AI Art Museum Los Angeles

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

  • GoodRx

    GoodRx

    GoodRx Holdings, Inc. is an American healthcare company that operates a telemedicine platform and free-to-use website and mobile app that track prescription drug prices in the United States and provide drug coupons for discounts on medications. GoodRx compares prescription drug prices at more than 75,000 pharmacies in the United States. The platform allows users to consult a doctor online and obtain a prescription for certain types of medications. == History == === Financial performance === GoodRx was founded in Santa Monica, California in 2011. GoodRx experienced substantial growth in net income in 2017 ($9 million), 2018 ($44 million), and 2019 ($66 million), but recorded a loss of $293.6 million in 2020 due to IPO-related expenses. In September 2020, GoodRx went public on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol GDRX. The company priced its initial public offering at $33 per share, above the expected range of $24 to $28, raising more than $1.1 billion at an initial valuation of approximately $12.7 billion. In the first half of 2020, the company reported revenues of $257 million and net income of $55 million. GoodRx generated $745.4 million in revenue for the full year 2021, a 35.36% increase over 2020. During the first half of 2021, the company’s share price declined by 10.7%. The decline was attributed to increased competition in online pharmacy services and slower user growth. GoodRx reported full-year revenue of $766.6 million, with adjusted EBITDA reaching $213.5 million, exceeding guidance in the fourth quarter. GoodRx reported that 41% of prescriptions filled using its coupons were newly adherent, meaning they would not have been filled without the service. GoodRx reported a full-year 2023 revenue of $750.3 million, a decrease of 2.1% from 2022. However, its fourth-quarter revenue increased by 7% year-over-year. GoodRx achieved an Adjusted EBITDA of $217.4 million for the year and an Adjusted EBITDA Margin of 28.6%. In 2024, GoodRx achieved 6% revenue growth with $792.3 million for the full year and turned a net loss into a positive net income of $16.4 million. The company also demonstrated strong operational efficiency, with a 32.8% increase in full-year Adjusted EBITDA. In Q2 2025, GoodRx reported revenue of $203.1 million, a 1.2% increase from the previous year, and a net income of $12.8 million, a significant 92% jump, which resulted in a 6.3% net income margin. However, prescription transaction revenue declined by 3% due to a decrease in monthly active consumers, but this was offset by strong 32% growth in its Pharma Manufacturer Solutions business. GoodRx also saw a 7% decrease in subscription revenue. === Mergers and acquisitions === In 2019, GoodRx acquired HeyDoctor, a telemedicine company, to integrate virtual healthcare services into the platform. In 2021, a health video content producer, HealthiNation was acquired by GoodRx, which helped provide consumers with health information and offered pharmaceutical manufacturers new ways to reach relevant audiences. In April 2022, GoodRx acquired VitaCare Prescription Services from TherapeuticsMD to strengthen its pharma manufacturer solutions business. === Partnerships === In 2017, the company announced partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies to negotiate lower prescription drug costs. GoodRx has deep relationships with major pharmacy chains, including Walgreens, Walmart, CVS Caremark, and Publix, to allow customers to use GoodRx discounts and Gold benefits. GoodRx began its partnership with CVS Caremark in July 2023 to automatically apply coupons to insured CVS customers purchasing generic prescriptions at certain locations. In April 2024, GoodRx added Publix into its network, allowing GoodRx Gold members to use their cards at Publix Pharmacies. GoodRx partners with Pharmacy Benefit Management like Caremark, Express Scripts, and MedImpact to apply their savings directly to eligible insurance plans and members. GoodRx partners with companies like Affirm, Benefitfocus, and DoorDash to integrate their services that offer members discounts and financial flexibility for prescriptions. GoodRx also partners with organizations like the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation to support broader access to care. In October 2022, GoodRx launched Provider Mode, which allows healthcare providers to use the app to compare costs of drugs for patients based on different payment methods and drug alternatives. In 2025, GoodRx partnered with Novo Nordisk to offer discounted cash-pay access to semaglutide products like Ozempic and Wegovy through its platform and participating pharmacies. == Products and services == GoodRx started its telemedicine service GoodRx Care in September 2019. It lets people talk to a licensed provider online for common issues and get prescriptions even if they don't have insurance. They also run condition-specific subscription plans that bundle online doctor visits, FDA-approved meds, and home delivery into one monthly payment. On the weight management side, GoodRx offers prescriptions for GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide through their telemedicine platform. This got a boost when the oral version of Wegovy became widely available in the US in early 2026. GoodRx works with drug makers like Novo Nordisk to make some medications (including semaglutide options) more affordable for people paying cash. The telemedicine part took off after GoodRx bought HeyDoctor in 2019 and brought their virtual care tools into the main platform. == Key people == The Santa Monica-based startup was founded in September 2011 by Trevor Bezdek and former Facebook executives Doug Hirsch and Scott Marlette. Marlette was one of the first 20 employees at Facebook and built Facebook's photo application. In 2005, Hirsch was the Vice President of Product at Facebook, working closely with Mark Zuckerberg. Bezdek and Hirsch served as co-chief executive officers until April 2023, when they stepped down from those roles and technology executive Scott Wagner was appointed interim chief executive officer. Bezdek became chair of the board, while Hirsch took on the role of chief mission officer. In December 2024, GoodRx announced that healthcare executive Wendy Barnes would become president and chief executive officer effective January 1, 2025. As of 2025, Barnes serves as the company’s CEO, while Trevor Bezdek and Scott Wagner serve as co-chairs of the board, and Doug Hirsch remains involved as a co-founder and senior executive. == Controversy == On February 25, 2020, Consumer Reports published an article stating that GoodRx shared user data—specifically, pseudonymized advertising ID numbers that companies use to track the behavior of web users across websites, the names of the drugs that users browsed, and the pharmacies where users sought to fill prescriptions—with Google, Facebook, and around twenty other Internet-based companies. A few days later, GoodRx released a statement saying that it had made changes to prevent user search data on medical conditions and pharmaceuticals from being shared with Facebook. In March 2020, GoodRx stopped sending data about user prescriptions to Facebook. On February 1, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission fined GoodRx US$1.5 million for violations of the Breach Notification Rule and the Federal Trade Commission Act for allegedly failing to obtain specific, informed, and unambiguous consent from users before disclosing health-related information to Facebook and Google. In November 2024, independent pharmacies filed at least three class action lawsuits against GoodRx and major pharmacy benefit managers. The cases, brought by independent pharmacies in California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, allege that GoodRx and the PBMs collaborated to suppress reimbursements for generic prescription drugs. They allege that agreements using GoodRx’s software suppressed reimbursements for generic drugs and violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The suits claim the practices amount to price fixing which harms small pharmacies while benefiting PBMs and their affiliates. GoodRx settled both the 2023 FTC action and the 2025 class action lawsuit without admitting wrongdoing.

