AI Art Detector

AI Art Detector — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • Convolutional neural network

    Convolutional neural network

    A convolutional neural network (CNN) is a type of feedforward neural network that learns features via filter (or kernel) optimization. This type of deep learning network has been applied to process and make predictions from many different types of data including text, images and audio. CNNs are the de-facto standard in deep learning-based approaches to computer vision and image processing, and have only recently been replaced—in some cases—by newer architectures such as the transformer. Vanishing gradients and exploding gradients, seen during backpropagation in earlier neural networks, are prevented by the regularization that comes from using shared weights over fewer connections. For example, for each neuron in the fully-connected layer, 10,000 weights would be required for processing an image sized 100 × 100 pixels. However, applying cascaded convolution (or cross-correlation) kernels, only 25 weights for each convolutional layer are required to process 5x5-sized tiles. Higher-layer features are extracted from wider context windows, compared to lower-layer features. Some applications of CNNs include: image and video recognition, recommender systems, image classification, image segmentation, medical image analysis, natural language processing, brain–computer interfaces, and financial time series. CNNs are also known as shift invariant or space invariant artificial neural networks, based on the shared-weight architecture of the convolution kernels or filters that slide along input features and provide translation-equivariant responses known as feature maps. Counter-intuitively, most convolutional neural networks are not invariant to translation, due to the downsampling operation they apply to the input. Feedforward neural networks are usually fully connected networks, that is, each neuron in one layer is connected to all neurons in the next layer. The "full connectivity" of these networks makes them prone to overfitting data. Typical ways of regularization, or preventing overfitting, include: penalizing parameters during training (such as weight decay) or trimming connectivity (skipped connections, dropout, etc.) Robust datasets also increase the probability that CNNs will learn the generalized principles that characterize a given dataset rather than the biases of a poorly-populated set. Convolutional networks were inspired by biological processes in that the connectivity pattern between neurons resembles the organization of the animal visual cortex. Individual cortical neurons respond to stimuli only in a restricted region of the visual field known as the receptive field. The receptive fields of different neurons partially overlap such that they cover the entire visual field. CNNs use relatively little pre-processing compared to other image classification algorithms. This means that the network learns to optimize the filters (or kernels) through automated learning, whereas in traditional algorithms these filters are hand-engineered. This simplifies and automates the process, enhancing efficiency and scalability overcoming human-intervention bottlenecks. == Architecture == A convolutional neural network consists of an input layer, hidden layers and an output layer. In a convolutional neural network, the hidden layers include one or more layers that perform convolutions. Typically this includes a layer that performs a dot product of the convolution kernel with the layer's input matrix. This product is usually the Frobenius inner product, and its activation function is commonly ReLU. As the convolution kernel slides along the input matrix for the layer, the convolution operation generates a feature map, which in turn contributes to the input of the next layer. This is followed by other layers such as pooling layers, fully connected layers, and normalization layers. Here it should be noted how close a convolutional neural network is to a matched filter. === Convolutional layers === In a CNN, the input is a tensor with shape: (number of inputs) × (input height) × (input width) × (input channels) After passing through a convolutional layer, the image becomes abstracted to a feature map, also called an activation map, with shape: (number of inputs) × (feature map height) × (feature map width) × (feature map channels). Convolutional layers convolve the input and pass its result to the next layer. This is similar to the response of a neuron in the visual cortex to a specific stimulus. Each convolutional neuron processes data only for its receptive field. Although fully connected feedforward neural networks can be used to learn features and classify data, this architecture is generally impractical for larger inputs (e.g., high-resolution images), which would require massive numbers of neurons because each pixel is a relevant input feature. A fully connected layer for an image of size 100 × 100 has 10,000 weights for each neuron in the second layer. Convolution reduces the number of free parameters, allowing the network to be deeper. For example, using a 5 × 5 tiling region, each with the same shared weights, requires only 25 neurons. Using shared weights means there are many fewer parameters, which helps avoid the vanishing gradients and exploding gradients problems seen during backpropagation in earlier neural networks. To speed processing, standard convolutional layers can be replaced by depthwise separable convolutional layers, which are based on a depthwise convolution followed by a pointwise convolution. The depthwise convolution is a spatial convolution applied independently over each channel of the input tensor, while the pointwise convolution is a standard convolution restricted to the use of 1 × 1 {\displaystyle 1\times 1} kernels. === Pooling layers === Convolutional networks may include local and/or global pooling layers along with traditional convolutional layers. Pooling layers reduce the dimensions of data by combining the outputs of neuron clusters at one layer into a single neuron in the next layer. Local pooling combines small clusters, tiling sizes such as 2 × 2 are commonly used. Global pooling acts on all the neurons of the feature map. There are two common types of pooling in popular use: max and average. Max pooling uses the maximum value of each local cluster of neurons in the feature map, while average pooling takes the average value. === Fully connected layers === Fully connected layers connect every neuron in one layer to every neuron in another layer. It is the same as a traditional multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP). Each neuron in the fully connected layer receives input from all the neurons in the previous layer. These inputs are weighted and summed with the corresponding biases, and then passed through an activation function to perform a nonlinear transformation, generating the output. The flattened matrix goes through a fully connected layer to classify the images. === Receptive field === In neural networks, each neuron receives input from some number of locations in the previous layer. In a convolutional layer, each neuron receives input from only a restricted area of the previous layer called the neuron's receptive field. Typically the area is a square (e.g. 5 by 5 neurons). Whereas, in a fully connected layer, the receptive field is the entire previous layer. Thus, in each convolutional layer, each neuron takes input from a larger area in the input than previous layers. This is due to applying the convolution over and over, which takes the value of a pixel into account, as well as its surrounding pixels. When using dilated layers, the number of pixels in the receptive field remains constant, but the field is more sparsely populated as its dimensions grow when combining the effect of several layers. To manipulate the receptive field size as desired, there are some alternatives to the standard convolutional layer. For example, atrous or dilated convolution expands the receptive field size without increasing the number of parameters by interleaving visible and blind regions. Moreover, a single dilated convolutional layer can comprise filters with multiple dilation ratios, thus having a variable receptive field size. === Weights === Each neuron in a neural network computes an output value by applying a specific function to the input values received from the receptive field in the previous layer. The function that is applied to the input values is determined by a vector of weights and a bias (typically real numbers). Learning consists of iteratively adjusting these biases and weights. The vectors of weights and biases are called filters and represent particular features of the input (e.g., a particular shape). A distinguishing feature of CNNs is that many neurons can share the same filter. This reduces the memory footprint because a single bias and a single vector of weights are used across all receptive fields that share that filter, as opposed to each receptive field having its own bias and vector

