AI Email Automation

AI Email Automation — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • GOLOG

    GOLOG

    GOLOG is a high-level logic programming language for the specification and execution of complex actions in dynamical domains. It is based on the situation calculus. It is a first-order logical language for reasoning about action and change. GOLOG was developed at the University of Toronto. == History == The concept of situation calculus on which the GOLOG programming language is based was first proposed by John McCarthy in 1963. == Description == A GOLOG interpreter automatically maintains a direct characterization of the dynamic world being modeled, on the basis of user supplied axioms about preconditions, effects of actions and the initial state of the world. This allows the application to reason about the condition of the world and consider the impacts of different potential actions before focusing on a specific action. Golog is a logic programming language and is very different from conventional programming languages. A procedural programming language like C defines the execution of statements in advance. The programmer creates a subroutine which consists of statements, and the computer executes each statement in a linear order. In contrast, fifth-generation programming languages like Golog work with an abstract model with which the interpreter can generate the sequence of actions. The source code defines the problem and it is up to the solver to find the next action. This approach can facilitate the management of complex problems from the domain of robotics. A Golog program defines the state space in which the agent is allowed to operate. A path in the symbolic domain is found with state space search. To speed up the process, Golog programs are realized as hierarchical task networks. Apart from the original Golog language, there are some extensions available. The ConGolog language provides concurrency and interrupts. Other dialects like IndiGolog and Readylog were created for real time applications in which sensor readings are updated on the fly. == Uses == Golog has been used to model the behavior of autonomous agents. In addition to a logic-based action formalism for describing the environment and the effects of basic actions, they enable the construction of complex actions using typical programming language constructs. It is also used for applications in high level control of robots and industrial processes, virtual agents, discrete event simulation etc. It can be also used to develop Belief Desire Intention-style agent systems. == Planning and scripting == In contrast to the Planning Domain Definition Language, Golog supports planning and scripting as well. Planning means that a goal state in the world model is defined, and the solver brings a logical system into this state. Behavior scripting implements reactive procedures, which are running as a computer program. For example, suppose the idea is to authoring a story. The user defines what should be true at the end of the plot. A solver gets started and applies possible actions to the current situation until the goal state is reached. The specification of a goal state and the possible actions are realized in the logical world model. In contrast, a hardwired reactive behavior doesn't need a solver but the action sequence is provided in a scripting language. The Golog interpreter, which is written in Prolog, executes the script and this will bring the story into the goal state.

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  • Multiple correspondence analysis

    Multiple correspondence analysis

    In statistics, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is a data analysis technique for nominal categorical data, used to detect and represent underlying structures in a data set. It does this by representing data as points in a low-dimensional Euclidean space. The procedure thus appears to be the counterpart of principal component analysis for categorical data. MCA can be viewed as an extension of simple correspondence analysis (CA) in that it is applicable to a large set of categorical variables. == As an extension of correspondence analysis == MCA is performed by applying the CA algorithm to either an indicator matrix (also called complete disjunctive table – CDT) or a Burt table formed from these variables. An indicator matrix is an individuals × variables matrix, where the rows represent individuals and the columns are dummy variables representing categories of the variables. Analyzing the indicator matrix allows the direct representation of individuals as points in geometric space. The Burt table is the symmetric matrix of all two-way cross-tabulations between the categorical variables, and has an analogy to the covariance matrix of continuous variables. Analyzing the Burt table is a more natural generalization of simple correspondence analysis, and individuals or the means of groups of individuals can be added as supplementary points to the graphical display. In the indicator matrix approach, associations between variables are uncovered by calculating the chi-square distance between different categories of the variables and between the individuals (or respondents). These associations are then represented graphically as "maps", which eases the interpretation of the structures in the data. Oppositions between rows and columns are then maximized, in order to uncover the underlying dimensions best able to describe the central oppositions in the data. As in factor analysis or principal component analysis, the first axis is the most important dimension, the second axis the second most important, and so on, in terms of the amount of variance accounted for. The number of axes to be retained for analysis is determined by calculating modified eigenvalues. == Details == Since MCA is adapted to draw statistical conclusions from categorical variables (such as multiple choice questions), the first thing one needs to do is to transform quantitative data (such as age, size, weight, day time, etc) into categories (using for instance statistical quantiles). When the dataset is completely represented as categorical variables, one is able to build the corresponding so-called complete disjunctive table. We denote this table X {\displaystyle X} . If I {\displaystyle I} persons answered a survey with J {\displaystyle J} multiple choices questions with 4 answers each, X {\displaystyle X} will have I {\displaystyle I} rows and 4 J {\displaystyle 4J} columns. More theoretically, assume X {\displaystyle X} is the completely disjunctive table of I {\displaystyle I} observations of K {\displaystyle K} categorical variables. Assume also that the k {\displaystyle k} -th variable have J k {\displaystyle J_{k}} different levels (categories) and set J = ∑ k = 1 K J k {\displaystyle J=\sum _{k=1}^{K}J_{k}} . The table X {\displaystyle X} is then a I × J {\displaystyle I\times J} matrix with all coefficient being 0 {\displaystyle 0} or 1 {\displaystyle 1} . Set the sum of all entries of X {\displaystyle X} to be N {\displaystyle N} and introduce Z = X / N {\displaystyle Z=X/N} . In an MCA, there are also two special vectors: first r {\displaystyle r} , that contains the sums along the rows of Z {\displaystyle Z} , and c {\displaystyle c} , that contains the sums along the columns of Z {\displaystyle Z} . Note D r = diag ( r ) {\displaystyle D_{r}={\text{diag}}(r)} and D c = diag ( c ) {\displaystyle D_{c}={\text{diag}}(c)} , the diagonal matrices containing r {\displaystyle r} and c {\displaystyle c} respectively as diagonal. With these notations, computing an MCA consists essentially in the singular value decomposition of the matrix: M = D r − 1 / 2 ( Z − r c T ) D c − 1 / 2 {\displaystyle M=D_{r}^{-1/2}(Z-rc^{T})D_{c}^{-1/2}} The decomposition of M {\displaystyle M} gives you P {\displaystyle P} , Δ {\displaystyle \Delta } and Q {\displaystyle Q} such that M = P Δ Q T {\displaystyle M=P\Delta Q^{T}} with P, Q two unitary matrices and Δ {\displaystyle \Delta } is the generalized diagonal matrix of the singular values (with the same shape as Z {\displaystyle Z} ). The positive coefficients of Δ 2 {\displaystyle \Delta ^{2}} are the eigenvalues of Z {\displaystyle Z} . The interest of MCA comes from the way observations (rows) and variables (columns) in Z {\displaystyle Z} can be decomposed. This decomposition is called a factor decomposition. The coordinates of the observations in the factor space are given by F = D r − 1 / 2 P Δ {\displaystyle F=D_{r}^{-1/2}P\Delta } The i {\displaystyle i} -th rows of F {\displaystyle F} represent the i {\displaystyle i} -th observation in the factor space. And similarly, the coordinates of the variables (in the same factor space as observations!) are given by G = D c − 1 / 2 Q Δ {\displaystyle G=D_{c}^{-1/2}Q\Delta } == Recent works and extensions == In recent years, several students of Jean-Paul Benzécri have refined MCA and incorporated it into a more general framework of data analysis known as geometric data analysis. This involves the development of direct connections between simple correspondence analysis, principal component analysis and MCA with a form of cluster analysis known as Euclidean classification. Two extensions have great practical use. It is possible to include, as active elements in the MCA, several quantitative variables. This extension is called factor analysis of mixed data (see below). Very often, in questionnaires, the questions are structured in several issues. In the statistical analysis it is necessary to take into account this structure. This is the aim of multiple factor analysis which balances the different issues (i.e. the different groups of variables) within a global analysis and provides, beyond the classical results of factorial analysis (mainly graphics of individuals and of categories), several results (indicators and graphics) specific of the group structure. == Application fields == In the social sciences, MCA is arguably best known for its application by Pierre Bourdieu, notably in his books La Distinction, Homo Academicus and The State Nobility. Bourdieu argued that there was an internal link between his vision of the social as spatial and relational --– captured by the notion of field, and the geometric properties of MCA. Sociologists following Bourdieu's work most often opt for the analysis of the indicator matrix, rather than the Burt table, largely because of the central importance accorded to the analysis of the 'cloud of individuals'. == Multiple correspondence analysis and principal component analysis == MCA can also be viewed as a PCA applied to the complete disjunctive table. To do this, the CDT must be transformed as follows. Let y i k {\displaystyle y_{ik}} denote the general term of the CDT. y i k {\displaystyle y_{ik}} is equal to 1 if individual i {\displaystyle i} possesses the category k {\displaystyle k} and 0 if not. Let denote p k {\displaystyle p_{k}} , the proportion of individuals possessing the category k {\displaystyle k} . The transformed CDT (TCDT) has as general term: x i k = y i k / p k − 1 {\displaystyle x_{ik}=y_{ik}/p_{k}-1} The unstandardized PCA applied to TCDT, the column k {\displaystyle k} having the weight p k {\displaystyle p_{k}} , leads to the results of MCA. This equivalence is fully explained in a book by Jérôme Pagès. It plays an important theoretical role because it opens the way to the simultaneous treatment of quantitative and qualitative variables. Two methods simultaneously analyze these two types of variables: factor analysis of mixed data and, when the active variables are partitioned in several groups: multiple factor analysis. This equivalence does not mean that MCA is a particular case of PCA as it is not a particular case of CA. It only means that these methods are closely linked to one another, as they belong to the same family: the factorial methods. == Software == There are numerous software of data analysis that include MCA, such as STATA and SPSS. The R package FactoMineR also features MCA. This software is related to a book describing the basic methods for performing MCA . There is also a Python package for [1] which works with numpy array matrices; the package has not been implemented yet for Spark dataframes.