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  • WS-SecurityPolicy

    WS-SecurityPolicy

    WS-Security Policy is a web services specification, created by IBM and 12 co-authors, that has become an OASIS standard as of version 1.2. It extends the fundamental security protocols specified by the WS-Security, WS-Trust and WS-Secure Conversation by offering mechanisms to represent the capabilities and requirements of web services as policies. Security policy assertions are based on the WS-Policy framework. Policy assertions can be used to require more generic security attributes like transport layer security , message level security or timestamps, and specific attributes like token types. Most policy assertion can be found in following categories: Protection assertions identify the elements of a message that are required to be signed, encrypted or existent. Token assertions specify allowed token formats (SAML, X509, Username etc.). Security binding assertions control basic security safeguards like transport and message level security, cryptographic algorithm suite and required timestamps. Supporting token assertions add functions like user sign-on using a username token. Policies can be used to drive development tools to generate code with certain capabilities, or may be used at runtime to negotiate the security aspects of web service communication. Policies may be attached to WSDL elements such as service, port, operation and message, as defined in WS Policy Attachment. == Sample Policies == Namespaces used by the following XML-snippets: ... Include a timestamp: Use either transport layer security (https) or message level security (XML Dsig/XML Enc): ... ... To define a SAML assertion as security token: ...#SAMLV2.0 Issued token assertion of providers with reference to the STS and required token format: http://sampleorg.com/sts http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/oasis-wss-saml-token-profile-1.0#SAMLAssertionID ... ... Specify that message header and body need to be signed, and attachments are left unsigned: ? ... specify that message open source license need to be signed, and hydra security are left unsigned: ? ... == Other WS policy languages == The term Web Services Security Policy Language is used for two different XML-based languages: As described above, based on the WS-Policy framework, as defined in, published as version 1.3 in Feb. 2009 WSPL, based on XACML profile for Web-services, but that was not finalized.

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  • Clipping (computer graphics)

    Clipping (computer graphics)

    Clipping, in the context of computer graphics, is a method to selectively enable or disable rendering operations within a defined region of interest. Mathematically, clipping can be described using the terminology of constructive geometry. A rendering algorithm only draws pixels in the intersection between the clip region and the scene model. Lines and surfaces outside the view volume (aka. frustum) are removed. Clip regions are commonly specified to improve render performance. Pixels that will be drawn are said to be within the clip region. Pixels that will not be drawn are outside the clip region. More informally, pixels that will not be drawn are said to be "clipped." == In 2D graphics == In two-dimensional graphics, a clip region may be defined so that pixels are only drawn within the boundaries of a window or frame. Clip regions can also be used to selectively control pixel rendering for aesthetic or artistic purposes. In many implementations, the final clip region is the composite (or intersection) of one or more application-defined shapes, as well as any system hardware constraints In one example application, consider an image editing program. A user application may render the image into a viewport. As the user zooms and scrolls to view a smaller portion of the image, the application can set a clip boundary so that pixels outside the viewport are not rendered. In addition, GUI widgets, overlays, and other windows or frames may obscure some pixels from the original image. In this sense, the clip region is the composite of the application-defined "user clip" and the "device clip" enforced by the system's software and hardware implementation. Application software can take advantage of this clip information to save computation time, energy, and memory, avoiding work related to pixels that aren't visible. == In 3D graphics == In three-dimensional graphics, the terminology of clipping can be used to describe many related features. Typically, "clipping" refers to operations in the plane that work with rectangular shapes, and "culling" refers to more general methods to selectively process scene model elements. This terminology is not rigid, and exact usage varies among many sources. Scene model elements include geometric primitives: points or vertices; line segments or edges; polygons or faces; and more abstract model objects such as curves, splines, surfaces, and even text. In complicated scene models, individual elements may be selectively disabled (clipped) for reasons including visibility within the viewport (frustum culling); orientation (backface culling), obscuration by other scene or model elements (occlusion culling, depth- or "z" clipping). Sophisticated algorithms exist to efficiently detect and perform such clipping. Many optimized clipping methods rely on specific hardware acceleration logic provided by a graphics processing unit (GPU). The concept of clipping can be extended to higher dimensionality using methods of abstract algebraic geometry. === Near clipping === Beyond projection of vertices & 2D clipping, near clipping is required to correctly rasterise 3D primitives; this is because vertices may have been projected behind the eye. Near clipping ensures that all the vertices used have valid 2D coordinates. Together with far-clipping it also helps prevent overflow of depth-buffer values. Some early texture mapping hardware (using forward texture mapping) in video games suffered from complications associated with near clipping and UV coordinates. === Occlusion clipping (Z- or depth clipping) === In 3D computer graphics, "Z" often refers to the depth axis in the system of coordinates centered at the viewport origin: "Z" is used interchangeably with "depth", and conceptually corresponds to the distance "into the virtual screen." In this coordinate system, "X" and "Y" therefore refer to a conventional cartesian coordinate system laid out on the user's screen or viewport. This viewport is defined by the geometry of the viewing frustum, and parameterizes the field of view. Z-clipping, or depth clipping, refers to techniques that selectively render certain scene objects based on their depth relative to the screen. Most graphics toolkits allow the programmer to specify a "near" and "far" clip depth, and only portions of objects between those two planes are displayed. A creative application programmer can use this method to render visualizations of the interior of a 3D object in the scene. For example, a medical imaging application could use this technique to render the organs inside a human body. A video game programmer can use clipping information to accelerate game logic. For example, a tall wall or building that occludes other game entities can save GPU time that would otherwise be spent transforming and texturing items in the rear areas of the scene; and a tightly integrated software program can use this same information to save CPU time by optimizing out game logic for objects that aren't seen by the player. == Algorithms == Line clipping algorithms: Cohen–Sutherland Liang–Barsky Fast-clipping Cyrus–Beck Nicholl–Lee–Nicholl Skala O(lg N) algorithm Polygon clipping algorithms: Greiner–Hormann Sutherland–Hodgman Weiler–Atherton Vatti Rendering methodologies Painter's algorithm

