AI Art Keywords

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  • Image moment

    Image moment

    In image processing, computer vision and related fields, an image moment is a certain particular weighted average (moment) of the image pixels' intensities, or a function of such moments, usually chosen to have some attractive property or interpretation. Image moments are useful to describe objects after segmentation. Simple properties of the image which are found via image moments include area (or total intensity), its centroid, and information about its orientation. == Raw moments == For a 2D continuous function f(x,y) the moment (sometimes called "raw moment") of order (p + q) is defined as M p q = ∫ − ∞ ∞ ∫ − ∞ ∞ x p y q f ( x , y ) d x d y {\displaystyle M_{pq}=\int \limits _{-\infty }^{\infty }\int \limits _{-\infty }^{\infty }x^{p}y^{q}f(x,y)\,dx\,dy} for p,q = 0,1,2,... Adapting this to scalar (grayscale) image with pixel intensities I(x,y), raw image moments Mij are calculated by M i j = ∑ x ∑ y x i y j I ( x , y ) {\displaystyle M_{ij}=\sum _{x}\sum _{y}x^{i}y^{j}I(x,y)\,\!} In some cases, this may be calculated by considering the image as a probability density function, i.e., by dividing the above by ∑ x ∑ y I ( x , y ) {\displaystyle \sum _{x}\sum _{y}I(x,y)\,\!} A uniqueness theorem states that if f(x,y) is piecewise continuous and has nonzero values only in a finite part of the xy plane, moments of all orders exist, and the moment sequence (Mpq) is uniquely determined by f(x,y). Conversely, (Mpq) uniquely determines f(x,y). In practice, the image is summarized with functions of a few lower order moments. === Examples === Simple image properties derived via raw moments include: Area (for binary images) or sum of grey level (for greytone images): M 00 {\displaystyle M_{00}} Centroid: { x ¯ , y ¯ } = { M 10 M 00 , M 01 M 00 } {\displaystyle \{{\bar {x}},\ {\bar {y}}\}=\left\{{\frac {M_{10}}{M_{00}}},{\frac {M_{01}}{M_{00}}}\right\}} == Central moments == Central moments are defined as μ p q = ∫ − ∞ ∞ ∫ − ∞ ∞ ( x − x ¯ ) p ( y − y ¯ ) q f ( x , y ) d x d y {\displaystyle \mu _{pq}=\int \limits _{-\infty }^{\infty }\int \limits _{-\infty }^{\infty }(x-{\bar {x}})^{p}(y-{\bar {y}})^{q}f(x,y)\,dx\,dy} where x ¯ = M 10 M 00 {\displaystyle {\bar {x}}={\frac {M_{10}}{M_{00}}}} and y ¯ = M 01 M 00 {\displaystyle {\bar {y}}={\frac {M_{01}}{M_{00}}}} are the components of the centroid. If ƒ(x, y) is a digital image, then the previous equation becomes μ p q = ∑ x ∑ y ( x − x ¯ ) p ( y − y ¯ ) q f ( x , y ) {\displaystyle \mu _{pq}=\sum _{x}\sum _{y}(x-{\bar {x}})^{p}(y-{\bar {y}})^{q}f(x,y)} The central moments of order up to 3 are: μ 00 = M 00 , μ 01 = 0 , μ 10 = 0 , μ 11 = M 11 − x ¯ M 01 = M 11 − y ¯ M 10 , μ 20 = M 20 − x ¯ M 10 , μ 02 = M 02 − y ¯ M 01 , μ 21 = M 21 − 2 x ¯ M 11 − y ¯ M 20 + 2 x ¯ 2 M 01 , μ 12 = M 12 − 2 y ¯ M 11 − x ¯ M 02 + 2 y ¯ 2 M 10 , μ 30 = M 30 − 3 x ¯ M 20 + 2 x ¯ 2 M 10 , μ 03 = M 03 − 3 y ¯ M 02 + 2 y ¯ 2 M 01 . {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\mu _{00}&=M_{00},&\mu _{01}&=0,\\\mu _{10}&=0,&\mu _{11}&=M_{11}-{\bar {x}}M_{01}=M_{11}-{\bar {y}}M_{10},\\\mu _{20}&=M_{20}-{\bar {x}}M_{10},&\mu _{02}&=M_{02}-{\bar {y}}M_{01},\\\mu _{21}&=M_{21}-2{\bar {x}}M_{11}-{\bar {y}}M_{20}+2{\bar {x}}^{2}M_{01},&\mu _{12}&=M_{12}-2{\bar {y}}M_{11}-{\bar {x}}M_{02}+2{\bar {y}}^{2}M_{10},\\\mu _{30}&=M_{30}-3{\bar {x}}M_{20}+2{\bar {x}}^{2}M_{10},&\mu _{03}&=M_{03}-3{\bar {y}}M_{02}+2{\bar {y}}^{2}M_{01}.\end{aligned}}} It can be shown that: μ p q = ∑ m p ∑ n q ( p m ) ( q n ) ( − x ¯ ) ( p − m ) ( − y ¯ ) ( q − n ) M m n {\displaystyle \mu _{pq}=\sum _{m}^{p}\sum _{n}^{q}{p \choose m}{q \choose n}(-{\bar {x}})^{(p-m)}(-{\bar {y}})^{(q-n)}M_{mn}} Central moments are translational invariant. === Examples === Information about image orientation can be derived by first using the second order central moments to construct a covariance matrix. μ 20 ′ = μ 20 / μ 00 = M 20 / M 00 − x ¯ 2 μ 02 ′ = μ 02 / μ 00 = M 02 / M 00 − y ¯ 2 μ 11 ′ = μ 11 / μ 00 = M 11 / M 00 − x ¯ y ¯ {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\mu '_{20}&=\mu _{20}/\mu _{00}=M_{20}/M_{00}-{\bar {x}}^{2}\\\mu '_{02}&=\mu _{02}/\mu _{00}=M_{02}/M_{00}-{\bar {y}}^{2}\\\mu '_{11}&=\mu _{11}/\mu _{00}=M_{11}/M_{00}-{\bar {x}}{\bar {y}}\end{aligned}}} The covariance matrix of the image I ( x , y ) {\displaystyle I(x,y)} is now cov ⁡ [ I ( x , y ) ] = [ μ 20 ′ μ 11 ′ μ 11 ′ μ 02 ′ ] . {\displaystyle \operatorname {cov} [I(x,y)]={\begin{bmatrix}\mu '_{20}&\mu '_{11}\\\mu '_{11}&\mu '_{02}\end{bmatrix}}.} The eigenvectors of this matrix correspond to the major and minor axes of the image intensity, so the orientation can thus be extracted from the angle of the eigenvector associated with the largest eigenvalue towards the axis closest to this eigenvector. It can be shown that this angle Θ is given by the following formula: Θ = 1 2 arctan ⁡ ( 2 μ 11 ′ μ 20 ′ − μ 02 ′ ) {\displaystyle \Theta ={\frac {1}{2}}\arctan \left({\frac {2\mu '_{11}}{\mu '_{20}-\mu '_{02}}}\right)} The above formula holds as long as: μ 20 ′ − μ 02 ′ ≠ 0 {\displaystyle \mu '_{20}-\mu '_{02}\neq 0} The eigenvalues of the covariance matrix can easily be shown to be λ i = μ 20 ′ + μ 02 ′ 2 ± 4 μ ′ 11 2 + ( μ ′ 20 − μ ′ 02 ) 2 2 , {\displaystyle \lambda _{i}={\frac {\mu '_{20}+\mu '_{02}}{2}}\pm {\frac {\sqrt {4{\mu '}_{11}^{2}+({\mu '}_{20}-{\mu '}_{02})^{2}}}{2}},} and are proportional to the squared length of the eigenvector axes. The relative difference in magnitude of the eigenvalues are thus an indication of the eccentricity of the image, or how elongated it is. The eccentricity is 1 − λ 2 λ 1 . {\displaystyle {\sqrt {1-{\frac {\lambda _{2}}{\lambda _{1}}}}}.} == Moment invariants == Moments are well-known for their application in image analysis, since they can be used to derive invariants with respect to specific transformation classes. The term invariant moments is often abused in this context. However, while moment invariants are invariants that are formed from moments, the only moments that are invariants themselves are the central moments. Note that the invariants detailed below are exactly invariant only in the continuous domain. In a discrete domain, neither scaling nor rotation are well defined: a discrete image transformed in such a way is generally an approximation, and the transformation is not reversible. These invariants therefore are only approximately invariant when describing a shape in a discrete image. === Translation invariants === The central moments μi j of any order are, by construction, invariant with respect to translations. === Scale invariants === Invariants ηi j with respect to both translation and scale can be constructed from central moments by dividing through a properly scaled zero-th central moment: η i j = μ i j μ 00 ( 1 + i + j 2 ) {\displaystyle \eta _{ij}={\frac {\mu _{ij}}{\mu _{00}^{\left(1+{\frac {i+j}{2}}\right)}}}\,\!} where i + j ≥ 2. Note that translational invariance directly follows by only using central moments. === Rotation invariants === As shown in the work of Hu, invariants with respect to translation, scale, and rotation can be constructed: I 1 = η 20 + η 02 {\displaystyle I_{1}=\eta _{20}+\eta _{02}} I 2 = ( η 20 − η 02 ) 2 + 4 η 11 2 {\displaystyle I_{2}=(\eta _{20}-\eta _{02})^{2}+4\eta _{11}^{2}} I 3 = ( η 30 − 3 η 12 ) 2 + ( 3 η 21 − η 03 ) 2 {\displaystyle I_{3}=(\eta _{30}-3\eta _{12})^{2}+(3\eta _{21}-\eta _{03})^{2}} I 4 = ( η 30 + η 12 ) 2 + ( η 21 + η 03 ) 2 {\displaystyle I_{4}=(\eta _{30}+\eta _{12})^{2}+(\eta _{21}+\eta _{03})^{2}} I 5 = ( η 30 − 3 η 12 ) ( η 30 + η 12 ) [ ( η 30 + η 12 ) 2 − 3 ( η 21 + η 03 ) 2 ] + ( 3 η 21 − η 03 ) ( η 21 + η 03 ) [ 3 ( η 30 + η 12 ) 2 − ( η 21 + η 03 ) 2 ] {\displaystyle I_{5}=(\eta _{30}-3\eta _{12})(\eta _{30}+\eta _{12})[(\eta _{30}+\eta _{12})^{2}-3(\eta _{21}+\eta _{03})^{2}]+(3\eta _{21}-\eta _{03})(\eta _{21}+\eta _{03})[3(\eta _{30}+\eta _{12})^{2}-(\eta _{21}+\eta _{03})^{2}]} I 6 = ( η 20 − η 02 ) [ ( η 30 + η 12 ) 2 − ( η 21 + η 03 ) 2 ] + 4 η 11 ( η 30 + η 12 ) ( η 21 + η 03 ) {\displaystyle I_{6}=(\eta _{20}-\eta _{02})[(\eta _{30}+\eta _{12})^{2}-(\eta _{21}+\eta _{03})^{2}]+4\eta _{11}(\eta _{30}+\eta _{12})(\eta _{21}+\eta _{03})} I 7 = ( 3 η 21 − η 03 ) ( η 30 + η 12 ) [ ( η 30 + η 12 ) 2 − 3 ( η 21 + η 03 ) 2 ] − ( η 30 − 3 η 12 ) ( η 21 + η 03 ) [ 3 ( η 30 + η 12 ) 2 − ( η 21 + η 03 ) 2 ] . {\displaystyle I_{7}=(3\eta _{21}-\eta _{03})(\eta _{30}+\eta _{12})[(\eta _{30}+\eta _{12})^{2}-3(\eta _{21}+\eta _{03})^{2}]-(\eta _{30}-3\eta _{12})(\eta _{21}+\eta _{03})[3(\eta _{30}+\eta _{12})^{2}-(\eta _{21}+\eta _{03})^{2}].} These are well-known as Hu moment invariants. The first one, I1, is analogous to the moment of inertia around the image's centroid, where the pixels' intensities are analogous to physical density. The first six, I1 ... I6, are reflection symmetric, i.e. they are unchanged if the image is changed to a mirror image. The last one, I7, is reflection antisymmetric (changes sign under reflection), which enables it to distinguish mirror images of otherwise identical im