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  • Radial basis function

    Radial basis function

    In mathematics a radial basis function (RBF) is a real-valued function φ {\textstyle \varphi } whose value depends only on the distance between the input and some fixed point, either the origin, so that φ ( x ) = φ ^ ( ‖ x ‖ ) {\textstyle \varphi (\mathbf {x} )={\hat {\varphi }}(\left\|\mathbf {x} \right\|)} , or some other fixed point c {\textstyle \mathbf {c} } , called a center, so that φ ( x ) = φ ^ ( ‖ x − c ‖ ) {\textstyle \varphi (\mathbf {x} )={\hat {\varphi }}(\left\|\mathbf {x} -\mathbf {c} \right\|)} . Any function φ {\textstyle \varphi } that satisfies the property φ ( x ) = φ ^ ( ‖ x ‖ ) {\textstyle \varphi (\mathbf {x} )={\hat {\varphi }}(\left\|\mathbf {x} \right\|)} is a radial function. The distance is usually Euclidean distance, although other metrics are sometimes used. They are often used as a collection { φ k } k {\displaystyle \{\varphi _{k}\}_{k}} which forms a basis for some function space of interest, hence the name. Sums of radial basis functions are typically used to approximate given functions. This approximation process can also be interpreted as a simple kind of neural network; this was the context in which they were originally applied to machine learning, in work by David Broomhead and David Lowe in 1988, which stemmed from Michael J. D. Powell's seminal research from 1977. RBFs are also used as a kernel in support vector classification. The technique has proven effective and flexible enough that radial basis functions are now applied in a variety of engineering applications. == Definition == A radial function is a function φ : [ 0 , ∞ ) → R {\textstyle \varphi :[0,\infty )\to \mathbb {R} } . When paired with a norm ‖ ⋅ ‖ : V → [ 0 , ∞ ) {\textstyle \|\cdot \|:V\to [0,\infty )} on a vector space, a function of the form φ c = φ ( ‖ x − c ‖ ) {\textstyle \varphi _{\mathbf {c} }=\varphi (\|\mathbf {x} -\mathbf {c} \|)} is said to be a radial kernel centered at c ∈ V {\textstyle \mathbf {c} \in V} . A radial function and the associated radial kernels are said to be radial basis functions if, for any finite set of nodes { x k } k = 1 n ⊆ V {\displaystyle \{\mathbf {x} _{k}\}_{k=1}^{n}\subseteq V} , all of the following conditions are true: === Examples === Commonly used types of radial basis functions include (writing r = ‖ x − x i ‖ {\textstyle r=\left\|\mathbf {x} -\mathbf {x} _{i}\right\|} and using ε {\textstyle \varepsilon } to indicate a shape parameter that can be used to scale the input of the radial kernel): == Approximation == Radial basis functions are typically used to build up function approximations of the form where the approximating function y ( x ) {\textstyle y(\mathbf {x} )} is represented as a sum of N {\displaystyle N} radial basis functions, each associated with a different center x i {\textstyle \mathbf {x} _{i}} , and weighted by an appropriate coefficient w i . {\textstyle w_{i}.} The weights w i {\textstyle w_{i}} can be estimated using the matrix methods of linear least squares, because the approximating function is linear in the weights w i {\textstyle w_{i}} . Approximation schemes of this kind have been particularly used in time series prediction and control of nonlinear systems exhibiting sufficiently simple chaotic behaviour and 3D reconstruction in computer graphics (for example, hierarchical RBF and Pose Space Deformation). == RBF Network == The sum can also be interpreted as a rather simple single-layer type of artificial neural network called a radial basis function network, with the radial basis functions taking on the role of the activation functions of the network. It can be shown that any continuous function on a compact interval can in principle be interpolated with arbitrary accuracy by a sum of this form, if a sufficiently large number N {\textstyle N} of radial basis functions is used. The approximant y ( x ) {\textstyle y(\mathbf {x} )} is differentiable with respect to the weights w i {\textstyle w_{i}} . The weights could thus be learned using any of the standard iterative methods for neural networks. Using radial basis functions in this manner yields a reasonable interpolation approach provided that the fitting set has been chosen such that it covers the entire range systematically (equidistant data points are ideal). However, without a polynomial term that is orthogonal to the radial basis functions, estimates outside the fitting set tend to perform poorly. == RBFs for PDEs == Radial basis functions are used to approximate functions and so can be used to discretize and numerically solve Partial Differential Equations (PDEs). This was first done in 1990 by E. J. Kansa who developed the first RBF based numerical method. It is called the Kansa method and was used to solve the elliptic Poisson equation and the linear advection-diffusion equation. The function values at points x {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} } in the domain are approximated by the linear combination of RBFs: The derivatives are approximated as such: where N {\displaystyle N} are the number of points in the discretized domain, d {\displaystyle d} the dimension of the domain and λ {\displaystyle \lambda } the scalar coefficients that are unchanged by the differential operator. Different numerical methods based on Radial Basis Functions were developed thereafter. Some methods are the RBF-FD method, the RBF-QR method and the RBF-PUM method.

