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  • Service-oriented software engineering

    Service-oriented software engineering

    Service-oriented software engineering (SOSE), also referred to as service engineering, is a software engineering methodology focused on the development of software systems by composition of reusable services (service-orientation) often provided by other service providers. Since it involves composition, it shares many characteristics of component-based software engineering, the composition of software systems from reusable components, but it adds the ability to dynamically locate necessary services at run-time. These services may be provided by others as web services, but the essential element is the dynamic nature of the connection between the service users and the service providers. == Service-oriented interaction pattern == There are three types of actors in a service-oriented interaction: service providers, service users and service registries. They participate in a dynamic collaboration which can vary from time to time. Service providers are software services that publish their capabilities and availability with service registries. Service users are software systems (which may be services themselves) that accomplish some task through the use of services provided by service providers. Service users use service registries to discover and locate the service providers they can use. This discovery and location occurs dynamically when the service user requests them from a service registry.

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  • Algorithm IMED

    Algorithm IMED

    In multi-armed bandit problems, IMED (for Indexed Minimum Empirical Divergence) is an algorithm developed in 2015 by Junya Honda and Akimichi Takemura. It is the first algorithm proved to be asymptotically optimal respect to the problem-dependant Lai–Robbins lower bound for distributions in ( − ∞ , 1 ] {\displaystyle (-\infty ,1]} . == Multi-armed bandit problem == The Multi-armed bandit problem is a sequential game where one player has to choose at each turn between K {\displaystyle K} actions (arms). Behind every arm a {\displaystyle a} there is an unknown distribution ν a {\displaystyle \nu _{a}} that lies in a set D {\displaystyle {\mathcal {D}}} known by the player (for example, D {\displaystyle {\mathcal {D}}} can be the set of Gaussian distributions or Bernoulli distributions). At each turn t {\displaystyle t} the player chooses (pulls) an arm a t {\displaystyle a_{t}} , he then gets an observation X t {\displaystyle X_{t}} of the distribution ν a t {\displaystyle \nu _{a_{t}}} . === Regret minimization === The goal is to minimize the regret at time T {\displaystyle T} that is defined as R T := ∑ a = 1 K Δ a E [ N a ( T ) ] {\displaystyle R_{T}:=\sum _{a=1}^{K}\Delta _{a}\mathbb {E} [N_{a}(T)]} where μ a := E [ ν a ] {\displaystyle \mu _{a}:=\mathbb {E} [\nu _{a}]} is the mean of arm a {\displaystyle a} μ ∗ := max a μ a {\displaystyle \mu ^{}:=\max _{a}\mu _{a}} is the highest mean Δ a := μ ∗ − μ a {\displaystyle \Delta _{a}:=\mu ^{}-\mu _{a}} N a ( t ) {\displaystyle N_{a}(t)} is the number of pulls of arm a {\displaystyle a} up to turn t {\displaystyle t} The player has to find an algorithm that chooses at each turn t {\displaystyle t} which arm to pull based on the previous actions and observations ( a s , X s ) s < t {\displaystyle (a_{s},X_{s})_{s μ } {\displaystyle {\mathcal {K}}_{inf}(\nu ,\mu ,{\mathcal {D}}):=\inf \left\{\mathrm {KL} (\nu ,{\tilde {\nu }})\ |\ {\tilde {\nu }}\in {\mathcal {P}}([-\infty ,1]),\ \mathbb {E} [{\tilde {\nu }}]>\mu \right\}} K L {\displaystyle \mathrm {KL} } is the Kullback–Leibler divergence P ( [ − ∞ , 1 ] ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {P}}([-\infty ,1])} is the set of distribution in [ − ∞ , 1 ] {\displaystyle [-\infty ,1]} ν ^ a ( t ) {\displaystyle {\hat {\nu }}_{a}(t)} is the empirical distribution of arm a {\displaystyle a} at turn t {\displaystyle t} μ ^ ∗ ( t ) {\displaystyle {\hat {\mu }}^{}(t)} is the highest empirical mean of turn t {\displaystyle t} Remark : For arms a {\displaystyle a} that verify μ ^ a ( t ) = μ ^ ∗ ( t ) {\displaystyle {\hat {\mu }}_{a}(t)={\hat {\mu }}^{}(t)} we have K i n f ( ν ^ a ( t ) , μ ^ ∗ ( t ) ) = 0 {\displaystyle K_{inf}({\hat {\nu }}_{a}(t),{\hat {\mu }}^{}(t))=0} . Then there index is equal to ln ⁡ ( N a ( t ) ) {\displaystyle \ln(N_{a}(t))} === Pseudocode === for each arm i do: n[i] ← 1; nu[i] ← None; mu[i] ← None for t from 1 to K do: select arm t observe reward r n[t] ← n[t] + 1 nu[t] ← update empirical distribution mu[t] ← update empirical mean for t from K+1 to T do: mu ← highest mu for each arm i do: scoreK[i] ← n[i] K_inf(nu[i],mu) scoreN[i] ← ln(n[i]) index[i] ← scoreK[i] + scoreN[i] select arm a with smallest index[a] observe reward r n[a] ← n[a] + 1 nu[a] ← update empirical distribution mu[a] ← update empirical mean == Theoretical results == In the multi-armed bandit problem we have the asymptotic Lai–Robbins lower bound asymptotic lower bound on regret. The algorithm IMED is the first algorithm that matches this lower bound for distribution in ( − ∞ , 1 ] {\displaystyle (-\infty ,1]} in the first order. If the distribution are also bounded then it also match the second order. It is the first algorithm that match the second under of this lower bound. === Lai–Robbins lower bound === In 1985 Lai and Robbins proved an asymptotic, problem-dependent lower bound on regret. In 2018, Aurelien Garivier, Pierre Menard and Gilles Stoltz proved a refined lower bound that gives the second order It states that for every consistent algorithm on the set P ( [ − ∞ , 1 ] ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {P}}([-\infty ,1])} — that is, an algorithm for which, for every ( ν 1 , … , ν K ) ∈ P ( [ − ∞ , 1 ] ) K {\displaystyle (\nu _{1},\dots ,\nu _{K})\in {\mathcal {P}}([-\infty ,1])^{K}} , the regret R T {\displaystyle R_{T}} is subpolynomial (i.e. R T = o T → + ∞ ( T α ) {\displaystyle R_{T}=o_{T\to +\infty }(T^{\alpha })} for all α > 0 {\displaystyle \alpha >0} ) — we have: R T ≥ ( ∑ a : μ a < μ ∗ Δ a K inf ( ν a , μ ∗ ) ) ln ⁡ T − Ω T → + ∞ ( ln ⁡ ln ⁡ T ) . {\displaystyle R_{T}\geq \left(\sum _{a:\mu _{a}<\mu ^{}}{\frac {\Delta _{a}}{{\mathcal {K}}_{\inf }(\nu _{a},\mu ^{})}}\right)\ln T-\Omega _{T\to +\infty }(\ln \ln T).} This bound is asymptotic (as T → + ∞ {\displaystyle T\to +\infty } ) and gives a first-order lower bound of order ln ⁡ T {\displaystyle \ln T} with the optimal constant in front of it and the second order in − Ω ( ln ⁡ ln ⁡ T ) {\displaystyle -\Omega (\ln \ln T)} . === Regret bound for IMED === If the distribution of every arm a {\displaystyle a} is ( − ∞ , 1 ] {\displaystyle (-\infty ,1]} ( i.e. ν a ∈ P ( [ − ∞ , 1 ] ) ) {\displaystyle \nu _{a}\in {\mathcal {P}}([-\infty ,1]))} then the regret of the algorithm IMED verify R T ≤ ( ∑ a : μ a < μ ∗ Δ a K inf ( ν a , μ ∗ ) ) ln ⁡ T + O ( 1 ) {\displaystyle R_{T}\leq \left(\sum _{a:\mu _{a}<\mu ^{}}{\frac {\Delta _{a}}{{\mathcal {K}}_{\inf }(\nu _{a},\mu ^{})}}\right)\ln T+O(1)} If all the distribution ν a {\displaystyle \nu _{a}} are bounded then it exists a constant C > 0 {\displaystyle C>0} such that for T {\displaystyle T} large enough the regret of IMED is upper bounded by R T ≤ ( ∑ a : μ a < μ ∗ Δ a K inf ( ν a , μ ∗ ) ) ln ⁡ T − C ln ⁡ ln ⁡ T {\displaystyle R_{T}\leq \left(\sum _{a:\mu _{a}<\mu ^{}}{\frac {\Delta _{a}}{{\mathcal {K}}_{\inf }(\nu _{a},\mu ^{})}}\right)\ln T-C\ln \ln T} == Computation time == The algorithm only requiere to compute the K i n f {\displaystyle K_{inf}} for suboptimal arms who are pulled O ( ln ⁡ T ) {\displaystyle O(\ln T)} times, which make it a lot faster than KL-UCB. A faster version of IMED was developed in 2023 to make it even faster, using a Taylor development of the K i n f {\displaystyle K_{inf}} in the first order .