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  • AlphaTensor

    AlphaTensor

    AlphaTensor is an artificial intelligence system developed by DeepMind for discovering efficient matrix multiplication algorithms using reinforcement learning. Introduced in 2022, the system was based on AlphaZero and formulated the search for matrix multiplication algorithms as a single-player game called TensorGame. AlphaTensor was designed to search for new ways to multiply matrices with fewer scalar multiplication operations. Matrix multiplication is a fundamental operation in linear algebra, numerical analysis, scientific computing, computer graphics, and machine learning. The system discovered thousands of matrix multiplication algorithms, including algorithms that rediscovered known human-designed methods and others that improved on previously known results for particular matrix sizes and mathematical settings. == Background == Matrix multiplication is one of the basic operations in numerical computing. The standard algorithm for multiplying two square matrices has cubic time complexity, while faster algorithms such as the Strassen algorithm reduce the number of multiplication operations by using more complex algebraic decompositions. Finding optimal matrix multiplication algorithms can be difficult because it involves searching through a large space of possible tensor decompositions. AlphaTensor approached this problem by representing algorithm discovery as TensorGame, in which each move corresponds to an operation that reduces a tensor representing matrix multiplication. The goal of the game is to find a low-rank decomposition of the matrix multiplication tensor, corresponding to an efficient multiplication algorithm. == Development == AlphaTensor was developed by DeepMind and described in a paper published in Nature in October 2022. The system built on the reinforcement-learning approach used in AlphaZero, which had previously been applied to games such as Go, chess, and shogi. Unlike those games, TensorGame involved a very large search space, requiring changes to the AlphaZero-style search method and neural network architecture. DeepMind released source code and discovered algorithms associated with the publication through a public GitHub repository. == Results == AlphaTensor discovered matrix multiplication algorithms over both standard arithmetic and finite fields. One widely reported result was a method for multiplying 4 × 4 matrices over the field with two elements using 47 multiplication operations, improving on the 49 operations required by applying Strassen's algorithm recursively in that setting. The system also found algorithms optimized for particular computer hardware, including algorithms designed for graphics processing units and Tensor Processing Units. DeepMind stated that some of the hardware-specific algorithms improved practical execution time compared with commonly used algorithms on the tested hardware. == Significance == AlphaTensor was described as an example of using machine learning not only to apply existing algorithms, but to assist in discovering new ones. The work was connected to broader research in algorithm discovery, automated machine learning, program synthesis, and computational complexity theory, especially the open problem of determining the optimal complexity of matrix multiplication. AlphaTensor later became part of a broader group of Google DeepMind systems for algorithm and mathematical discovery, alongside systems such as AlphaDev and AlphaEvolve.

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  • Five safes

    Five safes

    The Five Safes is a framework for helping make decisions about making effective use of data which is confidential or sensitive. It is mainly used to describe or design research access to statistical data held by government and health agencies, and by data archives such as the UK Data Service. It is not an internationally accepted standard. Two of the Five Safes refer to statistical disclosure control, and so the Five Safes is usually used to contrast statistical and non-statistical controls when comparing data management options. == Concept == The Five Safes proposes that data management decisions be considered as solving problems in five 'dimensions': projects, people, settings, data and outputs. The combination of the controls leads to 'safe use'. These are most commonly expressed as questions, for example: These dimensions are scales, not limits. That is, solutions can have a mix of more or fewer controls in each dimension, but the overall aim of 'safe use' independent of the particular mix. For example, a public use file available for open download cannot control who uses it, where or for what purpose, and so all the control (protection) must be in the data itself. In contrast, a file which is only accessed through a secure environment with certified users can contain very sensitive information: the non-statistical controls allow the data to be 'unsafe'. One academic likened the process to a graphic equalizer, where bass and treble can be combined independently to produce a sound the listener likes, which has proven to be a very useful metaphor. This 2023 Data Foundation webinar is an expert discussion of how the elements interact, including an excellent introductory representation. There is no 'order' to the Five Safes, in that one is necessarily more important than the others. However, Ritchie argued that the 'managerial' controls (projects, people, setting) should be addressed before the 'statistical' controls (data, output). The Five Safes concept is associated with other topics which developed from the same programme at ONS, although these are not necessarily implemented. Safe people is associated with 'active researcher management', while safe outputs is linked with principles-based output statistical disclosure control. The Five Safes is a positive framework, describing what is and is not. The EDRU ('evidence-based, default-open, risk-managed, user-centred') attitudinal model is sometimes used to give a normative context == The 'data access spectrum' == From 2003 the Five Safes was also represented in a simpler form as a 'Data Access Spectrum'. The non-data controls (project, people, setting, outputs) tend to work together, in that organisations often see these as a complementary set of restrictions on access. These can then be contrasted with choices about data anonymisation to present a linear representation of data access options. This presentation is consistent with the idea of 'data as a residual', as well as data protection laws of the time which often characterised data simply as anonymous or not anonymous. A similar idea had already been developed independently in 2001 by Chuck Humphrey of the Canadian RDC network, the 'continuum of access'. More recently, The Open Data Institute has developed a 'Data Spectrum toolkit' which includes industry-specific examples. == History and terminology == The Five Safes was devised in the winter of 2002/2003 by Felix Ritchie at the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) to describe its secure remote-access Virtual Microdata Laboratory (VML). It was described at this time as the 'VML Security Model'. This was adopted by the NORC data enclave, and more widely in the US, as the 'portfolio model' (although this is now also used to refer to a slightly different legal/statistical/educational breakdown). In 2012 the framework as was still being referred to as the 'VML security model', but its increasing use among non-UK organisations led to the adoption of the more general and informative phrase 'Five Safes'. The original framework only had four safes (projects, people, settings and outputs): the framework was used to describe highly detailed data access through a secure environment, and so the 'data' dimension was irrelevant. From 2007 onwards, 'safe data' was included as the framework was used to a describe a wider range of ONS activities. As the US version was based upon the 2005 specification, some US iterations uses have the original four dimensions (eg). Some discussions, such as the OECD, use the term 'secure' instead 'safe'. However, the use of both these terms can cause presentational problems: less control in a particular dimension could be seen to imply 'unsafe users' or 'insecure settings', for example, which distracts from the main message. Hence, the Australian government uses the term "five data sharing principles". The 'Anonymisation Decision-Making Framework' uses a framework based on the Five Safes but relabelling "projects", "people", and "settings" as "governance", "agency" and "infrastructure", respectively; "Output" is omitted, and "safe use" becomes "functional anonymisation". There is no reference to the Five Safes or any associated literature. The Australian version was required to include references to the Five Safes, and presented it as an alternative without comment. == Application == The framework has had three uses: pedagogical, descriptive, and design. Since 2016, it has also been used, directly and indirectly in legislation. See for more detailed examples. === Pedagogy === The first significant use of the framework, other than internal administrative use, was to structure researcher training courses at the UK Office for National Statistics from 2003. UK Data Archive, Administrative Data Research Network, Eurostat, Statistics New Zealand, the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography, NORC, Statistics Canada and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, amongst others, have also used this framework. Most of these courses are for researchers using restricted-access facilities; the Eurostat courses are unusual in that they are designed for all users of sensitive data. === Description === The framework is often used to describe existing data access solutions (e.g. UK HMRC Data Lab, UK Data Service, Statistics New Zealand) or planned/conceptualised ones (e.g. Eurostat in 2011). An early use was to help identify areas where ONS' still had 'irreducible risks' in its provision of secure remote access. The framework is mostly used for confidential social science data. To date it appears to have made little impact on medical research planning, although it is now included in the revised guidelines on implementing HIPAA regulations in the US, and by Cancer Research UK and the Health Foundation in the UK. It has also been used to describe a security model for the Scottish Health Informatics Programme. === Design === In general the Five Safes has been used to describe solutions post-factum, and to explain/justify choices made, but an increasing number of organisations have used the framework to design data access solutions. For example, the Hellenic Statistical Agency developed a data strategy built around the Five Safes in 2016; the UK Health Foundation used the Five Safes to design its data management and training programmes. Use in the private sector is less common but some organisations have incorporated the Five Safes into consulting services. In 2015 the UK Data Service organized a workshop to encourage data users from the academic and private sectors to think about how to manage confidential research data, using the Five Safes to demonstrate alternative options and best practice. Early adopters for strategic design use were in Australia: both the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Department of Social Service used the Five Safes as an ex ante design tool. In 2017 the Australian Productivity Commission recommended adopting a version of the framework to support cross-government data sharing and re-use. This underwent extensive consultation and culminated in the DAT Act 2022. Since 2020 the Five Safes has been the overriding framework for the design of new secure facilities and data sharing arrangements in the UK for public health and social sciences. This has been promoted by the Office for Statistics Regulation, the UK Statistics Authority, NHS DIgital, and the research funding bodies Administrative Data Research UK and DARE UK. === Regulation and legislation === Three laws have incorporated the Fives Safes. They are explicit in the South Australian Public Sector (Data Sharing) Act 2016, and implicit in the research provisions of the UK Digital Economy Act 2017. The Australian Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022 renames the Five Safes as the Five Data Sharing Principles.A 2025 statutory review of the DAT Act 2022 found "that the DAT Act has not been effective in achieving its objectives.". The review includes specific referen