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  • Apache Mahout

    Apache Mahout

    Apache Mahout is a project of the Apache Software Foundation to produce free implementations of distributed or otherwise scalable machine learning algorithms focused primarily on linear algebra. In the past, many of the implementations use the Apache Hadoop platform, however today it is primarily focused on Apache Spark. Mahout also provides Java/Scala libraries for common math operations (focused on linear algebra and statistics) and primitive Java collections. Mahout is a work in progress; a number of algorithms have been implemented. == Features == === Samsara === Apache Mahout-Samsara refers to a Scala domain-specific language (DSL) that allows users to use R-like syntax as opposed to traditional Scala-like syntax. This allows user to express algorithms concisely and clearly. === Backend agnostic === Apache Mahout's code abstracts the domain-specific language from the engine where the code is run. While active development is done with the Apache Spark engine, users are free to implement any engine they choose- H2O and Apache Flink have been implemented in the past and examples exist in the code base. === GPU/CPU accelerators === The JVM has notoriously slow computation. To improve speed, "native solvers" were added which move in-core, and by extension, distributed BLAS operations out of the JVM, offloading to off-heap or GPU memory for processing via multiple CPUs and/or CPU cores, or GPUs when built against the ViennaCL library. ViennaCL is a highly optimized C++ library with BLAS operations implemented in OpenMP, and OpenCL. As of release 14.1, the OpenMP build considered to be stable, leaving the OpenCL build is still in its experimental proof-of-concept phase. === Recommenders === Apache Mahout features implementations of Alternating Least Squares, Co-Occurrence, and Correlated Co-Occurrence, a unique-to-Mahout recommender algorithm that extends co-occurrence to be used on multiple dimensions of data. == History == === Transition from Map Reduce to Apache Spark === While Mahout's core algorithms for clustering, classification and batch based collaborative filtering were implemented on top of Apache Hadoop using the map/reduce paradigm, it did not restrict contributions to Hadoop-based implementations. Contributions that run on a single node or on a non-Hadoop cluster were also welcomed. For example, the 'Taste' collaborative-filtering recommender component of Mahout was originally a separate project and can run stand-alone without Hadoop. Starting with the release 0.10.0, the project shifted its focus to building a backend-independent programming environment, code named "Samsara". The environment consists of an algebraic backend-independent optimizer and an algebraic Scala DSL unifying in-memory and distributed algebraic operators. Supported algebraic platforms are Apache Spark, H2O, and Apache Flink. Support for MapReduce algorithms started being gradually phased out in 2014. === Release history === === Developers === Apache Mahout is developed by a community. The project is managed by a group called the "Project Management Committee" (PMC). The current PMC is Andrew Musselman, Andrew Palumbo, Drew Farris, Isabel Drost-Fromm, Jake Mannix, Pat Ferrel, Paritosh Ranjan, Trevor Grant, Robin Anil, Sebastian Schelter, Stevo Slavić.