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  • Sparse identification of non-linear dynamics

    Sparse identification of non-linear dynamics

    Sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics (SINDy) is a data-driven algorithm for obtaining dynamical systems from data. Given a series of snapshots of a dynamical system and its corresponding time derivatives, SINDy performs a sparsity-promoting regression (such as LASSO and sparse Bayesian inference) on a library of nonlinear candidate functions of the snapshots against the derivatives to find the governing equations. This procedure relies on the assumption that most physical systems only have a few dominant terms which dictate the dynamics, given an appropriately selected coordinate system and quality training data. It has been applied to identify the dynamics of fluids, based on proper orthogonal decomposition, as well as other complex dynamical systems, such as biological networks. == Mathematical Overview == First, consider a dynamical system of the form x ˙ = d d t x ( t ) = f ( x ( t ) ) , {\displaystyle {\dot {\textbf {x}}}={\frac {d}{dt}}{\textbf {x}}(t)={\textbf {f}}({\textbf {x}}(t)),} where x ( t ) ∈ R n {\displaystyle {\textbf {x}}(t)\in \mathbb {R} ^{n}} is a state vector (snapshot) of the system at time t {\displaystyle t} and the function f ( x ( t ) ) {\displaystyle {\textbf {f}}({\textbf {x}}(t))} defines the equations of motion and constraints of the system. The time derivative may be either prescribed or numerically approximated from the snapshots. With x {\displaystyle {\textbf {x}}} and x ˙ {\displaystyle {\dot {\textbf {x}}}} sampled at m {\displaystyle m} equidistant points in time ( t 1 , t 2 , ⋯ , t m {\displaystyle t_{1},t_{2},\cdots ,t_{m}} ), these can be arranged into matrices of the form X = [ x T ( t 1 ) x T ( t 2 ) ⋮ x T ( t m ) ] = [ x 1 ( t 1 ) x 2 ( t 1 ) ⋯ x n ( t 1 ) x 1 ( t 2 ) x 2 ( t 2 ) ⋯ x n ( t 2 ) ⋮ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮ x 1 ( t m ) x 2 ( t m ) ⋯ x n ( t m ) ] , {\displaystyle {\bf {{X}={\begin{bmatrix}\mathbf {x} ^{\mathsf {T}}(t_{1})\\\mathbf {x} ^{\mathsf {T}}(t_{2})\\\vdots \\\mathbf {x} ^{\mathsf {T}}(t_{m})\end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}x_{1}(t_{1})&x_{2}(t_{1})&\cdots &x_{n}(t_{1})\\x_{1}(t_{2})&x_{2}(t_{2})&\cdots &x_{n}(t_{2})\\\vdots &\vdots &\ddots &\vdots \\x_{1}(t_{m})&x_{2}(t_{m})&\cdots &x_{n}(t_{m})\end{bmatrix}},}}} and similarly for X ˙ {\displaystyle {\dot {\mathbf {X} }}} . Next, a library Θ ( X ) {\displaystyle \mathbf {\Theta } (\mathbf {X} )} of nonlinear candidate functions of the columns of X {\displaystyle {\textbf {X}}} is constructed, which may be constant, polynomial, or more exotic functions (like trigonometric and rational terms, and so on): Θ ( X ) = [ | | | | | | 1 X X 2 X 3 ⋯ sin ⁡ ( X ) cos ⁡ ( X ) ⋯ | | | | | | ] {\displaystyle \ \ \ {\bf {{\Theta }({\bf {{X})={\begin{bmatrix}\vline &\vline &\vline &\vline &&\vline &\vline &\\1&{\bf {X}}&{\bf {{X}^{2}}}&{\bf {{X}^{3}}}&\cdots &\sin({\bf {{X})}}&\cos({\bf {{X})}}&\cdots \\\vline &\vline &\vline &\vline &&\vline &\vline &\end{bmatrix}}}}}}} The number of possible model structures from this library is combinatorially high. f ( x ( t ) ) {\displaystyle {\textbf {f}}({\textbf {x}}(t))} is then substituted by Θ ( X ) {\displaystyle {\bf {{\Theta }({\textbf {X}})}}} and a vector of coefficients Ξ = [ ξ 1 ξ 2 ⋯ ξ n ] {\displaystyle {\bf {{\Xi }=\left[{\bf {{\xi }_{1}{\bf {{\xi }_{2}\cdots {\bf {{\xi }_{n}}}}}}}\right]}}} determining the active terms in f ( x ( t ) ) {\displaystyle {\textbf {f}}({\textbf {x}}(t))} : X ˙ = Θ ( X ) Ξ {\displaystyle {\dot {\bf {X}}}={\bf {{\Theta }({\bf {{X}){\bf {\Xi }}}}}}} Because only a few terms are expected to be active at each point in time, an assumption is made that f ( x ( t ) ) {\displaystyle {\textbf {f}}({\textbf {x}}(t))} admits a sparse representation in Θ ( X ) {\displaystyle {\bf {{\Theta }({\textbf {X}})}}} . This then becomes an optimization problem in finding a sparse Ξ {\displaystyle {\bf {\Xi }}} which optimally embeds X ˙ {\displaystyle {\dot {\textbf {X}}}} . In other words, a parsimonious model is obtained by performing least squares regression on the system (4) with sparsity-promoting ( L 1 {\displaystyle L_{1}} ) regularization ξ k = arg ⁡ min ξ k ′ | | X ˙ k − Θ ( X ) ξ k ′ | | 2 + λ | | ξ k ′ | | 1 , {\displaystyle {\bf {{\xi }_{k}={\underset {\bf {{\xi }'_{k}}}{\arg \min }}\left|\left|{\dot {\bf {X}}}_{k}-{\bf {{\Theta }({\bf {{X}){\bf {{\xi }'_{k}}}}}}}\right|\right|_{2}+\lambda \left|\left|{\bf {{\xi }'_{k}}}\right|\right|_{1},}}} where λ {\displaystyle \lambda } is a regularization parameter. Finally, the sparse set of ξ k {\displaystyle {\bf {{\xi }_{k}}}} can be used to reconstruct the dynamical system: x ˙ k = Θ ( x ) ξ k {\displaystyle {\dot {x}}_{k}={\bf {{\Theta }({\bf {{x}){\bf {{\xi }_{k}}}}}}}}

