Visual analytics: Can machine learning ‘see’?

Photo: Gadi Lenz

Here's the piece Gadi Lenz, Chief Scientist at AGT International contributed to IDG Connect. "The human brain remains the best video analyser – but computers are starting to catch up." 

Photo: IDG Connect

Here is an interesting observation: Ask a child to describe what she sees around her and she will immediately tell you something like “I see a tall man talking to a woman in the driveway in front of a yellow house”.

The same task is beyond current computer technology – specifically, feeding a “raw” video clip to a machine and getting back (reasonably quickly) a short textual description of what happens in the clip, is currently pretty much impossible. Images and video are rich sources of information consisting of many different objects (with different shapes and colours) with some relationship to each other, in some environment, possibly moving (in the case of video), etc. – there is a reason that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Analysing images and video to facilitate automatic insights and associated decisions is still incredibly difficult (even offline; doing it in real time is much harder). A further complication is the fact that most of the visual content we view is actually a 2D projection of the real (3D) world. Remarkably, humans are really good at these types of tasks, so one approach could be “Hey, let’s just copy the human visual system (HVS)” – if only it was that simple.

So, what can we do in the area of video analytics or video content analysis? Actually, quite a bit, though not quite as much as you may have seen in some popular movies. Here are some examples:

• Driven by security and surveillance use cases, many “suspicious” behaviours can be recognised automatically (i.e., with no human in the loop) such as an object that has been left behind, someone crossing a virtual line, people counting, loitering and many others. Similarly, in the vehicular traffic area, behaviours such as stopped vehicle, or someone driving on the hard shoulder, can be identified.
• Some very specific objects can be recognised – faces, vehicles, license plates and probably a few more. Although some only under limited conditions – controlled lighting, controlled pose, minimal occlusions, etc.
• Tracking of specific objects in the camera’s field of view (tracking across multiple cameras, even when there is overlap in successive cameras, is very difficult)

If your interest is in some specific items on this limited list – no problem, you can buy them from numerous vendors. However, if you are looking for a different behaviour or a different object, you will need some computer vision people to develop a new analytic service. That generic object recogniser or the generic “tell me if anything unusual happens in this area” does not exist yet.

But don’t despair – machine learning approaches are starting to appear in some commercial products. Basically, the machine is trained, for example, on video that represents normal vehicular traffic flow and once the learning phase is over, the machine can indicate that something abnormal has happened such as traffic slowdown due to some sort of incident further down the road. By “machine”, by the way, we mean the computer that ingests the video stream and runs the anomaly detection algorithm, which could, in principle, run in the camera itself or very near to it.
Read more...

Source: IDG Connect

AI in Art: Can a computer be an art critic?

Follow on Twitter as @Ayes_Sal

Ayesha Salim, Staff Writer at IDG Connect reports, "New machine algorithm that constructs a network between paintings to infer their originality and influence."

New developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are now challenging the age old assumption that computers cannot be creative. Computers are composing symphonies and IBM’s famous AI machine Watson, has recently created a cookbook. In the art world, now a machine algorithm can make connections between paintings and ‘study’ art. We catch up with Ahmed Elgammal at Rutgers University in New Jersey over email to discuss his work with partner Babak Saleh on this machine algorithm to find out more.

Photo: IDG Connect

How have you taught the machine to study art?
The interesting thing about our recent study on assessing creativity is that the machine did not know anything about art. The input to the algorithm are images of paintings, where we use off-the-shelf computer vision techniques to encode them. The algorithm then reasons about creativity based on similarities between paintings and their date of creation, using the definition of creativity that we used to design the algorithm. So we did not really teach the machine anything that is art-specific.

For earlier studies we did use annotations of paintings, such as style, genre, and their artists to teach the machine about art. However this is not used in this project.

What sort of tests have you done to see how the machine identifies “creativity”?
We proposed a validation methodology, which we call “time machine experiments”, where we change the date of an artwork to some point in the past or in the future, relative to its correct time of creation and recomputed their creativity scores.

We found that paintings from Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Expressionist, and Cubism movements have significant gain in their creativity scores when moved back to around 1600 AD. In contrast, Neoclassicism paintings did not gain much when moved back to 1600. This makes sense, because Neoclassicism can be considered as revival to Renaissance. On the other hand, paintings from Renaissance and Baroque styles had losses in their creativity scores when moved forward to 1900 AD.

