and business partners, including AMD, IBM, HP, Infineon and Novell, in developing open source software and applications for TC environments as part of the EU-funded OpenTC project. The group’s implementation of TC support in openSUSE version 11.2 involved building a trusted software stack (TSS) for Linux, developing universal virtualisation layers (including improvements to the Xen hypervisor virtual machine monitor) and creating TC and TPM management software. It constitutes a pioneering implementation of TC technology.

“openSUSE is now the first operating system to offer full TC support,” Petautschnig notes. “Until now, TC had been implemented for specific applications, such as Microsoft’s BitLocker hard drive encryption in Windows Vista and Windows 7 or the fingerprint reader on some HP laptops… With the OpenTC platform we are extending the TC environment to the full operating system and beyond,” the project manager adds.

Unlike traditional security technology that operates only at the software level and only starts protecting a computer after it is loaded, TC technology provides security from the moment the power button is pressed. As the system boots and runs, the OpenTC platform continually monitors the computer for changes and ensures that only trusted, verified software is functioning. In a networked environment, it verifies the identity and integrity of the computer. And it allows different pieces of software and data to be “compartmentalised” so there is no exchange between them even as they share the same computing and/or network resources.

Safer online transactions, trusted corporate networking

OpenTC developed several proof-of-concept applications for the technology. In one, called private electronic transaction (PET), the team showed how it can verify and secure online transactions, such as accessing a bank account. In another, they showed how TC compartments can provide secure remote access to corporate networks, both keeping company information safe on an employee’s home PC and ensuring that the employee’s personal information, photos and games are not visible to their employer.

The ability of TC technology to keep data and processes safely isolated from each other can be extended to enable virtual data centres. As demonstrated by IBM in the OpenTC project, TC software could be used by data centre operators to provide virtualised resources to different clients while sharing the underlying physical infrastructure, thereby ensuring different companies’ data remain separate and secure.

The logical next step, which members of the OpenTC consortium plan to explore in a new project, is to extend TC to cloud computing to enhance the security of services and computational resources provided over the internet. Another project, TECOM, a follow-up initiative to OpenTC that has also received EU funding, will aim to develop TC solutions for embedded platforms, focusing particularly on smart phones and mobile computing applications.

Several of the project partners are commercially exploiting the results of the OpenTC project internally. Petautschnig says they are also open to investor interest to support further development of TC technology. Consortium members are also active in standardisation efforts, helping to extend trusted computing to mobile platforms and the Java programming language, for example.

Despite controversy, a bright future

In the past, TC technology has stirred controversy, not least over its potential for abuse by software and hardware makers to restrict what computer users can do and its applications for digital rights management. However, Petautschnig believes the future for trusted computing systems is bright as the technology starts to be seen as an essential tool in the fight against an intensifying onslaught of hack attacks, viruses and spyware bombarding the world’s computer users.

“Most people will not know that TC components are running on their computers keeping them safe. Conversely, at present most do not know what information is being leaked and stolen by spyware and viruses running on their machines,” Petautschnig notes.

Vielleicht ist ja für euch was passendes dabei, ich sage dazu mal nichts…

By: Le Fetiche Produções

]]> http://areianegraemarbranco.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/pinback-fortress/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:15:23 +0000 alexandrasofiags http://areianegraemarbranco.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/pinback-fortress/

A menos de um dia de distância. =D Se trabalhar um pouco até lá, a coisa corre bem. Estive 4 horas acordada sem o meu café da manha, que tanta falta fez. A vantagem disto:

- O J. tornou-se engenheiro, para meu orgulho. 

Só por isso, já valeu a pena.

Superior Técnico!

Ter que trabalhar às vezes dá nisto: acabar a ler umas tiras de BD para compensar.

Estou calmamente no IST a estudar quando ouço na mesa ao meu lado:

“A porca normalmente quando gira está a subir para cima“

Eles também votam, e são os futuros engenheiros deste país.

Não está fácil!

