LiveSketch: Query Perturbations for Guided Sketch-based Visual Search

LiveSketch is a novel algorithm for searching large image collections using hand-sketched queries. LiveSketch tackles the inherent ambiguity of sketch search by creating visual suggestions that augment the query as it is drawn, making query specification an iterative rather than one-shot process that helps disambiguate users' search intent. Our technical contributions are: a triplet convnet architecture that incorporates an RNN based variational autoencoder to search for images using vector (stroke-based) queries; real-time clustering to identify likely search intents (and so, targets within the search embedding); and the use of backpropagation from those targets to perturb the input stroke sequence, so suggesting alterations to the query in order to guide the search. We show improvements in accuracy and time-to-task over contemporary baselines using a 67M image corpus.Comment: Accepted to CVPR 201

Game Based Learning for Safety and Security Education

Safety and security education are important part of technology related education, because of recent number of increase in safety and security related incidents. Game based learning is an emerging and rapidly advancing forms of computer-assisted instruction. Game based learning for safety and security education enables students to learn concepts and skills without the risk of physical injury and security breach. In this paper, a pedestal grinder safety game and physical security game have been developed using industrial standard modeling and game development software. The average score of the knowledge test of grinder safety game was 82%, which is higher than traditional lecture only instruction method. In addition, the survey of physical security game shows 84% average satisfaction ratio from high school students who played the game during the summer camp. The results of these studies indicated that game based learning method can enhance students' learning without potential harm to the students

A framework towards understanding mesoscopic phenomena: Emergent unpredictability, symmetry breaking and dynamics across scales

By integrating 4 lines of thoughts: symmetry breaking originally advanced by Anderson, bifurcation from nonlinear dynamics, Landau's theory of phase transition, and the mechanism of emergent rare events studied by Kramers, we introduce a possible framework for understanding mesoscopic dynamics that links (i) fast lower level microscopic motions, (ii) movements within each basin at the mid-level, and (iii) higher-level rare transitions between neighboring basins, which have rates that decrease exponentially with the size of the system. In this mesoscopic framework, multiple attractors arise as emergent properties of the nonlinear systems. The interplay between the stochasticity and nonlinearity leads to successive jump-like transitions among different basins. We argue each transition is a dynamic symmetry breaking, with the potential of exhibiting Thom-Zeeman catastrophe as well as phase transition with the breakdown of ergodicity (e.g., cell differentiation). The slow-time dynamics of the nonlinear mesoscopic system is not deterministic, rather it is a discrete stochastic jump process. The existence of these discrete states and the Markov transitions among them are both emergent phenomena. This emergent stochastic jump dynamics then serves as the stochastic element for the nonlinear dynamics of a higher level aggregates on an even larger spatial and slower time scales (e.g., evolution). This description captures the hierarchical structure outlined by Anderson and illustrates two distinct types of limit of a mesoscopic dynamics: A long-time ensemble thermodynamics in terms of time $t$ tending infinity followed by the size of the system $N$ tending infinity, and a short-time trajectory steady state with $N$ tending infinity followed by $t$ tending infinity. With these limits, symmetry breaking and cusp catastrophe are two perspectives of the same mesoscopic system on different time scales.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl