Frank Nack

Context aware guidance for multimedia authoring: harmonizing domain and discourse knowledge

This paper presents an approach to assist authors during the authoring of multimedia presentations. We extend the existing authoring support by integrating processes of topic identification, content collection and discourse structure building in a single environment. This integration allows identification of the context of the authoring process. Our approach combines this process context awareness with explicit domain and discourse knowledge to steer system suggestions. We evaluate our approach with an experimental system prototype.

You Must Remember This

Editors Note: This column introduces the two most prominent approaches to lifelogging,namely MyLifeBits and EyeTap. These approaches deal with the problem of establishing media-based memory structures that address the cognition of audio--visual data with respect to comprehension and, in some aspects, interpretation. Here I discuss my struggle with the experiential value of the collected data and its durability in those approaches. --Frank Nack

The Future of Media Computing

In this chapter we investigate the underlying structural requirements for media-aware knowledge spaces. We discuss the merging of media generation and annotation to facilitate the use of media-based information for diverse purposes. In particular, we pay attention to the description of various tools in a distributed digital production environment supporting many distinct phases of media production. We then outline the accessibility of annotated media material for the purpose of discourse in encyclopaedic spaces. The examples throughout this chapter are taken from two domains: Media production with an emphasis on news and film production, and encyclopaedic spaces as provided by domains such as theory, history, and anthropology of film.

Combining coherence and adaptation in discourse-oriented hypermedia generation

This paper provides a solution to discourse structure adaptation in the process of automatic hypermedia presentation generation. Existing approaches to discourse structure composition are based on the assumption that a user can comprehend relations between the elements in a discourse structure if the overall structure is semantically coherent. This assumption does not, so far, take into account specific user needs. In this paper we show that although discourse structure composition approaches significantly differ, a general model of the composition process can be derived. Within this general model we identify how adaptation can be applied. We formulate the problem of discourse adaptation with regard to the general model and present our proposed solution.