Já me questionei várias vezes sobre a eficácia da lavagem da loiça em mim, mas concluo sempre que o mesmo. É inevitável para mim, é tão automático, que o meu cérebro divaga 99% do tempo, sobrepondo a sua vontade a tudo e todos. Não me interpretem mal, quando digo que é um processo automático, porque não é algo que eu goste muito de fazer. Sou completamente contra o uso de avental. (sempre do contra, não é?) Ainda me lembro perfeitamente de ouvir a minha avó dizer:

“Alexandra, põe o avental, vais sujar a roupa toda.”, “Não, não. Eu não sujo nada.”

Invariavelmente eu acabava por sujar, até aprender o truque certo, aquele que me permitia lavar a loiça e divagar. Bastava começar a olhar para qualquer coisa e a mente lá ia, podia ser um mosaico, podia ser um boneco de porcelana, qualquer coisa servia para me distrair. As falhas nas juntas também serviam.

Hoje foi a minha vez de lavar a loiça (como é todos os dias, porque a nível de tarefas, a divisão da casa com o R. é feita de forma literal, como a cozinha é minha e a cantina é dele, bem, vocês percebem). Enchi o lava-louça com agua e detergente, ponderando sempre a hipótese do avental, até que instantes antes de colocar as mãos em água decidi contrariar os hábitos e fui busca-lo. Eu não sou “criatura de hábitos”, mas gosto de saber com o que conto, gosto de quebrar rotina de vez em quando, porque a pior coisa que posso obter é a monotonia.

Não, antes que questionem, não foi esta a conclusão que cheguei hoje. Conclui que preciso de dormir uma boa noite de sono, porque quando não durmo o suficiente, fico insuportavelmente infantil e sarcástica, no fundo, fico impossível de aturar. Torno-me cruel. Além daqueles dois sintomas também consigo beber mais café do que normal (3 cafés e um descafeinado), de modo a manter-me acordada e consigo arrumar na hora, tudo o que queria ter arrumado no dia anterior.

Conclui que gostava muito de subir ao topo de um prédio e apreciar a vista nocturna, com uma chávena de chá. Apenas porque sim. E conclui, que por mais infantil, por mais insuportável que eu esteja hoje, depois de trabalhar, vou voltar lá, não porque seja uma criatura de hábitos, mas porque foi simplesmente agradável e porque me mata 1/5 das saudades relativas ao síndrome de quem não vai a casa. Cidade Horrível!

Ah e pelo “amor da Santa”, vamos lá assentar os pés em terra.

=D

(Não me apetece escrever nada..Basta pensar que faltam 4 dias.)

PS – O meu casaco é muitoooo giro e eu acordei super bem disposta. (para implicativos sonolentos)

Software that will model diseases and calculate probable causes could help doctors pick the optimal treatment.

Some brain tumours in children remain benign and doctors choose not to operate. But a small percentage of those will suddenly start to grow aggressively.

Doctors have not identified what triggers that aggressive tumour growth, despite the vast array of data they hold on their child patients – demographic, environmental, genetic and clinical data, as well as images such as MRI and CAT scans of the developing tumours.

But a new software tool called AITION can integrate all the medical data from a tumour patient and then analyse it to calculate the probable factors that are stimulating tumour development, combining up to 30 correlated variables. AITION provides an overview of the causal relationship across all factors.

AITION’s conclusions are displayed as a ‘knowledge model’, a graphical network of medical factors with links that represent the correlations between them. Strongly interdependent concepts are directly connected, loosely dependent concepts are not connected at all. The patient’s doctors can play around with the knowledge model. They can improve the model by adding information they know to be true about the patient. They can use the model to test the likely effects of different types of medication, surgery or treatments on the tumour’s growth and the patient’s health.

“We have shown the knowledge models to doctors treating brain tumours, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, [as well as] to cardiologists and they have found it quite intuitive,” says Harry Dimitropoulos, one of the researchers from the University of Athens where AITION is being developed as part of the EU-funded Health-e-Child project.

“Because of the graphical way it presents the data they have found it easy to click on the links. Some training is required if they want to look in depth at how conclusions were reached, or to modify the statistics or the graph.”

The causal-probabilistic algorithms within AITION are well established, solid and reliable, according to Dr Dimitropoulos. However, because the diseases are rare, data is available on only small numbers of children. An AITION test on juvenile idiopathic arthritis had only 50 patients initially. That has been expanded to 200 and the tool is becoming more stable and more reliable.