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  • Semantic heterogeneity

    Semantic heterogeneity

    Semantic heterogeneity is when database schema or datasets for the same domain are developed by independent parties, resulting in differences in meaning and interpretation of data values. Beyond structured data, the problem of semantic heterogeneity is compounded due to the flexibility of semi-structured data and various tagging methods applied to documents or unstructured data. Semantic heterogeneity is one of the more important sources of differences in heterogeneous datasets. Yet, for multiple data sources to interoperate with one another, it is essential to reconcile these semantic differences. Decomposing the various sources of semantic heterogeneities provides a basis for understanding how to map and transform data to overcome these differences. == Classification == One of the first known classification schemes applied to data semantics is from William Kent in the late 80s. Kent's approach dealt more with structural mapping issues than differences in meaning, which he pointed to data dictionaries as potentially solving. One of the most comprehensive classifications is from Pluempitiwiriyawej and Hammer, "Classification Scheme for Semantic and Schematic Heterogeneities in XML Data Sources". They classify heterogeneities into three broad classes: Structural conflicts arise when the schema of the sources representing related or overlapping data exhibit discrepancies. Structural conflicts can be detected when comparing the underlying schema. The class of structural conflicts includes generalization conflicts, aggregation conflicts, internal path discrepancy, missing items, element ordering, constraint and type mismatch, and naming conflicts between the element types and attribute names. Domain conflicts arise when the semantics of the data sources that will be integrated exhibit discrepancies. Domain conflicts can be detected by looking at the information contained in the schema and using knowledge about the underlying data domains. The class of domain conflicts includes schematic discrepancy, scale or unit, precision, and data representation conflicts. Data conflicts refer to discrepancies among similar or related data values across multiple sources. Data conflicts can only be detected by comparing the underlying sources. The class of data conflicts includes ID-value, missing data, incorrect spelling, and naming conflicts between the element contents and the attribute values. Moreover, mismatches or conflicts can occur between set elements (a "population" mismatch) or attributes (a "description" mismatch). Michael Bergman expanded upon this schema by adding a fourth major explicit category of language, and also added some examples of each kind of semantic heterogeneity, resulting in about 40 distinct potential categories . This table shows the combined 40 possible sources of semantic heterogeneities across sources: A different approach toward classifying semantics and integration approaches is taken by Sheth et al. Under their concept, they split semantics into three forms: implicit, formal and powerful. Implicit semantics are what is either largely present or can easily be extracted; formal languages, though relatively scarce, occur in the form of ontologies or other description logics; and powerful (soft) semantics are fuzzy and not limited to rigid set-based assignments. Sheth et al.'s main point is that first-order logic (FOL) or description logic is inadequate alone to properly capture the needed semantics. == Relevant applications == Besides data interoperability, relevant areas in information technology that depend on reconciling semantic heterogeneities include data mapping, semantic integration, and enterprise information integration, among many others. From the conceptual to actual data, there are differences in perspective, vocabularies, measures and conventions once any two data sources are brought together. Explicit attention to these semantic heterogeneities is one means to get the information to integrate or interoperate. A mere twenty years ago, information technology systems expressed and stored data in a multitude of formats and systems. The Internet and Web protocols have done much to overcome these sources of differences. While there is a large number of categories of semantic heterogeneity, these categories are also patterned and can be anticipated and corrected. These patterned sources inform what kind of work must be done to overcome semantic differences where they still reside.

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  • Carrenza

    Carrenza

    Carrenza was a cloud-computing company based in London, United Kingdom. The company was acquired by Six Degrees Technology Group in 2016. == Operations == Carrenza was a UK-based IT company that provides Cloud computing technologies. It offered a range of public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud services, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), enterprise application integration and system integration. Carrenza partnered with several enterprise IT providers and was an accredited VMware Enterprise Service Partner and HP (Hewlett-Packard) Cloud Agile Partner. The company was based on Commercial Street, in the heart of the East London Tech City district, which is host to a large number of technology companies. == History == Carrenza was formed in 2001 as a consultancy by chief executive and founder Dan Sutherland. It began trading in 2004 and launched its first enterprise cloud computing platform in 2006, becoming one of the first companies in Europe to provide this type of hosting service. In 2009, it formed a partnership with Comic Relief and its affiliated campaigns Red Nose Day Sport Relief to provide IT infrastructure services to the charity, an arrangement that has won industry recognition. In 2013 it launched its first overseas services, with a mainland Europe cloud node based in Amsterdam. == Partnerships and customers == Carrenza had formed partnerships with a range of IT providers. It was one of the first companies in Europe to become a HP Cloud Agile partner., using HP blade servers and HP 3PAR SAN technology to power its cloud computing services. The company's products also use VMware vCloud IaaS tools and it is taking part in the VMware lighthouse initiative helping develop the next generation of VMware products and services. Other technology companies that Carrenza has worked closely with include Cisco, for enterprise security and loadblancing services, and Oracle. The company was the first to deploy Oracle Database 11g stretched RAC in production. It has also won two Oracle partner awards, including a Special Recognition award for its work with Comic Relief. The company has also been recognised by the UK IT Industry, receiving awards in 2009 for Community Project of the Year and in 2010 for best small business project for its Monopoly City Streets Work. Other companies that have partnered with Carrenza for their cloud-based IT services include Age UK, Haymarket Media Group, the World Wide Fund for Nature, Royal Bank of Scotland, eBay and Cineworld. == Accreditations == Carrenza's services are accredited for their compliance with several key international IT security and quality standards. These include: ISO27001:2005, Information Security Management System for all Carrenza services. UK Government G-Cloud, Carrenza has been awarded a place on the UK government's G-Cloud iii framework as an Infrastructure as a Service provider.

