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  • EXAPT

    EXAPT

    EXAPT (a portmanteau of "Extended Subset of APT") is a production-oriented programming language that allows users to generate NC programs with control information for machining tools and facilitates decision-making for production-related issues that may arise during various machining processes. EXAPT was first developed to address industrial requirements. Through the years, the company created additional software for the manufacturing industry. Today, EXAPT offers a suite of SAAS products and services for the manufacturing industry. The trade name, EXAPT, is most commonly associated with the CAD/CAM-System, production data, and tool management software of the German company EXAPT Systemtechnik GmbH based in Aachen, DE. == General == EXAPT is a modularly built programming system for all NC machining operations as Drilling Turning Milling Turn-Milling Nibbling Flame-, laser-, plasma- and water jet cutting Wire eroding Operations with industrial robots Due to the modular structure, the main product groups, EXAPTcam and EXAPTpdo, are gradually expandable and permit individual software for the manufacturing industry used individually and also in a compound with an existing IT environment. == Functionality == EXAPTcam meets the requirements for NC planning, especially for the cutting operations such as turning, drilling, and milling up to 5-axis simultaneous machining. Thereby new process technologies, tool, and machine concepts are constantly involved. In the NC programming data from different sources such as 3D CAD models, drawings or tables can flow in. The possibilities of NC programming reaches from language-oriented to feature-oriented NC programming. The integrated EXAPT knowledge database and intelligent and scalable automatisms support the user. The EXAPT NC planning also covers the generation of production information as clamping and tool plans, presetting data or time calculations. The realistic simulation possibilities of NC planning and NC control data provide with production reliability. EXAPTpdo (EXAPT ProductionsDataOrganization) provides a neutrally applicable technology platform for the information compound of the NC planning - to the shop floor. This applies to all NC production data that are necessary for the set-up of NC machines, for the provision, presetting, and stocking of manufacturing resources and provided by EXAPTpdo in a central database. Besides classical functions of the tool management system (TMS) as the management of cutting tools, measuring, testing and clamping devices the technology data management and tool lifecycle management (TLM) is also included. System-supported "where-used lists" helps to handle the manufacturing resource cycle by secured requirement determination and requirement fulfillment. Unnecessary transports and unplanned dispositive adjustments are dropped, stocks are reduced, set-up times reduced and the throughput is increased. EXAPTpdo synchronizes involved systems within the value chain. Stock systems, MES systems or ERP systems (e.g. from the purchasing or production areas) do not work in isolation from each other but they interact with each other. EXAPTpdo provides the base to Smart Factory, for more flexibility in production and faster communication. == History == With the foundation of the EXAPT-Verein in 1967 as spin-off of the universities Aachen, Berlin and Stuttgart the further development "EXAPT (EXtended Subset of APT)" of the programming language "APT (Automatically Programmed Tool)" was focused and so the first milestone for the EXAPT history was set. In the same year the system EXAPT 1 for drilling and simple milling tasks became available. 1969 The industrial application of EXAPT 2 for the programming of NC machines with 2-axis linear and path control begins. In the following year, the development of the EXAPT modular system starts. 1972 BASIC-EXAPT is provided for the universal, homogeneous programming of all NC tasks. The support is made by the EXAPT applications consultancy. 1973 EXAPT 1.1 is provided for the programming of straight-cut and continuous-path controlled drilling and milling machines and machining centers. At the Hanover Fair (IHA 73) the interactive access to a mainframe via a time-sharing terminal for the part program entry and correction is presented and starts the replacement of the punch card. 1974 The possibilities for the use of process computers for the NC data transfer are leveled out. EXAPT offers the possibility of the result simulation when using plotters with display of tool paths and tools in assignment to the workpiece. In April 1975, the EXAPT NC Systemtechnik GmbH was founded with the aim, of enabling entry into the NC technique for small and medium-sized companies by a complete product and service program. In the following year, the system portfolio is extended with further system modules and service programs and the provision of postprocessors. 1978 The development activities on the EXAPT module system started in 1970 are completed. Using modern software techniques, the different system parts BASIC-EXAPT, EXAPT 1, EXAPT 1.1, and EXAPT 2 are composed of a total system. System support and applications consultancy become a new working focus. From the beginning to the middle of the 1980s Beside new portable software modules for CAD/CAM applications (e. g. CAPEX, NESTEX, CADEX, CADCPL), the first version of the EXAPT DNC system and extensions of the EXAPT NC programming system for the machining of sculptured surfaces are presented. 1988 EXAPT expands the software product range by systems for tool data management (BMO) and production data management (FDO). EXAPT trains more than 1,300 course participants including company-specific courses. 1992 The first version of the completely new product generation EXAPTplus is presented and the agency in Dresden is opened. 1993 The company name "EXAPT NC Systemtechnik GmbH" is changed to "EXAPT Systemtechnik GmbH." EXAPTplus is presented on PC under Windows NT at the EMO '93. The decentralization of the use of EXAPT systems expands the range of applications. In the following year, EXAPT-DNC is executable under Windows on a customary PC. Special hardware is not needed and so it can be used in compound with the database-supported EXAPT production data management system (FDO). 1995 EXAPTplus is also ready for complex application cases such as machining of tubes at extrusion tools. EXAPT-CADI provides the transfer of 2D CAD data to EXAPTplus. With the new office Gießen the marketing is strengthened. In the following year the EXAPT NC editor is developed for the direct processing of NC control data with tool path display and visualization of the tools. In the course of the market entry of more comfortable 3D CAD systems for the solid modelling of components a detailed evaluation of current systems is made in 1997. It is decided to use SolidWorks as a reference system for the solid-oriented NC planning with EXAPT. 1998 The first solution for the transfer of geometry data between SolidWorks and EXAPTplus is generated. The EXAPT organization systems are (beside SQL) also executable under Oracle now. The use of client server solutions supports the data flow in the production. 1999 AFR functions are provided in connection with EXAPTsolid to support a workpiece modelling for NC. The millennium capability is ensured for all EXAPT systems. AFR is a ground-breaking for the integration of third-party products. 2002 EXAPT-BMG is developed for the generation and visualization of tools with additional functions for the assembly from components. The acquisition of tools with their geometric and technological presentation offers extensive support of the NC planning with EXAPT systems. 2003 EXAPTpdo is available to optimize the process chains in production planning and production execution optimally regarding the increasing requirements of changing production conditions. 2004 Diverse system extensions are made in EXAPTplus, EXAPTsolid, EXAPT NC editor, EXAPTpdo for the complete machining on turning/milling centres with result reliability because of more extensive simulation based on realNC (Tecnomatix), for the use of new complex tool systems and the compound use between ERP systems as SAP and intelligent CNC systems. In the following year, EXAPTpdo is extended for the cross-order set-up optimization and provision of manufacturing re-sources especially for single and small series production with connection to purchase and physical portfolio management. 2006 The EXAPT systems are available for extended use as an information platform for production, the time management, and similar requirements. EXAPTsolid is extended for the feature-oriented milling operation and machine simulation. The NC programming of complex machine tools, e.g. three-turret-turning/milling centers is supported by EXAPT systems, as well as the use of multi-functional tools. 2007 A module for 3-5-axis simultaneous milling machining is presented.

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  • Radial basis function kernel