AITION’s logic can lead to mistakes. For instance, if most of the patients over 16 years old in a knowledge model are also smokers, AITION may infer that being a smoker causes one’s age to be over 16. To try to eliminate that kind of error, AITION uses a priori knowledge encapsulation (grouping variables in hierarchies) to constrict the possible conclusions that can be drawn from the data.

The researchers’ next step will be to link AITION to ontologies of medical data (exhaustive databases of facts and concepts on a particular topic) to provide even more context for AITION’s probability calculations and predictions.

The team also wants to expand the number of variables that can be considered in AITION’s calculations of causal probability. “In theory, AITION can be expanded to as many features as you want,” says Dimitropoulos. “We are preparing a mechanism that uses partitioning and parallel processing to create sub-graphs that can then be merged. But this is research at an early planning stage.”

The very fact that AITION can model all the factors in a disease to give doctors an overview of the problem is an advantage, stresses Dimitropoulos.

AITION has already analysed data to infer likely disease causes or optimal future treatments that match the assessments of the doctors. But it adds even greater value when the models start to generate new knowledge. Already, AITION has identified that one blood test may be unnecessary because the information it provides is available from other sources. It will require results from many more patients to validate this.

The team is also planning to identify unique factors about the tumours that become aggressive by combining genetic markers with clinical and other data in AITION. Identification, followed by early surgical intervention, would be a major medical step forward.

By matching children with rare or life-threatening diseases and modelling potential disease progression, researchers hope to find new routes forward.

Software tools are being developed that can search and compare patient data at hospitals across Europe to find children with closely matched conditions. The doctors can then study how the matched patients at other hospitals were treated and whether that treatment was successful. The information will greatly improve doctors’ ability to choose the right path for their own patient.

The tools being developed within the Health-e-Child project can compare a vast range of structured and unstructured data, including genetic and clinical data, as well as images from CAT and MRI scans and other records.

The Health-e-Child system, protected by high security, links anonymised databases of patient information at hospitals in Paris, Genoa, Rome and London. There are plans to extend the network to 25 hospitals.

Health-e-Child researchers are working on tools for three complex paediatric diseases with at least partly unknown causes: heart diseases resulting from an overload of the right ventricle, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and brain tumours (gliomas).

The EU-funded project has tackled fundamental data sharing infrastructural problems as well as ethical and data protection questions, data analysis and data mining issues. Both disease-specific and cross-disease tools have been developed.

For unstructured data such as images, the Health-e-Child project has created tools that translate visual information into machine-readable (and therefore machine-comparable) language. The project’s 3D registration tool for MRI scans, and its MRI ‘erosion scoring’ system for juvenile idiomatic arthritis have been recognised as important advances in their fields.

Health-e-Child’s CaseReasoner tool enables clinicians to search thousands of disease diagnoses, treatments and outcomes to find a child similar to their own patients. The clinicians set the search parameters themselves. In the case of heart patients, clinicians could include factors they consider important, such as genetic markers, the age of the child, the heart rate – even the amount of exercise the child takes.

The results can be displayed as a ‘network’ with cohorts of patients with similar diagnoses clustered together and colour-graded accorded to the level of similarity. Clinicians can then dive into the detailed data on any of the patients or clusters to better understand their diagnoses and the success of the procedures the patients have been through.

The CaseReasoner could also be used to search out the procedures that have been most successful, giving the clinician insights into the optimal path forward.

The AITION tool, being developed by Health-e-Child researchers at the University of Athens, seeks to go further. AITION will use semantic tools to search medical literature and interviews with clinicians as well as patient data. Drawing on well-established causal-probability algorithms, AITION will suggest probable disease development. Doctors using AITION will then be able to test their hypotheses on optimal treatment.

Other Health-e-Child researchers have combined a heart modelling tool called CardioWiz with MRI scan measurement software from Siemens, according to Siemens Healthcare’s Martin Huber, technical leader of the Health-e-Child project. The combination can rapidly generate animated 3D models of a particular patient’s heart. The patient’s doctors can play with the models and simulate the effects of heart surgery or drug treatments to see how the heart would respond.

