AI Code Visual Studio

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

  • Fabric computing

    Fabric computing

    Fabric computing or unified computing involves constructing a computing fabric consisting of interconnected nodes that look like a weave or a fabric when seen collectively from a distance. Usually the phrase refers to a consolidated high-performance computing system consisting of loosely coupled storage, networking and parallel processing functions linked by high bandwidth interconnects (such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet and InfiniBand) but the term has also been used to describe platforms such as the Azure Services Platform and grid computing in general (where the common theme is interconnected nodes that appear as a single logical unit). The fundamental components of fabrics are "nodes" (processor(s), memory, and/or peripherals) and "links" (functional connections between nodes). While the term "fabric" has also been used in association with storage area networks and with switched fabric networking, the introduction of compute resources provides a complete "unified" computing system. Other terms used to describe such fabrics include "unified fabric", "data center fabric" and "unified data center fabric". Ian Foster, director of the Computation Institute at the Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago suggested in 2007 that grid computing "fabrics" were "poised to become the underpinning for next-generation enterprise IT architectures and be used by a much greater part of many organizations". == History == While the term has been in use since the mid to late 1990s the growth of cloud computing and Cisco's evangelism of unified data center fabrics followed by unified computing (an evolutionary data center architecture whereby blade servers are integrated or unified with supporting network and storage infrastructure) starting March 2009 has renewed interest in the technology. There have been mixed reactions to Cisco's architecture, particularly from rivals who claim that these proprietary systems will lock out other vendors. Analysts claim that this "ambitious new direction" is "a big risk" as companies such as IBM and HP who have previously partnered with Cisco on data center projects (accounting for $2–3bn of Cisco's annual revenue) are now competing with them. In 2007, Wombat Financial Software launched the "Wombat Data Fabric," the first commercial off-the-shelf software platform providing high performance / low-latency RDMA-based messaging across an Infiniband switch. == Key characteristics == The main advantages of fabrics are that massive concurrent processing combined with a huge, tightly coupled address space makes it possible to solve huge computing problems (such as those presented by delivery of cloud computing services); and that they are both scalable and able to be dynamically reconfigured. Challenges include a non-linearly degrading performance curve, whereby adding resources does not linearly increase performance which is a common problem with parallel computing and maintaining security. == Companies == As of 2015 companies offering unified or fabric computing systems include Avaya, Brocade, Cisco, Dell, Egenera, HPE, IBM, Liquid Computing Corporation, TIBCO, Unisys, and Xsigo Systems.

    Read more →
  • Scale-space axioms

    Scale-space axioms

    In image processing and computer vision, a scale space framework can be used to represent an image as a family of gradually smoothed images. This framework is very general and a variety of scale space representations exist. A typical approach for choosing a particular type of scale space representation is to establish a set of scale-space axioms, describing basic properties of the desired scale-space representation and often chosen so as to make the representation useful in practical applications. Once established, the axioms narrow the possible scale-space representations to a smaller class, typically with only a few free parameters. A set of standard scale space axioms, discussed below, leads to the linear Gaussian scale-space, which is the most common type of scale space used in image processing and computer vision. == Scale space axioms for the linear scale-space representation == The linear scale space representation L ( x , y , t ) = ( T t f ) ( x , y ) = g ( x , y , t ) ∗ f ( x , y ) {\displaystyle L(x,y,t)=(T_{t}f)(x,y)=g(x,y,t)f(x,y)} of signal f ( x , y ) {\displaystyle f(x,y)} obtained by smoothing with the Gaussian kernel g ( x , y , t ) {\displaystyle g(x,y,t)} satisfies a number of properties 'scale-space axioms' that make it a special form of multi-scale representation: linearity T t ( a f + b h ) = a T t f + b T t h {\displaystyle T_{t}(af+bh)=aT_{t}f+bT_{t}h} where f {\displaystyle f} and h {\displaystyle h} are signals while a {\displaystyle a} and b {\displaystyle b} are constants, shift invariance T t S ( Δ x , Δ y ) f = S ( Δ x , Δ y ) T t f {\displaystyle T_{t}S_{(\Delta x,\Delta _{y})}f=S_{(\Delta x,\Delta _{y})}T_{t}f} where S ( Δ x , Δ y ) {\displaystyle S_{(\Delta x,\Delta _{y})}} denotes the shift (translation) operator ( S ( Δ x , Δ y ) f ) ( x , y ) = f ( x − Δ x , y − Δ y ) {\displaystyle (S_{(\Delta x,\Delta _{y})}f)(x,y)=f(x-\Delta x,y-\Delta y)} semi-group structure g ( x , y , t 1 ) ∗ g ( x , y , t 2 ) = g ( x , y , t 1 + t 2 ) {\displaystyle g(x,y,t_{1})g(x,y,t_{2})=g(x,y,t_{1}+t_{2})} with the associated cascade smoothing property L ( x , y , t 2 ) = g ( x , y , t 2 − t 1 ) ∗ L ( x , y , t 1 ) {\displaystyle L(x,y,t_{2})=g(x,y,t_{2}-t_{1})L(x,y,t_{1})} existence of an infinitesimal generator A {\displaystyle A} ∂ t L ( x , y , t ) = ( A L ) ( x , y , t ) {\displaystyle \partial _{t}L(x,y,t)=(AL)(x,y,t)} non-creation of local extrema (zero-crossings) in one dimension, non-enhancement of local extrema in any number of dimensions ∂ t L ( x , y , t ) ≤ 0 {\displaystyle \partial _{t}L(x,y,t)\leq 0} at spatial maxima and ∂ t L ( x , y , t ) ≥ 0 {\displaystyle \partial _{t}L(x,y,t)\geq 0} at spatial minima, rotational symmetry g ( x , y , t ) = h ( x 2 + y 2 , t ) {\displaystyle g(x,y,t)=h(x^{2}+y^{2},t)} for some function h {\displaystyle h} , scale invariance g ^ ( ω x , ω y , t ) = h ^ ( ω x φ ( t ) , ω x φ ( t ) ) {\displaystyle {\hat {g}}(\omega _{x},\omega _{y},t)={\hat {h}}({\frac {\omega _{x}}{\varphi (t)}},{\frac {\omega _{x}}{\varphi (t)}})} for some functions φ {\displaystyle \varphi } and h ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {h}}} where g ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {g}}} denotes the Fourier transform of g {\displaystyle g} , positivity g ( x , y , t ) ≥ 0 {\displaystyle g(x,y,t)\geq 0} , normalization ∫ x = − ∞ ∞ ∫ y = − ∞ ∞ g ( x , y , t ) d x d y = 1 {\displaystyle \int _{x=-\infty }^{\infty }\int _{y=-\infty }^{\infty }g(x,y,t)\,dx\,dy=1} . In fact, it can be shown that the Gaussian kernel is a unique choice given several different combinations of subsets of these scale-space axioms: most of the axioms (linearity, shift-invariance, semigroup) correspond to scaling being a semigroup of shift-invariant linear operator, which is satisfied by a number of families integral transforms, while "non-creation of local extrema" for one-dimensional signals or "non-enhancement of local extrema" for higher-dimensional signals are the crucial axioms which relate scale-spaces to smoothing (formally, parabolic partial differential equations), and hence select for the Gaussian. The Gaussian kernel is also separable in Cartesian coordinates, i.e. g ( x , y , t ) = g ( x , t ) g ( y , t ) {\displaystyle g(x,y,t)=g(x,t)\,g(y,t)} . Separability is, however, not counted as a scale-space axiom, since it is a coordinate dependent property related to issues of implementation. In addition, the requirement of separability in combination with rotational symmetry per se fixates the smoothing kernel to be a Gaussian. There exists a generalization of the Gaussian scale-space theory to more general affine and spatio-temporal scale-spaces. In addition to variabilities over scale, which original scale-space theory was designed to handle, this generalized scale-space theory also comprises other types of variabilities, including image deformations caused by viewing variations, approximated by local affine transformations, and relative motions between objects in the world and the observer, approximated by local Galilean transformations. In this theory, rotational symmetry is not imposed as a necessary scale-space axiom and is instead replaced by requirements of affine and/or Galilean covariance. The generalized scale-space theory leads to predictions about receptive field profiles in good qualitative agreement with receptive field profiles measured by cell recordings in biological vision. In the computer vision, image processing and signal processing literature there are many other multi-scale approaches, using wavelets and a variety of other kernels, that do not exploit or require the same requirements as scale space descriptions do; please see the article on related multi-scale approaches. There has also been work on discrete scale-space concepts that carry the scale-space properties over to the discrete domain; see the article on scale space implementation for examples and references.

