AI Detector Accuracy

AI Detector Accuracy — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • PropBank

    PropBank

    PropBank is a corpus that is annotated with verbal propositions and their arguments—a "proposition bank". Although "PropBank" refers to a specific corpus produced by Martha Palmer et al., the term propbank is also coming to be used as a common noun referring to any corpus that has been annotated with propositions and their arguments. The PropBank project has played a role in research in natural language processing, and has been used in semantic role labelling. == Comparison == PropBank differs from FrameNet, the resource to which it is most frequently compared, in several ways. PropBank is a verb-oriented resource, while FrameNet is centered on the more abstract notion of frames, which generalizes descriptions across similar verbs (e.g. "describe" and "characterize") as well as nouns and other words (e.g. "description"). PropBank does not annotate events or states of affairs described using nouns. PropBank commits to annotating all verbs in a corpus, whereas the FrameNet project chooses sets of example sentences from a large corpus and only in a few cases has annotated longer continuous stretches of text. PropBank-style annotations often remain close to the syntactic level, while FrameNet-style annotations are sometimes more semantically motivated. From the start, PropBank was developed with the idea of serving as training data for machine learning-based semantic role labeling systems in mind. It requires that all arguments to a verb be syntactic constituents and different senses of a word are only distinguished if the differences bear on the arguments. Due to such differences, semantic role labeling with respect to PropBank is often a somewhat easier task than producing FrameNet-style annotations.

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  • Shattered set

    Shattered set

    A class of sets is said to shatter another set if it is possible to "pick out" any element of that set using intersection. The concept of shattered sets plays an important role in Vapnik–Chervonenkis theory, also known as VC-theory. Shattering and VC-theory are used in the study of empirical processes as well as in statistical computational learning theory. == Definition == Suppose A is a set and C is a class of sets. The class C shatters the set A if for each subset a of A, there is some element c of C such that a = c ∩ A . {\displaystyle a=c\cap A.} Equivalently, C shatters A when their intersection is equal to A's power set: P(A) = { c ∩ A | c ∈ C }. We employ the letter C to refer to a "class" or "collection" of sets, as in a Vapnik–Chervonenkis class (VC-class). The set A is often assumed to be finite because, in empirical processes, we are interested in the shattering of finite sets of data points. == Example == We will show that the class of all discs in the plane (two-dimensional space) does not shatter every set of four points on the unit circle, yet the class of all convex sets in the plane does shatter every finite set of points on the unit circle. Let A be a set of four points on the unit circle and let C be the class of all discs. To test where C shatters A, we attempt to draw a disc around every subset of points in A. First, we draw a disc around the subsets of each isolated point. Next, we try to draw a disc around every subset of point pairs. This turns out to be doable for adjacent points, but impossible for points on opposite sides of the circle. Any attempt to include those points on the opposite side will necessarily include other points not in that pair. Hence, any pair of opposite points cannot be isolated out of A using intersections with class C and so C does not shatter A. As visualized below: Because there is some subset which can not be isolated by any disc in C, we conclude then that A is not shattered by C. And, with a bit of thought, we can prove that no set of four points is shattered by this C. However, if we redefine C to be the class of all elliptical discs, we find that we can still isolate all the subsets from above, as well as the points that were formerly problematic. Thus, this specific set of 4 points is shattered by the class of elliptical discs. Visualized below: With a bit of thought, we could generalize that any set of finite points on a unit circle could be shattered by the class of all convex sets (visualize connecting the dots). == Shatter coefficient == To quantify the richness of a collection C of sets, we use the concept of shattering coefficients (also known as the growth function). For a collection C of sets s ⊂ Ω {\displaystyle s\subset \Omega } , Ω {\displaystyle \Omega } being any space, often a sample space, we define the nth shattering coefficient of C as S C ( n ) = max ∀ x 1 , x 2 , … , x n ∈ Ω card ⁡ { { x 1 , x 2 , … , x n } ∩ s , s ∈ C } {\displaystyle S_{C}(n)=\max _{\forall x_{1},x_{2},\dots ,x_{n}\in \Omega }\operatorname {card} \{\,\{\,x_{1},x_{2},\dots ,x_{n}\}\cap s,s\in C\}} where card {\displaystyle \operatorname {card} } denotes the cardinality of the set and x 1 , x 2 , … , x n ∈ Ω {\displaystyle x_{1},x_{2},\dots ,x_{n}\in \Omega } is any set of n points,. S C ( n ) {\displaystyle S_{C}(n)} is the largest number of subsets of any set A of n points that can be formed by intersecting A with the sets in collection C. For example, if set A contains 3 points, its power set, P ( A ) {\displaystyle P(A)} , contains 2 3 = 8 {\displaystyle 2^{3}=8} elements. If C shatters A, its shattering coefficient(3) would be 8 and S C ( 2 ) {\displaystyle S_{C}(2)} would be 2 2 = 4 {\displaystyle 2^{2}=4} . However, if one of those sets in P ( A ) {\displaystyle P(A)} cannot be obtained through intersections in c, then S C ( 3 ) {\displaystyle S_{C}(3)} would only be 7. If none of those sets can be obtained, S C ( 3 ) {\displaystyle S_{C}(3)} would be 0. Additionally, if S C ( 2 ) = 3 {\displaystyle S_{C}(2)=3} , for example, then there is an element in the set of all 2-point sets from A that cannot be obtained from intersections with C. It follows from this that S C ( 3 ) {\displaystyle S_{C}(3)} would also be less than 8 (i.e. C would not shatter A) because we have already located a "missing" set in the smaller power set of 2-point sets. This example illustrates some properties of S C ( n ) {\displaystyle S_{C}(n)} : S C ( n ) ≤ 2 n {\displaystyle S_{C}(n)\leq 2^{n}} for all n because { s ∩ A | s ∈ C } ⊆ P ( A ) {\displaystyle \{s\cap A|s\in C\}\subseteq P(A)} for any A ⊆ Ω {\displaystyle A\subseteq \Omega } . If S C ( n ) = 2 n {\displaystyle S_{C}(n)=2^{n}} , that means there is a set of cardinality n, which can be shattered by C. If S C ( N ) < 2 N {\displaystyle S_{C}(N)<2^{N}} for some N > 1 {\displaystyle N>1} then S C ( n ) < 2 n {\displaystyle S_{C}(n)<2^{n}} for all n ≥ N {\displaystyle n\geq N} . The third property means that if C cannot shatter any set of cardinality N then it can not shatter sets of larger cardinalities. == Vapnik–Chervonenkis class == If A cannot be shattered by C, there will be a smallest value of n that makes the shatter coefficient(n) less than 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}} because as n gets larger, there are more sets that could be missed. Alternatively, there is also a largest value of n for which the S C ( n ) {\displaystyle S_{C}(n)} is still 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}} , because as n gets smaller, there are fewer sets that could be omitted. The extreme of this is S C ( 0 ) {\displaystyle S_{C}(0)} (the shattering coefficient of the empty set), which must always be 2 0 = 1 {\displaystyle 2^{0}=1} . These statements lends themselves to defining the VC dimension of a class C as: V C ( C ) = min n { n : S C ( n ) < 2 n } {\displaystyle VC(C)={\underset {n}{\min }}\{n:S_{C}(n)<2^{n}\}\,} or, alternatively, as V C 0 ( C ) = max n { n : S C ( n ) = 2 n } . {\displaystyle VC_{0}(C)={\underset {n}{\max }}\{n:S_{C}(n)=2^{n}\}.\,} Note that V C ( C ) = V C 0 ( C ) + 1. {\displaystyle VC(C)=VC_{0}(C)+1.} . The VC dimension is usually defined as V C 0 {\displaystyle VC_{0}} , the largest cardinality of points chosen that will still shatter A (i.e. n such that S C ( n ) = 2 n {\displaystyle S_{C}(n)=2^{n}} ). Altneratively, if for any n there is a set of cardinality n which can be shattered by C, then S C ( n ) = 2 n {\displaystyle S_{C}(n)=2^{n}} for all n and the VC dimension of this class C is infinite. A class with finite VC dimension is called a Vapnik–Chervonenkis class or VC class. A class C is uniformly Glivenko–Cantelli if and only if it is a VC class.