The lack of research into child disease adds to the significance of Health-e-Child, says Jörg Freund, from Siemens Healthcare and Health-e-Child project coordinator. Because the numbers of children suffering from these diseases are small, there is little incentive for commercial companies to research them. Some pharmaceutical companies calculate drug doses for children simply on weight – treating the child as a mini-adult. This fails to take account of important differences between children and adults. The most obvious difference is that children are growing.

Research on children can give important insights into the role of genetics in disease. Environmental factors can be less important in child diseases, simply because there has usually not been time in the child’s short life for the environment to have had much effect.

Following their successes, the Health-e-Child researchers are publishing an exploitation plan mapping out how Health-e-Child’s partners will take it forward.

Klar, Rammstein ist seit je her eine Band, die zur Diskussion anregt und deren Texte/Videos als anstößig bis hin zu provozierend empfunden werden. Oftmals geht es um Gewalt (auch im sexuellen Bereich), jedoch ist dies nie auffordernd gemeint sondern lediglich als Denksanstoß. Ich erinnere mich auch noch an eine Zeit, als der Aufschrei laut war, Rammstein würden rechtes Gedankengut vermitteln (Aufgrund der tiefen Stimme des Sängers und seinem gerollten “R”). Glücklicherweise herrscht diese Meinung nicht mehr vor.
Da wir aber unter einer Schwarz/Gelben-Regierung leben, die sich christlich-moralische Werte auf das Regierungsprogramm geschrieben hat, war eine solcher Indizierungsantrag, der im Übrigen von Familienministerin Ursula von der Leyen gestellt wurde, bei der Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien einging. Leider wurde diesem Antrag auch angenommen und somit wird das aktuelle Album der Band (den Namen des Albums nenne ich vorsichtshalber mal nicht, ihr Lieben) aus den Regalen verschwinden und ein LEben unterhalb der Ladentheke fristen müssen. Blöd, dass man damit zum Teil praktisch zum raubkopieren auffordert, da jeder der noch nicht volljährig ist, sich das Album auf illegalen Wegen besorgen muss. Eine leicht steigende Nachfrage wird es sicherlich auch geben, da einen das “Verbotene” bekanntermaßen reizt. Ich hoffe daher darauf, dass durch mündliche Propaganda (“Hast du schon gehört, dass Album Xxxxx xxx xxx xxxx xx wurde indiziert…”) das Album noch lange an den Spitzen der Charts trohnt, zum trotz gegen eine zensierende Politik, die auch gerne Stop-Schilder aufstellt.

Persönliche Note: Seit ich mit ca. 10 (?) Jahren mit Rammstein in Kontakt kam, war ich fasziniert von deren Musik. Anfangs waren es nur die harten Klänge, später auch immer mehr die Texte und die Stimme des Sängers. ICh merke in keinster Weise, dass mir das geschadet hat. Im Gegenteil, ich bin dadurch mehr bereit mich zu allen möglichen Themen, sei es nun Gewalt, Gefühle, Drogen oder Manipulation durch Massenmedien zu informieren und zu äußern, wozu in einer modernen Gesellschaft, die eben auch mit solchen Themen konfrontiert wird, jeder dazu bereit sein sollte. Im übrigen ist das besagte Album von Rammstein sehr gut geworden und ein Kauf ist in allen Fällen zu empfehlen

QUELLE: gulli.com

PS: Hier die entsprechende Traueranzeige

The explosive growth of video on the internet, exemplified by the success of video sharing websites such as YouTube, calls for new ways of indexing and searching audiovisual content. A team of European researchers has developed a groundbreaking solution that is finding commercial applications.

Most video search technologies currently rely on semantic annotation in which videos have to be manually tagged with keywords so they can be found via a text-based search. As most YouTube users will attest, tagging one or two videos in this way is not particularly problematic. However, manually annotating thousands of clips, as content providers and media libraries regularly do, can be extremely time consuming and costly.

A faster alternative is to use software to automatically extract snippets of a video and create a unique identifier based on a variety of audiovisual features, such as scene, motion and music changes. These so-called digital media fingerprints can then be used to index and search full audio/video content. The technology works well for uncompressed, raw audio and video, but it has not been used effectively with the far more common, space-saving compressed files that stream from websites, are stored in media libraries or are broadcast by TV stations. Until now, that is.