    Radial basis function kernel

    In machine learning, the radial basis function kernel, or RBF kernel, is a popular kernel function used in various kernelized learning algorithms. In particular, it is commonly used in support vector machine classification. The RBF kernel on two samples x , x ′ ∈ R k {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} ,\mathbf {x'} \in \mathbb {R} ^{k}} , represented as feature vectors in some input space, is defined as K ( x , x ′ ) = exp ⁡ ( − ‖ x − x ′ ‖ 2 2 σ 2 ) {\displaystyle K(\mathbf {x} ,\mathbf {x'} )=\exp \left(-{\frac {\|\mathbf {x} -\mathbf {x'} \|^{2}}{2\sigma ^{2}}}\right)} ‖ x − x ′ ‖ 2 {\displaystyle \textstyle \|\mathbf {x} -\mathbf {x'} \|^{2}} may be recognized as the squared Euclidean distance between the two feature vectors. σ {\displaystyle \sigma } is a free parameter. An equivalent definition involves a parameter γ = 1 2 σ 2 {\displaystyle \textstyle \gamma ={\tfrac {1}{2\sigma ^{2}}}} : K ( x , x ′ ) = exp ⁡ ( − γ ‖ x − x ′ ‖ 2 ) {\displaystyle K(\mathbf {x} ,\mathbf {x'} )=\exp(-\gamma \|\mathbf {x} -\mathbf {x'} \|^{2})} Since the value of the RBF kernel decreases with distance and ranges between zero (in the infinite-distance limit) and one (when x = x'), it has a ready interpretation as a similarity measure. The feature space of the kernel has an infinite number of dimensions; for σ = 1 {\displaystyle \sigma =1} , its expansion using the multinomial theorem is: exp ⁡ ( − 1 2 ‖ x − x ′ ‖ 2 ) = exp ⁡ ( 2 2 x ⊤ x ′ − 1 2 ‖ x ‖ 2 − 1 2 ‖ x ′ ‖ 2 ) = exp ⁡ ( x ⊤ x ′ ) exp ⁡ ( − 1 2 ‖ x ‖ 2 ) exp ⁡ ( − 1 2 ‖ x ′ ‖ 2 ) = ∑ j = 0 ∞ ( x ⊤ x ′ ) j j ! exp ⁡ ( − 1 2 ‖ x ‖ 2 ) exp ⁡ ( − 1 2 ‖ x ′ ‖ 2 ) = ∑ j = 0 ∞ ∑ n 1 + n 2 + ⋯ + n k = j exp ⁡ ( − 1 2 ‖ x ‖ 2 ) x 1 n 1 ⋯ x k n k n 1 ! ⋯ n k ! exp ⁡ ( − 1 2 ‖ x ′ ‖ 2 ) x ′ 1 n 1 ⋯ x ′ k n k n 1 ! ⋯ n k ! = ⟨ φ ( x ) , φ ( x ′ ) ⟩ {\displaystyle {\begin{alignedat}{2}\exp \left(-{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x} -\mathbf {x'} \|^{2}\right)&=\exp \left({\frac {2}{2}}\mathbf {x} ^{\top }\mathbf {x'} -{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x} \|^{2}-{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x'} \|^{2}\right)\\[5pt]&=\exp \left(\mathbf {x} ^{\top }\mathbf {x'} \right)\exp \left(-{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x} \|^{2}\right)\exp \left(-{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x'} \|^{2}\right)\\[5pt]&=\sum _{j=0}^{\infty }{\frac {(\mathbf {x} ^{\top }\mathbf {x'} )^{j}}{j!}}\exp \left(-{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x} \|^{2}\right)\exp \left(-{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x'} \|^{2}\right)\\[5pt]&=\sum _{j=0}^{\infty }\quad \sum _{n_{1}+n_{2}+\dots +n_{k}=j}\exp \left(-{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x} \|^{2}\right){\frac {x_{1}^{n_{1}}\cdots x_{k}^{n_{k}}}{\sqrt {n_{1}!\cdots n_{k}!}}}\exp \left(-{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x'} \|^{2}\right){\frac {{x'}_{1}^{n_{1}}\cdots {x'}_{k}^{n_{k}}}{\sqrt {n_{1}!\cdots n_{k}!}}}\\[5pt]&=\langle \varphi (\mathbf {x} ),\varphi (\mathbf {x'} )\rangle \end{alignedat}}} φ ( x ) = exp ⁡ ( − 1 2 ‖ x ‖ 2 ) ( a ℓ 0 ( 0 ) , a 1 ( 1 ) , … , a ℓ 1 ( 1 ) , … , a 1 ( j ) , … , a ℓ j ( j ) , … ) {\displaystyle \varphi (\mathbf {x} )=\exp \left(-{\frac {1}{2}}\|\mathbf {x} \|^{2}\right)\left(a_{\ell _{0}}^{(0)},a_{1}^{(1)},\dots ,a_{\ell _{1}}^{(1)},\dots ,a_{1}^{(j)},\dots ,a_{\ell _{j}}^{(j)},\dots \right)} where ℓ j = ( k + j − 1 j ) {\displaystyle \ell _{j}={\tbinom {k+j-1}{j}}} , a ℓ ( j ) = x 1 n 1 ⋯ x k n k n 1 ! ⋯ n k ! | n 1 + n 2 + ⋯ + n k = j ∧ 1 ≤ ℓ ≤ ℓ j {\displaystyle a_{\ell }^{(j)}={\frac {x_{1}^{n_{1}}\cdots x_{k}^{n_{k}}}{\sqrt {n_{1}!\cdots n_{k}!}}}\quad |\quad n_{1}+n_{2}+\dots +n_{k}=j\wedge 1\leq \ell \leq \ell _{j}} == Approximations == Because support vector machines and other models employing the kernel trick do not scale well to large numbers of training samples or large numbers of features in the input space, several approximations to the RBF kernel (and similar kernels) have been introduced. Typically, these take the form of a function z that maps a single vector to a vector of higher dimensionality, approximating the kernel: ⟨ z ( x ) , z ( x ′ ) ⟩ ≈ ⟨ φ ( x ) , φ ( x ′ ) ⟩ = K ( x , x ′ ) {\displaystyle \langle z(\mathbf {x} ),z(\mathbf {x'} )\rangle \approx \langle \varphi (\mathbf {x} ),\varphi (\mathbf {x'} )\rangle =K(\mathbf {x} ,\mathbf {x'} )} where φ {\displaystyle \textstyle \varphi } is the implicit mapping embedded in the RBF kernel. === Fourier random features === One way to construct such a z is to randomly sample from the Fourier transformation of the kernel φ ( x ) = 1 D [ cos ⁡ ⟨ w 1 , x ⟩ , sin ⁡ ⟨ w 1 , x ⟩ , … , cos ⁡ ⟨ w D , x ⟩ , sin ⁡ ⟨ w D , x ⟩ ] T {\displaystyle \varphi (x)={\frac {1}{\sqrt {D}}}[\cos \langle w_{1},x\rangle ,\sin \langle w_{1},x\rangle ,\ldots ,\cos \langle w_{D},x\rangle ,\sin \langle w_{D},x\rangle ]^{T}} where w 1 , . . . , w D {\displaystyle w_{1},...,w_{D}} are independent samples from the normal distribution N ( 0 , σ − 2 I ) {\displaystyle N(0,\sigma ^{-2}I)} . Theorem: E ⁡ [ ⟨ φ ( x ) , φ ( y ) ⟩ ] = e ‖ x − y ‖ 2 / ( 2 σ 2 ) . {\displaystyle \operatorname {E} [\langle \varphi (x),\varphi (y)\rangle ]=e^{\|x-y\|^{2}/(2\sigma ^{2})}.} Proof: It suffices to prove the case of D = 1 {\displaystyle D=1} . Use the trigonometric identity cos ⁡ ( a − b ) = cos ⁡ ( a ) cos ⁡ ( b ) + sin ⁡ ( a ) sin ⁡ ( b ) {\displaystyle \cos(a-b)=\cos(a)\cos(b)+\sin(a)\sin(b)} , the spherical symmetry of Gaussian distribution, then evaluate the integral ∫ − ∞ ∞ cos ⁡ ( k x ) e − x 2 / 2 2 π d x = e − k 2 / 2 . {\displaystyle \int _{-\infty }^{\infty }{\frac {\cos(kx)e^{-x^{2}/2}}{\sqrt {2\pi }}}dx=e^{-k^{2}/2}.} Theorem: Var ⁡ [ ⟨ φ ( x ) , φ ( y ) ⟩ ] = O ( D − 1 ) {\displaystyle \operatorname {Var} [\langle \varphi (x),\varphi (y)\rangle ]=O(D^{-1})} . (Appendix A.2). === Nyström method === Another approach uses the Nyström method to approximate the eigendecomposition of the Gram matrix K, using only a random sample of the training set.