How does the algorithm decide between paintings that are creative and those that are not?
First, let’s go over the definition of creativity that we used. Historically there is an ongoing debate on how to define creativity. We can describe a person (e.g. artist, poet), a product (painting, poem), or the mental process as being creative.  In our work we focused on the creativity of products, and we used the most common definition of creativity of products, which emphasises the originality of the product and its influential value.

The algorithm is based on constructing a network between paintings and using it to infer the originality and influence of them. Think of it as a game: each painting has the same amount of creativity tokens. Then these creativity tokens are passed between paintings based on their similarity and their dates until equilibrium is reached.
Read more...

Source: IDG Connect

Liberal Arts Girl Living in a Tech World

Photo: Deborah Cronen

Deborah Cronen, Head of Customer Success, Enterprise East & Financial Services, Sales Product Consulting at LinkedIn summarizes, "STEM education (e.g. science, technology, engineering, math) is a smart way to set students up for success on the global stage.  Innovation (read: technology) is the creative-destructive force of the day, engineers command high entry level salaries, and computer programmers are the newest cultural phenomenon."

Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If I were to have children I’d want them to be well positioned too, and the most obvious choice is to steer them towards STEM.  But at what cost? Cultures are lauded by scientific advancement as well as artistic contribution: The Islamic Golden Age brought us algebra and the Alhambra. The Scientific Revolution coincided with the Age of Enlightenment. Early humans developed tools that put us on our modern path, while possessing a creative urge bequeathed in the form of cave paintings.

But forget this cultural critique for a moment and let’s get practical.  A liberal arts education (studies that develop general knowledge and capacities rather than specific functional skills) can be a pragmatic means to a professional ends.  Yes, I said it.  Disciplines such as literature, history and philosophy can contribute to career success.

I know from experience. I am a liberal arts girl living in a tech world. Before finding myself at LinkedIn where I am responsible for driving customer uptake of innovative products and solutions, I studied Asian & Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College.

While employees must generate results, distinction often boils down to intangible competencies rather than functional skills.  One can code like a beast, but can she predict market response to a new product? One can analyze data as effectively as wizards spin spells, but how effectively can she contextualize what it means?  One can develop an elegant competitive strategy, but can she galvanize others to share her vision?  Immersing oneself in liberal arts is an effective way to develop many essential business skills.
Read more...

Source: Pulse

Why We Need Philosophers Engaged In Public Life

Photo: Tania Lombrozo

Tania Lombrozo, psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley reports, "Say "philosopher" and most people imagine a bust of Socrates, obscure texts or intellectual tête-à-têtes in the so-called Ivory Tower, away from the muddle of real-life concerns."

But three issues this past week made something clear: We need philosophers engaged in public life — and a public willing to engage them.

Photo: NPR

Issue No. 1: Rachel Dolezal, a woman born to Caucasian parents, was "outed" as white though she identifies as black.

The case raises a variety of questions. What determines a person's race? Is race a biological category or a social construct? If the latter, in what is it grounded? These questions force us to confront issues in philosophy of language about what determines a word's meaning (such as "white" and "black"), issues in philosophy of biology about the status of race as a meaningful biological category (short answer: it's probably not), issues in social constructivism about what race might amount to as a social construct (something grounded in history and ancestry? in social identity?) and much, much more.

The list of philosophically charged questions goes on: Is there a morally or politically significant asymmetry between a black person "passing as white" and a white person "passing as black"? Is Dolezal "transracial" just as some people are "transsexual," or are there important differences between race and sex with implications for how to think about Dolezal's case?

In a thoughtful discussion at the philosophy blog Daily Nous, over half a dozen philosophers weigh in on these issues. The discussion is surprisingly accessible, and a heck of a lot more sophisticated than anything I've seen in mainstream venues.
Read more...

Source: NPR

Einstein vs Bergson, science vs philosophy and the meaning of time

Photo: Joe Gelonesi

Joe Gelonesi, key member of ABC RN’s executive editorial team for the past decade writes, "When Henri met Albert the stars didn’t quite align; nor did their clocks. Jimena Canales, historian of science, tells Joe Gelonesi about her discovery of an explosive 20th century debate that changed our view of time and destroyed a reputation."

Physicists and philosophers have a curious relationship. They both need each other for the cosmic dance, but one partner sometimes refuses to join in. Star physicist Stephen Hawking even declared the end of philosophy in 2011.

