AI Code Meme

AI Code Meme — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • AI warfare

    AI warfare

    AI warfare refers to the use of artificial intelligence technologies to automate military operation and enhance or bypass human decision-making in armed conflicts. AI is used to rapidly analyze large volumes of military intelligence data, including making recommendations or decisions on who and what to target. Abdul-Rahman al-Rawi, a 20-year-old student, was the first acknowledged civilian killed by AI-assisted airstrike in a U.S. strike in Iraq in 2024. In 2026, the U.S. declared it would become an 'AI-first' warfighting force. Husain et al (2018) coined the term hyperwar to refer to warfare which is algorithmic or controlled by artificial intelligence, with little to no human decision-making. == 2026 Iran war == The 2026 Iran war has been described as the "first AI war", although the Untied States and Israel have previously used AI to identify targets during the Gaza war. The U.S. has used AI tools to attack Iran. These tools have been used for military intelligence, targeting, and damage assessment in the war in Iran. Using the Maven smart system, the U.S. attacked 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours of the war and 5,000 targets over the course of 10 days. While the U.S. had used Maven in 2022 to share targeting information with Ukraine and strike against Iraq, Syria, and against the Houthis in 2024, Iran's attacks are its biggest. Authorities are looking into whether artificial intelligence was involved in the airstrike on an Iranian girls' school that killed 170 civilians, the majority of whom were female students. The United States Central Command emphasized that humans were making final targeting decisions. Per a White House tally released on April 8, the U.S. military hit over 13,000 targets in Iran during the war's first 38 days, including more than 2,000 command-and-control sites, 1,500 air defense targets, and 1,450 industrial infrastructure targets. == Gaza war == As part of the Gaza war, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have used artificial intelligence to rapidly and automatically perform much of the process of determining what to bomb. IDF's Unit 8200 developed AI systems, dubbed the Gospel and Lavender, to find targets for the Israeli Air Force to bomb. The Gospel automatically provides targeting recommendations to human analysts, who decide whether to approve strikes. Lavender identified 37,000 Hamas-linked individuals early in the war, and was used alongside the Gospel, which chooses buildings or structures as targets. According to a report by +972 Magazine and Local Call, strikes assisted by Lavender were routinely permitted to kill 5–20 civilians for each suspected Hamas militant, who were often bombed at home with their families. The IDF denies these claims, maintaining that every strike is assessed to minimize collateral damage, and that there is no policy "to kill tens of thousands of people in their homes." Israel deployed AI technologies during the Gaza war for audio analysis, facial recognition, and airstrike targeting. One such system was used to help identify the location of Hamas commander Ibrahim Biari through phone call analysis, leading to strikes that killed him as well as more than 125 civilians. == 2022 Russian Ukraine war == Kyiv launched a project with Palantir called Brave1 Dataroom to build AI systems using the extensive combat data Ukraine has gathered since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. The country has also created tools for in-depth airstrike analysis, introduced AI to process large volumes of intelligence, and incorporated these technologies into the planning of long-range strike operations. == Involved companies == Maven Smart System is developed by Palantir. It integrates Anthropic's Claude as its large language model, and uses Amazon's AWS servers as its cloud infrastructure. Since Anthropic's refusal to support autonomous weapons development and domestic surveillance efforts. In its place, other AI firms, including OpenAI, have been brought in to take over that role. == Involved state actors == In 2024, the United States Department of Defense had 800-plus active AI-related projects and requested $1.8 billion in AI funding, with Project Maven and Project Artemis (AI-resistant drones developed together with Ukraine) being the main ones. The technology has been used in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen to identify targets. China is pursuing intelligentized warfare, integrating AI across all combat domains—land, sea, air, space, and cyber—with military AI spending exceeding $1.6 billion annually. == International regulation == Since 2014, states meeting within the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons have discussed lethal autonomous weapon systems. In 2016, the treaty's states parties established an open-ended Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems to continue those discussions. The discussions have addressed international humanitarian law, accountability, possible prohibitions and regulations, and the extent of human control required over AI-enabled weapons.

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  • VoID

    VoID

    The Vocabulary of Interlinked Datasets (VoID) is a vocabulary for providing concise summaries (metadata) of Resource Description Framework (RDF) datasets—meaningful collections of semantic triples—using the syntax of RDF Schema. It can be used for general metadata (such as information about the license of the dataset), access metadata (information about how to access the dataset), structural metadata (information about how the dataset is structured), and linking metadata (information about links between datasets). A linked dataset is a collection of data, published and maintained by a single provider, available as RDF on the Web, where at least some of the resources in the dataset are identified by dereferencable Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). VoID is used to provide metadata on RDF datasets to facilitate query processing on a graph of interlinked datasets in the Semantic Web.

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  • COTSBot

    COTSBot

    COTSBot is a small autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) 4.5 feet (1.4 m) long, which is designed by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) to kill the very destructive crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) in the Great Barrier Reef off the north-east coast of Australia. It identifies its target using an image-analyzing neural net to analyze what an onboard camera sees, and then lethally injects the starfish with a bile salt solution using a needle on the end of a long underslung foldable arm. COTSBot uses GPS to navigate. The first version was created in the early 2000s with an accuracy rate of about 65%. After training COTSBot with machine learning, its accuracy rate rose to 99% by 2019. COTSBot is capable of killing 200 crown-of-thorns starfish with its two liters capacity of poison. COTSBot is capable of performing about 20 runs per day, but multiple COTSBots will be necessary to significantly impact the crown of thorns starfish populations. A smaller version of COTSBot called "RangerBot" is also being developed by QUT.

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  • Metaclass (knowledge representation)

    Metaclass (knowledge representation)