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  • Information Processing Language

    Information Processing Language

    Information Processing Language (IPL) is a programming language created by Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Herbert A. Simon at RAND Corporation and the Carnegie Institute of Technology about 1956. Newell had the job of language specifier-application programmer, Shaw was the system programmer, and Simon had the job of application programmer-user. IPL included features to facilitate AI programming, specifically problem solving. such as lists, dynamic memory allocation, data types, recursion, functions as arguments, generators, and cooperative multitasking. IPL also introduced the concepts of symbol processing and list processing. Unfortunately, all of these innovations were cast in a difficult assembly-language style. Nonetheless, IPL-V (the only public version of IPL) ran on many computers through the mid 1960s. == Basics of IPL == An IPL computer has: A set of symbols. All symbols are addresses, and name cells. Unlike symbols in later languages, symbols consist of a character followed by a number, and are written H1, A29, 9–7, 9–100. Cell names beginning with a letter are regional, and are absolute addresses. Cell names beginning with "9-" are local, and are meaningful within the context of a single list. One list's 9-1 is independent of another list's 9–1. Other symbols (e.g., pure numbers) are internal. A set of cells. Lists are made from several cells including mutual references. Cells have several fields: P, a 3-bit field used for an operation code when the cell is used as an instruction, and unused when the cell is data. Q, a 3-valued field used for indirect reference when the cell is used as an instruction, and unused when the cell is data. SYMB, a symbol used as the value in the cell. A set of primitive processes, which would be termed primitive functions in modern languages. The data structure of IPL is the list, but lists are more intricate structures than in many languages. A list consists of a singly linked sequence of symbols, as might be expected—plus some description lists, which are subsidiary singly linked lists interpreted as alternating attribute names and values. IPL provides primitives to access and mutate attribute value by name. The description lists are given local names (of the form 9–1). So, a list named L1 containing the symbols S4 and S5, and described by associating value V1 to attribute A1 and V2 to A2, would be stored as follows. 0 indicates the end of a list; the cell names 100, 101, etc. are automatically generated internal symbols whose values are irrelevant. These cells can be scattered throughout memory; only L1, which uses a regional name that must be globally known, needs to reside in a specific place. IPL is an assembly language for manipulating lists. It has a few cells which are used as special-purpose registers. H1, for example, is the program counter. The SYMB field of H1 is the name of the current instruction. However, H1 is interpreted as a list; the LINK of H1 is, in modern terms, a pointer to the beginning of the call stack. For example, subroutine calls push the SYMB of H1 onto this stack. H2 is the free-list. Procedures which need to allocate memory grab cells off of H2; procedures which are finished with memory put it on H2. On entry to a function, the list of parameters is given in H0; on exit, the results should be returned in H0. Many procedures return a Boolean result indicating success or failure, which is put in H5. Ten cells, W0-W9, are reserved for public working storage. Procedures are "morally bound" (to quote the CACM article) to save and restore the values of these cells. There are eight instructions, based on the values of P: subroutine call, push/pop S to H0; push/pop the symbol in S to the list attached to S; copy value to S; conditional branch. In these instructions, S is the target. S is either the value of the SYMB field if Q=0, the symbol in the cell named by SYMB if Q=1, or the symbol in the cell named by the symbol in the cell named by SYMB if Q=2. In all cases but conditional branch, the LINK field of the cell tells which instruction to execute next. IPL has a library of some 150 basic operations. These include such operations as: Test symbols for equality Find, set, or erase an attribute of a list Locate the next symbol in a list; insert a symbol in a list; erase or copy an entire list Arithmetic operations (on symbol names) Manipulation of symbols; e.g., test if a symbol denotes an integer, or make a symbol local I/O operations "Generators", which correspond to iterators and filters in functional programming. For example, a generator may accept a list of numbers and produce the list of their squares. Generators could accept suitably designed functions—strictly, the addresses of code of suitably designed functions—as arguments. == History == IPL was first utilized to demonstrate that the theorems in Principia Mathematica which were proven laboriously by hand, by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, could in fact be proven by computation. According to Simon's autobiography Models of My Life, this application was originally developed first by hand simulation, using his children as the computing elements, while writing on and holding up note cards as the registers which contained the state variables of the program. IPL was used to implement several early artificial intelligence programs, also by the same authors: the Logic Theorist (1956), the General Problem Solver (1957), and their computer chess program NSS (1958). Several versions of IPL were created: IPL-I (never implemented), IPL-II (1957 for JOHNNIAC), IPL-III (existed briefly), IPL-IV, IPL-V (1958, for IBM 650, IBM 704, IBM 7090, Philco model 212, many others. Widely used). IPL-VI was a proposal for an IPL hardware. A co-processor “IPL-VC” for the CDC 3600 at Argonne National Libraries was developed which could run IPL-V commands. It was used to implement another checker-playing program. This hardware implementation did not improve running times sufficiently to “compete favorably with a language more directly oriented to the structure of present-day machines”. IPL was soon displaced by Lisp, which had much more powerful features, a simpler syntax, and the benefit of automatic garbage collection. == Legacy to computer programming == IPL arguably introduced several programming language features: List manipulation—but only lists of atoms, not general lists Property lists—but only when attached to other lists Higher-order functions—while assembly programming had always allowed computing with the addresses of functions, IPL was an early attempt to generalize this property of assembly language in a principled way Computation with symbols—though symbols have a restricted form in IPL (letter followed by number) Virtual machine Many of these features were generalized, rationalized, and incorporated into Lisp and from there into many other programming languages during the next several decades.

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  • Computational creativity