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  • Skyline operator

    Skyline operator

    The skyline operator is the subject of an optimization problem and computes the Pareto optimum on tuples with multiple dimensions. This operator is an extension to SQL proposed by Börzsönyi et al. to filter results from a database to keep only those objects that are not dominated by any other point on all dimensions. The name skyline comes from the view on Manhattan from the Hudson River, where those buildings can be seen that are not hidden by any other. A building is visible if it is not dominated by a building that is taller or closer to the river (two dimensions, distance to the river minimized, height maximized). Another application of the skyline operator involves selecting a hotel for a holiday. The user wants the hotel to be both cheap and close to the beach. However, hotels that are close to the beach may also be expensive. In this case, the skyline operator would only present those hotels that are not worse than any other hotel in both price and distance to the beach. == Formal specification == The skyline operator returns tuples that are not dominated by any other tuple. A tuple dominates another if it is at least as good in all dimensions and better in at least one dimension. Formally, we can think of each tuple as a vector p , q ∈ R n {\displaystyle p,q\in \mathbb {R} ^{n}} . p {\displaystyle p} dominates q {\displaystyle q} (written: p ≻ q {\displaystyle p\succ q} ) if p {\displaystyle p} is at least as good as q {\displaystyle q} in every dimension, and superior in at least one: p ≻ q ⇔ ∀ i ∈ [ n ] . p [ i ] ⪰ q [ i ] ∧ ∃ j ∈ [ n ] . p [ j ] ≻ q [ j ] . {\displaystyle p\succ q\Leftrightarrow \forall i\in [n].p[i]\succeq q[i]\wedge \exists j\in [n].p[j]\succ q[j].} Dominance ( p ≻ q {\displaystyle p\succ q} ) can be defined as any strict partial ordering, for example greater (with ≻:=> {\displaystyle \succ :=>} and ⪰:=≥ {\displaystyle \succeq :=\geq } ) or less (with ≻:=< {\displaystyle \succ :=<} and ⪰:=≤ {\displaystyle \succeq :=\leq } ). Assuming two dimensions and defining dominance in both dimensions as greater, we can compute the skyline in SQL-92 as follows: == Proposed syntax == As an extension to SQL, Börzsönyi et al. proposed the following syntax for the skyline operator: where d1, ... dm denote the dimensions of the skyline and MIN, MAX and DIFF specify whether the value in that dimension should be minimised, maximised or simply be different. Without an SQL extension, the SQL query requires an antijoin with not exists: == Implementation == The skyline operator can be implemented directly in SQL using current SQL constructs, but this has been shown to be very slow in disk-based database systems. Other algorithms have been proposed that make use of divide and conquer, indices, MapReduce and general-purpose computing on graphics cards. Skyline queries on data streams (i.e. continuous skyline queries) have been studied in the context of parallel query processing on multicores, owing to their wide diffusion in real-time decision making problems and data streaming analytics. Exasol features a native implementation.

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  • Astrostatistics

    Astrostatistics

    Astrostatistics is a discipline which spans astrophysics, statistical analysis and data mining. It is used to process the vast amount of data produced by automated scanning of the cosmos, to characterize complex datasets, and to link astronomical data to astrophysical theory. Many branches of statistics are involved in astronomical analysis including nonparametrics, multivariate regression and multivariate classification, time series analysis, and especially Bayesian inference. The field is closely related to astroinformatics.

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  • Information quality

    Information quality

    Information quality (IQ) is a contextual property of or a perspective to the content within information systems. There exist two complementary yet partially conflicting definitions of high-quality: firstly, information is considered high quality if it is fit for its intended purpose ; secondly, it is deemed high quality if it conforms to specified requirements . The primary distinction between these definitions is that Juran's perspective focuses on the suitability of information for its intended purpose, which can be measured by the success of its application even without direct access to or exact knowledge of the data. For example, a black-box AI with access to English Wikipedia can work well for users' purposes but using Estonian Wikipedia fails for the same purposes. Given that the AI remains the same, it can be concluded that English version data would be of higher quality in comparison to Estonian version, even without exact comparison of data contents and their properties in each version. In contrast, Crosby emphasizes adherence to predefined specifications, assuming specific criteria rather than measuring the success of its use; for instance, information in Wikipedia could be proven to be good based on criteria such as existing peer validation and academic references, even if the AI results are poor. This approach falls into problems when data is not completely accessible or all quality properties cannot be known and measured leading to false impression of quality due to lacking and misleading metrics. Numerous IQ frameworks and methodologies provide tangible approach to assess and measure DQ/IQ in a robust and rigorous manner. == Conceptual problems == Although the foundational definitions are usable for most everyday purposes, specialists often use more complex models for information quality. It has been suggested, however, that higher the quality the greater will be the confidence in meeting more general, less specific contexts. == Dimensions and metrics of information quality == "Information quality" is a measure of its fitness for use or conformance to requirements. In this way, "quality" is considered contextual and it can then vary across users and uses of the information. The exact degree of quality is often described with dimensions such as accuracy, timeliness, completeness, and similar scales. Although a huge amount of academic research has been directed to these dimensions, there does not exist consensus on their definitions or practical usefulness . Historically, Richard Wang and Diane Strong proposed a list of dimensions or elements used in assessing Information Quality is: Intrinsic IQ: accuracy, objectivity, believability, reputation Contextual IQ: relevance, value-added, timeliness, completeness, amount of information Representational IQ: interpretability, format, coherence, compatibility Accessibility IQ: accessibility, access security Other authors propose similar but different lists of dimensions for analysis, and emphasize measurement and reporting as information quality metrics. Larry English prefers the term "characteristics" to dimensions. However, a considerable amount of information quality research involves investigating and describing various categories of desirable attributes (or dimensions) of data. Research has recently shown the huge diversity of terms and classification structures used. === Quality metrics === Source: Authority/verifiability Authority refers to the expertise or recognized official status of a source. Consider the reputation of the author and publisher. When working with legal or government information, consider whether the source is the official provider of the information. Verifiability refers to the ability of a reader to verify the validity of the information irrespective of how authoritative the source is. To verify the facts is part of the duty of care of the journalistic deontology, as well as, where possible, to provide the sources of information so that they can be verified Scope of coverage Scope of coverage refers to the extent to which a source explores a topic. Consider time periods, geography or jurisdiction and coverage of related or narrower topics. Composition and organization Composition and organization has to do with the ability of the information source to present its particular message in a coherent, logically sequential manner. Objectivity Objectivity is the bias or opinion expressed when a writer interprets or analyze facts. Consider the use of persuasive language, the source's presentation of other viewpoints, its reason for providing the information and advertising. Integrity Adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character The state of being whole, entire, or undiminished Comprehensiveness Of large scope; covering or involving much; inclusive: a comprehensive study. Comprehending mentally; having an extensive mental grasp. Insurance. covering or providing broad protection against loss. Validity Validity of some information has to do with the degree of obvious truthfulness which the information carries Uniqueness As much as 'uniqueness' of a given piece of information is intuitive in meaning, it also significantly implies not only the originating point of the information but also the manner in which it is presented and thus the perception which it conjures. The essence of any piece of information we process consists to a large extent of those two elements. Timeliness Timeliness refers to information that is current at the time of publication. Consider publication, creation and revision dates. Beware of Web site scripting that automatically reflects the current day's date on a page. Reproducibility (utilized primarily when referring to instructive information) Means that documented methods are capable of being used on the same data set to achieve a consistent result. == Professional associations == IQ International—the International Association for Information and Data Quality IQ International is a not-for-profit, vendor neutral, professional association formed in 2004, dedicated to building the information and data quality profession. CDOIQ Society Chief Data Officers and Information Quality Society is a global professional society supporting data leaders with networking, meetings, best practices, experience, certification, and training. == Information quality conferences == A number of major conferences relevant to information quality are held annually: Annual MIT Chief Data Officer & Information Quality (CDOIQ) Symposium Annual conferences held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA Data Governance and Information Quality Conference Commercial conferences held each year in the USA Data Quality Asia Pacific Commercial conference held annually in Sydney or Melbourne, Australia Enterprise Data and Business Intelligence Conference Europe Commercial conferences held annually in London, England. Information and Data Quality Conference Not for profit conference run annually by IQ International (the International Association for Information and Data Quality) in the USA International Conference on Information Quality Academic Conference launched through MITIQ held annually at a University Master Data Management & Data Governance Conferences Six major conferences are run annually by the MDM Institute in venues such as London, San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, Madrid, Frankfurt, Shanghai and New York City.