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  • Camfecting

    Camfecting

    In computer security, camfecting is the process of attempting to hack into a person's webcam and activate it without the webcam owner's permission. The remotely activated webcam can be used to watch anything within the webcam's field of vision, sometimes including the webcam owner themselves. Camfecting is most often carried out by infecting the victim's computer with a virus that can provide the hacker access to their webcam. This attack is specifically targeted at the victim's webcam, and hence the name camfecting, a portmanteau of the words camera and infecting. Typically, a webcam hacker or a camfecter sends his victim an innocent-looking application which has a hidden Trojan software through which the camfecter can control the victim's webcam. The camfecter virus installs itself silently when the victim runs the original application. Once installed, the camfecter can turn on the webcam and capture pictures/videos. The camfecter software works just like the original webcam software present in the victim computer, the only difference being that the camfecter controls the software instead of the webcam's owner. == Notable cases == Marcus Thomas, former assistant director of the FBI's Operational Technology Division in Quantico, said in a 2013 story in The Washington Post that the FBI had been able to covertly activate a computer's camera—without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording—for several years. In November 2013, American teenager Jared James Abrahams pleaded guilty to hacking over 100-150 women and installing the highly invasive malware Blackshades on their computers in order to obtain nude images and videos of them. One of his victims was Miss Teen USA 2013 Cassidy Wolf. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have shown how to covertly capture images from the iSight camera on MacBook and iMac models released before 2008, by reprogramming the microcontroller's firmware. == Prevention == A computer that does not have an up-to-date webcam software or any anti-virus (or firewall) software installed and operational may be at increased risk for camfecting from different types of malware. Softcams may nominally increase this risk, if not maintained or configured properly. Although a person cannot protect themselves from zero-day exploits that could potentially activate a camera unknowingly, such as Pegasus is able to do on smartphones. The only way to truly avoid being watched through your own camera is by blocking it physically, since software blocks can be overriden by advanced persistent threats. A simple piece of tape is more commonly used to offuscate the feed of the camera. With even Mark Zuckerberg doing so on his personal laptop that appeared during a presentation. And it being the way Snowden, an ex-contractor for the NSA, is portrayed to do so to prevent camfecting in the biopic Snowden. There is now a market for the manufacture and sale of sliding lens covers that allow users to physically block their computer's camera and, in some cases, microphone. A number of phone and laptop manufacturers tried to implement pop-up cameras that can only be opened manually by the user. But the trend did not become mainstream because of the engineering it took to keep the mechanisms up to date, aswell as the fragility and durability of the cameras.

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  • WeChat

    WeChat

    WeChat or Weixin in Chinese (Chinese: 微信; pinyin: Wēixìn ; lit. 'micro-message') is an instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018 with over 1 billion monthly active users. The Chinese version of WeChat, Weixin, has been described as China's "app for everything" and a super-app because of its wide range of functions. WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing. It has been described as having "an almost indispensable part of life in China". Accounts registered using Chinese phone numbers are managed under the Weixin brand, and their data is stored in mainland China and subject to Weixin's terms of service and privacy policy. Non-Chinese numbers are registered under WeChat, and WeChat users are subject to a more liberal terms of service and better privacy policy, and their data is stored in the Netherlands for users in the European Union, and in Singapore for other users. User activity on Weixin, the Chinese version of the app, is analyzed, tracked and shared with Chinese authorities upon request as part of the mass surveillance network in China. Chinese-registered Weixin accounts censor politically sensitive topics, and the software license agreement for Weixin (but not WeChat) explicitly forbids content which "[en]danger[s] national security, divulge[s] state secrets, subvert[s] state power and undermine[s] national unity", as well as other types of content such as content that "[u]ndermine[s] national religious policies" and content that is "[i]nciting illegal assembly, association, procession, demonstrations and gatherings disrupting the social order". Due to its central part of Chinese life, a Chinese person having their WeChat account banned can cause a significant disruption to their life. Any interactions between Weixin and WeChat users are subject to the terms of service and privacy policies of both services. == History == By 2010, Tencent had already attained a massive user base with their desktop messenger app QQ. Recognizing smart phones were likely to disrupt this status quo, CEO Pony Ma sought to proactively invest in alternatives to their own QQ messenger app. WeChat began as a project at Tencent Guangzhou Research and Project center in October 2010. The original version of the app was created by Allen Zhang, named "Weixin" (微信) by Pony Ma, and launched in 2011. The user adoption of WeChat was initially very slow, with users wondering why key features were missing; however, after the release of the Walkie-talkie-like voice messaging feature in May of that year, growth surged. By 2012, when the number of users reached 100 million, Weixin was re-branded "WeChat" by President Martin Lau for the international market. During a period of government support of e-commerce development—for example in the 12th five-year plan (2011–2015)—WeChat also saw new features enabling payments and commerce in 2013, which saw massive adoption after their virtual Red envelope promotion for Chinese New Year 2014. WeChat had over 889 million monthly active users by 2016, and as of 2019 WeChat's monthly active users had risen to an estimate of one billion. As of January 2022, it was reported that WeChat has more than 1.2 billion users. After the launch of WeChat payment in 2013, its users reached 400 million the next year, 90 percent of whom were in China. By comparison, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp had about one billion monthly active users in 2016 but did not offer most of the other services available on WeChat. For example, in Q2 2017, WeChat's revenues from social media advertising were about US$0.9 billion (RMB6 billion) compared with Facebook's total revenues of US$9.3 billion, 98% of which were from social media advertising. WeChat's revenues from its value-added services were US$5.5 billion. By 2018, WeChat had been used by 93.5% of Chinese internet users. In that year, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018 with over 1 billion monthly active users. In response to a border dispute between India and China, WeChat was banned in India in June 2020 along with several other Chinese apps, including TikTok. U.S. president Donald Trump sought to ban U.S. "transactions" with WeChat through an executive order but was blocked by a preliminary injunction issued in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in September 2020. Joe Biden officially dropped Trump's efforts to ban WeChat in the U.S. in June 2021. == Features == WeChat, has been described as China's "app for everything" and a super-app because of its wide range of functions. WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing. It has been described as having "an almost indispensable part of life in China". Due to its central part of Chinese life, a Chinese person having their WeChat account banned can cause a significant disruption to their life. === Messaging === WeChat provides a variety of features including text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video calls and conferencing, video games, photograph and video sharing, as well as location sharing. WeChat also allows users to exchange contacts with people nearby via Bluetooth, as well as providing various features for contacting people at random if desired (if people are open to it). It can also integrate with other social networking services such as Facebook and Tencent QQ. Photographs may also be embellished with filters and captions, and automatic translation service is available and could also translate the conversation during messaging. WeChat supports different instant messaging methods, including text messages, voice messages, walkie talkie, and stickers. Users can send previously saved or live pictures and videos, profiles of other users, coupons, lucky money packages, or current GPS locations with friends either individually or in a group chat. WeChat also provides a message recall feature to allow users to recall and withdraw information (e.g. images, documents) that are sent within 2 minutes in a conversation. WeChat also provides a voice-to-text feature that brings convenience when it is not convenient to listen to voice messages, as well as the basic ability to recognize emojis based on different tones of voice. A distance sensing feature is implemented in WeChat. It has the ability to activate the receivers' hold-to-talk function when the phone was brought in close proximity to the ear. After the receiver was held at a certain distance from the ear, the sensor would then proceed to automatically disable the phone speakers. This feature eliminates the risk of the user's voice messages being inadvertently broadcast to the general public. === Public accounts === WeChat users can register as a public account (公众号), which enables them to push feeds to subscribers, interact with subscribers, and provide subscribers with services. Users can also create an official account, which fall under service, subscription, or enterprise accounts. Once users as individuals or organizations set up a type of account, they cannot change it to another type. By the end of 2014, the number of WeChat official accounts had reached 8 million. Official accounts of organizations can apply to be verified (cost 300 RMB or about US$45). Official accounts can be used as a platform for services such as hospital pre-registrations, or credit card service. To create an official account, the applicant must register with Chinese authorities, which discourages "foreign companies". In April 2022, WeChat announced that it will start displaying the location of users in China every time they post on a public account. Meanwhile, overseas users on public accounts will also display the country based on their IP address. === Moments === "Moments" (朋友圈) is WeChat's brand name for its social feed of friends' updates. "Moments" is an interactive platform that allows users to post images, text, and short videos taken by users. It also allows users to share articles and music (associated with QQ Music or other web-based music services). Friends in the contact list can like the content and leave comments, functioning similarly to a private social network. In 2017 WeChat had a policy of a maximum of two advertisements per day per Moments user. Privacy in WeChat works by groups of friends: only the friends from the user's contact are able to view their Moments' contents and comments. The friends of the user will only be able to see the likes and comments from other users only if they are in a mutual friend group. For example, friends from high school are not able to

