Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing

Ever since the term ‘crowdsourcing’ was coined in 2006 by ‘Wired’ writer Jeff Howe, group activities ranging from the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary to the choosing of new colors for M&Ms have been labeled with this most buzz-generating of media buzzwords. In this accessible but authoritative account, grounded in the empirical literature, Daren Brabham explains what crowdsourcing is, what it is not, and how it works. Crowdsourcing, Brabham tells us, is an online, distributed problem solving and production model that leverages the collective intelligence of online communities for specific purposes set forth by a crowdsourcing organization — corporate, government, or volunteer. Uniquely, it combines a bottom-up, open, creative process with top-down organizational goals. Crowdsourcing is not open source production, which lacks the top-down component; it is not a market research survey that offers participants a short list of choices; and it is qualitatively different from predigital open innovation and collaborative production processes, which lacked the speed, reach, rich capability, and lowered barriers to entry enabled by the Internet. Brabham describes the intellectual roots of the idea of crowdsourcing in such concepts as collective intelligence, the wisdom of crowds, and distributed computing. He surveys the major issues in crowdsourcing, including crowd motivation, the misconception of the amateur participant, crowdfunding, and the danger of ‘crowdsploitation’ of volunteer labor, citing real-world examples from Threadless, InnoCentive, and other organizations. And he considers the future of crowdsourcing in both theory and practice, describing its possible roles in journalism, governance, national security, and science and health.

Crowdsourcing

Armed Attack and Article 51 of the UN Charter

Armed Attack and Article 51 of the UN Charter

This book examines to what extent the right of self-defence, as laid down in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, permits States to launch military operations against other States. In particular, it focuses on the occurrence of an ‘armed attack’ – the crucial trigger for the activation of this right. In light of the developments since 9/11, the author analyses relevant physical and verbal customary practice, ranging from the 1974 Definition of Aggression to recent incidents such as the 2001 US intervention in Afghanistan and the 2006 Israeli intervention in Lebanon. The notion of ‘armed attack’ is examined from a threefold perspective. What acts can be regarded as an ‘armed attack’? When can an ‘armed attack’ be considered to take place? And from whom must an ‘armed attack’ emanate? By way of conclusion, the different findings are brought together in a draft ‘Definition of Armed Attack’.

Armed Attack and Article 51 of the UN Charter

Generic and Indexed Programming

Generic and Indexed Programming

Generic programming is about making programs more widely applicable via exotic kinds of parametrization—not just along the dimensions of values or of types, but also of things such as the shape of data, algebraic structures, strategies, computational paradigms, and so on. Indexed programming is a lightweight form of dependently typed programming, constraining flexibility by allowing one to state and check relationships between parameters: that the shapes of two arguments agree, that an encoded value matches some type, that values transmitted along a channel conform to the stated protocol, and so on. The two forces of genericity and indexing balance each other nicely, simultaneously promoting and controlling generality. The 5 lectures included in this book stem from the Spring School on Generic and Indexed Programming, held in Oxford, UK, in March 2010 as a closing activity of the generic and indexed programming project at Oxford which took place in the years 2006-2010.

Generic and Indexed Programming

Advances in Latent Variable Mixture Models

Advances in Latent Variable Mixture Models

The current volume, Advances in Latent Variable Mixture Models, contains chapters by all of the speakers who participated in the 2006 CILVR conference, providing not just a snapshot of the event, but more importantly chronicling the state of the art in latent variable mixture model research. The volume starts with an overview chapter by the CILVR conference keynote speaker, Bengt Muth n, offering a ‘lay of the land’ for latent variable mixture models before the volume moves to more specific constellations of topics. Part I, Multilevel and Longitudinal Systems, deals with mixtures for data that are hierarchical in nature either due to the data’s sampling structure or to the repetition of measures (of varied types) over time. Part II, Models for Assessment and Diagnosis, addresses scenarios for making judgments about individuals’ state of knowledge or development, and about the instruments used for making such judgments. Finally, Part III, Challenges in Model Evaluation, focuses on some of the methodological issues associated with the selection of models most accurately representing the processes and populations under investigation. It should be stated that this volume is not intended to be a first exposure to latent variable methods. Readers lacking such foundational knowledge are encouraged to consult primary and/or secondary didactic resources in order to get the most from the chapters in this volume. Once armed with that basic understanding of latent variable methods, we believe readers will find this volume incredibly exciting.

Advances in Latent Variable Mixture Models

Advanced Combustion and Aerothermal Technologies

Advanced Combustion and Aerothermal Technologies

Here readers will find a summary of proceedings at a highly important NATO workshop. The ARW Advanced Combustion and Aerothermal Technologies: Environmental Protection and Pollution Reductions, was held in Kiev, May 2006. The workshop was co-directed by Profs. N. Syred and A.Khalatov, winners of the NATO Scientific Prize 2002, and was organized by the Institute of Thermophysics (Ukraine) and Cardiff University, UK. The primary workshop objective was to assess the existing knowledge on advanced combustion and aerothermal technologies providing reduced environmental impact.

Advanced Combustion and Aerothermal Technologies

A History of Video Art

A History of Video Art

A History of Video Art is a revised and expanded edition of the 2006 original, which extends the scope of the first edition, incorporating a wider range of artists and works from across the globe and explores and examines developments in the genre of artists’ video from the mid 1990s up to the present day. In addition, the new edition expands and updates the discussion of theoretical concepts and ideas which underpin contemporary artists’ video. Tracking the changing forms of video art in relation to the revolution in electronic and digital imaging that has taken place during the last 50 years, A History of Video Art orients video art in the wider art historical context, with particular reference to the shift from the structuralism of the late 1960s and early 1970s to the post-modernist concerns of the 1980s and early 1990s. The new edition also explores the implications of the internationalisation of artists’ video in the period leading up to the new millennium and its concerns and preoccupations including post-colonialism, the post-medium condition and the impact and influence of the internet.

A History of Video Art

Foundations of Large-Scale Multimedia Information Management and Retrieval

Foundations of Large-Scale Multimedia Information Management and Retrieval

‘Foundations of Large-Scale Multimedia Information Management and Retrieval: Mathematics of Perception’ covers knowledge representation and semantic analysis of multimedia data and scalability in signal extraction, data mining, and indexing. The book is divided into two parts: Part I – Knowledge Representation and Semantic Analysis focuses on the key components of mathematics of perception as it applies to data management and retrieval. These include feature selection/reduction, knowledge representation, semantic analysis, distance function formulation for measuring similarity, and multimodal fusion. Part II – Scalability Issues presents indexing and distributed methods for scaling up these components for high-dimensional data and Web-scale datasets. The book presents some real-world applications and remarks on future research and development directions. The book is designed for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in the fields of Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Large-scale Data Mining, Database, and Multimedia Information Retrieval.Dr. Edward Y. Chang was a professor at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of California at Santa Barbara, before he joined Google as a research director in 2006. Dr. Chang received his M.S. degree in Computer Science and Ph.D degree in Electrical Engineering, both from Stanford University.

Foundations of Large-Scale Multimedia Information Management and Retrieval