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  • Analogical modeling

    Analogical modeling

    Analogical modeling (AM) is a formal theory of exemplar based analogical reasoning, proposed by Royal Skousen, professor of Linguistics and English language at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. It is applicable to language modeling and other categorization tasks. Analogical modeling is related to connectionism and nearest neighbor approaches, in that it is data-based rather than abstraction-based; but it is distinguished by its ability to cope with imperfect datasets (such as caused by simulated short term memory limits) and to base predictions on all relevant segments of the dataset, whether near or far. In language modeling, AM has successfully predicted empirically valid forms for which no theoretical explanation was known (see the discussion of Finnish morphology in Skousen et al. 2002). == Implementation == === Overview === An exemplar-based model consists of a general-purpose modeling engine and a problem-specific dataset. Within the dataset, each exemplar (a case to be reasoned from, or an informative past experience) appears as a feature vector: a row of values for the set of parameters that define the problem. For example, in a spelling-to-sound task, the feature vector might consist of the letters of a word. Each exemplar in the dataset is stored with an outcome, such as a phoneme or phone to be generated. When the model is presented with a novel situation (in the form of an outcome-less feature vector), the engine algorithmically sorts the dataset to find exemplars that helpfully resemble it, and selects one, whose outcome is the model's prediction. The particulars of the algorithm distinguish one exemplar-based modeling system from another. In AM, we think of the feature values as characterizing a context, and the outcome as a behavior that occurs within that context. Accordingly, the novel situation is known as the given context. Given the known features of the context, the AM engine systematically generates all contexts that include it (all of its supracontexts), and extracts from the dataset the exemplars that belong to each. The engine then discards those supracontexts whose outcomes are inconsistent (this measure of consistency will be discussed further below), leaving an analogical set of supracontexts, and probabilistically selects an exemplar from the analogical set with a bias toward those in large supracontexts. This multilevel search exponentially magnifies the likelihood of a behavior's being predicted as it occurs reliably in settings that specifically resemble the given context. === Analogical modeling in detail === AM performs the same process for each case it is asked to evaluate. The given context, consisting of n variables, is used as a template to generate 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}} supracontexts. Each supracontext is a set of exemplars in which one or more variables have the same values that they do in the given context, and the other variables are ignored. In effect, each is a view of the data, created by filtering for some criteria of similarity to the given context, and the total set of supracontexts exhausts all such views. Alternatively, each supracontext is a theory of the task or a proposed rule whose predictive power needs to be evaluated. It is important to note that the supracontexts are not equal peers one with another; they are arranged by their distance from the given context, forming a hierarchy. If a supracontext specifies all of the variables that another one does and more, it is a subcontext of that other one, and it lies closer to the given context. (The hierarchy is not strictly branching; each supracontext can itself be a subcontext of several others, and can have several subcontexts.) This hierarchy becomes significant in the next step of the algorithm. The engine now chooses the analogical set from among the supracontexts. A supracontext may contain exemplars that only exhibit one behavior; it is deterministically homogeneous and is included. It is a view of the data that displays regularity, or a relevant theory that has never yet been disproven. A supracontext may exhibit several behaviors, but contain no exemplars that occur in any more specific supracontext (that is, in any of its subcontexts); in this case it is non-deterministically homogeneous and is included. Here there is no great evidence that a systematic behavior occurs, but also no counterargument. Finally, a supracontext may be heterogeneous, meaning that it exhibits behaviors that are found in a subcontext (closer to the given context), and also behaviors that are not. Where the ambiguous behavior of the nondeterministically homogeneous supracontext was accepted, this is rejected because the intervening subcontext demonstrates that there is a better theory to be found. The heterogeneous supracontext is therefore excluded. This guarantees that we see an increase in meaningfully consistent behavior in the analogical set as we approach the given context. With the analogical set chosen, each appearance of an exemplar (for a given exemplar may appear in several of the analogical supracontexts) is given a pointer to every other appearance of an exemplar within its supracontexts. One of these pointers is then selected at random and followed, and the exemplar to which it points provides the outcome. This gives each supracontext an importance proportional to the square of its size, and makes each exemplar likely to be selected in direct proportion to the sum of the sizes of all analogically consistent supracontexts in which it appears. Then, of course, the probability of predicting a particular outcome is proportional to the summed probabilities of all the exemplars that support it. (Skousen 2002, in Skousen et al. 2002, pp. 11–25, and Skousen 2003, both passim) === Formulas === Given a context with n {\displaystyle n} elements: total number of pairings: n 2 {\displaystyle n^{2}} number of agreements for outcome i: n i 2 {\displaystyle n_{i}^{2}} number of disagreements for outcome i: n i ( n − n i ) {\displaystyle n_{i}(n-n_{i})} total number of agreements: ∑ n i 2 {\displaystyle \sum {n_{i}^{2}}} total number of disagreements: ∑ n i ( n − n i ) = n 2 − ∑ n i 2 {\displaystyle \sum {n_{i}(n-n_{i})}=n^{2}-\sum {n_{i}^{2}}} === Example === This terminology is best understood through an example. In the example used in the second chapter of Skousen (1989), each context consists of three variables with potential values 0-3 Variable 1: 0,1,2,3 Variable 2: 0,1,2,3 Variable 3: 0,1,2,3 The two outcomes for the dataset are e and r, and the exemplars are: 3 1 0 e 0 3 2 r 2 1 0 r 2 1 2 r 3 1 1 r We define a network of pointers like so: The solid lines represent pointers between exemplars with matching outcomes; the dotted lines represent pointers between exemplars with non-matching outcomes. The statistics for this example are as follows: n = 5 {\displaystyle n=5} n r = 4 {\displaystyle n_{r}=4} n e = 1 {\displaystyle n_{e}=1} total number of pairings: n 2 = 25 {\displaystyle n^{2}=25} number of agreements for outcome r: n r 2 = 16 {\displaystyle n_{r}^{2}=16} number of agreements for outcome e: n e 2 = 1 {\displaystyle n_{e}^{2}=1} number of disagreements for outcome r: n r ( n − n r ) = 4 {\displaystyle n_{r}(n-n_{r})=4} number of disagreements for outcome e: n e ( n − n e ) = 4 {\displaystyle n_{e}(n-n_{e})=4} total number of agreements: n r 2 + n e 2 = 17 {\displaystyle n_{r}^{2}+n_{e}^{2}=17} total number of disagreements: n r ( n − n r ) + n e ( n − n e ) = n 2 − ( n r 2 + n e 2 ) = 8 {\displaystyle n_{r}(n-n_{r})+n_{e}(n-n_{e})=n^{2}-(n_{r}^{2}+n_{e}^{2})=8} uncertainty or fraction of disagreement: 8 / 25 = .32 {\displaystyle 8/25=.32} Behavior can only be predicted for a given context; in this example, let us predict the outcome for the context "3 1 2". To do this, we first find all of the contexts containing the given context; these contexts are called supracontexts. We find the supracontexts by systematically eliminating the variables in the given context; with m variables, there will generally be 2 m {\displaystyle 2^{m}} supracontexts. The following table lists each of the sub- and supracontexts; x means "not x", and - means "anything". These contexts are shown in the venn diagram below: The next step is to determine which exemplars belong to which contexts in order to determine which of the contexts are homogeneous. The table below shows each of the subcontexts, their behavior in terms of the given exemplars, and the number of disagreements within the behavior: Analyzing the subcontexts in the table above, we see that there is only 1 subcontext with any disagreements: "3 1 2", which in the dataset consists of "3 1 0 e" and "3 1 1 r". There are 2 disagreements in this subcontext; 1 pointing from each of the exemplars to the other (see the pointer network pictured above). Therefore, only supracontexts containing this subcontext will contain any disagreements. We use a simple rule to identify the homogeneous supraco

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  • Teaching dimension

    Teaching dimension

    In computational learning theory, the teaching dimension of a concept class C is defined to be max c ∈ C { w C ( c ) } {\displaystyle \max _{c\in C}\{w_{C}(c)\}} , where w C ( c ) {\displaystyle {w_{C}(c)}} is the minimum size of a witness set for c in C. Intuitively, this measures the number of instances that are needed to identify a concept in the class, using supervised learning with examples provided by a helpful teacher who is trying to convey the concept as succinctly as possible. This definition was formulated in 1995 by Sally Goldman and Michael Kearns, based on earlier work by Goldman, Ron Rivest, and Robert Schapire. The teaching dimension of a finite concept class can be used to give a lower and an upper bound on the membership query cost of the concept class. In Stasys Jukna's book "Extremal Combinatorics", a lower bound is given for the teaching dimension in general: Let C be a concept class over a finite domain X. If the size of C is greater than 2 k ( | X | k ) , {\displaystyle 2^{k}{|X| \choose k},} then the teaching dimension of C is greater than k. However, there are more specific teaching models that make assumptions about teacher or learner, and can get lower values for the teaching dimension. For instance, several models are the classical teaching (CT) model, the optimal teacher (OT) model, recursive teaching (RT), preference-based teaching (PBT), and non-clashing teaching (NCT).

