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Object co-segmentation
In computer vision, object co-segmentation is a special case of image segmentation, which is defined as jointly segmenting semantically similar objects in multiple images or video frames. == Challenges == It is often challenging to extract segmentation masks of a target/object from a noisy collection of images or video frames, which involves object discovery coupled with segmentation. A noisy collection implies that the object/target is present sporadically in a set of images or the object/target disappears intermittently throughout the video of interest. Early methods typically involve mid-level representations such as object proposals. == Dynamic Markov networks-based methods == A joint object discover and co-segmentation method based on coupled dynamic Markov networks has been proposed recently, which claims significant improvements in robustness against irrelevant/noisy video frames. Unlike previous efforts which conveniently assumes the consistent presence of the target objects throughout the input video, this coupled dual dynamic Markov network based algorithm simultaneously carries out both the detection and segmentation tasks with two respective Markov networks jointly updated via belief propagation. Specifically, the Markov network responsible for segmentation is initialized with superpixels and provides information for its Markov counterpart responsible for the object detection task. Conversely, the Markov network responsible for detection builds the object proposal graph with inputs including the spatio-temporal segmentation tubes. == Graph cut-based methods == Graph cut optimization is a popular tool in computer vision, especially in earlier image segmentation applications. As an extension of regular graph cuts, multi-level hypergraph cut is proposed to account for more complex high order correspondences among video groups beyond typical pairwise correlations. With such hypergraph extension, multiple modalities of correspondences, including low-level appearance, saliency, coherent motion and high level features such as object regions, could be seamlessly incorporated in the hyperedge computation. In addition, as a core advantage over co-occurrence based approach, hypergraph implicitly retains more complex correspondences among its vertices, with the hyperedge weights conveniently computed by eigenvalue decomposition of Laplacian matrices. == CNN/LSTM-based methods == In action localization applications, object co-segmentation is also implemented as the segment-tube spatio-temporal detector. Inspired by the recent spatio-temporal action localization efforts with tubelets (sequences of bounding boxes), Le et al. present a new spatio-temporal action localization detector Segment-tube, which consists of sequences of per-frame segmentation masks. This Segment-tube detector can temporally pinpoint the starting/ending frame of each action category in the presence of preceding/subsequent interference actions in untrimmed videos. Simultaneously, the Segment-tube detector produces per-frame segmentation masks instead of bounding boxes, offering superior spatial accuracy to tubelets. This is achieved by alternating iterative optimization between temporal action localization and spatial action segmentation. The proposed segment-tube detector is illustrated in the flowchart on the right. The sample input is an untrimmed video containing all frames in a pair figure skating video, with only a portion of these frames belonging to a relevant category (e.g., the DeathSpirals). Initialized with saliency based image segmentation on individual frames, this method first performs temporal action localization step with a cascaded 3D CNN and LSTM, and pinpoints the starting frame and the ending frame of a target action with a coarse-to-fine strategy. Subsequently, the segment-tube detector refines per-frame spatial segmentation with graph cut by focusing on relevant frames identified by the temporal action localization step. The optimization alternates between the temporal action localization and spatial action segmentation in an iterative manner. Upon practical convergence, the final spatio-temporal action localization results are obtained in the format of a sequence of per-frame segmentation masks (bottom row in the flowchart) with precise starting/ending frames.
WriterDuet
WriterDuet is a screenwriting software for writing and editing screenplays and other forms of mass media. == History == WriterDuet was founded in 2013 by Guy Goldstein. In April 2015, WriterDuet acquired the domain for Scripped.com after they closed, citing a serious technical failure. In August 2016, WriterDuet released a localized version of its software in China. In May 2018, WriterDuet included Bechdel test analysis functions to address issues of gender diversity in the screenwriting industry. In 2018, WriterDuet published WriterSolo, an offline version of their app that runs on the browser and opens/saves files on the computer, Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud. In July 2019, WriterDuet made the WriterSolo browser app and desktop app available as pay-what-you-want under the web address FreeScreenwriting.com. == Features == WriterDuet is primarily used to outline, write, and format screenplays to the standards recommended by the AMPAS. It also supports formats for theater, novels, and video games. The software is powered by Firebase allowing users to write together in real-time from multiple devices. WriterDuet's main competitors in the screenwriting industry are Final Draft, Celtx, and Movie Magic Screenwriter.