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  • Enterprise Objects Framework

    Enterprise Objects Framework

    The Enterprise Objects Framework, or simply EOF, was introduced by NeXT in 1994 as a pioneering object-relational mapping product for its NeXTSTEP and OpenStep development platforms. EOF abstracts the process of interacting with a relational database by mapping database rows to Java or Objective-C objects. This largely relieves developers from writing low-level SQL code. EOF enjoyed some niche success in the mid-1990s among financial institutions who were attracted to the rapid application development advantages of NeXT's object-oriented platform. Since Apple Inc's merger with NeXT in 1996, EOF has evolved into a fully integrated part of WebObjects, an application server also originally from NeXT. Many of the core concepts of EOF re-emerged as part of Core Data, which further abstracts the underlying data formats to allow it to be based on non-SQL stores. == History == In the early 1990s NeXT Computer recognized that connecting to databases was essential to most businesses and yet also potentially complex. Every data source has a different data-access language (or API), driving up the costs to learn and use each vendor's product. The NeXT engineers wanted to apply the advantages of object-oriented programming, by getting objects to "talk" to relational databases. As the two technologies are very different, the solution was to create an abstraction layer, insulating developers from writing the low-level procedural code (SQL) specific to each data source. The first attempt came in 1992 with the release of Database Kit (DBKit), which wrapped an object-oriented framework around any database. Unfortunately, NEXTSTEP at the time was not powerful enough and DBKit had serious design flaws. NeXT's second attempt came in 1994 with the Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF) version 1, a complete rewrite that was far more modular and OpenStep compatible. EOF 1.0 was the first product released by NeXT using the Foundation Kit and introduced autoreleased objects to the developer community. The development team at the time was only four people: Jack Greenfield, Rich Williamson, Linus Upson and Dan Willhite. EOF 2.0, released in late 1995, further refined the architecture, introducing the editing context. At that point, the development team consisted of Dan Willhite, Craig Federighi, Eric Noyau and Charly Kleissner. EOF achieved a modest level of popularity in the financial programming community in the mid-1990s, but it would come into its own with the emergence of the World Wide Web and the concept of web applications. It was clear that EOF could help companies plug their legacy databases into the Web without any rewriting of that data. With the addition of frameworks to do state management, load balancing and dynamic HTML generation, NeXT was able to launch the first object-oriented Web application server, WebObjects, in 1996, with EOF at its core. In 2000, Apple Inc. (which had merged with NeXT) officially dropped EOF as a standalone product, meaning that developers would be unable to use it to create desktop applications for the forthcoming Mac OS X. It would, however, continue to be an integral part of a major new release of WebObjects. WebObjects 5, released in 2001, was significant for the fact that its frameworks had been ported from their native Objective-C programming language to the Java language. Critics of this change argue that most of the power of EOF was a side effect of its Objective-C roots, and that EOF lost the beauty or simplicity it once had. Third-party tools, such as EOGenerator, help fill the deficiencies introduced by Java (mainly due to the loss of categories). The Objective-C code base was re-introduced with some modifications to desktop application developers as Core Data, part of Apple's Cocoa API, with the release of Mac OS X Tiger in April 2005. == How EOF works == Enterprise Objects provides tools and frameworks for object-relational mapping. The technology specializes in providing mechanisms to retrieve data from various data sources, such as relational databases via JDBC and JNDI directories, and mechanisms to commit data back to those data sources. These mechanisms are designed in a layered, abstract approach that allows developers to think about data retrieval and commitment at a higher level than a specific data source or data source vendor. Central to this mapping is a model file (an "EOModel") that you build with a visual tool — either EOModeler, or the EOModeler plug-in to Xcode. The mapping works as follows: Database tables are mapped to classes. Database columns are mapped to class attributes. Database rows are mapped to objects (or class instances). You can build data models based on existing data sources or you can build data models from scratch, which you then use to create data structures (tables, columns, joins) in a data source. The result is that database records can be transposed into Java objects. The advantage of using data models is that applications are isolated from the idiosyncrasies of the data sources they access. This separation of an application's business logic from database logic allows developers to change the database an application accesses without needing to change the application. EOF provides a level of database transparency not seen in other tools and allows the same model to be used to access different vendor databases and even allows relationships across different vendor databases without changing source code. Its power comes from exposing the underlying data sources as managed graphs of persistent objects. In simple terms, this means that it organizes the application's model layer into a set of defined in-memory data objects. It then tracks changes to these objects and can reverse those changes on demand, such as when a user performs an undo command. Then, when it is time to save changes to the application's data, it archives the objects to the underlying data sources. === Using Inheritance === In designing Enterprise Objects developers can leverage the object-oriented feature known as inheritance. A Customer object and an Employee object, for example, might both inherit certain characteristics from a more generic Person object, such as name, address, and phone number. While this kind of thinking is inherent in object-oriented design, relational databases have no explicit support for inheritance. However, using Enterprise Objects, you can build data models that reflect object hierarchies. That is, you can design database tables to support inheritance by also designing enterprise objects that map to multiple tables or particular views of a database table. == Enterprise Objects (EOs) == An Enterprise Object is analogous to what is often known in object-oriented programming as a business object — a class which models a physical or conceptual object in the business domain (e.g. a customer, an order, an item, etc.). What makes an EO different from other objects is that its instance data maps to a data store. Typically, an enterprise object contains key-value pairs that represent a row in a relational database. The key is basically the column name, and the value is what was in that row in the database. So it can be said that an EO's properties persist beyond the life of any particular running application. More precisely, an Enterprise Object is an instance of a class that implements the com.webobjects.eocontrol.EOEnterpriseObject interface. An Enterprise Object has a corresponding model (called an EOModel) that defines the mapping between the class's object model and the database schema. However, an enterprise object doesn't explicitly know about its model. This level of abstraction means that database vendors can be switched without it affecting the developer's code. This gives Enterprise Objects a high degree of reusability. == EOF and Core Data == Despite their common origins, the two technologies diverged, with each technology retaining a subset of the features of the original Objective-C code base, while adding some new features. === Features Supported Only by EOF === EOF supports custom SQL; shared editing contexts; nested editing contexts; and pre-fetching and batch faulting of relationships, all features of the original Objective-C implementation not supported by Core Data. Core Data also does not provide the equivalent of an EOModelGroup—the NSManagedObjectModel class provides methods for merging models from existing models, and for retrieving merged models from bundles. === Features Supported Only by Core Data === Core Data supports fetched properties; multiple configurations within a managed object model; local stores; and store aggregation (the data for a given entity may be spread across multiple stores); customization and localization of property names and validation warnings; and the use of predicates for property validation. These features of the original Objective-C implementation are not supported by the Java implementation.