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  • PNGOUT

    PNGOUT

    PNGOUT is a freeware command line optimizer for PNG images written by Ken Silverman. The transformation is lossless, meaning that the resulting image is visually identical to the source image. According to its author, this program can often get higher compression than other optimizers by 5–10%. It is possible to compress some inflated PNGs to a size below 1% of the original file. PNGOUT was also available as a plug-in for the freeware image viewer IrfanView and can be enabled as an option when saving files. It allows editing of various PNGOUT settings via a dialog box. PNGOUT integration was removed in IrfanView version 4.58 in favour of OptiPNG. In 2006, a commercial version of PNGOUT with a graphical user interface, known as PNGOUTWin, was released by Ardfry Imaging, a small company Silverman co-founded in 2005. There is also a freeware GUI frontend to PNGOUT available, known as PNGGauntlet. == Main operation == The main function of PNGOUT is to reduce the size of image data contained in the IDAT chunk. This chunk is compressed using the deflate algorithm. Deflate algorithms can vary in speed and compression ratio, with higher compression ratios generally implying lower speed. Ken Silverman wrote a deflate compressor for PNGOUT that is slower than the ones used in most graphics software, but produces smaller files. PNGOUT also performs automatic bit depth, color, and palette reduction where appropriate.

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  • Persian Speech Corpus

    Persian Speech Corpus

    The Persian Speech Corpus is a Modern Persian speech corpus for speech synthesis. The corpus contains phonetic and orthographic transcriptions of about 2.5 hours of Persian speech aligned with recorded speech on the phoneme level, including annotations of word boundaries. Previous spoken corpora of Persian include FARSDAT, which consists of read aloud speech from newspaper texts from 100 Persian speakers and the Telephone FARsi Spoken language DATabase (TFARSDAT) which comprises seven hours of read and spontaneous speech produced by 60 native speakers of Persian from ten regions of Iran. The Persian Speech Corpus was built using the same methodologies laid out in the doctoral project on Modern Standard Arabic of Nawar Halabi at the University of Southampton. The work was funded by MicroLinkPC, who own an exclusive license to commercialise the corpus, though the corpus is available for non-commercial use through the corpus' website. It is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The corpus was built for speech synthesis purposes, but has been used for building HMM based voices in Persian. It can also be used to automatically align other speech corpora with their phonetic transcript and could be used as part of a larger corpus for training speech recognition systems. == Contents == The corpus is downloadable from its website, and contains the following: 396 .wav files containing spoken utterances 396 .lab files containing text utterances 396 .TextGrid files containing the phoneme labels with time stamps of the boundaries where these occur in the .wav files. phonetic-transcript.txt which has the form "[wav_filename]" "[Phoneme Sequence]" in every line orthographic-transcript.txt which has the form "[wav_filename]" "[Orthographic Transcript]" in every line

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  • Memetic algorithm

    Memetic algorithm

    In computer science and operations research, a memetic algorithm (MA) is an extension of an evolutionary algorithm (EA) that aims to accelerate the evolutionary search for the optimum. An EA is a metaheuristic that reproduces the basic principles of biological evolution as a computer algorithm in order to solve challenging optimization or planning tasks, at least approximately. An MA uses one or more suitable heuristics or local search techniques to improve the quality of solutions generated by the EA and to speed up the search. The effects on the reliability of finding the global optimum depend on both the use case and the design of the MA. Memetic algorithms represent one of the recent growing areas of research in evolutionary computation. The term MA is now widely used as a synergy of evolutionary or any population-based approach with separate individual learning or local improvement procedures for problem search. Quite often, MAs are also referred to in the literature as Baldwinian evolutionary algorithms, Lamarckian EAs, cultural algorithms, or genetic local search. == Introduction == Inspired by both Darwinian principles of natural evolution and Dawkins' notion of a meme, the term memetic algorithm (MA) was introduced by Pablo Moscato in his technical report in 1989 where he viewed MA as being close to a form of population-based hybrid genetic algorithm (GA) coupled with an individual learning procedure capable of performing local refinements. The metaphorical parallels, on the one hand, to Darwinian evolution and, on the other hand, between memes and domain specific (local search) heuristics are captured within memetic algorithms thus rendering a methodology that balances well between generality and problem specificity. This two-stage nature makes them a special case of dual-phase evolution. The basic idea behind an MA is to combine the advantages of a global search performed by an EA (or another global search method) with the local refinement provided by one or more local search techniques, while avoiding their drawbacks. The main disadvantage of EAs is that, when searching in the vicinity of an optimum, they perform poorly in determining the exact position of that optimum. The downside of local search methods lies simply in the locality of their search relative to the chosen starting point. The combination of these two classes of methods aims to merge global and local search so that the advantages of both approaches can be leveraged. The idea of this approach can be illustrated by the search for the highest mountain in the Alps. A local search method would climb one of the mountains near the starting point, ignoring Mont Blanc as long as the starting point is not in its vicinity. An EA, on the other hand, will likely only find Mont Blanc after examining many other mountains, valleys, and hills, and then it will have difficulty identifying the summit cross. From the perspective of an MA’s global search procedure, however, only the summits of hills and mountains are seen, and its search is limited to finding the best summit. The open question is whether the additional effort required for the local search is worthwhile. This depends not only on the design of the MA but also on the specific application and the local search methods used. In the context of complex optimization, many different instantiations of memetic algorithms have been reported across a wide range of application domains, in general, converging to high-quality solutions more efficiently than their conventional evolutionary counterparts. In general, using the ideas of memetics within a computational framework is called memetic computing or memetic computation (MC). With MC, the traits of universal Darwinism are more appropriately captured. Viewed in this perspective, MA is a more constrained notion of MC. More specifically, MA covers one area of MC, in particular dealing with areas of evolutionary algorithms that marry other deterministic refinement techniques for solving optimization problems. MC extends the notion of memes to cover conceptual entities of knowledge-enhanced procedures or representations. == Theoretical Background == The no-free-lunch theorems of optimization and search state that all optimization strategies are equally effective with respect to the set of all optimization problems. Conversely, this means that one can expect the following: The more efficiently an algorithm solves a problem or class of problems, the less general it is and the more problem-specific knowledge it builds on. This insight leads directly to the recommendation to complement generally applicable metaheuristics with application-specific methods or heuristics, which fits well with the concept of MAs. == The development of MAs == === 1st generation === Pablo Moscato characterized an MA as follows: "Memetic algorithms are a marriage between a population-based global search and the heuristic local search made by each of the individuals. ... The mechanisms to do local search can be to reach a local optimum or to improve (regarding the objective cost function) up to a predetermined level." And he emphasizes "I am not constraining an MA to a genetic representation.". This original definition of MA although encompasses characteristics of cultural evolution (in the form of local refinement) in the search cycle, it may not qualify as a true evolving system according to universal Darwinism, since all the core principles of inheritance/memetic transmission, variation, and selection are missing. This suggests why the term MA stirred up criticisms and controversies among researchers when first introduced. The following pseudo code would correspond to this general definition of an MA: Pseudo code Procedure Memetic Algorithm Initialize: Generate an initial population, evaluate the individuals and assign a quality value to them; while Stopping conditions are not satisfied do Evolve a new population using stochastic search operators. Evaluate all individuals in the population and assign a quality value to them. Select the subset of individuals, Ω i l {\displaystyle \Omega _{il}} , that should undergo the individual improvement procedure. for each individual in Ω i l {\displaystyle \Omega _{il}} do Perform individual learning using meme(s) with frequency or probability of f i l {\displaystyle f_{il}} , with an intensity of t i l {\displaystyle t_{il}} . Proceed with Lamarckian or Baldwinian learning. end for end while Lamarckian learning in this context means to update the chromosome according to the improved solution found by the individual learning step, while Baldwinian learning leaves the chromosome unchanged and uses only the improved fitness. This pseudo code leaves open which steps are based on the fitness of the individuals and which are not. In question are the evolving of the new population and the selection of Ω i l {\displaystyle \Omega _{il}} . Since most MA implementations are based on EAs, the pseudo code of a corresponding representative of the first generation is also given here, following Krasnogor: Pseudo code Procedure Memetic Algorithm Based on an EA Initialization: t = 0 {\displaystyle t=0} ; // Initialization of the generation counter Randomly generate an initial population P ( t ) {\displaystyle P(t)} ; Compute the fitness f ( p ) ∀ p ∈ P ( t ) {\displaystyle f(p)\ \ \forall p\in P(t)} ; while Stopping conditions are not satisfied do Selection: Accordingly to f ( p ) {\displaystyle f(p)} choose a subset of P ( t ) {\displaystyle P(t)} and store it in M ( t ) {\displaystyle M(t)} ; Offspring: Recombine and mutate individuals p ∈ M ( t ) {\displaystyle p\in M(t)} and store them in M ′ ( t ) {\displaystyle M'(t)} ; Learning: Improve p ′ {\displaystyle p'} by local search or heuristic ∀ p ′ ∈ M ′ ( t ) {\displaystyle \forall p'\in M'(t)} ; Evaluation: Compute the fitness f ( p ′ ) ∀ p ′ ∈ M ′ ( t ) {\displaystyle f(p')\ \ \forall p'\in M'(t)} ; if Lamarckian learning then Update chromosome of p ′ {\displaystyle p'} according to improvement ∀ p ′ ∈ M ′ ( t ) {\displaystyle \forall p'\in M'(t)} ; fi New generation: Generate P ( t + 1 ) {\displaystyle P(t+1)} by selecting some individuals from P ( t ) {\displaystyle P(t)} and M ′ ( t ) {\displaystyle M'(t)} ; t = t + 1 {\displaystyle t=t+1} ; // Increment the generation counter end while Return best individual p ∈ P ( t − 1 ) {\displaystyle p\in P(t-1)} as result; There are some alternatives for this MA scheme. For example: All or some of the initial individuals may be improved by the meme(s). The parents may be locally improved instead of the offspring. Instead of all offspring, only a randomly selected or fitness-dependent fraction may undergo local improvement. The latter requires the evaluation of the offspring in M ′ ( t ) {\displaystyle M'(t)} prior to the Learning step. === 2nd generation === Multi-meme, hyper-heuristic and meta-Lamarckian MA are referred to as second generation MA exhibiting the principles of me

