About Center for Information and Electronics Technologies

　

　　Information science and electronics are among the most important areas of science and technology in the 21st century. Presently, the major nations in the world strive to excel in these two fields to maintain superiority both in economy and in defense. Research accomplishment in both fields of information science and electronics at the National Taiwan University (NTU) is highly regarded both domestically and internationally, and in particular, NTU is the leading institution in Asia in terms of research publications. In response to “Integrated Project of Research-Oriented University” set by the Ministry of Education (MOE), and our pursuit to obtain a world class standing, NTU proposes to establish lab-based integration “Center for Information and Electronics Technologies (CIET)” to integrate faculty members in the relevant fields and to conduct research in a more focused and synergistic manner. The overall goals of the center are set as:  
1)  to strive for the promotion in teaching and research and to endeavor for the integration and inspiration among relevant research teams in NTU so as to generate breakthrough research results and attain a leading place in the world
2)  to invite renowned researchers to help NTU’s research programs reach world-class standing and enhance her international recognition
3)  to encourage and enhance the cooperation among industries, academics, and the government to make NTU’s top-notch research achievements in Information and Electronics Technologies exert their due influence on local and international environment.
　　 More specifically, in order to materialize the synergy of integrating Information and Electronics Technologies and achieve concrete results, we concentrate and direct our efforts to establish the following 5 sub-field research labs:
1)  Network Information Systems and Applications Lab
2)  Multimedia Lab.
3)  Advanced Device Technology Lab.
4)  System-on-Chip Design Lab.
5)  Advanced Communication Systems and Technologies Lab.

In addition we will establish on the operation side an Industry-Academia Cooperation Lab., an Extended Education Section, and an Administrative Section. We will also set up an honorable Advisory Committee to provide guidance and help evaluate the performance of the center periodically.
About Multimedia Laboratory

　

        In the past humans have stored most knowledge and information in written documents. However, the term "document" has changed from its traditional form (printed paper) to include massive digital formats like digital  books, Video CD/DVD, streaming video, virtual reality, etc. Furthermore, the digitized information can easily be  distributed worldwide via the Internet. Digitized content features ease editing, copying, searching, transmission,  and storage. It boosts versatile visualizations and even bi-directional interactive functions that are not possible  using traditional formats.

        A new age of voluminous information has arisen, bringing with it the need for answers to multiple questions. How can we effectively deal with media content? How do we store and manage media content? How should we  conduct human perception-based classification on media content? How do we distribute classified media content  to users who use different devices? How can we visualize media content in a way that fits customers' needs?  Faced with these unsolved issues, we need to develop multimedia technologies for each kind of media content and  seek an integrated solution. 

        In order to deal with the development of media content and to cater to the past R&D features and achievements  of the College of EECS, the major focus of the Integrated Multimedia Laboratory will be media content engineering- related issues. 

        Media content engineering means human-centered methods for developing information systems and related  technologies required by different phases in the multimedia content creation process. The phases include media content  creation, digitization, compression and storage, retrieval and extraction, visualization and transmission, etc. Media  content engineering processes not only the media information needed for visualizing the content itself, but also its  essentially relevant meta-data. The relevant research subjects in the field will include the following systems and technologies：

(a)

Processing, compression, storage, and management of media content;
(b) Retrieval and extraction of media content;
(c) Visualization of media content;
(d) Transmission of media content.


        In addition, we aim to provide a precise and integrated content editing environment and effective explanation of  information creation tools. We hope to integrate various relevant information technologies developed for media content  engineering, as well as create and edit versatile media content and achieve educational research, information exchange,  and digital content creation purposes of all sectors of this university. The research of the laboratory will include the  following subjects：

(a) Editing techniques of media content;
(b) Content description and metadata creation;
(c) Multimedia database system;
(d) Integration techniques of various media;
(e) Application of multimedia in specific areas.

        Besides the above 9 media content engineering related subjects, the laboratory also supports various humanity- centered and technology-centered digital media content creation tasks for our university as follows:
(a) Evaluation and Corpus Collection for Multilingual Information Retrieval and Extraction (Department of Library and  Information Science, Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering)
(b) Multimedia language corpus (Graduate Institute of Linguistics, Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering)
(c) Chinese multimedia web platform (Graduate Institute of Journalism, Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering)

        The new equipments of the laboratory can also support the multimedia digital audio creation in Institute of the Drama  and Theatre. The strong collaboration of the laboratory members from different colleges not only develops new technologies  in "digital content" field, but also creates high-quality media content.