Convolution
In mathematics (in particular, functional analysis), convolution is a mathematical operation on two functions f {\displaystyle f} and g {\displaystyle g} that produces a third function f ∗ g {\displaystyle fg} , as the integral of the product of the two functions after one is reflected about the y-axis and shifted. The term convolution refers to both the resulting function and to the process of computing it. The integral is evaluated for all values of shift, producing the convolution function. The choice of which function is reflected and shifted before the integral does not change the integral result (see commutativity). Graphically, it expresses how the 'shape' of one function is modified by the other. Some features of convolution are similar to cross-correlation: for real-valued functions, of a continuous or discrete variable, convolution f ∗ g {\displaystyle fg} differs from cross-correlation f ⋆ g {\displaystyle f\star g} only in that either f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} or g ( x ) {\displaystyle g(x)} is reflected about the y-axis in convolution; thus it is a cross-correlation of g ( − x ) {\displaystyle g(-x)} and f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} , or f ( − x ) {\displaystyle f(-x)} and g ( x ) {\displaystyle g(x)} . For complex-valued functions, the cross-correlation operator is the adjoint of the convolution operator. Convolution has applications that include probability, statistics, acoustics, spectroscopy, signal processing and image processing, computer vision and human vision, geophysics, engineering, physics, and differential equations. The convolution can be defined for functions on Euclidean space and other groups (as algebraic structures). For example, periodic functions, such as the discrete-time Fourier transform, can be defined on a circle and convolved by periodic convolution. (See row 18 at DTFT § Properties.) A discrete convolution can be defined for functions on the set of integers. Generalizations of convolution have applications in the field of numerical analysis and numerical linear algebra, and in the design and implementation of finite impulse response filters in signal processing. Computing the inverse of the convolution operation is known as deconvolution. == Definition == The convolution of f {\displaystyle f} and g {\displaystyle g} is written f ∗ g {\displaystyle fg} , denoting the operator with the symbol ∗ {\displaystyle } . It is defined as the integral of the product of the two functions after one is reflected about the y-axis and shifted. As such, it is a particular kind of integral transform: ( f ∗ g ) ( t ) := ∫ − ∞ ∞ f ( τ ) g ( t − τ ) d τ . {\displaystyle (fg)(t):=\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }f(\tau )g(t-\tau )\,d\tau .} An equivalent definition is (see commutativity): ( f ∗ g ) ( t ) := ∫ − ∞ ∞ f ( t − τ ) g ( τ ) d τ . {\displaystyle (fg)(t):=\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }f(t-\tau )g(\tau )\,d\tau .} While the symbol t {\displaystyle t} is used above, it need not represent the time domain. At each t {\displaystyle t} , the convolution formula can be described as the area under the function f ( τ ) {\displaystyle f(\tau )} weighted by the function g ( − τ ) {\displaystyle g(-\tau )} shifted by the amount t {\displaystyle t} . As t {\displaystyle t} changes, the weighting function g ( t − τ ) {\displaystyle g(t-\tau )} emphasizes different parts of the input function f ( τ ) {\displaystyle f(\tau )} ; If t {\displaystyle t} is a positive value, then g ( t − τ ) {\displaystyle g(t-\tau )} is equal to g ( − τ ) {\displaystyle g(-\tau )} that slides or is shifted along the τ {\displaystyle \tau } -axis toward the right (toward + ∞ {\displaystyle +\infty } ) by the amount of t {\displaystyle t} , while if t {\displaystyle t} is a negative value, then g ( t − τ ) {\displaystyle g(t-\tau )} is equal to g ( − τ ) {\displaystyle g(-\tau )} that slides or is shifted toward the left (toward − ∞ {\displaystyle -\infty } ) by the amount of | t | {\displaystyle |t|} . For functions f {\displaystyle f} , g {\displaystyle g} supported on only [ 0 , ∞ ) {\displaystyle [0,\infty )} (i.e., zero for negative arguments), the integration limits can be truncated, resulting in: ( f ∗ g ) ( t ) = ∫ 0 t f ( τ ) g ( t − τ ) d τ for f , g : [ 0 , ∞ ) → R . {\displaystyle (fg)(t)=\int _{0}^{t}f(\tau )g(t-\tau )\,d\tau \quad \ {\text{for }}f,g:[0,\infty )\to \mathbb {R} .