Search

In this paper, a manifold-based dictionary learning method for the bag-of-features (BoF) representation optimized toward information clustering is proposed. First, the spectral representation, which unwraps the manifolds of the data and provides better clustering solutions, is formed. Then, a new dictionary is learned in order to make the histogram space, i.e., the space where the BoF historgrams exist, as similar as possible to the spectral space. The ability of the proposed method to improve the clustering solutions is demonstrated using a wide range of datasets: two image datasets, the 15-scene dataset and the Corel image dataset, one video dataset, the KTH dataset, and one text dataset, the RT-2k dataset. The proposed method improves both the internal and the external clustering criteria for two different clustering algorithms: 1) the k -means and 2) the spectral clustering. Also, the optimized histogram space can be used to directly assign a new object to its cluster, instead of using the spectral space (which requires reapplying the spectral clustering algorithm or using incremental spectral clustering techniques). Finally, the learned representation is also evaluated using an information retrieval setup and it is demonstrated that improves the retrieval precision over the baseline BoF representation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Search engines usually publish search results on web pages that are filled with a certain number of matched records that can be further navigated through successive back and forth operations. While this approach proves to be useful, it fails to show the context and relationship among displayed results. We argue that new and intuitive user interfaces, such as 3-D virtual environment interfaces, may provide an alternative to the traditional presentation techniques, particularly in a learning environment where learners are looking for multimedia learning resources that match their interests. We propose a 3-D car gaming environment such as a search metaphor and analyze the suitability of such an approach in terms of user perception, interaction, visual quality, graphics-rendering performance, and other parameters. Our experiment suggests that the proposed approach not only shows an intuitive way of information visualization but also integrates education and entertainment to serve the vision of Edutainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]