“We wanted to develop a way of indexing and searching compressed video files quickly and easily regardless of their compression format or how or where they are stored,” says Nick Achilleopoulos who oversaw development of the technology as manager of the EU-funded DIVAS project.

To achieve that goal, the DIVAS researchers developed two advanced software engines: one to create fingerprints from compressed audio and/or video and another to use these unique identifiers to carry out content-based searches of audiovisual material.

Unlike most digital fingerprinting systems, the DIVAS indexing software does not require video to be uncompressed, reducing the need for computer processing power and storage space, while greatly accelerating the indexing process. For example, whereas other systems would have to generate a fingerprint from 60 gigabytes of raw video, the DIVAS technology can create a fingerprint from the 4GB DVD-quality compressed version. Crucially, it works across most popular video formats, from the DVD and TV broadcast MPEG standard to Microsoft’s WMV and also with standalone audio files in formats such as MP3 and AAC.

“The fingerprint extraction software defines audio and video features much as a human viewer perceives audiovisual elements… It builds the fingerprint based on visual features, such as scene changes, the way the camera cuts and moves, the brightness level, and the movement of people and objects,” the project manager explains.

Audio features such as speech and music also form part of the fingerprint – providing crucial additional information to differentiate between visually similar video content like lectures or music concerts.

The audiovisual fingerprints, each just a tiny fraction of the size of original content, are stored in the XML file format in combination with the MPEG 7 multimedia content description standard, creating an easily accessible and rapidly searchable video index.

“Say you saw a short clip of a TV series and wanted to see more of it but did not know the name. You could easily upload the clip to a DIVAS search engine and then use this to find not only the series, but also the season, episode and the exact minute of a scene the clip is from,” Achilleopoulos explains.

One caveat, however, is that the searcher would have to have an indexed database of video content to compare the fingerprinted clip to. That would prove useful to someone with a lot of digital movies to help them find videos in their collection from trailers on the internet – indeed, the DIVAS team developed an experimental plug-in for the Firefox web browser to that effect.

However, the key commercial market for the technology consists of media companies and internet search providers seeking faster methods of indexing and searching video, production companies scouring the internet for pirated versions of copyrighted works, as well as, interestingly, TV advertisers.

“A lot of companies are interested in monitoring broadcasts to make sure TV stations are airing their adverts in the time slots and with the frequency they pay for. Currently, they do this by recording broadcasts on expensive equipment and even have people watch the TV, but a much cheaper alternative would be to record compressed files and have software automatically creating fingerprints of the content. These could then be matched with the advertiser’s content, letting them know precisely when and how often their adverts are shown,” Achilleopoulos says.

Members of the DIVAS consortium are currently in talks with a large advertising firm with a view to deploying the technology commercially to monitor TV broadcasts. They have also been approached by companies looking to use their technology to improve internet searches of their video databases.

Israeli project partner Optibase, meanwhile, has integrated the DIVAS technology into its EZTV internet video delivery system for corporate, government and educational users in local and wide area network environments.

Achilleopoulos notes that the partners are looking for investors to help develop or support additional commercial applications for the DIVAS technology, which, as a modular system, is easy to integrate with existing systems and can be expanded to offer additional functionality.

Empreendida primeira parte do trabalho de Empreededorismo ainda há muito para fazer, especialmente nesta semana que vem.

E depois admiram-se que eu ande meia tonta. Se eu já sonho com tiristores e rectificadores, ouço falar em socket e o estômago dói, olho para uma antena na rua e tento imaginar como será o seu diagrama de radiação e não sei dividir um ganho por duas secções biquadráticas, como poderei estar bem da cabeça?!

A production from GasMask and Le Fetiche Produções.

É definitivo. Depois de uma boa e intensa tarde de trabalho, esta era a única musica que me vinha à cabeça , a única que me distraía do que eu não queria enfrentar. Ironia do destino!

