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Modeling user context with applications to media retrieval

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Abstract

In this paper, we develop a theoretical understanding of multi-sensory knowledge and user context and their inter-relationships. This is used to develop a generic representation framework for multi-sensory knowledge and context. A representation framework for context can have a significant impact on media applications that dynamically adapt to user needs. There are three key contributions of this work: (a) theoretical analysis, (b) representation framework and (c) experimental validation. Knowledge is understood to be a dynamic set of multi-sensory facts with three key properties – multi-sensory, emergent and dynamic. Context is the dynamic subset of knowledge that affects the communication between entities. We develop a graph based, multi-relational representation framework for knowledge, and model its temporal dynamics using a linear dynamical system. Our approach results in a stable and convergent system. We applied our representation framework to a image retrieval system with a large collection of photographs from everyday events. Our experimental validation with the retrieval evaluated against two reference algorithms indicates that our context based approach provides significant gains in real-world usage scenarios.

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  1. Arts Media and Engineering Program, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287-8709, USA

    Ankur Mani & Hari Sundaram

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  1. Ankur Mani
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  2. Hari Sundaram
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Correspondence to Ankur Mani.

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Mani, A., Sundaram, H. Modeling user context with applications to media retrieval. Multimedia Systems 12, 339–353 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00530-006-0054-9

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