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  • Informationist

    Informationist

    An informationist (or information specialist in context) provides research and knowledge management services in the context of clinical care or biomedical research. Although there is no one educational pathway or formalized set of skills or knowledge for informationists, one way to think of the informationist is as one who possesses the knowledge and skill of a medical librarian with extensive research specialization and some formal clinical or public health education that goes beyond on-the-job osmosis. Medical librarians and other biomedical professional organizations have been exploring the possibilities for evaluating how informationists are being used and whether their activities supplement or replace medical library activity. More generally, an informationist is a professional who works with information within a particular business, analytic or scientific context to drive toward outcomes based on evidence, analysis, prediction and execution. For example, an extension of the term is increasingly emerging in financial services, life sciences and health care industries. Though still nascently in use, its adoption applies to individuals with extensive industry expertise, acute familiarity with organizational structures and processes, deep domain level information mastery and information systems technical savvy. Informationists in this context support transformational initiatives within and across functional areas of an enterprise as architects, governance experts, continuous improvement advocates and strategists. == Background == The term was proposed in 2000 by Davidoff & Florance. Their editorial suggested that physicians should be delegating their information needs to informationists, just as they currently order CT scans from radiologists or cardiac catheterizations from cardiologists. They conceived of an information professional who was embedded in (and indeed, supported by) the clinical departments. Supporters of the concept see it as a means for librarians to reinvigorate connections with the faculty/clinicians, as well as provide superior service by dint of informationists' biomedical training. Critics complained that the idea is nothing new; librarians already provide in-depth, high quality information services and clinical medical librarians have been working alongside physicians, nurses and other clinicians for years. Large informationist programs in the U.S. exist at the National Institutes of Health and at Vanderbilt University. Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) is developing an informationist service model in which its 10 clinical and public health librarians are moving from serving as liaison librarians for assigned departments toward becoming embedded informationists within their departments. To prepare for the embedded informationist role, librarians are undertaking education as needed to supplement their backgrounds. For example, librarians bring experience in clinical behavior counseling, public health, nursing, and more. Informationist training can then focus upon filling gaps in research methods knowledge more so than on gaining additional knowledge in the librarian's area of expertise. Courses, seminars and workshops being undertaken include those covering systematic reviews, evidence-based medicine, critical appraisal, medical language, anatomy and physiology, biostatistics, and clinical research. The term informationist is related to that of informatician—also informaticist—and many informationists do possess skills in clinical topics, bioinformatics, and biomedical informatics. Harvard University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Washington University in St. Louis are examples of institutional libraries which have hired PhD-level scientists (who may or may not have library degrees) to provide informatics support for biomedical research.

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  • Sieve of Eratosthenes

    Sieve of Eratosthenes

    In mathematics, the sieve of Eratosthenes is an ancient algorithm for finding all prime numbers up to any given limit. It does so by iteratively marking as composite (i.e., not prime) the multiples of each prime, starting with the first prime number, 2. The multiples of a given prime are generated as a sequence of numbers starting from that prime, with constant difference between them that is equal to that prime. This is the sieve's key distinction from using trial division to sequentially test each candidate number for divisibility by each prime. Once all the multiples of each discovered prime have been marked as composites, the remaining unmarked numbers are primes. The earliest known reference to the sieve (Ancient Greek: κόσκινον Ἐρατοσθένους, kóskinon Eratosthénous) is in Nicomachus of Gerasa's Introduction to Arithmetic, an early 2nd-century CE book which attributes it to Eratosthenes of Cyrene, a 3rd-century BCE Greek mathematician, though describing the sieving by odd numbers instead of by primes. One of a number of prime number sieves, it is one of the most efficient ways to find all of the smaller primes. It may be used to find primes in arithmetic progressions. == Overview == A prime number is a natural number that has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: the number 1 and itself. To find all the prime numbers less than or equal to a given integer n by Eratosthenes's method: Create a list of consecutive integers from 2 through n: (2, 3, 4, ..., n). Initially, let p equal 2, the smallest prime number. Enumerate the multiples of p by counting in increments of p from 2p to n, and mark them in the list (these will be 2p, 3p, 4p, ...; the p itself should not be marked). Find the smallest number in the list greater than p that is not marked. If there was no such number, stop. Otherwise, let p now equal this new number (which is the next prime), and repeat from step 3. When the algorithm terminates, the numbers remaining not marked in the list are all the primes below n. The main idea here is that every value given to p will be prime, because if it were composite it would be marked as a multiple of some other, smaller prime. Note that some of the numbers may be marked more than once (e.g., 15 will be marked both for 3 and 5). The key property of the sieve is that only additions are needed, no multiplications or divisions are used. As a refinement, it is sufficient to mark the numbers in step 3 starting from p2, as all the smaller multiples of p will have already been marked at that point. This means that the algorithm is allowed to terminate in step 4 when p2 is greater than n. Another refinement is to initially list odd numbers only, (3, 5, ..., n), and count in increments of 2p in step 3, thus marking only odd multiples of p. This actually appears in the original algorithm. This can be generalized with wheel factorization, forming the initial list only from numbers coprime with the first few primes and not just from odds (i.e., numbers coprime with 2), and counting in the correspondingly adjusted increments so that only such multiples of p are generated that are coprime with those small primes, in the first place. === Example === To find all the prime numbers less than or equal to 30, proceed as follows. First, generate a list of natural numbers from 2 to 30: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 The first number in the list is 2; cross out every 2nd number in the list after 2 by counting up from 2 in increments of 2 (these will be all the multiples of 2 in the list): 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 The next number in the list after 2 is 3; cross out every 3rd number in the list after 3 by counting up from 3 in increments of 3 (these will be all the multiples of 3 in the list): 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 The next number not yet crossed out in the list after 3 is 5; cross out every 5th number in the list after 5 by counting up from 5 in increments of 5 (i.e. all the multiples of 5): 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 The next number not yet crossed out in the list after 5 is 7; the next step would be to cross out every 7th number in the list after 7, but they are all already crossed out at this point, as these numbers (14, 21, 28) are also multiples of smaller primes because 7 × 7 is greater than 30. The numbers not crossed out at this point in the list are all the prime numbers below 30: 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 == Algorithm and variants == === Pseudocode === The sieve of Eratosthenes can be expressed in pseudocode, as follows: algorithm Sieve of Eratosthenes is input: an integer n > 1. output: all prime numbers from 2 through n. let A be an array of Boolean values, indexed by integers 2 to n, initially all set to true. for i = 2, 3, 4, ..., not exceeding √n do if A[i] is true for j = i2, i2+i, i2+2i, i2+3i, ..., not exceeding n do set A[j] := false return all i such that A[i] is true. This algorithm produces all primes not greater than n. It includes a common optimization, which is to start enumerating the multiples of each prime i from i2. The time complexity of this algorithm is O(n log log n), provided the array update is an O(1) operation, as is usually the case. === Segmented sieve === As Sorenson notes, the problem with the sieve of Eratosthenes is not the number of operations it performs but rather its memory requirements. For large n, the range of primes may not fit in memory; worse, even for moderate n, its cache use is highly suboptimal. The algorithm walks through the entire array A, exhibiting almost no locality of reference. A solution to these problems is offered by segmented sieves, where only portions of the range are sieved at a time. These have been known since the 1970s, and work as follows: Divide the range 2 through n into segments of some size Δ ≥ √n. Find the primes in the first (i.e. the lowest) segment, using the regular sieve. For each of the following segments, in increasing order, with m being the segment's topmost value, find the primes in it as follows: Set up a Boolean array of size Δ. Mark as non-prime the positions in the array corresponding to the multiples of each prime p ≤ √m found so far, by enumerating its multiples in steps of p starting from the lowest multiple of p between m - Δ and m. The remaining non-marked positions in the array correspond to the primes in the segment. It is not necessary to mark any multiples of these primes, because all of these primes are larger than √m, as for k ≥ 1, one has ( k Δ + 1 ) 2 > ( k + 1 ) Δ {\displaystyle (k\Delta +1)^{2}>(k+1)\Delta } . If Δ is chosen to be √n, the space complexity of the algorithm is O(√n), while the time complexity is the same as that of the regular sieve. For ranges with upper limit n so large that the sieving primes below √n as required by the page segmented sieve of Eratosthenes cannot fit in memory, a slower but much more space-efficient sieve like the pseudosquares prime sieve, developed by Jonathan P. Sorenson, can be used instead. === Incremental sieve === An incremental formulation of the sieve generates primes indefinitely (i.e., without an upper bound) by interleaving the generation of primes with the generation of their multiples (so that primes can be found in gaps between the multiples), where the multiples of each prime p are generated directly by counting up from the square of the prime in increments of p (or 2p for odd primes). The generation must be initiated only when the prime's square is reached, to avoid adverse effects on efficiency. It can be expressed symbolically under the dataflow paradigm as primes = [2, 3, ...] \ [[p², p²+p, ...] for p in primes], using list comprehension notation with \ denoting set subtraction of arithmetic progressions of numbers. Primes can also be produced by iteratively sieving out the composites through divisibility testing by sequential primes, one prime at a time. It is not the sieve of Eratosthenes but is often confused with it, even though the sieve of Eratosthenes directly generates the composites instead of testing for them. Trial division has worse theoretical complexity than that of the sieve of Eratosthenes in generating ranges of primes. When testing each prime, the optimal trial division algorithm uses all prime numbers not exceeding its square root, whereas the sieve of Eratosthenes produces each composite from its prime factors only, and gets the primes "for free", between the composites. The widely known 1975 functional sieve code by David Turner is often presented as an example of the sieve of Eratosthenes but is actually a sub-optimal trial division sieve. == Algorithmic complexity == The sieve of Eratosthenes is a popular way to benchmark computer performance. The time complexity of calculating all primes below n in the random access machine model is O(n log log n) ope