My mind has changed
my bodys frame but god i like it
my hearts aflame
my bodys strained but god i like it

Este é um daqueles dias em que com o fundo certo, claramente eu jogaria aos dardos. Com o pensamento certo, destruía metade do que me aparecesse à frente. A sorte é que o trabalho rendeu, caso contrario, seria também um bom dia para ficar na cama. Se realmente estivesse em casa, pegaria num kispo de penas, numa taça com cereais e leite ou uma cevada e sentava-me lá fora em silencio, a olhar para a minha cidade iluminada, a passar um bom momento. Claro que se a estrela estivesse na rua, seria impossível estar completamente em silêncio, que é um detalhe. Mas claro, são apenas ideias, nesta terra horrível, é claramente impossível fazer isso e muitas coisas mais! Como eu odeio esta cidade..!

Hoje é claramente um bom dia para rasgar papel. (uma técnica que vi alguém usar..não me perguntem se resulta. I don’t know the answer..) Entretanto, na Thresca, vi esta frase e lembrei-me de um instante apenas. Aquele género em que fico calada sem comentar.

Maybe it’s true what they say – there are some people you encounter in life whom you never really get over. No matter how many other better people you meet; people who treat you better and love you better, in the back of your mind there is always that one person whom you can’t quite completely forget.

(via runawaytrain)

Mudando de assunto, demorei hoje mais a chegar ao IST do que alguma vez consegui nestes 5 anos e pouco. Admito que a culpa foi claramente minha, com a mania de não correr como uma louca para não perder o metro que começa estupidamente a bipar quando ainda estamos no cimo da escadaria. Fica prometido que não torno atrasar-me ou atrasar terceiros com a minha mania de ter calma logo de manha.

Anyway, nem a leitura corre como deveria. Um livro de m****, aparentemente. Às vezes penso que o Miguel Sousa Tavares podia dedicar-se à pesca como o M., ou à agricultura como eu, ou ao que ele quisesse com excepção da escrita, porque ele é péssimo!

Mas bem, tenho mesmo que sair de casa, arrastar-me até ao supermercado mais próximo, para preencher o frigorifico, de preferência com coisas que o R. odeie como espinafres. (Eu adoro espinafres..é isso. Já sei o que vai ser o jantar. Não, não são espinafres)

PS – Chegou o meu primeiro postal do Postcrossing. Finland..Beautiful..

DIE Szene! Das Megading schlechthin! Da tummelt sich wirklich alles, was das schwule Leben zu bieten hat. In DER Szene muss mann unbedingt mal gewesen sein – auch, um es nur als abschreckendes Beispiel kennengelernt zu haben, um seinen Enkeln oder denjenigen, die es mal werden wollen, zu sagen, wie man es am Besten nicht machen sollte.

Jetzt wird sich der “Normalo” von nebenan fragen, was will mir dieser Künstler damit sagen, verdammt? Das ist relativ simpel. Ich – als Schwuler (ja, ich sage Schwuler und nicht HOMOSEXUELLER – hat immer so einen schalen Nachgeschmack einer Krankheit) – habe die Schnauze gestrichen voll davon. Die Szene – jaja…

Mann kann, wenn mann unbedingt seinen Spaß haben will und sich alle erdenklichen Geschlechtskrankheiten zu ziehen möchte, einfach in die Szene gehen. Da bekommt mann alles , was mann haben will. Mann trifft auch allerhand lustige Zeitgenossen, die mal hier, mal da ein kleines Pläuschchen halten und ganz einfach so mir nix dir nix mitten im Gespräch verschwinden und sich den Typen schnappen, den sie bereits den ganzen Abend angehimmelt und schöne Augen gemacht haben und mann sieht sie nie nie nie wieder. Den ganzen Abend nicht. Vielleicht hört mann sie dann im Darkroom (auch zärtlich genannt: “die Virenschleuder” oder frei nach Forrest Gump: “Der Darkroom ist wie eine Schachtel Pralienen. Man(n) weiß nie, was man(n) bekommt”). Aber sicher kann mann sich nicht sein. Falls dann doch ein rein optisch ansprechendes Exemplar des Homo sapiens sapiens homo den Raum der grell bonbon-farbenen bunten Schwulenwelt betritt, so muss mann mit Erschrecken feststellen, dass dieser Typ entweder ein totaler Depp, ein “Ick such nur wat für’n Spaß”-Kerl oder ein “Ich-hab-heute-meinen-zuckerwatterosa-String-an”-Mann ist. Zwei Typen von Mann, mit denen ich einfach nicht kann (einige Schwule werden mir da durchaus recht geben können).

