AI Generator Book Cover

AI Generator Book Cover — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

• 

  User-defined function

  A user-defined function (UDF) is a function provided by the user of a program or environment, in a context where the usual assumption is that functions are built into the program or environment. UDFs are usually written for the requirement of its creator. == BASIC language == In some old implementations of the BASIC programming language, user-defined functions are defined using the "DEF FN" syntax. More modern dialects of BASIC are influenced by the structured programming paradigm, where most or all of the code is written as user-defined functions or procedures, and the concept becomes practically redundant. == COBOL language == In the COBOL programming language, a user-defined function is an entity that is defined by the user by specifying a FUNCTION-ID paragraph. A user-defined function must return a value by specifying the RETURNING phrase of the procedure division header and they are invoked using the function-identifier syntax. See the ISO/IEC 1989:2014 Programming Language COBOL standard for details. As of May 2022, the IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS 6.4 (IBM COBOL) compiler contains support for user-defined functions. == Databases == In relational database management systems, a user-defined function provides a mechanism for extending the functionality of the database server by adding a function, that can be evaluated in standard query language (usually SQL) statements. The SQL standard distinguishes between scalar and table functions. A scalar function returns only a single value (or NULL), whereas a table function returns a (relational) table comprising zero or more rows, each row with one or more columns. User-defined functions in SQL are declared using the CREATE FUNCTION statement. For example, a user-defined function that converts Celsius to Fahrenheit (a temperature scale used in USA) might be declared like this: Once created, a user-defined function may be used in expressions in SQL statements. For example, it can be invoked where most other intrinsic functions are allowed. This also includes SELECT statements, where the function can be used against data stored in tables in the database. Conceptually, the function is evaluated once per row in such usage. For example, assume a table named Elements, with a row for each known chemical element. The table has a column named BoilingPoint for the boiling point of that element, in Celsius. The query would retrieve the name and the boiling point from each row. It invokes the CtoF user-defined function as declared above in order to convert the value in the column to a value in Fahrenheit. Each user-defined function carries certain properties or characteristics. The SQL standard defines the following properties: Language - defines the programming language in which the user-defined function is implemented; examples include SQL, C, C# and Java. Parameter style - defines the conventions that are used to pass the function parameters and results between the implementation of the function and the database system (only applicable if language is not SQL). Specific name - a name for the function that is unique within the database. Note that the function name does not have to be unique, considering overloaded functions. Some SQL implementations require that function names are unique within a database, and overloaded functions are not allowed. Determinism - specifies whether the function is deterministic or not. The determinism characteristic has an influence on the query optimizer when compiling a SQL statement. SQL-data access - tells the database management system whether the function contains no SQL statements (NO SQL), contains SQL statements but does not access any tables or views (CONTAINS SQL), reads data from tables or views (READS SQL DATA), or actually modifies data in the database (MODIFIES SQL DATA). User-defined functions should not be confused with stored procedures. Stored procedures allow the user to group a set of SQL commands. A procedure can accept parameters and execute its SQL statements depending on those parameters. A procedure is not an expression and, thus, cannot be used like user-defined functions. Some database management systems allow the creation of user defined functions in languages other than SQL. Microsoft SQL Server, for example, allows the user to use .NET languages including C# for this purpose. DB2 and Oracle support user-defined functions written in C or Java programming languages. === SQL Server 2000 === There are three types of UDF in Microsoft SQL Server 2000: scalar functions, inline table-valued functions, and multistatement table-valued functions. Scalar functions return a single data value (not a table) with RETURNS clause. Scalar functions can use all scalar data types, with exception of timestamp and user-defined data types. Inline table-valued functions return the result set of a single SELECT statement. Multistatement table-valued functions return a table, which was built with many TRANSACT-SQL statements. User-defined functions can be invoked from a query like built‑in functions such as OBJECT_ID, LEN, DATEDIFF, or can be executed through an EXECUTE statement like stored procedures. Performance Notes: User-defined functions are subroutines made of one or more Transact-SQL statements that can be used to encapsulate code for reuse. It takes zero or more arguments and evaluates a return value. Has both control-flow and DML statements in its body similar to stored procedures. Does not allow changes to any Global Session State, like modifications to database or external resource, such as a file or network. Does not support output parameter. DEFAULT keyword must be specified to pass the default value of parameter. Errors in UDF cause UDF to abort which, in turn, aborts the statement that invoked the UDF. === Apache Hive === Apache Hive defines, in addition to the regular user-defined functions (UDF), also user-defined aggregate functions (UDAF) and table-generating functions (UDTF). Hive enables developers to create their own custom functions with Java. === Apache Doris === Apache Doris, an open-source real-time analytical database, allows external users to contribute their own UDFs written in C++ to it.

  Read more →
• 

  Project Bergamot

  Project Bergamot is a joint project between several European universities and Mozilla for the development of machine translation software based on artificial neural networks, which is intended for local execution on end-user devices. The software library that was created and the associated language models were made available to the general public as Free Software. Execution requires a x86 CPU with SSE4.1 instruction set extensions. In 2022, Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch judged the translation quality to be "more than adequate", but considered Firefox Translations to be not yet fully mature. == Usage == Mozilla used the Bergamot Translator to expand its web browser Firefox with a feature for translating web pages, which was previously considered an important gap in Firefox' feature set. It is often compared to the much older corresponding feature in Google Chrome, which utilizes a cloud-based background service. In contrast, Firefox Translations does not require any data to leave the user's computer, resulting in advantages in terms of data protection, availability and possibly response times. There is just the installation of a new language model that needs to take place the first time a new language is encountered. Greater independence from large technology companies and their interests is also mentioned as an important advantage. Mozilla thus strengthened its position as an alternative software vendor with a particular focus on data protection and security. Mozilla followed up with the similar feature of speech recognition for spoken user input, based on whisperfile. On the other hand, slow translation times have been observed, especially on older devices. Also, Firefox Translations initially supported far fewer language pairs than other major translation services and is only gradually adding new models. On that matter, the training pipeline is also made available to interested parties to enable the creation of missing language models. TranslateLocally is a Firefox-independent translation software based on the Bergamot Translator. It is also available as an (Electron-based) standalone application or as an extension for Chromium-based web browsers. == History == Mozilla had already tried to get a (cloud-based) web content translation feature into Firefox a few years before Project Bergamot, but had failed because of the financial challenge. Microsoft had already delivered offline capabilities for its translation software in 2018. Google soon followed suit, Apple two years later. The software is based on the free translation framework Marian, which the University of Edinburgh had previously developed in cooperation with Microsoft, and is itself based on the Nematus toolkit that was presented in 2017. Under the leadership of the University of Edinburgh, a development consortium was formed with the Mozilla Corporation and the additional European universities of Prague, Sheffield and Tartu. In 2018, it was able to get 3 million euros of funding from the EU's Horizon 2020 programme. Firefox Translations was initially provided as an add-on. A first functional demonstration prototype was presented in October 2019. Beta version 117 had the feature integrated directly into the browser, the official release was in version 118 from September 2023. Both the add-on module and as part of Firefox, the code and the models are subject to the version 2 of the Mozilla Public License. Since 2022, the EU-funded HPLT project creates new language models. It involves additional partners, including the universities of Helsinki, Turku, Oslo and other partners from Spain, Norway and the Czech Republic.