In some ways the pronouncement was to be expected; physics triumphalism dictates that at some point philosophy will exhaust itself and be unable to solve the mysteries that science seems to conquer in leaps. It’s been coming for a while; at least since the word science replaced natural philosophy a few centuries ago.

Photo: Portrait of physicist Albert Einstein sitting in an armchair with a pipe, circa 1934. (Lucien Aigner/Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Along this narrative are high points of confrontation, played out by grand actors on the intellectual stage. Jimena Canales has rediscovered one such moment, which pitted a grandee of philosophy against a rising star of physics.

Canales is an award winning historian of science with a penchant for cosmological themes. She has also authored an ambitious history of the idea of a tenth of a second. As part of her research she came across rare documents which chronicled an extraordinary standoff. She immediately understood her luck.

‘It is the dream a historian could have—I bumped into very interesting material that hadn’t been told before. It’s one of those incredible untold stories.’

Canales had uncovered the transcript of a meeting that took place on April 6, 1922 at the esteemed Societe  Francaise de philosophie in Paris. The protagonists were none other than Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson. In dispute was the very nature of time.

Taking on Einstein might seem foolhardy now, but the world of ideas was a different place a century ago. Bergson was already someone; Einstein was on the make.

Bergson’s Creative Evolution, published in 1907, had put him on the map, and introduced perhaps his most enduring idea—elan vital. Through it Bergson attempted to explain the march of the universe in a non-Darwinian sense, the vital energy that drives all forward. Bergson understood this as a concept that science could grasp only imperfectly, and one that lies at the heart of the creative impulse.

Photo: French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941) pictured circa 1905. (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)

The book also develops a theory of time. Rather than a physical account, Bergson explores the subjective nature of time—what it means to us as living beings, rather than as an abstract concept external to our concerns. This is the notion of lived time.

Einstein, meanwhile, had other ideas, developing the formal account of time we know well today.

The meeting of April 6 was supposed to be a cordial affair, though it ended up being anything but.

‘I have to say that day exploded and it was referenced over and over again in the 20th century,’ says Canales. ‘The key sentence was something that Einstein said: “The time of the philosophers did not exist.”’

It’s hard to know whether Bergson was expecting such a sharp jab. In just one sentence, Bergson’s notion of duration—a major part of his thesis on time—was dealt a mortal blow.

As Canales reads it, the line was carefully crafted for maximum impact.

‘What he meant was that philosophers frequently based their stories on a psychological approach and [new] physical knowledge showed that these philosophical approaches were nothing more than errors of the mind.’

The night would only get worse.

‘This was extremely scandalous,’ says Canales. ‘Einstein had been invited by philosophers to speak at their society, and you had this physicist say very clearly that their time did not exist.’

Bergson was outraged, but the philosopher did not take it lying down. A few months later 

Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the law of photoelectric effect, an area of science that Canales noted, ‘hardly jolted the public’s imagination’. In truth, Einstein coveted recognition for his work on relativity.

Bergson inflicted some return humiliation of his own. By casting doubt on Einstein’s theoretical trajectory, Bergson dissuaded the committee from awarding the prize for relativity. In 1922, the jury was still out on the correct interpretation of time.

So began a dispute that festered for years and played into the larger rift between physics and philosophy, science and the humanities.
Read more...

Source: ABC Online

New Ebook Released: How to Use Rapid Authoring Tools for Converting PPTs to E-learning

Here is an eBook that helps with the process. Titled “Converting PPTs to E-learning Using Rapid Authoring Tools: Tips for using Storyline, Captivate, Presenter, and Lectora”, the eBook is a must for those who want to explore different authoring tools to convert their in-house PPTs into online courses.

Download the eBook now

A PowerPoint presentationis not capable of knowledge transfer by itself. In a classroom, it needs an instructor, and in online environment, it needs an instructional design strategy. To implement the strategy, you need authoring tools.

It is not surprising that we have a host of rapid authoring tools that are meant to efficiently convert PowerPoint slides into engaging and interactive eLearning courses. Each of them comes with different features and capabilities. How do we know which one is the best for our purpose?

