Photoblogs: the immediate need to document early twenty-first century photography practices

This thesis attempts to suggest ways in which museums might better understand and make informed decisions about acquiring, preserving, and cataloguing photoblogs, which are an early twenty-first century photography practice. Photographers can now use the World Wide Web to show and share their images, because of the advent of digital cameras, camera phones, and cheap, open-source photo-blogging tools available to the general population. This thesis will help museums to better understand and be comfortable in acquiring digital artefacts, such as photoblogs, that will enrich their photographic collections for future generations. Acquisition tools and preservation methods are defined and discussed. The process of cataloguing photoblogs in current collections-management databases is not much different from cataloguing hard-copy photographs. The "People of Walmart" photoblog is used as an example and an illustration to clearly define the difficult technical jargon separating curatorial and collections management departments from information technology departments.

Photoblogs: the immediate need to document early twenty-first century photography practices

This thesis attempts to suggest ways in which museums might better understand and make informed decisions about acquiring, preserving, and cataloguing photoblogs, which are an early twenty-first century photography practice. Photographers can now use the World Wide Web to show and share their images, because of the advent of digital cameras, camera phones, and cheap, open-source photo-blogging tools available to the general population. This thesis will help museums to better understand and be comfortable in acquiring digital artefacts, such as photoblogs, that will enrich their photographic collections for future generations. Acquisition tools and preservation methods are defined and discussed. The process of cataloguing photoblogs in current collections-management databases is not much different from cataloguing hard-copy photographs. The "People of Walmart" photoblog is used as an example and an illustration to clearly define the difficult technical jargon separating curatorial and collections management departments from information technology departments.

Dewarping Document Image Techniques: Survey and Comparative Study

In recent years, everyone has his/her own handheld digital devices such as PDAs and camera phones which are used to capture any documents, for example, posters, magazine and books. This is the simplest way to disseminating and collecting information. Unfortunately, the snapshot of this document in an uncontrolled environment has been suffering from different perspectives and geometric distortions, especially when a picture is taken from rolled document, page of thick book, multi-folded documents and crumpled pages. In such cases, the most common distortion appeared is warping text lines. In this paper, we present a survey and a comparative study of document image dewarping techniques which aim to solve the curled lines and geometric distortion problems. We introduce a new classification of the available dewarping document image techniques and investigate their available datasets. Finally, we present the evaluation metric to test these techniques.

Multi-view Protocols

We present a novel adaptation of a typical science laboratory protocol, which we have termed multi-view protocols (MVPs). The purpose of MVPs is to answer and link three common questions asked by students when first learning a laboratory technique: (1) What am I supposed to do? (2) Where and how am I supposed to do it? (3) What exactly am I doing, anyway? The intent of MVPs is to facilitate parallel comprehension of both the physical “movements” of a technique and the theoretical principles behind each step of a protocol. With MVPs, we achieve this through three parallel columns that include a textual description of the protocol, photographs of the protocol being performed in the laboratory space, and an illustrative column that visually depicts the molecular details of the corresponding steps. Variations of MVPs may include having students create one or more of the parallel columns themselves. In the age of near ubiquitous high-resolution camera phones, MVPs are a practical and efficient way to simultaneously teach laboratory method and theory, adaptable to nearly any laboratory protocol.

When Citizens Are “Actually Doing Police Work”: The Blurring of Boundaries in WhatsApp Neighbourhood Crime Prevention Groups in The Netherlands

Neighbourhood watch messaging groups are part of an already pervasive phenomenon in The Netherlands, despite having only recently emerged. In many neighbourhoods, street signs have been installed to make passers-by aware of active neighbourhood surveillance. In messaging groups (using WhatsApp or similar communication apps), neighbours exchange warnings, concerns, and information about incidents, emergencies, and (allegedly) suspicious situations. These exchanges often lead to neighbours actively protecting and monitoring their streets, sending messages about suspicious activities, and using camera-phones to record events. While citizen-initiated participatory policing practices in the neighbourhood can increase (experiences of) safety and social cohesion, they often default to lateral surveillance, ethnic profiling, risky vigilantism, and distrust towards neighbours and strangers. Whereas the use of messaging apps is central, WhatsApp neighbourhood crime prevention (WNCP) groups are heterogeneous: they vary from independent self-organised policing networks to neighbours working with and alongside community police. As suggested by one of our interviewees, this can lead to citizens “actually doing police work,” which complicates relationships between police and citizens. This paper draws on interviews and focus groups in order to examine participatory policing practices and the responsibilisation of citizens for their neighbourhood safety and security. This exploration of actual practices shows that these often diverge from the intended process and that the blurring of boundaries between police and citizens complicates issues of accountability and normalises suspicion and the responsibilisation of citizens.

Video Enhancement using Histogram Equalization with JND Model

The paper presents degraded Video contrast enhancement. These videosare taken by camera phones because of the improper illumination or limitation of the capturing devices. The existing enhancement approach may either flop to produce good and distortionless Videos. They do not enhance every area of interest properly, especially in face regions. The paperpropose histogram equalization method (HE) manipulating thenoticeable in difference model of the visual system represented as in JND-HE. This will be performed for generic frame that is contrast enhancement. In addition, the said method,JND-HE method is clubbed with the exposer correctivemethod represented by JND-HE-EC for video enhancement of face region. The EC method is to adjust the illumination of the video frame in the face region and obtain suitable illumination in the background. The demonstration result shows that generic videos and faces shallproduce pleasantvideosother than existing techniques.

Seeing the Unseen: Visualizing Organizational Culture in the Classroom

This article describes an inquiry-based classroom activity for strategic management, human resource management, and related courses to enhance the understanding of organizational culture. We use visual methods to provide fresh insights into an organization’s culture from which we can enable students to draw conclusions upon how this culture might affect organizational strategy. Students use their camera phones to take photos that encapsulate organizational culture, with their business school used as an exemplifying case. Students present their photos explaining what, from their perspective, the photos say about culture and its influences upon strategy and organizational performance. Other students are encouraged to offer alternative readings, thereby demonstrating the multiple interpretations of culture. An instructor-led plenary focuses upon theoretical themes within the photos. These themes are plentiful, varying from class to class. In our experience, the activity has also provided opportunities for the discussion of topics such as gendering and ethnic bias.

Information Gathering in the Era of Mobile Technology: Towards a Liberal Right to Record

Cameras are everywhere. From private security footage to homeland security surveillance to the photographic mapping of the streets of the world, people today are under constant scrutiny while in the public sphere. This phenomenon raises numerous legal questions, but possibly most problematic is the ubiquity of camera phones; today everyone has the ability to instantaneously create a video and spread it across the world. The enormity of this power at first glance seems to beg for legal regulation, but the nature of the issue cautions against it. Videos, after all, are just a medium of expression. And liberal democracy places a premium on freedom of expression, often to the detriment of other rights.