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  • Telebirr

    Telebirr

    Telebirr (Amharic: ቴሌብር) is a mobile payment service developed and was launched by Ethio telecom, the state owned telecommunication and Internet service provider in Ethiopia. It took five months to develop the end-to-end service. It facilitates the delivery of cashless transactions. The platform deployed currently has the capacity of processing up to 100 transactions per second (TPS) and can be scaled up to 1000 TPS. The service is accessible via SMS, USSD, and smartphone applications. Telebirr works in five languages. == Services == Though the service is fully accessible for any customer of Ethio telecom, the users need to register through the mobile application called Telebirr or using an authorized agent or Ethio telecom shop or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), 127# nationally. However, Telebirr also provides a “quick registration” by using any information that already exists in Ethio telecom's system.

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  • Line Drawing System-1

    Line Drawing System-1

    LDS-1 (Line Drawing System-1) was a calligraphic (vector, rather than raster) display processor and display device created by Evans & Sutherland in 1969. This model was known as the first graphics device with a graphics processing unit. == Features == It was controlled by a variety of host computers. Straight lines were smoothly rendered in real-time animation. General principles of operation were similar to the systems used today: 4x4 transformation matrices, 1x4 vertices. Possible uses included flight simulation (in the product brochure there are screenshots of landing on a carrier), scientific imaging and GIS systems. == History == The first LDS-1 was shipped to the customer (BBN) in August 1969. Only a few of these systems were ever built. One was used by the Los Angeles Times as their first typesetting/layout computer. One went to NASA Ames Research Center for Human Factors Research. Another was bought by the Port Authority of New York to develop a tugboat pilot trainer for navigation in the harbor. The MIT Dynamic Modeling had one, and there was a program for viewing an ongoing game of Maze War.

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  • Log shipping

    Log shipping

    Log shipping is the process of automating the backup of transaction log files on a primary (production) database server, and then restoring them onto a standby server. This technique is supported by Microsoft SQL Server, 4D Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. Similar to replication, the primary purpose of log shipping is to increase database availability by maintaining a backup server that can replace a production server quickly. Other databases such as Adaptive Server Enterprise and Oracle Database support the technique but require the Database Administrator to write code or scripts to perform the work. Although the actual failover mechanism in log shipping is manual, this implementation is often chosen due to its low cost in human and server resources, and ease of implementation. In comparison, SQL server clusters enable automatic failover, but at the expense of much higher storage costs. Compared to database replication, log shipping does not provide as much in terms of reporting capabilities, but backs up system tables along with data tables, and locks the standby server from users' modifications. A replicated server can be modified (e.g. views) and is therefore unsuitable for failover purposes.