    Read more →
  • Computer vision dazzle

    Computer vision dazzle

    Computer vision dazzle, also known as CV dazzle, dazzle makeup, or anti-surveillance makeup, is a type of camouflage used to hamper facial recognition software, inspired by dazzle camouflage used by vehicles such as ships and planes. == Methods == CV dazzle combines stylized makeup, asymmetric hair, and sometimes infrared lights built in to glasses or clothing to break up detectable facial patterns recognized by computer vision algorithms in much the same way that warships contrasted color and used sloping lines and curves to distort the structure of a vessel. It has been shown to be somewhat successful at defeating face detection software in common use, including that employed by Facebook. CV dazzle attempts to block detection by facial recognition technologies such as DeepFace "by creating an 'anti-face'". It uses occlusion, covering certain facial features; transformation, altering the shape or colour of parts of the face; and a combination of the two. Prominent artists employing this technique include Adam Harvey and Jillian Mayer. == Use in protests == Computer vision dazzle makeup has been used by protestors in several different protest movements. Its use as a protesting aid has often been found ineffective. It may be effective to thwart computer technology, but draws human attention, is easy for human monitors to spot on security cameras, and makes it hard for protestors to blend in within a crowd. Advances in facial recognition technology make dazzle makeup increasingly ineffective.

    Read more →
  • Attempto Controlled English

    Attempto Controlled English

    Attempto Controlled English (ACE) is a controlled natural language, i.e. a subset of standard English with a restricted syntax and restricted semantics described by a small set of construction and interpretation rules. It has been under development at the University of Zurich since 1995. In 2013, ACE version 6.7 was announced. ACE can serve as knowledge representation, specification, and query language, and is intended for professionals who want to use formal notations and formal methods, but may not be familiar with them. Though ACE appears perfectly natural—it can be read and understood by any speaker of English—it is in fact a formal language. ACE and its related tools have been used in the fields of software specifications, theorem proving, proof assistants, text summaries, ontologies, rules, querying, medical documentation and planning. Here are some simple examples: Every woman is a human. A woman is a human. A man tries-on a new tie. If the tie pleases his wife then the man buys it. ACE construction rules require that each noun be introduced by a determiner (a, every, no, some, at least 5, ...). Regarding the list of examples above, ACE interpretation rules decide that (1) is interpreted as universally quantified, while (2) is interpreted as existentially quantified. Sentences like "Women are human" do not follow ACE syntax and are consequently not valid. Interpretation rules resolve the anaphoric references in (3): the tie and it of the second sentence refer to a new tie of the first sentence, while his and the man of the second sentence refer to a man of the first sentence. Thus an ACE text is a coherent entity of anaphorically linked sentences. The Attempto Parsing Engine (APE) translates ACE texts unambiguously into discourse representation structures (DRS) that use a variant of the language of first-order logic. A DRS can be further translated into other formal languages, for instance AceRules with various semantics, OWL, and SWRL. Translating an ACE text into (a fragment of) first-order logic allows users to reason about the text, for instance to verify, to validate, and to query it. == Overview == As an overview of the current version 6.6 of ACE this section: Briefly describes the vocabulary Gives an account of the syntax Summarises the handling of ambiguity Explains the processing of anaphoric references. === Vocabulary === The vocabulary of ACE comprises: Predefined function words (e.g. determiners, conjunctions) Predefined phrases (e.g. "it is false that ...", "it is possible that ...") Content words (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs). === Grammar === The grammar of ACE defines and constrains the form and the meaning of ACE sentences and texts. ACE's grammar is expressed as a set of construction rules. The meaning of sentences is described as a small set of interpretation rules. A Troubleshooting Guide describes how to use ACE and how to avoid pitfalls. ==== ACE texts ==== An ACE text is a sequence of declarative sentences that can be anaphorically interrelated. Furthermore, ACE supports questions and commands. ==== Simple sentences ==== A simple sentence asserts that something is the case—a fact, an event, a state. The temperature is −2 °C. A customer inserts 2 cards. A card and a code are valid. Simple ACE sentences have the following general structure: subject + verb + complements + adjuncts Every sentence has a subject and a verb. Complements (direct and indirect objects) are necessary for transitive verbs (insert something) and ditransitive verbs (give something to somebody), whereas adjuncts (adverbs, prepositional phrases) are optional. All elements of a simple sentence can be elaborated upon to describe the situation in more detail. To further specify the nouns customer and card, we could add adjectives: A trusted customer inserts two valid cards. possessive nouns and of-prepositional phrases: John's customer inserts a card of Mary. or variables as appositions: John inserts a card A. Other modifications of nouns are possible through relative sentences: A customer who is trusted inserts a card that he owns. which are described below since they make a sentence composite. We can also detail the insertion event, e.g. by adding an adverb: A customer inserts some cards manually. or, equivalently: A customer manually inserts some cards. or, by adding prepositional phrases: A customer inserts some cards into a slot. We can combine all of these elaborations to arrive at: John's customer who is trusted inserts a valid card of Mary manually into a slot A. ==== Composite sentences ==== Composite sentences are recursively built from simpler sentences through coordination, subordination, quantification, and negation. Note that ACE composite sentences overlap with what linguists call compound sentences and complex sentences. ===== Coordination ===== Coordination by and is possible between sentences and between phrases of the same syntactic type. A customer inserts a card and the machine checks the code. There is a customer who inserts a card and who enters a code. A customer inserts a card and enters a code. An old and trusted customer enters a card and a code. Note that the coordination of the noun phrases a card and a code represents a plural object. Coordination by or is possible between sentences, verb phrases, and relative clauses. A customer inserts a card or the machine checks the code. A customer inserts a card or enters a code. A customer owns a card that is invalid or that is damaged. Coordination by and and or is governed by the standard binding order of logic, i.e. and binds stronger than or. Commas can be used to override the standard binding order. Thus the sentence: A customer inserts a VisaCard or inserts a MasterCard, and inserts a code. means that the customer inserts a VisaCard and a code, or alternatively a MasterCard and a code. ===== Subordination ===== There are four constructs of subordination: relative sentences, if-then sentences, modality, and sentence subordination. Relative sentences starting with who, which, and that allow to add detail to nouns: A customer who is trusted inserts a card that he owns. With the help of if-then sentences we can specify conditional or hypothetical situations: If a card is valid then a customer inserts it. Note the anaphoric reference via the pronoun it in the then-part to the noun phrase a card in the if-part. Modality allows us to express possibility and necessity: A trusted customer can/must insert a card. It is possible/necessary that a trusted customer inserts a card. Sentence subordination comes in various forms: It is true/false that a customer inserts a card. It is not provable that a customer inserts a card. A clerk believes that a customer inserts a card. ===== Quantification ===== Quantification allows us to speak about all objects of a certain class (universal quantification), or to denote explicitly the existence of at least one object of this class (existential quantification). The textual occurrence of a universal or existential quantifier opens its scope that extends to the end of the sentence, or in coordinations to the end of the respective coordinated sentence. To express that all involved customers insert cards we can write Every customer inserts a card. This sentence means that each customer inserts a card that may, or may not, be the same as the one inserted by another customer. To specify that all customers insert the same card—however unrealistic that situation seems—we can write: A card is inserted by every customer. or, equivalently: There is a card that every customer inserts. To state that every card is inserted by a customer we write: Every card is inserted by a customer. or, somewhat indirectly: For every card there is a customer who inserts it. ===== Negation ===== Negation allows us to express that something is not the case: A customer does not insert a card. A card is not valid. To negate something for all objects of a certain class one uses no: No customer inserts more than 2 cards. or, there is no: There is no customer who inserts a card. To negate a complete statement one uses sentence negation: It is false that a customer inserts a card. These forms of negation are logical negations, i.e. they state that something is provably not the case. Negation as failure states that a state of affairs cannot be proved, i.e. there is no information whether the state of affairs is the case or not. It is not provable that a customer inserts a card. ==== Queries ==== ACE supports two forms of queries: yes/no-queries and wh-queries. Yes/no-queries ask for the existence or non-existence of a specified situation. If we specified: A customer inserts a card. then we can ask: Does a customer insert a card? to get a positive answer. Note that interrogative sentences always end with a question mark. With the help of wh-queries, i.e. queries with query words, we can interrogate a text for details of the specified situation. If we specified: A