Doch dies ist nur ein kleiner Teil der Szene. Am lustigsten und aufschlussreichsten dürfte gar der Versuch sein per Internet Bekanntschaften zu machen. Dort finden sich einschlägige Communities, in denen mann sich anpreisen, anbiedern oder unterm Preis verscherbeln kann. Diese Wortwahl ist nicht nur aus Versehen hier reingerutscht. Mann muss sich wirklich unter Wert verkaufen, um überhaupt mal jemandem ins Auge zu fallen. Da kommt mann ohne ein Profilbild mit nackten Oberkörper oder gar im Lieblingsschlüppi mit mehr oder wenig deutlich zu erkennender Auspolsterung im Schritt erst garnicht weiter. Und sich bei Profiltexten Mühe zu geben, um auf sich aufmerksam zu machen oder eventuell einen winzig kleinen Einblick in seine  Persönlichkeit zu geben, kann mann sich eigentlich schenken. Nicht umsonst findet mann bei vielen Menschen im Profil gleich den Hinweiß: “Auch wenn es keiner durchließt,…” oder es steht erst mal nur Blödsinn, irgendwelche Floskeln, Zitate von Gedichten und Liedern oder tief philposophischen Texten darin, die diejenigen, die Niveau für eine Gesichtscreme halten, erstmal gar nicht begreifen können. Aber Ausnahmen bestätigen ja bekanntlich die Regel.

Falls mann dann doch mal zu dem “wilden und hemmungslosen” Gedanken gekommen ist, jemanden anzuschreiben, der einem irgendwie sympathisch ist, vielleicht soagr gut aussieht und einem das Gefühl vermittelt, nicht gerade der Karo-Flanell-Hemd-zerfetzte-olle-Hose-Hinterwäldler zu sein, den mann mit ‘ner Brotkruste aus dem Wald gelockt hat, findet mann dann die soeben noch in den Mülleimer komplimentierte Community ganz doll! Also dann schreibt mann ihn an. Aber mit welchem Satz? Soll es denn überhaupt ein Satz sein? Warum sollte mann es nicht auch so machen, wie die dutzend anderen Typen, Marke “Ditte wes ick jetze och nich so jenau… Halt du mal de Fresse Schastin Dschäisen un mach die Mäh ma ei!”? Einfach ein schnödes, unverblümtes und unausgeschmücktes “Hi”…Aber nein! Da gibt mann sich dann die Mühe, überlegt hin und her: “Was schreib ich dem intelligenten Halbadonis, der jetzt wahrscheinlich genau auf so ‘nen Typen wie dich gewartet hat? Was all zu intelligentes schreckt ab und vermittelt das Gefühl, ich könnte so Mitte 40 sein, geschiedener Ehemann, der ein bisschen Spaß im anderen, warmen Abteil im Zug des Liebeslebens sucht. Ein schnödes “Hi” fällt nun also raus… Was Normales muss da jetzt her! Irgendwas in Richtung Aussehen ist gut! Ja, genau das werde ich auch machen! Also: “Hey, dein Profil gefällt mir sehr gut! Sehr schöne Pics =o)

So… geschafft!

Jetzt fängt es schon langsam aber sicher an, von der Spitze des kleinen Zehs am rechten Fuß, über die Beinaterie, duch Dick- und Dünndarm, vorbei am Magen durch das Zwerchfell, direkt am Herz vorbei in der Birne zu kribbeln! Und eh mann sich’s versieht, ist schon ne halbe Stunde rum. Vielleicht musste er ja mal… hmm… auf das Klo? Ist bestimmt eine längere Geschichte… Also warten und ausharren! Hat Oma auch immer gesagt. Die meinte aber bestimmt nicht das! Nach einer Stunde, die mann sich damit vertrieben hat, die neueste “Frischfleischabteilung” der Communitiy zu durchforsten (einfach nur, um festzustellen, wer am nacktesten ist und dabei nicht gesperrt wurde oder in der Hoffnung einen ebenfalls soooo nett aussehenden, intelligenten Typ zu finden), stellt man mit erschrecken fest, dass er schon seit zwanzig Minuten offline ist…