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  • KXEN Inc.

    KXEN Inc.

    KXEN was an American software company which existed from 1998 to 2013 when it was acquired by SAP AG. == History == KXEN was founded in June 1998 by Roger Haddad and Michel Bera. It was based in San Francisco, California with offices in Paris and London. On September 10, 2013, SAP AG announced plans to acquire KXEN. On October 1, 2013, a letter to KXEN customers announced the acquisition closed. KXEN primarily marketed predictive analytics software. == Predictive analytics == InfiniteInsight is a predictive modeling suite developed by KXEN that assists analytic professionals, and business executives to extract information from data. Among other functions, InfiniteInsight is used for variable importance, classification, regression, segmentation, time series, product recommendation, as described and expressed by the Java Data Mining interface, and for social network analysis. InfiniteInsight allows prediction of a behavior or a value, the forecast of a time series or the understanding of a group of individuals with similar behavior. Advanced functions include behavioral modeling, exporting the model code into different target environments or building predictive models on top of SAS or SPSS data files. Competitors are SAS Enterprise Miner, IBM SPSS Modeler, and Statistica. Open source predictive tools like the R package or Weka are also competitors, since they provide similar features free of charge.

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  • Pray.com

    Pray.com

    Pray.com is a Christian social networking service and mobile application designed to facilitate religious communities. Launched in 2016, it was founded by Steve Gatena, Michael Lynn, Ryan Beck and Matthew Potter. The platform offers features for social networking, daily prayers, sermons, biblical content, and podcasts. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased Pray.com's user base, with downloads surging by 955%. During this period, the platform collaborated with churches to support virtual ministry services as in-person gatherings were restricted. The Federal Election Commission issued an opinion in 2021 that allows the platform to feature members of the United States Congress. Pray.com serves as a specialized social media platform for religious groups. Congregations can establish their own groups where members and leaders can participate in discussions, livestream services, and manage donations. Additionally, users can join "prayer communities" to post and respond to prayer requests. For those who subscribe to premium services, the platform provides access to biblically-inspired meditations and bedtime stories, and Bible stories for children. Pray.com also produces Radio drama-style productions with notable actors such as Kristen Bell and Blair Underwood narrating biblical stories. == History == === Funding and development === Pray.com has secured significant funding to support its development and growth. In 2017, the platform raised $2 million in seed funding from Science Inc., Greylock Partners, and Spark Capital. This was followed by a Series A funding round in March 2018, in which the company secured an additional $14 million from TPG Growth, Science Inc., and Greylock Partners. Founder Steve Gatena has highlighted difficulties in securing funding, noting some venture capitalists' negative attitudes towards faith-based technology. === Clinical studies === There have been clinical studies on Pray.com. In one study, the app was found to be acceptable and easy to use among racial and ethnic minority groups, with participants reporting improved mental health and well-being. Greater app use was associated with better outcomes, though low and variable usage suggests the need for further research to fully understand its impact. Another study examined Pray.com's impact on mental health by assigning 192 participants to use the app freely, use its meditative prayer function, or not use it at all. Over two months, participants reported overall improvements in mental health and well-being. Although no significant differences were found between groups, greater app usage correlated with better mental health outcomes. This suggests that religiously based mobile apps may help improve mental health and well-being. Another study of pray.com had similar findings. === National Day of Prayer === Pray first hosted a National Day of Prayer event in 2020 when it streamed to nearly one million viewers on Facebook. In 2021, Pray hosted a virtual event for the National Day of Prayer in the United States. The event featured remarks from public figures including United States President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence. President Biden spoke of his faith and prayed for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden remarked: "It means the world to me to know that there are people across the country who include Jill and me in their prayers. And I hope you know that you and your families are in our prayers as well. Today I am praying for the end of this great COVID crisis." The event featured musical performances from Gary Valenciano, Brooke Ligertwood from the Christian band Hillsong Worship, Lecrae, Heather Headley and Michael Neale. Other notable speakers included Ronnie Floyd, Ed Young, Mark Driscoll, and Samuel Rodriguez. Pray.com partnered with Sirius XM, DirecTV and Facebook to stream the event across multiple platforms. Pray.com was featured as a pop-up channel on Sirius XM, channel 154, to host the prayer event and celebrate people of all faith. === Partnerships and sponsorships === In 2024, Pray.com partnered with Sting Ray Robb as the primary sponsor for his No. 41 Chevrolet in the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series. The partnership, highlighting Robb's Christian faith, aims to engage younger audiences with faith-based content. The car, featuring Pray.com's branding, was set to debut at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. A partnership with Palantir Technologies for use of its AI systems was also announced in 2024. === Censorship in China === The app was removed from Apple's App Store in China as part of the country's broader efforts to restrict access to religious content. The app was targeted due to China's stringent regulations on religious material, particularly content distributed through digital platforms. The removal aligns with China's ongoing campaign to control online religious expression and maintain state-approved religious activities.