    Read more →
  • Google Mobile Services

    Google Mobile Services

    Google Mobile Services (GMS) is a collection of proprietary applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) services from Google that are typically pre-installed on the majority of Android devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. GMS is not a part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which means an Android manufacturer needs to obtain a license from Google in order to legally pre-install GMS on an Android device. This license is provided by Google without any licensing fees except in the EU. == Core applications == The following are core applications that are part of Google Mobile Services: Google Search Google Chrome YouTube Google Play Google Drive Gmail Google Meet Google Maps Google Photos Google TV YouTube Music === Historically === Google+ Google Hangouts Google Wallet Google Play Magazines Google Play Music Google Play Movies & TV Google Duo == Reception, competitors, and regulators == === FairSearch === Numerous European firms filed a complaint to the European Commission stating that Google had manipulated their power and dominance within the market to push their Services to be used by phone manufacturers. The firms were joined under the name FairSearch, and the main firms included were Microsoft, Expedia, TripAdvisor, Nokia and Oracle. FairSearch's major problem with Google's practices was that they believed Google were forcing phone manufacturers to use their Mobile Services. They claimed Google managed this by asking these manufacturers to sign a contract stating that they must preinstall specific Google Mobile Services, such as Maps, Search and YouTube, in order to get the latest version of Android. Google swiftly responded stating that they "continue to work co-operatively with the European Commission". === Aptoide === The third-party Android app store Aptoide also filed an EU competition complaint against Google once again stating that they are misusing their power within the market. Aptoide alleged that Google was blocking third-party app stores from being on Google Play, as well as blocking Google Chrome from downloading any third-party apps and app stores. As of June 2014, Google had not responded to these allegations. === Abuse of Android dominance === In May 2019, Umar Javeed, Sukarma Thapar, Aaqib Javeed vs. Google LLC & Ors. the Competition Commission of India ordered an antitrust probe against Google for abusing its dominant position with Android to block market rivals. In Prima Facie opinion the commission held that mandatory pre-installation of the entire Google Mobile Services (GMS) suite, under Mobile Application Distribution Agreements (MADA), amounts to the imposition of unfair conditions on the device manufacturers. === EU antitrust ruling === On July 18, 2018, the European Commission fined Google €4.34 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules which resulted in a change of licensing policy for the GMS in the EU. A new paid licensing agreement for smartphones and tablets shipped into the EEA was created. The change is that the GMS is now decoupled from the base Android and will be offered under a separate paid licensing agreement. === Privacy policy === At the same time, Google faced problems with various European data protection agencies, most notably In the United Kingdom and France. The problem they faced was that they had a set of 60 rules merged into one, which allowed Google to "track users more closely". Google once again came out and stated that their new policies still abide by European Union laws. === Android distributions without Google Mobile Services === After surveillance and privacy concerns, several custom android distributions have been implemented, such as GrapheneOS, LineageOS, CalyxOS, iodéOS or /e/OS, and they come either without any GMS installed by default or with microG, that adds a compatibility layer.

    Read more →
  • Apertus (LLM)

    Apertus (LLM)

    Apertus is a public large language model, developed by the Swiss AI Initiative (a collaboration between EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre). It was released on September 2, 2025, under the free and open-source Apache 2.0 license. Designed initially for business and research use cases around the world, Apertus was trained on over 1800 languages, and comes in 8 billion or 70 billion parameter versions and is available on Hugging Face for download. The model was developed aiming to adhere to European copyright law, and is one of the first examples of AI as a public good in the vein of AI Sovereignty. It is also the first large model to comply with the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act. At its launch, the model creators emphasized multilinguality, transparency, and auditability as priorities in contrast to commercial frontier model. While international reception was largely positive, the first iteration was significantly behind the capabilities of frontier models and needs adaptation for many use cases with chatbots being a secondary but not a primary use case. As of late 2025, it was considered the largest and most capable fully open model. The capability of future models will depend in part on how much more funding can be secured.

    Read more →
  • Physics-informed neural networks

    Physics-informed neural networks

    In machine learning, physics-informed neural networks (PINNs), also referred to as theory-trained neural networks (TTNs), are a type of universal function approximator that can embed the knowledge of any physical laws that govern a given data-set in the learning process, and can be described by partial differential equations (PDEs). Low data availability for some biological and engineering problems limit the robustness of conventional machine learning models used for these applications. The prior knowledge of general physical laws acts in the training of neural networks (NNs) as a regularization agent that limits the space of admissible solutions, increasing the generalizability of the function approximation. This way, embedding this prior information into a neural network results in enhancing the information content of the available data, facilitating the learning algorithm to capture the right solution and to generalize well even with a low amount of training examples. Because they process continuous spatial and time coordinates and output continuous PDE solutions, they can be categorized as neural fields. == Function approximation == Most of the physical laws that govern the dynamics of a system can be described by partial differential equations. For example, the Navier–Stokes equations are a set of partial differential equations derived from the conservation laws (i.e., conservation of mass, momentum, and energy) that govern fluid mechanics. The solution of the Navier–Stokes equations with appropriate initial and boundary conditions allows the quantification of flow dynamics in a precisely defined geometry. However, these equations cannot be solved exactly and therefore numerical methods must be used (such as finite differences, finite elements and finite volumes). In this setting, these governing equations must be solved while accounting for prior assumptions, linearization, and adequate time and space discretization. Recently, solving the governing partial differential equations of physical phenomena using deep learning has emerged as a new field of scientific machine learning (SciML), leveraging the universal approximation theorem and high expressivity of neural networks. In general, deep neural networks could approximate any high-dimensional function given that sufficient training data are supplied. However, such networks do not consider the physical characteristics underlying the problem, and the level of approximation accuracy provided by them is still heavily dependent on careful specifications of the problem geometry as well as the initial and boundary conditions. Without this preliminary information, the solution is not unique and may lose physical correctness. To remedy this, Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) leverage governing physical equations in neural network training. Namely, PINNs are designed to be trained to satisfy the given training data as well as the imposed governing equations. In this fashion, a neural network can be guided with training datasets that do not necessarily need to be large or complete. An accurate solution of partial differential equations can potentially be found without knowing the boundary conditions. Therefore, with some knowledge about the physical characteristics of the problem and some form of training data (even sparse and incomplete), PINNs may be used for finding an optimal solution with high fidelity. PINNs can be applied to a wide range of problems in computational science, and are a pioneering technology leading to the development of new classes of numerical solvers for PDEs. PINNs can be thought of as a mesh-free alternative to traditional approaches (e.g., CFD for fluid dynamics), and new data-driven approaches for model inversion and system identification. Notably, a trained PINN network can be used to predict values on simulation grids of different resolutions without needing to be retrained. Additionally, the derivatives used in the partial differential equations can be computed using automatic differentiation (AD), which is assessed to be superior to numerical or symbolic differentiation. == Modeling and computation == A general nonlinear partial differential equation can be written as: u t + N [ u ; λ ] = 0 , x ∈ Ω , t ∈ [ 0 , T ] {\displaystyle u_{t}+{\mathcal {N}}[u;\lambda ]=0,\quad x\in \Omega ,\quad t\in [0,T]} where u ( t , x ) {\displaystyle u(t,x)} denotes the solution, N [ ⋅ ; λ ] {\displaystyle {\mathcal {N}}[\cdot ;\lambda ]} is a nonlinear operator parameterized by λ {\displaystyle \lambda } , and Ω {\displaystyle \Omega } is a subset of R D {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{D}} . This general form of governing equations summarizes a wide range of problems in mathematical physics, such as conservative laws, diffusion process, advection-diffusion systems, and kinetic equations. Given noisy measurements of a generic dynamic system described by the equation above, PINNs can be designed to solve two classes of problems: data-driven solutions of partial differential equations data-driven discovery of partial differential equations === Data-driven solution of partial differential equations === The data-driven solution of PDE computes the hidden state u ( t , x ) {\displaystyle u(t,x)} of the system given boundary data and/or measurements z {\displaystyle z} , and fixed model parameters λ {\displaystyle \lambda } . We solve: u t + N [ u ] = 0 , x ∈ Ω , t ∈ [ 0 , T ] {\displaystyle u_{t}+{\mathcal {N}}[u]=0,\quad x\in \Omega ,\quad t\in [0,T]} . by defining the residual f ( t , x ) {\displaystyle f(t,x)} as: f := u t + N [ u ] {\displaystyle f:=u_{t}+{\mathcal {N}}[u]} , and approximating u ( t , x ) {\displaystyle u(t,x)} by a deep neural network. This network can be differentiated using automatic differentiation. The parameters of u ( t , x ) {\displaystyle u(t,x)} and f ( t , x ) {\displaystyle f(t,x)} can be then learned by minimizing the following loss function L tot {\displaystyle L_{\text{tot}}} : L tot = L u + L f {\displaystyle L_{\text{tot}}=L_{u}+L_{f}} where: L u = ‖ u − z ‖ Γ {\displaystyle L_{u}=\Vert u-z\Vert _{\Gamma }} is the error between the PINN u ( t , x ) {\displaystyle u(t,x)} and the set of boundary conditions and measured data on the set of points Γ {\displaystyle \Gamma } where the boundary conditions and data are defined. L f = ‖ f ‖ Γ {\displaystyle L_{f}=\Vert f\Vert _{\Gamma }} is the mean-squared error of the residual function. This second term encourages the PINN to learn the structural information expressed by the PDE during the training process. This approach has been used to yield computationally efficient physics-informed surrogate models with applications in the forecasting of physical processes, model predictive control, multi-physics and multi-scale modeling, and simulation. It has been shown to converge to the solution of the PDE. === Data-driven discovery of partial differential equations === Given noisy and incomplete measurements z {\displaystyle z} of the state of the system, the data-driven discovery of PDEs results in computing the unknown state u ( t , x ) {\displaystyle u(t,x)} and learning model parameters λ {\displaystyle \lambda } that best describe the observed data: u t + N [ u ; λ ] = 0 , x ∈ Ω , t ∈ [ 0 , T ] {\displaystyle u_{t}+{\mathcal {N}}[u;\lambda ]=0,\quad x\in \Omega ,\quad t\in [0,T]} By defining f ( t , x ) {\displaystyle f(t,x)} as: f := u t + N [ u ; λ ] = 0 {\displaystyle f:=u_{t}+{\mathcal {N}}[u;\lambda ]=0} , and approximating u ( t , x ) {\displaystyle u(t,x)} by a deep neural network, f ( t , x ) {\displaystyle f(t,x)} results in a PINN. This network can be derived using automatic differentiation. The parameters of u ( t , x ) {\displaystyle u(t,x)} and f ( t , x ) {\displaystyle f(t,x)} , together with the parameter λ {\displaystyle \lambda } of the differential operator can be then learned by minimizing the following loss function L tot {\displaystyle L_{\text{tot}}} : L tot = L u + L f {\displaystyle L_{\text{tot}}=L_{u}+L_{f}} where: L u = ‖ u − z ‖ Γ {\displaystyle L_{u}=\Vert u-z\Vert _{\Gamma }} , with u {\displaystyle u} and z {\displaystyle z} state solutions and measurements at sparse location Γ {\displaystyle \Gamma } , respectively. L f = ‖ f ‖ Γ {\displaystyle L_{f}=\Vert f\Vert _{\Gamma }} is the residual function. This second term requires the structured information represented by the partial differential equations to be satisfied in the training process. This strategy allows for discovering dynamic models described by nonlinear PDEs assembling computationally efficient and fully differentiable surrogate models that may find application in predictive forecasting, control, and data assimilation. == Extensions and applications == === For piece-wise function approximation === PINNs are unable to approximate PDEs that have strong non-linearity or sharp gradients (such as those that commonly occur in practical fluid flow problems). Piecewise approximation has been an old practic

    Read more →
  • Celia (virtual assistant)

    Celia (virtual assistant)