  Read more →
• 

  Tamara Broderick

  Tamara Ann Broderick is an American computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She works on machine learning and Bayesian inference. == Education and early career == Broderick is from Parma Heights, Ohio. She attended Laurel School and graduated in 2003. Whilst at high school she took part in the inaugural Massachusetts Institute of Technology Women's Technology Program. She studied mathematics at Princeton University, earning a bachelor's degree in 2007. She was a Marshall scholar, allowing her to pursue graduate research at the University of Cambridge. She was a runner-up in the Association for Women in Mathematics Alice T. Shafer Prize for Excellence in Mathematics. She was co-president of the Princeton Math Club and organised a competition for high school maths teams. She won the Phi Beta Kappa Prize for the highest academic average at Princeton University. During her undergraduate degree, Broderick worked on dark matter haloes with Rachel Mandelbaum. Broderick moved to the United Kingdom for her graduate studies, earning a Master of Advanced Studies for completing Part III of the Mathematical Tripos at the University of Cambridge in 2009. Her Master's thesis looked at the Nomon selection method, improving the efficiency of communications. She returned to America in 2009, joining University of California, Berkeley for her Master's and PhD. Her graduate research was supported by the Berkeley Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Fellowship. Her PhD thesis Clusters and features from combinatorial stochastic processes looked at clustering and speeding up the analysis of large, streaming data sets. In 2013 she was selected for the Berkeley EECS Rising Stars conference. == Research and career == Broderick joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in 2015. She is interested in Bayesian statistics and graphical models. She was the recipient of a Google Faculty Research Grant and International Society for Bayesian Analysis Lifetime Members Junior Researcher Award. She was awarded an Army Research Office young investigator program award to investigate machine-learning to quantify uncertainty in data analysis. Broderick is also Alfred P. Sloan Foundation scholar. === Academic service === In 2018, Broderick spoke at the Harvard University Institute for Applied Computational Science Women in Data Science conference. She spoke about Bayesian inference at the 2018 International Conference on Machine Learning. She led a three-day Masterclass on machine learning at University College London in June 2018. Broderick is a scientific advisor for AI.Reverie and WiML (Women in Machine Learning). She has developed a high-school level introduction to machine learning with the Women's Technology Program (WTP). Software she has developed is available on her website. === Awards and honors === Broderick was awarded the Evelyn Fix Memorial Medal and Citation and the International Society for Bayesian Analysis Savage Award for her doctoral thesis. She was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to scale her machine learning techniques. She was a 2021 Leadership Academy winner of the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies.

  Read more →
• 

  Global Language Monitor

  The Global Language Monitor (GLM) is a company based in Austin, Texas, that analyzes trends in the English language. == History == Founded in Silicon Valley in 2003 by Paul J.J. Payack, the GLM describes its role as "a media analytics company that documents, analyzes and tracks cultural trends in language the world over, with a particular emphasis upon International and Global English". In April 2008, GLM moved its headquarters from San Diego to Austin. In July 2020, GLM announced that the word covid was its Top Word of 2020 for English. The company has been repeatedly criticized by linguists for promoting misinformation about language. Writing on Language Log, the linguist Ben Zimmer accused it of "hoodwink[ing] unsuspecting journalists on a range of pseudoscientific claims".