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  • Uniphore

    Uniphore

    Uniphore is an American software company that develops artificial intelligence platforms for business use. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Israel, United Arab Emirates, and India. Uniphore is known for its "Business AI Cloud," an enterprise AI platform that combines data, knowledge, models, and software agents for use in sales, marketing, and service. The company has also acquired firms in video emotion AI, AI agents, low-code automation, knowledge automation, voice and screen capture, customer data platforms, and data engineering. == History == Uniphore Software Systems was founded by Umesh Sachdev and Ravi Saraogi in 2008 and was incubated at IIT Madras. The company received an initial grant of $100,000 from the National Research Development Corporation. Early work focused on speech technologies for emerging markets. Uniphore partnered with companies that specialized in English and European languages, and adapting the technology for Indian languages and dialects. In 2014, Uniphore released its first flagship products, auMina, along with two other products, Akeira and amVoice. Uniphore raised series A funding, led by Kris Gopalakrishnan (cofounder of Infosys), in April 2015. The next month, Uniphore received additional investment from IDG Ventures. With input from its investors, Uniphore changed its business model from license fee-based income to a software as a service-based subscription fee model in 2015. By June 2016, it had added more than 70 global languages and expanded its services to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the United States. The company opened operations in Singapore in October 2016. The company raised Series B funding in October 2017, led by John Chambers and existing investors. Series C funding of $51 million was announced in August 2019 and led by March Capital. Uniphore acquired an exclusive third-party license for robotic process automation technology from NTT DATA in October 2020. In January 2021, Uniphore acquired Emotion Research Lab, a startup based in Spain that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze video and interpret emotions. The company received $140 million in Series D funding, led by Sorenson Capital Partners, in March 2021, bringing total funding to $210 million. In January 2021, Uniphore acquired Emotion Research Lab. In July 2021, it agreed to acquire Jacada, a provider of low-code/no-code automation; the transaction closed in October 2021. On February 16, 2022, Uniphore announced a $400 million Series E financing led by NEA, which valued the company at $2.5 billion. Hilarie Koplow-McAdams, an NEA venture partner and former Salesforce/New Relic executive, joined Uniphore's board in 2022. Uniphore's board has also included former Cisco CEO John Chambers, former Convergys CEO Andrea J. Ayers, and CrowdStrike CFO Burt Podbere (appointed January 2021). In February 2023, Uniphore acquired UK-based Red Box, a platform for capturing voice and screen recordings used in regulated and large-scale environments. It also acquired France-based Hexagone, a behavioral analytics firm combining computer vision and natural-language techniques. On December 5, 2024, Uniphore announced agreements to acquire ActionIQ, a customer data platform (CDP) vendor, and Infoworks, an enterprise data engineering platform. Uniphore launched the Business AI Cloud on June 9, 2025. The Business AI Cloud consists of a single, unified platform that includes data, knowledge, AI models, and AI agents. Uniphore announced in August 2025 that it had acquired Orby AI and intended to acquire Autonom8 to extend multi-agent and workflow automation capabilities. As of September 2025, Uniphore's customers included the United States Coast Guard, Singapore Police Force, London Underground, DirecTV, JPMorgan Chase, LG, DHL, UPS, Vodafone, Verizon, NTT Data, and as of May 2021, Firstsource. In October 2025, Uniphore raised $260 million in a Series F round at a reported valuation of $2.5 billion. Investors included March Capital, NEA, Nvidia, AMD, Snowflake, and Databricks. In January 2026, KPMG and Uniphore announced a collaboration focused on deploying AI agents powered by specialized small language models. The announcement was made at the World Economic Forum held in Davos. Cognizant and Uniphore announced a partnership in February 2026 to develop industry-specific AI tools for regulated sectors, which would initially focus on life sciences and finance. Uniphore and Rackspace also announced a partnership in March 2026. This partnership was announced in order to create an "Infrastructure-to-Agents" architecture, focusing on Business AI as a private cloud service. == Products == As of 2025, Uniphore's core offering is the Business AI Cloud and Business AI Suite of agentic AI applications. === Business AI Cloud === Uniphore’s Business AI Cloud is a full-stack platform that organizes enterprise data and knowledge for agentic AI applications. The platform enables deployment across clouds and existing data sources. Key layers and capabilities include the following. Agentic layer: Includes prebuilt agents, a natural-language agent builder, and orchestration based on Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) to run AI workflows across business units. Model layer: Supports an open, interoperable mix of closed and open-source large language models (LLMs). Models can be orchestrated, governed, and replaced as needed. Knowledge layer: Organizes raw data into structured knowledge used for retrieval, explainability, and fine-tuning of small language models (SLMs). Data layer: Connects to data across multiple platforms and clouds through a zero-copy, composable fabric, enabling in-place preparation and supporting data residency and sovereignty requirements. === Business AI Suite === The Uniphore Business AI Suite has various prebuilt AI agents that can be used in customer service, sales, marketing, and human resources. The Uniphore Business AI Suite includes several LOBs (Lines of Business) for business functions with intelligent agents that are prebuilt, but composable. Built on the Uniphore Business AI Cloud, each application combines agentic automation and fine-tuned models. Marketing AI, Customer Service AI, Sales AI, and People AI (for human resources) are included. Competitors include Palantir, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Bedrock, Google's Vertex AI, Databricks, and Snowflake. == Recognition == Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India identified Uniphore as the 17th fastest-growing technology company in India in 2012 and one of the top 500 fastest growing companies in the Asia-Pacific region in 2014. In 2016, Time included Sachdev on its list of "10 millennials who are changing the world" for “building a phone that can understand almost any language”. NASSCOM named Uniphore to its "League of 10" emerging Indian technology companies in 2017. In 2020, the San Francisco Business Times ranked Uniphore as No. 7 among small companies in its list of the best places to work in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2022, the company was featured on the Forbes AI 50 list. Uniphore was mentioned in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list in 2023, 2024, and 2025. In 2025, Inc. included Uniphore in its Best in Business program.

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  • Variable-order Bayesian network

    Variable-order Bayesian network

    Variable-order Bayesian network (VOBN) models provide an important extension of both the Bayesian network models and the variable-order Markov models. VOBN models are used in machine learning in general and have shown great potential in bioinformatics applications. These models extend the widely used position weight matrix (PWM) models, Markov models, and Bayesian network (BN) models. In contrast to the BN models, where each random variable depends on a fixed subset of random variables, in VOBN models these subsets may vary based on the specific realization of observed variables. The observed realizations are often called the context and, hence, VOBN models are also known as context-specific Bayesian networks. The flexibility in the definition of conditioning subsets of variables turns out to be a real advantage in classification and analysis applications, as the statistical dependencies between random variables in a sequence of variables (not necessarily adjacent) may be taken into account efficiently, and in a position-specific and context-specific manner.

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  • Common Voice

    Common Voice

    Common Voice is a crowdsourcing project started by Mozilla to create a free and open speech corpus. The project is supported by volunteers who record sample sentences with a microphone and review recordings of other users. The transcribed sentences are collected in a voice database available under the public domain license CC0. This license ensures that developers can use the database for voice-to-text and text-to-voice applications without restrictions or costs. == Aims == Common Voice aims to provide diverse voice samples. According to Mozilla's Katharina Borchert, many existing projects took datasets from public radio or otherwise had datasets that underrepresented both women and people with pronounced accents. == Voice database == The first dataset was released in November 2017. More than 20,000 users worldwide had recorded 500 hours of English sentences. In February 2019, the first batch of languages was released for use. This included 18 languages such as English, French, German and Mandarin Chinese, but also less prevalent languages like Welsh and Kabyle. In total, this included almost 1,400 hours of recorded voice data from more than 42,000 contributors. By July 2020 the database had amassed 7,226 hours of voice recordings in 54 languages, 5,591 hours of which had been verified by volunteers. In May 2021, following the work to add Kinyarwanda, the project received a grant to add Kiswahili. At the beginning of 2022, Bengali.AI partnered with Common Voice to launch the "Bangla Speech Recognition" project that aims to make machines understand the Bangla language. 2000 hours of voice was collected. In September 2022, it was announced that the Twi language of Ghana was the 100th language to be added to the database. As of December 2025, Mozilla Common Voice collects voice data for over 250 languages, with the most hours having been collected in English, Catalan, Kinyarwanda, Belarusian and Esperanto.

