Harvest Project: Call for Participation

Under the auspices of the PASCAL Harvest Programme we will be running a twelve week project from 9th July to 28th September hosted by the Institute Jozef Stefan, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ljubljana is situated close to the Julian Alps and a short distance from the Mediterranean.

The project La Vie (Learning Adapted Video Information Enhancer) involves machine learning to develop a recommender system for users of http://videolectures.net/.

La Vie will develop a proof-of-concept system that will provide users with advice on suitable videos for their needs. The key components that the project will bring to videolectures.net are:
1. topic extraction and modeling based on text extracted from associated slides and audio transcriptions. This will ensure that the devised user models can capture semantic level interests of the users.
2. inclusion of the information currently being logged about individual users in the recommender system running live on the videolectures site.
3. visualization of the developed recommender system. This will provide a topic landscape that will enable users to see the available videos emphasizing those likely to be of interest to the user.

Detailed description of the project is available at http://pascallin2.ecs.soton.ac.uk/PublicDocuments/LaVieProposal.pdf

The project was conceived by the following team: Rayid Ghani, Marko Grobelnik, Colin de la Higuera, Mitja Jermol, Alfons Juan, Matjaz Rihtar and John Shawe-Taylor and will be managed by Matjaz Rihtar.

The Harvest Project will cover the travel expenses, accommodation and subsistence for participants in the project not based at the Jozef Stefan Institute. We are looking to recruit programmers, machine learners, software engineers and welcome applicants at all levels.

We invite expressions of interest in participating in this project. Please indicate interest by replying to this email before 11th of June and include a short CV and the name of one referee.

Best regards,
Matjaz Rihtar & Mitja Jermol