  Read more →
• 

  ChatGPT

  ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI. Originally released in November 2022, the product uses large language models—specifically generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs)—to generate text, speech, and images in response to user prompts. ChatGPT accelerated the AI boom, an ongoing period marked by rapid investment and public attention toward the field of artificial intelligence (AI). OpenAI operates the service on a freemium model. Users can interact with ChatGPT through text, audio, and image prompts. ChatGPT was quickly adopted, reaching 100 million monthly active users two months after its release and 900 million weekly active users in February 2026. It has been lauded for its potential to transform numerous professional fields, and has instigated public debate about the nature of creativity and the future of knowledge work. The chatbot has also been criticized for its limitations and potential for unethical use. It can generate plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers, known as hallucinations. Biases in its training data have been reflected in its responses. The chatbot can facilitate academic dishonesty, generate misinformation, and create malicious code. The ethics of its development, particularly the use of copyrighted content as training data, have also drawn controversy. == Features == ChatGPT is a chatbot and AI assistant built on large language model (LLM) technology. It is designed to generate human-like text and can carry out a wide variety of tasks. These include, among many others, writing and debugging computer programs, composing music, scripts, fairy tales, and essays, answering questions (sometimes at a level exceeding that of an average human test-taker), and generating business concepts. ChatGPT is frequently used for translation and summarization tasks, and can simulate interactive environments such as a Linux terminal, a multi-user chat room, or simple text-based games such as tic-tac-toe. Users interact with ChatGPT through conversations which consist of text, audio, and image inputs and outputs. The user's inputs to these conversations are referred to as prompts. An optional "Memory" feature allows users to tell ChatGPT to memorize specific information. Another option allows ChatGPT to recall old conversations. GPT-based moderation classifiers are used to reduce the risk of harmful outputs being presented to users. In March 2023, OpenAI added support for plugins for ChatGPT. This includes both plugins made by OpenAI, such as web browsing and code interpretation, and external plugins from developers such as Expedia, OpenTable, and Zapier. From October to December 2024, ChatGPT Search was deployed. It allows ChatGPT to search the web in an attempt to make more accurate and up-to-date responses. It increased OpenAI's direct competition with major search engines. OpenAI allows businesses to tailor how their content appears in the ChatGPT Search results and influence what sources are used. In December 2024, OpenAI launched a new feature allowing users to call ChatGPT with a telephone for up to 15 minutes per month for free. In September 2025, OpenAI added a feature called Pulse, which generates a daily analysis of a user's chats and connected apps such as Gmail and Google Calendar. In October 2025, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Atlas, a browser integrating the ChatGPT assistant directly into web navigation, to compete with existing browsers such as Google Chrome. It has an additional feature called "agentic mode" that allows it to take online actions for the user. === Paid tier === ChatGPT was initially free to the public and remains free in a limited capacity. In February 2023, OpenAI launched a premium service, ChatGPT Plus, that costs US$20 per month. What was offered on the paid plan versus the free tier changed as OpenAI has continued to update ChatGPT, and a Pro tier at $200/mo was introduced in December 2024. The Pro launch coincided with the release of the o1 model. In August 2025, ChatGPT Go was offered in India for ₹399 per month. The plan has higher limits than the free version. === Mobile apps === In May-July 2023, OpenAI began offering ChatGPT iOS and Android apps. ChatGPT can also power Android's assistant. An app for Windows launched on the Microsoft Store on October 15, 2024. === Languages === OpenAI met Icelandic President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson in 2022. In 2023, OpenAI worked with a team of 40 Icelandic volunteers to fine-tune ChatGPT's Icelandic conversation skills as a part of Iceland's attempts to preserve the Icelandic language. ChatGPT (based on GPT-4) was better able to translate Japanese to English when compared to Bing, Bard, and DeepL Translator in 2023. In December 2023, the Albanian government decided to use ChatGPT for the rapid translation of European Union documents and the analysis of required changes needed for Albania's accession to the EU. Several studies have shown that ChatGPT can outperform Google Translate in some mainstream translation tasks. However, as of 2024, no machine translation services match human expert performance. In August 2024, a representative of the Asia Pacific wing of OpenAI made a visit to Taiwan, during which a demonstration of ChatGPT's Chinese abilities was made. ChatGPT's Mandarin Chinese abilities were lauded, but the ability of the AI to produce content in Mandarin Chinese in a Taiwanese accent was found to be "less than ideal" due to differences between mainland Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Mandarin. === GPT Store === In November 2023, OpenAI released GPT Builder, a tool allowing users to customize ChatGPT's behavior for a specific use case. The customized systems are referred to as GPTs. In January 2024, OpenAI launched the GPT Store, a marketplace for GPTs. At launch, OpenAI included more than 3 million GPTs created by GPT Builder users in the GPT Store. === ChatGPT Apps === In September 2025, OpenAI added support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) to ChatGPT apps. When enabled in developer mode, this allows for improved third-party access to ChatGPT tools and servers. === Deep Research === In February 2025, OpenAI released Deep Research, a feature that generates reports based on extensive web searches. It was initially based on the reasoning model o3 and took 5 to 30 minutes per report. === Images === In October 2023, OpenAI's image generation model DALL-E 3 was integrated into ChatGPT. The integration used ChatGPT to write prompts for DALL-E guided by conversations with users. In March 2025, OpenAI updated ChatGPT to generate images using GPT Image instead of DALL-E. One of the most significant improvements was in the generation of text within images, which is especially useful for branded content. However, this ability is noticeably worse in non-Latin alphabets. The model can also generate new images based on existing ones provided in the prompt. These images are generated with C2PA metadata, which can be used to verify that they are AI-generated. OpenAI has emplaced additional safeguards to prevent what the company deems to be harmful image generation. === Agents === In 2025, OpenAI added several features to make ChatGPT more agentic (capable of autonomously performing longer tasks). In January, Operator was released. It was capable of autonomously performing tasks through web browser interactions, including filling forms, placing online orders, scheduling appointments, and other browser-based tasks. It was controlling a software environment inside a virtual machine with limited internet connectivity and with safety restrictions. It struggled with complex user interfaces. In May 2025, OpenAI introduced an agent for coding named Codex. It is capable of writing software, answering codebase questions, running tests, and proposing pull requests. It is based on a fine-tuned version of OpenAI o3. It has two versions, one running in a virtual machine in the cloud, and one where the agent runs in the cloud, but performs actions on a local machine connected via API. In July 2025, OpenAI released ChatGPT agent, an AI agent that can perform multi-step tasks. Like Operator, it controls a virtual computer. It also inherits from Deep Research's ability to gather and summarize significant volumes of information. The user can interrupt tasks or provide additional instructions as needed. In September 2025, OpenAI partnered with Stripe, Inc. to release Agentic Commerce Protocol, enabling purchases through ChatGPT. At launch, the feature was limited to purchases on Etsy from US users with a payment method linked to their OpenAI account. OpenAI takes an undisclosed cut from the merchant's payment. === ChatGPT Health === On January 7, 2026, OpenAI introduced a feature called "ChatGPT Health", whereby ChatGPT can discuss the user's health in a way that is separate from other chats. The feature is not available for users in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, or the European Economic Area, and is available on a waitli

