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<p>Video super-resolution for dual-mode cameras in single-view and mono-view scenarios is studied in this thesis. Dual-mode cameras are capable of generating high-resolution still images while shooting video sequences at low-resolution. High-resolution still images are used to form a regularization function for solving the inverse problem of super-resolution. Exploiting proposed regularization function in this thesis obviates the need for classic regularization function. Experimental results show that using proposed regularization function instead of classic regularization functions for super-resolution of single-view video leads to improved results. In this thesis, super-resolution problem is divided into low-resolution frame fusion and de-blurring. A frame fusion scheme for multi-view video is proposed and performance improvement when exploiting multi-view sequence instead of single-view for frame fusion is studied. Experimental results show that information taken by a set of cameras instead of a single camera can improve super-resolution process, especially when video contains fast motions. As a side work, we applied our low-resolution multi-view frame fusion algorithm to 3D frame-compatible format resolution enhancement. Multi-view video super-resolution using high-resolution still images is performed at the decoder to prevent increasing computation complexity of the encoder. Experimental results show that this method delivers comparable compression efficiency for lower bit-rates.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

<p>In this thesis, we study three different image interpolation applications in high definition (HD) video processing: video de-interlacing, frame rate up-conversion, and view interpolation. We propose novel methods for these applications which are based on the concept of Nonlocal-Means (NL-Means).</p> <p>In the first part of this thesis, we introduce a new de-interlacing method which uses NL-Means algorithm. In this method, every interpolated pixel is set to a weighted average of its neighboring pixels in the current, previous, and the next frames. Weights of the pixels used in this filtering are calculated according to the radiometric distance between the surrounding areas of the pixel being interpolated and the neighboring pixels. One of the main challenges of the NL-Means is finding a suitable size for the neighborhoods (similarity window) that we want to find radiometric distance for them. We address this problem by using a steering kernel in our distance function to adapt the effective size of similarity window to the local information of the image. In order to calculate the weights of the filter, we need to have an estimate of the progressive frames. Therefore, we introduce a low computational initial de-interlacing method. This method interpolates the missing pixel along a direction based on two criteria of having minimum variation and being used by the above or below pixels. This method preserves the edge structures and yields superior visual quality compared to the simple edge-based line-averaging and many other simple iv de-interlacing methods.</p> <p>The second part of this thesis is devoted to the frame rate up-conversion application. Our frame rate up-conversion method is based on two main steps: NL-Means and foreground /background segmentation. In this method, for every pixel being interpolated first we check whether it belongs to the background or foreground. If the pixel belongs to the background and the values of the next and previous frames’ pixels are the same, we simply set the pixel intensity to the intensity of its location in the previous or next frame. If the pixel belongs to the foreground, we use NL-Means based interpolation for it. We adjust the equations of the NL-means for frame rate up-conversion so that we do not need to have the neighborhoods of the intermediate for calculating the weights of the filter. The comparison of our method with other existing methods shows the better performance of our method.</p> <p>In the third part of this thesis, we introduce a novel view interpolation method without using disparity estimation. In this method, we let every pixel in the intermediate view be the output of the NL-means using the pixels in the reference views. The experimental results demonstrate the better quality of our results compared with other algorithms which use disparity estimation.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

This project sought to evaluate the effects of video prompting in combination with backwards chaining to increase proficiency of tying shoe-laces using a changing criterion design. Two children, one diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and one neurotypical were invited to participate in this study. Following baseline, shoe-tying prompt videos and backwards chaining were used to teach shoe-tying. Video prompting plus backwards chaining increased the typically developing participant’s proficiency with performing a larger percentage of steps of the targeted skill independently following intervention. However, the participant with ASD was unable to meet criterion and the study was terminated for him due to challenging behavior. These results indicate that the combination of point-of-view video prompts along with backwards chaining can be effective in teaching children to tie their shoelaces. These results also indicate that children with ASD may need additional supports with this intervention to reach acquisition criterion. Parents reported satisfaction both with the procedures undertaken and with the outcomes of the intervention. / Applied Behavioral Analysis