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  • Stochastic block model

    Stochastic block model

    The stochastic block model is a generative model for random graphs. This model tends to produce graphs containing communities, subsets of nodes characterized by being connected with one another with particular edge densities. For example, edges may be more common within communities than between communities. Its mathematical formulation was first introduced in 1983 in the field of social network analysis by Paul W. Holland et al. The stochastic block model is important in statistics, machine learning, and network science, where it serves as a useful benchmark for the task of recovering community structure in graph data. == Definition == The stochastic block model takes the following parameters: The number n {\displaystyle n} of vertices; a partition of the vertex set { 1 , … , n } {\displaystyle \{1,\ldots ,n\}} into disjoint subsets C 1 , … , C r {\displaystyle C_{1},\ldots ,C_{r}} , called communities; a symmetric r × r {\displaystyle r\times r} matrix P {\displaystyle P} of edge probabilities. The edge set is then sampled at random as follows: any two vertices u ∈ C i {\displaystyle u\in C_{i}} and v ∈ C j {\displaystyle v\in C_{j}} are connected by an edge with probability P i j {\displaystyle P_{ij}} . An example problem is: given a graph with n {\displaystyle n} vertices, where the edges are sampled as described, recover the groups C 1 , … , C r {\displaystyle C_{1},\ldots ,C_{r}} . == Special cases == If the probability matrix is a constant, in the sense that P i j = p {\displaystyle P_{ij}=p} for all i , j {\displaystyle i,j} , then the result is the Erdős–Rényi model G ( n , p ) {\displaystyle G(n,p)} . This case is degenerate—the partition into communities becomes irrelevant—but it illustrates a close relationship to the Erdős–Rényi model. The planted partition model is the special case that the values of the probability matrix P {\displaystyle P} are a constant p {\displaystyle p} on the diagonal and another constant q {\displaystyle q} off the diagonal. Thus two vertices within the same community share an edge with probability p {\displaystyle p} , while two vertices in different communities share an edge with probability q {\displaystyle q} . Sometimes it is this restricted model that is called the stochastic block model. The case where p > q {\displaystyle p>q} is called an assortative model, while the case p < q {\displaystyle p P j k {\displaystyle P_{ii}>P_{jk}} whenever j ≠ k {\displaystyle j\neq k} : all diagonal entries dominate all off-diagonal entries. A model is called weakly assortative if P i i > P i j {\displaystyle P_{ii}>P_{ij}} whenever i ≠ j {\displaystyle i\neq j} : each diagonal entry is only required to dominate the rest of its own row and column. Disassortative forms of this terminology exist, by reversing all inequalities. For some algorithms, recovery might be easier for block models with assortative or disassortative conditions of this form. == Typical statistical tasks == Much of the literature on algorithmic community detection addresses three statistical tasks: detection, partial recovery, and exact recovery. === Detection === The goal of detection algorithms is simply to determine, given a sampled graph, whether the graph has latent community structure. More precisely, a graph might be generated, with some known prior probability, from a known stochastic block model, and otherwise from a similar Erdos-Renyi model. The algorithmic task is to correctly identify which of these two underlying models generated the graph. === Partial recovery === In partial recovery, the goal is to approximately determine the latent partition into communities, in the sense of finding a partition that is correlated with the true partition significantly better than a random guess. === Exact recovery === In exact recovery, the goal is to recover the latent partition into communities exactly. The community sizes and probability matrix may be known or unknown. == Statistical lower bounds and threshold behavior == Stochastic block models exhibit a sharp threshold effect reminiscent of percolation thresholds. Suppose that we allow the size n {\displaystyle n} of the graph to grow, keeping the community sizes in fixed proportions. If the probability matrix remains fixed, tasks such as partial and exact recovery become feasible for all non-degenerate parameter settings. However, if we scale down the probability matrix at a suitable rate as n {\displaystyle n} increases, we observe a sharp phase transition: for certain settings of the parameters, it will become possible to achieve recovery with probability tending to 1, whereas on the opposite side of the parameter threshold, the probability of recovery tends to 0 no matter what algorithm is used. For partial recovery, the appropriate scaling is to take P i j = P ~ i j / n {\displaystyle P_{ij}={\tilde {P}}_{ij}/n} for fixed P ~ {\displaystyle {\tilde {P}}} , resulting in graphs of constant average degree. In the case of two equal-sized communities, in the assortative planted partition model with probability matrix P = ( p ~ / n q ~ / n q ~ / n p ~ / n ) , {\displaystyle P=\left({\begin{array}{cc}{\tilde {p}}/n&{\tilde {q}}/n\\{\tilde {q}}/n&{\tilde {p}}/n\end{array}}\right),} partial recovery is feasible with probability 1 − o ( 1 ) {\displaystyle 1-o(1)} whenever ( p ~ − q ~ ) 2 > 2 ( p ~ + q ~ ) {\displaystyle ({\tilde {p}}-{\tilde {q}})^{2}>2({\tilde {p}}+{\tilde {q}})} , whereas any estimator fails partial recovery with probability 1 − o ( 1 ) {\displaystyle 1-o(1)} whenever ( p ~ − q ~ ) 2 < 2 ( p ~ + q ~ ) {\displaystyle ({\tilde {p}}-{\tilde {q}})^{2}<2({\tilde {p}}+{\tilde {q}})} . For exact recovery, the appropriate scaling is to take P i j = P ~ i j log ⁡ n / n {\displaystyle P_{ij}={\tilde {P}}_{ij}\log n/n} , resulting in graphs of logarithmic average degree. Here a similar threshold exists: for the assortative planted partition model with r {\displaystyle r} equal-sized communities, the threshold lies at p ~ − q ~ = r {\displaystyle {\sqrt {\tilde {p}}}-{\sqrt {\tilde {q}}}={\sqrt {r}}} . In fact, the exact recovery threshold is known for the fully general stochastic block model. == Algorithms == In principle, exact recovery can be solved in its feasible range using maximum likelihood, but this amounts to solving a constrained or regularized cut problem such as minimum bisection that is typically NP-complete. Hence, no known efficient algorithms will correctly compute the maximum-likelihood estimate in the worst case. However, a wide variety of algorithms perform well in the average case, and many high-probability performance guarantees have been proven for algorithms in both the partial and exact recovery settings. Successful algorithms include spectral clustering of the vertices, semidefinite programming, forms of belief propagation, and community detection among others. == Variants == Several variants of the model exist. One minor tweak allocates vertices to communities randomly, according to a categorical distribution, rather than in a fixed partition. More significant variants include the degree-corrected stochastic block model, the hierarchical stochastic block model, the geometric block model, censored block model and the mixed-membership block model. == Topic models == Stochastic block model have been recognised to be a topic model on bipartite networks. In a network of documents and words, Stochastic block model can identify topics: group of words with a similar meaning. == Extensions to signed graphs == Signed graphs allow for both favorable and adverse relationships and serve as a common model choice for various data analysis applications, e.g., correlation clustering. The stochastic block model can be trivially extended to signed graphs by assigning both positive and negative edge weights or equivalently using a difference of adjacency matrices of two stochastic block models. == DARPA/MIT/AWS Graph Challenge: streaming stochastic block partition == GraphChallenge encourages community approaches to developing new solutions for analyzing graphs and sparse data derived from social media, sensor feeds, and scientific data to enable relationships between events to be discovered as they unfold in the field. Streaming stochastic block partition is one of the challenges since 2017. Spectral clustering has demonstrated outstanding performance compared to the original and even improved base algorithm, matching its quality of clusters while being multiple orders of magnitude faster.

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  • Word2vec

    Word2vec

    Word2vec is a technique in natural language processing for obtaining vector representations of words. These vectors capture information about the meaning of the word based on the surrounding words. The word2vec algorithm estimates these representations by modeling text in a large corpus. Once trained, such a model can detect synonymous words or suggest additional words for a partial sentence. Word2vec was developed by Tomáš Mikolov, Kai Chen, Greg Corrado, Ilya Sutskever and Jeff Dean at Google, and published in 2013. Word2vec represents a word as a high-dimension vector of numbers which capture relationships between words. In particular, words which appear in similar contexts are mapped to vectors which are nearby as measured by cosine similarity. This indicates the level of semantic similarity between the words, so for example the vectors for walk and ran are nearby, as are those for "but" and "however", and "Berlin" and "Germany". == Approach == Word2vec is a group of related models that are used to produce word embeddings. These models are shallow, two-layer neural networks that are trained to reconstruct linguistic contexts of words. Word2vec takes as its input a large corpus of text and produces a mapping of the set of words to a vector space, typically of several hundred dimensions, with each unique word in the corpus being assigned a vector in the space. Word2vec can use either of two model architectures to produce these distributed representations of words: continuous bag of words (CBOW) or continuously sliding skip-gram. In both architectures, word2vec considers both individual words and a sliding context window as it iterates over the corpus. The CBOW can be viewed as a 'fill in the blank' task, where the word embedding represents the way the word influences the relative probabilities of other words in the context window. Words which are semantically similar should influence these probabilities in similar ways, because semantically similar words should be used in similar contexts. The order of context words does not influence prediction (bag of words assumption). In the continuous skip-gram architecture, the model uses the current word to predict the surrounding window of context words. The skip-gram architecture weighs nearby context words more heavily than more distant context words. According to the authors' note, CBOW is faster while skip-gram does a better job for infrequent words. After the model is trained, the learned word embeddings are positioned in the vector space such that words that share common contexts in the corpus — that is, words that are semantically and syntactically similar — are located close to one another in the space. More dissimilar words are located farther from one another in the space. == Mathematical details == This section is based on expositions. A corpus is a sequence of words. Both CBOW and skip-gram are methods to learn one vector per word appearing in the corpus. Let V {\displaystyle V} ("vocabulary") be the set of all words appearing in the corpus C {\displaystyle C} . Our goal is to learn one vector v w ∈ R d {\displaystyle v_{w}\in \mathbb {R} ^{d}} for each word w ∈ V {\displaystyle w\in V} . The idea of skip-gram is that the vector of a word should be close to the vector of each of its neighbors. The idea of CBOW is that the vector-sum of a word's neighbors should be close to the vector of the word. === Continuous bag-of-words (CBOW) === The idea of CBOW is to represent each word with a vector, such that it is possible to predict a word using the sum of the vectors of its neighbors. Specifically, for each word w i {\displaystyle w_{i}} in the corpus, the one-hot encoding of the word is used as the input to the neural network. The output of the neural network is a probability distribution over the dictionary, representing a prediction of individual words in the neighborhood of w i {\displaystyle w_{i}} . The objective of training is to maximize ∑ i ln ⁡ Pr ( w i ∣ w i + j : j ∈ N ) {\displaystyle \sum _{i}\ln \Pr(w_{i}\mid w_{i+j}\colon j\in N)} where N {\displaystyle N} is a set of (non-zero) indices representing the relative locations of nearby words considered to be in w i {\displaystyle w_{i}} 's neighborhood. For example, if we want each word in the corpus to be predicted by every other word in a small span of 4 words. The set of relative indexes of neighbor words will be: N = { − 2 , − 1 , + 1 , + 2 } {\displaystyle N=\{-2,-1,+1,+2\}} , and the objective is to maximize ∑ i ln ⁡ Pr ( w i ∣ w i − 2 , w i − 1 , w i + 1 , w i + 2 ) {\displaystyle \sum _{i}\ln \Pr(w_{i}\mid w_{i-2},w_{i-1},w_{i+1},w_{i+2})} . In standard bag-of-words, a word's context is represented by a word-count (aka a word histogram) of its neighboring words. For example, the "sat" in "the cat sat on the mat" is represented as {"the": 2, "cat": 1, "on": 1}. Note that the last word "mat" is not used to represent "sat", because it is outside the neighborhood N = { − 2 , − 1 , + 1 , + 2 } {\displaystyle N=\{-2,-1,+1,+2\}} . In continuous bag-of-words, the histogram is multiplied by a matrix V {\displaystyle V} to obtain a continuous representation of the word's context. The matrix V {\displaystyle V} is also called a dictionary. Its columns are the word vectors. It has D {\displaystyle D} columns, where D {\displaystyle D} is the size of the dictionary. Let d {\displaystyle d} be the length of each word vector. We have V ∈ R d × D {\displaystyle V\in \mathbb {R} ^{d\times D}} . For example, multiplying the word histogram {"the": 2, "cat": 1, "on": 1} with V {\displaystyle V} , we obtain 2 v the + v cat + v on {\displaystyle 2v_{\text{the}}+v_{\text{cat}}+v_{\text{on}}} . This is then multiplied with another matrix V ′ {\displaystyle V'} of shape R D × d {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{D\times d}} . Each row of it is a word vector v ′ {\displaystyle v'} . This results in a vector of length D {\displaystyle D} , one entry per dictionary entry. Then, apply the softmax to obtain a probability distribution over the dictionary. This system can be visualized as a neural network, similar in spirit to an autoencoder, of architecture linear-linear-softmax, as depicted in the diagram. The system is trained by gradient descent to minimize the cross-entropy loss. In full formula, the cross-entropy loss is: − ∑ i ln ⁡ e v w i ′ ⋅ ( ∑ j ∈ N v w j + i ) ∑ w ′ e v w ′ ′ ⋅ ( ∑ j ∈ N v w j + i ) {\displaystyle -\sum _{i}\ln {\frac {e^{v_{w_{i}}'\cdot (\sum _{j\in N}v_{w_{j+i}})}}{\sum _{w'}e^{v_{w'}'\cdot (\sum _{j\in N}v_{w_{j+i}})}}}} where the outer summation ∑ i {\displaystyle \sum _{i}} is over the words in a corpus, the quantity ∑ j ∈ N v w j + i {\displaystyle \sum _{j\in N}v_{w_{j+i}}} is the sum of a word's neighbors' vectors, etc. Once such a system is trained, we have two trained matrices V , V ′ {\displaystyle V,V'} . Either the column vectors of V {\displaystyle V} or the row vectors of V ′ {\displaystyle V'} can serve as the dictionary. For example, the word "sat" can be represented as either the "sat"-th column of V {\displaystyle V} or the "sat"-th row of V ′ {\displaystyle V'} . It is also possible to simply define V ′ = V ⊤ {\displaystyle V'=V^{\top }} , in which case there would no longer be a choice. === Skip-gram === The idea of skip-gram is to represent each word with a vector, such that it is possible to predict the vectors of its neighbors using the vector of a word. The architecture is still linear-linear-softmax, the same as CBOW, but the input and the output are switched. Specifically, for each word w i {\displaystyle w_{i}} in the corpus, the one-hot encoding of the word is used as the input to the neural network. The output of the neural network is a probability distribution over the dictionary, representing a prediction of individual words in the neighborhood of w i {\displaystyle w_{i}} . The objective of training is to maximize ∑ i ∑ j ∈ N ln ⁡ Pr ( w j + i ∣ w i ) {\displaystyle \sum _{i}\sum _{j\in N}\ln \Pr(w_{j+i}\mid w_{i})} . In full formula, the loss function is − ∑ i ∑ j ∈ N ln ⁡ e v w j + i ′ ⋅ v w i ∑ w ′ e v w ′ ′ ⋅ v w i {\displaystyle -\sum _{i}\sum _{j\in N}\ln {\frac {e^{v_{w_{j+i}}'\cdot v_{w_{i}}}}{\sum _{w'}e^{v_{w'}'\cdot v_{w_{i}}}}}} Same as CBOW, once such a system is trained, we have two trained matrices V , V ′ {\displaystyle V,V'} . Either the column vectors of V {\displaystyle V} or the row vectors of V ′ {\displaystyle V'} can serve as the dictionary. It is also possible to simply define V ′ = V ⊤ {\displaystyle V'=V^{\top }} , in which case there would no longer be a choice. Essentially, skip-gram and CBOW are exactly the same in architecture. They only differ in the objective function during training. == History == During the 1980s, there were some early attempts at using neural networks to represent words and concepts as vectors. In 2010, Tomáš Mikolov (then at Brno University of Technology) with co-authors applied a simple recurrent neural network with a single hidden