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  • Semidefinite embedding

    Semidefinite embedding

    Maximum Variance Unfolding (MVU), also known as Semidefinite Embedding (SDE), is an algorithm in computer science that uses semidefinite programming to perform non-linear dimensionality reduction of high-dimensional vectorial input data. It is motivated by the observation that kernel Principal Component Analysis (kPCA) does not reduce the data dimensionality, as it leverages the Kernel trick to non-linearly map the original data into an inner-product space. == Algorithm == MVU creates a mapping from the high dimensional input vectors to some low dimensional Euclidean vector space in the following steps: A neighbourhood graph is created. Each input is connected with its k-nearest input vectors (according to Euclidean distance metric) and all k-nearest neighbors are connected with each other. If the data is sampled well enough, the resulting graph is a discrete approximation of the underlying manifold. The neighbourhood graph is "unfolded" with the help of semidefinite programming. Instead of learning the output vectors directly, the semidefinite programming aims to find an inner product matrix that maximizes the pairwise distances between any two inputs that are not connected in the neighbourhood graph while preserving the nearest neighbors distances. The low-dimensional embedding is finally obtained by application of multidimensional scaling on the learned inner product matrix. The steps of applying semidefinite programming followed by a linear dimensionality reduction step to recover a low-dimensional embedding into a Euclidean space were first proposed by Linial, London, and Rabinovich. == Optimization formulation == Let X {\displaystyle X\,\!} be the original input and Y {\displaystyle Y\,\!} be the embedding. If i , j {\displaystyle i,j\,\!} are two neighbors, then the local isometry constraint that needs to be satisfied is: | X i − X j | 2 = | Y i − Y j | 2 {\displaystyle |X_{i}-X_{j}|^{2}=|Y_{i}-Y_{j}|^{2}\,\!} Let G , K {\displaystyle G,K\,\!} be the Gram matrices of X {\displaystyle X\,\!} and Y {\displaystyle Y\,\!} (i.e.: G i j = X i ⋅ X j , K i j = Y i ⋅ Y j {\displaystyle G_{ij}=X_{i}\cdot X_{j},K_{ij}=Y_{i}\cdot Y_{j}\,\!} ). We can express the above constraint for every neighbor points i , j {\displaystyle i,j\,\!} in term of G , K {\displaystyle G,K\,\!} : G i i + G j j − G i j − G j i = K i i + K j j − K i j − K j i {\displaystyle G_{ii}+G_{jj}-G_{ij}-G_{ji}=K_{ii}+K_{jj}-K_{ij}-K_{ji}\,\!} In addition, we also want to constrain the embedding Y {\displaystyle Y\,\!} to center at the origin: 0 = | ∑ i Y i | 2 ⇔ ( ∑ i Y i ) ⋅ ( ∑ i Y i ) ⇔ ∑ i , j Y i ⋅ Y j ⇔ ∑ i , j K i j {\displaystyle 0=|\sum _{i}Y_{i}|^{2}\Leftrightarrow (\sum _{i}Y_{i})\cdot (\sum _{i}Y_{i})\Leftrightarrow \sum _{i,j}Y_{i}\cdot Y_{j}\Leftrightarrow \sum _{i,j}K_{ij}} As described above, except the distances of neighbor points are preserved, the algorithm aims to maximize the pairwise distance of every pair of points. The objective function to be maximized is: T ( Y ) = 1 2 N ∑ i , j | Y i − Y j | 2 {\displaystyle T(Y)={\dfrac {1}{2N}}\sum _{i,j}|Y_{i}-Y_{j}|^{2}} Intuitively, maximizing the function above is equivalent to pulling the points as far away from each other as possible and therefore "unfold" the manifold. The local isometry constraint Let τ = m a x { η i j | Y i − Y j | 2 } {\displaystyle \tau =max\{\eta _{ij}|Y_{i}-Y_{j}|^{2}\}\,\!} where η i j := { 1 if i is a neighbour of j 0 otherwise . {\displaystyle \eta _{ij}:={\begin{cases}1&{\mbox{if}}\ i{\mbox{ is a neighbour of }}j\\0&{\mbox{otherwise}}.\end{cases}}} prevents the objective function from diverging (going to infinity). Since the graph has N points, the distance between any two points | Y i − Y j | 2 ≤ N τ {\displaystyle |Y_{i}-Y_{j}|^{2}\leq N\tau \,\!} . We can then bound the objective function as follows: T ( Y ) = 1 2 N ∑ i , j | Y i − Y j | 2 ≤ 1 2 N ∑ i , j ( N τ ) 2 = N 3 τ 2 2 {\displaystyle T(Y)={\dfrac {1}{2N}}\sum _{i,j}|Y_{i}-Y_{j}|^{2}\leq {\dfrac {1}{2N}}\sum _{i,j}(N\tau )^{2}={\dfrac {N^{3}\tau ^{2}}{2}}\,\!} The objective function can be rewritten purely in the form of the Gram matrix: T ( Y ) = 1 2 N ∑ i , j | Y i − Y j | 2 = 1 2 N ∑ i , j ( Y i 2 + Y j 2 − Y i ⋅ Y j − Y j ⋅ Y i ) = 1 2 N ( ∑ i , j Y i 2 + ∑ i , j Y j 2 − ∑ i , j Y i ⋅ Y j − ∑ i , j Y j ⋅ Y i ) = 1 2 N ( ∑ i , j Y i 2 + ∑ i , j Y j 2 − 0 − 0 ) = 1 N ( ∑ i Y i 2 ) = 1 N ( T r ( K ) ) {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}T(Y)&{}={\dfrac {1}{2N}}\sum _{i,j}|Y_{i}-Y_{j}|^{2}\\&{}={\dfrac {1}{2N}}\sum _{i,j}(Y_{i}^{2}+Y_{j}^{2}-Y_{i}\cdot Y_{j}-Y_{j}\cdot Y_{i})\\&{}={\dfrac {1}{2N}}(\sum _{i,j}Y_{i}^{2}+\sum _{i,j}Y_{j}^{2}-\sum _{i,j}Y_{i}\cdot Y_{j}-\sum _{i,j}Y_{j}\cdot Y_{i})\\&{}={\dfrac {1}{2N}}(\sum _{i,j}Y_{i}^{2}+\sum _{i,j}Y_{j}^{2}-0-0)\\&{}={\dfrac {1}{N}}(\sum _{i}Y_{i}^{2})={\dfrac {1}{N}}(Tr(K))\\\end{aligned}}\,\!} Finally, the optimization can be formulated as: Maximize T r ( K ) subject to K ⪰ 0 , ∑ i j K i j = 0 and G i i + G j j − G i j − G j i = K i i + K j j − K i j − K j i , ∀ i , j where η i j = 1 , {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}&{\text{Maximize}}&&Tr(\mathbf {K} )\\&{\text{subject to}}&&\mathbf {K} \succeq 0,\sum _{ij}\mathbf {K} _{ij}=0\\&{\text{and}}&&G_{ii}+G_{jj}-G_{ij}-G_{ji}=K_{ii}+K_{jj}-K_{ij}-K_{ji},\forall i,j{\mbox{ where }}\eta _{ij}=1,\end{aligned}}} After the Gram matrix K {\displaystyle K\,\!} is learned by semidefinite programming, the output Y {\displaystyle Y\,\!} can be obtained via Cholesky decomposition. In particular, the Gram matrix can be written as K i j = ∑ α = 1 N ( λ α V α i V α j ) {\displaystyle K_{ij}=\sum _{\alpha =1}^{N}(\lambda _{\alpha }V_{\alpha i}V_{\alpha j})\,\!} where V α i {\displaystyle V_{\alpha i}\,\!} is the i-th element of eigenvector V α {\displaystyle V_{\alpha }\,\!} of the eigenvalue λ α {\displaystyle \lambda _{\alpha }\,\!} . It follows that the α {\displaystyle \alpha \,\!} -th element of the output Y i {\displaystyle Y_{i}\,\!} is λ α V α i {\displaystyle {\sqrt {\lambda _{\alpha }}}V_{\alpha i}\,\!} .

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  • Proximal policy optimization