Esports, or competitive video gaming competitions, have grown in popularity to have millions of global fans, spectators, and participants. Sport organizations, including leagues and teams, are increasingly affiliating, or dovetailing, with esports organizations. Although the meteoric rise of esports presents sport organizations with growth opportunities to connect with these markets, esports remain shrouded in uncertainty, stigma, and stereotypes that impede the convergence of industries. The growing affiliation between these two industries allows researchers to gain insight into the strategic actions of sport organizations despite the institutional constraints that influence their behavior. This dissertation includes three essays that address—with respect to esports—the (1) strategic resources and core competencies of sport organizations; (2) sensemaking of actors within sport organizations; and (3) institutional creation strategies within heavily regulated fields. Essay one consists of an explanatory, qualitative study of professional sport teams diversifying into the esports industry. As sport organizations mature, they will need to seek growth opportunities beyond their core industry and compete with formally tangentially related firms. The nascent esports industry has been embraced by sport organizations (e.g., leagues, teams), many of whom use existing resources and best practices from traditional sport to manage their esports property. This trend provides a salient context to identify how sport organizations are using their resources in a new marketspace and what they can provide to non-sport organizations. Guided by strategic management perspectives of the resource-based view (RBV), knowledge-based view (KBV), and resource orchestration (RO), the purpose of essay one is to examine how sport organizations leverage their core competencies to create a sustainable competitive advantage. The findings support the hypothesis that the existing resources of sport organizations such as physical venues and existing departments (e.g., legal, marketing, sales departments) are used to support sport organizations operations in the esports industry. Moreover, the findings identify that the tacit knowledge embedded in the human capital of sport organizations is a salient resource that helps them generate a competitive advantage against non-sport organizations. While tacit knowledge is a driver of competitive advantage, it is the supporting structures and departments that allows sport organizations to use this knowledge efficiently and effectively. Thus, by operating at the intersection of sport, entertainment, and media, sport organizations are increasingly competing with formally tangentially related firms, and can use their embedded resources and structure when competing with these firms. Essay two focuses on the integration of esports by a first-mover sport organization. Essay two employs an exploratory case study of the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball League (NBA) and their integration of an esports team. The 76ers were the first North American professional sports organization to purchase and integrate an esports team. Novel technologies and practices, such as esports, are surrounded by uncertainty and are generally met with resistance (Huber, 1990) with their integration contingent upon internal and external constituent support. Actors, individuals within the 76ers, had to position and garner support for esports, which are representative of the novel practices and technologies influencing the way sport organizations are managed. In essay two an institutional creation work perspective is linked with sensemaking and related constructs to examine how actors within the 76ers helped create and give meaning—sensemaking—to esports. The findings of essay two support how actors within the 76ers were able to foster a progressive culture to create a shared understanding of esports and use this understanding to influence the sensemaking of others—sensegiving. In particular, the 76ers linked the managerial components of operating a sports team to operating an esports team. Yet the 76ers were deliberate in their approach, limiting cross-promotions between the fanbases of the 76ers and their esports team. By connecting institutional creation work with sensemaking, essay two contributes to how actors can proactively take actions to garner constituent support. Moreover, the findings of essay two support that sensemaking is a critical antecedent of sensegiving, as a shared understanding within an organization is a necessary prerequisite to influence the sensemaking of others (i.e., sensegiving). Essay two provides actors within the field of sport integrating novel practices and activities (e.g., augmented and virtual reality, in-game sports betting, wearable fitness devices, mediated sports consumption) strategies to proactively garner support for their integration. Essay two focuses on the integration of esports by professional sport organizations. Essay three utilizes an exploratory qualitative approach to identify the institutional creation strategies associated with integrating collegiate esports programs within the heavily regulated field of U.S. collegiate athletics. The findings of essay three support how actors need to go beyond creating a shared understanding to integrate novel activities. Actors must also influence the cognitive schema of other actors to facilitate the integration of novel practices and activities. Specifically, they can build on the concept of sportification (Heere, 2018) to both communicate and present esports in a manner consistent with traditional sports, using the concept of sport as a legitimizing agent. Collectively, the three essays support how sport organizations can seize growth opportunities with respect to their institutional environment. Sport organizations must recognize their institutional confines, but also can be strategic in their actions by focusing on their financial performance and sustainability in lieu of their constraints. This research contributes to a deeper understanding regarding how the institutional and strategic concerns of sport organizations influence their efficient and effective management. The research lays a foundation for a stream of future research on the strategic growth and long-term viability of sport organizations both within and beyond the esports industry. / Tourism and Sport