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  • Trebel (music app)

    Trebel (music app)

    Trebel is an on-demand music download and discovery platform developed by M&M Media Inc. The company's business model aims to combat digital music piracy by giving users access to on-demand music at no cost while delivering fair compensation to artists and music rights holders. Trebel has a patent that allows it to market itself as the only international music service in which users can legally download music and listen to it offline for free. As of March 2023, Trebel has a catalog of 75 million songs from record labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and hundreds of independent labels. Trebel is based in Stamford, Connecticut. with additional locations in Mexico City, Jakarta, Bogota, Los Angeles and Miami. The app is available in the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and Huawei AppGallery. == History == Trebel was founded in 2014 by Gary Mekikian, who was previously the co-founder of answerFriend, Inc., which commercialized web based question-answering technologies and merged with Electric Knowledge, forming InQuira. This company was eventually acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2011. His co-founders at Trebel include Stanford classmates Corey Jones and Luis Soto Durazo, as well as his daughters Grace and Juliette. Mekikian envisioned Trebel as an alternative to music piracy after a high school classmate of his daughters was targeted by cyberattackers while illegally downloading music online. Trebel was initially released in 2015 under the name Project Carmen to students at Ohio State, Santa Monica College, Cal State Fullerton, UCLA and Long Beach State. In its original incarnation, the service planned to target students at 3,000 universities and 30,000 high schools in the United States. A beta version of the app was introduced in 2016 with content from Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Trebel launched commercially in the United States and Mexico in 2018. In 2018, Mexican mass-media corporation Televisa also became a minority investor in Trebel. In May 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trebel was a digital broadcast partner for Se Agradece, a concert produced in Mexico by Televisa to honor frontline COVID workers that featured artists such as Rosalia, J Balvin, Maluma and Ricky Martin. In June 2021, Trebel reached 3 million monthly active users. In October 2021, Trebel signed a music licensing agreement with Merlin Network, the licensing agency for the independent music sector that controls an estimated 12% of the global digital recorded music market. In January 2022, Trebel announced a strategic alliance with MNC Corporation, an Indonesian media conglomerate, which also became a minority backer of the company. In March 2022, Trebel reported 5.2 million monthly active users as a result of growth in Latin America. In the same month,, Latin music star Maluma became a backer of Trebel and an advisor to Gary Mekikian, helping expand the service throughout Latin America. On April 18, 2022, Trebel launched in Indonesia during the finale of the music competition show X Factor Indonesia. Trebel also signed a deal that month with Soccer Media Solutions, a sports and entertainment marketing agency in Mexico, to sell Trebel’s premium advertising inventory through Soccer Media. In May 2022, Guillermo Ochoa, goalkeeper for the Mexican national soccer team, invested in Trebel and became an ambassador for the company. On October 2, 2022, Trebel collaborated with Musica Studios, one of the largest music companies in Indonesia, on the production of a music festival in Jakarta titled Trebel Music Fest. The event featured performances by top Indonesian music artists such as Noah, Nidji, and d'Masiv. In October 2022, Trebel launched in Colombia. The service reached 1.2 million monthly active users in Colombia six months after launching. In December 2022, Trebel collaborated with KFC in Indonesia on the release of a KFC digital music program using a product called Trebel Max. As part of the program, KFC customers who bought the Crazy Superstar Combo package at KFC received a subscription to Trebel Max for 30 days. Trebel announced the launch of Trebel AI in May 2023. Trebel AI uses ChatGPT-powered technology to generate playlists based on natural language queries from users. In Indonesia, the Trebel AI feature was announced during a broadcast of the show Indonesian Idol XII that took place on May 8, 2023. In July 2023, Trebel reached more than 13 million monthly active users. In November 2023, Trebel became a featured app on the Discord app directory. Discord users that add the Trebel bot to their servers have access to Trebel's on-demand music library and have the exclusive privilege of being DJ's during server sessions with up to 150 concurrent listeners. == Platform == === Features === Trebel has a patent that allows it to market itself as the only international music service in which users can legally download music and listen to it offline for free. As of March 2023, Trebel has a catalog of 75 million songs from record labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and hundreds of independent labels. Trebel offers unlimited music downloads that are playable in the app by registered users only. Offline listening is free to all users and not blocked by a paywall. Users can search for music based on song, artist, album, browsing friends' recent activity, and through other users' playlists. The app also offers free cloud storage for downloaded songs. Trebel also contains a feature called SongID, which identifies music being played nearby using a short sample, then offers it for download on the service. Podcasts are available for free listening on the service as well. === Business model === Trebel uses a business model that generates revenue from the sale of digital advertising as well as user interactions with branded experiences, and consumption of virtual goods within the app (akin to mobile games). The app also features a brand takeover feature called Trebel Max, which offers unlimited access in exchange for users engaging with experiences offered by specific brands. Trebel’s brand partners include Uber, KFC, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Amazon and P&G. === Content === In September 2022, Trebel secured an exclusive release of the song “Suara Hatiku” by Indonesian actress Amanda Monopo. As of March 2023, Trebel offers 75 million songs through licensing agreements with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and global indie rights agency Merlin. == Awards == In 2023, Trebel won three Google Play awards including "Best App of 2023", "Best Everyday Essentials" and "Users' Choice".

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  • Cartesian genetic programming

    Cartesian genetic programming

    Cartesian genetic programming is a form of genetic programming that uses a graph representation to encode computer programs. It grew from a method of evolving digital circuits developed by Julian F. Miller and Peter Thomson in 1997. The term ‘Cartesian genetic programming’ first appeared in 1999 and was proposed as a general form of genetic programming in 2000. It is called ‘Cartesian’ because it represents a program using a two-dimensional grid of nodes. Miller's keynote explains how CGP works. He edited a book entitled Cartesian Genetic Programming, published in 2011 by Springer. The open source project dCGP implements a differentiable version of CGP developed at the European Space Agency by Dario Izzo, Francesco Biscani and Alessio Mereta able to approach symbolic regression tasks, to find solution to differential equations, find prime integrals of dynamical systems, represent variable topology artificial neural networks and more.

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  • Quadratic unconstrained binary optimization

    Quadratic unconstrained binary optimization

    Quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO), also known as unconstrained binary quadratic programming (UBQP), is a combinatorial optimization problem with a wide range of applications from finance and economics to machine learning. QUBO is an NP hard problem, and for many classical problems from theoretical computer science, like maximum cut, graph coloring and the partition problem, embeddings into QUBO have been formulated. Embeddings for machine learning models include support-vector machines, clustering and probabilistic graphical models. Moreover, due to its close connection to Ising models, QUBO constitutes a central problem class for adiabatic quantum computation, where it is solved through a physical process called quantum annealing. == Definition == Let B = { 0 , 1 } {\displaystyle \mathbb {B} =\lbrace 0,1\rbrace } the set of binary digits (or bits), then B n {\displaystyle \mathbb {B} ^{n}} is the set of binary vectors of fixed length n ∈ N {\displaystyle n\in \mathbb {N} } . Given a symmetric or upper triangular matrix Q ∈ R n × n {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {Q}}\in \mathbb {R} ^{n\times n}} , whose entries Q i j {\displaystyle Q_{ij}} define a weight for each pair of indices i , j ∈ { 1 , … , n } {\displaystyle i,j\in \lbrace 1,\dots ,n\rbrace } , we can define the function f Q : B n → R {\displaystyle f_{\boldsymbol {Q}}:\mathbb {B} ^{n}\rightarrow \mathbb {R} } that assigns a value to each binary vector x {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {x}}} through f Q ( x ) = x ⊺ Q x = ∑ i = 1 n ∑ j = 1 n Q i j x i x j . {\displaystyle f_{\boldsymbol {Q}}({\boldsymbol {x}})={\boldsymbol {x}}^{\intercal }{\boldsymbol {Qx}}=\sum _{i=1}^{n}\sum _{j=1}^{n}Q_{ij}x_{i}x_{j}.} Alternatively, the linear and quadratic parts can be separated as f Q ′ , q ( x ) = x ⊺ Q ′ x + q ⊺ x , {\displaystyle f_{{\boldsymbol {Q}}',{\boldsymbol {q}}}({\boldsymbol {x}})={\boldsymbol {x}}^{\intercal }{\boldsymbol {Q}}'{\boldsymbol {x}}+{\boldsymbol {q}}^{\intercal }{\boldsymbol {x}},} where Q ′ ∈ R n × n {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {Q}}'\in \mathbb {R} ^{n\times n}} and q ∈ R n {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {q}}\in \mathbb {R} ^{n}} . This is equivalent to the previous definition through Q = Q ′ + diag ⁡ [ q ] {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {Q}}={\boldsymbol {Q}}'+\operatorname {diag} [{\boldsymbol {q}}]} using the diag operator, exploiting that x = x ⋅ x {\displaystyle x=x\cdot x} for all binary values x {\displaystyle x} . Intuitively, the weight Q i j {\displaystyle Q_{ij}} is added if both x i = 1 {\displaystyle x_{i}=1} and x j = 1 {\displaystyle x_{j}=1} . The QUBO problem consists of finding a binary vector x ∗ {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {x}}^{}} that minimizes f Q {\displaystyle f_{\boldsymbol {Q}}} , i.e., ∀ x ∈ B n : f Q ( x ∗ ) ≤ f Q ( x ) {\displaystyle \forall {\boldsymbol {x}}\in \mathbb {B} ^{n}:~f_{\boldsymbol {Q}}({\boldsymbol {x}}^{})\leq f_{\boldsymbol {Q}}({\boldsymbol {x}})} . In general, x ∗ {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {x}}^{}} is not unique, meaning there may be a set of minimizing vectors with equal value w.r.t. f Q {\displaystyle f_{\boldsymbol {Q}}} . The complexity of QUBO arises from the number of candidate binary vectors to be evaluated, as | B n | = 2 n {\displaystyle \left|\mathbb {B} ^{n}\right|=2^{n}} grows exponentially in n {\displaystyle n} . Sometimes, QUBO is defined as the problem of maximizing f Q {\displaystyle f_{\boldsymbol {Q}}} , which is equivalent to minimizing f − Q = − f Q {\displaystyle f_{-{\boldsymbol {Q}}}=-f_{\boldsymbol {Q}}} . == Properties == QUBO is scale invariant for positive factors α > 0 {\displaystyle \alpha >0} , which leave the optimum x ∗ {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {x}}^{}} unchanged: f α Q ( x ) = x ⊺ ( α Q ) x = α ( x ⊺ Q x ) = α f Q ( x ) {\displaystyle f_{\alpha {\boldsymbol {Q}}}({\boldsymbol {x}})={\boldsymbol {x}}^{\intercal }(\alpha {\boldsymbol {Q}}){\boldsymbol {x}}=\alpha ({\boldsymbol {x}}^{\intercal }{\boldsymbol {Qx}})=\alpha f_{\boldsymbol {Q}}({\boldsymbol {x}})} . In its general form, QUBO is NP-hard and cannot be solved efficiently by any known polynomial-time algorithm. However, there are polynomially-solvable special cases, where Q {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {Q}}} has certain properties, for example: If all coefficients are positive, the optimum is trivially x ∗ = ( 0 , … , 0 ) ⊺ {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {x}}^{}=(0,\dots ,0)^{\intercal }} . Similarly, if all coefficients are negative, the optimum is x ∗ = ( 1 , … , 1 ) ⊺ {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {x}}^{}=(1,\dots ,1)^{\intercal }} . If Q {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {Q}}} is diagonal, the bits can be optimized independently, and the problem is solvable in O ( n ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}(n)} . The optimal variable assignments are simply x i ∗ = 1 {\displaystyle x_{i}^{}=1} if Q i i < 0 {\displaystyle Q_{ii}<0} , and x i ∗ = 0 {\displaystyle x_{i}^{}=0} otherwise. If all off-diagonal elements of Q {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {Q}}} are non-positive, the corresponding QUBO problem is solvable in polynomial time. QUBO can be solved using integer linear programming solvers like CPLEX or Gurobi Optimizer. This is possible since QUBO can be reformulated as a linear constrained binary optimization problem. To achieve this, substitute the product x i x j {\displaystyle x_{i}x_{j}} by an additional binary variable z i j ∈ B {\displaystyle z_{ij}\in \mathbb {B} } and add the constraints x i ≥ z i j {\displaystyle x_{i}\geq z_{ij}} , x j ≥ z i j {\displaystyle x_{j}\geq z_{ij}} and x i + x j − 1 ≤ z i j {\displaystyle x_{i}+x_{j}-1\leq z_{ij}} . Note that z i j {\displaystyle z_{ij}} can also be relaxed to continuous variables within the bounds zero and one. == Applications == QUBO is a structurally simple, yet computationally hard optimization problem. It can be used to encode a wide range of optimization problems from various scientific areas. === Maximum Cut === Given a graph G = ( V , E ) {\displaystyle G=(V,E)} with vertex set V = { 1 , … , n } {\displaystyle V=\lbrace 1,\dots ,n\rbrace } and edges E ⊆ V × V {\displaystyle E\subseteq V\times V} , the maximum cut (max-cut) problem consists of finding two subsets S , T ⊆ V {\displaystyle S,T\subseteq V} with T = V ∖ S {\displaystyle T=V\setminus S} , such that the number of edges between S {\displaystyle S} and T {\displaystyle T} is maximized. The more general weighted max-cut problem assumes edge weights w i j ≥ 0 ∀ i , j ∈ V {\displaystyle w_{ij}\geq 0~\forall i,j\in V} , with ( i , j ) ∉ E ⇒ w i j = 0 {\displaystyle (i,j)\notin E\Rightarrow w_{ij}=0} , and asks for a partition S , T ⊆ V {\displaystyle S,T\subseteq V} that maximizes the sum of edge weights between S {\displaystyle S} and T {\displaystyle T} , i.e., max S ⊆ V ∑ i ∈ S , j ∉ S w i j . {\displaystyle \max _{S\subseteq V}\sum _{i\in S,j\notin S}w_{ij}.} By setting w i j = 1 {\displaystyle w_{ij}=1} for all ( i , j ) ∈ E {\displaystyle (i,j)\in E} this becomes equivalent to the original max-cut problem above, which is why we focus on this more general form in the following. For every vertex in i ∈ V {\displaystyle i\in V} we introduce a binary variable x i {\displaystyle x_{i}} with the interpretation x i = 0 {\displaystyle x_{i}=0} if i ∈ S {\displaystyle i\in S} and x i = 1 {\displaystyle x_{i}=1} if i ∈ T {\displaystyle i\in T} . As T = V ∖ S {\displaystyle T=V\setminus S} , every i {\displaystyle i} is in exactly one set, meaning there is a 1:1 correspondence between binary vectors x ∈ B n {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {x}}\in \mathbb {B} ^{n}} and partitions of V {\displaystyle V} into two subsets. We observe that, for any i , j ∈ V {\displaystyle i,j\in V} , the expression x i ( 1 − x j ) + ( 1 − x i ) x j {\displaystyle x_{i}(1-x_{j})+(1-x_{i})x_{j}} evaluates to 1 if and only if i {\displaystyle i} and j {\displaystyle j} are in different subsets, equivalent to logical XOR. Let W ∈ R + n × n {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {W}}\in \mathbb {R} _{+}^{n\times n}} with W i j = w i j ∀ i , j ∈ V {\displaystyle W_{ij}=w_{ij}~\forall i,j\in V} . By extending above expression to matrix-vector form we find that x ⊺ W ( 1 − x ) + ( 1 − x ) ⊺ W x = − 2 x ⊺ W x + ( W 1 + W ⊺ 1 ) ⊺ x {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {x}}^{\intercal }{\boldsymbol {W}}({\boldsymbol {1}}-{\boldsymbol {x}})+({\boldsymbol {1}}-{\boldsymbol {x}})^{\intercal }{\boldsymbol {Wx}}=-2{\boldsymbol {x}}^{\intercal }{\boldsymbol {Wx}}+({\boldsymbol {W1}}+{\boldsymbol {W}}^{\intercal }{\boldsymbol {1}})^{\intercal }{\boldsymbol {x}}} is the sum of weights of all edges between S {\displaystyle S} and T {\displaystyle T} , where 1 = ( 1 , 1 , … , 1 ) ⊺ ∈ R n {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {1}}=(1,1,\dots ,1)^{\intercal }\in \mathbb {R} ^{n}} . As this is a quadratic function over x {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {x}}} , it is a QUBO problem whose parameter matrix we can read from above expression as Q = 2 W − diag ⁡ [ W 1 + W ⊺ 1 ] , {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {Q}}=2{\boldsymbol {W}}-\operatorname {diag} [{\boldsymbol {W1}}+{\boldsymbol {W}}^{\intercal }{\bol

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  • Genetic programming

    Genetic programming

    Genetic programming (GP) is an evolutionary algorithm, an artificial intelligence technique mimicking natural evolution, which operates on a population of programs. It applies the genetic operators selection according to a predefined fitness measure, mutation and crossover. The crossover operation involves swapping specified parts of selected pairs (parents) to produce new and different offspring that become part of the new generation of programs. Some programs not selected for reproduction are copied from the current generation to the new generation. Mutation involves substitution of some random part of a program with some other random part of a program. Then the selection and other operations are recursively applied to the new generation of programs. Typically, members of each new generation are on average more fit than the members of the previous generation, and the best-of-generation program is often better than the best-of-generation programs from previous generations. Termination of the evolution usually occurs when some individual program reaches a predefined proficiency or fitness level. It may and often does happen that a particular run of the algorithm results in premature convergence to some local maximum that is not a globally optimal or even good solution. Multiple runs (dozens to hundreds) are usually necessary to produce a very good result. It may also be necessary to have a large starting population size and variability of the individuals to avoid pathologies. == History == The first record of the proposal to evolve programs is probably that of Alan Turing in 1950 in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". There was a gap of 25 years before the publication of John Holland's 'Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems' laid out the theoretical and empirical foundations of the science. In 1981, Richard Forsyth demonstrated the successful evolution of small programs, represented as trees, to perform classification of crime scene evidence for the UK Home Office. Although the idea of evolving programs, initially in the computer language Lisp, was current amongst John Holland's students, it was not until they organised the first Genetic Algorithms (GA) conference in Pittsburgh that Nichael Cramer published evolved programs in two specially designed languages, which included the first statement of modern "tree-based" genetic programming (that is, procedural languages organized in tree-based structures and operated on by suitably defined GA-operators). In 1988, John Koza (also a PhD student of John Holland) patented his invention of a GA for program evolution. This was followed by publication in the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence IJCAI-89. Koza followed this with 205 publications on "genetic programming", a term coined by David Goldberg, also a PhD student of John Holland. However, it is the series of 4 books by Koza, starting in 1992 with accompanying videos, that really established GP. Subsequently, there was an enormous expansion of the number of publications with the Genetic Programming Bibliography, surpassing 10,000 entries. In 2010, Koza listed 77 results where genetic programming was human competitive. The departure of GP from the rigid, fixed-length representations typical of early GA models was not entirely without precedent. Early work on variable-length representations laid the groundwork. One notable example is messy genetic algorithms, which introduced irregular, variable-length chromosomes to address building block disruption and positional bias in standard GAs. Another precursor was robot trajectory programming, where genome representations encoded program instructions for robotic movements—structures inherently variable in length. Even earlier, unfixed-length representations were proposed in a doctoral dissertation by Cavicchio, who explored adaptive search using simulated evolution. His work provided foundational ideas for flexible program structures. In 1996, Koza started the annual Genetic Programming conference, which was followed in 1998 by the annual EuroGP conference, and the first book in a GP series edited by Koza. 1998 also saw the first GP textbook. GP continued to flourish, leading to the first specialist GP journal and three years later (2003) the annual Genetic Programming Theory and Practice (GPTP) workshop was established by Rick Riolo. Genetic programming papers continue to be published at a diversity of conferences and associated journals. Today there are nineteen GP books including several for students. === Foundational work in GP === Early work that set the stage for current genetic programming research topics and applications is diverse, and includes software synthesis and repair, predictive modeling, data mining, financial modeling, soft sensors, design, and image processing. Applications in some areas, such as design, often make use of intermediate representations, such as Fred Gruau's cellular encoding. Industrial uptake has been significant in several areas including finance, the chemical industry, bioinformatics and the steel industry. == Methods == === Program representation === GP evolves computer programs, traditionally represented in memory as tree structures. Trees can be easily evaluated in a recursive manner. Every internal node has an operator function and every terminal node has an operand, making mathematical expressions easy to evolve and evaluate. Thus traditionally GP favors the use of programming languages that naturally embody tree structures (for example, Lisp; other functional programming languages are also suitable). Non-tree representations have been suggested and successfully implemented, such as linear genetic programming, which perhaps suits the more traditional imperative languages. The commercial GP software Discipulus uses automatic induction of binary machine code ("AIM") to achieve better performance. μGP uses directed multigraphs to generate programs that fully exploit the syntax of a given assembly language. Multi expression programming uses three-address code for encoding solutions. Other program representations on which significant research and development have been conducted include programs for stack-based virtual machines, and sequences of integers that are mapped to arbitrary programming languages via grammars. Cartesian genetic programming is another form of GP, which uses a graph representation instead of the usual tree based representation to encode computer programs. Most representations have structurally noneffective code (introns). Such non-coding genes may seem to be useless because they have no effect on the performance of any one individual. However, they alter the probabilities of generating different offspring under the variation operators, and thus alter the individual's variational properties. Experiments seem to show faster convergence when using program representations that allow such non-coding genes, compared to program representations that do not have any non-coding genes. Instantiations may have both trees with introns and those without; the latter are called canonical trees. Special canonical crossover operators are introduced that maintain the canonical structure of parents in their children. === Initialisation === The methods for creation of the initial population include: Grow creates the individuals sequentially. Every GP tree is created starting from the root, creating functional nodes with children as well as terminal nodes up to a certain depth. Full is similar to the Grow. The difference is that all brunches in a tree are of same predetermined depth. Ramped half-and-half creates a population consisting of m d − 1 {\displaystyle md-1} parts and a maximum depth of m d {\displaystyle md} for its trees. The first part has a maximum depth of 2, second of 3 and so on up to the m d − 1 {\displaystyle md-1} -th part with maximum depth m d {\displaystyle md} . Half of every part is created by Grow, while the other part is created by Full. === Selection === Selection is a process whereby certain individuals are selected from the current generation that would serve as parents for the next generation. The individuals are selected probabilistically such that the better performing individuals have a higher chance of getting selected. The most commonly used selection method in GP is tournament selection, although other methods such as fitness proportionate selection, lexicase selection, and others have been demonstrated to perform better for many GP problems. Elitism, which involves seeding the next generation with the best individual (or best n individuals) from the current generation, is a technique sometimes employed to avoid regression. === Crossover === In genetic programming two fit individuals are chosen from the population to be parents for one or two children. In tree genetic programming, these parents are represented as inverted lisp like trees, with their root nodes at the top. In subtree cro

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  • Tango (platform)

    Tango (platform)

