Nice to meet you.

Welcome to my webpage

• About me
• Research
• Teaching
• Qualifications

About me

I am a Senior Lecturer in Computing in the School of Engineering and Design at Brunel University. My expertise is in multimedia computing, with research interests in multimedia content management. You can read more about my research and teaching activities below. I can be contacted as follows: Post: Electronic and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Design, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK E-mail: Telephone: +44 (0)1895 265993 Fax: +44 (0)1895 258728

Research

Research interests

My research interests centre on the broad aspects of multimedia content management. My research has contributed rich, flexible approaches that enable multimedia retrieval, personalization and summarization according to semantics represented by various forms of metadata. Contributions include MC², which is a framework and online service to enable MPEG-7 content-modelling communities, Artemis, which is an MPEG-7-based approach for personalizing digital games, COSMOS (Content Oriented Semantic Modelling Overlay Scheme) and COSMOS-7 (which is compliant with the ISO/IEC MPEG-7 metadata standard), the Hanging Basket model which overcomes restrictions in representing content preferences within user models in MPEG-7, and various associated software tools. COSMOS-7 has also been exploited to improve how users access and navigate video streams by overcoming the inherent limitations of media players. An empirically-derived set of user searching and browsing strategies were incorporated into Geovideoworld, an immersive 4D virtual world architecture which exploits geographical properties of real-world video to enable geographically-accurate spatiotemporal access to content. Other research has focused on exploiting the physiological responses that video content elicits in viewers, as recorded by sensors measuring such signals as heart rate and blood volume pulse, to distinguish segments for inclusion in video summaries (video summaries serve to rapidly provide rough-to-full ideas of the entire content of media streams, making it easier to locate pertinent segments).

If you are considering undertaking a PhD in any of the above areas, or other areas in the multimedia domain, please drop me a brief email in the first instance. It would be helpful to tell me a little bit about your background and the research you would like to pursue.

Recent research activities

I recently co-edited The Handbook of MPEG Applications: Standards in Practice (Wiley, 2011). My paper with Arthur Money on video summarisation is the most cited paper in the Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation in the past 5 years. I was Principal Investigator on the EPSRC-funded project, MC²: MPEG-7 Content Modelling Communities and have been appointed to the editorial board of Multimedia Tools and Applications. I co-organised the 4th and 5th Workshops on Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction at BCS HCI 2008 and BCS HCI 2009 respectively. I was Doctoral Consortium Chair and Proceedings Editor for the 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalization (SMAP 2007) and served on the International Programme Committee and as a Session Chair for SMAP 2006-2012. I am serving on numerous other Programme Committees, such as the Multimedia and Visualization track of the 27th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2012), the IEEE International Conference on Signal Processing and Multimedia Applications (SIGMAP 2012), the 15th IASTED International Conference on Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications (IMSA 2011), and the IEEE Andean Region International Conference (Andescon 2012). I co-organised and co-chaired a special session on multimedia content modelling and personalization for IMSA 2005 for which I received an Award for Outstanding Performance. 

Publications

If you are having difficulty obtaining any of these publications, please contact me.

Books

MC Angelides and H Agius, Eds (2011) The Handbook of MPEG Applications: Standards in Practice (Wiley: Chichester, West Sussex).

Proceedings

C Peter, E Crane, L Axelrod, H Agius, S Afzal and M Ballam, Eds (2009), Emotion in HCI – Real World Challenges: Proceedings of the 2009 International Workshop, 5th Workshop on the Role of Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction at the 23rd BCS HCI Group Annual Conference, 1 September 2009, Cambridge, UK (Fraunhofer Verlag: Stuttgart, Germany).

C Peter, E Crane, M Fabri, H Agius and L Axelrod, Eds (2008), Emotion in HCI – Designing for People: Proceedings of the 2008 International Workshop, 4th Workshop on the Role of Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction at the 22nd BCS HCI Group Annual Conference, 2 September 2008, Liverpool, UK (Fraunhofer Verlag: Stuttgart, Germany).