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  • List of Ada software and tools

    List of Ada software and tools

    This is a list of software and programming tools for the Ada programming language, including IDEs, compilers, libraries, verification and debugging tools, numerical and scientific computing libraries, and related projects. == Compilers == GNAT — GCC Ada compiler and toolchain, maintained by AdaCore AdaCore GNAT Pro — commercial Ada compiler with advanced tooling for high-integrity and real-time systems Green Hills compiler for Ada — Ada compiler for embedded and safety-critical systems ObjectAda — Ada development environment for safety-critical and embedded systems == Integrated development environments (IDEs) and editors == GNAT Studio — IDE developed by AdaCore Emacs — supports Ada editing with Ada mode and syntax checking Eclipse — supports Ada through GNATbench plugin Visual Studio Code — Ada support via Ada Language Server extensions == Libraries and frameworks == See also: Ada Libraries on Wikibooks Ada.Calendar — date and time library Ada Web Services (AWS) — support for RESTful and SOAP web services Ada.Text_IO — standard library for text input/output Florist (POSIX Ada binding) – open-source implementation of the POSIX Ada bindings GNAT – Ada compiler part of GCC, which also provides an extensive runtime and library package hierarchy. GtkAda – Ada bindings for the GTK+ graphical user interface toolkit Matreshka – multipurpose Ada framework supporting Unicode, XML, JSON, and more. XML/Ada – XML and Unicode processing library == Real-time and embedded systems == Ada tasking — built-in concurrency support with tasks, protected objects, and rendezvous. Ada.Real_Time — real-time clocks, delays, and scheduling. ARINC 653 Ada profiles — for avionics real-time applications OpenMP Ada bindings — parallel programming for multi-core embedded systems Ravenscar profile — subset of Ada tasking for real-time and deterministic execution == Numerical and scientific computing == Ada.Numerics — libraries for numerical methods, linear algebra, and mathematical functions. SPARK math libraries — formal-methods-compliant numerical routines == Verification, debugging, and analysis == GNATprove — formal verification and static analysis tool for Ada and SPARK GNATstack — runtime stack analysis and checking GNATcoverage — code coverage measurement for Ada projects AdaControl — style checking and metrics for Ada == Testing frameworks == AUnit — unit testing framework for Ada GNATtest — automated testing framework for Ada == Documentation and code generation == GNATdoc — generates HTML documentation from Ada source code