  Read more →
• 

  Regular language

  In theoretical computer science and formal language theory, a regular language (also called a rational language) is a formal language that can be defined by a regular expression, in the strict sense in theoretical computer science (as opposed to many modern regular expression engines, which are augmented with features that allow the recognition of non-regular languages). Alternatively, a regular language can be defined as a language recognised by a finite automaton. The equivalence of regular expressions and finite automata is known as Kleene's theorem (after American mathematician Stephen Cole Kleene). In the Chomsky hierarchy, regular languages are the languages generated by Type-3 grammars. == Formal definition == The collection of regular languages over an alphabet Σ is defined recursively as follows: The empty language ∅ is a regular language. For each a ∈ Σ (a belongs to Σ), the singleton language {a} is a regular language. If A is a regular language, A (Kleene star) is a regular language. Due to this, the empty string language {ε} is also regular. If A and B are regular languages, then A ∪ B (union) and A • B (concatenation) are regular languages. No other languages over Σ are regular. See Regular expression § Formal language theory for syntax and semantics of regular expressions. == Examples == All finite languages are regular; in particular the empty string language {ε} = ∅ is regular. Other typical examples include the language consisting of all strings over the alphabet {a, b} which contain an even number of as, or the language consisting of all strings of the form: several as followed by several bs. A simple example of a language that is not regular is the set of strings {anbn | n ≥ 0}. Intuitively, it cannot be recognized with a finite automaton, since a finite automaton has finite memory and it cannot remember the exact number of a's. Techniques to prove this fact rigorously are given below. == Equivalent formalisms == A regular language satisfies the following equivalent properties: it is the language of a regular expression (by the above definition) it is the language accepted by a nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) it is the language accepted by a deterministic finite automaton (DFA) it can be generated by a regular grammar it is the language accepted by an alternating finite automaton it is the language accepted by a two-way finite automaton it can be generated by a prefix grammar it can be accepted by a read-only Turing machine it can be defined in monadic second-order logic (Büchi–Elgot–Trakhtenbrot theorem) it is recognized by some finite syntactic monoid M, meaning it is the preimage {w ∈ Σ | f(w) ∈ S} of a subset S of a finite monoid M under a monoid homomorphism f : Σ → M from the free monoid on its alphabet the number of equivalence classes of its syntactic congruence is finite. (This number equals the number of states of the minimal deterministic finite automaton accepting L.) Properties 10. and 11. are purely algebraic approaches to define regular languages; a similar set of statements can be formulated for a monoid M ⊆ Σ. In this case, equivalence over M leads to the concept of a recognizable language. Some authors use one of the above properties different from "1." as an alternative definition of regular languages. Some of the equivalences above, particularly those among the first four formalisms, are called Kleene's theorem in textbooks. Precisely which one (or which subset) is called such varies between authors. One textbook calls the equivalence of regular expressions and NFAs ("1." and "2." above) "Kleene's theorem". Another textbook calls the equivalence of regular expressions and DFAs ("1." and "3." above) "Kleene's theorem". Two other textbooks first prove the expressive equivalence of NFAs and DFAs ("2." and "3.") and then state "Kleene's theorem" as the equivalence between regular expressions and finite automata (the latter said to describe "recognizable languages"). A linguistically oriented text first equates regular grammars ("4." above) with DFAs and NFAs, calls the languages generated by (any of) these "regular", after which it introduces regular expressions which it terms to describe "rational languages", and finally states "Kleene's theorem" as the coincidence of regular and rational languages. Other authors simply define "rational expression" and "regular expressions" as synonymous and do the same with "rational languages" and "regular languages". Apparently, the term regular originates from a 1951 technical report where Kleene introduced regular events and explicitly welcomed "any suggestions as to a more descriptive term". Noam Chomsky, in his 1959 seminal article, used the term regular in a different meaning at first (referring to what is called Chomsky normal form today), but noticed that his finite state languages were equivalent to Kleene's regular events. == Closure properties == The regular languages are closed under various operations, that is, if the languages K and L are regular, so is the result of the following operations: the set-theoretic Boolean operations: union K ∪ L, intersection K ∩ L, and complement L, hence also relative complement K − L. the regular operations: K ∪ L, concatenation ⁠ K ∘ L {\displaystyle K\circ L} ⁠, and Kleene star L. the trio operations: string homomorphism, inverse string homomorphism, and intersection with regular languages. As a consequence they are closed under arbitrary finite state transductions, like quotient K / L with a regular language. Even more, regular languages are closed under quotients with arbitrary languages: If L is regular then L / K is regular for any K. the reverse (or mirror image) LR. Given a nondeterministic finite automaton to recognize L, an automaton for LR can be obtained by reversing all transitions and interchanging starting and finishing states. This may result in multiple starting states; ε-transitions can be used to join them. == Decidability properties == Given two deterministic finite automata A and B, it is decidable whether they accept the same language. As a consequence, using the above closure properties, the following problems are also decidable for arbitrarily given deterministic finite automata A and B, with accepted languages LA and LB, respectively: Containment: is LA ⊆ LB ? Disjointness: is LA ∩ LB = {} ? Emptiness: is LA = {} ? Universality: is LA = Σ ? Membership: given a ∈ Σ, is a ∈ LB ? For regular expressions, the universality problem is NP-complete already for a singleton alphabet. For larger alphabets, that problem is PSPACE-complete. If regular expressions are extended to allow also a squaring operator, with "A2" denoting the same as "AA", still just regular languages can be described, but the universality problem has an exponential space lower bound, and is in fact complete for exponential space with respect to polynomial-time reduction. For a fixed finite alphabet, the theory of the set of all languages – together with strings, membership of a string in a language, and for each character, a function to append the character to a string (and no other operations) – is decidable, and its minimal elementary substructure consists precisely of regular languages. For a binary alphabet, the theory is called S2S. == Complexity results == In computational complexity theory, the complexity class of all regular languages is sometimes referred to as REGULAR or REG and equals DSPACE(O(1)), the decision problems that can be solved in constant space (the space used is independent of the input size). REGULAR ≠ AC0, since it (trivially) contains the parity problem of determining whether the number of 1 bits in the input is even or odd and this problem is not in AC0. On the other hand, REGULAR does not contain AC0, because the nonregular language of palindromes, or the nonregular language { 0 n 1 n : n ∈ N } {\displaystyle \{0^{n}1^{n}:n\in \mathbb {N} \}} can both be recognized in AC0. If a language is not regular, it requires a machine with at least Ω(log log n) space to recognize (where n is the input size). In other words, DSPACE(o(log log n)) equals the class of regular languages. In practice, most nonregular problems are studied in a setting with at least logarithmic space, as this is the amount of space required to store a pointer into the input tape. == Location in the Chomsky hierarchy == To locate the regular languages in the Chomsky hierarchy, one notices that every regular language is context-free. The converse is not true: for example, the language consisting of all strings having the same number of as as bs is context-free but not regular. To prove that a language is not regular, one often uses the Myhill–Nerode theorem and the pumping lemma. Other approaches include using the closure properties of regular languages or quantifying Kolmogorov complexity. Important subclasses of regular languages include: Finite languages, those containing only a finite number of words. These are regular la

  Read more →
• 

  Volker Markl

  Volker Markl (born 1971) is a German computer scientist and database systems researcher. == Career == In 1999, Markl received his PhD in computer science under the direction of Rudolf Bayer at the Technical University of Munich. His doctoral research led to the development of the UB-Tree. From 1997 to 2000, he was research group leader at FORWISS, the Bavarian research center for knowledge-based systems. From 2001 to 2008, he was project leader at the IBM Almaden Research Center, Silicon Valley. Since 2008, he has been full professor and Chair of the Database Systems and Information Management Group at Technische Universität Berlin. Since 2014, he is head of the Intelligent Analytics for Massive Data Research Department at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Berlin. From 2014 to 2020, he was director of the Berlin Big Data Center (BBDC). From 2018 to 2020, he was co-director of the Berlin Machine Learning Center (BZML). Together with Klaus-Robert Müller he became director of the new Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data (BIFOLD), after both BBDC and the BZML merged into BIFOLD in 2020. From 2010 through 2019, he led the DFG funded Stratosphere project, which led to the establishment of Apache Flink. In 2018, he was elected president of the VLDB Endowment for a six years period that ended in 2024. == Research == Markl’s research interests lie at the intersection of distributed systems, scalable data processing, and machine learning. == Awards and honors == Markl was elected member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2021. Since 2026 he is member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. His work was honoured with several awards, including: 2025 ICDE Best Paper Award 2021 ICDE Best Paper Award 2021 BTW Best Paper Award 2020 ACM SIGMOD Best Paper Award 2020 ACM Fellow 2019 EDBT Best Paper Award 2017 BTW Best Paper Award 2017 EDBT Best Demonstration Award 2016 ACM SIGMOD Research Highlight Award 2014 VLDB Best Paper Award 2012 IBM Faculty Award 2012 IBM Shared University Research Grant 2010 Hewlett Packard Open Innovation Award 2005 IBM Outstanding Technological Achievement Award 2005 IBM Pat Goldberg Best Paper Award