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  • Boosting (machine learning)

    Boosting (machine learning)

    In machine learning (ML), boosting is an ensemble learning method that combines a set of less accurate models (called "weak learners") to create a single, highly accurate model (a "strong learner"). Unlike other ensemble methods that build models in parallel (such as bagging), boosting algorithms build models sequentially. Each new model in the sequence is trained to correct the errors made by its predecessors. This iterative process allows the overall model to improve its accuracy, particularly by reducing bias. Boosting is a popular and effective technique used in supervised learning for both classification and regression tasks. The theoretical foundation for boosting came from a question posed by Kearns and Valiant (1988, 1989): "Can a set of weak learners create a single strong learner?" A weak learner is defined as a classifier that performs only slightly better than random guessing, whereas a strong learner is a classifier that is highly correlated with the true classification. Robert Schapire's affirmative answer to this question in a 1990 paper led to the development of practical boosting algorithms. The first such algorithm was developed by Schapire, with Freund and Schapire later developing AdaBoost, which remains a foundational example of boosting. == Algorithms == While boosting is not algorithmically constrained, most boosting algorithms consist of iteratively learning weak classifiers with respect to a distribution and adding them to a final strong classifier. When they are added, they are weighted in a way that is related to the weak learners' accuracy. After a weak learner is added, the data weights are readjusted, known as "re-weighting". Misclassified input data gain a higher weight and examples that are classified correctly lose weight. Thus, future weak learners focus more on the examples that previous weak learners misclassified. There are many boosting algorithms. The original ones, proposed by Robert Schapire (a recursive majority gate formulation), and Yoav Freund (boost by majority), were not adaptive and could not take full advantage of the weak learners. Schapire and Freund then developed AdaBoost, an adaptive boosting algorithm that won the prestigious Gödel Prize. Only algorithms that are provable boosting algorithms in the probably approximately correct learning formulation can accurately be called boosting algorithms. Other algorithms that are similar in spirit to boosting algorithms are sometimes called "leveraging algorithms", although they are also sometimes incorrectly called boosting algorithms. The main variation between many boosting algorithms is their method of weighting training data points and hypotheses. AdaBoost is very popular and the most significant historically as it was the first algorithm that could adapt to the weak learners. It is often the basis of introductory coverage of boosting in university machine learning courses. There are many more recent algorithms such as LPBoost, TotalBoost, BrownBoost, xgboost, MadaBoost, LogitBoost, CatBoost and others. Many boosting algorithms fit into the AnyBoost framework, which shows that boosting performs gradient descent in a function space using a convex cost function. == Object categorization in computer vision == Given images containing various known objects in the world, a classifier can be learned from them to automatically classify the objects in future images. Simple classifiers built based on some image feature of the object tend to be weak in categorization performance. Using boosting methods for object categorization is a way to unify the weak classifiers in a special way to boost the overall ability of categorization. === Problem of object categorization === Object categorization is a typical task of computer vision that involves determining whether or not an image contains some specific category of object. The idea is closely related with recognition, identification, and detection. Appearance based object categorization typically contains feature extraction, learning a classifier, and applying the classifier to new examples. There are many ways to represent a category of objects, e.g. from shape analysis, bag of words models, or local descriptors such as SIFT, etc. Examples of supervised classifiers are Naive Bayes classifiers, support vector machines, mixtures of Gaussians, and neural networks. However, research has shown that object categories and their locations in images can be discovered in an unsupervised manner as well. === Status quo for object categorization === The recognition of object categories in images is a challenging problem in computer vision, especially when the number of categories is large. This is due to high intra class variability and the need for generalization across variations of objects within the same category. Objects within one category may look quite different. Even the same object may appear unalike under different viewpoint, scale, and illumination. Background clutter and partial occlusion add difficulties to recognition as well. Humans are able to recognize thousands of object types, whereas most of the existing object recognition systems are trained to recognize only a few, e.g. human faces, cars, simple objects, etc. Research has been very active on dealing with more categories and enabling incremental additions of new categories, and although the general problem remains unsolved, several multi-category objects detectors (for up to hundreds or thousands of categories) have been developed. One means is by feature sharing and boosting. === Boosting for binary categorization === AdaBoost can be used for face detection as an example of binary categorization. The two categories are faces versus background. The general algorithm is as follows: Form a large set of simple features Initialize weights for training images For T rounds Normalize the weights For available features from the set, train a classifier using a single feature and evaluate the training error Choose the classifier with the lowest error Update the weights of the training images: increase if classified wrongly by this classifier, decrease if correctly Form the final strong classifier as the linear combination of the T classifiers (coefficient larger if training error is small) After boosting, a classifier constructed from 200 features could yield a 95% detection rate under a 10 − 5 {\displaystyle 10^{-5}} false positive rate. Another application of boosting for binary categorization is a system that detects pedestrians using patterns of motion and appearance. This work is the first to combine both motion information and appearance information as features to detect a walking person. It takes a similar approach to the Viola-Jones object detection framework. === Boosting for multi-class categorization === Compared with binary categorization, multi-class categorization looks for common features that can be shared across the categories at the same time. They turn to be more generic edge like features. During learning, the detectors for each category can be trained jointly. Compared with training separately, it generalizes better, needs less training data, and requires fewer features to achieve the same performance. The main flow of the algorithm is similar to the binary case. What is different is that a measure of the joint training error shall be defined in advance. During each iteration the algorithm chooses a classifier of a single feature (features that can be shared by more categories shall be encouraged). This can be done via converting multi-class classification into a binary one (a set of categories versus the rest), or by introducing a penalty error from the categories that do not have the feature of the classifier. In the paper "Sharing visual features for multiclass and multiview object detection", A. Torralba et al. used GentleBoost for boosting and showed that when training data is limited, learning via sharing features does a much better job than no sharing, given same boosting rounds. Also, for a given performance level, the total number of features required (and therefore the run time cost of the classifier) for the feature sharing detectors, is observed to scale approximately logarithmically with the number of class, i.e., slower than linear growth in the non-sharing case. Similar results are shown in the paper "Incremental learning of object detectors using a visual shape alphabet", yet the authors used AdaBoost for boosting. == Convex vs. non-convex boosting algorithms == Boosting algorithms can be based on convex or non-convex optimization algorithms. Convex algorithms, such as AdaBoost and LogitBoost, can be "defeated" by random noise such that they can't learn basic and learnable combinations of weak hypotheses. This limitation was pointed out by Long & Servedio in 2008. However, by 2009, multiple authors demonstrated that boosting algorithms based on non-convex optimization, such as BrownBoost, can learn from nois

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  • Visible (mobile app)

    Visible (mobile app)

    Visible is a health tracking mobile app for people with long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The company was founded by a Harry Leeming, an engineer from London living with long Covid since 2020, and Luke Martin-Fuller. In November 2022, Visible released an open beta of an app that aims to help people pace their activities to avoid post-exertional malaise. The app gathers data on exertion levels, symptom severity, and heart-rate variability. HRV is approximated using a smartphone's camera via a technique called photoplethysmography, and according to the app's developers, can indicate how much someone needs rest. The app is currently free, but is expected to be freemium in the future. Users can also opt to allow their data be used for research purposes. In July 2023, Visible and Imperial College London announced the start of the first two studies. One is on the effects of the menstrual cycle on long COVID symptoms, and the other is on the condition's epidemiology and economic impact. Visible has announced plans to couple the app with activity trackers for continuous monitoring of heart-rate and actimetry data, which the developers claim will be more effective. As of 2022, no clinical trials on Visible's effectiveness have been conducted.