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  • Living lab

    Living lab

    The concept of the living lab has been defined in multiple ways. A definition from the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) is used most widely, describing them as "user-centred open innovation ecosystems” that integrate research and innovation through co-creation in real-world environments.[1] Emerging at the intersection of ambient intelligence research and user experience methodologies in the late 1990s, the concept was pioneered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a way to study human interaction with new technologies in natural settings. Over time, living labs have evolved beyond their origins as controlled research environments, becoming dynamic platforms for participatory design, collaborative experimentation, and iterative innovation across various domains, including urban development, healthcare, sustainability, and digital technology. Characterized by principles such as real-world experimentation, active user involvement, and multi-stakeholder collaboration, living labs enable the continuous adaptation and validation of solutions in everyday contexts. Today, they are implemented globally, supported by networks like the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), and increasingly recognized as vital tools for addressing local and global transformation agendas. == Background == The term "living lab" has emerged in parallel from the ambient intelligence (AmI) research communities context and from the discussion on experience and application research (EAR). The emergence of the term is based on the concept of user experience and ambient intelligence. The term dates back to the late 1990s when Professor William J. Mitchell, Kent Larson, and Alex (Sandy) Pentland at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were credited with first exploring the concept of a living laboratory. It was first associated with MIT's Media Lab as a concept for studying real-life contexts, where they described a living lab as a controlled environment designed to test new information and communication technology (ICT) innovations in a simulated home setting. This was also when some of the key characteristics often assigned to living labs today began to take shape. They argued that a living lab represents a user-centric research methodology for sensing, prototyping, validating and refining complex solutions in multiple and evolving real-life contexts. Research on living labs has expanded since the 1990s, especially in the 2010s, with growing interest in co-creation and participatory design. Particularly in Europe, the living lab evolved into a model that focused on studying user interactions with technology in real-world environments. This shift was influenced by earlier experiences in participatory design and social experiments with ICT. As interest grew, the term began to encompass a broader array of initiatives and projects, leading to variations in its interpretation and implementation. Today, living labs are used in various fields, such as technology, healthcare, and urban sustainability, showing a transition from a narrow focus on their role as controlled environments to a more wide-ranging understanding of collaborative innovation addressing real societal challenges, while also being referred to with various descriptions and definitions available from different sources. == Description == The ENoLL definition that refers to living labs as "user-centred open innovation ecosystems” that integrate research and innovation through co-creation in real-world environments is the most widely accepted description of living labs in academic literature. In simple terms, living labs can be described as an organization or experimental space, that can be both virtually or physically located, bringing different stakeholders from research, business, government, and citizens together to design and test solutions to be implemented in a real world environment. A common definition for the living lab term still does not exist to this day, which is due to the fact that living labs are interpreted and implemented across different contexts and can cover a wide range of activities and organizations, leading to different understandings of how living labs should function. Living labs also often operate in various territorial contexts (e.g. city, agglomeration, region, campus), and can vary in their methodological approach integrating concurrent research and innovation processes within a public-private-people partnership. Despite these variations, common characteristics include user-centricity, real-world experimentation, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and iterative innovation processes. The systematic user co-creation approach refers to integrating research and innovation processes through the co-creation, exploration, experimentation and evaluation of innovative ideas, scenarios, concepts and related technological artefacts in real life use cases. Such use cases involve user communities, not only as observed subjects but also as a source of creation. This approach allows all involved stakeholders to concurrently consider both the global performance of a product or service and its potential adoption by users. This consideration may be made at the earlier stage of research and development and through all elements of the product life-cycle, from design up to recycling. User-centred research methods, such as action research, community informatics, contextual design, user-centered design, participatory design, empathic design, emotional design, and other usability methods, already exist but fail to sufficiently empower users for co-creating into open development environments. More recently, the Web 2.0 has demonstrated the positive impact of involving user communities in new product development (NPD) such as mass collaboration projects (e.g. crowdsourcing, Wisdom of Crowds) in collectively creating new contents and applications. Real-world experimentation emphasizes conducting activities in real-life settings to ensure that the results of the projects and solutions are applicable to actual market conditions. Multi-stakeholder collaboration refers to an approach that involved various stakeholders, such as users, businesses, researchers, and government entities, working together towards a common goal. This is an important characteristics of living lab because collaboration of these diverse groups allows for exchange of ideas and perspectives, which are thought to enhance innovation processes. Iterative innovation processes involve a cyclical method of developing products or services, where stages such as research, development, testing, and implementation are revisited multiple times based on feedback and evaluation. This process allows for continuous improvement of the innovation, product, or service being developed. In particular, the ongoing involvement of the user creates feedback mechanisms that are ultimately key to successful development and implementation of products and services. A living lab is not similar to a testbed as its philosophy is to turn users, from being traditionally considered as observed subjects for testing modules against requirements, into value creation in contributing to the co-creation and exploration of emerging ideas, breakthrough scenarios, innovative concepts and related artefacts. Hence, a living lab rather constitutes an experiential environment, which could be compared to the concept of experiential learning, where users are immersed in a creative social space for designing and experiencing their own future. Living labs could also be used by policy makers and users/citizens for designing, exploring, experiencing and refining new policies and regulations in real-life scenarios for evaluating their potential impacts before their implementations. == European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) == The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) is an international, non-profit, independent association of certified living labs, which popularized the living lab concept in the aim to increase user involvement in innovation. Formed in November 2006 under the guidance of the Finnish European Presidency, ENoLL is composed of a variety of stakeholders, including municipalities and research institutes, businesses, and users. Its primary role is to support the collaboration among living labs across Europe and includes many living labs focused on user-driven innovation across sectors. ENoLL focuses on facilitating knowledge exchange, joint actions and project partnerships among its historically labelled +/- 500 members, influencing EU policies, promoting living labs and enabling their implementation worldwide. ENoLL serves as a platform for linking living labs around the globe, which enables knowledge sharing and collaborative learning among diverse cultural environments. Membership to the platform is open to organizations worldwide, and ENoLL has expanded beyond Europe to include global members. ENoLL follows an application and accreditation pro

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  • Authoritative Legal Entity Identifier

    Authoritative Legal Entity Identifier

    An Authoritative Legal Entity Identifier (ALEI) is the identifier assigned by a government jurisdiction authorized by statute or decree to create a legal entity and to maintain the authoritative registries of legal entities. ALEIs are used within supply chain data, ERP applications and master data management systems to support accurate and consistent identification of entities in digital records, supply chains, and government databases. ALEIs are described in the international standard ISO 8000-116, which outlines a structured format that makes the locally unique identifier into a globally unique one and ensures global interoperability and data quality. == Structure == An ALEI is composed of three main components: a prefix that identifies the jurisdiction and register, a subdomain element (optional), and the local registration number of the entity. For example, the identifier "US-DE.BER:3031657" refers to an entity registered in the Delaware Business Entity Register in the United States. The standardization of this structure is governed by ISO 8000-116, which is designed to ensure each ALEI is globally unique and resolvable. == Comparison with other identifiers == ALEIs differ from proxy identifiers such as the DUNS number, NCAGE code, or the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) managed by GLEIF. While proxy identifiers can be issued by institutions that do not create legal entities, ALEIs are created and maintained by public bodies with the authority to form and register legal entities. This authoritative origin makes ALEIs particularly suitable for applications involving legal traceability, government regulation, and international transparency efforts. == Usage == ALEIs are increasingly utilized to identify legal entities in public and private datasets. The identifiers support supply chain accuracy, regulatory compliance, and the unification of master data. The first practical implementation of an ALEI was the International Business Registration Number (IBRN), developed to provide globally unique identifiers for registered business entities. IBRNs are issued by authorized government jurisdictions and are used to verify entities across borders, particularly in the context of trade facilitation and data exchange systems. For instance, business directories and registration systems in U.S. states like Connecticut provide structured registration documents that can be used to verify the ALEIs they issue. The use of ALEIs has been recommended by international organizations such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and Open ownership to improve beneficial ownership registries. == Policy and regulation == ALEIs have been referenced in policy consultations such as those related to the U.S. Financial Data Transparency Act. Federal institutions including the Federal Reserve and FDIC have examined the potential for ALEIs to unify entity identification across regulatory databases.

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  • Chandy–Misra–Haas algorithm resource model