  Read more →
• 

  Ω-automaton

  In automata theory, a branch of theoretical computer science, an ω-automaton (or stream automaton) is a variation of a finite automaton that runs on infinite, rather than finite, strings as input. Since ω-automata do not stop, they have a variety of acceptance conditions rather than simply a set of accepting states. ω-automata are useful for specifying behavior of systems that are not expected to terminate, such as hardware, operating systems and control systems. For such systems, one may want to specify a property such as "for every request, an acknowledge eventually follows", or its negation "there is a request that is not followed by an acknowledge". The former is a property of infinite words: one cannot say of a finite sequence that it satisfies this property. Classes of ω-automata include the Büchi automata, Rabin automata, Streett automata, parity automata and Muller automata, each deterministic or non-deterministic. These classes of ω-automata differ only in terms of acceptance condition. They all recognize precisely the regular ω-languages except for the deterministic Büchi automata, which is strictly weaker than all the others. Although all these types of automata recognize the same set of ω-languages, they nonetheless differ in succinctness of representation for a given ω-language. == Deterministic ω-automata == Formally, a deterministic ω-automaton is a tuple A = ( Q , Σ , δ , q 0 , A a c c ) {\textstyle A=(Q,\Sigma ,\delta ,q_{0},A_{acc})} , that consists of the following components: Q {\textstyle Q} , is a finite set. The elements of Q {\textstyle Q} are called the states of A {\textstyle A} . Σ {\textstyle \Sigma } , is a finite set called the alphabet of A {\textstyle A} . δ : Q × Σ → Q {\textstyle \delta \colon Q\times \Sigma \rightarrow Q} is a function, called the transition function of A {\textstyle A} . Q 0 {\textstyle Q_{0}} is an element of Q {\textstyle Q} , called the initial state. A a c c {\textstyle A_{acc}} is a set of accepting states of A {\textstyle A} , formally a subset of Q ω {\textstyle Q^{\omega }} . An input for A {\textstyle A} is an infinite string over the alphabet Σ {\textstyle \Sigma } , i.e. it is an infinite sequence α = ( a 1 , a 2 , a 3 , … ) {\textstyle \alpha =(a_{1},a_{2},a_{3},\ldots )} . The run of A {\textstyle A} on such an input is an infinite sequence ρ = ( r 0 , r 1 , r 2 , … ) {\textstyle \rho =(r_{0},r_{1},r_{2},\ldots )} of states, defined as follows: r 0 = q 0 {\textstyle r_{0}=q_{0}} . r 1 = δ ( r 0 , a 1 ) {\textstyle r_{1}=\delta (r_{0},a_{1})} . r 2 = δ ( r 1 , a 2 ) {\textstyle r_{2}=\delta (r_{1},a_{2})} . ... that is, for every i {\textstyle i} : r i = δ ( r i − 1 , a i ) {\textstyle r_{i}=\delta (r_{i-1},a_{i})} . The main purpose of an ω-automaton is to define a subset of the set of all inputs: The set of accepted inputs. Whereas in the case of an ordinary finite automaton every run ends with a state r n {\textstyle r_{n}} and the input is accepted if and only if r n {\textstyle r_{n}} is an accepting state, the definition of the set of accepted inputs is more complicated for ω-automata. Here we must look at the entire run ρ {\textstyle \rho } . The input is accepted if the corresponding run is in Acc {\textstyle {\text{Acc}}} . The set of accepted input ω-words is called the recognized ω-language by the automaton, which is denoted as L ( A ) {\textstyle L(A)} . The definition of Acc {\textstyle {\text{Acc}}} as a subset of Q ω {\textstyle Q^{\omega }} is purely formal and not suitable for practice because normally such sets are infinite. The difference between various types of ω-automata (Büchi, Rabin etc.) consists in how they encode certain subsets Acc {\textstyle {\text{Acc}}} of Q ω {\textstyle Q^{\omega }} as finite sets, and therefore in which such subsets they can encode. == Nondeterministic ω-automata == Formally, a nondeterministic ω-automaton is a tuple A = ( Q , Σ , Δ , Q 0 , Acc ) {\textstyle A=(Q,\Sigma ,\Delta ,Q_{0},{\text{Acc}})} that consists of the following components: Q {\textstyle Q} is a finite set. The elements of Q {\textstyle Q} are called the states of A {\textstyle A} . Σ {\textstyle \Sigma } is a finite set called the alphabet of A {\textstyle A} . Δ {\textstyle \Delta } is a subset of Q × Σ × Q {\textstyle Q\times \Sigma \times Q} and is called the transition relation of A {\textstyle A} . Q 0 {\textstyle Q_{0}} is a subset of Q {\textstyle Q} , called the initial set of states. Acc {\textstyle {\text{Acc}}} is the acceptance condition, a subset of Q ω {\textstyle Q^{\omega }} . Unlike a deterministic ω-automaton, which has a transition function δ {\textstyle \delta } , the non-deterministic version has a transition relation Δ {\textstyle \Delta } . Note that Δ {\textstyle \Delta } can be regarded as a function Q × Σ → P ( Q ) {\textstyle Q\times \Sigma \rightarrow {\mathcal {P}}(Q)} from Q × Σ {\textstyle Q\times \Sigma } to the power set P ( Q ) {\textstyle {\mathcal {P}}(Q)} . Thus, given a state q n {\textstyle q_{n}} and a symbol a n {\textstyle a_{n}} , the next state q n + 1 {\textstyle q_{n+1}} is not necessarily determined uniquely, rather there is a set of possible next states. A run of A {\textstyle A} on the input α = ( a 1 , a 2 , a 3 , … ) {\textstyle \alpha =(a_{1},a_{2},a_{3},\ldots )} is any infinite sequence ρ = ( r 0 , r 1 , r 2 , … ) {\textstyle \rho =(r_{0},r_{1},r_{2},\ldots )} of states that satisfies the following conditions: r 0 {\textstyle r_{0}} is an element of Q 0 {\textstyle Q_{0}} . r 1 {\textstyle r_{1}} is an element of Δ ( r 0 , a 1 ) {\textstyle \Delta (r_{0},a_{1})} . r 2 {\textstyle r_{2}} is an element of Δ ( r 1 , a 2 ) {\textstyle \Delta (r_{1},a_{2})} . ... that is, for every i {\textstyle i} : r i {\textstyle r_{i}} is an element of Δ ( r i − 1 , a i ) {\textstyle \Delta (r_{i-1},a_{i})} . A nondeterministic ω-automaton may admit many different runs on any given input, or none at all. The input is accepted if at least one of the possible runs is accepting. Whether a run is accepting depends only on Acc {\textstyle {\text{Acc}}} , as for deterministic ω-automata. Every deterministic ω-automaton can be regarded as a nondeterministic ω-automaton by taking Δ {\textstyle \Delta } to be the graph of δ {\textstyle \delta } . The definitions of runs and acceptance for deterministic ω-automata are then special cases of the nondeterministic cases. == Acceptance conditions == Acceptance conditions may be infinite sets of ω-words. However, people mostly study acceptance conditions that are finitely representable. The following lists a variety of popular acceptance conditions. Before discussing the list, let's make the following observation. In the case of infinitely running systems, one is often interested in whether certain behavior is repeated infinitely often. For example, if a network card receives infinitely many ping requests, then it may fail to respond to some of the requests but should respond to an infinite subset of received ping requests. This motivates the following definition: For any run ρ {\textstyle \rho } , let Inf ( ρ ) {\textstyle {\text{Inf}}(\rho )} be the set of states that occur infinitely often in ρ {\textstyle \rho } . This notion of certain states being visited infinitely often will be helpful in defining the following acceptance conditions. A Büchi automaton is an ω-automaton A {\textstyle A} that uses the following acceptance condition, for some subset F {\textstyle F} of Q {\textstyle Q} : Büchi condition A {\textstyle A} accepts exactly those runs ρ {\textstyle \rho } for which Inf ( ρ ) ∩ F ≠ ∅ {\textstyle {\text{Inf}}(\rho )\cap F\neq \emptyset } , i.e. there is an accepting state that occurs infinitely often in ρ {\textstyle \rho } . A Rabin automaton is an ω-automaton A {\textstyle A} that uses the following acceptance condition, for some set Ω {\textstyle \Omega } of pairs ( B i , G i ) {\textstyle (B_{i},G_{i})} of sets of states: Rabin condition A {\textstyle A} accepts exactly those runs ρ {\textstyle \rho } for which there exists a pair ( B i , G i ) {\textstyle (B_{i},G_{i})} in Ω {\textstyle \Omega } such that B i ∩ Inf ( ρ ) = ∅ {\textstyle B_{i}\cap {\text{Inf}}(\rho )=\emptyset } and G i ∩ Inf ( ρ ) ≠ ∅ {\textstyle G_{i}\cap {\text{Inf}}(\rho )\neq \emptyset } . A Streett automaton is an ω-automaton A {\textstyle A} that uses the following acceptance condition, for some set Ω {\textstyle \Omega } of pairs ( B i , G i ) {\textstyle (B_{i},G_{i})} of sets of states: Streett condition A {\textstyle A} accepts exactly those runs ρ {\textstyle \rho } such that for all pairs ( B i , G i ) {\textstyle (B_{i},G_{i})} in Ω {\textstyle \Omega } , B i ∩ Inf ( ρ ) ≠ ∅ {\textstyle B_{i}\cap {\text{Inf}}(\rho )\neq \emptyset } or G i ∩ Inf ( ρ ) = ∅ {\textstyle G_{i}\cap {\text{Inf}}(\rho )=\emptyset } . A parity automaton is an automaton A {\textstyle A} whose set of states is Q = { 0 , 1 , 2 , … , k } {\textstyle Q=\{0,1,2,\ldots ,k\}} for some natural number k {\textst