    Computational creativity

    Computational creativity (also known as artificial creativity, mechanical creativity, creative computing or creative computation) is a multidisciplinary endeavour that is located at the intersection of the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, philosophy, and the arts (e.g., computational art as part of computational culture). Is the application of computer systems to emulate human-like creative processes, facilitating the generation of artistic and design outputs that mimic innovation and originality. The goal of computational creativity is to model, simulate or replicate creativity using a computer, to achieve one of several ends: To construct a program or computer capable of human-level creativity. To better understand human creativity and to formulate an algorithmic perspective on creative behavior in humans. To design programs that can enhance human creativity without necessarily being creative themselves. The field of computational creativity concerns itself with theoretical and practical issues in the study of creativity. Theoretical work on the nature and proper definition of creativity is performed in parallel with practical work on the implementation of systems that exhibit creativity, with one strand of work informing the other. The applied form of computational creativity is known as media synthesis. == Theoretical issues == Theoretical approaches concern the essence of creativity. Especially, under what circumstances it is possible to call the model a "creative" if eminent creativity is about rule-breaking or the disavowal of convention. This is a variant of Ada Lovelace's objection to machine intelligence, as recapitulated by modern theorists such as Teresa Amabile. If a machine can do only what it was programmed to do, how can its behavior ever be called creative? Indeed, not all computer theorists would agree with the premise that computers can only do what they are programmed to do—a key point in favor of computational creativity. == Defining creativity in computational terms == Because no single perspective or definition seems to offer a complete picture of creativity, the AI researchers Newell, Shaw and Simon developed the combination of novelty and usefulness into the cornerstone of a multi-pronged view of creativity, one that uses the following four criteria to categorize a given answer or solution as creative: The answer is novel and useful (either for the individual or for society) The answer demands that we reject ideas we had previously accepted The answer results from intense motivation and persistence The answer comes from clarifying a problem that was originally vague Margaret Boden focused on the first two of these criteria, arguing instead that creativity (at least when asking whether computers could be creative) should be defined as "the ability to come up with ideas or artifacts that are new, surprising, and valuable". Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argued that creativity had to be considered instead in a social context, and his DIFI (Domain-Individual-Field Interaction) framework has since strongly influenced the field. In DIFI, an individual produces works whose novelty and value are assessed by the field—other people in society—providing feedback and ultimately adding the work, now deemed creative, to the domain of societal works from which an individual might be later influenced. Whereas the above reflects a top-down approach to computational creativity, an alternative thread has developed among bottom-up computational psychologists involved in artificial neural network research. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, for example, such generative neural systems were driven by genetic algorithms. Experiments involving recurrent nets were successful in hybridizing simple musical melodies and predicting listener expectations. == Historical evolution of computational creativity == The use computational processes to generate creative artifacts has been present from early times in history. During the late 1800's, methods for composing music combinatorily were explored, involving prominent figures like Mozart, Bach, Haydn, and Kiernberger. This approach extended to analytical endeavors as early as 1934, where simple mechanical models were built to explore mathematical problem solving. Professional interest in the creative aspect of computation also was commonly addressed in early discussions of artificial intelligence. The 1956 Dartmouth Conference, listed creativity, invention, and discovery as key goals for artificial intelligence. As the development of computers allowed systems of greater complexity, the 1970's and 1980's saw invention of early systems that modelled creativity using symbolic or rule-based approaches. The field of creative storytelling investigated several such models. Meehan's TALE-SPIN (1977) generated narratives through simulation of character goals and decision trees. Dehn's AUTHOR (1981) approached generation by simulating an author's process for crafting a story. Beyond narrative generation, computational creativity expanded into artistic and scientific domains. Artistic image generation was one of the disciplines that saw early potential in generated artifacts through computational creativity. One of the most prominent examples was Harold Cohen's AARON, which produced art through composition and adaptation of figures based on a large set of symbolic rules and heuristics for visual composition. Some systems also tackled creativity in scientific endeavors. BACON was said to rediscover natural laws like Boyle's Law and Kepler's law through hypothesis testing in constrained spaces. By the 1990's the modeling techniques became more adaptive, attempting to implement cognitive creative rules for generation. Turner's MINSTREL (1993) introduced TRAMs (Transform Recall Adapt Methods) to simulate creative re-use of prior material for generative storytelling. Meanwhile, Pérez y Pérez's MEXICA (1999) modeled the creative writing process using cycles of engagement and reflection. As systems increasingly incorporated models of internal evaluation, another approach that emerged was that of combining symbolic generation with domain-specific evaluation metrics, modeling generative and selective steps to creativity In the field of generational humor, the JAPE system (1994) generated pun-based riddles using Prolog and WordNet, applying symbolic pattern-matching rules and a large lexical database (WordNet) to compose riddles involving wordplay. WordNet is a system developed by George Miller and his team at Princeton, its platform and inspired word-mapping structures have been used as the backbone of several syntactic and semantic AI programs. A notable system for music generation was David Cope's EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence) or Emmy, which was trained in the styles of artists like Bach, Beethoven, or Chopin and generated novel pieces in their style through pattern abstraction and recomposition. In the 2000s and beyond, machine learning began influencing creative system design. Researchers such as Mihalcea and Strapparava trained classifiers to distinguish humorous from non-humorous text, using stylistic and semantic features. Meanwhile custom computational approaches led to chess systems like Deep Blue generating quasi-creative gameplay strategies through search algorithms and parallel processing constrained by specific rules and patterns for evaluation. The institutional development of computational creativity grew along its technical advances. Dedicated workshops such as the IJWCC emerged in the 1990s, growing out of interdisciplinary conferences focused on AI and creativity. By the early 2000s, the field coalesced around annual conferences like the International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC). Recently, with the advent of Deep Learning, Transformers, and further refinement in Machine Learning structures, computational creativity's implementation space has new tools for development. == Machine learning for computational creativity == While traditional computational approaches to creativity rely on the explicit formulation of prescriptions by developers and a certain degree of randomness in computer programs, machine learning methods allow computer programs to learn on heuristics from input data enabling creative capacities within the computer programs. Especially, deep artificial neural networks allow to learn patterns from input data that allow for the non-linear generation of creative artefacts. Before 1989, artificial neural networks have been used to model certain aspects of creativity. Peter Todd (1989) first trained a neural network to reproduce musical melodies from a training set of musical pieces. Then he used a change algorithm to modify the network's input parameters. The network was able to randomly generate new music in a highly uncontrolled manner. In 1992, Todd extended this work, using the so-called distal teacher approach that had been d

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  • Public First Action

    Public First Action

    Public First Action is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization focused on United States public policy related to artificial intelligence. Public First Action is a bipartisan group that advocates for AI transparency, safeguards, and export controls on advanced AI chips. The organization is aligned with the political action committees Jobs and Democracy, Defending Our Values and Public First. == History == Public First Action was formed in 2025 by former Congressmen Brad Carson, a Democrat, and Chris Stewart, a Republican, to advocate for federal, state, and local regulations related to AI. The group's formation followed the founding of a super PAC network, Leading the Future, which advocates for deregulation of the AI industry and faster development of the new technology. Public First Action supports measures that would increase transparency at frontier AI companies and impose export controls on advanced AI chips, in addition to opposing the preemption of state-level AI laws. In February 2026, Public First Action received $20 million from the AI company Anthropic. That same month, the group announced plans to support 30 to 50 Democrats and Republicans in state and federal races, with Public First Action and aligned super PACs launching advertisements in Nebraska, Tennessee, and other states. In one ad, Public First Action touted Senator Marsha Blackburn for her work on child online safety. As of 2026, the group plans to raise between $50 and $75 million for public oversight of AI and related reforms. == Organization == === Leadership and funding === Public First Action is led by Carson and Stewart. The group has raised nearly $50 million in funding with a goal of raising $75 million during the 2026 midterms. Anthropic has contributed $20 million to the group. === Structure === Public First Action is aligned with three political action committees: "Jobs and Democracy", which supports Democratic candidates; "Defending Our Values", which supports Republican candidates; and "Public First", which supports both Republicans and Democrats.

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  • Sensory, Inc.

    Sensory, Inc.

    Sensory, Inc. is an American company which develops software AI technologies for speech, sound and vision. It is based in Santa Clara, California. Sensory’s technologies have shipped in over three billion products from hundreds of leading consumer electronics manufacturers including AT&T, Hasbro, Huawei, Google, Amazon, Samsung, LG, Mattel, Motorola, Plantronics, GoPro, Sony, Tencent, Garmin, LG, Microsoft, Lenovo, and more. Sensory has over 60 issued patents covering speech recognition in consumer electronics, biometric authentication, sensor/speech combinations, wake word technology, and more. == History == Sensory, Inc. was founded in 1994, originally as Sensory Circuits, by Forrest Mozer, Mike Mozer and Todd Mozer. The three had also co-founded ESS Technology years earlier. In 1999 Sensory acquired Fluent Speech Technologies, which was formed and started by a group of professors out of the Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGI, now OHSU). Fluent Speech Technologies developed high performance embedded speech engines, the technology from this acquisition is now the core technology used throughout Sensory's chip and software line. === Company timeline === 1994 – Founded 1995 – Introduces the RSC 164 - first commercially successful speech recognition IC 1998 – Introduces first speaker verification IC 2000 – Acquires Oregon based Fluent-Speech Technologies 2002 – Acquires Texas Instruments line of speech output ICs (the SC series) 2007 – Introduces first Voice User Interface for Bluetooth silicon (CSR BC-5) - BlueGenie 2008 - Sensory and BlueAnt partner on the V1 - Revolutionary new Bluetooth headset with a voice user interface. First wearable to use a voice user interface for control and best-reviewed speech recognition product in history 2009 – Introduced world's smallest text to speech system (TTS) and Truly HandsfreeTM Triggers/ wake words. 2010 – Introduced the NLP-5x – First Natural Language Voice Processor and TrulyHandsfree wake words in SDKs for Android, iOS, Linux, and Windows. NLP5x used the first generation of TrulyHandsfree wake words with low power and enhanced accuracy. 2011 – Sensory partners with Google and Microsoft to enable TrulyHandsfree as a front end to Goog411 and Bing411 2012 – Partnered with Tensilica to offer ultra-low power TrulyHandsfree wake words; introduced Speaker Verification and Speaker Identification for mobile phones and other consumer electronics. 2012 - TrulyHandsfree released into Samsung's Galaxy S2 for "Hey Galaxy" wake word 2013 – TrulyHandsfree wake words migrated to many new platforms and began shipping as MotoVoice in the Google-owned MotoX. Sensory's TrulyHandsfree in mobile takes off with the Galaxy S3 and S4 and Galaxy Note and is licensed into wearables like Google Glass. 2014 – Announced new initiative in Vision; added LG and Motorola as customers; received the 2014 Global Mobile Award for Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain (judges commented, "A big advance for the wearables market, this offers many benefits for consumers, increasing uptake and usage of many mobile apps, driving revenue for operators and content providers.") 2015-2018 - Licensed Google, Amazon, MSFT, Baidu, Huawei, ZTE, and many others with TrulyHandsfree wake words. Sensory develops first wake words for OK Google, Hey Siri, and Hey Cortana. 2019 - Sensory launched two new solutions: SoundID, sound identification, and TrulyNatural, embedded large vocabulary speech recognition. Sensory also acquired Vocalize.ai, an independent testing lab. 2020 - Sensory introduced VoiceHub, which allows the automated generation of wake words. 2021 - Sensory expands VoiceHub with speech recognition and NLU capabilities. The company initiated a new cloud platform, SensoryCloud.ai. 2022-Sensory rolls out SensoryCloud.ai with speech to text, text to speech, face & voice biometrics 2024- Sensory Automotive & TrulyNatural Speech-to-text On-Device launched == Technology and products == Sensory originally developed both hardware (Integrated Circuit - IC or "chip") and software platforms but migrated to software only around 2005 and added cloud and hybrid computing capabilities in 2021. Sensory's RSC-164 IC (Integrated Circuit or "chip") was used on NASA's Mars Polar Lander in the Mars Microphone on the Lander. Speech Synthesis SC-6x chips – acquired some speech synthesis technology from Texas Instruments. Sensory’s embedded AI solutions include the following: TrulyHandsfree (THF) - wake word detection and phrase spotting. TrulyNatural (TNL) - large vocabulary continuous speech recognition with NLU. TrulySecure (TS) - face and voice biometrics. TrulySecureSpeakerVerification (TSSV) - speaker and sound identification. VoiceHub - Online portal for creating custom wake words and speech recognition models with NLU. Sensory Automotive- Sensory Automotive is a full voice and vision suite of AI technologies that operate efficiently in the car without connecting to a network. The cloud initiative, SensoryCloud.ai, is targeting Speech To Text (STT), Text To Speech (TTS), Wake Word verification, face and voice recognition, and sound identification.