    In knowledge representation, particularly in the Semantic Web, a metaclass is a class whose instances can themselves be classes. Similar to their role in programming languages, metaclasses in ontology languages can have properties otherwise applicable only to individuals, while retaining the same class's ability to be classified in a concept hierarchy. This enables knowledge about instances of those metaclasses to be inferred by semantic reasoners using statements made in the metaclass. Metaclasses thus enhance the expressivity of knowledge representations in a way that can be intuitive for users. While classes are suitable to represent a population of individuals, metaclasses can, as one of their feature, be used to represent the conceptual dimension of an ontology. Metaclasses are supported in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and the data-modeling vocabulary RDFS. Metaclasses are often modeled by setting them as the object of claims involving rdf:type and rdfs:subClassOf—built-in properties commonly referred to as instance of and subclass of. Instance of entails that the subject of the claim is an instance, i.e. an individual that is a member of a class. Subclass of entails that the subject is a class. In the context of instance of and subclass of, the key difference between metaclasses and ordinary classes is that metaclasses are the object of instance of claims used on a class, while ordinary classes are not objects of such claims. (e.g. in a claim Bob instance of Human, Bob is the subject and an Instance, while the object, Human, is an ordinary class; but a further claim that Human instance of Animal species makes "Animal species" a metaclass because it has a member, "Human", that is also a Class). OWL 2 DL supports metaclasses by a feature called punning, in which one entity is interpreted as two different types of thing—a class and an individual—depending on its syntactic context. For example, through punning, an ontology could have a concept hierarchy such as Harry the eagle instance of golden eagle, golden eagle subclass of bird, and golden eagle instance of species. In this case, the punned entity would be golden eagle, because it is represented as a class (second claim) and an instance (third claim); whereas the metaclass would be species, as it has an instance that is a class. Punning also enables other properties that would otherwise be applicable only to ordinary instances to be used directly on classes, for example "golden eagle conservation status least concern." Having arisen from the fields of knowledge representation, description logic and formal ontology, Semantic Web languages have a closer relationship to philosophical ontology than do conventional programming languages such as Java or Python. Accordingly, the nature of metaclasses is informed by philosophical notions such as abstract objects, the abstract and concrete, and type-token distinction. Metaclasses permit concepts to be construed as tokens of other concepts while retaining their ontological status as types. This enables types to be enumerated over, while preserving the ability to inherit from types. For example, metaclasses could allow a machine reasoner to infer from a human-friendly ontology how many elements are in the periodic table, or, given that number of protons is a property of chemical element and isotopes are a subclass of elements, how many protons exist in the isotope hydrogen-2. Metaclasses are sometime organized by levels, in a similar way to the simple Theory of types where classes that are not metaclasses are assigned the first level, classes of classes in the first level are in the second level, classes of classes in the second level on the next and so on. == Examples == Following the type-token distinction, real world objects such as Abraham Lincoln or the planet Mars are regrouped into classes of similar objects. Abraham Lincoln is said to be an instance of human, and Mars is an instance of planet. This is a kind of is-a relationship. Metaclasses are class of classes, such as for example the nuclide concept. In chemistry, atoms are often classified as elements and, more specifically, isotopes. The glass of water one last drank has many hydrogen atoms, each of which is an instance of hydrogen. Hydrogen itself, a class of atoms, is an instance of nuclide. Nuclide is a class of classes, hence a metaclass. == Implementations == === RDF and RDFS === In RDF, the rdf:type property is used to state that a resource is an instance of a class. This enables metaclasses to be easily created by using rdf:type in a chain-like fashion. For example, in the two triples the resource species is a metaclass, because golden eagle is used as a class in the first statement and the class golden eagle is said to be an instance of the class species in the second statement. This way of doing allows :species to have non-class instances. RDF also provides rdf:Property as a way to create properties beyond those defined in the built-in vocabulary. Properties can be used directly on metaclasses, for example "species quantity 8.7 million", where quantity is a property defined via rdf:Property and species is a metaclass per the preceding example above. RDFS, an extension of RDF, introduced rdfs:Class and rdfs:subClassOf and enriched how vocabularies can classify concepts. Whereas rdf:type enables vocabularies to represent instantiation, the property rdfs:subClassOf enables vocabularies to represent subsumption. RDFS thus makes it possible for vocabularies to represent taxonomies, also known as subsumption hierarchies or concept hierarchies, which is an important addition to the type–token distinction made possible by RDF. Notably, the resource rdfs:Class is an instance of itself, demonstrating both the use of metaclasses in the language's internal implementation and a reflexive usage of rdf:type. RDFS is its own metamodel. This allows a second way to express that a resource is a metaclass. A triple to instantiate rdfs:Class, for example :golden_eagle rdf:type rdfs:Class will declare :golden_eagle as a class. It's also possible to subclass the rdfs:Class resource to declare a meta-class resource, for example :species rdfs:SubclassOf. By deduction, any instance of :species is then a class, so it is a class with class-instances, a meta-class.. This second way does not allows non-class instances of species and explicitly declares :tpecies as a meta-class. === OWL === In some OWL flavors like OWL1-DL, entities can be either classes or instances, but cannot be both. This limitations forbids metaclasses and metamodeling. This is not the case in the OWL1 full flavor, but this allows the model to be computationally undecidable. In OWL2, metaclasses can implemented with punning, that is a way to treat classes as if they were individuals. Other approaches have also been proposed and used to check the properties of ontologies at a meta level. ==== Punning ==== OWL 2 supports metaclasses through a feature called punning. In metaclasses implemented by punning, the same subject is interpreted as two fundamentally different types of thing—a class and an individual—depending on its syntactic context. This is similar to a pun in natural language, where different senses of the same word are emphasized to illustrate a point. Unlike in natural language, where puns are typically used for comedic or rhetorical effect, the main goal of punning in Semantic Web technologies is to make concepts easier to represent, closer to how they are discussed in everyday speech or academic literature. Although OWL 2 permits the same symbol to assume different roles, its standard semantics (known as Direct Semantics) still interprets the symbol differently depending on whether it is used as an individual, a class, or a property. === Protégé === In the ontology editor Protégé, metaclasses are templates for other classes who are their instances. == Classification == Some ontologies like the Cyc AI project's classifies classes and metaclasses. Classes are divided into fixed-order classes and variable-order classes. In the case of fixed-order classes, an order is attributed for metaclasses by measuring the distance to individuals with respect to the number of "instance of" triples that are necessary to find an individual. Classes that are not metaclasses are classes of individuals, so their order is "1" (first-order classes). Metaclasses that are classes of first-order classes' order is "2" (second-order classes), and so on. Variable-order metaclasses, on the other hand, can have instances; one example of variable-order metaclass is the class of all fixed-order classes.

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  • Subvocal recognition

    Subvocal recognition

    Subvocal recognition (SVR) is the process of taking subvocalization and converting the detected results to a digital output, aural or text-based. A silent speech interface is a device that allows speech communication without using the sound made when people vocalize their speech sounds. It works by the computer identifying the phonemes that an individual pronounces from nonauditory sources of information about their speech movements. These are then used to recreate the speech using speech synthesis. == Input methods == Silent speech interface systems have been created using ultrasound and optical camera input of tongue and lip movements. Electromagnetic devices are another technique for tracking tongue and lip movements. The detection of speech movements by electromyography of speech articulator muscles and the larynx is another technique. Another source of information is the vocal tract resonance signals that get transmitted through bone conduction called non-audible murmurs. They have also been created as a brain–computer interface using brain activity in the motor cortex obtained from intracortical microelectrodes. == Uses == Such devices are created as aids to those unable to create the sound phonation needed for audible speech such as after laryngectomies. Another use is for communication when speech is masked by background noise or distorted by self-contained breathing apparatus. A further practical use is where a need exists for silent communication, such as when privacy is required in a public place, or hands-free data silent transmission is needed during a military or security operation. In 2002, the Japanese company NTT DoCoMo announced it had created a silent mobile phone using electromyography and imaging of lip movement. The company stated that "the spur to developing such a phone was ridding public places of noise," adding that, "the technology is also expected to help people who have permanently lost their voice." The feasibility of using silent speech interfaces for practical communication has since then been shown. In 2019, Arnav Kapur, a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducted a study known as AlterEgo. Its implementation of the silent speech interface enables direct communication between the human brain and external devices through stimulation of the speech muscles. By leveraging neural signals associated with speech and language, the AlterEgo system deciphers the user's intended words and translates them into text or commands without the need for audible speech. == Research and patents == With a grant from the U.S. Army, research into synthetic telepathy using subvocalization is taking place at the University of California, Irvine under lead scientist Mike D'Zmura. NASA's Ames Research Laboratory in Mountain View, California, under the supervision of Charles Jorgensen is conducting subvocalization research. The Brain Computer Interface R&D program at Wadsworth Center under the New York State Department of Health has confirmed the existing ability to decipher consonants and vowels from imagined speech, which allows for brain-based communication using imagined speech, however using EEGs instead of subvocalization techniques. US Patents on silent communication technologies include: US Patent 6587729 "Apparatus for audibly communicating speech using the radio frequency hearing effect", US Patent 5159703 "Silent subliminal presentation system", US Patent 6011991 "Communication system and method including brain wave analysis and/or use of brain activity", US Patent 3951134 "Apparatus and method for remotely monitoring and altering brain waves". Latter two rely on brain wave analysis. == In fiction == The decoding of silent speech using a computer played an important role in Arthur C. Clarke's story and Stanley Kubrick's associated film A Space Odyssey. In this, HAL 9000, a computer controlling spaceship Discovery One, bound for Jupiter, discovers a plot to deactivate it by the mission astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole through lip reading their conversations. In Orson Scott Card's series (including Ender's Game), the artificial intelligence can be spoken to while the protagonist wears a movement sensor in his jaw, enabling him to converse with the AI without making noise. He also wears an ear implant. In Speaker for the Dead and subsequent novels, author Orson Scott Card described an ear implant, called a "jewel", that allows subvocal communication with computer systems. Author Robert J. Sawyer made use of subvocal recognition to allow silent commands to the cybernetic 'companion implants' used by the advanced Neanderthal characters in his Neanderthal Parallax trilogy of science fiction novels. In Earth, David Brin depicts this technology and its uses as a normal gear in the near future. In Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Cory Doctorow has cellphone technology become silent through a cochlear implant and miking the throat to pick up subvocalization. William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy frequently uses sub-vocalization systems in various devices. In Kage Baker's Company novels, the immortal cyborgs communicate subvocally. In the Hugo Award-winning Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, the characters often use subvocalization to communicate. In the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks, more highly advanced species often communicate subvocally through their technology. In Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011), the protagonist is augmented with a subvocalization implant for sending covert communications (and a corresponding cochlear implant for receiving covert communications). In the tabletop RPG and video game series Shadowrun, player characters can communicate via subvocal microphones in some instances. In Paranoia, all citizens can speak to the computer via their "cerebral cortech" implants. Alistair Reynolds Revelation Space trilogy frequently uses sub-vocalization systems in various devices.

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  • Logic Programming Associates

    Logic Programming Associates

    Logic Programming Associates (LPA) is a company specializing in logic programming and artificial intelligence software. LPA was founded in 1980 and is widely known for its range of Prolog compilers, the Flex expert system toolkit and most recently, VisiRule. LPA was established to exploit research at the Department of Computing and Control at Imperial College London into logic programming carried out under the supervision of Prof Robert Kowalski. == History of LPA Prolog == One of the first Prolog implementations made available by LPA was micro-PROLOG which ran on popular 8-bit home computers such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Apple II. The 8-bit micro-PROLOG interpreter was soon followed by micro-PROLOG Professional one of the first Prolog implementations for the IBM PC running MS-DOS. micro-PROLOG Professional could access all of the 640K memory available under MS-DOS and therefore manage much larger programs In 1985, LPA released LPA MacProlog which ran on the MacPlus and Mac II computers which could access up to 4 Mb memory. MacProlog was later licensed to Quintus for re-distribution in the USA. In 1989, LPA started work on a new 32-bit Prolog compiler which could use DOS-extender technology to access up to 4GB memory. This became the basis for LPA Prolog for Windows, aka WIN-PROLOG, which was then released for Windows 3.0 in 1990. LPA's core Prolog product is LPA Prolog for Windows, a compiler and development system for the Microsoft Windows platform. The current LPA software range comprises an integrated AI toolset which covers various aspects of Artificial Intelligence including Logic Programming, Expert Systems, Knowledge-based Systems, Data Mining, Agents and Case-based reasoning etc. As well as continuing with Prolog compiler technology development, LPA has a track record of creating innovative associated tools and products to address specific challenges and opportunities. == Flex Expert System toolkit == In 1989, in response to the rise of interest in Expert Systems and the emergence of products such as Crystal, GoldWorks, NExpert, LPA developed the Flex expert system toolkit, which incorporated frame-based reasoning with inheritance, rule-based programming and data-driven procedures. Flex has its own English-like Knowledge Specification Language (KSL) which means that knowledge and rules are defined in an easy-to-read and understand way. LPA supported Flex on Windows, DOS and Macintosh PCs, as an add-on toolkit to its various LPA Prolog systems and eanbled LPA to enter the then quick vibrant Expert Systems rules-market. Flex was quickly established as the leading Prolog-based expert system toolkit and was licensed to other Prolog providors on other hardware platforms including Telecomputing Plc to supplement Top One on IBM and ICL mainframes. Other implementations included Quintec-Flex, Quintus Flex, Poplog Flex and BIM Flex which were all running on Unix and/or Vax/VMS platforms. POPLOG-Flex was used to build BRAND EVALUATOR - an expert system to assist brand specialists in evaluating the worth of branded products Quintec-Flex was used to build a hybrid system for the non-linear dynamic analysis/design of coupled shear walls Flex was adopted by the Open University as part of its course T396, "Artificial intelligence for technology" which was designed by Prof Adrian Hopgood. Some of the teaching material is now available on his AI tookit website. Flex was also used by David A Ferrucci and Selmer Bringsjord in their storytelling machine, BRUTUS. == PVG == In 1992, LPA helped set up the Prolog Vendors Group, a not-for-profit organization whose aim was to help promote Prolog by making people aware of its usage in industry. == Business Integrity Ltd and Contract Express == Between 1996 and 1998, based on work co-funded through a DTI Smart award, LPA developed ScaffoldIT, a tool for building dynamic documents and intelligent web sites. This technology, built using the LPA Prolog engine and associated ProWeb Server, was able to generate complex, personalised documents such as insurance policy schedules, legal contracts, and complex sales proposals, over the Web. In 1999/2000, LPA helped set up Business Integrity Ltd, as a Joint Venture with Tarlo-Lyons, to bring the above document assembly technology to market. This product eventually became Contract Express. Contract Express became very popular amongst large law firms and was sold worldwide for both internal and external use. Partners and GCs liked Contract Express because lawyers were able to quickly and accurately automate and update their legal templates in Word without requiring IT specialists to convert them into programs. As a result of the commercial success of Contract Express, BIL was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2015. The very early days of BIL are described by Clive Spenser here. == VisiRule == In 2004, LPA launched VisiRule a graphical tool for developing knowledge-based and decision support systems. VisiRule was described in IEEE Potentials in 2007 (see Drawing on your knowledge with VisiRule): VisiRule has been used in various sectors, to build legal expert systems, machine diagnostic programs, medical and financial advice systems, etc. In 2013, VisiRule was incorporated into Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) where it has been used to provide enhanced decision support capabilities. EMDS integrates state-of-the-art geographic information system (GIS) as well as logic programming and decision modeling technologies on multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) to provide decision support for a substantial portion of the adaptive management process of ecosystem management. EMDS is actively used, extended, supported and maintained by Mountain View Business Group (for an in-depth reprise of EMDS see the article in Frontiers in Environmental Science). In 2023, VisiRule was listed as one of the 5 best decision support software for large enterprises in 2024. == Customers == For many years, LPA has worked closely with Valdis Krebs, an American-Latvian researcher, author, and consultant in the field of social and organizational network analysis. Valdis is the founder and chief scientist of Orgnet, and the creator of the popular Inflow software package. LPA Prolog and Flex were used to create Allergenius, an expert system for the interpretation of allergen microarray results. Rules representing the knowledge base (KB) were derived from the literature and specialized databases. The input data included the patient's ID and disease(s), the results of either a skin prick test or specific IgE assays and ISAC results. The output was a medical report.

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  • User modeling

    User modeling

    User modeling is the subdivision of human–computer interaction which describes the process of building up and modifying a conceptual understanding of the user. The main goal of user modeling is customization and adaptation of systems to the user's specific needs. The system needs to "say the 'right' thing at the 'right' time in the 'right' way". To do so it needs an internal representation of the user. Another common purpose is modeling specific kinds of users, including modeling of their skills and declarative knowledge, for use in automatic software-tests. User-models can thus serve as a cheaper alternative to user testing but should not replace user testing. == Background == A user model is the collection and categorization of personal data associated with a specific user. A user model is a (data) structure that is used to capture certain characteristics about an individual user, and a user profile is the actual representation in a given user model. The process of obtaining the user profile is called user modeling. Therefore, it is the basis for any adaptive changes to the system's behavior. Which data is included in the model depends on the purpose of the application. It can include personal information such as users' names and ages, their interests, their skills and knowledge, their goals and plans, their preferences and their dislikes or data about their behavior and their interactions with the system. There are different design patterns for user models, though often a mixture of them is used. Static user models Static user models are the most basic kinds of user models. Once the main data is gathered they are normally not changed again, they are static. Shifts in users' preferences are not registered and no learning algorithms are used to alter the model. Dynamic user models Dynamic user models allow a more up to date representation of users. Changes in their interests, their learning progress or interactions with the system are noticed and influence the user models. The models can thus be updated and take the current needs and goals of the users into account. Stereotype based user models Stereotype based user models are based on demographic statistics. Based on the gathered information users are classified into common stereotypes. The system then adapts to this stereotype. The application therefore can make assumptions about a user even though there might be no data about that specific area, because demographic studies have shown that other users in this stereotype have the same characteristics. Thus, stereotype based user models mainly rely on statistics and do not take into account that personal attributes might not match the stereotype. However, they allow predictions about a user even if there is rather little information about him or her. Highly adaptive user models Highly adaptive user models try to represent one particular user and therefore allow a very high adaptivity of the system. In contrast to stereotype based user models they do not rely on demographic statistics but aim to find a specific solution for each user. Although users can take great benefit from this high adaptivity, this kind of model needs to gather a lot of information first. == Data gathering == Information about users can be gathered in several ways. There are three main methods: Asking for specific facts while (first) interacting with the system Mostly this kind of data gathering is linked with the registration process. While registering users are asked for specific facts, their likes and dislikes and their needs. Often the given answers can be altered afterwards. Learning users' preferences by observing and interpreting their interactions with the system In this case users are not asked directly for their personal data and preferences, but this information is derived from their behavior while interacting with the system. The ways they choose to accomplish a tasks, the combination of things they takes interest in, these observations allow inferences about a specific user. The application dynamically learns from observing these interactions. Different machine learning algorithms may be used to accomplish this task. A hybrid approach which asks for explicit feedback and alters the user model by adaptive learning This approach is a mixture of the ones above. Users have to answer specific questions and give explicit feedback. Furthermore, their interactions with the system are observed and the derived information are used to automatically adjust the user models. Though the first method is a good way to quickly collect main data it lacks the ability to automatically adapt to shifts in users' interests. It depends on the users' readiness to give information and it is unlikely that they are going to edit their answers once the registration process is finished. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that the user models are not up to date. However, this first method allows the users to have full control over the collected data about them. It is their decision which information they are willing to provide. This possibility is missing in the second method. Adaptive changes in a system that learns users' preferences and needs only by interpreting their behavior might appear a bit opaque to the users, because they cannot fully understand and reconstruct why the system behaves the way it does. Moreover, the system is forced to collect a certain amount of data before it is able to predict the users' needs with the required accuracy. Therefore, it takes a certain learning time before a user can benefit from adaptive changes. However, afterwards these automatically adjusted user models allow a quite accurate adaptivity of the system. The hybrid approach tries to combine the advantages of both methods. Through collecting data by directly asking its users it gathers a first stock of information which can be used for adaptive changes. By learning from the users' interactions it can adjust the user models and reach more accuracy. Yet, the designer of the system has to decide, which of these information should have which amount of influence and what to do with learned data that contradicts some of the information given by a user. == System adaptation == Once a system has gathered information about a user it can evaluate that data by preset analytical algorithm and then start to adapt to the user's needs. These adaptations may concern every aspect of the system's behavior and depend on the system's purpose. Information and functions can be presented according to the user's interests, knowledge or goals by displaying only relevant features, hiding information the user does not need, making proposals what to do next and so on. One has to distinguish between adaptive and adaptable systems. In an adaptable system the user can manually change the system's appearance, behavior or functionality by actively selecting the corresponding options. Afterwards the system will stick to these choices. In an adaptive system a dynamic adaption to the user is automatically performed by the system itself, based on the built user model. Thus, an adaptive system needs ways to interpret information about the user in order to make these adaptations. One way to accomplish this task is implementing rule-based filtering. In this case a set of IF... THEN... rules is established that covers the knowledge base of the system. The IF-conditions can check for specific user-information and if they match the THEN-branch is performed which is responsible for the adaptive changes. Another approach is based on collaborative filtering. In this case information about a user is compared to that of other users of the same systems. Thus, if characteristics of the current user match those of another, the system can make assumptions about the current user by presuming that he or she is likely to have similar characteristics in areas where the model of the current user is lacking data. Based on these assumption the system then can perform adaptive changes. == Usages == Adaptive hypermedia: In an adaptive hypermedia system the displayed content and the offered hyperlinks are chosen on basis of users' specific characteristics, taking their goals, interests, knowledge and abilities into account. Thus, an adaptive hypermedia system aims to reduce the "lost in hyperspace" syndrome by presenting only relevant information. Adaptive educational hypermedia: Being a subdivision of adaptive hypermedia the main focus of adaptive educational hypermedia lies on education, displaying content and hyperlinks corresponding to the user's knowledge on the field of study. Intelligent tutoring system: Unlike adaptive educational hypermedia systems intelligent tutoring systems are stand-alone systems. Their aim is to help students in a specific field of study. To do so, they build up a user model where they store information about abilities, knowledge and needs of the user. The system can now adapt to this user by presenting approp

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  • METR

    METR

    Model Evaluation and Threat Research (METR) (MEE-tər), is a nonprofit research institute, based in Berkeley, California, that evaluates frontier AI models' capabilities to carry out long-horizon, agentic tasks that some researchers argue could pose catastrophic risks to society. METR has worked with leading AI companies to conduct pre-deployment model evaluations and contribute to system cards, including OpenAI's o3, o4-mini, GPT-4o and GPT-4.5, and Anthropic's Claude models. METR's CEO and founder is Beth Barnes, a former alignment researcher at OpenAI who left in 2022 to form ARC Evals, the evaluation division of Paul Christiano's Alignment Research Center. In December 2023, ARC Evals was spun off into an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit and renamed METR. == Research == A substantial amount of METR's research is focused on evaluating the capabilities of AI systems to conduct research and development of AI systems themselves, including RE-Bench, a benchmark designed to test whether AIs can "solve research engineering tasks and accelerate AI R&D". === Doubling time estimates === In March 2025, METR published a paper noting that the length of software engineering tasks that the leading AI model could complete had a doubling time of around 7 months between 2019 and 2024. In January 2026, METR released a new version of their time horizon estimates model (Time Horizon 1.1). According to the updated model, the rate of progress of AI capabilities has increased since 2023, with a post-2023 doubling time estimated at 130.8 days (4.3 months). Progress is thus estimated to be 20% more rapid. === Time horizon measurements === METR releases a "task-completion time horizon" for analysed AI models. This measures the "task duration (measured by human expert completion time) at which an AI agent is predicted to succeed with a given level of reliability." The metric is reported in two variants: the 50%-time horizon, which gives the task duration at which an AI model is estimated to succeed 50% of the time, and the 80%-time horizon, which gives the task duration at which an AI model is estimated to succeed 80% of the time. METR has published two versions of the underlying model: Time Horizon 1.0 and Time Horizon 1.1, the latter introduced in January 2026. As of 9 May 2026, the best-performing model is Claude Mythos, with a 50%-time horizon of likely at least 16 hours and an 80%-time horizon of 3 hours and 6 minutes. METR notes that "[m]easurements above 16 [hours] are unreliable with [their] current task suite". The following table provides time horizon estimates ordered by each model's release date:

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  • Final Cut Express

    Final Cut Express

    Final Cut Express was a video editing software suite created by Apple Inc. It was the consumer version of Final Cut Pro and was designed for advanced editing of digital video as well as high-definition video, which was used by many amateur and professional videographers. Final Cut Express was considered a step above iMovie in terms of capabilities, but a step underneath Final Cut Pro and its suite of applications. As of June 21, 2011, Final Cut Express was discontinued in favor of Final Cut Pro X. == History == Final Cut Express 1.0, based on Final Cut Pro 3, was released at Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco in 2003. The second version, based on Final Cut Pro 4, was released at Macworld San Francisco in 2004. The third version, capable of editing high definition video, was also announced at Macworld San Francisco a year later, and was released as Final Cut Express HD in February 2005. It was based on Final Cut Pro HD (version 4.5) and included LiveType 1.2 and Soundtrack 1.2. Final Cut Express version 3.5 was released with little fanfare in May 2006 as a Universal Binary. In addition to improving real-time rendering with Dynamic RT, version 3.5 upgraded LiveType to version 2.0 and Soundtrack to version 1.5. In November 2007, Apple released Final Cut Express 4, which although it did not support real-time editing in the AVCHD format (it only allowed for transcoding AVCHD to Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) provided that the camera was actually attached to the computer - it did not convert AVCHD files stored elsewhere and is currently for Intel processors only), imported iMovie '08 projects and included 50 new filters. It did not include Soundtrack 1.5, but it still included LiveType which enables users to create advanced text for the movies they created in Final Cut. The price was dropped from $299 for version 3.5 to $199 for version 4.0. In June 2011, Final Cut Express was officially discontinued, in favor of Final Cut Pro X. == Features == Final Cut Express' interface was identical to that of Final Cut Pro, but lacks some film-specific features, including Cinema Tools, multi-cam editing, batch capture, and a time code view. The program performed 32 undo operations, while Final Cut Pro did 99 [2]. Features the program did include were: The ability to keyframe filters Dynamic RT, which changes real-time settings on-the-fly Motion path keyframing Opacity keyframing Ripple, roll, slip, slide and blade edits Picture-in-picture and split-screen effects Up to 99 video tracks and 12 compositing modes Up to 99 audio tracks Motion project import Two-way color correction. Chroma key One feature of Final Cut Express that was not available in Final Cut Pro is the ability to import iMovie '08 projects (though transitions are not preserved). === RT Extreme === Inherited from Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express features RT Extreme, which allows previews of some video filters and transitions without rendering. Audio that is not in the native AIFF file format needs rendering before it can be played back. RT Extreme has three modes: 'Safe', for seeing multiple video layers at a quality that more or less guarantees a smooth playback; 'Unlimited', which allows the maximum number of composited video layers to be viewed at the same time; and 'Dynamic', which alternates between these settings depending on how many simultaneous video tracks are present. Frame dropping may result from using 'Unlimited' on low-resource machines. === Boris Calligraphy === Like Final Cut Pro, Express also comes with Boris Calligraphy, a plugin for advanced titling and scrolling/crawling titles more sophisticated than the ones that can be created with the built-in title overlays. Calligraphy has a WYSIWYG interface and features wrapping, alignment, leading, kerning and tracking features, as well as allowing up to five custom outlines and five custom drop shadows to be defined for a selected portion of the title. == Soundtrack == Prior to version 4, Final Cut Express included Soundtrack 1.5, a music program similar to the consumer-level GarageBand, but designed for videographers who wish to add music to their films. Soundtrack comes with around 4,000 professionally recorded instrument loops and sound effects that can be arranged in multiple tracks beneath the video track. To use Soundtrack, users export their Final Cut Express sequence, or a marked portion thereof, as a reference file, which can include scoring markers defined in the timeline. This reference file can be imported as the video track in Soundtrack. Soundtrack is functionally and visually identical to Soundtrack Pro's multitrack editing mode, but includes fewer Logic plugins and lacks the highly regarded noise removal tool. Soundtrack was removed from Final Cut Express 4, which lowered its price and may have encouraged people to buy Logic Express.

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  • AlphaGeometry

    AlphaGeometry

    AlphaGeometry is an artificial intelligence (AI) program that can solve hard problems in Euclidean geometry. The system comprises a data-driven large language model (LLM) and a rule-based symbolic engine (Deductive Database Arithmetic Reasoning). It was developed by DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google. The program solved 25 geometry problems out of 30 from the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) under competition time limits—a performance almost as good as the average human gold medallist. For comparison, the previous AI program, called Wu's method, managed to solve only 10 problems. DeepMind published a paper about AlphaGeometry in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on 17 January 2024. AlphaGeometry was featured in MIT Technology Review on the same day. Traditional geometry programs are symbolic engines that rely exclusively on human-coded rules to generate rigorous proofs, which makes them lack flexibility in unusual situations. AlphaGeometry combines such a symbolic engine with a specialized large language model trained on synthetic data of geometrical proofs. When the symbolic engine doesn't manage to find a formal and rigorous proof on its own, it solicits the large language model, which suggests a geometrical construct to move forward. However, it is unclear how applicable this method is to other domains of mathematics or reasoning, because symbolic engines rely on domain-specific rules and because of the need for synthetic data. == AlphaGeometry 2 == AlphaGeometry 2 is an improved version of AlphaGeometry, published on February 5, 2025. They added more features to the representation language to describe more geometry problems that involve movements of objects, and problems containing linear equations of angles, ratios, and distances. They targeted IMO geometry questions from 2000 to 2024. The expanded representation language allowed them to cover 88% of the questions. It uses Gemini finetuned on a synthetically generated dataset of problems and solutions in the representation language. The model is used for making auxiliary constructions like lines and points, to help the tree search. It is also used for autoformalization, i.e. converting a problem in English to a problem in the representation language.

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  • Lighthill report

    Lighthill report

    Artificial Intelligence: A General Survey, commonly known as the Lighthill report, is a scholarly article by James Lighthill, published in Artificial Intelligence: a paper symposium in 1973. It was compiled by Lighthill for the British Science Research Council as an evaluation of academic research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The report gave a very pessimistic prognosis for many core aspects of research in this field, stating that "In no part of the field have the discoveries made so far produced the major impact that was then promised". It "formed the basis for the decision by the British government to end support for AI research in most British universities", contributing to an AI winter in the United Kingdom. == Publication history == It was commissioned by the SRC in 1972 for Lighthill to "make a personal review of the subject [of AI]". Lighthill completed the report in July. The SRC discussed the report in September, and decided to publish it, together with some alternative points of view by Stuart Sutherland, Roger Needham, Christopher Longuet-Higgins, and Donald Michie. The SRC's decision to invite the report was partly a reaction to high levels of discord within the University of Edinburgh's Department of Artificial Intelligence, one of the earliest and biggest centres for AI research in the UK. On May 9, 1973, Lighthill debated several leading AI researchers (Donald Michie, John McCarthy, Richard Gregory) at the Royal Institution in London concerning the report. == Content == While the report was supportive of research into the simulation of neurophysiological and psychological processes, it was "highly critical of basic research in foundational areas such as robotics and language processing". The report stated that AI researchers had failed to address the issue of combinatorial explosion when solving problems within real-world domains. That is, the report states that whilst AI techniques may have worked within the scope of small problem domains, the techniques would not scale up well to solve more realistic problems. The report represents a pessimistic view of AI that began after early excitement in the field. The report divides AI research into three categories: Advanced Automation ("A"): applications of AI, such as optical character recognition, mechanical component design and manufacture, missile perception and guidance, etc. Computer-based Central Nervous System research ("C"): building computational models of human brains (neurobiology) and behavior (psychology). Bridge, or Building Robots ("B"): research that combines categories A and C. This category is intentionally vague. Projects in category A had had some success, but only in restricted domains where a large quantity of detailed knowledge was used in designing the program. This was disappointing to researchers who hoped for generic methods. Due to the issue of the combinatorial explosion, the amount of detailed knowledge required by the program quickly grew too large to be entered by hand, thus restricting projects to restricted domains. Projects in category C had had some measure of success. Artificial neural networks were successfully used to model neurobiological data. SHRDLU demonstrated that human use of language, even in fine details, depends on the semantics or knowledge, and is not purely syntactical. This was influential in psycholinguistics. Attempts to extend SHRDLU to larger domains of discourse was considered impractical, again due to the issue of the combinatorial explosion. Projects in category B were held to be failures. One important project, that of "programming and building a robot that would mimic human ability in a combination of eye-hand co-ordination and common-sense problem solving", was considered entirely disappointing. Similarly, chess playing programs were no better than human amateurs. Due to the combinatorial explosion, the run-time of general algorithms quickly grew impractical, requiring detailed problem-specific heuristics. The report stated that it was expected that within the next 25 years, category A would simply become applied technologies engineering, C would integrate with psychology and neurobiology, while category B would be abandoned.

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  • Artificial intelligence safety institute

    Artificial intelligence safety institute

    An artificial intelligence safety institute is a type of state-backed organization aiming to evaluate and ensure the safety of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models, also called frontier AI models. AI safety gained prominence in 2023, notably with public declarations about potential existential risks from AI. During the AI Safety Summit in November 2023, the United Kingdom and the United States both created their own AISI. During the AI Seoul Summit in May 2024, international leaders agreed to form a network of AI Safety Institutes, comprising institutes from the UK, the US, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, Canada and the European Union. In 2025, the UK's AI Safety Institute was renamed the "AI Security Institute", and its US counterpart became the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI). == Timeline == In 2023, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, expressed his intention to "make the UK not just the intellectual home but the geographical home of global AI safety regulation" and unveiled plans for an AI Safety Summit. He emphasized the need for independent safety evaluations, stating that AI companies cannot "mark their own homework". During the summit in November 2023, the UK AISI was officially established as an evolution of the Frontier AI Taskforce, and the US AISI as part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Japan followed by launching an AI safety institute in February 2024. Politico reported in April 2024 that many AI companies had not shared pre-deployment access to their most advanced AI models for evaluation. Meta's president of global affairs Nick Clegg said that many AI companies were waiting for the UK and the US AI Safety Institutes to work out common evaluation rules and procedures. An agreement was indeed concluded between the UK and the US in April 2024 to collaborate on at least one joint safety test. Initially established in London, the UK AI Safety Institute announced in May 2024 that it would open an office in San Francisco, where many AI companies are located. This is part of a plan to "set new, international standards on AI safety", according to UK's technology minister Michele Donelan. == International network == At the AI Seoul Summit in May 2024, the European Union and other countries agreed to create their own AI safety institutes, forming an international network. In July 2025, the international network held an exercise to explore issues with evaluating AI agents, especially when it came to leaking sensitive information or cybersecurity. Network members also met at NeurIPS 2025 in the city of San Diego. == Specific institutes == === Australia === The Albanese government announced the creation of the Australian AI Safety Institute on 25 November 2025. === Canada === Canada announced in April 2024 that it would create an AI safety institute, and such an institute was officially founded in November 2024. The institute is housed under Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, though it also partners with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). It is supported by a budget of CA$50,000,000 for a five-year timespan. === European Union === The EU AI office, founded in May 2024, is a member of the international network of AI safety institutes. === France === On 31 January 2025, the government of France created the Institut national pour l'évaluation et la sécurité de l'intelligence artificielle (INESIA), or the National Institute for AI Evaluation and Security. === India === The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology held consultations with Meta Platforms, Google, Microsoft, IBM, OpenAI, NASSCOM, Broadband India Forum, Software Alliance, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), The Quantum Hub, Digital Empowerment Foundation, and Access Now on October 7, 2024, in relation to the establishment of the AI Safety Institute. The decision was made to shift focus from regulation to standards-setting, risk identification, and damage detection—all of which require interoperable technologies. The AISI may spend the ₹20 crore allotted to the Safe and Trusted Pillar of the IndiaAI Mission for the initial budget. Future funding may come from other components of the IndiaAI Mission. UNESCO and MeitY began consulting on AI Readiness Assessment Methodology under Safety and Ethics in Artificial Intelligence from 2024. It is to encourage the ethical and responsible use of AI in industries. The study will find areas where government can become involved, especially in attempts to strengthen institutional and regulatory capabilities. Minister for Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw announced the creation of an IndiaAI Safety Institute on January 30, 2025, to ensure the ethical and safe application of AI models. The institute will promote domestic R&D that is grounded in India's social, economic, cultural, and linguistic diversity and is based on Indian datasets. With the help of academic and research institutions, as well as private sector partners, the institute will follow the hub-and-spoke approach to carry out projects within Safe and Trusted Pillar of the IndiaAI Mission. It operates under a "hub-and-spoke" model with collaboration from academic institutions (e.g., IITs), tech firms, and international organizations like UNESCO. === Japan === The Japan AISI (or J-AISI) was founded in February 2024. Part of the Information Technology Promotion Agency, it employs about 23 people. The institute consists of the Council of AISI, the AISI Steering Committee, and a secretariat with six teams. Akiko Murakami (previously of IBM Japan and Sompo Japan) serves as the institute's executive director, and Kenji Hiramoto and Suguru Nishimura serve as the institute's two deputy executive directors. === Kenya === Kenya agreed to join the international network of AI safety institutes, but the country has not announced any details yet. It is the only African state in the network. === Singapore === The Digital Trust Centre was initially founded in June 2022. In May 2024, it was renamed to the Singapore AISI. Part of Nanyang Technological University, the institute partners with Infocomm Media Development Authority and is supported by an investment of S$10,000,000 per year. === South Korea === South Korea announced in May 2024 that it would create an AI safety institute under the umbrella of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute. It will be supported by a tentative investment of somewhere between 10 and 20 million South Korean won per year, and employ at least 30 people. The institute was founded in November 2024 and is based in Bundang District within the city of Seongnam. === United Kingdom === The United Kingdom founded in April 2023 a safety organisation called Frontier AI Taskforce, with an initial budget of £100 million. In November 2023, it evolved into the AI Safety Institute, and continued to be led by Ian Hogarth. The AISI is part of the United Kingdom's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. The United Kingdom's AI strategy aims to balance safety and innovation. Unlike the European Union which adopted the AI Act, the UK is reluctant to legislate early, considering that it may lower the sector's growth, and that laws might be rendered obsolete by technological progress. In May 2024, the institute open-sourced an AI safety tool called "Inspect", which evaluates AI model capabilities such as reasoning and their degree of autonomy. In February 2025, the UK body was renamed the AI Security Institute. Observers saw the name change as a signal that the institute will not focus on ethical issues such as algorithmic bias or freedom of speech in AI applications. === United States === The US AISI was founded in November 2023 as part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This happened the day after the signature of the Executive Order 14110. In February 2024, Joe Biden's former economic policy adviser Elizabeth Kelly was appointed to lead it. In February 2024, the US government created the US AI Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC), regrouping more than 200 organizations such as Google, Anthropic or Microsoft. In March 2024, a budget of $10 million was allocated. Observers noted that this investment is relatively small, especially considering the presence of many big AI companies in the US. The NIST itself, which hosts the AISI, is also known for its chronic lack of funding. Biden administration's request for additional funding was met with further budget cuts from congressional appropriators. Under President Trump, plans for members of the agency to attend the February 2025 AI Action Summit in Paris were scrapped. The US and the UK refused to sign the summit's final communique. US Vice President JD Vance said "pro-growth AI policies" should be prioritised over safety. The name of the agency was changed in June 2025 to the Center for AI Standards and Innovation