Technology, perceived by many organizations to be a tool, has evolved from a set of tools, to a location in which many companies have located their key terrain through digitization. That location is cyberspace, an inherently compromised, hostile environment, marked by rapid change and intense competition. It is analogous to a dark alley lined with dumpsters and shadowy doorways with numerous people seeking to challenge organizational objectives. Despite the prevalence of digitization, which has transformed the organization from an anthropological manifestation to a cyborg construction, there does not currently exist a strategic view of the firm which explores the integration of the organization and cyberspace. This paper conceptualizes the Cyber-Based View of the Firm, a dynamic view designed to capture the complex interactions between people, technology, and data that enable cyberattack. A meta-analysis of current theory frames the research gap into which the Cyber-Based View fits. This meta-analysis, in conjunction with an exploratory case study of the Stuxnet attack, identified the need for physical mediation of the cognitive – informational interaction. Finally, the Cyber-Based View was used as a forensic tool to conduct a qualitative multi-case study. Using a failure autopsy approach, eight events were developed into case studies by examining, coding, and recombining the narratives within the qualitative data. A pattern matching technique was used to compare the empirical patterns of the case studies with the proposed patterns of the research construct, providing strong evidence of model validity. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

Image interpolation is the process of generating a new image utilizing a set of available images. The available images may be taken with a camera at different times, or with multiple cameras and from different viewpoints. Usually, the interpolation problem in the first scenario is called Frame Rate-Up Conversion (FRUC), and the second one view synthesis. This thesis focuses on image interpolation and addresses both FRUC and view synthesis problems. We propose a novel FRUC method using optical flow motion estimation and a patch-based reconstruction scheme. FRUC interpolates new frames between original frames of a video to increase the number of frames, and increases motion continuity. In our approach first, forward and backward motion vectors are obtained using an optical flow algorithm, and reconstructed versions of the current and previous frames are generated by our patch-based reconstruction scheme. Using the original and reconstructed versions of the current and previous frames, two mismatch masks are obtained. Then two versions of the middle frame are generated using a patch-based scheme, with estimated motion vectors and the current and previous frames. Finally, a middle mask, which identifies the mismatch areas of the two middle frames is reconstructed. Using these three masks, the best candidates for interpolation are selected and fused to obtain the final middle frame. Due to the patch-based nature of our interpolation scheme most of the holes and cracks will be filled. Although there is always a probability of having holes, the size and number of such holes are much smaller than those that would be generated using pixel-based mapping. The rare holes are filled using existing hole-filling algorithms. With fewer and smaller holes, simpler hole-filling algorithms can be applied to the image and the overall complexity of the required post processing decreases. View synthesis is the process of generating a new (virtual) view using available ones. Depending on the amount of available geometric information, view synthesis techniques can be divided into three categories: Image Based Rendering (IBR), Depth Image Based Rendering (DIBR), and Model Based Rendering (MBR). We introduce an adaptive version, patch-based scheme for IBR. This patch-based scheme reduces the size and number of holes during reconstruction. The size of patch is determined in response to edge information for better reconstruction, especially near the boundaries. In the first stage of the algorithm, disparity is obtained using optical flow estimation. Then, a reconstructed version of the left and right views are generated using our adaptive patch-based algorithm. The mismatches between each view and its reconstructed version are obtained in the mismatch detection steps. This stage results in two masks as outputs, which help with the refinement of disparities and the selection of the best patches for final synthesis. Finally, the remaining holes are filled using our simple hole filling scheme and the refined disparities. The adaptive version still benefits from the overlapping effect of the patches for hole reduction. However, compared with our fixed-size version, it results in better reconstruction near the edges, object boundaries, and inside the highly textured areas. We also propose an adaptive patch-based scheme for DIBR. The proposed method avoids unnecessary warping which is a computationally expensive step in DIBR. We divide nearby views into blocks, and only warp the center of each block. To have a better reconstruction near the edges and depth discontinuities, the block size is selected adaptively. In the blending step, an approach is introduced to calculate and refine the blending weights. Many of the existing DIBR schemes warp all pixels of nearby views during interpolation which is unnecessary. We show that using our adaptive patch-based scheme, it is possible to reduce the number of required warping without degrading the overall quality compared with existing schemes. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