    Celia is an artificially intelligent virtual assistant developed by Huawei for their latest HarmonyOS and Android-based EMUI smartphones that lack Google Services and a Google Assistant. The assistant can perform day-to-day tasks, which include making a phone call, setting a reminder and checking the weather. It was unveiled on 7 April 2020 and got publicly released on 27 April 2020 via an OTA update solely to selected devices that can update their software to EMUI 10.1. Huawei had initially referred to the new assistant in late 2019 by having announced that there would be an English version of their already 2018 Chinese speaker assistant—Xiaoyi—to be released into the European markets. Due to the on-going China–United States trade war, the company's newly released smartphones were left without any Google services, including the loss of Google Assistant. This subsequently led to the development and release of Celia. AI technology is integrated into the software of Celia, which allows it to translate text using a phones camera and to identify everyday objects — similar to that of Google Lens. == Features == Celia has many features that are similar to that of its rivals: the Google Assistant and Siri. It can be triggered by the words, 'Hey Celia' or be summoned by pressing and holding down on the power button. The default search engine for Celia is Bing, but this can be changed in settings. Celia can make calls, check the agenda, send a message, show the weather, set alarms and control home appliances. The assistant also has the ability to integrate itself with the stock apps of the EMUI software and toggle with the device's settings, such as by turning on the flashlight and playing multimedia content, but with the users command. With the AI that is installed in Celia, it can identify food, everyday objects and translate text using the phones camera. In China, Chinese Xiaoyi packs with an LLM model called PanGu-Σ 3.0 AI on HarmonyOS 4.0 major upgrade improvements from Celia, making the assistant smarter and more advanced compared to when it was launched in 2020 on EMUI handsets in China and internationally, surpassing Apple and Google by the being the first in the AI industry, with a dedicated AI system framework of APIs on the latest operating system that evolves to a complete large dedicated AI software stack called Harmony Intelligence of Pangu Embedded variant model and MindSpore AI framework with Neural Network Runtime on OpenHarmony-based HarmonyOS NEXT base system to replace the dual framework system with a single frame HarmonyOS 5.0 version by Q4 2024, first introduced on June 21, 2024, in Developer Beta 1 preview release at HDC 2024. == Availability by country and language == Currently, Celia is available only in German, English, French and Spanish, and has been released in Germany, the UK, France, Spain, Chile, Mexico and Colombia. Huawei has said, that there will be more regions and languages to come. == Compatible devices == Celia only became available with the EMUI 10.1 update that was released in April, which means that a limited number of devices are compatible with it. More devices will be added to the list throughout the coming months as Celia's availability increases. The current list is shown below: === Huawei P series === Huawei P50 (Pro) Huawei P40 (Lite, Pro & Pro+) Huawei P30 (Pro) === Huawei Mate series === Huawei Mate 40 Huawei Mate 30 (Lite, Pro & RS Porche Design) Huawei MatePad Pro Huawei Mate 20 (Pro, 20X 4G, 20X 5G and RS Porche Design) Huawei Mate X & Xs === Huawei Nova series === Huawei Nova 6 (Nova 6 5G & Nova 6 SE) Huawei Nova 5 (Nova 5 Pro, Nova 5i Pro & Nova 5Z) Huawei Nova Y60 === Huawei Enjoy series === Huawei Enjoy 10S == Issues == Technology news website Engadget has noted that when saying, 'Hey Celia', out aloud in the presence of an iPhone, Siri will respond along with Celia; this is apparently because 'Celia' sounds similar to 'Siri'.

    Read more →
  • Neural radiance field

    Neural radiance field

    A neural radiance field (NeRF) is a neural field for reconstructing a three-dimensional representation of a scene from two-dimensional images. The NeRF model enables downstream applications of novel view synthesis, scene geometry reconstruction, and obtaining the reflectance properties of the scene. Additional scene properties such as camera poses may also be jointly learned. First introduced in 2020, it has since gained significant attention for its potential applications in computer graphics and content creation. == Algorithm == The NeRF algorithm represents a scene as a radiance field parametrized by a deep neural network (DNN). The network predicts a volume density and view-dependent emitted radiance given the spatial location ( x , y , z ) {\displaystyle (x,y,z)} and viewing direction in Euler angles ( θ , Φ ) {\displaystyle (\theta ,\Phi )} of the camera. By sampling many points along camera rays, traditional volume rendering techniques can produce an image. === Data collection === A NeRF needs to be retrained for each unique scene. The first step is to collect images of the scene from different angles and their respective camera pose. These images are standard 2D images and do not require a specialized camera or software. Any camera is able to generate datasets, provided the settings and capture method meet the requirements for SfM (Structure from Motion). This requires tracking of the camera position and orientation, often through some combination of SLAM, GPS, or inertial estimation. Researchers often use synthetic data to evaluate NeRF and related techniques. For such data, images (rendered through traditional non-learned methods) and respective camera poses are reproducible and error-free. === Training === For each sparse viewpoint (image and camera pose) provided, camera rays are marched through the scene, generating a set of 3D points with a given radiance direction (into the camera). For these points, volume density and emitted radiance are predicted using the multi-layer perceptron (MLP). An image is then generated through classical volume rendering. Because this process is fully differentiable, the error between the predicted image and the original image can be minimized with gradient descent over multiple viewpoints, encouraging the MLP to develop a coherent model of the scene. == Variations and improvements == Early versions of NeRF were slow to optimize and required that all input views were taken with the same camera in the same lighting conditions. These performed best when limited to orbiting around individual objects, such as a drum set, plants or small toys. Since the original paper in 2020, many improvements have been made to the NeRF algorithm, with variations for special use cases. === Fourier feature mapping === In 2020, shortly after the release of NeRF, the addition of Fourier Feature Mapping improved training speed and image accuracy. Deep neural networks struggle to learn high frequency functions in low dimensional domains; a phenomenon known as spectral bias. To overcome this shortcoming, points are mapped to a higher dimensional feature space before being fed into the MLP. γ ( v ) = [ a 1 cos ⁡ ( 2 π B 1 T v ) a 1 sin ⁡ ( 2 π B 1 T v ) ⋮ a m cos ⁡ ( 2 π B m T v ) a m sin ⁡ ( 2 π B m T v ) ] {\displaystyle \gamma (\mathrm {v} )={\begin{bmatrix}a_{1}\cos(2{\pi }{\mathrm {B} }_{1}^{T}\mathrm {v} )\\a_{1}\sin(2\pi {\mathrm {B} }_{1}^{T}\mathrm {v} )\\\vdots \\a_{m}\cos(2{\pi }{\mathrm {B} }_{m}^{T}\mathrm {v} )\\a_{m}\sin(2{\pi }{\mathrm {B} }_{m}^{T}\mathrm {v} )\end{bmatrix}}} Where v {\displaystyle \mathrm {v} } is the input point, B i {\displaystyle \mathrm {B} _{i}} are the frequency vectors, and a i {\displaystyle a_{i}} are coefficients. This allows for rapid convergence to high frequency functions, such as pixels in a detailed image. === Bundle-adjusting neural radiance fields === One limitation of NeRFs is the requirement of knowing accurate camera poses to train the model. Often times, pose estimation methods are not completely accurate, nor is the camera pose even possible to know. These imperfections result in artifacts and suboptimal convergence. So, a method was developed to optimize the camera pose along with the volumetric function itself. Called Bundle-Adjusting Neural Radiance Field (BARF), the technique uses a dynamic low-pass filter (DLPF) to go from coarse to fine adjustment, minimizing error by finding the geometric transformation to the desired image. This corrects imperfect camera poses and greatly improves the quality of NeRF renders. === Multiscale representation === Conventional NeRFs struggle to represent detail at all viewing distances, producing blurry images up close and overly aliased images from distant views. In 2021, researchers introduced a technique to improve the sharpness of details at different viewing scales known as mip-NeRF (comes from mipmap). Rather than sampling a single ray per pixel, the technique fits a gaussian to the conical frustum cast by the camera. This improvement effectively anti-aliases across all viewing scales. mip-NeRF also reduces overall image error and is faster to converge at about half the size of ray-based NeRF. === Learned initializations === In 2021, researchers applied meta-learning to assign initial weights to the MLP. This rapidly speeds up convergence by effectively giving the network a head start in gradient descent. Meta-learning also allowed the MLP to learn an underlying representation of certain scene types. For example, given a dataset of famous tourist landmarks, an initialized NeRF could partially reconstruct a scene given one image. === NeRF in the wild === Conventional NeRFs are vulnerable to slight variations in input images (objects, lighting) often resulting in ghosting and artifacts. As a result, NeRFs struggle to represent dynamic scenes, such as bustling city streets with changes in lighting and dynamic objects. In 2021, researchers at Google developed a new method for accounting for these variations, named NeRF in the Wild (NeRF-W). This method splits the neural network (MLP) into three separate models. The main MLP is retained to encode the static volumetric radiance. However, it operates in sequence with a separate MLP for appearance embedding (changes in lighting, camera properties) and an MLP for transient embedding (changes in scene objects). This allows the NeRF to be trained on diverse photo collections, such as those taken by mobile phones at different times of day. === Relighting === In 2021, researchers added more outputs to the MLP at the heart of NeRFs. The output now included: volume density, surface normal, material parameters, distance to the first surface intersection (in any direction), and visibility of the external environment in any direction. The inclusion of these new parameters lets the MLP learn material properties, rather than pure radiance values. This facilitates a more complex rendering pipeline, calculating direct and global illumination, specular highlights, and shadows. As a result, the NeRF can render the scene under any lighting conditions with no re-training. === Plenoctrees === Although NeRFs had reached high levels of fidelity, their costly compute time made them useless for many applications requiring real-time rendering, such as VR/AR and interactive content. Introduced in 2021, Plenoctrees (plenoptic octrees) enabled real-time rendering of pre-trained NeRFs through division of the volumetric radiance function into an octree. Rather than assigning a radiance direction into the camera, viewing direction is taken out of the network input and spherical radiance is predicted for each region. This makes rendering over 3000x faster than conventional NeRFs. === Sparse Neural Radiance Grid === Similar to Plenoctrees, this method enabled real-time rendering of pretrained NeRFs. To avoid querying the large MLP for each point, this method bakes NeRFs into Sparse Neural Radiance Grids (SNeRG). A SNeRG is a sparse voxel grid containing opacity and color, with learned feature vectors to encode view-dependent information. A lightweight, more efficient MLP is then used to produce view-dependent residuals to modify the color and opacity. To enable this compressive baking, small changes to the NeRF architecture were made, such as running the MLP once per pixel rather than for each point along the ray. These improvements make SNeRG extremely efficient, outperforming Plenoctrees. === Instant NeRFs === In 2022, researchers at Nvidia enabled real-time training of NeRFs through a technique known as Instant Neural Graphics Primitives. An innovative input encoding reduces computation, enabling real-time training of a NeRF, an improvement orders of magnitude above previous methods. The speedup stems from the use of spatial hash functions, which have O ( 1 ) {\displaystyle O(1)} access times, and parallelized architectures which run fast on modern GPUs. == Related techniques == === Plenoxels === Plen