C Peter, E Crane, M Fabri, H Agius and L Axelrod (2008) “Emotion in HCI – Designing for People”, Emotion in HCI – Designing for People: Proceedings of the 2008 International Workshop, 4th Workshop on the Role of Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction at the 22nd BCS HCI Group Annual Conference, 2 September 2008, Liverpool, UK (Fraunhofer Verlag: Stuttgart, Germany), pp 1-2

P Mylonas, M Wallace, MC Angelides and H Agius, Eds (2007), Proc. 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalisation (SMAP 2007), 17-18 December, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK (IEEE Computer Society: Los Alamitos, CA, USA).

H Agius (2007), “Foreword to the SMAP ’07 Doctoral Consortium”, Proc. 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalisation (SMAP 2007), 17-18 December, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK (IEEE Computer Society: Los Alamitos, CA, USA), p 219.

Journal papers

D Daylamani Zad, MC Angelides, H Agius (2012), Personalise your Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) with Artemis, Multimedia Systems,  Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 69-94

AG Money and H Agius (2010), ELVIS: Entertainment-Led Video Summaries, ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications, Vol. 6, No. 3, August, Article No. 17

AG Money and H Agius (2009), Analysing user physiological responses for affective video summarisation, Displays, vol 30, no 2, pp 59-70

H Agius and MC Angelides (2009), From MPEG-7 user interaction tools to hanging basket models: bridging the gap, Multimedia Tools and Applications, vol 41, no 3, pp 375-406

AG Money and H Agius (2008), Video summarisation: a conceptual framework and survey of the state of the art, Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, vol 19, no 2, pp 121-143

H Agius and MC Angelides (2007), Closing the content-user gap in MPEG-7: the hanging basket model, ACM/Springer Multimedia Systems, vol 13, no 2, pp 155-172

MC Angelides and H Agius (2006), An MPEG-7 scheme for semantic content modelling and filtering of digital video, ACM/Springer Multimedia Systems, vol 11, no 4, pp 320-339

C Crockford and H Agius (2006), An empirical investigation into user navigation of digital video using the VCR-like control set, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol 64, no 4, pp 340-355

H Agius and MC Angelides (2005), COSMOS-7: video-oriented MPEG-7 scheme for modelling and filtering of semantic content, The Computer Journal, vol 48, no 5, pp 545-562

C Crockford and H Agius (2005), Modelling VCR-like video content navigation, Displays, vol 26, no 2, pp 79-96

MC Angelides and HW Agius (2002), An interactive multimedia learning environment for VLSI built with COSMOS, Computers & Education, vol 39, no 2, pp 145-160

HW Agius and MC Angelides (2001), Modelling content for semantic-level querying of multimedia, Multimedia Tools and Applications, vol 15, no 1, pp 5-37

D Daylamani Zad and H Agius (2011), An MPEG-7 Profile for Collaborative Multimedia Annotation, The Handbook of MPEG Applications: Standards in Practice, MC Angelides and H Agius, Eds (Wiley: Chichester, West Sussex), pp. 263-291

D Daylamani Zad and H Agius (2009), Collaborative movie annotation, in Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts, B Furht, Eds (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 265-288

D Daylamani Zad and H Agius (2009) Multimedia Metadata 2.0: Challenges of collaborative content modelling, in Advances in Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalization, Vol. 2, MC Angelides, M Wallace and P Mylonas, Eds (CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL, USA), pp 1-20

H Agius (2008), MPEG-7 Multimedia Content Description Interface, in Encyclopedia of Multimedia, 2nd Edition, B Furht, Ed (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 475-483

H Agius (2008), The content-user gap in MPEG-7, in Encyclopedia of Multimedia, 2nd Edition, B Furht, Ed (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 115-117

H Agius (2008), MPEG-7 applications, in Encyclopedia of Multimedia, 2nd Edition, B Furht, Ed (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 473-475