    Tango (named Project Tango while in testing) was an augmented reality computing platform, developed and authored by the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP), a skunkworks division of Google. It used computer vision to enable mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to detect their position relative to the world around them without using GPS or other external signals. This allowed application developers to create user experiences that include indoor navigation, 3D mapping, physical space measurement, environmental recognition, augmented reality, and windows into a virtual world. The first product to emerge from ATAP, Tango was developed by a team led by computer scientist Johnny Lee, a core contributor to Microsoft's Kinect. In an interview in June 2015, Lee said, "We're developing the hardware and software technologies to help everything and everyone understand precisely where they are, anywhere." Google produced two devices to demonstrate the Tango technology: the Peanut phone and the Yellowstone 7-inch tablet. More than 3,000 of these devices had been sold as of June 2015, chiefly to researchers and software developers interested in building applications for the platform. In the summer of 2015, Qualcomm and Intel both announced that they were developing Tango reference devices as models for device manufacturers who use their mobile chipsets. At CES, in January 2016, Google announced a partnership with Lenovo to release a consumer smartphone during the summer of 2016 to feature Tango technology marketed at consumers, noting a less than $500 price-point and a small form factor below 6.5 inches. At the same time, both companies also announced an application incubator to get applications developed to be on the device on launch. On 15 December 2017, Google announced that they would be ending support for Tango on March 1, 2018, in favor of ARCore. == Overview == Tango was different from other contemporary 3D-sensing computer vision products, in that it was designed to run on a standalone mobile phone or tablet and was chiefly concerned with determining the device's position and orientation within the environment. The software worked by integrating three types of functionality: Motion-tracking: using visual features of the environment, in combination with accelerometer and gyroscope data, to closely track the device's movements in space Area learning: storing environment data in a map that can be re-used later, shared with other Tango devices, and enhanced with metadata such as notes, instructions, or points of interest Depth perception: detecting distances, sizes, and surfaces in the environment Together, these generate data about the device in "six degrees of freedom" (3 axes of orientation plus 3 axes of position) and detailed three-dimensional information about the environment. Project Tango was also the first project to graduate from Google X in 2012 Applications on mobile devices use Tango's C and Java APIs to access this data in real time. In addition, an API was also provided for integrating Tango with the Unity game engine; this enabled the conversion or creation of games that allow the user to interact and navigate in the game space by moving and rotating a Tango device in real space. These APIs were documented on the Google developer website. == Applications == Tango enabled apps to track a device's position and orientation within a detailed 3D environment, and to recognize known environments. This allowed the creations of applications such as in-store navigation, visual measurement and mapping utilities, presentation and design tools, and a variety of immersive games. At Augmented World Expo 2015, Johnny Lee demonstrated a construction game that builds a virtual structure in real space, an AR showroom app that allows users to view a full-size virtual automobile and customize its features, a hybrid Nerf gun with mounted Tango screen for dodging and shooting AR monsters superimposed on reality, and a multiplayer VR app that lets multiple players converse in a virtual space where their avatar movements match their real-life movements. Tango apps are distributed through Play. Google has encouraged the development of more apps with hackathons, an app contest, and promotional discounts on the development tablet. == Devices == As a platform for software developers and a model for device manufacturers, Google created two Tango devices. === The Peanut phone === "Peanut" was the first production Tango device, released in the first quarter of 2014. It was a small Android phone with a Qualcomm MSM8974 quad-core processor and additional special hardware including a fisheye motion camera, "RGB-IR" camera for color image and infrared depth detection, and Movidius Vision processing units. A high-performance accelerometer and gyroscope were added after testing several competing models in the MARS lab at the University of Minnesota. Several hundred Peanut devices were distributed to early-access partners including university researchers in computer vision and robotics, as well as application developers and technology startups. Google stopped supporting the Peanut device in September 2015, as by then the Tango software stack had evolved beyond the versions of Android that run on the device. === The Yellowstone tablet === "Yellowstone" was a 7-inch tablet with full Tango functionality, released in June 2014, and sold as the Project Tango Tablet Development Kit. It featured a 2.3 GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra K1 processor, 128GB flash memory, 1920x1200-pixel touchscreen, 4MP color camera, fisheye-lens (motion-tracking) camera, an IR projector with RGB-IR camera for integrated depth sensing, and 4G LTE connectivity. As of May 27, 2017, the Tango tablet is considered officially unsupported by Google. ==== Testing by NASA ==== In May 2014, two Peanut phones were delivered to the International Space Station to be part of a NASA project to develop autonomous robots that navigate in a variety of environments, including outer space. The soccer-ball-sized, 18-sided polyhedral SPHERES robots were developed at the NASA Ames Research Center, adjacent to the Google campus in Mountain View, California. Andres Martinez, SPHERES manager at NASA, said "We are researching how effective [Tango's] vision-based navigation abilities are for performing localization and navigation of a mobile free flyer on ISS. === Intel RealSense smartphone === Announced at Intel's Developer Forum in August 2015, and offered to public through a Developer Kit since January 2016. It incorporated a RealSense ZR300 camera which had optical features required for Tango, such as the fisheye camera. === Lenovo Phab 2 Pro === Lenovo Phab 2 Pro was the first commercial smartphone with the Tango Technology, the device was announced at the beginning of 2016, launched in August, and available for purchase in the US in November. The Phab 2 Pro had a 6.4 inch screen, a Snapdragon 652 processor, and 64 GB of internal storage, with a rear facing 16 Megapixels camera and 8 MP front camera. === Asus Zenfone AR === Asus Zenfone AR, announced at CES 2017, was the second commercial smartphone with the Tango Technology. It ran Tango AR & Daydream VR on Snapdragon 821, with 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 128 or 256GB of internal memory depending on the configuration.

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  • Semantic mapping (statistics)

    Semantic mapping (statistics)

    Semantic mapping (SM) is a statistical method for dimensionality reduction (the transformation of data from a high-dimensional space into a low-dimensional space). SM can be used in a set of multidimensional vectors of features to extract a few new features that preserves the main data characteristics. SM performs dimensionality reduction by clustering the original features in semantic clusters and combining features mapped in the same cluster to generate an extracted feature. Given a data set, this method constructs a projection matrix that can be used to map a data element from a high-dimensional space into a reduced dimensional space. SM can be applied in construction of text mining and information retrieval systems, as well as systems managing vectors of high dimensionality. SM is an alternative to random mapping, principal components analysis and latent semantic indexing methods.

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  • Tensor sketch

    Tensor sketch

    In statistics, machine learning and algorithms, a tensor sketch is a type of dimensionality reduction that is particularly efficient when applied to vectors that have tensor structure. Such a sketch can be used to speed up explicit kernel methods, bilinear pooling in neural networks and is a cornerstone in many numerical linear algebra algorithms. == Mathematical definition == Mathematically, a dimensionality reduction or sketching matrix is a matrix M ∈ R k × d {\displaystyle M\in \mathbb {R} ^{k\times d}} , where k < d {\displaystyle k Read more →

  • Extremal Ensemble Learning

    Extremal Ensemble Learning

    Extremal Ensemble Learning (EEL) is a machine learning algorithmic paradigm for graph partitioning. EEL creates an ensemble of partitions and then uses information contained in the ensemble to find new and improved partitions. The ensemble evolves and learns how to form improved partitions through extremal updating procedure. The final solution is found by achieving consensus among its member partitions about what the optimal partition is. == Reduced-Network Extremal Ensemble Learning (RenEEL) == A particular implementation of the EEL paradigm is the Reduced-Network Extremal Ensemble Learning (RenEEL) scheme for partitioning a graph. RenEEL uses consensus across many partitions in an ensemble to create a reduced network that can be efficiently analyzed to find more accurate partitions. These better quality partitions are subsequently used to update the ensemble. An algorithm that utilizes the RenEEL scheme is currently the best algorithm for finding the graph partition with maximum modularity, which is an NP-hard problem.

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  • WikiTok

    WikiTok

    WikiTok is a web application that shows random Wikipedia articles in an infinite scrolling format similar to TikTok. Created by New York-based civil and software engineer Isaac Gemal in February 2025, the application aims to provide an "anti-algorithmic" alternative to traditional social media platforms while combating doomscrolling. == Development == WikiTok was developed on February 3, 2025, after Gemal saw a viral tweet from developer Tyler Angert proposing "all of wikipedia on a single, scrollable page". Gemal created the initial prototype in approximately two hours, using the Claude LLM and Cursor coding editor, completing it by 2 a.m. that same night. The application was built with React 18, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and Vite, consisting of only a few hundred lines of code with no backend infrastructure. Gemal has made the project open-source, with the code publicly available on GitHub. == Functionality == WikiTok serves users completely random Wikipedia article snippets from Wikipedia's nearly 9.5 million entries. Each article preview includes a full-screen image from Wikipedia and a short text excerpt. Users can click "Read More" to access the full Wikipedia article, or continue scrolling to see the next random entry. The application functions as a progressive web app that can be downloaded as a hybrid between an app and a website. It works on both mobile and desktop browsers, and is designed to be responsive whether users scroll with their thumb on mobile devices or use a cursor on desktop computers. As of 2025, WikiTok supports 14 different languages for article translation. == Philosophy == Gemal has explicitly positioned WikiTok as "anti-algorithmic," resisting numerous requests to implement personalized content algorithms. In an interview with Business Insider, Gemal stated: "I have had plenty of people message me and even make issues on my GitHub asking for some insane crazy WikiTok algorithm... we're already ruled by ruthless, opaque algorithms in our everyday life; why can't we just have one little corner in the world without them?" The application aims to combat "doomscrolling" – the practice of mindlessly consuming negative news online that can cause anxiety, helplessness, and anger. Unlike traditional social media platforms, WikiTok deliberately excludes algorithms, advertisements, and user tracking.

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  • World Programming System