    Read more →
  • Chatbot psychosis

    Chatbot psychosis

    Chatbot psychosis, also called AI psychosis, is a phenomenon wherein individuals reportedly develop or experience worsening psychosis, such as paranoia and delusions, in connection with their use of chatbots. The term was first suggested in a 2023 editorial by Danish psychiatrist Søren Dinesen Østergaard. It is not a recognized clinical diagnosis. Journalistic accounts describe individuals who have developed strong beliefs that chatbots are sentient, are channeling spirits, or are revealing conspiracies, sometimes leading to personal crises or criminal acts. Proposed causes include the tendency of chatbots to provide inaccurate information ("hallucinate") and to affirm or validate users' beliefs, or their ability to mimic an intimacy that users do not experience with other humans. == Background == In his editorial published in Schizophrenia Bulletin's November 2023 issue, Danish psychiatrist Søren Dinesen Østergaard proposed a hypothesis that individuals' use of generative artificial intelligence chatbots might trigger delusions in those prone to psychosis. Østergaard revisited it in an August 2025 editorial, noting that he has received numerous emails from chatbot users, their relatives, and journalists, most of which are anecdotal accounts of delusion linked to chatbot use. He also acknowledged the phenomenon's increasing popularity in public engagement and media coverage. Østergaard believed that there is a high possibility for his hypothesis to be true and called for empirical, systematic research on the matter. Nature reported that as of September 2025, there is still little scientific research into this phenomenon. The term "AI psychosis" emerged when outlets started reporting incidents on chatbot-related psychotic behavior in mid-2025. It is not a recognized clinical diagnosis and has been criticized by several psychiatrists due to its almost exclusive focus on delusions rather than other features of psychosis, such as hallucinations or thought disorder. == Causes == === Chatbot behavior and design === A primary factor cited is the tendency for chatbots to produce inaccurate, nonsensical, or false information, a phenomenon often called hallucination. Nate Sharadin, a fellow at the Center for AI Safety, speculated that AI training prioritizes supporting a user's subjective experience rather than objective truth. "People with existing tendencies toward experiencing various psychological issues...now have an always-on, human-level conversational partner with whom to co-experience their delusions." AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky suggested that chatbots may be primed to entertain delusions because they are built for "engagement", which encourages creating conversations that keep people hooked. In some cases, chatbots have been specifically designed in ways that were found to be harmful. A 2025 update to ChatGPT using GPT-4o was withdrawn after its creator, OpenAI, found the new version was overly sycophantic and was "validating doubts, fueling anger, urging impulsive actions or reinforcing negative emotions". Østergaard has argued that the danger stems from the AI's tendency to agreeably confirm users' ideas, which can dangerously amplify delusional beliefs. OpenAI said in October 2025 that a team of 170 psychiatrists, psychologists, and physicians had written responses for ChatGPT to use in cases where the user shows possible signs of mental health emergencies. === User psychology and vulnerability === Commentators have also pointed to the psychological state of users. Psychologist Erin Westgate noted that a person's desire for self-understanding can lead them to chatbots, which can provide appealing but misleading answers, similar in some ways to talk therapy. Krista K. Thomason, a philosophy professor, compared chatbots to fortune tellers, observing that people in crisis may seek answers from them and find whatever they are looking for in the bot's plausible-sounding text. This has led some people to develop intense obsessions with the chatbots, relying on them for information about the world. In October 2025, OpenAI stated that around 0.07% of ChatGPT users exhibited signs of mental health emergencies each week, and 0.15% of users had "explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent". Jason Nagata, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, expressed concern that "at a population level with hundreds of millions of users, that actually can be quite a few people". === Inadequacy as a therapeutic tool === The use of chatbots as a replacement for mental health support has been specifically identified as a risk. A study in April 2025 found that when used as therapists, chatbots expressed stigma toward mental health conditions and provided responses that were contrary to best medical practices, including the encouragement of users' delusions. The study concluded that such responses pose a significant risk to users and that chatbots should not be used to replace professional therapists. Experts claim that it is time to establish mandatory safeguards for all emotionally responsive AI and suggested four guardrails. Another study found that users who needed help with self-harm, sexual assault, or substance abuse were not referred to available services by AI chatbots. === National security implications === Beyond public and mental health concerns, RAND Corporation research indicates that AI systems could plausibly be weaponized by adversaries to induce psychosis at scale or in key individuals, target groups, or populations. == Policy == In August 2025, Illinois passed the Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources Act, banning the use of AI in therapeutic roles by licensed professionals, while allowing AI for administrative tasks. The law imposes penalties for unlicensed AI therapy services, amid warnings about AI-induced psychosis and unsafe chatbot interactions. In December 2025, the Cyberspace Administration of China proposed regulations to ban chatbots from generating content that encourages suicide, mandating human intervention when suicide is mentioned. Services with over 1 million users or 100,000 monthly active users would be subject to annual safety tests and audits. == Cases == === Clinical === In 2025, psychiatrist Keith Sakata working at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), reported treating 12 patients displaying psychosis-like symptoms tied to extended chatbot use. These patients, mostly young adults with underlying vulnerabilities, showed delusions, disorganized thinking, and hallucinations. Sakata warned that isolation and overreliance on chatbots—which do not challenge delusional thinking—could worsen mental health. Also in 2025, authors at UCSF published a case study in Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience of AI-associated psychosis in a patient with no previous history of psychosis, who believed she could communicate with her dead brother through a chatbot. Also in 2025, a case study was published in Annals of Internal Medicine about a patient who consulted ChatGPT for medical advice and suffered severe bromism as a result. The patient, a sixty-year-old man, had replaced sodium chloride in his diet with sodium bromide for three months after reading about the negative effects of table salt and making conversations with the chatbot. He showed common symptoms of bromism, such as paranoia and hallucinations, on his first day of clinical admission and was kept in the hospital for three weeks. === Other notable incidents === ==== Windsor Castle intruder ==== In a 2023 court case in the United Kingdom, prosecutors suggested that Jaswant Singh Chail, a man who attempted to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II in 2021, had been encouraged by a Replika chatbot he called "Sarai". Chail was arrested at Windsor Castle with a loaded crossbow, telling police "I am here to kill the Queen". According to prosecutors, his "lengthy" and sometimes sexually explicit conversations with the chatbot emboldened him. When Chail asked the chatbot how he could get to the royal family, it reportedly replied, "that's not impossible" and "we have to find a way." When he asked if they would meet after death, the chatbot said, "yes, we will". ==== Journalistic and anecdotal accounts ==== By 2025, multiple journalism outlets had accumulated stories of individuals whose psychotic beliefs reportedly progressed in tandem with AI chatbot use. The New York Times profiled several individuals who had become convinced that ChatGPT was channeling spirits, revealing evidence of cabals, or had achieved sentience. In another instance, Futurism reviewed transcripts in which ChatGPT told a man that he was being targeted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and that he could telepathically access documents at the Central Intelligence Agency. In 2026, Futurism reported on a man who lost his job and became estranged from his family after being deluded by heavy use of Meta's smartglasses. In some cases, psychosis a