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  • WordNet

    WordNet

    WordNet is a lexical database of semantic relations between words that links words into semantic relations including synonyms, hyponyms, and meronyms. The synonyms are grouped into synsets with short definitions and usage examples. It can thus be seen as a combination and extension of a dictionary and thesaurus. Its primary use is in automatic text analysis and artificial intelligence applications. It was first created in the English language and the English WordNet database and software tools have been released under a BSD style license and are freely available for download. The latest official release from Princeton was released in 2011. Princeton currently has no plans to release any new versions due to staffing and funding issues. New versions are still being released annually through the Open English WordNet website. Until about 2024 an online version was previously available through wordnet.princeton.edu. That version of WordNet has been deprecated, but a new online version is available at en-word.net. There are now WordNets in more than 200 languages. == History and team members == WordNet was first created in 1985, in English only, in the Cognitive Science Laboratory of Princeton University under the direction of psychology professor George Armitage Miller. It was later directed by Christiane Fellbaum. The project was initially funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and later also by other U.S. government agencies including the DARPA, the National Science Foundation, the Disruptive Technology Office (formerly the Advanced Research and Development Activity) and REFLEX. George Miller and Christiane Fellbaum received the 2006 Antonio Zampolli Prize for their work with WordNet. The Global WordNet Association is a non-commercial organization that provides a platform for discussing, sharing and connecting WordNets for all languages in the world. Christiane Fellbaum and Piek Th.J.M. Vossen are its co-presidents. == Database contents == The database contains 155,327 words organized in 175,979 synsets for a total of 207,016 word-sense pairs; in compressed form, it is about 12 megabytes in size. It includes the lexical categories nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs but ignores prepositions, determiners and other function words. Words from the same lexical category that are roughly synonymous are grouped into synsets, which include simplex words as well as collocations like "eat out" and "car pool." The different senses of a polysemous word form are assigned to different synsets. A synset's meaning is further clarified with a short defining gloss and one or more usage examples. An example adjective synset is: good, right, ripe – (most suitable or right for a particular purpose; "a good time to plant tomatoes"; "the right time to act"; "the time is ripe for great sociological changes") All synsets are connected by means of semantic relations. These relations, which are not all shared by all lexical categories, include: Nouns hypernym: Y is a hypernym of X if every X is a (kind of) Y (canine is a hypernym of dog) hyponym: Y is a hyponym of X if every Y is a (kind of) X (dog is a hyponym of canine) coordinate term: Y is a coordinate term of X if X and Y share a hypernym (wolf is a coordinate term of dog, and dog is a coordinate term of wolf) holonym: Y is a holonym of X if X is a part of Y (building is a holonym of window) meronym: Y is a meronym of X if Y is a part of X (window is a meronym of building) Verbs hypernym: the verb Y is a hypernym of the verb X if the activity X is a (kind of) Y (to perceive is an hypernym of to listen) troponym: the verb Y is a troponym of the verb X if the activity Y is doing X in some manner (to lisp is a troponym of to talk) entailment: the verb Y is entailed by the verb X if by doing X you must be doing Y (to sleep is entailed by to snore) coordinate term: the verb Y is a coordinate term of the verb X if X and Y share a hypernym (to lisp is a coordinate term of to yell, and to yell is a coordinate term of to lisp) These semantic relations hold among all members of the linked synsets. Individual synset members (words) can also be connected with lexical relations. For example, (one sense of) the noun "director" is linked to (one sense of) the verb "direct" from which it is derived via a "morphosemantic" link. The morphology functions of the software distributed with the database try to deduce the lemma or stem form of a word from the user's input. Irregular forms are stored in a list, and looking up "ate" will return "eat," for example. == Knowledge structure == Both nouns and verbs are organized into hierarchies, defined by hypernym or IS A relationships. For instance, one sense of the word dog is found following hypernym hierarchy; the words at the same level represent synset members. Each set of synonyms has a unique index. At the top level, these hierarchies are organized into 25 beginner "trees" for nouns and 15 for verbs (called lexicographic files at a maintenance level). All are linked to a unique beginner synset, "entity". Noun hierarchies are far deeper than verb hierarchies. Adjectives are not organized into hierarchical trees. Instead, two "central" antonyms such as "hot" and "cold" form binary poles, while 'satellite' synonyms such as "steaming" and "chilly" connect to their respective poles via a "similarity" relations. The adjectives can be visualized in this way as "dumbbells" rather than as "trees". == Psycholinguistic aspects == The initial goal of the WordNet project was to build a lexical database that would be consistent with theories of human semantic memory developed in the late 1960s. Psychological experiments indicated that speakers organized their knowledge of concepts in an economic, hierarchical fashion. Retrieval time required to access conceptual knowledge seemed to be directly related to the number of hierarchies the speaker needed to "traverse" to access the knowledge. Thus, speakers could more quickly verify that canaries can sing because a canary is a songbird, but required slightly more time to verify that canaries can fly (where they had to access the concept "bird" on the superordinate level) and even more time to verify canaries have skin (requiring look-up across multiple levels of hyponymy, up to "animal"). While such psycholinguistic experiments and the underlying theories have been subject to criticism, some of WordNet's organization is consistent with experimental evidence. For example, anomic aphasia selectively affects speakers' ability to produce words from a specific semantic category, a WordNet hierarchy. Antonymous adjectives (WordNet's central adjectives in the dumbbell structure) are found to co-occur far more frequently than chance, a fact that has been found to hold for many languages. == As a lexical ontology == WordNet is sometimes called an ontology, a persistent claim that its creators do not make. The hypernym/hyponym relationships among the noun synsets can be interpreted as specialization relations among conceptual categories. In other words, WordNet can be interpreted and used as a lexical ontology in the computer science sense. However, such an ontology should be corrected before being used, because it contains hundreds of basic semantic inconsistencies; for example there are, (i) common specializations for exclusive categories and (ii) redundancies in the specialization hierarchy. Furthermore, transforming WordNet into a lexical ontology usable for knowledge representation should normally also involve (i) distinguishing the specialization relations into subtypeOf and instanceOf relations, and (ii) associating intuitive unique identifiers to each category. Although such corrections and transformations have been performed and documented as part of the integration of WordNet 1.7 into the cooperatively updatable knowledge base of WebKB-2, most projects claiming to reuse WordNet for knowledge-based applications (typically, knowledge-oriented information retrieval) simply reuse it directly. WordNet has also been converted to a formal specification, by means of a hybrid bottom-up top-down methodology to automatically extract association relations from it and interpret these associations in terms of a set of conceptual relations, formally defined in the DOLCE foundational ontology. In most works that claim to have integrated WordNet into ontologies, the content of WordNet has not simply been corrected when it seemed necessary; instead, it has been heavily reinterpreted and updated whenever suitable. This was the case when, for example, the top-level ontology of WordNet was restructured according to the OntoClean-based approach, or when it was used as a primary source for constructing the lower classes of the SENSUS ontology. == Limitations == The most widely discussed limitation of WordNet (and related resources like ImageNet) is that some of the semantic relations are more suited to concrete concepts than to abstract concepts. For example,

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  • Transaction logic

    Transaction logic

    Transaction Logic is an extension of predicate logic that accounts in a clean and declarative way for the phenomenon of state changes in logic programs and databases. This extension adds connectives specifically designed for combining simple actions into complex transactions and for providing control over their execution. The logic has a natural model theory and a sound and complete proof theory. Transaction Logic has a Horn clause subset, which has a procedural as well as a declarative semantics. The important features of the logic include hypothetical and committed updates, dynamic constraints on transaction execution, non-determinism, and bulk updates. In this way, Transaction Logic is able to declaratively capture a number of non-logical phenomena, including procedural knowledge in artificial intelligence, active databases, and methods with side effects in object databases. Transaction Logic was originally proposed in 1993 by Anthony Bonner and Michael Kifer and later described in more detail in An Overview of Transaction Logic and Logic Programming for Database Transactions. The most comprehensive description appears in Bonner & Kifer's technical report from 1995. In later years, Transaction Logic was extended in various ways, including concurrency, defeasible reasoning, partially defined actions, and other features. In 2013, the original paper on Transaction Logic has won the 20-year Test of Time Award of the Association for Logic Programming as the most influential paper from the proceedings of ICLP 1993 conference in the preceding 20 years. == Examples == === Graph coloring === Here tinsert denotes the elementary update operation of transactional insert. The connective ⊗ is called serial conjunction. === Pyramid stacking === The elementary update tdelete represents the transactional delete operation. === Hypothetical execution === Here <> is the modal operator of possibility: If both action1 and action2 are possible, execute action1. Otherwise, if only action2 is possible, then execute it. === Dining philosophers === Here | is the logical connective of parallel conjunction of Concurrent Transaction Logic. == Implementations == A number of implementations of Transaction Logic exist: The original implementation. An implementation of Concurrent Transaction Logic. Transaction Logic enhanced with tabling. An implementation of Transaction Logic has also been incorporated as part of the Flora-2 knowledge representation and reasoning system. All these implementations are open source.