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  • List of artificial intelligence projects

    List of artificial intelligence projects

    The following is a list of current and past, non-classified notable artificial intelligence projects. == Specialized projects == === Brain-inspired === Blue Brain Project, an attempt to create a synthetic brain by reverse-engineering the mammalian brain down to the molecular level. Google Brain, a deep learning project part of Google X attempting to have intelligence similar or equal to human-level. Human Brain Project, ten-year scientific research project, based on exascale supercomputers. === Cognitive architectures === 4CAPS, developed at Carnegie Mellon University under Marcel A. Just ACT-R, developed at Carnegie Mellon University under John R. Anderson. AIXI, Universal Artificial Intelligence developed by Marcus Hutter at IDSIA and ANU. CALO, a DARPA-funded, 25-institution effort to integrate many artificial intelligence approaches (natural language processing, speech recognition, machine vision, probabilistic logic, planning, reasoning, many forms of machine learning) into an AI assistant that learns to help manage your office environment. CHREST, developed under Fernand Gobet at Brunel University and Peter C. Lane at the University of Hertfordshire. CLARION, developed under Ron Sun at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and University of Missouri. CoJACK, an ACT-R inspired extension to the JACK multi-agent system that adds a cognitive architecture to the agents for eliciting more realistic (human-like) behaviors in virtual environments. Copycat, by Douglas Hofstadter and Melanie Mitchell at the Indiana University. DUAL, developed at the New Bulgarian University under Boicho Kokinov. FORR developed by Susan L. Epstein at The City University of New York. IDA and LIDA, implementing Global Workspace Theory, developed under Stan Franklin at the University of Memphis. OpenCog Prime, developed using the OpenCog Framework. Procedural Reasoning System (PRS), developed by Michael Georgeff and Amy L. Lansky at SRI International. Psi-Theory developed under Dietrich Dörner at the Otto-Friedrich University in Bamberg, Germany. Soar, developed under Allen Newell and John Laird at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan. Society of Mind and its successor The Emotion Machine proposed by Marvin Minsky. Subsumption architectures, developed e.g. by Rodney Brooks (though it could be argued whether they are cognitive). === Games === AlphaGo, software developed by Google that plays the Chinese board game Go. Chinook, a computer program that plays English draughts; the first to win the world champion title in the competition against humans. Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer developed by IBM which beat Garry Kasparov in 1997. Halite, an artificial intelligence programming competition created by Two Sigma in 2016. Libratus, a poker AI that beat world-class poker players in 2017, intended to be generalisable to other applications. The Matchbox Educable Noughts and Crosses Engine (sometimes called the Machine Educable Noughts and Crosses Engine or MENACE) was a mechanical computer made from 304 matchboxes designed and built by artificial intelligence researcher Donald Michie in 1961. Quick, Draw!, an online game developed by Google that challenges players to draw a picture of an object or idea and then uses a neural network to guess what the drawing is. The Samuel Checkers-playing Program (1959) was among the world's first successful self-learning programs, and as such a very early demonstration of the fundamental concept of artificial intelligence (AI). Stockfish AI, an open source chess engine currently ranked the highest in many computer chess rankings. TD-Gammon, a program that learned to play world-class backgammon partly by playing against itself (temporal difference learning with neural networks). === Internet activism === Serenata de Amor, project for the analysis of public expenditures and detect discrepancies. === Knowledge and reasoning === Alice (Microsoft), a project from Microsoft Research Lab aimed at improving decision-making in Economics Braina, an intelligent personal assistant application with a voice interface for Windows OS. Cyc, an attempt to assemble an ontology and database of everyday knowledge, enabling human-like reasoning. Eurisko, a language by Douglas Lenat for solving problems which consists of heuristics, including some for how to use and change its heuristics. Google Now, an intelligent personal assistant with a voice interface in Google's Android and Apple Inc.'s iOS, as well as Google Chrome web browser on personal computers. Holmes a new AI created by Wipro. Microsoft Cortana, an intelligent personal assistant with a voice interface in Microsoft's various Windows 10 editions. MindsDB, is an AI automation platform for building AI/ML powered features and applications. Mycin, an early medical expert system. Open Mind Common Sense, a project based at the MIT Media Lab to build a large common sense knowledge base from online contributions. Siri, an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator with a voice-interface in Apple Inc.'s iOS and macOS. SNePS, simultaneously a logic-based, frame-based, and network-based knowledge representation, reasoning, and acting system. Viv (software), a new AI by the creators of Siri. Wolfram Alpha, an online service that answers queries by computing the answer from structured data. === Motion and manipulation === AIBO, the robot pet for the home, grew out of Sony's Computer Science Laboratory (CSL). Cog, a robot developed by MIT to study theories of cognitive science and artificial intelligence, now discontinued. === Music === Melomics, a bioinspired technology for music composition and synthesization of music, where computers develop their own style, rather than mimic musicians. === Natural language processing === AIML, an XML dialect for creating natural language software agents. Apache Lucene, a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. Apache OpenNLP, a machine learning based toolkit for the processing of natural language text. It supports the most common NLP tasks, such as tokenization, sentence segmentation, part-of-speech tagging, named entity extraction, chunking and parsing. Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity (A.L.I.C.E.), a natural language processing chatterbot. ChatGPT, a chatbot built on top of OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 family of large language models. Claude, a family of large language models developed by Anthropic and launched in 2023. Claude LLMs achieved high coding scores in several recognized LLM benchmarks. Cleverbot, successor to Jabberwacky, now with 170m lines of conversation, Deep Context, fuzziness and parallel processing. Cleverbot learns from around 2 million user interactions per month. DeepSeek: Chinese chatbot funded by hedge fund High-Flyer. DBRX, 136 billion parameter open sourced large language model developed by Mosaic ML and Databricks. ELIZA, a famous 1966 computer program by Joseph Weizenbaum, which parodied person-centered therapy. FreeHAL, a self-learning conversation simulator (chatterbot) which uses semantic nets to organize its knowledge to imitate a very close human behavior within conversations. Gemini, a family of multimodal large language model developed by Google's DeepMind. Drives the Gemini chatbot, formerly known as Bard. GigaChat, a chatbot by Russian Sberbank. GPT-3, a 2020 language model developed by OpenAI that can produce text difficult to distinguish from that written by a human. Jabberwacky, a chatbot by Rollo Carpenter, aiming to simulate natural human chat. LaMDA, a family of conversational neural language models developed by Google. LLaMA, a 2023 language model family developed by Meta that includes 7, 13, 33 and 65 billion parameter models.[1] Mycroft, a free and open-source intelligent personal assistant that uses a natural language user interface. PARRY, another early chatterbot, written in 1972 by Kenneth Colby, attempting to simulate a paranoid schizophrenic. SHRDLU, an early natural language processing computer program developed by Terry Winograd at MIT from 1968 to 1970. SYSTRAN, a machine translation technology by the company of the same name, used by Yahoo!, AltaVista and Google, among others. === Speech recognition === CMU Sphinx, a group of speech recognition systems developed at Carnegie Mellon University. DeepSpeech, an open-source Speech-To-Text engine based on Baidu's deep speech research paper. Whisper, an open-source speech recognition system developed at OpenAI. === Speech synthesis === 15.ai, a real-time artificial intelligence text-to-speech tool developed by an anonymous researcher from MIT. Amazon Polly, a speech synthesis software by Amazon. Festival Speech Synthesis System, a general multi-lingual speech synthesis system developed at the Centre for Speech Technology Research (CSTR) at the University of Edinburgh. WaveNet, a deep neural network for generating raw audio. === Video === CapCut is a video editor tool, developed