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  • Deterministic blockmodeling

    Deterministic blockmodeling

    Deterministic blockmodeling is an approach in blockmodeling that does not assume a probabilistic model, and instead relies on the exact or approximate algorithms, which are used to find blockmodel(s). This approach typically minimizes some inconsistency that can occur with the ideal block structure. Such analysis is focused on clustering (grouping) of the network (or adjacency matrix) that is obtained with minimizing an objective function, which measures discrepancy from the ideal block structure. However, some indirect approaches (or methods between direct and indirect approaches, such as CONCOR) do not explicitly minimize inconsistencies or optimize some criterion function. This approach was popularized in the 1970s, due to the presence of two computer packages (CONCOR and STRUCTURE) that were used to "find a permutation of the rows and columns in the adjacency matrix leading to an approximate block structure". The opposite approach to deterministic blockmodeling is a stochastic blockmodeling approach.

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  • Jubatus

    Jubatus

    Jubatus is an open-source online machine learning and distributed computing framework developed at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone and Preferred Infrastructure. Its features include classification, recommendation, regression, anomaly detection and graph mining. It supports many client languages, including C++, Java, Ruby and Python. It uses Iterative Parameter Mixture for distributed machine learning. == Notable Features == Jubatus supports: Multi-classification algorithms: Perceptron Passive Aggressive Confidence Weighted Adaptive Regularization of Weight Vectors Normal Herd Recommendation algorithms using: Inverted index Minhash Locality-sensitive hashing Regression algorithms: Passive Aggressive feature extraction method for natural language: n-gram Text segmentation

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  • Receptron

    Receptron

    The receptron (short for "reservoir perceptron") is a neuromorphic data processing model — specifically neuromorphic computing — that generalizes the traditional perceptron, by incorporating non-linear interactions between inputs. Unlike classical perceptron, which rely on linearly independent weights, the receptron leverages complexity in physical substrates, such as the electric conduction properties of nanostructured materials or optical speckle fields, to perform classification tasks. The receptron bridges unconventional computing and neural network principles, enabling solutions that do not require the training approaches typical of artificial neural networks based on the perceptron model. == Algorithm == The receptron is an algorithm for supervised learning of binary classifiers, so a classification algorithm that makes its predictions based on a predictor function, combining a set of weights with the feature vector. The mathematical model is based on the sum of inputs with non-linear interactions: S = ∑ k = 1 n x j w ~ j ( x → ) | S ∈ R {\displaystyle S=\sum _{k=1}^{n}x_{j}{\widetilde {w}}_{j}({\vec {x}})|S\in R} (1) where j ∈ [ 1 , n ] {\displaystyle j\in [1,n]} and w ~ j {\displaystyle {\widetilde {w}}_{j}} are non-linear weight functions depending on the inputs, x → {\displaystyle {\vec {x}}} . Nonlinearity will typically make the system extremely complex, and allowing for the solution of problems not solvable through the simpler rules of a linear system, such as the perceptron or McCulloch Pitts neurons, which is based on the sum of linearly independent weights: S = ∑ k = 1 n x j w j p {\displaystyle S=\sum _{k=1}^{n}x_{j}w_{j}^{p}} (2) where w j {\displaystyle w_{j}} are constant real values. A consequence of this simplicity is the limitation to linearly separable functions, which necessitates multi-layer architectures and training algorithms like backpropagation As in the perceptron case, the summation in Eq. 1 origins the activation of the receptron output through the thresholding process, Y ( x 1 , . . . , x n ) = { 1 if S > th 0 if S ≤ th {\displaystyle Y(x_{1},...,x_{n})={\begin{cases}1&{\text{if }}S>{\text{th}}\\0&{\text{if }}S\leq {\text{th}}\end{cases}}} (3) where th is a constant threshold parameter. Equation 3 can be written by using the Heaviside step function. The weight functions w ~ ( x → ) {\displaystyle {\widetilde {w}}({\vec {x}})} can be written with a finite number of parameters w j 1 . . . j n {\displaystyle w_{j_{1}...j_{n}}} , simplifying the model representation. One can Taylor-expand w ~ ( x → ) {\displaystyle {\widetilde {w}}({\vec {x}})} and use the idempotency of Boolean variables ( x j ) q = x j ∀ q ≥ 1 {\displaystyle (x_{j})^{q}=x_{j}\forall q\geq 1} such that S ′ = b + ∑ k = 1 n x j w ~ j ( x → ) {\displaystyle S'=b+\sum _{k=1}^{n}x_{j}{\widetilde {w}}_{j}({\vec {x}})} can be written as S ′ ( x → ) = b + ∑ j w j x j + ∑ j < k w j k x j x k + ∑ j < k < l w j k l x j x k x l + . . . {\displaystyle S'({\vec {x}})=b+\sum _{j}w_{j}x_{j}+\sum _{j Read more →