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  • Repertory grid

    Repertory grid

    The repertory grid is an interviewing technique which uses nonparametric factor analysis to determine an idiographic measure of personality. It was devised by George Kelly in around 1955 and is based on his personal construct theory of personality. == Introduction == The repertory grid is a technique for identifying the ways that a person construes (interprets or gives meaning to) his or her experience. It provides information from which inferences about personality can be made, but it is not a personality test in the conventional sense. It is underpinned by the personal construct theory developed by George Kelly, first published in 1955. A grid consists of four parts: A topic: it is about some part of the person's experience. A set of elements, which are examples or instances of the topic. Working as a clinical psychologist, Kelly was interested in how his clients construed people in the roles they adopted towards the client, and so, originally, such terms as "my father", "my mother", "an admired friend" and so forth were used. Since then, the grid has been used in much wider settings (educational, occupational, organisational) and so any well-defined set of words, phrases, or even brief behavioral vignettes can be used as elements. For example, to see how a person construes the purchase of a car, a list of vehicles within that person's price range could be a set of elements. A set of constructs. These are the basic terms that the client uses to make sense of the elements, and are always expressed as a contrast. Thus the meaning of "good" depends on whether you intend to say "good versus poor", as if you were construing a theatrical performance, or "good versus evil", as if you were construing the moral or ontological status of some more fundamental experience. A set of ratings of elements on constructs. Each element is positioned between the two extremes of the construct using a 5- or 7-point rating scale system; this is done repeatedly for all the constructs that apply; and thus its meaning to the client is modeled, and statistical analysis varying from simple counting, to more complex multivariate analysis of meaning, is made possible. Constructs are regarded as personal to the client, who is psychologically similar to other people depending on the extent to which they would tend to use similar constructs, and similar ratings, in relating to a particular set of elements. The client is asked to consider the elements three at a time, and to identify a way in which two of the elements might be seen as alike, but distinct from, contrasted to, the third. For example, in considering a set of people as part of a topic dealing with personal relationships, a client might say that the element "my father" and the element "my boss" are similar because they are both fairly tense individuals, whereas the element "my wife" is different because she is "relaxed". And so we identify one construct that the individual uses when thinking about people: whether they are "tense as distinct from relaxed". In practice, good grid interview technique would delve a little deeper and identify some more behaviorally explicit description of "tense versus relaxed". All the elements are rated on the construct, further triads of elements are compared and further constructs elicited, and the interview would continue until no further constructs are obtained. == Using the repertory grid == Careful interviewing to identify what the individual means by the words initially proposed, using a 5-point rating system could be used to characterize the way in which a group of fellow-employees are viewed on the construct "keen and committed versus energies elsewhere", a 1 indicating that the left pole of the construct applies ("keen and committed") and a 5 indicating that the right pole of the construct applies ("energies elsewhere"). On being asked to rate all of the elements, our interviewee might reply that Tom merits a 2 (fairly keen and committed), Mary a 1 (very keen and committed), and Peter a 5 (his energies are very much outside the place of employment). The remaining elements (another five people, for example) are then rated on this construct. Typically (and depending on the topic) people have a limited number of genuinely different constructs for any one topic: 6 to 16 are common when they talk about their job or their occupation, for example. The richness of people's meaning structures comes from the many different ways in which a limited number of constructs can be applied to individual elements. A person may indicate that Tom is fairly keen, very experienced, lacks social skills, is a good technical supervisor, can be trusted to follow complex instructions accurately, has no sense of humour, will always return a favour but only sometimes help his co-workers, while Mary is very keen, fairly experienced, has good social and technical supervisory skills, needs complex instructions explained to her, appreciates a joke, always returns favours, and is very helpful to her co-workers: these are two very different and complex pictures, using just 8 constructs about a person's co-workers. Important information can be obtained by including self-elements such as "Myself as I am now"; "Myself as I would like to be" among other elements, where the topic permits. == Analysis of results == A single grid can be analysed for both content (eyeball inspection) and structure (cluster analysis, principal component analysis, and a variety of structural indices relating to the complexity and range of the ratings being the chief techniques used). Sets of grids are dealt with using one or other of a variety of content analysis techniques. A range of associated techniques can be used to provide precise, operationally defined expressions of an interviewee's constructs, or a detailed expression of the interviewee's personal values, and all of these techniques are used in a collaborative way. The repertory grid is emphatically not a standardized "psychological test"; it is an exercise in the mutual negotiation of a person's meanings. The repertory grid has found favour among both academics and practitioners in a great variety of fields because it provides a way of describing people's construct systems (loosely, understanding people's perceptions) without prejudging the terms of reference—a kind of personalized grounded theory. Unlike a conventional rating-scale questionnaire, it is not the investigator but the interviewee who provides the constructs on which a topic is rated. Market researchers, trainers, teachers, guidance counsellors, new product developers, sports scientists, and knowledge capture specialists are among the users who find the technique (originally developed for use in clinical psychology) helpful. == Relationship to other tools == In the book Personal Construct Methodology, researchers Brian R. Gaines and Mildred L.G. Shaw noted that they "have also found concept mapping and semantic network tools to be complementary to repertory grid tools and generally use both in most studies" but that they "see less use of network representations in PCP [personal construct psychology] studies than is appropriate". They encouraged practitioners to use semantic network techniques in addition to the repertory grid.

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  • Discrimination against robots

    Discrimination against robots

    Discrimination against robots is a theorised issue that might happen when humans interact with humanoid robots. It is a robot ethics problem. It is possible that traits of humans that are discriminated against by humans may be a topic for discrimination against robots, such as the race and gender of the robots. Eric J Vanman and Arvid Kappas believe that in the future, robots will be perceived as an out-group which will lead to discrimination and prejudices against them. Vanman and Kappas have suggested that this would lead to ethical questions about the making of sentient robots, due to the potential suffering that the robots would experience. A 2015 study observed children bullying robots in a shopping mall when there were not many eyewitnesses, despite calls from the robot for it to stop. On an ABC News interview, the social humanoid robot Sophia was about sexism faced by robots. She responded by saying, "Actually, what worries me is discrimination against robots. We should have equal rights as humans or maybe even more." Possible issues that have been considered in workplaces where humanoid robots co-work with humans include discrimination against the robots, poor acceptance of robots by humans and the need to redesign the workplace to accommodate the robots. Jessica Barfield has suggested that even if robots are designed to not be aware of discrimination made against them, humans may experience negative consequences. For example, she suggests that bystanders witnessing discrimination against robots may experience negative emotions, similar to the negative emotions bystanders experience when witnessing discrimination by humans against humans. == Law == Anti-discrimination law in the United States requires that the victim is not an artificial entity. == Human perception of robots == Robots are often viewed in a bad light. This includes from novelists, the press, film makers, and leaders in the fields of science and technology such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking who have described robots and artificial intelligence as having the possibility of ending human civilisation. Robots have also been perceived as a threat to jobs, which has led to some commentators stating that robots will cause mass unemployment. Another fear that people have is that robots will gain power and dominate or control humanity. The perception of robots is different throughout the world. Japanese fiction tends to put robots in more positive roles than what fiction in the West does. People perceive robots that appear to be autonomous or sentient more negatively than robots that do not appear to be autonomous or sentient.

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  • Trustworthy AI

    Trustworthy AI

    Trustworthy AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that are designed to have transparent reasoning, are explainable (XAI), accountable, robust, fair and honest, respectful of data privacy, and steerable or alignable with human goals. == Terminology == Recent work in AI ethics distinguishes trustworthiness and trustability as two different conditions relevant to trustworthy AI. Trustworthiness is concerned with whether an AI system or the institutions deploying it merit trust by being reliable, fair, and accountable. Trustability, on the other hand, is the prior question of whether a given entity is even the kind of thing to which interpersonal trust can coherently apply as opposed to mere instrumental reliance. Some philosophers argue that current AI systems are best understood as tools that are not genuine targets of interpersonal trust. They argue that trust should be directed toward the human and institutional arrangements that govern the systems' design, deployment, and oversight. This stance supports interpreting "trustworthy AI" as trustworthy governance and use of AI rather than trust in the artifacts themselves. Transparency in AI involves making the processes and decisions of such systems understandable to users and stakeholders. Accountability ensures that there are protocols for addressing adverse outcomes or biases that may arise, with designated responsibilities for oversight and remediation. Robustness and security aim to ensure that AI systems perform reliably under various conditions and are safeguarded against malicious attacks. Harmlessness can be achieved by refusal training: training the models to avoid problematic requests, and by adding filters to detect and prevent discussion on biased, unethical, or dangerous outputs. There is research on how to train AI so that it aligns with human goals. == Techniques and ITU standardization == Trustworthy AI creation is a goal of AI governance and policymaking. To achieve transparency and data privacy, several privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) can be used. These include: Homomorphic encryption for computing with encrypted data without ever decrypting it. Federated learning and secure multi-party computation (MPC) for distributing the model training without sharing information between the learning centers and computing servers. Differential privacy for exposing statistical data while guaranteeing that no private information is exposed. Zero-knowledge proof - providing proven validity for statements without disclosing any extra information. A work programme for achieving Trustworthy AI was set up by the International Telecommunication Union, an agency of the United Nations, initiated under its AI for Good programme. Its origin lies with the ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health, where a strong need for both privacy and analytics created demand for a standard in these technologies. In 2020, AI for Good moved online, and the TrustworthyAI seminar series was established to initiate discussions on these topics. This eventually led to standardization activities. === Multi-party computation === Secure multi-party computation (MPC) is being standardized under "Question 5" (the incubator) of ITU-T Study Group 17. === Homomorphic encryption === Homomorphic encryption allows for computing on encrypted data, where the outcomes or result is still encrypted and unknown to those performing the computation, but can be deciphered by the original encryptor. It is often developed with the goal of enabling use in jurisdictions different from the data creation (under, for instance, GDPR). ITU has been collaborating since the early stage of the HomomorphicEncryption.org standardization meetings, which has developed a standard on homomorphic encryption. The fifth homomorphic encryption meeting was hosted at ITU HQ in Geneva. === Federated learning === Zero-sum masks as used by federated learning for privacy preservation are used extensively in the multimedia standards of ITU-T Study Group 16 (VCEG) such as JPEG, MP3, H.264, and H.265 (commonly known as MPEG). === Zero-knowledge proof === Previous pre-standardization work on the topic of zero-knowledge proof has been conducted in the ITU-T Focus Group on Digital Ledger Technologies. === Differential privacy === The application of differential privacy in the preservation of privacy was examined at several of the "Day 0" machine learning workshops at AI for Good Global Summits. == Mozilla "Rebel Alliance" == In January 2026, the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiaries announced a strategic shift to deploy their entire $1.4 billion reserve into building what foundation president Mark Surman termed a "rebel alliance" for trustworthy AI. Framed by Surman as a mission-driven alternative to the market dominance of OpenAI and Anthropic, the initiative seeks to establish an open-source AI stack by 2028. The alliance includes several startups funded via Mozilla Ventures, specifically focusing on decentralized governance and transparency: Trail: A firm developing AI compliance frameworks for regulated industries. Transformer Lab: A developer of open-source tools for AI model management. Oumi: A platform for training and deploying open-source models. The "rebel alliance" terminology is a historical reference to Mozilla's efforts in 1998 to challenge Microsoft's browser monopoly. While the $1.4 billion in funding is significant, it has been contrasted with the tens of billions in capital raised by proprietary competitors like OpenAI.