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  • Visual Peer Review

    Visual Peer Review

    == Development and history == Visual Peer Review was first described in a 2017 classroom study by Friedman and Rosen, which examined how students evaluate peer-produced data visualizations using structured rubrics. Developed within the broader fields of data visualization, information visualization, and educational technology, the system emphasized clear labeling, visual integrity, and reduction of chartjunk. Students assigned rubric scores and provided written explanations, aligning the activity with established principles of peer review. Follow-up research expanded both the methodological and analytic dimensions of the framework. Friedman and colleagues applied natural language processing (NLP) to peer-review text to analyze part-of-speech patterns, sentence complexity, and comment length. These analyses offered insight into how students expressed critique and engaged with core design principles. Later studies incorporated advanced statistical modeling to evaluate system-level behavior, including peer review networks and reviewer typologies. Between 2021 and 2024, the framework underwent iterative refinement through a series of studies that explored interface design, behavioral nudges, reviewer engagement, and social network dynamics. The system was influenced by earlier work in computer-supported peer review—particularly My Reviewers, a rubric-based writing assessment platform developed by Joe Moxley at the University of South Florida. While Moxley's platform focused on text-based feedback, Visual Peer Review adapted its core structure to support critique of DataVis and visual analytics. To guide structured analysis and feedback, Friedman and Rosen also drew on the “what, why, and how” framework introduced by Liu and Stasko (2010), which emphasizes understanding a visualization's purpose, task alignment, and encoding strategy. == Framework and components == Visual Peer Review is designed to support critique, reflection, and learning in courses focusing on data visualization, visual analytics, and related fields in educational technology. The system consists of interconnected component. Core components include: Visual Artifacts: Students generate original visualizations using software such as R (e.g., ggplot2), Tableau, Python, or Adobe Illustrator. These artifacts may include statistical graphics, dashboards, or design-oriented infographics. Rubric-Based Assessment: Peer reviewers evaluate submitted visualizations using structured rubrics grounded in visualization theory and design heuristics. Rubric dimensions typically include: Use of labeling and axis scales Minimalization of chartjunk and clutter (following Tufte's principles) Optimization of the data–ink ratio Preservation of visual integrity through accurate representation (lie factor) Written Peer Comments: In addition to scoring, reviewers provide narrative feedback explaining their reasoning. These comments aim to improve design literacy, strengthen visual reasoning, and support the learning process common to peer review across educational contexts. Instructor Analytics Dashboard: Instructors access an analytics dashboard that displays peer-review activity across the course. Metrics include comment length, rubric coverage, participation patterns, and potential indicators of disengagement. These features position the framework within the domain of learning analytics, where visualized data helps instructors monitor student progress and identify support needs. == Ongoing development == Current work focuses on enhancing rubric structure, integrating principles from human–computer interaction, DataVis and expanding learning-analytics capabilities. Ongoing studies investigate how interface design, reviewer behavior, and classroom context influence the quality of feedback and overall engagement. Continuing development positions Visual Peer Review at the intersection of data visualization education, peer assessment, and educational technology.

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  • Inductive bias

    Inductive bias

    The inductive bias (also known as learning bias) of a learning algorithm is the set of assumptions that the learner uses to predict outputs of given inputs that it has not encountered. Inductive bias is anything which makes the algorithm learn one pattern instead of another pattern (e.g., step-functions in decision trees instead of continuous functions in linear regression models). Learning involves searching a space of solutions for a solution that provides a good explanation of the data. However, in many cases, there may be multiple equally appropriate solutions. An inductive bias allows a learning algorithm to prioritize one solution (or interpretation) over another, independently of the observed data. In machine learning, the aim is to construct algorithms that are able to learn to predict a certain target output. To achieve this, the learning algorithm is presented some training examples that demonstrate the intended relation of input and output values. Then the learner is supposed to approximate the correct output, even for examples that have not been shown during training. Without any additional assumptions, this problem cannot be solved since unseen situations might have an arbitrary output value. The kind of necessary assumptions about the nature of the target function are subsumed in the phrase inductive bias. A classical example of an inductive bias is Occam's razor, assuming that the simplest consistent hypothesis about the target function is actually the best. Here, consistent means that the hypothesis of the learner yields correct outputs for all of the examples that have been given to the algorithm. Approaches to a more formal definition of inductive bias are based on mathematical logic. Here, the inductive bias is a logical formula that, together with the training data, logically entails the hypothesis generated by the learner. However, this strict formalism fails in many practical cases in which the inductive bias can only be given as a rough description (e.g., in the case of artificial neural networks), or not at all. == Types == The following is a list of common inductive biases in machine learning algorithms. Maximum conditional independence: if the hypothesis can be cast in a Bayesian framework, try to maximize conditional independence. This is the bias used in the Naive Bayes classifier. Minimum cross-validation error: when trying to choose among hypotheses, select the hypothesis with the lowest cross-validation error. Although cross-validation may seem to be free of bias, the "no free lunch" theorems show that cross-validation must be biased, for example assuming that there is no information encoded in the ordering of the data. Maximum margin: when drawing a boundary between two classes, attempt to maximize the width of the boundary. This is the bias used in support vector machines. The assumption is that distinct classes tend to be separated by wide boundaries. Minimum description length: when forming a hypothesis, attempt to minimize the length of the description of the hypothesis. Minimum features: unless there is good evidence that a feature is useful, it should be deleted. This is the assumption behind feature selection algorithms. Nearest neighbors: assume that most of the cases in a small neighborhood in feature space belong to the same class. Given a case for which the class is unknown, guess that it belongs to the same class as the majority in its immediate neighborhood. This is the bias used in the k-nearest neighbors algorithm. The assumption is that cases that are near each other tend to belong to the same class. == Shift of bias == Although most learning algorithms have a static bias, some algorithms are designed to shift their bias as they acquire more data. This does not avoid bias, since the bias shifting process itself must have a bias.