AG Money and H Agius (2008), Feasibility of personalized affective video summaries, in Affect and Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4868, C Peter and R Beale, Eds (Springer-Verlag: Berlin Heidelberg, Germany), pp 194-208

H Agius, C Crockford and AG Money (2006), Real-world multimedia systems, Encyclopedia of Multimedia, B Furht, Ed (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 748-754. Also in B Furht, Ed (2008), Encyclopedia of Multimedia, 2nd Edition (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 763-768

H Agius, C Crockford and AG Money (2006), Emotion and multimedia content, Encyclopedia of Multimedia, B Furht, Ed (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 222-223. Also in B Furht, Ed (2008), Encyclopedia of Multimedia, 2nd Edition (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 204-205

H Agius, C Crockford and AG Money (2006), Geographic video content, Encyclopedia of Multimedia, B Furht, Ed (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 257-259. Also in B Furht, Ed (2008), Encyclopedia of Multimedia, 2nd Edition (Springer: New York, NY, USA), pp 271-272

HW Agius (2002), Principles for supporting and enhancing user navigation of digital video in video browsers, in Interactive Multimedia Systems, S. M. Rahman, Ed (IRM Press: Hershey, PA, USA), pp 239-250

Conference proceedings and presented work

C Crockford and H Agius (2008) Unifying media stream access for urban warfare intelligence, Proceedings of RAeS Doctrine, Technology & Weapon Systems for Urban Warfare 2008, 18 November 2008, London, UK

H Agius (2008) Emotion description with MPEG-7, paper presented at the 4th Workshop on the Role of Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction at the 22nd BCS HCI Group Annual Conference, 2 September 2008, Liverpool, UK

M Fabri, C Peter, S Girard and H Agius (2008) An affective application for tackling patient depression, Emotion in HCI: Joint Proceedings of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 International Workshops (Fraunhofer IRB Verlag: Stuttgart, Germany), pp 191-195 (ISBN: 978-3-8167-7540-9)

H Agius and MC Angelides (2007), Achieving content-user synergy in MPEG-7, Proc. 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalisation (SMAP 2007), 17-18 December, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK (IEEE Computer Society: Los Alamitos, CA, USA), pp 147-152

AG Money and H Agius (2007), Video playing with our emotions, Emotion in HCI: Joint Proceedings of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 International Workshops (Fraunhofer IRB Verlag: Stuttgart, Germany), pp 168-171. Paper presented at the 3rd Workshop on the Role of Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction at the 21st BCS HCI Group Annual Conference, 4 September 2007, Lancaster, UK

H Agius and MC Angelides (2006), Enriching MPEG-7 user models with content metadata, in Proc. 1st IEEE International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalization (SMAP 2006), 4-5 December, Athens, Greece (IEEE Computer Society: Los Alamitos, CA), pp 151-156

AG Money and H Agius (2006), Are affective video summaries feasible?, Emotion in HCI: Joint Proceedings of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 International Workshops (Fraunhofer IRB Verlag: Stuttgart, Germany), pp 142-149. Paper presented at the 2nd Workshop on the Role of Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction at the 20th BCS HCI Group Annual Conference, 12 September 2006, London, UK

H Agius and MC Angelides (2006), MPEG-7 in action: end user experiences with COSMOS-7 front end systems, in Proc. 21st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC ’06), Volume 2 of 2, 23-27 April, Dijon, France (ACM Press, New York, NY, USA), pp 1348-1355

AG Money and H Agius (2005), Automating the extraction of emotion-related multimedia semantics, Emotion in HCI: Joint Proceedings of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 International Workshops (Fraunhofer IRB Verlag: Stuttgart, Germany), pp 45-47. Paper presented at the 1st Workshop on the Role of Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction at the 19th BCS HCI Group Annual Conference, 6 September 2005, Edinburgh, UK.