    Chandy–Misra–Haas algorithm resource model

    The Chandy–Misra–Haas algorithm resource model checks for deadlock in a distributed system. It was developed by K. Mani Chandy, Jayadev Misra and Laura M. Haas. == Locally dependent == Consider the n processes P1, P2, P3, P4, P5,, ... ,Pn which are performed in a single system (controller). P1 is locally dependent on Pn, if P1 depends on P2, P2 on P3, so on and Pn−1 on Pn. That is, if P 1 → P 2 → P 3 → … → P n {\displaystyle P_{1}\rightarrow P_{2}\rightarrow P_{3}\rightarrow \ldots \rightarrow P_{n}} , then P 1 {\displaystyle P_{1}} is locally dependent on P n {\displaystyle P_{n}} . If P1 is said to be locally dependent to itself if it is locally dependent on Pn and Pn depends on P1: i.e. if P 1 → P 2 → P 3 → … → P n → P 1 {\displaystyle P_{1}\rightarrow P_{2}\rightarrow P_{3}\rightarrow \ldots \rightarrow P_{n}\rightarrow P_{1}} , then P 1 {\displaystyle P_{1}} is locally dependent on itself. == Description == The algorithm uses a message called probe(i,j,k) to transfer a message from controller of process Pj to controller of process Pk. It specifies a message started by process Pi to find whether a deadlock has occurred or not. Every process Pj maintains a boolean array dependent which contains the information about the processes that depend on it. Initially the values of each array are all "false". === Controller sending a probe === Before sending, the probe checks whether Pj is locally dependent on itself. If so, a deadlock occurs. Otherwise it checks whether Pj, and Pk are in different controllers, are locally dependent and Pj is waiting for the resource that is locked by Pk. Once all the conditions are satisfied it sends the probe. === Controller receiving a probe === On the receiving side, the controller checks whether Pk is performing a task. If so, it neglects the probe. Otherwise, it checks the responses given Pk to Pj and dependentk(i) is false. Once it is verified, it assigns true to dependentk(i). Then it checks whether k is equal to i. If both are equal, a deadlock occurs, otherwise it sends the probe to next dependent process. == Algorithm == In pseudocode, the algorithm works as follows: === Controller sending a probe === if Pj is locally dependent on itself then declare deadlock else for all Pj,Pk such that (i) Pi is locally dependent on Pj, (ii) Pj is waiting for 'Pk and (iii) Pj, Pk are on different controllers. send probe(i, j, k). to home site of Pk === Controller receiving a probe === if (i)Pk is idle / blocked (ii) dependentk(i) = false, and (iii) Pk has not replied to all requests of to Pj then begin "dependents""k"(i) = true; if k == i then declare that Pi is deadlocked else for all Pa,Pb such that (i) Pk is locally dependent on Pa, (ii) Pa is waiting for 'Pb and (iii) Pa, Pb are on different controllers. send probe(i, a, b). to home site of Pb end == Example == P1 initiates deadlock detection. C1 sends the probe saying P2 depends on P3. Once the message is received by C2, it checks whether P3 is idle. P3 is idle because it is locally dependent on P4 and updates dependent3(2) to True. As above, C2 sends probe to C3 and C3 sends probe to C1. At C1, P1 is idle so it update dependent1(1) to True. Therefore, deadlock can be declared. == Complexity == Suppose there are n {\displaystyle n} controllers and m {\displaystyle m} processes, at most m ( n − 1 ) / 2 {\displaystyle m(n-1)/2} messages need to be exchanged to detect a deadlock, with a delay of O ( n ) {\displaystyle O(n)} messages.

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  • Intelligent decision support system

    Intelligent decision support system

    An intelligent decision support system (IDSS) is a decision support system that makes extensive use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. Use of AI techniques in management information systems has a long history – indeed terms such as "Knowledge-based systems" (KBS) and "intelligent systems" have been used since the early 1980s to describe components of management systems, but the term "Intelligent decision support system" is thought to originate with Clyde Holsapple and Andrew Whinston in the late 1970s. Examples of specialized intelligent decision support systems include Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), intelligent marketing decision support systems and medical diagnosis systems. Ideally, an intelligent decision support system should behave like a human consultant: supporting decision makers by gathering and analysing evidence, identifying and diagnosing problems, proposing possible courses of action and evaluating such proposed actions. The aim of the AI techniques embedded in an intelligent decision support system is to enable these tasks to be performed by a computer, while emulating human capabilities as closely as possible. Many IDSS implementations are based on expert systems, a well established type of KBS that encode knowledge and emulate the cognitive behaviours of human experts using predicate logic rules, and have been shown to perform better than the original human experts in some circumstances. Expert systems emerged as practical applications in the 1980s based on research in artificial intelligence performed during the late 1960s and early 1970s. They typically combine knowledge of a particular application domain with an inference capability to enable the system to propose decisions or diagnoses. Accuracy and consistency can be comparable to (or even exceed) that of human experts when the decision parameters are well known (e.g. if a common disease is being diagnosed), but performance can be poor when novel or uncertain circumstances arise. Research in AI focused on enabling systems to respond to novelty and uncertainty in more flexible ways is starting to be used in IDSS. For example, intelligent agents that perform complex cognitive tasks without any need for human intervention have been used in a range of decision support applications. Capabilities of these intelligent agents include knowledge sharing, machine learning, data mining, and automated inference. A range of AI techniques such as case based reasoning, rough sets and fuzzy logic have also been used to enable decision support systems to perform better in uncertain conditions. A 2009 research about a multi-artificial system intelligence system named IILS is proposed to automate problem-solving processes within the logistics industry. The system involves integrating intelligence modules based on case-based reasoning, multi-agent systems, fuzzy logic, and artificial neural networks aiming to offer advanced logistics solutions and support in making well-informed, high-quality decisions to address a wide range of customer needs and challenges.

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  • Retention period

    Retention period

    A retention period (associated with a retention schedule or retention program) is an aspect of records and information management (RIM) and the records life cycle that identifies the duration of time for which the information should be maintained or "retained", irrespective of format (paper, electronic, or other). Retention periods vary with different types of information, based on content and a variety of other factors, including internal organizational need, regulatory requirements for inspection or audit, legal statutes of limitation, involvement in litigation, and taxation and financial reporting needs, as well as other factors as defined by local, regional, state, national, and/or international governing entities. Once an applicable retention period has elapsed for a given type or series of information, and all holds/moratoriums have been released, the information is typically destroyed using an approved and effective destruction method, which renders the information completely and irreversibly unusable via any means. Alternatively, it may be converted from one form to another (e.g. from paper to electronic), depending on the defined retention period per format. Information with historical value beyond its "usable value" may be accessioned to the custody of an archive organization for permanent or extended long-term preservation. == Defensible disposition == Defensible disposition refers to the ability of an identified and applied retention period to effectively provide for the defense of the record, and its eventual destruction or accessioning when scrutinized within a court of law or by other review. It is commonly advised by records and information management (RIM) professionals that any and all retention periods applied to organizational information should be reviewed and approved for use by competent legal counsel, which represents the organization, and is familiar with the specific business needs and legal and regulatory requirements of the organization. Additionally, a practical approach to information assessment/classification, proper documentation of the disposition program, strategic review of disposition policy over time for efficacy are required for proper defensible disposition. == Guidance and education organizations == ARMA International Information and Records Management Society filerskeepers records retention FAQ

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  • DONE

    DONE

    The Data-based Online Nonlinear Extremumseeker (DONE) algorithm is a black-box optimization algorithm. DONE models the unknown cost function and attempts to find an optimum of the underlying function. The DONE algorithm is suitable for optimizing costly and noisy functions and does not require derivatives. An advantage of DONE over similar algorithms, such as Bayesian optimization, is that the computational cost per iteration is independent of the number of function evaluations. == Methods == The DONE algorithm was first proposed by Hans Verstraete and Sander Wahls in 2015. The algorithm fits a surrogate model based on random Fourier features and then uses a well-known L-BFGS algorithm to find an optimum of the surrogate model. == Applications == DONE was first demonstrated for maximizing the signal in optical coherence tomography measurements, but has since then been applied to various other applications. For example, it was used to help extending the field of view in light sheet fluorescence microscopy.

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