    Proximal policy optimization

    Proximal policy optimization (PPO) is a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm for training an intelligent agent. Specifically, it is a policy gradient method, often used for deep RL when the policy network is very large. == History == The predecessor to PPO, Trust Region Policy Optimization (TRPO), was published in 2015. It addressed the instability issue of another algorithm, the Deep Q-Network (DQN), by using the trust region method to limit the KL divergence between the old and new policies. However, TRPO uses the Hessian matrix (a matrix of second derivatives) to enforce the trust region, but the Hessian is inefficient for large-scale problems. PPO was published in 2017. It was essentially an approximation of TRPO that does not require computing the Hessian. The KL divergence constraint was approximated by simply clipping the policy gradient. Since 2018, PPO was the default RL algorithm at OpenAI. PPO has been applied to many areas, such as controlling a robotic arm, beating professional players at Dota 2 (OpenAI Five), and playing Atari games. == TRPO == TRPO, the predecessor of PPO, is an on-policy algorithm. It can be used for environments with either discrete or continuous action spaces. The pseudocode is as follows: Input: initial policy parameters θ 0 {\textstyle \theta _{0}} , initial value function parameters ϕ 0 {\textstyle \phi _{0}} Hyperparameters: KL-divergence limit δ {\textstyle \delta } , backtracking coefficient α {\textstyle \alpha } , maximum number of backtracking steps K {\textstyle K} for k = 0 , 1 , 2 , … {\textstyle k=0,1,2,\ldots } do Collect set of trajectories D k = { τ i } {\textstyle {\mathcal {D}}_{k}=\left\{\tau _{i}\right\}} by running policy π k = π ( θ k ) {\textstyle \pi _{k}=\pi \left(\theta _{k}\right)} in the environment. Compute rewards-to-go R ^ t {\textstyle {\hat {R}}_{t}} . Compute advantage estimates, A ^ t {\textstyle {\hat {A}}_{t}} (using any method of advantage estimation) based on the current value function V ϕ k {\textstyle V_{\phi _{k}}} . Estimate policy gradient as g ^ k = 1 | D k | ∑ τ ∈ D k ∑ t = 0 T ∇ θ log ⁡ π θ ( a t ∣ s t ) | θ k A ^ t {\displaystyle {\hat {g}}_{k}=\left.{\frac {1}{\left|{\mathcal {D}}_{k}\right|}}\sum _{\tau \in {\mathcal {D}}_{k}}\sum _{t=0}^{T}\nabla _{\theta }\log \pi _{\theta }\left(a_{t}\mid s_{t}\right)\right|_{\theta _{k}}{\hat {A}}_{t}} Use the conjugate gradient algorithm to compute x ^ k ≈ H ^ k − 1 g ^ k {\displaystyle {\hat {x}}_{k}\approx {\hat {H}}_{k}^{-1}{\hat {g}}_{k}} where H ^ k {\textstyle {\hat {H}}_{k}} is the Hessian of the sample average KL-divergence. Update the policy by backtracking line search with θ k + 1 = θ k + α j 2 δ x ^ k T H ^ k x ^ k x ^ k {\displaystyle \theta _{k+1}=\theta _{k}+\alpha ^{j}{\sqrt {\frac {2\delta }{{\hat {x}}_{k}^{T}{\hat {H}}_{k}{\hat {x}}_{k}}}}{\hat {x}}_{k}} where j ∈ { 0 , 1 , 2 , … K } {\textstyle j\in \{0,1,2,\ldots K\}} is the smallest value which improves the sample loss and satisfies the sample KL-divergence constraint. Fit value function by regression on mean-squared error: ϕ k + 1 = arg ⁡ min ϕ 1 | D k | T ∑ τ ∈ D k ∑ t = 0 T ( V ϕ ( s t ) − R ^ t ) 2 {\displaystyle \phi _{k+1}=\arg \min _{\phi }{\frac {1}{\left|{\mathcal {D}}_{k}\right|T}}\sum _{\tau \in {\mathcal {D}}_{k}}\sum _{t=0}^{T}\left(V_{\phi }\left(s_{t}\right)-{\hat {R}}_{t}\right)^{2}} typically via some gradient descent algorithm. == PPO == The pseudocode is as follows: Input: initial policy parameters θ 0 {\textstyle \theta _{0}} , initial value function parameters ϕ 0 {\textstyle \phi _{0}} for k = 0 , 1 , 2 , … {\textstyle k=0,1,2,\ldots } do Collect set of trajectories D k = { τ i } {\textstyle {\mathcal {D}}_{k}=\left\{\tau _{i}\right\}} by running policy π k = π ( θ k ) {\textstyle \pi _{k}=\pi \left(\theta _{k}\right)} in the environment. Compute rewards-to-go R ^ t {\textstyle {\hat {R}}_{t}} . Compute advantage estimates, A ^ t {\textstyle {\hat {A}}_{t}} (using any method of advantage estimation) based on the current value function V ϕ k {\textstyle V_{\phi _{k}}} . Update the policy by maximizing the PPO-Clip objective: θ k + 1 = arg ⁡ max θ 1 | D k | T ∑ τ ∈ D k ∑ t = 0 T min ( π θ ( a t ∣ s t ) π θ k ( a t ∣ s t ) A π θ k ( s t , a t ) , g ( ϵ , A π θ k ( s t , a t ) ) ) {\displaystyle \theta _{k+1}=\arg \max _{\theta }{\frac {1}{\left|{\mathcal {D}}_{k}\right|T}}\sum _{\tau \in {\mathcal {D}}_{k}}\sum _{t=0}^{T}\min \left({\frac {\pi _{\theta }\left(a_{t}\mid s_{t}\right)}{\pi _{\theta _{k}}\left(a_{t}\mid s_{t}\right)}}A^{\pi _{\theta _{k}}}\left(s_{t},a_{t}\right),\quad g\left(\epsilon ,A^{\pi _{\theta _{k}}}\left(s_{t},a_{t}\right)\right)\right)} typically via stochastic gradient ascent with Adam. Fit value function by regression on mean-squared error: ϕ k + 1 = arg ⁡ min ϕ 1 | D k | T ∑ τ ∈ D k ∑ t = 0 T ( V ϕ ( s t ) − R ^ t ) 2 {\displaystyle \phi _{k+1}=\arg \min _{\phi }{\frac {1}{\left|{\mathcal {D}}_{k}\right|T}}\sum _{\tau \in {\mathcal {D}}_{k}}\sum _{t=0}^{T}\left(V_{\phi }\left(s_{t}\right)-{\hat {R}}_{t}\right)^{2}} typically via some gradient descent algorithm. Like all policy gradient methods, PPO is used for training an RL agent whose actions are determined by a differentiable policy function by gradient ascent. Intuitively, a policy gradient method takes small policy update steps, so the agent can reach higher and higher rewards in expectation. Policy gradient methods may be unstable: A step size that is too big may direct the policy in a suboptimal direction, thus having little possibility of recovery; a step size that is too small lowers the overall efficiency. To solve the instability, PPO implements a clip function that constrains the policy update of an agent from being too large, so that larger step sizes may be used without negatively affecting the gradient ascent process. === Basic concepts === To begin the PPO training process, the agent is set in an environment to perform actions based on its current input. In the early phase of training, the agent can freely explore solutions and keep track of the result. Later, with a certain amount of transition samples and policy updates, the agent will select an action to take by randomly sampling from the probability distribution P ( A | S ) {\displaystyle P(A|S)} generated by the policy network. The actions that are most likely to be beneficial will have the highest probability of being selected from the random sample. After an agent arrives at a different scenario (a new state) by acting, it is rewarded with a positive reward or a negative reward. The objective of an agent is to maximize the cumulative reward signal across sequences of states, known as episodes. === Policy gradient laws: the advantage function === The advantage function (denoted as A {\displaystyle A} ) is central to PPO, as it tries to answer the question of whether a specific action of the agent is better or worse than some other possible action in a given state. By definition, the advantage function is an estimate of the relative value for a selected action. If the output of this function is positive, it means that the action in question is better than the average return, so the possibilities of selecting that specific action will increase. The opposite is true for a negative advantage output. The advantage function can be defined as A = Q − V {\displaystyle A=Q-V} , where Q {\displaystyle Q} is the discounted sum of rewards (the total weighted reward for the completion of an episode) and V {\displaystyle V} is the baseline estimate. Since the advantage function is calculated after the completion of an episode, the program records the outcome of the episode. Therefore, calculating advantage is essentially an unsupervised learning problem. The baseline estimate comes from the value function that outputs the expected discounted sum of an episode starting from the current state. In the PPO algorithm, the baseline estimate will be noisy (with some variance), as it also uses a neural network, like the policy function itself. With Q {\displaystyle Q} and V {\displaystyle V} computed, the advantage function is calculated by subtracting the baseline estimate from the actual discounted return. If A > 0 {\displaystyle A>0} , the actual return of the action is better than the expected return from experience; if A < 0 {\displaystyle A<0} , the actual return is worse. === Ratio function === In PPO, the ratio function ( r t {\displaystyle r_{t}} ) calculates the probability of selecting action a {\displaystyle a} in state s {\displaystyle s} given the current policy network, divided by the previous probability under the old policy. In other words: If r t ( θ ) > 1 {\displaystyle r_{t}(\theta )>1} , where θ {\displaystyle \theta } are the policy network parameters, then selecting action a {\displaystyle a} in state s {\displaystyle s} is more likely based on the current policy than the previous policy. If 0 ≤ r t ( θ ) < 1 {\displaystyle 0\leq r_{t}(\theta )<1} , then selecting actio

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  • FERET database

    FERET database

    The Facial Recognition Technology (FERET) database is a dataset used for facial recognition system evaluation as part of the Face Recognition Technology (FERET) program. It was first established in 1993 under a collaborative effort between Harry Wechsler at George Mason University and Jonathon Phillips at the Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland. The FERET database serves as a standard database of facial images for researchers to use to develop various algorithms and report results. The use of a common database also allowed one to compare the effectiveness of different approaches in methodology and gauge their strengths and weaknesses. The facial images for the database were collected between December 1993 and August 1996, accumulating a total of 14,126 images pertaining to 1,199 individuals along with 365 duplicate sets of images that were taken on a different day. In 2003, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) released a high-resolution, 24-bit color version of these images. The dataset tested includes 2,413 still facial images, representing 856 individuals. The FERET database has been used by more than 460 research groups and is managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