  Read more →
• 

  Racter

  Racter is an artificial intelligence program that generates English language prose at random. It was published by Mindscape for IBM PC compatibles in 1984, then for the Apple II, Mac, and Amiga. An expanded version of the software, not the one released through Mindscape, was used to generate the text for the published book The Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed. == History == Racter, short for raconteur, was written by William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter. Racter's initial creation was the short story Soft Ions, which appeared in the October 1981 issue of Omni (magazine). The publication's editors bought the story in January 1980, before it had even been written. In exchange for the rights, the editors offered financial support to Chamberlain and Etter so the two could refine Racter. In 1983, Racter produced a book called The Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed (ISBN 0-446-38051-2). The program originally was written for an OSI which only supported file names at most six characters long, causing the name to be shorted to Racter and it was later adapted to run on a CP/M machine where it was written in "compiled ASIC on a Z80 microcomputer with 64K of RAM." This version, the program that allegedly wrote the book, was not released to the general public. The sophistication claimed for the program was likely exaggerated, as could be seen by investigation of the template system of text generation. In 1984, Mindscape released an interactive version of Racter, developed by Inrac Corporation, for IBM PC compatibles, and it was ported to the Apple II, Mac, and Amiga. The published Racter was similar to a chatterbot. The BASIC program that was released by Mindscape was far less sophisticated than anything that could have written the fairly sophisticated prose of The Policeman's Beard. The commercial version of Racter could be likened to a computerized version of Mad Libs, the game in which you fill in the blanks in advance and then plug them into a text template to produce a surrealistic tale. The commercial program attempted to parse text inputs, identifying significant nouns and verbs, which it would then regurgitate to create "conversations", plugging the input from the user into phrase templates which it then combined, along with modules that conjugated English verbs. By contrast, the text in The Policeman's Beard, apart from being edited from a large amount of output, would have been the product of Chamberlain's own specialized templates and modules, which were not included in the commercial release of the program. == Reception == The Boston Phoenix called the story Soft Ions "schematic nonsense. But the scheme is obvious enough and the nonsense accessible enough to an attentive reader that one can almost believe Chamberlain when he predicts that before long Racter will be ready to write for the pulp-reading public." PC Magazine described some of Policeman's Beard's scenes as "surprising for their frankness" and "reflective". It concluded that the book was "whimsical and wise and sometimes fun". Computer Gaming World described Racter as "a diversion into another dimension that might best be seen before paying the price of a ticket. (Try before you buy!)" A 1985 review of the program in The New York Times notes that, "As computers move ever closer to artificial intelligence, Racter is on the edge of artificial insanity." It also states that Racter's "always-changing sentences are grammatically correct, often funny and, for a computer, sometimes profound." The article includes examples showing interaction with Racter, most often Racter asking the user questions. == Reviews == Jeux & Stratégie #47