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  • News analytics

    News analytics

    In trading strategy, news analysis refers to the measurement of the various qualitative and quantitative attributes of textual (unstructured data) news stories. Some of these attributes are: sentiment, relevance, and novelty. Expressing news stories as numbers and metadata permits the manipulation of everyday information in a mathematical and statistical way. This data is often used in financial markets as part of a trading strategy or by businesses to judge market sentiment and make better business decisions. News analytics are usually derived through automated text analysis and applied to digital texts using elements from natural language processing and machine learning such as latent semantic analysis, support vector machines, "bag of words" among other techniques. == Applications and strategies == The application of sophisticated linguistic analysis to news and social media has grown from an area of research to mature product solutions since 2007. News analytics and news sentiment calculations are now routinely used by both buy-side and sell-side in alpha generation, trading execution, risk management, and market surveillance and compliance. There is however a good deal of variation in the quality, effectiveness and completeness of currently available solutions. A large number of companies use news analysis to help them make better business decisions. Academic researchers have become interested in news analysis especially with regards to predicting stock price movements, volatility and traded volume. Provided a set of values such as sentiment and relevance as well as the frequency of news arrivals, it is possible to construct news sentiment scores for multiple asset classes such as equities, Forex, fixed income, and commodities. Sentiment scores can be constructed at various horizons to meet the different needs and objectives of high and low frequency trading strategies, whilst characteristics such as direction and volatility of asset returns as well as the traded volume may be addressed more directly via the construction of tailor-made sentiment scores. Scores are generally constructed as a range of values. For instance, values may range between 0 and 100, where values above and below 50 convey positive and negative sentiment, respectively. === Absolute return strategies === The objective of absolute return strategies is absolute (positive) returns regardless of the direction of the financial market. To meet this objective, such strategies typically involve opportunistic long and short positions in selected instruments with zero or limited market exposure. In statistical terms, absolute return strategies should have very low correlation with the market return. Typically, hedge funds tend to employ absolute return strategies. Below, a few examples show how news analysis can be applied in the absolute return strategy space with the purpose to identify alpha opportunities applying a market neutral strategy or based on volatility trading. Example 1 Scenario: The gap between the news sentiment scores for direction, S {\displaystyle S} , of Company X {\displaystyle X} and Market Y {\displaystyle Y} has moved beyond + 20 {\displaystyle +20} . That is, S X − S Y {\displaystyle S_{X}-S_{Y}} ≥ 20 {\displaystyle 20} . Action: Buy the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} and short the future on Market Y {\displaystyle Y} . Exit Strategy: When the gap in the news sentiment scores for direction of Company X {\displaystyle X} and Market Y {\displaystyle Y} has disappeared, S X − S Y {\displaystyle S_{X}-S_{Y}} = 0 {\displaystyle 0} , sell the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} and go long the future on Market Y {\displaystyle Y} to close the positions. Example 2 Scenario: The news sentiment score for volatility of Company X {\displaystyle X} goes above 70 {\displaystyle 70} out of 100 {\displaystyle 100} indicating an expected volatility above the option implied volatility. Action: Buy a short-dated straddle (the purchase of both a put and a call) on the stock of Company X {\displaystyle X} . Exit Strategy: Keep the straddle on Company X {\displaystyle X} until expiry or until a certain profit target has been reached. === Relative return strategies === The objective of relative return strategies is to either replicate (passive management) or outperform (active management) a theoretical passive reference portfolio or benchmark. To meet these objectives such strategies typically involve long positions in selected instruments. In statistical terms, relative return strategies often have high correlation with the market return. Typically, mutual funds tend to employ relative return strategies. Below, a few examples show how news analysis can be applied in the relative return strategy space with the purpose to outperform the market applying a stock picking strategy and by making tactical tilts to ones asset allocation model. Example 1 Scenario: The news sentiment score for direction of Company X {\displaystyle X} goes above 70 {\displaystyle 70} out of 100 {\displaystyle 100} . Action: Buy the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} . Exit Strategy: When the news sentiment score for direction of Company X {\displaystyle X} falls below 60 {\displaystyle 60} , sell the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} to close the position. Example 2 Scenario: The news sentiment score for direction of Sector Z {\displaystyle Z} goes above 70 {\displaystyle 70} out of 100 {\displaystyle 100} . Action: Include Sector Z {\displaystyle Z} as a tactical bet in the asset allocation model. Exit Strategy: When the news sentiment score for direction of Sector Z {\displaystyle Z} falls below 60 {\displaystyle 60} , remove the tactical bet for Sector Z {\displaystyle Z} from the asset allocation model. === Financial risk management === The objective of financial risk management is to create economic value in a firm or to maintain a certain risk profile of an investment portfolio by using financial instruments to manage risk exposures, particularly credit risk and market risk. Other types include Foreign exchange, Shape, Volatility, Sector, Liquidity, Inflation risks, etc. Below, a few examples show how news analysis can be applied in the financial risk management space with the purpose to either arrive at better risk estimates in terms of Value at Risk (VaR) or to manage the risk of a portfolio to meet ones portfolio mandate. Example 1 Scenario: The bank operates a VaR model to manage the overall market risk of its portfolio. Action: Estimate the portfolio covariance matrix taking into account the development of the news sentiment score for volume. Implement the relevant hedges to bring the VaR of the bank in line with the desired levels. Example 2 Scenario: A portfolio manager operates his portfolio towards a certain desired risk profile. Action: Estimate the portfolio covariance matrix taking into account the development of the news sentiment score for volume. Scale the portfolio exposure according to the targeted risk profile. === Computer algorithms using news analytics === Within 0.33 seconds, computer algorithms using news analytics can notify subscribers which company the news is about, if the news article sentiment is positive or negative, if the news is ranked as high or low relative importance … relative relevance. the stock price reaction and the increase in trade volume is concentrated in the first 5 seconds after an news article is released. === Algorithmic order execution === The objective of algorithmic order execution, which is part of the concept of algorithmic trading, is to reduce trading costs by optimizing on the timing of a given order. It is widely used by hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, and other institutional traders to divide up large trades into several smaller trades to manage market impact, opportunity cost, and risk more effectively. The example below shows how news analysis can be applied in the algorithmic order execution space with the purpose to arrive at more efficient algorithmic trading systems. Example 1 Scenario: A large order needs to be placed in the market for the stock on Company X {\displaystyle X} . Action: Scale the daily volume distribution for Company X {\displaystyle X} applied in the algorithmic trading system, thus taking into account the news sentiment score for volume. This is followed by the creation of the desired trading distribution forcing greater market participation during the periods of the day when volume is expected to be heaviest. == Effects == Being able to express news stories as numbers permits the manipulation of everyday information in a statistical way that allows computers not only to make decisions once made only by humans, but to do so more efficiently. Since market participants are always looking for an edge, the speed of computer connections and the delivery of news analysis, measured in milliseconds, have become essential.

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  • Jordan Antiquities Database and Information System

    Jordan Antiquities Database and Information System

    The Jordan Antiquities Database and Information System (JADIS) was a computer database of antiquities in Jordan, the first of its kind in the Arab world. It was established by the Department of Antiquities in 1990, in cooperation with the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman and sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development. JADIS was in use until 2002, when it was superseded by a new system, MEGA-J. Over 10,841 antiquities were registered in the database. An introduction and printed summary of the database was published by the Department of Antiquities in 1994, edited by Gaetano Palumbo.

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  • Internet Security Awareness Training