yes / Thomas S. Kuhn is famous both for his work on the Copernican Revolution and his ‘paradigm’ view of scientific revolutions. But Kuhn later abandoned the notion of paradigm (and related notions) in favour of a more ‘evolutionary’ view of the history of science. Kuhn’s position therefore moved closer to ‘continuity’ models of scientific progress, for instance ‘chain-of-reasoning’ models, originally championed by D. Shapere. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate around Kuhn’s new ‘developmental’ view and to evaluate these competing models with reference to some major innovations in the history of cosmology, from Copernicanism to modern cosmology. This evaluation is made possible through some unexpected overlap between Kuhn’s earlier discontinuity model and various versions of the later continuity models. It is the thesis of this paper that the ‘chain-of-reasoning’ model accounts better for the cosmological evidence than both Kuhn’s early paradigm model and his later developmental view of the history of science.

This study has theoretical, substantive, and methodological objectives following Brinberg and McGrath (1985). First, the resource-based view of the firm provides a context to support relationships determined from theory in Sociology, Finance and Entrepreneurshp. Using these interdisciplinary theories, the expected contributions of National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) member venture capital firm networks' human-based factors to the performance of initial public offerings are examined. Second, the substantive domain-venture capital-lacks articulation and quantification regarding the impact of venture capital firms on the start-up firms they support, which in this study is identified as IPO performance. Third, methodologically, the operationalization of organizational-related capital is proposed. The independent variables (human-based factors) include reputational capital, cumulative experience, social capital, and organizational-related capital. Organizational-related capital is a construct representing a firm's strategy that incorporates preferences specific to the venture capital industry, namely financing stage preference, industry relatedness, and geographic proximity. Venture capital firm networks are assessed at the syndicate and constellation levels (within and between industries) and bounded by membership in the National Venture Capital Association. Abnormal IPO stock price performance (the dependent variable) is assessed as the new issue's stock price benchmarked to the NASDAQ index and compounded over 21-day periods for up to 126 consecutive days after offering. Control variables were gleaned from economic-based theories found in the finance literature. Positive relationships were hypothesized between the independent variables and the dependent variable. Data constraints limited the number of observations examined, and the selection of IPOs investigated displayed little variance. Thus, explaining additional abnormal performance variance in IPOs backed by NVCA-member venture capital firms above and beyond that controlled for by economic-based theory was not fruitful. Although this study's findings were not statistically significant, many insights were generated that may positively influence future research in this area. The quest to better understand venture capital firms' contributions to entrepreneurial firms and the impact they have on publicly traded stocks remains meaningful. / Ph. D.

Light pollution is a problem that affects both living creatures as well as the perception of the night sky. As artificial lighting becomes more affordable and energy efficient, more and more lights are being used, further increasing the light pollution produced by us humans where cities with larger populations experience the largest amount of light pollution. There is however a knowledge gap in the field of light pollution regarding the possibility of a relationship between sky view factor and the brightness of the night sky. This study attempts to reduce that knowledge gap. By using cameras to take photos in different locations, the brightness of the night sky can be compared and together with the sky view factor of each location in can be determined if there exist such a relationship. Based on the results of this study, trends suggesting that this relationship exists emerges, however not to the extent that any definite conclusions can be drawn without further studies.