AG Money and H Agius (2005), ‘Once more, with feeling’: an emotional approach to multimedia content analysis, Proc. Ninth IASTED International Conference on Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications (IMSA 2005), August 15-17, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (ACTA Press: Anaheim, CA, USA), pp 436-441

C Crockford and H Agius (2005), The geovideoworld: new scenarios for accessing geographical video content, Proc. Ninth IASTED International Conference on Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications (IMSA 2005), August 15-17, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (ACTA Press: Anaheim, CA, USA), pp 430-435

C Crockford and H Agius (2005), Geospatiotemporal Video Worlds, poster presented at the Annual Presentations by Britain’s Top Younger Scientists, Engineers and Technologists for UK National Science Week 2005, 14 March, House of Commons, London, UK

H Agius and MC Angelides (2004), Modelling and filtering of MPEG-7-compliant meta-data for digital video, in Proc. 19th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC ‘04), Volume 2 of 2, 14-17 March, Nicosia, Cyprus (ACM Press: New York, NY, USA), pp 1248-1252

HW Agius (2001), Principles for supporting and enhancing user navigation of digital video in video browsers, in Proc. 12th Annual Information Resources Management Association (IRMA) International Conference: Managing Information Technology in a Global Economy, 20-23 May, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (IDEA Group Publishing: Hershey, PA, USA), pp 299-303

Book reviews

H Agius (2005), Human-Computer Interaction, 3rd Edition (A. Dix, J. Finlay, G. D. Abowd and R. Beale, Eds., Prentice Hall, 2004), ITNOW, September, p 31

H Agius (2005), Interactive Storytelling (A. Glassner, AK Peters, 2004), ITNOW, May, p 29

H Agius (2004), Wireless Internet Handbook: Technologies, Standards and Applications (B. Furht and M. Ilyas, Eds., CRC Press, 2003), The Computer Bulletin, July, p 31

H Agius (2004), The Semantic Web (M. Daconta, L. Obrst and K.T. Smith, John Wiley & Sons, 2003), The Computer Bulletin, March, p 31

H Agius (2003), Real Sound Synthesis for Interactive Applications (P. Cook, AK Peters, 2002), The Computer Bulletin, September, p 31

H Agius (2003), Building Broadband Networks (M. K. Littman, CRC Press, 2002), The Computer Bulletin, May.

HW Agius (2003), Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for eXtreme Programming and the Unified Process (S. W. Ambler, John Wiley & Sons, 2002), Software Testing, Verification and Reliability, vol 13, no 1, p 56

H Agius (2002), E-Business Privacy and Trust (P. Shaw, John Wiley & Sons, 2001), The Computer Bulletin, May.

H Agius (2001), Mobile Commerce: Opportunities, Applications and Technologies of Wireless Business (P. May, Cambridge University Press, 2001), The Computer Bulletin, September, p 31

Editorial Board Memberships

Multimedia Tools and Applications

Reviewing

I have reviewed research proposals for the EPSRC and the NWO Research Council for Physical Sciences. I have also reviewed papers for a range of journals including IEEE MultiMedia, Multimedia Tools and Applications, The Computer Journal and IEEE Transactions on Computers, a range of conferences, as well as books for the BCS's ITNOW magazine (formerly The Computer Bulletin).

Consultancy

I am able to offer short- to medium-term consultancy in various aspects of multimedia technology. Please feel free to contact me for an informal discussion.

Teaching

Currently, I teach two modules within the School's undergraduate multimedia programmes:Interaction at level 2 and Emergent Multimedia Technologies at level 3 (on the School's BSc in Multimedia Technology and Design and BSc in Broadcast Media (Design and Technology) programmes). I am also the Level 2 Co-ordinator for multimedia programmes. Previously I have developed, taught on, and managed undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the area of multimedia as well as in more general areas of computing.

Qualifications

Education

PhD in "A full-scale semantic content-based model for interactive multimedia information systems" (LSE, 1997)

MSc (Distinction) Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems (LSE, 1995)

BSc (First Class Honours) Computing and Information Systems (LSE, 1994)

Professional society memberships

I am a Fellow of the BCS, and hold membership of the ACM, the IEEE (including the Computer Society), and the IAENG.