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  • Long division

    Long division

    In arithmetic, long division is a standard division algorithm suitable for dividing multi-digit numbers that is simple enough to perform by hand. It breaks down a division problem into a series of easier steps. As in all division problems, one number, called the dividend, is divided by another, called the divisor, producing a result called the quotient. It enables computations involving arbitrarily large numbers to be performed by following a series of simple steps. The abbreviated form of long division is called short division, which is almost always used instead of long division when the divisor has only one digit. == History == Related algorithms have existed since the 12th century. Al-Samawal al-Maghribi (1125–1174) performed calculations with decimal numbers that essentially require long division, leading to infinite decimal results, but without formalizing the algorithm. Caldrini (1491) is the earliest printed example of long division, known as the Danda method in medieval Italy, and it became more practical with the introduction of decimal notation for fractions by Pitiscus (1608). The specific algorithm in modern use was introduced by Henry Briggs c. 1600. == Education == Inexpensive calculators and computers have become the most common tools for performing division in educational and professional contexts worldwide, reducing reliance on traditional paper-and-pencil techniques. Internally, these devices implement various division algorithms, many of which rely on iterative approximations and multiplication to improve computational efficiency. Educational approaches to teaching division vary across countries and regions, reflecting differing curricular priorities. In North America, long division has been de-emphasized or, in some cases, removed from portions of the curriculum as part of reform mathematics, which emphasizes conceptual understanding and the use of technology. In contrast, many education systems in Europe and Asia continue to emphasize mastery of standard algorithms, including long division, as a foundational arithmetic skill. For example, curricula in countries such as Japan and Germany typically introduce and reinforce long division during primary education, often alongside mental arithmetic strategies and problem-solving techniques. International assessments such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) highlight these differences, showing variation in how procedural fluency and conceptual understanding are balanced across educational systems. These differing approaches reflect broader educational philosophies regarding the balance between procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, and the role of technology in mathematics education. == Method == In English-speaking countries, long division does not use the division slash ⟨∕⟩ or division sign ⟨÷⟩ symbols but instead constructs a tableau. The divisor is separated from the dividend by a right parenthesis ⟨)⟩ or vertical bar ⟨|⟩; the dividend is separated from the quotient by a vinculum (i.e., an overbar). The combination of these two symbols is sometimes known as a long division symbol, division bracket, or even a bus stop. It developed in the 18th century from an earlier single-line notation separating the dividend from the quotient by a left parenthesis. The process is begun by dividing the left-most digit of the dividend by the divisor. The quotient (rounded down to an integer) becomes the first digit of the result, and the remainder is calculated (this step is notated as a subtraction). This remainder carries forward when the process is repeated on the following digit of the dividend (notated as 'bringing down' the next digit to the remainder). When all digits have been processed and no remainder is left, the process is complete. An example is shown below, representing the division of 500 by 4 (with a result of 125). 125 (Explanations) 4)500 4 ( 4 × 1 = 4) 10 ( 5 - 4 = 1) 8 ( 4 × 2 = 8) 20 (10 - 8 = 2) 20 ( 4 × 5 = 20) 0 (20 - 20 = 0) A more detailed breakdown of the steps goes as follows: Find the shortest sequence of digits starting from the left end of the dividend, 500, that the divisor 4 goes into at least once. In this case, this is simply the first digit, 5. The largest number that the divisor 4 can be multiplied by without exceeding 5 is 1, so the digit 1 is put above the 5 to start constructing the quotient. Next, the 1 is multiplied by the divisor 4, to obtain the largest whole number that is a multiple of the divisor 4 without exceeding the 5 (4 in this case). This 4 is then placed under and subtracted from the 5 to get the remainder, 1, which is placed under the 4 under the 5. Afterwards, the first as-yet unused digit in the dividend, in this case the first digit 0 after the 5, is copied directly underneath itself and next to the remainder 1, to form the number 10. At this point the process is repeated enough times to reach a stopping point: The largest number by which the divisor 4 can be multiplied without exceeding 10 is 2, so 2 is written above as the second leftmost quotient digit. This 2 is then multiplied by the divisor 4 to get 8, which is the largest multiple of 4 that does not exceed 10; so 8 is written below 10, and the subtraction 10 minus 8 is performed to get the remainder 2, which is placed below the 8. The next digit of the dividend (the last 0 in 500) is copied directly below itself and next to the remainder 2 to form 20. Then the largest number by which the divisor 4 can be multiplied without exceeding 20, which is 5, is placed above as the third leftmost quotient digit. This 5 is multiplied by the divisor 4 to get 20, which is written below and subtracted from the existing 20 to yield the remainder 0, which is then written below the second 20. At this point, since there are no more digits to bring down from the dividend and the last subtraction result was 0, we can be assured that the process finished. If the last remainder when we ran out of dividend digits had been something other than 0, there would have been two possible courses of action: We could just stop there and say that the dividend divided by the divisor is the quotient written at the top with the remainder written at the bottom, and write the answer as the quotient followed by a fraction that is the remainder divided by the divisor. We could extend the dividend by writing it as, say, 500.000... and continue the process (using a decimal point in the quotient directly above the decimal point in the dividend), in order to get a decimal answer, as in the following example. 31.75 4)127.00 12 (12 ÷ 4 = 3) 07 (0 remainder, bring down next figure) 4 (7 ÷ 4 = 1 r 3) 3.0 (bring down 0 and the decimal point) 2.8 (7 × 4 = 28, 30 ÷ 4 = 7 r 2) 20 (an additional zero is brought down) 20 (5 × 4 = 20) 0 In this example, the decimal part of the result is calculated by continuing the process beyond the units digit, "bringing down" zeros as being the decimal part of the dividend. This example also illustrates that, at the beginning of the process, a step that produces a zero can be omitted. Since the first digit 1 is less than the divisor 4, the first step is instead performed on the first two digits 12. Similarly, if the divisor were 13, one would perform the first step on 127 rather than 12 or 1. === Basic procedure for long division of n ÷ m === Find the location of all decimal points in the dividend n and divisor m. If necessary, simplify the long division problem by moving the decimals of the divisor and dividend by the same number of decimal places, to the right (or to the left), so that the decimal of the divisor is to the right of the last digit. When doing long division, keep the numbers lined up straight from top to bottom under the tableau. After each step, be sure the remainder for that step is less than the divisor. If it is not, there are three possible problems: the multiplication is wrong, the subtraction is wrong, or a greater quotient is needed. In the end, the remainder, r, is added to the growing quotient as a fraction, r⁄m. === Invariant property and correctness === The basic presentation of the steps of the process (above) focuses on what steps are to be performed, rather than the properties of those steps that ensure the result will be correct (specifically, that q × m + r = n, where q is the final quotient and r the final remainder). A slight variation of presentation requires more writing, and requires that we change, rather than just update, digits of the quotient, but can shed more light on why these steps actually produce the right answer by allowing evaluation of q × m + r at intermediate points in the process. This illustrates the key property used in the derivation of the algorithm (below). Specifically, we amend the above basic procedure so that we fill the space after the digits of the quotient under construction with 0's, to at least the 1's place, and include those 0's in the numbers we write below the division bra