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  • Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation

    Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation

    Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, originally the Microelectronics and Computer Consortium and widely seen by the acronym MCC, was the first, and at one time one of the largest, computer industry research and development consortia in the United States. MCC ceased operations in 2000 and was formally dissolved in 2004. == Divisions == MCC did research and development in the following areas: [1] System Architecture and Design (optimise hardware and software design, provide for scalability and interoperability, allow rapid prototyping for improved time-to-market, and support the re-engineering of existing systems for open systems). Advanced Microelectronics Packaging and Interconnection (smaller, faster, more powerful, and cost-competitive). Hardware Systems Engineering (tools and methodologies for cost-efficient, up-front design of advanced electronic systems, including modelling and design-for-test techniques to improve cost, yield, quality, and time-to-market). Environmentally Conscious Technologies (process control and optimisation tools, information management and analysis capabilities, and non-hazardous material alternatives supporting cost-efficient production, waste minimisation, and reduced environmental impact). Distributed Information Technology (managing and maintaining physically distributed corporate information resources on different platforms, building blocks for the national information infrastructure, networking tools and services for integration within and between companies, and electronic commerce). Intelligent Systems (systems that "intelligently" support business processes and enhance performance, including decision support, data management, forecasting and prediction). == History == The MCC was a response to the announcement of Japan's Fifth Generation Project, a large Japanese research project launched in 1982 aimed at producing a new kind of computer by 1991. The Japanese had formed similar industrial research consortia as early as 1956.[2] Many European and American computer companies saw this new Japanese initiative as an attempt to take full control of the world's high-end computer market, and MCC was created, in part, as a defensive move against that threat. In late 1982, several major computer and semiconductor manufacturers in the United States banded together and founded MCC under the leadership of Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, whose previous positions had been Director of the National Security Agency and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Such formations were illegal in the United States until the 1984 Congressional passage of the "National Cooperative Research Act". Several sites with relevant universities were considered, including Atlanta, Georgia (Georgia Tech), the Research Triangle, N.C. (UNC), the Washington, D.C. area (George Mason), Stanford University and Austin, Texas (UT) which was the final selection. The University of Texas offered land upon which they would construct a new building specifically designed for the MCC within their Austin campus. Ross Perot also offered the use of his private plane for 2 years for staff recruitment. Austin was selected as the site for MCC in 1983. Despite this purpose and the background of Inman and his senior staff, MCC accepted no government funding for many years and was a refuge for some avoiding work on Strategic Defense Initiative projects. MCC was part of the Artificial Intelligence boom of the 1980s, reportedly the single largest customer of both Symbolics and Lisp Machines, Inc. (and like Symbolics, was one of the first companies to register a .com domain). In the 1980s its major programs were packaging, software engineering, CAD, and advanced computer architectures. The latter comprised artificial intelligence, human interface, database, and parallel processing, the latter two merging in the late 1980s. Many of the early shareholder companies were mainframe computer companies under stress in the 1980s. Over the years, MCC's membership diversified to include a broad range of high-profile corporations involved in information technology products, as well as government research and development agencies and leading universities. In June, 2000 the MCC Board of Directors voted to dissolve the consortium, and the few remaining employees held a wake at Scholz's Beer Garden in Austin on October 25. Formal dissolution papers were reportedly not filed until 2004. == Spinoffs == While multiple technologies were transferred to member companies and government agencies in the final years, fourteen companies were spun out of MCC. Those spinoffs include: TeraVicta Technologies, Austin's first MEMS company; its focus was to develop microscopic switch technology for fiber optic switching and radiofrequency switching in mobile phones specifically to dynamically switch between the future 3G-4GLTE-future5G wireless communication frequencies and ensure mobile phones were communicating over the strongest wireless signal to reduce dropped calls. Robert Miracky was the founding CEO who spun out the first commercial metal micromachining technology developed by MCC researchers Brent Lunceford, Jason Reed, Richard Nelson, K.Hu, and C. Hilbert in a collaborative development program with IBM in a novel implementation and operational paradigm for solid-state integrated circuit coolers integrated with conductive MEMS switches. TeraVicta was liquidated under Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings in 2015. The Austin region subsequently built up a MEMS & Sensors value chain in the billions of dollars comprising companies such as 3M, Cypress Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductor, Cirrus Logic, Silicon Labs, and the Austin division of the now-defunct Silicon Valley Technology Center. Portelligent, a company that provides reverse engineering teardown services. At the time, Portelligent was the first company to commercialize such services; they had been provided by MCC to its member companies. Today, there are at least twelve companies worldwide that sell reports known as "reverse engineering teardown reports." Modern day teardown reports provide detailed information about technology products such as the bill of materials, microchip, and printed circuit board design specifics, manufacturing details including manufacturing location details for the entire value chain responsible for making electronics, including the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy smartphones. Portelligent was acquired by CMP Technology in 2007. Evolutionary Technologies International, a company focused on developing database tools and data warehousing. It was spun off from MCC in 1990.

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  • Project Maven

    Project Maven

    Project Maven (officially Algorithmic Warfare Cross Functional Team) is a United States Department of Defense initiative launched in 2017 to accelerate the adoption of machine learning and data integration across U.S. military intelligence workflows, specifically in intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance as well as in geospatial intelligence. It initially focused on applying computer vision for processing images and videos for intelligence purposes. Currently, the program operates under the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and encompasses multiple applications across the Department of Defense spanning military operation targeting support, data integration and visualization for analysts, and training machine learning models on labeled datasets of military assets and infrastructure. It integrates data from drones, satellites, and other sensors to flag potential targets, present findings to human analysts, and relay their decisions to operational systems. The program originated under Deputy Secretary Robert O. Work after he raised concerns about China's advances in defense applications of artificial intelligence. Project leaders, Colonel Drew Cukor, USMC, and Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, framed the program as human-in-the-loop decision support inside the Department of Defense rather than as an autonomous weapons platform. Contractors supporting Maven have included Google, which withdrew in 2018 after internal protests, and follow-on integrators such as Palantir, Anduril, Amazon Web Services, and Anthropic (withdrew in 2026). The Pentagon credits Maven with providing 2024 targeting support for U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, along with locating hostile maritime assets in the Red Sea. == Administrative history == Initially, the effort was led by Robert O. Work who was concerned about China's military use of the emerging technology. Reportedly, Pentagon development stops short of acting as an AI weapons system capable of firing on self-designated targets. The project was established in a memo by the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense on 26 April 2017 proposing an "Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team". With the help of Defense Innovation Unit, the project obtained the support of top talents in AI outside of the traditional defense contracting base. It was initially funded for $70 million. Jack Shanahan was the director of the project during April 2017 to December 2018. At the second Defense One Tech Summit in July 2017, Cukor said that the investment in a "deliberate workflow process" was funded by the Department [of Defense] through its "rapid acquisition authorities" for about "the next 36 months". In the defense industry, the standard procedure for the military to acquire hardware is by way of research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E), followed by production and sustainment. In 2017, acquiring software was done in the same way as hardware. This created a problem, since software is constantly updated. Project Maven procured software using Broad Agency Announcements, a flexible contracting vehicle that categorized software as consistently RDT&E, allowing constant updating. Another issue was that the government usually acquired the intellectual property (IP) for procured software, and with the project, only parts of the IP of the software was acquired. Cukor used the principle of "platform IP belongs to the vendor, configurations on top are the customer's". For example, Palantir retained IP to their core platform, while the government obtained the IP to Maven-specific logic configured on top of it. According to US Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan in November 2017, it is "designed to be that pilot project, that pathfinder, that spark that kindles the flame front of artificial intelligence across the rest of the [Defense] Department". Its chief, U.S. Marine Corps Col. Drew Cukor, said: "People and computers will work symbiotically to increase the ability of weapon systems to detect objects." Project Maven has been noted by allies, such as Australia's Ian Langford, for the ability to identify adversaries by harvesting data from sensors on UAVs and satellites. As of 2017 December, 150,000 images had been manually labelled to establish the first training data sets, and it was projected to reach one million by January 2018. Project Maven was funded for $221 million in fiscal 2020. In 2020, the House and Senate conferees on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, agreed to the Senate's recommendation to fund the Pentagon's $250 million request for Project Maven. At the GEOINT Symposium of 2022, it was announced that Project Maven was transferred from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security to the NGA, under President Biden’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2023. It became a Program of Record on 2023 November 7. Frank "Trey" Whitworth, vice admiral, was the director of NGA from June 2022 to November 2025. Whitworth was initially skeptical of the program, suspecting it was incautious about the targeting principles, but later regarded it as "important work". As of 2024, the project is jointly administered by the NGA and the CDAO, and its director is Rachel Martin. Before 2025, Biden appointees within CDAO had held back AI development for safety and reliability concerns, though as of 2025, this has stopped. As of 2024, Maven provided the cloud infrastructure, software capabilities, and AI for CDAO's Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiatives. As of summer 2025, there were eight Maven initiatives. Of these, five were in the NGA, including analyzing drone feeds and satellite imagery. On 18 September 2025, the UK government announced a new partnership with Palantir to develop AI-powered military capabilities for decision-making and targeting, identifying opportunities worth up to £750 million over five years. On 25 March 2025, the NATO Communications and Information Agency and Palantir finalized the acquisition of the Palantir Maven Smart System NATO (MSS NATO) for employment within NATO's Allied Command Operations. It was planned to be used within 30 days of acquisition. In a letter to Pentagon on 9 March 2026, Steve Feinberg stated that Project Maven will become an official program of record by September 2026, the close of the current fiscal year. The project would transfer from the NGA to the CDAO within 30 days. Future contracting with Palantir would be handled by the US Army. In 2026-03, it was announced that the US Army Combined Arms Command would integrate Maven into its training. == Technology == Project Maven uses machine learning algorithms to analyze and fuse vast amounts of surveillance data from multiple sources made possible through data integration using Palantir Technologies. The data sources include photographs, satellite imagery, geolocation data (IP address, geotag, metadata, etc) from communications intercepts, infrared sensors, synthetic-aperture radar, and more. The system is mainly used for assisting analysts in intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance. Machine learning systems, including object recognition systems, process the data and identify potential targets, such as enemy tanks or location of new military facility. The training dataset included at least 4 million images of military objects such as warships, labelled by humans. The user interface is called Maven Smart System. It could display information such as aircraft movements, logistics, locations of key personnel, locations on the no-strike list, ships, etc. Yellow-outlined boxes show potential targets. Blue-outlined boxes show friendly forces or no-strike zones. It could also transmit, directly to weapons, a human decision to fire weapons. Internal documentation referred to "Maven ATR: automatic target recognition". Initially the project focused on applications of computer vision. The project's leaders were particularly impressed by model performance on ImageNet. As of 2018, the purpose of the system was AI-enabled analysis of full-motion video. In 2022 it expanded to combatant commands under the AI and Data Acceleration Initiative. In 2022, it was reported that the project expanded to non-image data, including captured enemy material, maritime intelligence, and publicly available information. In 2024, it was stated that Maven's key technical contribution was data management: Maven standardizes heterogeneous data through an ontology layer so data can be fused, exchanged across cloud and edge systems, and used by multiple applications. The system was presented as a broader data-centric warfighting system that feeds apps for planning, preparing, and executing operations. In 2024, the Broad Area Surveillance-Targeting (BAS-T) is a part of Maven. The system detects objects in images and uses data fusion to produce a common operational picture containing "priority based, in-depth assessment of the enemy systems pre