    Internet Security Awareness Training

    Internet Security Awareness Training (ISAT) is the training given to members of an organization regarding the protection of various information assets of that organization. ISAT is a subset of general security awareness training (SAT). Even small and medium enterprises are generally recommended to provide such training, but organizations that need to comply with government regulations (e.g., the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Sarbanes–Oxley Act) normally require formal ISAT for annually for all employees. Often such training is provided in the form of online courses. ISAT, also referred to as Security Education, Training, and Awareness (SETA), organizations train and create awareness of information security management within their environment. It is beneficial to organizations when employees are well trained and feel empowered to take important actions to protect themselves and organizational data. The SETA program target must be based on user roles within organizations and for positions that expose the organizations to increased risk levels, specialized courses must be required. == Coverage == There are general topics to cover for the training, but it is necessary for each organization to have a coverage strategy based on its needs, as this will ensure the training is practical and captures critical topics relevant to the organization. As the threat landscape changes very frequently, organizations should continuously review their training programs to ensure relevance with current trends. Topics covered in ISAT include: Appropriate methods for protecting sensitive information on personal computer systems, including password policy Various computer security concerns, including spam, malware, phishing, social engineering, etc. Consequences of failure to properly protect information, including potential job loss, economic consequences to the firm, damage to individuals whose private records are divulged, and possible civil and criminal law penalties. Being Internet Security Aware means you understand that there are people actively trying to steal data that is stored within your organization's computers. (This often focuses on user names and passwords, so that criminal elements can ultimately get access to bank accounts and other high-value IT assets.) That is why it is important to protect the assets of the organization and stop that from happening. The general scope should include topics such as password security, Email phishing, Social engineering, Mobile device security, Sensitive data security, and Business communications. In contrast, those requiring specialized knowledge are usually required to take technical and in-depth training courses. Suppose an organization determines that it is best to use one of the available training tools on the market, it must ensure it sets objectives that the training can meet, including confirming the training will provide employees with the knowledge to understand risks and the behaviors needed in managing them, actions to take to prevent or detect security incidents, using language easily understandable by the trainees, and ensuring the pricing is reasonable. Organizations are recommended to base ISAT training content on employee roles and their culture; the policy should guide that training for all employees and gave the following as examples of sources of reference materials: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-50, Building an Information Technology Security Awareness and Training Program International Standards Organization (ISO) 27002:2013, Information technology—Security techniques—Code of practice for information security controls International Standards Organization (ISO) 27001:2013, Information technology — Security techniques — Information security management systems COBIT 5 Appendix F.2, Detailed Guidance: Services, Infrastructure and Applications Enabler, Security Awareness The training must focus on current threats specific to an organization and the impacts if that materializes as a result of user actions. Including practical examples and ways of dealing with scenarios help users know the appropriate measures to take. It is a good practice to periodically train customers of specific organizations on threats they face from people with malicious intentions. Coverage strategy for SAT should be driven by an organization's policy. It can help truly determine the level of depth of the training and where it should be conducted at a global level or business unit level, or a combination of both. A policy also empowers a responsible party within the organization to run the training. == Importance == Studies show that well-structured security awareness training can significantly reduce the likelihood of cyber incidents caused by human error. According to the Ponemon Institute, organizations that implement regular security training experience up to 70% fewer successful phishing attacks. Additionally, a 2023 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that 74% of breaches involve the human element, highlighting the need for continuous education. Employees are key in whether organizations are breached or not; there must be a policy on creating awareness and training them on emerging threats and actions to take in safeguarding sensitive information and reporting any observed unusual activity within the corporate environment. Research has shown that SAT has helped reduce cyber-attacks within organizations, especially when it comes to phishing, as trainees learned to identify these attack modes and give them the self-assurance to take action appropriately. There is an increase in phishing attacks, and it has become increasingly important for people to understand how to these attacks work, and the actions required to prevent these and SAT has shown a significant impact on the number of successful phishing attacks against organizations. == Compliance Requirements == Various regulations and laws mandate SAT for organizations in specific industries, including the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA) for the financial services, the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 for federal agencies, and the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). === Federal Information Security Modernization Act === Employees and contractors in federal agencies are required to receive Security Awareness Training annually, and the program needs to address job-related information security risks linked that provide them with the knowledge to lessen security risks. === Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act === The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act has the Security Rule, and Privacy Rule requiring the creation of a security awareness training program and ensuring employees are trained accordingly. === Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard === The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, the governing council for stakeholders in the payment industry, formed by American Express, Discover, JCB International, MasterCard, and Visa that developed the DSS as a requirement for the payment industry. Requirement 12.6 requires member organizations to institute a formal security awareness program. There is a published guide for organizations to adhere to when setting up the program. === US States Training Regulations === Some States mandate Security Awareness Training whiles other do not but simply recommend voluntary training. Among states that require the training for its employees include: Colorado (The Colorado Information Security Act, Colorado Revised Statutes 24-37.5-401 et seq.) Connecticut (13 FAM 301.1-1 Cyber Security Awareness Training (PS800)) Florida (Florida Statutes Chapter 282) Georgia (Executive Order GA E.O.182 mandated training within 90 days of issue) Illinois (Cook County) Indiana (IN H 1240) Louisiana (Louisiana Division of Administration, Office of Technology Services p. 52: LA H 633) Maryland (20-07 IT Security Policy) Montana (Mandatory cyber training for executive branch state employees) Nebraska Nevada (agency-by-agency state employee requirement - State Security Standard 123 – IT Security) New Hampshire New Jersey ( NJ A 1654) North Carolina Ohio (IT-15 - Security Awareness and Training) Pennsylvania Texas Utah Vermont Virginia West Virginia (WV Code Section 5A-6-4a) == Training Techniques == Below are some common training techniques, even though some can be blended depending on the operating environment: Interactive video training – This technique allows users to be trained using two-way interactive audio and video instruction. Web-based training – This method allows employees or users to take the training independently and usually has a testing component to determine if learning has taken place. If not, users can be allowed to retake the course and test to ensure there is a complete understanding

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  • Central Equipment Identity Register