  Read more →
• 

  Vera Demberg

  Vera Demberg (born 1981) is a German computational linguist and professor of computer science and computational linguistics at Saarland University. Her research interests include cognitive models of human language comprehension, natural language generation, experimental psycholinguistics, multimodal language processing in a dual-task setting, and experimental and computational discourse research and pragmatics. == Career and research == Vera Demberg studied computational linguistics at the Institute for Machine Language Processing at the University of Stuttgart from 2001 to 2006. She then completed a Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh from 2004 to 2005. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science there from 2006 to 2010. Her dissertation paper, titled “Broad-Coverage Model of Prediction in Human Sentence Processing”, was awarded the Cognitive Science Society's “Glushko Dissertation Prize in Cognitive Science” in 2011. In her work, she designed a model of human sentence processing that can be used to predict difficulties in processing at the syntactic level. From 2010 to 2016, Vera Demberg led an independent research group on cognitive models of human language processing and their application to speech dialog systems in the Cluster of Excellence “Multimodal Computing and Interaction” at the University of Saarland. In 2016, she was appointed there to a professorship in computer science and computational linguistics. Demberg's professorship is in the Department of Computer Science (Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science). She is also a co-opted professor in the Department of Linguistics and Language Technology (Faculty of Philosophy). Since 2020, she has led the ERC Starting Grant “Individualized Interaction in Discourse”. The project conducts research on how to make linguistic interaction with computer systems more natural. She has authored and co-authored numerous papers on the study of computational linguistics and natural language processing. According to Google Scholar, Vera Demberg has an H-index of 30. == Publications == Vera Demberg has authored more than 200 papers; please refer to her scholar page at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=l2CFSAMAAAAJ == Awards == 2011: Cognitive Science Society Glushko Dissertation Prize in Cognitive Science 2020: ERC Starting Grant “Individualized Interaction in Discourse” 2024: Member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature

  Read more →
• 

  Bernhard Schölkopf

  Bernhard Schölkopf (born 20 February 1968) is a German computer scientist known for his work in machine learning, especially on kernel methods and causality. He is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany, where he heads the Department of Empirical Inference. He is also an affiliated professor at ETH Zürich, honorary professor at the University of Tübingen and Technische Universität Berlin, and chairman of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS). == Research == === Kernel methods === Schölkopf developed SVM methods achieving world record performance on the MNIST pattern recognition benchmark at the time. With the introduction of kernel PCA, Schölkopf and coauthors argued that SVMs are a special case of a much larger class of methods, and all algorithms that can be expressed in terms of dot products can be generalized to a nonlinear setting by means of what is known as reproducing kernels. Another significant observation was that the data on which the kernel is defined need not be vectorial, as long as the kernel Gram matrix is positive definite. Both insights together led to the foundation of the field of kernel methods, encompassing SVMs and many other algorithms. Kernel methods are now textbook knowledge and one of the major machine learning paradigms in research and applications. Developing kernel PCA, Schölkopf extended it to extract invariant features and to design invariant kernels and showed how to view other major dimensionality reduction methods such as LLE and Isomap as special cases. In further work with Alex Smola and others, he extended the SVM method to regression and classification with pre-specified sparsity and quantile/support estimation. He proved a representer theorem implying that SVMs, kernel PCA, and most other kernel algorithms, regularized by a norm in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space, have solutions taking the form of kernel expansions on the training data, thus reducing an infinite dimensional optimization problem to a finite dimensional one. He co-developed kernel embeddings of distributions methods to represent probability distributions in Hilbert Spaces, with links to Fraunhofer diffraction as well as applications to independence testing. === Causality === Starting in 2005, Schölkopf turned his attention to causal inference. Causal mechanisms in the world give rise to statistical dependencies as epiphenomena, but only the latter are exploited by popular machine learning algorithms. Knowledge about causal structures and mechanisms is useful by letting us predict not only future data coming from the same source, but also the effect of interventions in a system, and by facilitating transfer of detected regularities to new situations. Schölkopf and co-workers addressed (and in certain settings solved) the problem of causal discovery for the two-variable setting and connected causality to Kolmogorov complexity. Around 2010, Schölkopf began to explore how to use causality for machine learning, exploiting assumptions of independence of mechanisms and invariance. His early work on causal learning was exposed to a wider machine learning audience during his Posner lecture at NeurIPS 2011, as well as in a keynote talk at ICML 2017. He assayed how to exploit underlying causal structures in order to make machine learning methods more robust with respect to distribution shifts and systematic errors, the latter leading to the discovery of a number of new exoplanets including K2-18b, which was subsequently found to contain water vapour in its atmosphere, a first for an exoplanet in the habitable zone. == Education and employment == Schölkopf studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy in Tübingen and London. He was supported by the Studienstiftung and won the Lionel Cooper Memorial Prize for the best M.Sc. in Mathematics at the University of London. He completed a Diplom in Physics, and then moved to Bell Labs in New Jersey, where he worked with Vladimir Vapnik, who became co-adviser of his PhD thesis at TU Berlin (with Stefan Jähnichen). His thesis, defended in 1997, won the annual award of the German Informatics Association. In 2001, following positions in Berlin, Cambridge and New York, he founded the Department for Empirical Inference at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, which grew into a leading center for research in machine learning. In 2011, he became founding director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. With Alex Smola, Schölkopf co-founded the series of Machine Learning Summer Schools. He also co-founded a Cambridge-Tübingen PhD Programme and the Max Planck-ETH Center for Learning Systems. In 2016, he co-founded the Cyber Valley research consortium. He participated in the IEEE Global Initiative on "Ethically Aligned Design". Schölkopf is co-editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Machine Learning Research, a journal he helped found, being part of a mass resignation of the editorial board of Machine Learning (journal). He is among the world’s most cited computer scientists. Alumni of his lab include Ulrike von Luxburg, Carl Rasmussen, Matthias Hein, Arthur Gretton, Gunnar Rätsch, Matthias Bethge, Stefanie Jegelka, Jason Weston, Olivier Bousquet, Olivier Chapelle, Joaquin Quinonero-Candela, and Sebastian Nowozin. As of late 2023, Schölkopf is also a scientific advisor to French research group Kyutai which is being funded by Xavier Niel, Rodolphe Saadé, Eric Schmidt, and others. == Awards and recognition == Schölkopf’s awards include the Royal Society Milner Award and, shared with Isabelle Guyon and Vladimir Vapnik, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Information and Communication Technologies category. He was the first scientist working in Europe to receive this award. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2026.