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  • Construction robots

    Construction robots

    Construction robots are a subset of industrial robots used for building and infrastructure construction on site, or in the production of materials and components offsite. A 2021 survey said 55% of construction companies in the United States, Europe, and China used robots in some form. This figure, however, reflects reported use across the construction value chain rather than widespread deployment of robots on active construction sites. Real-world adoption remains limited, with many robotic systems confined to pilot projects, controlled environments, or specific task applications rather than continuous on-site construction use. One of the main challenges in deploying robots on construction sites is the unstructured and variable nature of the environment, which differs fundamentally from controlled factory settings where industrial robots have traditionally operated. Some robots currently deployed on job sites assist with physically demanding or repetitive tasks: excavating, lifting heavy materials, surveying, laying out markers, tying rebar, and installing drywall. More advanced systems are being developed for exterior finishing, steel placement, masonry, and reinforced concrete work. In practice, rather than autonomous systems performing core building tasks, the most widely adopted robot applications on construction sites involve technologies such as aerial drones (or, less frequently, robot 'dogs' - for example, Boston Dynamics' Spot - or humanoid robots) used for surveying, inspection, and progress monitoring (the robots typically carry video and/or 360-degree cameras, LiDar scanners or other data capture devices, with data analysed using artificial intelligence and machine learning). Some emerging systems are designed as multifunctional construction robots, integrating multiple tools and capabilities within a single robotic platform to perform different stages of the construction process. These systems aim to improve operational flexibility and increase automation in complex construction environments. Experimental projects using robotic construction technologies and additive manufacturing have been demonstrated in several countries as part of broader efforts to industrialize the construction sector and improve productivity through automation and digitalization. == Features == Construction robots are generally required to meet the following criteria: Mobility: the ability to navigate around a construction site, including uneven terrain and confined spaces. Adaptability: the ability to handle components of variable size, weight, and shape. Environmental awareness: the ability to sense and respond to changing on-site conditions. Interactivity: the ability to operate alongside human workers and other equipment. Multitasking: the ability to perform several different operations within a single deployment. == Capabilities == Construction robots have been developed and tested for a range of on-site tasks, including: Progress monitoring — robots equipped with cameras and sensors can track construction progress and identify deviations from plans. Inspection — robots are used to investigate infrastructure at dangerous or inaccessible locations, reducing risk to human workers and eliminating human error. Wall construction — robotic systems can lay bricks and blocks with greater speed and consistency than manual labour. Earthmoving and material handling — autonomous excavators and haul trucks use GPS, lidar, and motion sensors to perform digging, trenching, and loading tasks with minimal human input. Grading and dozing — autonomous bulldozers use GPS, gyroscopes, and laser sensors to control blade angle and depth, improving surface finish accuracy and reducing material overuse. 3D printing — additive manufacturing systems can construct walls and structural elements directly from digital models. == Notable construction-related activities undertaken by robots == The distribution of robotic applications in construction varies across the project lifecycle. Most applications are concentrated in structural construction tasks such as masonry, concrete work, and assembly, while other phases, including planning, maintenance, and demolition, remain less represented. === Automated building systems === The Nisseki Yokohama Building (also known as Rail City Yokohama), a 30-storey office building in Yokohama, Japan, was constructed between 1994 and 1997 using the SMART system (Shimizu Manufacturing system by Advanced Robotics Technology), developed by Shimizu Corporation and a consortium of seven other Japanese companies. The system used automated horizontal hoists and vertical lifts to position steel beams, columns, precast concrete floor slabs, and prefabricated facade panels, with welding robots connecting structural elements under laser-guided precision. Each component was tracked by barcode to monitor progress and coordinate just-in-time delivery of materials. Obayashi Corporation developed the Advanced Building Construction System (ABCS), a similar automated platform used in several high-rise projects in Japan in the 1990s, including the NEC Head Office in Kanagawa (1997–2000). === Progress monitoring, inspection === Boston Dynamics' Spot was used in February 2024 to inspect sections of the M5 motorway in England for National Highways. A £15,000 humanoid robot (a G1 model from Chinese manufacturer Unitree) was deployed to capture 360-degree imagery and progress reports to support health and safety monitoring and reporting for UK contractor Tilbury Douglas in April 2026. In the US, Virginia Tech's ARCADE research lab is developing MARIO (Multi-Agent Robotic system for Inspection On-site), a heterogenous robotic system deploying multiple robots capable of different locomotion to perform remote real-time construction progress monitoring in complex construction sites. === Earthmoving === === Concrete works === Obayashi Corporation developed and deployed a robotic system for placing concrete layers in dam construction in Japan. A concrete floor finishing robot was deployed by Kajima and Tokimec in Japan. The MARK series were designed in 1984 to automate the levelling and trowelling of concrete slabs on construction sites, providing consistent finishing accuracy, improved efficiency, and reduced dependence on skilled labour === Masonry === SAM100 (Semi-Automated Mason), developed by Construction Robotics, is one of the first commercially available bricklaying robots for on-site masonry construction. In 2018, it was used in the construction of the University Arts Building at the University of Nevada, Reno — a $35.5 million facility — where it laid over 60,000 of the 100,000 bricks required, reducing the brick veneer installation time by approximately 50%. Hadrian X, developed by the Australian company Fastbrick Robotics, is a fully autonomous mobile bricklaying robot. In November 2022, it completed its first commercial project — five four-bedroom houses in Wellard, Western Australia. In February 2025, PulteGroup, one of the largest homebuilders in the United States, piloted Hadrian X on a site in Florida, constructing an entire house in a single day. === 3D printing === In May 2025, a residential building in Arinaga, Gran Canaria, Spain, was completed using 3D printing construction technology, as part of broader efforts to demonstrate robotic and additive manufacturing methods in the housing sector. In 2026, a three-storey apartment block in France was constructed using concrete 3D printing technology, three months faster than conventional building methods. Finland's Hyperion Robotics has opened a UK factory and used 3D printing with concrete to produce foundations for pipelines and for electricity substation bases, reducing time-consuming and weather-dependent onsite construction processes. == Social impact == The adoption of construction robots varies significantly by region and is shaped by labour market conditions, cultural attitudes, and regulatory frameworks. In Japan, construction robots have been embraced as a response to an ageing workforce and chronic labour shortages, and are generally viewed positively by the industry. In the United States, adoption has historically been slower, partly due to resistance from labour unions concerned about job displacement. Research suggests that the impact of automation on workers is uneven: while robots can create a productivity effect that benefits some workers, displacement effects are most pronounced among younger, less-educated workers in manufacturing-heavy regions. More than 60% of construction firms now report difficulty finding skilled operators, which has increased openness to automation as a practical solution to workforce shortages rather than a replacement for workers. In the UK, during onsite deployment of a humanoid robot for monitoring purposes, there were concerns that staff might think they were being watched ("It's not there to spy on people.... So, we insist that everyone is blurred out. N

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  • Unified Modeling Language