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  • Quantum artificial life

    Quantum artificial life

    Quantum artificial life is the application of quantum algorithms with the ability to simulate biological behavior. Quantum computers offer many potential improvements to processes performed on classical computers, including machine learning and artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence applications are often inspired by the idea of mimicking human brains through closely related biomimicry. This has been implemented to a certain extent on classical computers (using neural networks), but quantum computers offer many advantages in the simulation of artificial life. Artificial life and artificial intelligence are extremely similar, with minor differences; the goal of studying artificial life is to understand living beings better, while the goal of artificial intelligence is to create intelligent beings. In 2016, Alvarez-Rodriguez et al. developed a proposal for a quantum artificial life algorithm with the ability to simulate life and Darwinian evolution. In 2018, the same research team led by Alvarez-Rodriguez performed the proposed algorithm on the IBM ibmqx4 quantum computer, and received optimistic results. The results accurately simulated a system with the ability to undergo self-replication at the quantum scale. == Artificial life on quantum computers == The growing advancement of quantum computers has led researchers to develop quantum algorithms for simulating life processes. Researchers have designed a quantum algorithm that can accurately simulate Darwinian Evolution. Since the complete simulation of artificial life on quantum computers has only been actualized by one group, this section shall focus on the implementation by Alvarez-Rodriguez, Sanz, Lomata, and Solano on an IBM quantum computer. Individuals were realized as two qubits, one representing the genotype of the individual and the other representing the phenotype. The genotype is copied to transmit genetic information through generations, and the phenotype is dependent on the genetic information as well as the individual's interactions with their environment. In order to set up the system, the state of the genotype is instantiated by some rotation of an ancillary state ( | 0 ⟩ ⟨ 0 | {\displaystyle |0\rangle \langle 0|} ). The environment is a two-dimensional spatial grid occupied by individuals and ancillary states. The environment is divided into cells that are able to possess one or more individuals. Individuals move throughout the grid and occupy cells randomly; when two or more individuals occupy the same cell they interact with each other. === Self replication === The ability to self-replicate is critical for simulating life. Self-replication occurs when the genotype of an individual interacts with an ancillary state, creating a genotype for a new individual; this genotype interacts with a different ancillary state in order to create the phenotype. During this interaction, one would like to copy some information about the initial state into the ancillary state, but by the no cloning theorem, it is impossible to copy an arbitrary unknown quantum state. However, physicists have derived different methods for quantum cloning which does not require the exact copying of an unknown state. The method that has been implemented by Alvarez-Rodriguez et al. is one that involves the cloning of the expectation value of some observable. For a unitary U {\displaystyle U} which copies the expectation value of some set of observables X {\displaystyle {\mathsf {X}}} of state ρ {\displaystyle \rho } into a blank state ρ e {\displaystyle \rho _{e}} , the cloning machine is defined by any ( U , ρ e , X ) {\displaystyle (U,\rho _{e},{\mathsf {X}})} that fulfill the following: ∀ ρ ∀ X ∈ X {\displaystyle \forall \rho \forall X\in {\mathsf {X}}} X ¯ = X 1 ¯ = X 2 ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {X}}={\bar {X_{1}}}={\bar {X_{2}}}} Where X ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {X}}} is the mean value of the observable in ρ {\displaystyle \rho } before cloning, X 1 ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {X_{1}}}} is the mean value of the observable in ρ {\displaystyle \rho } after cloning, and X 2 ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {X_{2}}}} is the mean value of the observable in ρ e {\displaystyle \rho _{e}} after cloning. Note that the cloning machine has no dependence on ρ {\displaystyle \rho } because we want to be able to clone the expectation of the observables for any initial state. It is important to note that cloning the mean value of the observable transmits more information than is allowed classically. The calculation of the mean value is defined naturally as: X ¯ = T r [ ρ X ] {\displaystyle {\bar {X}}=Tr[\rho X]} , X 1 ¯ = T r [ R X ⊗ I ] {\displaystyle {\bar {X_{1}}}=Tr[RX\otimes I]} , X 2 ¯ = T r [ R I ⊗ X ] {\displaystyle {\bar {X_{2}}}=Tr[RI\otimes X]} where R = U ρ ⊗ ρ e U † {\displaystyle R=U\rho \otimes \rho _{e}U^{\dagger }} The simplest cloning machine clones the expectation value of σ z {\displaystyle \sigma _{z}} in arbitrary state ρ = | ψ ⟩ ⟨ ψ | {\displaystyle \rho =|\psi \rangle \langle \psi |} to ρ e = | 0 ⟩ ⟨ 0 | {\displaystyle \rho _{e}=|0\rangle \langle 0|} using U = C N O T {\displaystyle U=CNOT} . This is the cloning machine implemented for self-replication by Alvarez-Rodriguez et al. The self-replication process clearly only requires interactions between two qubits, and therefore this cloning machine is the only one necessary for self replication. === Interactions === Interactions occur between individuals when the two take up the same space on the environmental grid. The presence of interactions between individuals provides an advantage for shorter-lifespan individuals. When two individuals interact, exchanges of information between the two phenotypes may or may not occur based on their existing values. When both individual's control qubits (genotypes) are alike, no information will be exchanged. When the control qubits differ, the target qubits (phenotype) will be exchanged between the two individuals. This procedure produces a constantly changing predator-prey dynamic in the simulation. Therefore, long-living qubits, with a larger genetic makeup in the simulation, are at a disadvantage. Since information is only exchanged when interacting with an individual of different genetic makeup, the short-lived population has the advantage. === Mutation === Mutations exist in the artificial world with limited probability, equivalent to their occurrence in the real world. There are two ways in which the individual can mutate: through random single qubit rotations and by errors in the self-replication process. There are two different operators that act on the individual and cause mutations. The M operation causes a spontaneous mutation within the individual by rotating a single qubit by parameter θ. The parameter θ is random for each mutation, which creates biodiversity within the artificial environment. The M operation is a unitary matrix which can be described as: M = ( cos ⁡ ( θ ) s i n ( θ ) s i n ( θ ) − c o s ( θ ) ) {\displaystyle M={\begin{pmatrix}\cos(\theta )&sin(\theta )\\sin(\theta )&-cos(\theta )\end{pmatrix}}} The other possible way for mutations to occur is due to errors in the replication process. Due to the no-cloning theorem, it is impossible to produce perfect copies of systems that are originally in unknown quantum states. However, quantum cloning machines make it possible to create imperfect copies of quantum states, in other words, the process introduces some degree of error. The error that exists in current quantum cloning machines is the root cause for the second kind of mutations in the artificial life experiment. The imperfect cloning operation can be seen as: U M ( θ ) = I 4 + 1 2 ( 0 0 0 1 ) ⊗ ( − 1 1 1 − 1 ) ( c o s θ + i s i n θ + 1 ) {\displaystyle U_{M}(\theta )=\mathrm {I} _{4}+{\frac {1}{2}}{\begin{pmatrix}0&0\\0&1\end{pmatrix}}\otimes {\begin{pmatrix}-1&1\\1&-1\end{pmatrix}}(cos\theta +isin\theta +1)} The two kinds of mutations affect the individual differently. While the spontaneous M operation does not affect the phenotype of the individual, the self-replicating error mutation, UM, alters both the genotype of the individual, and its associated lifetime. The presence of mutations in the quantum artificial life experiment is critical for providing randomness and biodiversity. The inclusion of mutations helps to increase the accuracy of the quantum algorithm. === Death === At the instant the individual is created (when the genotype is copied into the phenotype), the phenotype interacts with the environment. As time evolves, the interaction of the individual with the environment simulates aging which eventually leads to the death of the individual. The death of an individual occurs when the expectation value of σ z {\displaystyle \sigma _{z}} is within some ϵ {\displaystyle \epsilon } of 1 in the phenotype, or, equivalently, when ρ p = | 0 ⟩ ⟨ 0 | {\displaystyle \rho _{p}=|0\rangle \langle 0|} The Lindbladian describes the interaction of the individual with the environment: ρ

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  • LIBSVM

    LIBSVM

    LIBSVM and LIBLINEAR are two popular open source machine learning libraries, both developed at the National Taiwan University and both written in C++ though with a C API. LIBSVM implements the sequential minimal optimization (SMO) algorithm for kernelized support vector machines (SVMs), supporting classification and regression. LIBLINEAR implements linear SVMs and logistic regression models trained using a coordinate descent algorithm. The SVM learning code from both libraries is often reused in other open source machine learning toolkits, including GATE, KNIME, Orange and scikit-learn. Bindings and ports exist for programming languages such as Java, MATLAB, R, Julia, and Python. It is available in e1071 library in R and scikit-learn in Python. Both libraries are free software released under the 3-clause BSD license.