  Read more →
• 

  Jian Ma (computational biologist)

  Jian Ma (Chinese: 马坚) is an American computer scientist and computational biologist. He is the Ray and Stephanie Lane Professor of Computational Biology in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a faculty member in the Ray and Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department. His lab develops AI/ML methods to study the structure and function of the human genome and cellular organization and their implications for health and disease. During his Ph.D. and postdoc training, he developed algorithms to reconstruct the ancestral mammalian genome and evolutionary history. His research group has recently pioneered a series of new machine learning solutions for 3D genome organization, single-cell epigenomics, spatial omics, and complex molecular interactions. His lab also explores large language models to uncover gene regulatory mechanisms and the intricate connections among cellular components, with the aim of driving discovery and guiding experimentation. He received an NSF CAREER award in 2011. In 2020, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Computer Science. He received the Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence (2025). He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the International Society for Computational Biology, and the Association for Computing Machinery. He leads an NIH 4D Nucleome Center to develop machine learning algorithms to better understand the cell nucleus. He served as the Program Chair for RECOMB 2024. He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago (CZ Biohub Chicago) and the RECOMB Steering Committee. In 2024, he launched the Center for AI-Driven Biomedical Research (AI4BIO) at CMU, which will be a catalyst for innovations at the intersection of AI and biomedicine across the School of Computer Science and campus. == Selected Recent Publications == Chen V#, Yang M#, Cui W, Kim JS, Talwalkar A, and Ma J. Applying interpretable machine learning in computational biology - pitfalls, recommendations and opportunities for new developments. Nature Methods, 21(8):1454-1461, 2024. Xiong K#, Zhang R#, and Ma J. scGHOST: Identifying single-cell 3D genome subcompartments. Nature Methods, 21(5):814-822, 2024. Zhou T, Zhang R, Jia D, Doty RT, Munday AD, Gao D, Xin L, Abkowitz JL, Duan Z, and Ma J. GAGE-seq concurrently profiles multiscale 3D genome organization and gene expression in single cells. Nature Genetics, 56(8):1701-1711, 2024. Zhang Y, Boninsegna L, Yang M, Misteli T, Alber F, and Ma J. Computational methods for analysing multiscale 3D genome organization. Nature Reviews Genetics, 5(2):123-141, 2024. Chidester B#, Zhou T#, Alam S, and Ma J. SPICEMIX enables integrative single-cell spatial modeling of cell identity. Nature Genetics, 55(1):78-88, 2023. [Cover Article] Zhang R#, Zhou T#, and Ma J. Ultrafast and interpretable single-cell 3D genome analysis with Fast-Higashi. Cell Systems, 13(10):P798-807.E6, 2022. [Cover Article] Zhu X#, Zhang Y#, Wang Y, Tian D, Belmont AS, Swedlow JR, and Ma J. Nucleome Browser: An integrative and multimodal data navigation platform for 4D Nucleome. Nature Methods, 19(8):911-913, 2022. Zhang R, Zhou T, and Ma J. Multiscale and integrative single-cell Hi-C analysis with Higashi. Nature Biotechnology, 40:254–261, 2022.

  Read more →
• 

  Data commingling

  Data commingling, in computer science, occurs when different items or kinds of data are stored in such a way that they become commonly accessible when they are supposed to remain separated. In cloud computing, this can occur where different customer data sits on the same server. Data that is commingled can present a security vulnerability. Data commingling can also occur due to high speed data transmission mixing. In this situation, data of one security level can inadvertently or purposely be mixed with data of a lower or higher security level on the same transmission portal. Portal vehicles can be wire, fiber optics, microwave or various radio frequency transmission portals. This commingling can cause breaches of security and become a source of legal issues to any entity, corporation or individual. Data commingling can also occur when personal computers and personal software programs are used for business, security, government, etc. uses. In the early formulation stages of entities, non-profit or profit corporations, LLC's, LLP's, etc., the creation and use of stand-alone computers and stand-alone networks, "absolutely unconnected" to involved individuals, is the easiest, and safest way to prevent Data Commingling.

  Read more →
• 

  Localization Industry Standards Association

  Localization Industry Standards Association or LISA was a Swiss-based trade body concerning the translation of computer software (and associated materials) into multiple natural languages, which existed from 1990 to February 2011. It counted among its members most of the large information technology companies of the period, including Adobe, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, McAfee, Nokia, Novell and Xerox. LISA played a significant role in representing its partners at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the TermBase eXchange (TBX) standard developed by LISA was submitted to ISO in 2007 and became ISO 30042:2008. LISA also had a presence at the W3C. A number of the LISA standards are used by the OASIS Open Architecture for XML Authoring and Localization framework. LISA shut down on 28 February 2011, and its website went offline shortly afterwards. In the wake of the closure of LISA, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute started an Industry Specification Group (ISG) for localization. The ISG has five work items: Term-Base eXchange (TBX) / ISO 30042:2008 Translation Memory eXchange (TMX), with GALA Segmentation Rules eXchange (SRX) / ISO/CD 24621) Global information management Metrics eXchange – Volume (GMX-V); Another organization that was formed in response to the closure of LISA is Terminology for Large Organizations (TerminOrgs), a consortium of terminology professionals who promote terminology management best practices.

  Read more →
• 

  Markov property

  In probability theory and statistics, the Markov property is the memoryless property of a stochastic process, which means that its future evolution is independent of its history. It is named after the Russian mathematician Andrey Markov. The term strong Markov property is similar to the Markov property, except that the meaning of "present" is defined in terms of a random variable known as a stopping time. The term Markov assumption is used to describe a model where the Markov property is assumed to hold, such as a hidden Markov model. A Markov random field extends this property to two or more dimensions or to random variables defined for an interconnected network of items. An example of a model for such a field is the Ising model. A discrete-time stochastic process satisfying the Markov property is known as a Markov chain. == Introduction == A stochastic process has the Markov property if the conditional probability distribution of future states of the process (conditional on both past and present values) depends only upon the present state; that is, given the present, the future does not depend on the past. A process with this property is said to be Markov or Markovian and known as a Markov process. Two famous classes of Markov process are the Markov chain and Brownian motion. Note that there is a subtle, often overlooked and very important point that is often missed in the plain English statement of the definition: the statespace of the process is constant through time. The conditional description involves a fixed "bandwidth". For example, without this restriction we could augment any process to one which includes the complete history from a given initial condition and it would be made to be Markovian. But the state space would be of increasing dimensionality over time and does not meet the definition. == History == == Definition == Let ( Ω , F , P ) {\displaystyle (\Omega ,{\mathcal {F}},P)} be a probability space with a filtration ( F s , s ∈ I ) {\displaystyle ({\mathcal {F}}_{s},\ s\in I)} , for some (totally ordered) index set I {\displaystyle I} ; and let ( S , Σ ) {\displaystyle (S,\Sigma )} be a measurable space. An ( S , Σ ) {\displaystyle (S,\Sigma )} -valued stochastic process X = { X t : Ω → S } t ∈ I {\displaystyle X=\{X_{t}:\Omega \to S\}_{t\in I}} adapted to the filtration is said to possess the Markov property if, for each A ∈ Σ {\displaystyle A\in \Sigma } and each s , t ∈ I {\displaystyle s,t\in I} with s < t {\displaystyle s Read more →