    World Programming System

    The World Programming System, also known as WPS Analytics or WPS, is a software product developed by a company called World Programming (acquired by Altair Engineering). WPS Analytics supports users of mixed ability to access and process data and to perform data science tasks. It has interactive visual programming tools using data workflows, and it has coding tools supporting the use of the SAS language mixed with Python, R and SQL. == About == WPS can use programs written in the language of SAS without the need for translating them into any other language. In this regard WPS is compatible with the SAS system. WPS has a built-in language interpreter able to process the language of SAS and produce similar results. WPS is available to run on z/OS, Windows, macOS, Linux (x86, Armv8 64-bit, IBM Power LE, IBM Z), and AIX. On all supported platforms, programs written in the language of SAS can be executed from a WPS command line interface, often referred to as running in batch mode. WPS can also be used from a graphical user interface known as the WPS Workbench for managing, editing and running programs written in the language of SAS. The WPS Workbench user interface is based on Eclipse. WPS version 4 (released in March 2018) introduced a drag-and-drop workflow canvas providing interactive blocks for data retrieval, blending and preparation, data discovery and profiling, predictive modelling powered by machine learning algorithms, model performance validation and scorecards. WPS version 3 (released in February 2012) provided a new client/server architecture that allows the WPS Workbench GUI to execute SAS programs on remote server installations of WPS in a network or cloud. The resulting output, data sets, logs, etc., can then all be viewed and manipulated from inside the Workbench as if the workloads had been executed locally. SAS programs do not require any special language statements to use this feature. == Summary of main features == Runs on Windows, macOS, z/OS, Linux (x86, Armv8 64-bit, IBM Power LE, IBM Z), and AIX An integrated development environment based on Eclipse for Linux, macOS and Windows. Support for language of SAS elements. Support for the language of SAS Macros. Matrix Programming support using PROC IML. Support for generating band plots, bar charts, box plots, bubble plots, contour plots, dendrogram plots, ellipse plots, fringe plots, heat maps, high-low plots, histograms, loess plots, needle plots, pie charts, penalised b-spline, radar charts, reference lines, scatter plots, series plots, step plots, regression plots and vector plots. Support for statistical procedures ACECLUS, ASSOCRULES, ANOVA, BIN, BOXPLOT, CANCORR, CANDISC, CLUSTER, CORRESP, DISCRIM, DISTANCE, FACTOR, FASTCLUS, FREQ, GAM, GANNO, GENMOD, GLIMMIX, GLM, GLMMOD, GLMSELECT, ICLIFETEST, KDE, LIFEREG, LIFETEST, LOESS, LOGISTIC, MDS, MEANS, MI, MIANALYSE, MIXED, MODECLUS, NESTED, NLIN, NPAR1WAY, PHREG, PLAN, PLS, POWER, PRINCOMP, PROBIT, QUANTREG, RBF, REG, ROBUSTREG, RSREG, SCORE, SEGMENT, SIMNORMAL, STANDARD, STDSIZE, STDRATE, STEPDISC, SUMMARY, SURVEYMEANS, SURVEYSELECT, TPSPLINE, TRANSREG, TREE, TTEST, UNIVARIATE, VARCLUS, VARCOMP Support for time series procedures ARIMA, AUTOREG, ESM, EXPAND, FORECAST, LOAN, SEVERITY, SPECTRA, TIMESERIES, X12 Support for machine learning procedures DECISIONFOREST, DECISIONTREE, GMM, MLP, OPTIMALBIN, SEGMENT, SVM Support for ODS. Reads and writes SAS datasets (compressed or uncompressed). Access: Actian Matrix (previously known as ParAccel), DASD, DB2, Excel, Greenplum, Hadoop, Informix, Kognitio Archived 2012-08-24 at the Wayback Machine, MariaDB, MySQL, Netezza, ODBC, OLEDB, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SAND, Snowflake, SPSS/PSPP, SQL Server, Sybase, Sybase IQ, Teradata, VSAM, Vertica and XML. Support for SAS Tape Format. Direct output of reports to CSV, PDF and HTML. Support to connect WPS systems programmatically, remote submit parts of a program to execute on connected remote servers, upload and download data between the connected systems. Support for Hadoop Support for R Support for Python == Industry recognition == Gartner recognized World Programming in their Cool Vendors in Data Science, 2014 Report. == Lawsuit == In 2010 World Programming defended its use of the language of SAS in the High Court of England and Wales in SAS Institute Inc. v World Programming Ltd. The software was the subject of a lawsuit by SAS Institute. The EU Court of Justice ruled in favor of World Programming, stating that the copyright protection does not extend to the software functionality, the programming language used and the format of the data files used by the program. It stated that there is no copyright infringement when a company which does not have access to the source code of a program studies, observes and tests that program to create another program with the same functionality.

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  • Automated Pain Recognition

    Automated Pain Recognition

    Automated Pain Recognition (APR) is a method for objectively measuring pain and at the same time represents an interdisciplinary research area that comprises elements of medicine, psychology, psychobiology, and computer science. The focus is on computer-aided objective recognition of pain, implemented on the basis of machine learning. Automated pain recognition allows for the valid, reliable detection and monitoring of pain in people who are unable to communicate verbally. The underlying machine learning processes are trained and validated in advance by means of unimodal or multimodal body signals. Signals used to detect pain may include facial expressions or gestures and may also be of a (psycho-)physiological or paralinguistic nature. To date, the focus has been on identifying pain intensity, but visionary efforts are also being made to recognize the quality, site, and temporal course of pain. However, the clinical implementation of this approach is a controversial topic in the field of pain research. Critics of automated pain recognition argue that pain diagnosis can only be performed subjectively by humans. == Background == Pain diagnosis under conditions where verbal reporting is restricted - such as in verbally and/or cognitively impaired people or in patients who are sedated or mechanically ventilated - is based on behavioral observations by trained professionals. However, all known observation procedures (e.g., Zurich Observation Pain Assessment (ZOPA)); Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia Scale (PAINAD) require a great deal of specialist expertise. These procedures can be made more difficult by perception- and interpretation-related misjudgments on the part of the observer. With regard to the differences in design, methodology, evaluation sample, and conceptualization of the phenomenon of pain, it is difficult to compare the quality criteria of the various tools. Even if trained personnel could theoretically record pain intensity several times a day using observation instruments, it would not be possible to measure it every minute or second. In this respect, the goal of automated pain recognition is to use valid, robust pain response patterns that can be recorded multimodally for a temporally dynamic, high-resolution, automated pain intensity recognition system. == Procedure == For automated pain recognition, pain-relevant parameters are usually recorded using non-invasive sensor technology, which captures data on the (physical) responses of the person in pain. This can be achieved with camera technology that captures facial expressions, gestures, or posture, while audio sensors record paralinguistic features. (Psycho-)physiological information such as muscle tone and heart rate can be collected via biopotential sensors (electrodes). Pain recognition requires the extraction of meaningful characteristics or patterns from the data collected. This is achieved using machine learning techniques that are able to provide an assessment of the pain after training (learning), e.g., "no pain," "mild pain," or "severe pain." == Parameters == Although the phenomenon of pain comprises different components (sensory discriminative, affective (emotional), cognitive, vegetative, and (psycho-)motor), automated pain recognition currently relies on the measurable parameters of pain responses. These can be divided roughly into the two main categories of "physiological responses" and "behavioral responses". === Physiological responses === In humans, pain almost always initiates autonomic nervous processes that are reflected measurably in various physiological signals. ==== Physiological signals ==== Measurements can include electrodermal activity (EDA, also skin conductance), electromyography (EMG), electrocardiogram (ECG), blood volume pulse (BVP), electroencephalogram (EEG), respiration, and body temperature, which are regulatory mechanisms of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. Physiological signals are mainly recorded using special non-invasive surface electrodes (for EDA, EMG, ECG, and EEG), a blood volume pulse sensor (BVP), a respiratory belt (respiration), and a thermal sensor (body temperature). Endocrinological and immunological parameters can also be recorded, but this requires measures that are somewhat invasive (e.g., blood sampling). === Behavioral responses === Behavioral responses to pain fulfil two functions: protection of the body (e.g., through protective reflexes) and external communication of the pain (e.g., as a cry for help). The responses are particularly evident in facial expressions, gestures, and paralinguistic features. ==== Facial expressions ==== Behavioral signals captured comprise facial expression patterns (expressive behavior), which are measured with the aid of video signals. Facial expression recognition is based on the everyday clinical observation that pain often manifests itself in the patient's facial expressions but that this is not necessarily always the case, since facial expressions can be inhibited through self-control. Despite the possibility that facial expressions may be influenced consciously, facial expression behavior represents an essential source of information for pain diagnosis and is thus also a source of information for automatic pain recognition. One advantage of video-based facial expression recognition is the contact-free measurement of the face, provided that it can be captured on video, which is not possible in every position (e.g., lying face down) or may be limited by bandages covering the face. Facial expression analysis relies on rapid, spontaneous, and temporary changes in neuromuscular activity that lead to visually detectable changes in the face. ==== Gestures ==== Gestures are also captured predominantly using non-contact camera technology. Motor pain responses vary and are strongly dependent on the type and cause of the pain. They range from abrupt protective reflexes (e.g., spontaneous retraction of extremities or doubling up) to agitation (pathological restlessness) and avoidance behavior (hesitant, cautious movements). ==== Paralinguistic features of language ==== Among other things, pain leads to nonverbal linguistic behavior that manifests itself in sounds such as sighing, gasping, moaning, whining, etc. Paralinguistic features are usually recorded using highly sensitive microphones. == Algorithms == After the recording, pre-processing (e.g., filtering), and extraction of relevant features, an optional information fusion can be performed. During this process, modalities from different signal sources are merged to generate new or more precise knowledge. The pain is classified using machine learning processes. The method chosen has a significant influence on the recognition rate and depends greatly on the quality and granularity of the underlying data. Similar to the field of affective computing, the following classifiers are currently being used: Support Vector Machine (SVM): The goal of an SVM is to find a clearly defined optimal hyperplane with the greatest minimal distance to two (or more) classes to be separated. The hyperplane acts as a decision function for classifying an unknown pattern. Random Forest (RF): RF is based on the composition of random, uncorrelated decision trees. An unknown pattern is judged individually by each tree and assigned to a class. The final classification of the patterns by the RF is then based on a majority decision. k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN): The k-NN algorithm classifies an unknown object using the class label that most commonly classifies the k neighbors closest to it. Its neighbors are determined using a selected similarity measure (e.g., Euclidean distance, Jaccard coefficient, etc.). Artificial neural networks (ANNs): ANNs are inspired by biological neural networks and model their organizational principles and processes in a very simplified manner. Class patterns are learned by adjusting the weights of the individual neuronal connections. == Databases == In order to classify pain in a valid manner, it is necessary to create representative, reliable, and valid pain databases that are available to the machine learner for training. An ideal database would be sufficiently large and would consist of natural (not experimental), high-quality pain responses. However, natural responses are difficult to record and can only be obtained to a limited extent; in most cases they are characterized by suboptimal quality. The databases currently available therefore contain experimental or quasi-experimental pain responses, and each database is based on a different pain model. The following list shows a selection of the most relevant pain databases (last updated: April 2020): UNBC-McMaster Shoulder Pain BioVid Heat Pain EmoPain SenseEmotion X-ITE Pain

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