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  • Vapnik–Chervonenkis theory

    Vapnik–Chervonenkis theory

    Vapnik–Chervonenkis theory (also known as VC theory) was developed during 1960–1990 by Vladimir Vapnik and Alexey Chervonenkis. The theory is a form of computational learning theory, which attempts to explain the learning process from a statistical point of view. == Introduction == VC theory covers at least four parts (as explained in The Nature of Statistical Learning Theory): Theory of consistency of learning processes What are (necessary and sufficient) conditions for consistency of a learning process based on the empirical risk minimization principle? Nonasymptotic theory of the rate of convergence of learning processes How fast is the rate of convergence of the learning process? Theory of controlling the generalization ability of learning processes How can one control the rate of convergence (the generalization ability) of the learning process? Theory of constructing learning machines How can one construct algorithms that can control the generalization ability? VC Theory is a major subbranch of statistical learning theory. One of its main applications in statistical learning theory is to provide generalization conditions for learning algorithms. From this point of view, VC theory is related to stability, which is an alternative approach for characterizing generalization. In addition, VC theory and VC dimension are instrumental in the theory of empirical processes, in the case of processes indexed by VC classes. Arguably these are the most important applications of the VC theory, and are employed in proving generalization. Several techniques will be introduced that are widely used in the empirical process and VC theory. The discussion is mainly based on the book Weak Convergence and Empirical Processes: With Applications to Statistics. == Overview of VC theory in empirical processes == === Background on empirical processes === Let ( X , A ) {\displaystyle ({\mathcal {X}},{\mathcal {A}})} be a measurable space. For any measure Q {\displaystyle Q} on ( X , A ) {\displaystyle ({\mathcal {X}},{\mathcal {A}})} , and any measurable functions f : X → R {\displaystyle f:{\mathcal {X}}\to \mathbf {R} } , define Q f = ∫ f d Q {\displaystyle Qf=\int fdQ} Measurability issues will be ignored here, for more technical detail see. Let F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} be a class of measurable functions f : X → R {\displaystyle f:{\mathcal {X}}\to \mathbf {R} } and define: ‖ Q ‖ F = sup { | Q f | : f ∈ F } . {\displaystyle \|Q\|_{\mathcal {F}}=\sup\{\vert Qf\vert \ :\ f\in {\mathcal {F}}\}.} Let X 1 , … , X n {\displaystyle X_{1},\ldots ,X_{n}} be independent, identically distributed random elements of ( X , A ) {\displaystyle ({\mathcal {X}},{\mathcal {A}})} . Then define the empirical measure P n = n − 1 ∑ i = 1 n δ X i , {\displaystyle \mathbb {P} _{n}=n^{-1}\sum _{i=1}^{n}\delta _{X_{i}},} where δ here stands for the Dirac measure. The empirical measure induces a map F → R {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}\to \mathbf {R} } given by: f ↦ P n f = 1 n ( f ( X 1 ) + . . . + f ( X n ) ) {\displaystyle f\mapsto \mathbb {P} _{n}f={\frac {1}{n}}(f(X_{1})+...+f(X_{n}))} Now suppose P is the underlying true distribution of the data, which is unknown. Empirical Processes theory aims at identifying classes F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} for which statements such as the following hold: uniform law of large numbers: ‖ P n − P ‖ F → n 0 , {\displaystyle \|\mathbb {P} _{n}-P\|_{\mathcal {F}}{\underset {n}{\to }}0,} That is, as n → ∞ {\displaystyle n\to \infty } , | 1 n ( f ( X 1 ) + . . . + f ( X n ) ) − ∫ f d P | → 0 {\displaystyle \left|{\frac {1}{n}}(f(X_{1})+...+f(X_{n}))-\int fdP\right|\to 0} uniformly for all f ∈ F {\displaystyle f\in {\mathcal {F}}} . uniform central limit theorem: G n = n ( P n − P ) ⇝ G , in ℓ ∞ ( F ) {\displaystyle \mathbb {G} _{n}={\sqrt {n}}(\mathbb {P} _{n}-P)\rightsquigarrow \mathbb {G} ,\quad {\text{in }}\ell ^{\infty }({\mathcal {F}})} In the former case F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} is called Glivenko–Cantelli class, and in the latter case (under the assumption ∀ x , sup f ∈ F | f ( x ) − P f | < ∞ {\displaystyle \forall x,\sup \nolimits _{f\in {\mathcal {F}}}\vert f(x)-Pf\vert <\infty } ) the class F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} is called Donsker or P-Donsker. A Donsker class is Glivenko–Cantelli in probability by an application of Slutsky's theorem. These statements are true for a single f {\displaystyle f} , by standard LLN, CLT arguments under regularity conditions, and the difficulty in the Empirical Processes comes in because joint statements are being made for all f ∈ F {\displaystyle f\in {\mathcal {F}}} . Intuitively then, the set F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} cannot be too large, and as it turns out that the geometry of F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} plays a very important role. One way of measuring how big the function set F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} is to use the so-called covering numbers. The covering number N ( ε , F , ‖ ⋅ ‖ ) {\displaystyle N(\varepsilon ,{\mathcal {F}},\|\cdot \|)} is the minimal number of balls { g : ‖ g − f ‖ < ε } {\displaystyle \{g:\|g-f\|<\varepsilon \}} needed to cover the set F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} (here it is obviously assumed that there is an underlying norm on F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} ). The entropy is the logarithm of the covering number. Two sufficient conditions are provided below, under which it can be proved that the set F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} is Glivenko–Cantelli or Donsker. A class F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} is P-Glivenko–Cantelli if it is P-measurable with envelope F such that P ∗ F < ∞ {\displaystyle P^{\ast }F<\infty } and satisfies: ∀ ε > 0 sup Q N ( ε ‖ F ‖ Q , F , L 1 ( Q ) ) < ∞ . {\displaystyle \forall \varepsilon >0\quad \sup \nolimits _{Q}N(\varepsilon \|F\|_{Q},{\mathcal {F}},L_{1}(Q))<\infty .} The next condition is a version of Dudley's theorem. If F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} is a class of functions such that ∫ 0 ∞ sup Q log ⁡ N ( ε ‖ F ‖ Q , 2 , F , L 2 ( Q ) ) d ε < ∞ {\displaystyle \int _{0}^{\infty }\sup \nolimits _{Q}{\sqrt {\log N\left(\varepsilon \|F\|_{Q,2},{\mathcal {F}},L_{2}(Q)\right)}}d\varepsilon <\infty } then F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} is P-Donsker for every probability measure P such that P ∗ F 2 < ∞ {\displaystyle P^{\ast }F^{2}<\infty } . In the last integral, the notation means ‖ f ‖ Q , 2 = ( ∫ | f | 2 d Q ) 1 2 {\displaystyle \|f\|_{Q,2}=\left(\int |f|^{2}dQ\right)^{\frac {1}{2}}} . === Symmetrization === The majority of the arguments about how to bound the empirical process rely on symmetrization, maximal and concentration inequalities, and chaining. Symmetrization is usually the first step of the proofs, and since it is used in many machine learning proofs on bounding empirical loss functions (including the proof of the VC inequality which is discussed in the next section). It is presented here: Consider the empirical process: f ↦ ( P n − P ) f = 1 n ∑ i = 1 n ( f ( X i ) − P f ) {\displaystyle f\mapsto (\mathbb {P} _{n}-P)f={\dfrac {1}{n}}\sum _{i=1}^{n}(f(X_{i})-Pf)} Turns out that there is a connection between the empirical and the following symmetrized process: f ↦ P n 0 f = 1 n ∑ i = 1 n ε i f ( X i ) {\displaystyle f\mapsto \mathbb {P} _{n}^{0}f={\dfrac {1}{n}}\sum _{i=1}^{n}\varepsilon _{i}f(X_{i})} The symmetrized process is a Rademacher process, conditionally on the data X i {\displaystyle X_{i}} . Therefore, it is a sub-Gaussian process by Hoeffding's inequality. Lemma (Symmetrization). For every nondecreasing, convex Φ: R → R and class of measurable functions F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} , E Φ ( ‖ P n − P ‖ F ) ≤ E Φ ( 2 ‖ P n 0 ‖ F ) {\displaystyle \mathbb {E} \Phi (\|\mathbb {P} _{n}-P\|_{\mathcal {F}})\leq \mathbb {E} \Phi \left(2\left\|\mathbb {P} _{n}^{0}\right\|_{\mathcal {F}}\right)} The proof of the Symmetrization lemma relies on introducing independent copies of the original variables X i {\displaystyle X_{i}} (sometimes referred to as a ghost sample) and replacing the inner expectation of the LHS by these copies. After an application of Jensen's inequality different signs could be introduced (hence the name symmetrization) without changing the expectation. The proof can be found below because of its instructive nature. The same proof method can be used to prove the Glivenko–Cantelli theorem. A typical way of proving empirical CLTs, first uses symmetrization to pass the empirical process to P n 0 {\displaystyle \mathbb {P} _{n}^{0}} and then argue conditionally on the data, using the fact that Rademacher processes are simple processes with nice properties. === VC Connection === It turns out that there is a fascinating connection between certain combinatorial properties of the set F {\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}} and the entropy numbers. Uniform covering numbers can be controlled by the notion of Vapnik–Chervonenkis classes of sets – or shortly VC sets. Consider a collection C {\displaystyle {\mathcal {C}}} of subsets of the sample space X {\displaystyle

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