    Central Equipment Identity Register

    A Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) is a database of mobile equipment identifiers (IMEI – for networks of GSM standard, MEID – for networks of CDMA standard). Such an identifier is assigned to each SIM slot of the mobile device. Different kinds of IMEIs could be, White, for devices that are allowed to register in the cellular network; Black, for devices that are prohibited to register in the cellular network; and Grey, for devices in intermediate status (when it is not yet defined in which of the lists - black or white - the device should be placed). Depending on the rules of mobile equipment registration in a country the CEIR database may contain other lists or fields beside IMEI. For example, the subscriber number (MSISDN), which is bound to the IMEI, the ID of the individual (passport data, National ID, etc.) who registered IMEI in the database, details of the importer who brought the device into the country, etc. == History == Originally abbreviation CEIR stood for IMEI Database, created and provided by GSM Association. It was proposed to blacklist the IMEIs of stolen or lost phones. It was assumed that any MNO would be able to receive this list to block the registration of such devices on their network. Thus, it turns out that a stolen phone, once blacklisted by the GSMA CEIR, cannot be used on a large number of cellular networks, which means that the theft of mobile devices will become meaningless. However, it soon became clear that the MNOs on their initiative were not going to do this because if many phones stopped working in their networks, but works in another, it puts them at a disadvantage and can lead to an outflow of subscribers. It became clear that the blocking of stolen devices should be introduced simultaneously in all mobile networks of the country by legislative measures at the initiative of the communications regulator. In this case, as a rule, a national IMEI database is created, which contains general lists of blocked IMEIs. Since the registration in the cellular operator's network is directly blocked by a network node called EIR (Equipment Identity Register), the system that contains the national IMEI base became known as Central EIR (CEIR). To avoid confusion the database of GSM Association was renamed to IMEI Database - IMEI DB (it was in 2003-2008, see “Document History” at IMEI Database File Format Specification). Also sometimes a common IMEI database for several EIRs is called SEIR (Shared EIR). In each country, the CEIR can interact with IMEI DB differently. National CEIR may not communicate with IMEI DB at all. Firstly, it is separately decided whether CEIR will send information about its blacklist to IMEI DB (which IMEIs are placed in it or removed from there). Secondly, upon receipt of the blacklist from IMEI DB, the regulator decides from which countries it will receive it (IMEI DB stores the information exactly who blacklisted the IMEI). For example, you can get a list from neighboring countries, from countries in your region, from around the world. In addition to the blacklist, the GSMA is developing a list of IMEIs allocated to manufacturers for use in their devices. The manufacturer for each new device model gets at least one TAC (Type Allocation Code) allocated by GSMA, consisting of 8 digits, to which he can add a 6-digit serial number to obtain the IMEI. Thus, with one TAC, a manufacturer can release up to 1 million devices with a unique IMEI. Usually, CEIR receives a list of allocated TACs from the GSMA, since if the first 8 digits of the IMEI of a device are not in this list, this is a sign that it is counterfeit. If the central database of identifiers does not work with GSM networks, but with CDMA, then for the same purposes it is necessary to interact with another worldwide database that contains MEIDs – MEID Database. A system that directly blocks the registration of a mobile device on a cellular network – EIR. Each MNO must have at least one EIR, to which IMEI check requests (CheckIMEI) are sent when registering a device on the network. A typical EIR and CERI interaction scheme: The CEIR accumulates black, white, and grey lists using various data sources and verification methods. These lists are periodically transmitted to all EIRs. EIR uses them when processing every CheckIMEI request to determine whether to allow the device on the network or not. EIR can transmit some data to the CEIR database too. Usually, changes in a grey list – new IMEIs on the network that are not in any list – are transmitted from EIR to CEIR. In addition to synchronizing lists across multiple networks, the main function of CEIR is to implement the scenarios of changes at these lists. This usually requires interaction with various IT systems (databases) of other organizations and/or with subscribers. Еxamples of such scenarios: Whitelisting the IMEI of devices imported by the legal entity Whitelisting the IMEI of devices manufactured domestically Whitelisting the IMEI of devices imported by individual Blacklisting the IMEI of stolen/lost devices Binding IMEI to the subscriber's number and, vice versa, unbinding IMEI from the subscriber == System implementation results == The goals and results of CEIR implementation in a country are usually: Reducing mobile phone theft Reducing the import of devices stolen in other countries Reducing the presence of counterfeit devices on the market (null IMEI, incorrect IMEI, changed IMEI) Reducing illegal imports of mobile devices (increase in the collection of customs duties) Additionally, CEIR most often contributes to the solution of such problems: Combating various mobile fraud schemes Obtaining more accurate statistics on the state of the mobile communications market for the regulator Fight against terrorism (the ability to block the device at once in all mobile networks of the country). Known results achieved in some countries: Great Britain – reducing mobile phone theft. Turkey – reducing mobile phone theft, decreasing the current account deficit of Turkey and maximizing tax revenues. Uzbekistan – preventing black import of mobile devices by 98%, increase in revenues from the import of mobile devices by 700%. Kenya – disposing the market of counterfeit mobile equipment. Azerbaijan – disposing the market of counterfeit mobile equipment. Ukraine – increasing of legally imported mobile devices by 95%, increase in revenues from the import of mobile devices. == CEIR and EIR manufacturers == Some countries have used local developers to implement CEIR for their country (Great Britain, Turkey, India, and Azerbaijan). EIR is a system that is standardized in a 2G-5G networks. Such system may be established at mobile network even it doesn’t use black list and there are no CEIR in a country. Some developers of MNO’s signal core include EIR in a complex solution. However, its standard capabilities are usually lacking for specific requirements when implementing CEIR.

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  • System requirements specification

    System requirements specification

    A System Requirements Specification (SysRS) (abbreviated SysRS to be distinct from a software requirements specification (SRS)) is a structured collection of information that embodies the requirements of a system. A business analyst (BA), sometimes titled system analyst, is responsible for analyzing the business needs of their clients and stakeholders to help identify business problems and propose solutions. Within the systems development life cycle domain, the BA typically performs a liaison function between the business side of an enterprise and the information technology department or external service providers.