  • Mobile Passport Control

    Mobile Passport Control

    Mobile Passport Control (MPC) is a mobile app that enables eligible travelers entering the United States to submit their passport information and customs declaration form to Customs and Border Protection via smartphone or tablet and go through the inspections process using an expedited lane. It is available to "U.S. citizens, U.S. lawful permanent residents, Canadian B1/B2 citizen visitors and returning Visa Waiver Program travelers with approved ESTA". The app is available on iOS and Android devices and is operational at 34 US airports, 14 international airports offering preclearance facilities, and 4 seaports. The use of Mobile Passport Control operations have increased threefold from 2016 to 2017. == History == Mobile Passport Control operations were launched in Atlanta at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in 2016 and is now available at 34 U.S. airports, 14 international airports that offer preclearance and 4 U.S. cruise ports. The Mobile Passport app is authorized by CBP and sponsored by the Airports Council International-North America, Boeing, and the Port of Everglades. Airside Mobile, Inc. secured a Series A funding of $6 million in the fall of 2017. == How it works == During the customs process at the Federal Inspection Service (FIS) area of a U.S. airport, travelers arriving from international locations typically wait in long lines before presenting passports and paperwork and verbally answering questions made by CBP officials. Eligible travelers who have downloaded the Mobile Passport app can expedite this process by submitting information regarding their passport and trip details, and a newly-taken selfie, via their mobile device to CBP officials, then access an expedited line. Mobile Passport Control users will be required to show their physical passport(s) and briefly talk to a CBP officer. == Locations == === US airports === Atlanta (ATL) Baltimore (BWI) Boston (BOS) Charlotte (CLT) Chicago (ORD) Dallas/Ft Worth (DFW) Denver (DEN) Detroit (DTW) as of 7/2024 Ft. Lauderdale (FLL) Honolulu (HNL) Houston (HOU and IAH) Kansas City (MCI) Las Vegas (LAS) Los Angeles (LAX) Miami (MIA) Minneapolis (MSP) New York (JFK) Newark (EWR) Oakland (OAK) Orlando (MCO) Palm Beach (PBI) Philadelphia (PHL) Phoenix (PHX) Pittsburgh (PIT) Portland (PDX) Sacramento (SMF) San Diego (SAN) San Francisco (SFO) San Jose (SJC) San Juan (SJU) Seattle (SEA) Tampa (TPA) Washington Dulles (IAD) === International Preclearance locations === Abu Dhabi (AUH) Aruba (AUA) Bermuda (BDA) Calgary (YYC) Dublin (DUB) Edmonton (YEG) Halifax (YHZ) Montreal (YUL) Nassau (NAS) Ottawa (YOW) Shannon (SNN) Toronto (YYZ) Vancouver (YVR) Winnipeg (YWG) Sepinggan (BPN) === Seaports === Fort Lauderdale (PEV) Miami (MSE) San Juan (PUE) West Palm Beach (WPB)

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  • Chromosome (evolutionary algorithm)

    Chromosome (evolutionary algorithm)

    A chromosome or genotype in evolutionary algorithms (EA) is a set of parameters which define a proposed solution of the problem that the evolutionary algorithm is trying to solve. The set of all solutions, also called individuals according to the biological model, is known as the population. The genome of an individual consists of one, more rarely of several, chromosomes and corresponds to the genetic representation of the task to be solved. A chromosome is composed of a set of genes, where a gene consists of one or more semantically connected parameters, which are often also called decision variables. They determine one or more phenotypic characteristics of the individual or at least have an influence on them. In the basic form of genetic algorithms, the chromosome is represented as a binary string, while in later variants and in EAs in general, a wide variety of other data structures are used. == Chromosome design == When creating the genetic representation of a task, it is determined which decision variables and other degrees of freedom of the task should be improved by the EA and possible additional heuristics and how the genotype-phenotype mapping should look like. The design of a chromosome translates these considerations into concrete data structures for which an EA then has to be selected, configured, extended, or, in the worst case, created. Finding a suitable representation of the problem domain for a chromosome is an important consideration, as a good representation will make the search easier by limiting the search space; similarly, a poorer representation will allow a larger search space. In this context, suitable mutation and crossover operators must also be found or newly defined to fit the chosen chromosome design. An important requirement for these operators is that they not only allow all points in the search space to be reached in principle, but also make this as easy as possible. The following requirements must be met by a well-suited chromosome: It must allow the accessibility of all admissible points in the search space. Design of the chromosome in such a way that it covers only the search space and no additional areas. so that there is no redundancy or only as little redundancy as possible. Observance of strong causality: small changes in the chromosome should only lead to small changes in the phenotype. This is also called locality of the relationship between search and problem space. Designing the chromosome in such a way that it excludes prohibited regions in the search space completely or as much as possible. While the first requirement is indispensable, depending on the application and the EA used, one usually only has to be satisfied with fulfilling the remaining requirements as far as possible. The evolutionary search is supported and possibly considerably accelerated by a fulfillment as complete as possible. == Examples of chromosomes == === Chromosomes for binary codings === In their classical form, GAs use bit strings and map the decision variables to be optimized onto them. An example for one Boolean and three integer decision variables with the value ranges 0 ≤ D 1 ≤ 60 {\displaystyle 0\leq D_{1}\leq 60} , 28 ≤ D 2 ≤ 30 {\displaystyle 28\leq D_{2}\leq 30} and − 12 ≤ D 3 ≤ 14 {\displaystyle -12\leq D_{3}\leq 14} may illustrate this: Note that the negative number here is given in two's complement. This straight forward representation uses five bits to represent the three values of D 2 {\displaystyle D_{2}} , although two bits would suffice. This is a significant redundancy. An improved alternative, where 28 is to be added for the genotype-phenotype mapping, could look like this: with D 2 = 28 + D 2 ′ = 29 {\displaystyle D_{2}=28+D'_{2}=29} . === Chromosomes with real-valued or integer genes === For the processing of tasks with real-valued or mixed-integer decision variables, EAs such as the evolution strategy or the real-coded GAs are suited. In the case of mixed-integer values, rounding is often used, but this represents some violation of the redundancy requirement. If the necessary precisions of the real values can be reasonably narrowed down, this violation can be remedied by using integer-coded GAs. For this purpose, the valid digits of real values are mapped to integers by multiplication with a suitable factor. For example, 12.380 becomes the integer 12380 by multiplying by 1000. This must of course be taken into account in genotype-phenotype mapping for evaluation and result presentation. A common form is a chromosome consisting of a list or an array of integer or real values. === Chromosomes for permutations === Combinatorial problems are mainly concerned with finding an optimal sequence of a set of elementary items. As an example, consider the problem of the traveling salesman who wants to visit a given number of cities exactly once on the shortest possible tour. The simplest and most obvious mapping onto a chromosome is to number the cities consecutively, to interpret a resulting sequence as permutation and to store it directly in a chromosome, where one gene corresponds to the ordinal number of a city. Then, however, the variation operators may only change the gene order and not remove or duplicate any genes. The chromosome thus contains the path of a possible tour to the cities. As an example the sequence 3 , 5 , 7 , 1 , 4 , 2 , 9 , 6 , 8 {\displaystyle 3,5,7,1,4,2,9,6,8} of nine cities may serve, to which the following chromosome corresponds: In addition to this encoding frequently called path representation, there are several other ways of representing a permutation, for example the ordinal representation or the matrix representation. === Chromosomes for co-evolution === When a genetic representation contains, in addition to the decision variables, additional information that influences evolution and/or the mapping of the genotype to the phenotype and is itself subject to evolution, this is referred to as co-evolution. A typical example is the evolution strategy (ES), which includes one or more mutation step sizes as strategy parameters in each chromosome. Another example is an additional gene to control a selection heuristic for resource allocation in a scheduling tasks. This approach is based on the assumption that good solutions are based on an appropriate selection of strategy parameters or on control gene(s) that influences genotype-phenotype mapping. The success of the ES gives evidence to this assumption. === Chromosomes for complex representations === The chromosomes presented above are well suited for processing tasks of continuous, mixed-integer, pure-integer or combinatorial optimization. For a combination of these optimization areas, on the other hand, it becomes increasingly difficult to map them to simple strings of values, depending on the task. The following extension of the gene concept is proposed by the EA GLEAM (General Learning Evolutionary Algorithm and Method) for this purpose: A gene is considered to be the description of an element or elementary trait of the phenotype, which may have multiple parameters. For this purpose, gene types are defined that contain as many parameters of the appropriate data type as are required to describe the particular element of the phenotype. A chromosome now consists of genes as data objects of the gene types, whereby, depending on the application, each gene type occurs exactly once as a gene or can be contained in the chromosome any number of times. The latter leads to chromosomes of dynamic length, as they are required for some problems. The gene type definitions also contain information on the permissible value ranges of the gene parameters, which are observed during chromosome generation and by corresponding mutations, so they cannot lead to lethal mutations. For tasks with a combinatorial part, there are suitable genetic operators that can move or reposition genes as a whole, i.e. with their parameters. A scheduling task is used as an illustration, in which workflows are to be scheduled that require different numbers of heterogeneous resources. A workflow specifies which work steps can be processed in parallel and which have to be executed one after the other. In this context, heterogeneous resources mean different processing times at different costs in addition to different processing capabilities. Each scheduling operation therefore requires one or more parameters that determine the resource selection, where the value ranges of the parameters depend on the number of alternative resources available for each work step. A suitable chromosome provides one gene type per work step and in this case one corresponding gene, which has one parameter for each required resource. The order of genes determines the order of scheduling operations and, therefore, the precedence in case of allocation conflicts. The exemplary gene type definition of work step 15 with two resources, for which there are four and seven alternatives respectively