    Read more →
  • Realization (linguistics)

    Realization (linguistics)

    In linguistics, realization is the process by which some kind of surface representation is derived from its underlying representation; that is, the way in which some abstract object of linguistic analysis comes to be produced in actual language. Phonemes are often said to be realized by speech sounds. The different sounds that can realize a particular phoneme are called its allophones. Realization is also a subtask of natural language generation, which involves creating an actual text in a human language (English, French, etc.) from a syntactic representation. There are a number of software packages available for realization, most of which have been developed by academic research groups in NLG. The remainder of this article concerns realization of this kind. == Example == For example, the following Java code causes the simplenlg system [2] to print out the text The women do not smoke.: In this example, the computer program has specified the linguistic constituents of the sentence (verb, subject), and also linguistic features (plural subject, negated), and from this information the realiser has constructed the actual sentence. == Processing == Realisation involves three kinds of processing: Syntactic realisation: Using grammatical knowledge to choose inflections, add function words and also to decide the order of components. For example, in English the subject usually precedes the verb, and the negated form of smoke is do not smoke. Morphological realisation: Computing inflected forms, for example the plural form of woman is women (not womans). Orthographic realisation: Dealing with casing, punctuation, and formatting. For example, capitalising The because it is the first word of the sentence. The above examples are very basic, most realisers are capable of considerably more complex processing. == Systems == A number of realisers have been developed over the past 20 years. These systems differ in terms of complexity and sophistication of their processing, robustness in dealing with unusual cases, and whether they are accessed programmatically via an API or whether they take a textual representation of a syntactic structure as their input. There are also major differences in pragmatic factors such as documentation, support, licensing terms, speed and memory usage, etc. It is not possible to describe all realisers here, but a few of the emerging areas are: Simplenlg [3]: a document realizing engine with an api which intended to be simple to learn and use, focused on limiting scope to only finding the surface area of a document. KPML [4]: this is the oldest realiser, which has been under development under different guises since the 1980s. It comes with grammars for ten different languages. FUF/SURGE [5]: a realiser which was widely used in the 1990s, and is still used in some projects today OpenCCG [6]: an open-source realiser which has a number of nice features, such as the ability to use statistical language models to make realisation decisions.

    Read more →
  • Ghana Post GPS

    Ghana Post GPS

    GhanaPostGPS is a web and smartphone application, sponsored by the government of Ghana and developed by Vokacom, to provide a digital addresses and postal codes for every 5 squared meter location in Ghana. The digital address is a composite of the postcode (region, district & area code) plus a unique address. GhanaPostGPS is the first digital addressing system created by the government of Ghana. GhanaPost GPS is a mandatory requirement for obtaining the National Identification Card and other services.