More specifically, this eBook:

• Explains why you need to use rapid authoring tools to convert PPTs into eLearning courses
• Lists the criteria that help you choose the right authoring tool that best caters to your training situation.
• Describes the step-by-step process of using authoring tools such as Storyline, Presenter, Captivate and Lectora

Get an overview of the most popular rapid authoring tools and see how you can use them to address your training needs. 
Download the eBook now

Source: CommLab India 

Purdue To Offer New Degree Based on Skills, Not Credits

Follow on Twitter as @Petit_Smudge

Sarah Fentem, reporter and producer for WFIU/WTIU News summarizes, "The school is the first public school in Indiana to offer a "competency-based" degree."

Starting next fall, Purdue University will become the first public institution in the state to offer a degree program based on competency and not credit hours.

The Indiana Commission for Higher Education last week approved Purdue’s Bachelor of Science in Transdisciplinary Studies degree, which will be offered through the school’s Polytechnic Institute.
Photo: Indiana Public Media

The Indiana Commission for Higher Education last week approved Purdue’s Bachelor of Science in Transdisciplinary Studies degree, which will be offered through the school’s Polytechnic Institute.

The degree is one of the state’s first examples of competency-based education, or “direct assessment”— a form of learning that awards students for skills they display rather than the credit hours they receive.

“[Competency-based] programs can look different from college to college and state to state, but what they all have in common is a move away from a typical seat-time credit measurement of what students know to really a project-based demonstration of student knowledge,” says commission spokesperson Stephanie Wilson. “Instead of progressing according to the hours you spend in the classroom or the credit you earn, you progress based on the knowledge you can demonstrate and the skills you bring to the table.”

Polytechnic Institute Dean Gary Bertoline says the program can be compared to earning merit badges.

“You get a badge for lighting a fire with sticks, you can either do it or you can’t,” he says. 

“You can’t earn a badge until you can actually light a fire with sticks. The same idea goes with competencies.”

Students will create e-portfolios to demonstrate their competence in multiple categories, such as ethical reasoning and systems thinking.

However, a hundred years of educational institutions is difficult to unseat completely.

While it’s easier for certain distance-learning and online schools such as Western Governors University to implement competency-based programs, more traditional four-year schools are bogged down by decades’ worth of administrative conventions.

For example, most financial aid is based on grades and credit hours, and it’s difficult to find an employer that isn’t curious about a job candidate’s GPA.
Read more...

Source: Indiana Public Media  

Test Yourself | Making Art With Lego Bricks

Photo: Michael Gonchar

Michael Gonchar writes, "Below, several paragraphs from a June 26 article, “A Legoland Builder Turns Her Childhood Hobby Into an Adult Art Form.”"

Photo: New York Times (blog)

Can you choose the best word for each blank?

When you’re finished, you’ll find a link to the original article.

1 Pablo Picasso’s birthday was coming up and Veronica Watson wanted to celebrate. She was standing in her workshop at the Legoland Discovery Center in Yonkers last October, where she serves as the master model builder, and was _________ online through the artist’s paintings.   

2 She settled on “Guernica,” since she thought the antiwar mural would look cool in Lego. She found a picture of the painting and, working from the upper left corner, began to _________ it — brick by brick.

“I’d do a little bit, walk away, come back, look at it, and then add to it,” Ms. Watson said.
Read the entire article

Source: New York Times (blog) 

First GED Test Module Free for First-time Testers until Aug. 1

"Anyone interested in earning a GED who has never taken the test before can begin the process for free for a limited time." continues SurfKY News.
 

Photo: SurfKY News

West Kentucky Community and Technical College's Adult Learning Centers are helping individuals prepare to do that.

From now until Aug.1, 2015, GED Testing Service is hosting a promotion that provides $10 off the first GED test module for individuals taking the 2014 series GED test for the first time. This discount, when used along with a $20 GED test module voucher provided by Kentucky Adult Education, allows qualified individuals to take their first module of the GED test for free.

Unlike the previous GED test series, the 2014 GED test series allows testers to take each of the four modules, or subject areas, of the test one at a time. This is beneficial because it allows individuals to focus on one subject at a time.

"This wonderful opportunity provides first-time GED seekers with the option of taking the module they are most confident in, whether it is Reasoning through Language Arts, Social Studies, Science or Mathematical Reasoning without having to pay to try their first GED test module, and will provide great savings to our students" said Samantha Williams, WKCTC director of adult education...

The GED Ready Test is offered on Fridays at the WKCTC Adult Learning Centers, located in the Anderson Technical Building, Room 111, 4810 Alben Barkley Drive and the Skilled Craft Training Center, 70 Hickory Road in Hickory.