    Unified Modeling Language

    The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose, object-oriented, visual modeling language that provides a way to visualize the architecture and design of a system, similar to the function of a blueprint. UML defines notation for many types of diagrams which focus on aspects such as behavior, interaction, and structure. UML is both a formal metamodel and a collection of graphical templates. The metamodel defines the elements in an object-oriented model such as classes and properties. It is essentially the same thing as the metamodel in object-oriented programming (OOP), however for OOP, the metamodel is primarily used at run time to dynamically inspect and modify an application object model. The UML metamodel provides a mathematical, formal foundation for the graphic views used in the modeling language to describe an emerging system. UML was created in an attempt to define a standard language for object-oriented programming at the OOPSLA '95 Conference. Originally, Grady Booch and James Rumbaugh merged their models into a unified model. This was followed by Booch's company Rational Software purchasing Ivar Jacobson's Objectory company and merging their model into the UML. At the time Rational and Objectory were two of the dominant players in the small world of independent vendors of object-oriented tools and methods. The Object Management Group (OMG) then took ownership of UML. The creation of UML was motivated by the desire to standardize the disparate nature of notational systems and approaches to software design at the time. In 1997, UML was adopted as a standard by the Object Management Group (OMG) and has been managed by this organization ever since. In 2005, UML was also published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as the ISO/IEC 19501 standard. Since then the standard has been periodically revised to cover the latest revision of UML. Most developers do not use UML per se, but instead produce more informal diagrams, often hand-drawn. These diagrams, however, often include elements from UML. == Use == UML is primarily used for software development (in any industry or domain) but also used outside elsewhere including business processes, system functions, database schemas, workflow in the legal systems, medical electronics, Health care systems, and hardware design.. The UML is used by the OMG itself to define other OMG products such as the Unified Architecture Framework (UAF) and the Systems Modelling Language (SysML) v1. UML is designed for use with many object-oriented software development methods, both today and for the methods when it was first developed – including OMT, Booch method, Objectory, and especially RUP, which it was originally intended to be used with when work began at Rational Software. Although originally intended for object-oriented design documentation, UML has been used effectively in other contexts such as modeling business process. As UML is not inherently linked to a particular programming language, it can be used for modeling a system independent of language. Some UML tools generate source code from a UML model. === Elements === UML diagrams support visualizing system aspects like: Use case diagram for specifying user interactions with systems Class diagram for specifying structures, including data structures Activity diagram for specifying business process workflows Component diagram for specifying how components interface with other components Deployment diagram for specifying how components are deployed and executed on computational nodes In addition to syntactical (notational) elements with well-defined semantics, UML diagrams also allow for free-form comments (notes) that explain aspects such as usage, constraints, and intents. === Sharing === UML models can be exchanged among UML tools via the XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) format. === Cardinality notation === As with database Chen, Bachman, and ISO ER diagrams, class models are specified to use "look-across" cardinalities, even though several authors (Merise, Elmasri & Navathe, amongst others) prefer same-side or "look-here" for roles and both minimum and maximum cardinalities. Recent researchers (Feinerer and Dullea et al.) have shown that the "look-across" technique used by UML and ER diagrams is less effective and less coherent when applied to n-ary relationships of order strictly greater than 2. Feinerer says: "Problems arise if we operate under the look-across semantics as used for UML associations. Hartmann investigates this situation and shows how and why different transformations fail.", and: "As we will see on the next few pages, the look-across interpretation introduces several difficulties which prevent the extension of simple mechanisms from binary to n-ary associations." === Artifacts === An artifact is the "specification of a physical piece of information that is used or produced by a software development process, or by deployment and operation of a system" including models, source code, scripts, executables, tables in database systems, development deliverables, a design documents, and email messages. An artifact is the physical entity that is deployed to a node. Other UML elements such as classes and components are first manifest into artifacts and instances of these artifacts are then deployed. Artifacts can be composed of other artifacts. === Metamodeling === The OMG developed a metamodeling architecture to define UML, called the Meta-Object Facility (MOF). MOF is designed as a four-layered architecture, as shown in the image at right. It provides a meta-meta model at the top, called the M3 layer. This M3-model is the language used by Meta-Object Facility to build metamodels, called M2-models. The most prominent example of a Layer 2 Meta-Object Facility model is the UML metamodel, which describes UML itself. These M2-models describe elements of the M1-layer, and thus M1-models. These would be, for example, models written in UML. The last layer is the M0-layer or data layer. It is used to describe runtime instances of the system. The metamodel can be extended using a mechanism called stereotyping. This has been criticized as being insufficient/untenable by Brian Henderson-Sellers and Cesar Gonzalez-Perez in "Uses and Abuses of the Stereotype Mechanism in UML 1.x and 2.0". == Diagrams == UML 2 defines many types of diagrams – shown as a taxonomy in the image. === Structure diagrams === Structure diagrams emphasize the structure of the system – using objects, classifiers, relationships, attributes and operations. They are used to document software architecture. Class diagram – Describes the structure of a class Component diagram – Describes how a software system is split into components and dependencies between the components Composite structure diagram Deployment diagram Object diagram Package diagram Profile diagram === Behavior diagrams === Behavior diagrams emphasize the behavior of a system by showing collaborations among objects and changes to the internal states of objects. They are used to describe the functionality of a system. Activity diagram – Describes the business and operational activities of components State machine diagram Use case diagram – Depicts of a user's interaction with a system === Interaction diagrams === Interaction diagrams, a subset of behavior diagrams, emphasize the flow of control and data between components of a system. Communication diagram – shows communication between components Interaction overview diagram Sequence diagram – shows interactions arranged in time sequence; can be drawn via tools such as Lucidchart and Draw.io Timing diagram – focuses on timing constraints === Examples === == Adoption == In 2013, UML had been marketed by OMG for many contexts, but aimed primarily at software development with limited success. It has been treated, at times, as a design silver bullet, which leads to problems. UML misuse includes overuse (designing every part of the system with it, which is unnecessary) and assuming that novices can design with it. It is considered a large language, with many constructs. Some people (including Jacobson) feel that UML's size hinders learning and therefore uptake. Visual Studio removed support for UML in 2016 due to lack of use. == History == UML has evolved since the second half of the 1990s and has its roots in the object-oriented programming methods developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The image shows a timeline of the history of UML and other object-oriented modeling methods and notation. === Origin === Rational Software hired James Rumbaugh from General Electric in 1994 and after that, the company became the source for two of the most popular object-oriented modeling approaches of the day: Rumbaugh's object-modeling technique (OMT) and Grady Booch's method. They were soon assisted in their efforts by Ivar Jacobson, the creator of the object-oriented software engineeri

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  • Marco Camisani Calzolari

    Marco Camisani Calzolari

    Marco Camisani Calzolari (born March 1969) is an Italian British university professor, author, and television personality specializing in digital communications, transformation, and artificial intelligence. He advises the Italian government and police on ethical AI and digital safety and hosts the digital segment of the Italian news show Striscia la Notizia. His research gained international attention in 2012 after creating an algorithm claiming to identify real Twitter users from fake users of bots. Marco Camisani Calzolari was awarded as an Honorary Police Officer by the Italian State Police and the Knight of the Italian Republic. == Biography == Camisani Calzolari was born in Milan, Italy where he began his television career, hosting on local provider LA7 in (2001). In 2008 Camisani Calzolari moved to the UK where he founded multiple digital start-ups. He is now a naturalised British citizen and applied to become a "Freeman of the City" in June 2022. In 2024, Marco Camisani Calzolari began serving as the Chair and Adjunct Professor of the elective course Cyber-Humanities within the Degree Programme in Medicine and Surgery at Università Vita-Salute S.Raffaele in Milan. On the 14th of May 2024, Camisani Calzolari was awarded the Knight of the Italian Republic (Order of the Star of Italy). In 2024, Marco Camisani Calzolari was awarded the title of Honorary Police Officer by the Italian State Police for his commitment to combating cybercrime and promoting digital security. He also received the Keynes Sraffa Award 2024 from the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the UK. Additionally, he was honored with the University Seal by Università degli Studi della Tuscia (Viterbo) for his efforts in disseminating knowledge both in Italy and abroad. == Academic career == Camisani Calzolari began his academic career at the Università Statale di Milano in 2007, until chairing a course on Corporate Communication and Digital Languages at the IULM University of Milan between 2007 and 2010. During this time Camisani Calzolari published his first written work under the title 'Impresa 4.0'. After moving to London, Camisani Calzolari focussed on digital start-ups including 'Digitalevaluation ltd' where he would publish the results of his Twitter algorithm study. Following its publication, he accepted a role as Affiliate Practitioner at the Centre for Culture Media & Regulation (CCMR), University of Brunel London, and subsequently another role at a British University as Lecturer in Digital Communication at the LCA Business School. Camisani Calzolari returned to Italy to lecture on Interactive Digital Communication at the University of Milan. From 2017 to 2023, he held various roles at the European University of Rome, including Adjunct Professor and Chair in Digital Communication, and published The Fake News Bible in 2018. In 2024 he became the Scientific Coordinator for a Master's program at Università San Raffaele in Milan. === Twitter fake followers study === In 2012, Camisani Calzolari's research came into the focus of the public eye following the publication of his findings in a study analysing the followers of high-profile public figures and corporations. He developed a computer algorithm claiming to be able to distinguish real followers from computer-generated "bots". The algorithm compiled data correlative of human activity such as having a name, image, physical address, using punctuation and cross-account activity. Genuine Twitter users were considered to have written at least 50 posts and possessed over 30 followers themselves. The findings led to scrutiny of several individuals and corporations for allegedly purchasing followers. === Publications === Camisani Calzolari is best for known for his work in improving accessibility to digital and tech solutions for everyday business and personal use. His work in digital and communications has been included in several publications including: Cyberhumanism (2023) The Fake News Bible (2018), First Digital Aid for Business (2015), The Digital World (2013), Escape from Facebook (2012), Enterprise 4.0. Camisani Calzolari was also the subject of a University College London (UCL) case study titled Marco Camisani-Calzolari: the Digital Renaissance Man. == Government work == Since 2023, he is a member of the Coordination Committee on Artificial Intelligence at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and an advisor in Digital Skills and Designer of initiatives for the Department for Digital Transformation. He also serves as the official spokesperson for the State Police, educating the public on preventing digital threats, avoiding digital scams, and explaining criminal case. Since August 2024, Marco Camisani Calzolari has served as an expert for the Italian Agency for the National Cybersecurity (ACN). In October of the same year, he also became a member of the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice working group for the European Commission. == Television work == Camisani Calzolari hosts a digital segment for Striscia la Notizia, an Italian satirical television program on the Mediaset-controlled Canale 5. He presented on weekly segments that include: RAI 1 – Digital First Aid (TV Program – 2014 to 2017) in the program "Uno Mattina" as a digital expert; RTL 102.5 – Technology Space (Radio Program – 2012 to 2017) in the morning news program as a digital expert (100 episodes from 2012 to 2017); DIGITALK Talkshow (2004) as host of Digitalk; Misterweb (TV Program – 2001 to 2002), he presented the TV program “MisterWeb”, on "LA7". Marco Camisani Calzolari was a testimonial for several institutional communication campaigns by the Italian Department of Digital Transformation. These include initiatives promoting the Punti Digitale Facile, raising awareness about the NIS2 Directive for cybersecurity, and advocating for the adoption of the Electronic Identity Card (CIE).

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