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ICICLE: A semantic-based retrieval system for WWW images

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Abstract

In this paper, we present ICICLE (Image ChainNet and Incremental Clustering Engine), a prototype system that we have developed to efficiently and effectively retrieve WWW images based on image semantics. ICICLE has two distinguishing features. First, it employs a novel image representation model called Weight ChainNet to capture the semantics of the image content. A new formula, called list space model, for computing semantic similarities is also introduced. Second, to speed up retrieval, ICICLE employs an incremental clustering mechanism, ICC (Incremental Clustering on ChainNet), to cluster images with similar semantics into the same partition. Each cluster has a summary representative and all clusters' representatives are further summarized into a balanced and full binary tree structure. We conducted an extensive performance study to evaluate ICICLE. Compared with some recently proposed methods, our results show that ICICLE provides better recall and precision. Our clustering technique ICC facilitates speedy retrieval of images without sacrificing recall and precision significantly.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia

    Heng Tao Shen & Xiaofang Zhou

  2. Department of Computer Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Kian-Lee Tan & Bin Cui

Authors
  1. Heng Tao Shen
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  2. Kian-Lee Tan
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  3. Xiaofang Zhou
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  4. Bin Cui
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Correspondence to Heng Tao Shen.

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Shen, H.T., Tan, KL., Zhou, X. et al. ICICLE: A semantic-based retrieval system for WWW images. Multimedia Systems 11, 438–454 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00530-006-0020-6

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