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  • Library history

    Library history

    Library history is a subdiscipline within library science and library and information science focusing on the history of libraries and their role in societies and cultures. Some see the field as a subset of information history. Library history is an academic discipline and should not be confused with its object of study (history of libraries): the discipline is much younger than the libraries it studies. Library history begins in ancient societies through contemporary issues facing libraries today. Topics include recording mediums, cataloguing systems, scholars, scribes, library supporters and librarians. == Earliest libraries == The earliest records of a library institution as it is presently understood can be dated back to around 5,000 years ago in the Southwest Asian regions of the world. One of the oldest libraries found is that of the ancient library at Ebla (circa 2500 BCE) in present-day Syria. In the 1970s, the excavation at Ebla's library unearthed over 20,000 clay tablets written in cuneiform script. === Library in Mesopotamia === The Assyrian King Assurbanipal created one of the greatest libraries in Nineveh in the seventh century BCE. The collection consisted of over 30,000 tablets written in a variety of languages. The collection was cataloged both by the shape of the tablet and by the subject of the content. The library had separate rooms for the different topics: government, history, law, astronomy, geography, and so on. The tablets also contained myths, hymns, and even jokes. Assurbanipal would send scribes to visit every corner of his kingdom to copy the content of other libraries. His library contained many of the most important literary works of the day, including the epic of Gilgamesh. Assurbanipal's Royal Library also had one of the first library catalogs. Unfortunately, Nineveh was eventually destroyed, and the library was lost in a fire. === Libraries in Ancient Greece === The Greek government was the first to sponsor public libraries. By 500 BCE both Athens and Samos had begun creating libraries for the public, though as most of the population was illiterate these spaces were serving a small, educated portion of the community. Athens developed a city archive at the Metroon in 405 BCE, where documents were stored in sealed jars. These would have saved the documents, but they would have been difficult to consult regularly. In Paros, around the same time, contracts were placed in the temple for safe keeping, and a book curse was placed for extra protection. === Library of Alexandria === The Library at Alexandria, Egypt, was renowned in the third century BCE while kings Ptolemy I Soter and Ptolemy II Philadelphus reigned. The library included a museum, garden, meeting areas and of course reading rooms. The Great Library, as it is known, was one of many in Alexandria. From its inception around the second century BCE, Alexandria was a well-known center for learning. It earned renown as the intellectual capital of the Western world up through the third century CE. The librarians at Alexandria collected, copied, and organized scrolls from across the known world. According to a primary source, every ship that came to Alexandria was required to hand over their books to be copied, and the copies would be returned to the owner, the library keeping the original. The Library of Alexandria was damaged by various disasters over time, including fire, invasion, and earthquake. Scholars believe the collection slowly diminished over time due to theft and efforts to remove it ahead of invading armies. While there are popular stories about how the library was ultimately destroyed, most of these are more myth than fact. === Libraries in Rome === Julius Caesar and his successor Augustus were the first to establish public libraries in ancient Rome, including the library of Apollo on the Palatine Hill. Several emperors followed suit over the next four centuries, including Hadrian, Tiberius, and Vespasian. Roman aristocrats also had personal libraries, which usually contained works in both Greek and Latin. A valuable example of this has been found at Herculaneum near Pompeii. Papyrus manuscripts in Herculaneum's Villa of the Papyri were encased in ash after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. Modern archaeology is now able to scan these artifacts and discern their contents, including many writings from Philodemus. The average Roman would not have been familiar with books beyond what they might hear read aloud in the forum. Public figures would pay for particular passages to be read aloud to the public from the steps of a public library. === Libraries in the Middle Ages === In the European Middle Ages, libraries began to become more prevalent, despite a widespread reduction in new writing beyond religious themes. Most libraries were initially connected to monasteries or religious institutions. Scriptoriums copied Christian religious texts to share with other religious centers or to be read aloud to their own parishioners. The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne (r. 786-814) had a large impact on the advancement of written culture in the Medieval Christian world, acquiring as many written works as he could, and employing many scribes to copy and recirculate vernacular versions of religious works. Most of the text held in small personal libraries was still religious in nature. == Early modern libraries == === Libraries of the Renaissance === During the Renaissance era the merchant middle class grew, and more people found benefits in education. They relied on libraries as a place to study and gain knowledge. Libraries provided a valuable resource, enriching the culture of those who were educated. Universities that had been started in the Middle Ages, founded their own libraries. Books in these libraries could not be borrowed from these libraries and were generally chained to the shelves to prevent theft. As more of the population became literate, new ideas like Humanism and Natural Law spawned an increase personal libraries, although they remained small. Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1456 opened the door to the modern era for libraries. == Oldest working libraries == According to the German librarian Michael Knoche, it is not possible to determine which library is the “oldest”: "Precise year dates are a construct, especially in the case of very old libraries. When a collection of books deserves to be called a library depends very much on the point of view of the observer." Various libraries are referred to as the “oldest”: The library founded in the 6th century of the Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai is "reputedly the oldest continuously run library in existence today", according to the Library of Congress. Its collection of religious and secular manuscripts is ranging from Bibles, liturgies and prayer books to legal documents such as deeds, court cases and fatwahs (legal opinions). The Al Qarawiyyin Library was founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri and is often regarded as the oldest working library in the world. It is in Fez, Morocco and is part of the oldest continually operating university in the world, the University of al-Qarawiyyin. The library houses approximately 4,000 ancient Islamic manuscripts. These manuscripts include 9th century Qurans and the oldest known accounts of the Islamic prophet Muhammed. The Malatestiana Library (Italian: Biblioteca Malatestiana) is a public library in the city of Cesena in northern Italy. Opened in 1454 it is significant for being the first civic library in Europe open to the general public. == Library history reports and writings of the early 19th and 20th century == In the early 19th and 20th century, representative titles were created reporting library history in the United States and the United Kingdom. American titles include Public Libraries in the United States of America, Their History, Condition, and Management (1876), Memorial History of Boston (1881) by Justin Winsor, Public Libraries in America (1894) by William I. Fletcher, and History of the New York Public Library (1923) by Henry M. Lydenberg. British titles include Old English Libraries (1911) by Earnest A. Savage and The Chained Library: A Survey of Four Centuries in the Evolution of the English Library by Burnett Hillman Streeter. In the beginning of the 20th century, library historians began applying scientific research methodologies to examine the library as a social agency. Two works that demonstrate this argument are Geschichte der Bibliotheken (1925) by Alfred Hessel and the Library Quarterly article from 1931, “The Sociological Beginnings of the Library Movement in America” by Arnold Borden. With the establishment of library schools, master's theses and doctoral dissertations represented the shift in serious research regarding libraries and library history. Two published doctoral dissertations that mark this trend are Foundations of the Public Library: The Origins of the American Public Library Movement in Ne

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  • Artificial intelligence in government

    Artificial intelligence in government

    Artificial intelligence (AI) has a range of uses in government. It can be used to further public policy objectives (in areas such as emergency services, health and welfare), as well as assist the public to interact with the government (through the use of virtual assistants, for example). According to the Harvard Business Review, "Applications of artificial intelligence to the public sector are broad and growing, with early experiments taking place around the world." Hila Mehr from the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University notes that AI in government is not new, with postal services using machine methods in the late 1990s to recognise handwriting on envelopes to automatically route letters. The use of AI in government comes with significant benefits, including efficiencies resulting in cost savings (for instance by reducing the number of front office staff) and reducing the opportunities for corruption. However, it also carries risks (described below). == Uses of AI in government == The potential uses of AI in government are wide and varied, with Deloitte considering that "Cognitive technologies could eventually revolutionize every facet of government operations". Mehr suggests that six types of government problems are appropriate for AI applications: Resource allocation—such as where administrative support is required to complete tasks more quickly. Large datasets—where these are too large for employees to work efficiently and multiple datasets could be combined to provide greater insights. Expert shortage—including where basic questions could be answered and niche issues can be learned. Predictable scenario—historical data makes the situation predictable. Procedural tasks refer to repetitive tasks in which the answers to inputs or outputs are binary. Diverse data—where data takes various forms (such as visual and linguistic) and needs to be summarized regularly. Mehr states that "While applications of AI in government work have not kept pace with the rapid expansion of AI in the private sector, the potential use cases in the public sector mirror common applications in the private sector." Potential and actual uses of AI in government can be divided into three broad categories: those that contribute to public policy objectives, those that assist public interactions with the government, and other uses. === Contributing to public policy objectives === There are a range of examples of where AI can contribute to public policy objectives. These include: Receiving benefits at job loss, retirement, bereavement and child birth almost immediately, in an automated way (thus without requiring any actions from citizens at all) Social insurance service provision Classifying emergency calls based on their urgency (like the system used by the Cincinnati Fire Department in the United States) Detecting and preventing the spread of diseases Assisting public servants in making welfare payments and immigration decisions Adjudicating bail hearings Triaging health care cases Monitoring social media for public feedback on policies Monitoring social media to identify emergency situations Identifying fraudulent benefits claims Predicting a crime and recommending optimal police presence Predicting traffic congestion and car accidents Anticipating road maintenance requirements Identifying breaches of health regulations Providing personalised education to students Marking exam papers Assisting with defence and national security (see Artificial intelligence § Military and Applications of artificial intelligence § Other fields in which AI methods are implemented respectively) Artificial Intelligence in China has been used to drive both political and economic markets. In 2019, Shanghai’s government rolled out 100 billion yuan to assist in funding enterprises that used AI to introduce 22 new policy agendas. Shanghai invested in these enterprises to attract top international talent in order to set up the Shanghai Municipal Big Data Center. City Brain AI is an urban management platform made by Alibaba. China uses City Brain AI to maintain a significant share of capital investment through public and state owned enterprises. The synergy between public and private sectors are more than capital-driven with City Brain AI. The blend of both public and private shareholding is only made out to be through the role of provincial and sub-provincial governments. Both hold control over the direction that City Brain AI makes both socially and economically. === Assisting public interactions with government === AI can be used to assist members of the public to interact with government and access government services, for example by: Answering questions using virtual assistants or chatbots (see below) Directing requests to the appropriate area within government Filling out forms Assisting with searching documents (e.g. IP Australia's trade mark search) Scheduling appointments Various governments, including those of Australia and Estonia, have implemented virtual assistants to aid citizens in navigating services, with applications ranging from tax inquiries to life-event registrations. === Gerrymandering === Gerrymandering is a method of influencing political process by drawing map boundaries in favor of incumbent parties. Academic researchers Wendy Tam Cho and Bruce Cain have proposed partially automating the map-drawing process with an AI system to reduce partisan gerrymandering. Even with this AI system, the process may still be manipulated to favor partisan interests, so the researchers emphasized the importance of transparency and human involvement. === Other uses === Other uses of AI in government include: Translation Language interpretation pioneered by the European Commission's Directorate General for Interpretation and Florika Fink-Hooijer. Drafting documents == Potential benefits == AI offers potential efficiencies and cost savings for the government. For example, Deloitte has estimated that automation could save US Government employees between 96.7 million to 1.2 billion hours a year, resulting in potential savings of between $3.3 billion to $41.1 billion a year. The Harvard Business Review has stated that while this may lead a government to reduce employee numbers, "Governments could instead choose to invest in the quality of its services. They can re-employ workers' time towards more rewarding work that requires lateral thinking, empathy, and creativity—all things at which humans continue to outperform even the most sophisticated AI program." == Risks == Risks associated with the use of AI in government include AI becoming susceptible to bias, a lack of transparency in how an AI application may make decisions, and the accountability for any such decisions. For example, a 2026 lawsuit alleged that the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency used ChatGPT to flag and cancel federal humanities grants, including projects on Jewish history and Israeli culture, over some objections from NEH officials, illustrating how automated decision-making could affect funding outcomes.