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  • ImageNet

    ImageNet

    The ImageNet project is a large visual database designed for use in visual object recognition software research. More than 14 million images have been hand-annotated by the project to indicate what objects are pictured and in at least one million of the images, bounding boxes are also provided. ImageNet contains more than 20,000 categories, with a typical category, such as "balloon" or "strawberry", consisting of several hundred images. The database of annotations of third-party image URLs is freely available directly from ImageNet, though the actual images are not owned by ImageNet. Since 2010, the ImageNet project runs an annual software contest, the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC), where software programs compete to correctly classify and detect objects and scenes. The challenge uses a "trimmed" list of one thousand non-overlapping classes. == History == AI researcher Fei-Fei Li began working on the idea for ImageNet in 2006. At a time when most AI research focused on models and algorithms, Li wanted to expand and improve the data available to train AI algorithms. In 2007, Li met with Princeton professor Christiane Fellbaum, one of the creators of WordNet, to discuss the project. As a result of this meeting, Li went on to build ImageNet starting from the roughly 22,000 nouns of WordNet and using many of its features. She was also inspired by a 1987 estimate that the average person recognizes roughly 30,000 different kinds of objects. As an assistant professor at Princeton, Li assembled a team of researchers to work on the ImageNet project. They used Amazon Mechanical Turk to help with the classification of images. Labeling started in July 2008 and ended in April 2010. It took 49K workers from 167 countries filtering and labeling over 160M candidate images. They had enough budget to have each of the 14 million images labelled three times. The original plan called for 10,000 images per category, for 40,000 categories at 400 million images, each verified 3 times. They found that humans can classify at most 2 images/sec. At this rate, it was estimated to take 19 human-years of labor (without rest). They presented their database for the first time as a poster at the 2009 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) in Florida, titled "ImageNet: A Preview of a Large-scale Hierarchical Dataset". The poster was reused at Vision Sciences Society 2009. In 2009, Alex Berg suggested adding object localization as a task. Li approached PASCAL Visual Object Classes contest in 2009 for a collaboration. It resulted in the subsequent ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge starting in 2010, which has 1000 classes and object localization, as compared to PASCAL VOC which had just 20 classes and 19,737 images (in 2010). === Significance for deep learning === On 30 September 2012, a convolutional neural network (CNN) called AlexNet achieved a top-5 error of 15.3% in the ImageNet 2012 Challenge, more than 10.8 percentage points lower than that of the runner-up. Using convolutional neural networks was feasible due to the use of graphics processing units (GPUs) during training, an essential ingredient of the deep learning revolution. According to The Economist, "Suddenly people started to pay attention, not just within the AI community but across the technology industry as a whole." In 2015, AlexNet was outperformed by Microsoft's very deep CNN with over 100 layers, which won the ImageNet 2015 contest, having 3.57% error on the test set. Andrej Karpathy estimated in 2014 that with concentrated effort, he could reach 5.1% error rate, and ~10 people from his lab reached ~12-13% with less effort. It was estimated that with maximal effort, a human could reach 2.4%. == Dataset == ImageNet crowdsources its annotation process. Image-level annotations indicate the presence or absence of an object class in an image, such as "there are tigers in this image" or "there are no tigers in this image". Object-level annotations provide a bounding box around the (visible part of the) indicated object. ImageNet uses a variant of the broad WordNet schema to categorize objects, augmented with 120 categories of dog breeds to showcase fine-grained classification. In 2012, ImageNet was the world's largest academic user of Mechanical Turk. The average worker identified 50 images per minute. The original plan of the full ImageNet would have roughly 50M clean, diverse and full resolution images spread over approximately 50K synsets. This was not achieved. The summary statistics given on April 30, 2010: Total number of non-empty synsets: 21841 Total number of images: 14,197,122 Number of images with bounding box annotations: 1,034,908 Number of synsets with SIFT features: 1000 Number of images with SIFT features: 1.2 million === Categories === The categories of ImageNet were filtered from the WordNet concepts. Each concept, since it can contain multiple synonyms (for example, "kitty" and "young cat"), so each concept is called a "synonym set" or "synset". There were more than 100,000 synsets in WordNet 3.0, majority of them are nouns (80,000+). The ImageNet dataset filtered these to 21,841 synsets that are countable nouns that can be visually illustrated. Each synset in WordNet 3.0 has a "WordNet ID" (wnid), which is a concatenation of part of speech and an "offset" (a unique identifying number). Every wnid starts with "n" because ImageNet only includes nouns. For example, the wnid of synset "dog, domestic dog, Canis familiaris" is "n02084071". The categories in ImageNet fall into 9 levels, from level 1 (such as "mammal") to level 9 (such as "German shepherd"). === Image format === The images were scraped from online image search (Google, Picsearch, MSN, Yahoo, Flickr, etc) using synonyms in multiple languages. For example: German shepherd, German police dog, German shepherd dog, Alsatian, ovejero alemán, pastore tedesco, 德国牧羊犬. ImageNet consists of images in RGB format with varying resolutions. For example, in ImageNet 2012, "fish" category, the resolution ranges from 4288 x 2848 to 75 x 56. In machine learning, these are typically preprocessed into a standard constant resolution, and whitened, before further processing by neural networks. For example, in PyTorch, ImageNet images are by default normalized by dividing the pixel values so that they fall between 0 and 1, then subtracting by [0.485, 0.456, 0.406], then dividing by [0.229, 0.224, 0.225]. These are the mean and standard deviations for ImageNet, so this whitens the input data. === Labels and annotations === Each image is labelled with exactly one wnid. Dense SIFT features (raw SIFT descriptors, quantized codewords, and coordinates of each descriptor/codeword) for ImageNet-1K were available for download, designed for bag of visual words. The bounding boxes of objects were available for about 3000 popular synsets with on average 150 images in each synset. Furthermore, some images have attributes. They released 25 attributes for ~400 popular synsets: Color: black, blue, brown, gray, green, orange, pink, red, violet, white, yellow Pattern: spotted, striped Shape: long, round, rectangular, square Texture: furry, smooth, rough, shiny, metallic, vegetation, wooden, wet === ImageNet-21K === The full original dataset is referred to as ImageNet-21K. ImageNet-21k contains 14,197,122 images divided into 21,841 classes. Some papers round this up and name it ImageNet-22k. The full ImageNet-21k was released in Fall of 2011, as fall11_whole.tar. There is no official train-validation-test split for ImageNet-21k. Some classes contain only 1-10 samples, while others contain thousands. === ImageNet-1K === There are various subsets of the ImageNet dataset used in various context, sometimes referred to as "versions". One of the most highly used subsets of ImageNet is the "ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC) 2012–2017 image classification and localization dataset". This is also referred to in the research literature as ImageNet-1K or ILSVRC2017, reflecting the original ILSVRC challenge that involved 1,000 classes. ImageNet-1K contains 1,281,167 training images, 50,000 validation images and 100,000 test images. Each category in ImageNet-1K is a leaf category, meaning that there are no child nodes below it, unlike ImageNet-21K. For example, in ImageNet-21K, there are some images categorized as simply "mammal", whereas in ImageNet-1K, there are only images categorized as things like "German shepherd", since there are no child-words below "German shepherd". === Later developments === In the WordNet they built ImageNet on, there were 2832 synsets in the "person" subtree. During 2018--2020 period, they removed the download of the ImageNet-21k as they went through extensive filtering in these person synsets. Out of these 2832 synsets, 1593 were deemed "potentially offensive". Out of the remaining 1239, 1081 were deemed not really "visual". The result was that only 158 syn

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  • Fillrate

    Fillrate

    In computer graphics, a video card's pixel fillrate refers to the number of pixels that can be rendered on the screen and written to video memory in one second. Pixel fillrates are given in megapixels per second or in gigapixels per second (in the case of newer cards), and are obtained by multiplying the number of render output units (ROPs) by the clock frequency of the graphics processing unit (GPU) of a video card. A similar concept, texture fillrate, refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) the GPU can map to pixels in one second. Texture fillrate is obtained by multiplying the number of texture mapping units (TMUs) by the clock frequency of the GPU. Texture fillrates are given in mega or gigatexels per second. However, there is no full agreement on how to calculate and report fillrates. Another possible method is to multiply the number of pixel pipelines by the GPU's clock frequency. The results of these multiplications correspond to a theoretical number. The actual fillrate depends on many other factors. In the past, the fillrate has been used as an indicator of performance by video card manufacturers such as ATI and NVIDIA, however, the importance of the fillrate as a measurement of performance has declined as the bottleneck in graphics applications has shifted. For example, today, the number and speed of unified shader processing units has gained attention. Although fillrate doesn't provide a substantial bottleneck in games, it can still provide a bottleneck for certain parts of the game, for example applying a gaussian blur can be bottlenecked by fillrate. Scene complexity can be increased by overdrawing, which happens when an object is drawn to the frame buffer, and another object (such as a wall) is then drawn on top of it, covering it up. The time spent drawing the first object is thus wasted because it is not visible. When a sequence of scenes is extremely complex (many pixels have to be drawn for each scene), the frame rate for the sequence may drop. When designing graphics intensive applications, one can determine whether the application is fillrate-limited (or shader limited) by seeing if the frame rate increases dramatically when the application runs at a lower resolution or in a smaller window. Although this is not a full-proof method, modern videogame engines can dynamically reduce the level-of-detail required and thereby reducing fillrate-limited applications. The best way to find fillrate bottlenecks is to use GPU vendor software like NVIDIA Nsight Graphics, AMD Radeon GPU Profile and the Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers.

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