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  • Robust principal component analysis

    Robust principal component analysis

    Robust Principal Component Analysis (RPCA) is a modification of the widely used statistical procedure of principal component analysis (PCA) which works well with respect to grossly corrupted observations. A number of different approaches exist for Robust PCA, including an idealized version of Robust PCA, which aims to recover a low-rank matrix L0 from highly corrupted measurements M = L0 +S0. This decomposition in low-rank and sparse matrices can be achieved by techniques such as Principal Component Pursuit method (PCP), Stable PCP, Quantized PCP, Block based PCP, and Local PCP. Then, optimization methods are used such as the Augmented Lagrange Multiplier Method (ALM), Alternating Direction Method (ADM), Fast Alternating Minimization (FAM), Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares (IRLS ) or alternating projections (AP). == Algorithms == === Non-convex method === The 2014 guaranteed algorithm for the robust PCA problem (with the input matrix being M = L + S {\displaystyle M=L+S} ) is an alternating minimization type algorithm. The computational complexity is O ( m n r 2 log ⁡ 1 ϵ ) {\displaystyle O\left(mnr^{2}\log {\frac {1}{\epsilon }}\right)} where the input is the superposition of a low-rank (of rank r {\displaystyle r} ) and a sparse matrix of dimension m × n {\displaystyle m\times n} and ϵ {\displaystyle \epsilon } is the desired accuracy of the recovered solution, i.e., ‖ L ^ − L ‖ F ≤ ϵ {\displaystyle \|{\widehat {L}}-L\|_{F}\leq \epsilon } where L {\displaystyle L} is the true low-rank component and L ^ {\displaystyle {\widehat {L}}} is the estimated or recovered low-rank component. Intuitively, this algorithm performs projections of the residual onto the set of low-rank matrices (via the SVD operation) and sparse matrices (via entry-wise hard thresholding) in an alternating manner - that is, low-rank projection of the difference the input matrix and the sparse matrix obtained at a given iteration followed by sparse projection of the difference of the input matrix and the low-rank matrix obtained in the previous step, and iterating the two steps until convergence. This alternating projections algorithm is later improved by an accelerated version, coined AccAltProj. The acceleration is achieved by applying a tangent space projection before projecting the residue onto the set of low-rank matrices. This trick improves the computational complexity to O ( m n r log ⁡ 1 ϵ ) {\displaystyle O\left(mnr\log {\frac {1}{\epsilon }}\right)} with a much smaller constant in front while it maintains the theoretically guaranteed linear convergence. Another fast version of accelerated alternating projections algorithm is IRCUR. It uses the structure of CUR decomposition in alternating projections framework to dramatically reduces the computational complexity of RPCA to O ( max { m , n } r 2 log ⁡ ( m ) log ⁡ ( n ) log ⁡ 1 ϵ ) {\displaystyle O\left(\max\{m,n\}r^{2}\log(m)\log(n)\log {\frac {1}{\epsilon }}\right)} === Convex relaxation === This method consists of relaxing the rank constraint r a n k ( L ) {\displaystyle rank(L)} in the optimization problem to the nuclear norm ‖ L ‖ ∗ {\displaystyle \|L\|_{}} and the sparsity constraint ‖ S ‖ 0 {\displaystyle \|S\|_{0}} to ℓ 1 {\displaystyle \ell _{1}} -norm ‖ S ‖ 1 {\displaystyle \|S\|_{1}} . The resulting program can be solved using methods such as the method of Augmented Lagrange Multipliers. === Deep-learning augmented method === Some recent works propose RPCA algorithms with learnable/training parameters. Such a learnable/trainable algorithm can be unfolded as a deep neural network whose parameters can be learned via machine learning techniques from a given dataset or problem distribution. The learned algorithm will have superior performance on the corresponding problem distribution. == Applications == RPCA has many real life important applications particularly when the data under study can naturally be modeled as a low-rank plus a sparse contribution. Following examples are inspired by contemporary challenges in computer science, and depending on the applications, either the low-rank component or the sparse component could be the object of interest: === Video surveillance === Given a sequence of surveillance video frames, it is often required to identify the activities that stand out from the background. If we stack the video frames as columns of a matrix M, then the low-rank component L0 naturally corresponds to the stationary background and the sparse component S0 captures the moving objects in the foreground. === Face recognition === Images of a convex, Lambertian surface under varying illuminations span a low-dimensional subspace. This is one of the reasons for effectiveness of low-dimensional models for imagery data. In particular, it is easy to approximate images of a human's face by a low-dimensional subspace. To be able to correctly retrieve this subspace is crucial in many applications such as face recognition and alignment. It turns out that RPCA can be applied successfully to this problem to exactly recover the face.

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