} For the multi-dimensional formulation of convolution, see domain of definition (below). === Notation === A common engineering notational convention is: f ( t ) ∗ g ( t ) := ∫ − ∞ ∞ f ( τ ) g ( t − τ ) d τ ⏟ ( f ∗ g ) ( t ) , {\displaystyle f(t)g(t)\mathrel {:=} \underbrace {\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }f(\tau )g(t-\tau )\,d\tau } _{(fg)(t)},} which has to be interpreted carefully to avoid confusion. For instance, f ( t ) ∗ g ( t − t 0 ) {\displaystyle f(t)g(t-t_{0})} is equivalent to ( f ∗ g ) ( t − t 0 ) {\displaystyle (fg)(t-t_{0})} , but f ( t − t 0 ) ∗ g ( t − t 0 ) {\displaystyle f(t-t_{0})g(t-t_{0})} is in fact equivalent to ( f ∗ g ) ( t − 2 t 0 ) {\displaystyle (fg)(t-2t_{0})} . === Relations with other transforms === Given two functions f ( t ) {\displaystyle f(t)} and g ( t ) {\displaystyle g(t)} with bilateral Laplace transforms (two-sided Laplace transform) F ( s ) = ∫ − ∞ ∞ e − s u f ( u ) d u {\displaystyle F(s)=\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }e^{-su}\ f(u)\ {\text{d}}u} and G ( s ) = ∫ − ∞ ∞ e − s v g ( v ) d v {\displaystyle G(s)=\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }e^{-sv}\ g(v)\ {\text{d}}v} respectively, the convolution operation ( f ∗ g ) ( t ) {\displaystyle (fg)(t)} can be defined as the inverse Laplace transform of the product of F ( s ) {\displaystyle F(s)} and G ( s ) {\displaystyle G(s)} . More precisely, F ( s ) ⋅ G ( s ) = ∫ − ∞ ∞ e − s u f ( u ) d u ⋅ ∫ − ∞ ∞ e − s v g ( v ) d v = ∫ − ∞ ∞ ∫ − ∞ ∞ e − s ( u + v ) f ( u ) g ( v ) d u d v {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}F(s)\cdot G(s)&=\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }e^{-su}\ f(u)\ {\text{d}}u\cdot \int _{-\infty }^{\infty }e^{-sv}\ g(v)\ {\text{d}}v\\&=\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }e^{-s(u+v)}\ f(u)\ g(v)\ {\text{d}}u\ {\text{d}}v\end{aligned}}} Let t = u + v {\displaystyle t=u+v} , then F ( s ) ⋅ G ( s ) = ∫ − ∞ ∞ ∫ − ∞ ∞ e − s t f ( u ) g ( t − u ) d u d t = ∫ − ∞ ∞ e − s t ∫ − ∞ ∞ f ( u ) g ( t − u ) d u ⏟ ( f ∗ g ) ( t ) d t = ∫ − ∞ ∞ e − s t ( f ∗ g ) ( t ) d t . {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}F(s)\cdot G(s)&=\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }e^{-st}\ f(u)\ g(t-u)\ {\text{d}}u\ {\text{d}}t\\&=\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }e^{-st}\underbrace {\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }f(u)\ g(t-u)\ {\text{d}}u} _{(fg)(t)}\ {\text{d}}t\\&=\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }e^{-st}(fg)(t)\ {\text{d}}t.\end{aligned}}} Note that F ( s ) ⋅ G ( s ) {\displaystyle F(s)\cdot G(s)} is the bilateral Laplace transform of ( f ∗ g ) ( t ) {\displaystyle (fg)(t)} . A similar derivation can be done using the unilateral Laplace transform (one-sided Laplace transform). The convolution operation also describes the output (in terms of the input) of an important class of operations known as linear time-invariant (LTI). See LTI system theory for a derivation of convolution as the result of LTI constraints. In terms of the Fourier transforms of the input and output of an LTI operation, no new frequency components are created. The existing ones are only modified (amplitude and/or phase). In other words, the output transform is the pointwise product of the input transform with a third transform (known as a transfer function). See Convolution theorem for a derivation of that property of convolution. Conversely, convolution can be derived as the inverse Fourier transform of the pointwise product of two Fourier transforms. == Visual explanation == == Historical developments == One of the earliest uses of the convolution integral appeared in D'Alembert's derivation of Taylor's theorem in Recherches sur différents points importants du système du monde, published in 1754. Also, an expression of the type: ∫ f ( u ) ⋅ g ( x − u ) d u {\displaystyle \int f(u)\cdot g(x-u)\,du} is used by Sylvestre François Lacroix on page 505 of his book entitled Treatise on differences and series, which is the last of 3 volumes of the encyclopedic series: Traité du calcul différentiel et du calcul intégral, Chez Courcier, Paris, 1797–1800. Soon thereafter, convolution operations appear in the works of Pierre Simon Laplace, Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier, Siméon Denis Poisson, and others. The term itself did not come into wide use until the 1950s or 1960s. Prior to that it was sometimes known as Faltung (which means folding in German), composition product, superposition integral, and Carson's integral. Yet it appears as early as 1903, though the definition is rather unfamiliar in older uses. The operation: ∫ 0 t φ ( s ) ψ ( t − s ) d s , 0 ≤ t < ∞ , {\displaystyle \int _{0}^{t}\varphi (s)\psi (t-s)\,ds,\quad 0\leq t<\infty ,} is a particular case of composition products considered by the Italian mathematician Vito Volterra in 1913. == Circular c