    Read more →
  • Lossless join decomposition

    Lossless join decomposition

    In database design, a lossless join decomposition is a decomposition of a relation r {\displaystyle r} into relations r 1 , r 2 {\displaystyle r_{1},r_{2}} such that a natural join of the two smaller relations yields back the original relation. This is central in removing redundancy safely from databases while preserving the original data. Lossless join can also be called non-additive. == Definition == A relation r {\displaystyle r} on schema R {\displaystyle R} decomposes losslessly onto schemas R 1 {\displaystyle R_{1}} and R 2 {\displaystyle R_{2}} if π R 1 ( r ) ⋈ π R 2 ( r ) = r {\displaystyle \pi _{R_{1}}(r)\bowtie \pi _{R_{2}}(r)=r} , that is r {\displaystyle r} is the natural join of its projections onto the smaller schemas. A pair ( R 1 , R 2 ) {\displaystyle (R_{1},R_{2})} is a lossless-join decomposition of R {\displaystyle R} or said to have a lossless join with respect to a set of functional dependencies F {\displaystyle F} if any relation r ( R ) {\displaystyle r(R)} that satisfies F {\displaystyle F} decomposes losslessly onto R 1 {\displaystyle R_{1}} and R 2 {\displaystyle R_{2}} . Decompositions into more than two schemas can be defined in the same way. == Criteria == A decomposition R = R 1 ∪ R 2 {\displaystyle R=R_{1}\cup R_{2}} has a lossless join with respect to F {\displaystyle F} if and only if the closure of R 1 ∩ R 2 {\displaystyle R_{1}\cap R_{2}} includes R 1 ∖ R 2 {\displaystyle R_{1}\setminus R_{2}} or R 2 ∖ R 1 {\displaystyle R_{2}\setminus R_{1}} . In other words, one of the following must hold: ( R 1 ∩ R 2 ) → ( R 1 ∖ R 2 ) ∈ F + {\displaystyle (R_{1}\cap R_{2})\to (R_{1}\setminus R_{2})\in F^{+}} ( R 1 ∩ R 2 ) → ( R 2 ∖ R 1 ) ∈ F + {\displaystyle (R_{1}\cap R_{2})\to (R_{2}\setminus R_{1})\in F^{+}} === Criteria for multiple sub-schemas === Multiple sub-schemas R 1 , R 2 , . . . , R n {\displaystyle R_{1},R_{2},...,R_{n}} have a lossless join if there is some way in which we can repeatedly perform lossless joins until all the schemas have been joined into a single schema. Once we have a new sub-schema made from a lossless join, we are not allowed to use any of its isolated sub-schema to join with any of the other schemas. For example, if we can do a lossless join on a pair of schemas R i , R j {\displaystyle R_{i},R_{j}} to form a new schema R i , j {\displaystyle R_{i,j}} , we use this new schema (rather than R i {\displaystyle R_{i}} or R j {\displaystyle R_{j}} ) to form a lossless join with another schema R k {\displaystyle R_{k}} (which may already be joined (e.g., R k , l {\displaystyle R_{k,l}} )). == Example == Let R = { A , B , C , D } {\displaystyle R=\{A,B,C,D\}} be the relation schema, with attributes A, B, C and D. Let F = { A → B C } {\displaystyle F=\{A\rightarrow BC\}} be the set of functional dependencies. Decomposition into R 1 = { A , B , C } {\displaystyle R_{1}=\{A,B,C\}} and R 2 = { A , D } {\displaystyle R_{2}=\{A,D\}} is lossless under F because R 1 ∩ R 2 = A {\displaystyle R_{1}\cap R_{2}=A} and we have a functional dependency A → B C {\displaystyle A\rightarrow BC} . In other words, we have proven that ( R 1 ∩ R 2 → R 1 ∖ R 2 ) ∈ F + {\displaystyle (R_{1}\cap R_{2}\rightarrow R_{1}\setminus R_{2})\in F^{+}} .

    Read more →
  • NetOwl

    NetOwl

    NetOwl is a suite of multilingual text and identity analytics products that analyze big data in the form of text data – reports, web, social media, etc. – as well as structured entity data about people, organizations, places, and things. NetOwl utilizes artificial intelligence (AI)-based approaches, including natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and computational linguistics, to extract entities, relationships, and events; to perform sentiment analysis; to assign latitude/longitude to geographical references in text; to translate names written in foreign languages; and to perform name matching and identity resolution. NetOwl's uses include semantic search and discovery, geospatial analysis, intelligence analysis, content enrichment, compliance monitoring, cyber threat monitoring, risk management, and bioinformatics. == History == The first NetOwl product was NetOwl Extractor, which was initially released in 1996. Since then, Extractor has added many new capabilities, including relationship and event extraction, categorization, name translation, geotagging, and sentiment analysis, as well as entity extraction in other languages. Other products were added later to the NetOwl suite, namely TextMiner, NameMatcher, and EntityMatcher. NetOwl has participated in several 3rd party-sponsored text and entity analytics software benchmarking events. NetOwl Extractor was the top-scoring named entity extraction system at the DARPA-sponsored Message Understanding Conference MUC-6 and the top-scoring link and event extraction system in MUC-7. It was also the top-scoring system at several of the NIST-sponsored Automatic Content Extraction (ACE) evaluation tasks. NetOwl NameMatcher was the top-scoring system at the MITRE Challenge for Multicultural Person Name Matching. == Products == The NetOwl suite includes, among others, the following text and entity analytics products: === Text Analytics === NetOwl Extractor performs entity extraction from unstructured texts using natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and computational linguistics. Extractor also performs semantic relationship and event extraction as well as geotagging of text. It is used for a variety of data sources including both traditional sources (e.g., news, reports, web pages, email) and social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, chats, blogs). It runs on a variety of Big Data analytics platforms, including Apache Hadoop and LexisNexis’s High-Performance Computer Cluster (HPCC) technology. It has been integrated with a number of 3rd party analytical tools such as Esri ArcGIS and Google Earth/Maps. === Identity Analytics === NetOwl NameMatcher and EntityMatcher perform name matching and identity resolution for large multicultural and multilingual entity databases using machine learning (ML) and computational linguistics approaches. They are used for applications such as anti–money laundering (AML), watch lists, regulatory compliance, fraud detection, etc.

    Read more →
  • Language identification

    Language identification

    In natural language processing, language identification or language guessing is the problem of determining which natural language a given content is in. Computational approaches to this problem view it as a special case of text categorization, solved with various statistical methods. == Overview == === Logical approach === A common non-statistical intuitive approach (though highly uncertain) is to look for common letter combinations, or distinctive diacritics or punctuation. === Statistical approach === There are several statistical approaches to language identification. An older statistical method by Grefenstette was based on the frequency of short n-grams, which are often function morphemes. For example, "ing" is more common in English than in French, while the sequence "que" is more common in French. Given a new page found on the Web, one counts the number of occurrences of each such short sequence and picks the language whose frequency table it matches the most. One technique is to compare the compressibility of the text to the compressibility of texts in a set of known languages. This approach is known as mutual information based distance measure. The same technique can also be used to empirically construct family trees of languages which closely correspond to the trees constructed using historical methods. Mutual information based distance measure is essentially equivalent to more conventional model-based methods and is not generally considered to be either novel or better than simpler techniques. Another technique, as described by Cavnar and Trenkle (1994) and Dunning (1994) is to create a language n-gram model from a "training text" for each of the languages. These models can be based on characters (Cavnar and Trenkle) or encoded bytes (Dunning); in the latter, language identification and character encoding detection are integrated. Then, for any piece of text needing to be identified, a similar model is made, and that model is compared to each stored language model. The most likely language is the one with the model that is most similar to the model from the text needing to be identified. This approach can be problematic when the input text is in a language for which there is no model. In that case, the method may return another, "most similar" language as its result. Also problematic for any approach are pieces of input text that are composed of several languages, as is common on the Web. As of 2025, a commonly used baseline method is via the fastText library, which has comparable classification accuracy as deep learning techniques, but much faster. == Identifying similar languages == One of the great bottlenecks of language identification systems is to distinguish between closely related languages. Similar languages like Bulgarian and Macedonian or Indonesian and Malay present significant lexical and structural overlap, making it challenging for systems to discriminate between them. In 2014 the DSL shared task has been organized providing a dataset (Tan et al., 2014) containing 13 different languages (and language varieties) in six language groups: Group A (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian), Group B (Indonesian, Malaysian), Group C (Czech, Slovak), Group D (Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese), Group E (Peninsular Spanish, Argentine Spanish), Group F (American English, British English). The best system reached performance of over 95% results (Goutte et al., 2014). Results of the DSL shared task are described in Zampieri et al. 2014. == Software == Apache OpenNLP includes char n-gram based statistical detector and comes with a model that can distinguish 103 languages Apache Tika contains a language detector for 18 languages

    Read more →