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  • 24SevenOffice

    24SevenOffice

    24SevenOffice is a Norwegian software company headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices in Stockholm, Sweden and London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1997, the company specializes in web-based (SaaS) ERP and CRM systems. == Company history == 24SevenOffice was founded in 1997 in Porsgrunn, Norway, as IKT Interactive AS and marketed as kontorplassen.no. The name "24SevenOffice" was introduced for the company's London branch when the company entered the British market in 2003. The company changed its name to 24SevenOffice in February 2005. Originally based in Skien, the company later moved to Oslo Innovation Center, then to Tjuvholmen in the waterfront Fjord City of Oslo, and now the headquarters are located in Inkognitogaten 33, Solli plass, Oslo. The idea for the company's product was developed in 1996, and 24SevenOffice was an early innovator in the Scandinavian market in web-based enterprise resource planning solutions (ERP). A British office was established at Surrey Business Park in May 2003, with the company launching its web-based (SaaS) utility computing system to the UK SME market in 2004. An office in Chennai, India, was established in 2005, and 24SevenOffice entered the Swedish market when they acquired the leading competitor and ERP-provider Start & Run in a cash deal. In August 2005, the company had an initial public offering that raised NOK 15 million, and the company entered The Norwegian Over the Counter Market list as of 5 October 2005 (the ticker was 24SO), reaching a market value of NOK 175 million, with 5000 customers in Norway. In 2006, the company signed a deal to sponsor rally driver Petter Solberg, at the time the largest private sponsorship in Norwegian sport. Instead of receiving NOK 5 million in cash, Solberg received a 2.9 per cent ownership in the company. The company entered the German-speaking market in April 2006 when an office in Frankfurt am Main was opened. In late August/early September, they established an office with ten sales agents plus a general manager in Stockholm for the Swedish market. 24SevenOffice initiated strategic cooperation with Active 24 in early 2006 to develop a common platform. During the summer, Active 24 was bought by 24SevenOffice's ERP/CRM competitor Mamut (company), and 24SevenOffice terminated the contract with Active 24 in October demanding NOK 200 million in compensation for lost revenue. After a breakdown of settlement negotiations in the Forliksråd in January 2007, 24SevenOffice filed a case against Active 24 for breach of agreement in the Oslo District Court in March. 24SevenOffice lost on all counts in the District Court in December 2007. In January 2008, 24SevenOffice appealed the case to the Borgarting Court of Appeal, reducing the cause of action from NOK 250 to 30 million. 24SevenOffice lost on all counts in the Court of Appeal in December 2008, and was ordered to cover the costs incurred by Active 24 in connection with the dispute totaling NOK 6.91 million. 24SevenOffice appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Norway, but the Supreme Court Appeals Committee in March 2008 unanimously rejected the appeal from 24SevenOffice over the Borgarting Appeal Court's unanimous judgment of December 2008. On a counterclaim from Active 24 and Mamut against 24SevenOffice, the Oslo District Court in May 2010 found, that 24SevenOffice should pay Active 24 NOK 12 million in compensation for wrongfully having terminated the agreement, and a further NOK 360.000 of the opponent's legal costs. 24SevenOffice disagreed with the court ruling, and appealed once again. The Borgarting Court of Appeal in November 2011, ruled to reduce the amount of damages to NOK 4.4 million plus NOK 900.000 in penal interest. With several scrip issues, 24SevenOffice raised 25 million NOK (about $4 million at the time) between October 2005 and July 2006. They entered into a strategic partnership with Bluegarden, who for 30 years had delivered digital services for payroll, human resource planning, recruitment and training, in March 2006, and they made a large-scale agreement in April 2006, with US telecommunications software company Webex, a competitor to Norwegian Tandberg videoconferencing equipment manufacturer. In September 2006, 24SevenOffice signed an agreement with Fokus Bank to provide their customers with extended functionality in Internet banking. 24SevenOffice had by 2007 reportedly 9000 customers, joined the OpenAjax Alliance, and entered into a strategic partnership with Dun & Bradstreet in May 2007, but despite getting listed on Oslo Axess on 22 June (ticker: TFSO), reaching a market capitalization of NOK 120 million, the company was still losing money. The company ended 2007 with a revenue of NOK 21.7 million. In 2008, 24SevenOffice bought 50% of the stocks in telecommunication company Oyatel, partnered with Nets Group to facilitate invoicing for businesses, and telecommunications company Telipol chose 24SevenOffice's second-generation Internet platform for its 8,000 users. They announced an increase in revenues in Q2 to 11.1 million, up from 4.7 million in the same period the year before. 24SevenOffice had a turnover of NOK 37 million in the first half of 2009, a doubling compared to the same period the previous year, and presented its first positive EBITDA in Q2. The Norwegian Association of Auditors signed an agreement with 24SevenOffice in 2011, whereby they only recommend 24SevenOffice as a system for their members to use. On 27 June 2013, the shareholders of 24SevenOffice took off from the stock exchange and privatized the company. In recent years, the company has invested heavily in finance and accounting – and got leading auditing companies such as PwC and KPMG on the customer list. == Products == 24SevenOffice is a web-based (SaaS) ERP system. It includes modules for CRM, accounting, invoicing, e-mail, file/document management and project management. == Awards == 24SevenOffice won the Seal of Excellence in Multimedia Award at the 2004 CeBIT, became Norwegian Gazelle Company of the year 2004, chosen by Dagens Næringsliv and Dun & Bradstreet, won Product of the Year in the Norwegian finance magazine Kapital, and the IKT Grenland Innovation Award in 2008.

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  • STUDENT

    STUDENT

    STUDENT is an early artificial intelligence program that solves algebra word problems. It is written in Lisp by Daniel G. Bobrow as his PhD thesis in 1964 (Bobrow 1964). It was designed to read and solve the kind of word problems found in high school algebra books. The program is often cited as an early accomplishment of AI in natural language processing. == Technical description == Within Project MAC at MIT, the STUDENT system was an early example of a question answering software, which uniquely involved natural language processing and symbolic programming. Other early attempts for solving algebra story problems were realized with 1960s hardware and software as well: for example, the Philips, Baseball and Synthex systems. STUDENT accepts an algebra story written in the English language as input, and generates a number as output. This is realized with a layered pipeline that consists of heuristics for pattern transformation. At first, sentences in English are converted into kernel sentences, which each contain a single piece of information. Next, the kernel sentences are converted into mathematical expressions. The knowledge base that supports the transformation contains 52 facts. STUDENT uses a rule-based system with logic inference. The rules are pre-programmed by the software developer and are able to parse natural language. More powerful techniques for natural language processing, such as machine learning, came into use later as hardware grew more capable, and gained popularity over simpler rule-based systems.

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  • R2ML

    R2ML

    The REWERSE Rule Markup Language (R2ML) is developed by the REWERSE Working Group I1 for the purpose of rules interchange between different systems and tools. == Scope == An XML based rule language; Support for: integrity rules, derivation rules, production rules and reaction rules; Integrate functional languages (such as OCL) with Datalog languages (such as SWRL); Serialization and interchange of rules by specific software tools; Integrating rule reasoning with actual server side technologies; Deploying, publishing and communicating rules in a network. == Design principles == Modeled using MDA; Rule concepts defined with the help of MOF/UML; Required to accommodate: Web naming concepts, such as URIs and XML namespaces; The ontological distinction between objects and data values; The datatype concepts of RDF and user-defined datatypes; Actions (following OMG PRR submission); Events; EBNF abstract syntax; XML based concrete syntax validated by an XML Schema; Allowing different semantics for rules.

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