The GED exam is given on Wednesdays and Thursdays at the WKCTC Workforce Assessment Center located in the college's Emerging Technology Center.
Read more... 

Source: SurfKY News

It's Here! NMC Horizon Report - 2015 K-12 Edition

The New Media Consortium (NMC) and CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking) are jointly releasing the NMC Horizon Report > 2015 K-12 Edition in a special session at the annual ISTE Conference. This edition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in K-12 education.

NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition
 

Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in educational technology are identified across three adoption horizons over the next one to five years, giving school leaders, educational technologists, and teachers a valuable guide for strategic technology planning. The format of the report provides in-depth insight into how trends and challenges are accelerating and impeding the adoption of educational technology, along with their implications for policy, leadership, and practice.  

"The NMC Horizon Report > 2015 K-12 Edition stimulates crucial conversations about what trends and challenges are influencing the adoption of forward-thinking strategies in schools throughout the world,"says Larry Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of the NMC. "In this year's edition, we found that an increasing number of schools are incorporating online learning through blended learning models, allowing learners to accelerate at their own pace. Creativity and the integration of making are also key themes that have recently come to the forefront in K-12 learning."
  

Download the Report  (PDF)

"This year's report is the result of a rewarding long-term effort between CoSN and the NMC to keep the discussion regarding technology in schools accurate and flourishing," notes Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN. "At CoSN, we tackle some of the greatest challenges facing schools today. The NMC Horizon Report has become a fundamental reference for us as we decipher the trends that are shaping the complex landscape of K-12 education." 

Key Trends Accelerating K-12 Education Technology Adoption The NMC Horizon Report > 2015 K-12 Edition identifies the "Increasing Use of Blended Learning" and "Rise of STEAM Learning" as short-term impact trends accelerating the adoption of educational technology in K-12 education over the next one to two years. The "Increasing Use of Collaborative Learning Approaches" and the "Shift from Students as Consumers to Creators" are mid-term impact trends expected to drive technology use in the next three to five years; meanwhile, "Rethinking How Schools Work" and "Shift to Deeper Learning Approaches" are long-term trends, anticipated to impact institutions for the next five years or more.  

Significant Challenges Impeding K-12 Technology Adoption  
A number of challenges are acknowledged as barriers to the mainstream use of technology in schools. "Creating Authentic Learning Opportunities" and "Integrating Technology in Teacher Education" are perceived as solvable challenges - those which we both understand and know how to solve. "Rethinking the Roles of Teachers" and "Personalizing Learning" are considered difficult challenges, which are defined and well understood but with solutions that are elusive. Described as wicked challenges are "Scaling Teaching Innovations" and "Teaching Complex Thinking," which are complex to define, much less to address.  

Important Developments in Educational Technology for K-12 Education  
Additionally, the report identifies bring your own device (BYOD) and makerspaces as digital strategies and technologies expected to enter mainstream use in the near-term horizon of one year or less. 3D printing and adaptive learning technologies are seen in the mid-term horizon of two to three years; digital badges and wearable technology are seen emerging in the far-term horizon of four to five years. The subject matter in this report was identified through a qualitative research process designed and conducted by the NMC that engaged an international body of experts in K-12 schools, technology, business, and other fields around a set of research questions designed to surface significant trends and challenges and to identify emerging technologies with a strong likelihood of adoption in K-12 education. The NMC Horizon Report > 2015 K-12 Edition details the areas in which these experts were in strong agreement.

The NMC Horizon Report > 2015 K-12 Edition is available online, free of charge, and is released under a Creative Commons license to facilitate its widespread use, easy duplication, and broad distribution.  
Download the Report  (PDF)
 
About the New Media Consortium  
The New Media Consortium is an international not-for-profit consortium of learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. For 22 years, the NMC and its members have dedicated themselves to exploring and developing potential applications of emerging technologies for learning, research, and creative inquiry.  To learn more, visit www.nmc.org.  

About CoSN
CoSN is the premier professional association for school system technology leaders. The mission of CoSN is to empower educational leaders to leverage technology to realize engaging learning environments.
Visit www.cosn.org to find out more about CoSN's focus areas, annual conference and events, advocacy and policy, membership, and the CETL certification exam.

Source: New Media Consortium and NewMediaConsortium Channel (YouTube)