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  • SMBGhost

    SMBGhost

    SMBGhost (or SMBleedingGhost or CoronaBlue) is a type of security vulnerability, with wormlike features, that affects Windows 10 computers and was first reported publicly on 10 March 2020. == Security vulnerability == A proof of concept (PoC) exploit code was published 1 June 2020 on GitHub by a security researcher. The code could possibly spread to millions of unpatched computers, resulting in as much as tens of billions of dollars in losses. Microsoft recommends all users of Windows 10 versions 1903 and 1909 and Windows Server versions 1903 and 1909 to install patches, and states, "We recommend customers install updates as soon as possible as publicly disclosed vulnerabilities have the potential to be leveraged by bad actors ... An update for this vulnerability was released in March [2020], and customers who have installed the updates, or have automatic updates enabled, are already protected." Workarounds, according to Microsoft, such as disabling SMB compression and blocking port 445, may help but may not be sufficient. According to the advisory division of Homeland Security, "Malicious cyber actors are targeting unpatched systems with the new [threat], ... [and] strongly recommends using a firewall to block server message block ports from the internet and to apply patches to critical- and high-severity vulnerabilities as soon as possible."

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  • Ontology alignment

    Ontology alignment

    Ontology alignment, or ontology matching, is the process of determining correspondences between concepts in ontologies. A set of correspondences is also called an alignment. The phrase takes on a slightly different meaning, in computer science, cognitive science or philosophy. == Computer science == For computer scientists, concepts are expressed as labels for data. Historically, the need for ontology alignment arose out of the need to integrate heterogeneous databases, ones developed independently and thus each having their own data vocabulary. In the Semantic Web context involving many actors providing their own ontologies, ontology matching has taken a critical place for helping heterogeneous resources to interoperate. Ontology alignment tools find classes of data that are semantically equivalent, for example, "truck" and "lorry". The classes are not necessarily logically identical. According to Euzenat and Shvaiko (2007), there are three major dimensions for similarity: syntactic, external, and semantic. Coincidentally, they roughly correspond to the dimensions identified by Cognitive Scientists below. A number of tools and frameworks have been developed for aligning ontologies, some with inspiration from Cognitive Science and some independently. Ontology alignment tools have generally been developed to operate on database schemas, XML schemas, taxonomies, formal languages, entity-relationship models, dictionaries, and other label frameworks. They are usually converted to a graph representation before being matched. Since the emergence of the Semantic Web, such graphs can be represented in the Resource Description Framework line of languages by triples of the form , as illustrated in the Notation 3 syntax. In this context, aligning ontologies is sometimes referred to as "ontology matching". The problem of Ontology Alignment has been tackled recently by trying to compute matching first and mapping (based on the matching) in an automatic fashion. Systems like DSSim, X-SOM or COMA++ obtained at the moment very high precision and recall. The Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative aims to evaluate, compare and improve the different approaches. === Formal definition === Given two ontologies i = ⟨ C i , R i , I i , T i , V i ⟩ {\displaystyle i=\langle C_{i},R_{i},I_{i},T_{i},V_{i}\rangle } and j = ⟨ C j , R j , I j , T j , V j ⟩ {\displaystyle j=\langle C_{j},R_{j},I_{j},T_{j},V_{j}\rangle } where C {\displaystyle C} is the set of classes, R {\displaystyle R} is the set of relations, I {\displaystyle I} is the set of individuals, T {\displaystyle T} is the set of data types, and V {\displaystyle V} is the set of values, we can define different types of (inter-ontology) relationships. Such relationships will be called, all together, alignments and can be categorized among different dimensions: similarity vs logic: this is the difference between matchings (predicating about the similarity of ontology terms), and mappings (logical axioms, typically expressing logical equivalence or inclusion among ontology terms) atomic vs complex: whether the alignments we considered are one-to-one, or can involve more terms in a query-like formulation (e.g., LAV/GAV mapping) homogeneous vs heterogeneous: do the alignments predicate on terms of the same type (e.g., classes are related only to classes, individuals to individuals, etc.) or we allow heterogeneity in the relationship? type of alignment: the semantics associated to an alignment. It can be subsumption, equivalence, disjointness, part-of or any user-specified relationship. Subsumption, atomic, homogeneous alignments are the building blocks to obtain richer alignments, and have a well defined semantics in every Description Logic. Let's now introduce more formally ontology matching and mapping. An atomic homogeneous matching is an alignment that carries a similarity degree s ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] {\displaystyle s\in [0,1]} , describing the similarity of two terms of the input ontologies i {\displaystyle i} and j {\displaystyle j} . Matching can be either computed, by means of heuristic algorithms, or inferred from other matchings. Formally we can say that, a matching is a quadruple m = ⟨ i d , t i , t j , s ⟩ {\displaystyle m=\langle id,t_{i},t_{j},s\rangle } , where t i {\displaystyle t_{i}} and t j {\displaystyle t_{j}} are homogeneous ontology terms, s {\displaystyle s} is the similarity degree of m {\displaystyle m} . A (subsumption, homogeneous, atomic) mapping is defined as a pair μ = ⟨ t i , t j ⟩ {\displaystyle \mu =\langle t_{i},t_{j}\rangle } , where t i {\displaystyle t_{i}} and t j {\displaystyle t_{j}} are homogeneous ontology terms. == Cognitive science == For cognitive scientists interested in ontology alignment, the "concepts" are nodes in a semantic network that reside in brains as "conceptual systems." The focal question is: if everyone has unique experiences and thus different semantic networks, then how can we ever understand each other? This question has been addressed by a model called ABSURDIST (Aligning Between Systems Using Relations Derived Inside Systems for Translation). Three major dimensions have been identified for similarity as equations for "internal similarity, external similarity, and mutual inhibition." == Ontology alignment methods == Two sub research fields have emerged in ontology mapping, namely monolingual ontology mapping and cross-lingual ontology mapping. The former refers to the mapping of ontologies in the same natural language, whereas the latter refers to "the process of establishing relationships among ontological resources from two or more independent ontologies where each ontology is labelled in a different natural language". Existing matching methods in monolingual ontology mapping are discussed in Euzenat and Shvaiko (2007). Approaches to cross-lingual ontology mapping are presented in Fu et al. (2011).

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  • Point-in-time recovery

    Point-in-time recovery

    Point-in-time recovery (PITR) in the context of computers involves systems, often databases, whereby an administrator can restore or recover a set of data or a particular setting from a time in the past. Note for example Windows's capability to restore operating-system settings from a past date (for instance, before data corruption occurred). Time Machine for macOS provides another example of point-in-time recovery. Once PITR logging starts for a PITR-capable database, a database administrator can restore that database from backups to the state that it had at any time since.

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