CloudMinds
CloudMinds is an operator of cloud-based systems for cognitive robotics. == History == CloudMinds was founded in 2015 and is backed by SoftBank, Foxconn, Walden Venture Investments, and Keytone Ventures. CloudMinds has developed research in smart devices, robot control, high-speed security networks, and cloud intelligence integration. CloudMinds developed the Mobile Intranet Cloud Services (MCS) based on these technologies in order to increase the information security of the cloud robot remote control. The technology has been applied in the fields of finance, medicine, the military, public safety, and large-scale manufacturing. == U.S. sanctions == In May 2020, CloudMinds was added to the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List due to U.S. national security concerns.
Operation Serenata de Amor
Operation Serenata de Amor is an artificial intelligence project designed to analyze public spending in Brazil. The project has been funded by a recurrent financing campaign since September 7, 2016, and came in the wake of major scandals of misappropriation of public funds in Brazil, such as the Mensalão scandal and what was revealed in the Operation Car Wash investigations. The analysis began with data from the National Congress then expanded to other types of budget and instances of government, such as the Federal Senate. The project is built through collaboration on GitHub and using a public group with more than 600 participants on Telegram. The name "Serenata de Amor," which means "serenade of love," was taken from a popular cashew cream bonbon produced by Chocolates Garoto in Brazil. == Modules == Throughout development of the project, new modules have been newly introduced in addition to the main repository: The main repository, serenata-de-amor, serves as the starting point for investigative work. Rosie is the robot programmed to identify public funds expenses with discrepancies, starting with CEAP (Quota for Exercise of Parliamentary Activity); it analyzes each of the reimbursements requested by the deputies and senators, indicating the reasons that lead it to believe they are suspicious. From Rosie was born whistleblower, which tweets under the name of @RosieDaSerenata, distributing the results found on social media. Jarbas (Github repository) is a data visualization tool which shows a complete list of reimbursements made available by the Chamber of Deputies and mined by Rosie. Toolbox is a Python installable package that supports the development of Serenata de Amor and Rosie. == History == Operation Serenata de Amor is an Artificial intelligence project for analysis of public expenditures. It was conceived in March 2016 by data scientist Irio Musskopf, sociologist Eduardo Cuducos and entrepreneur Felipe Cabral. The project was financed collectively in the Catarse platform, where it reached 131% of the collection goal paying 3 months of project development. Ana Schwendler, also a data scientist, Pedro Vilanova "Tonny", data journalist, Bruno Pazzim, software engineer, Filipe Linhares, a frontend engineer, Leandro Devegili, an entrepreneur and André Pinho took the first steps towards constructing the platform, such as collecting and structuring the first datasets. Jessica Temporal, data scientist and Yasodara Córdova "Yaso", researcher, Tatiana Balachova "Russa", UX designer, joined the project after the financing took place. The members created a recurring financing campaign, expanding the analysis of public spending to the Federal Senate. Donors make monthly payments ranging from 5 BRL to 200 BRL to maintain group activities. The monthly amount collected is around 10,000 BRL. == Results == In January 2017, concluding the period financed by the initial campaign, the group carried out an investigation into the suspicious activities found by the data analysis system. 629 complaints were made to the Ombudsman's Office of the Chamber of Deputies, questioning expenses of 216 federal deputies. In addition, the Facebook project page has more than 25,000 followers, and users frequently cite the operation as a benchmark in transparency in the Brazilian government. One of the examples of results obtained by the operation is the case of the Deputy who had to return about 700 BRL to the House after his expenses were analyzed by the platform. The platform was able to analyze more than 3 million notes, raising about 8,000 suspected cases in public spending. The community that supports the work of the team benefits from open source repositories, with licenses open for the collaboration. So much so that the two main data scientists of the project presented it at the CivicTechFest in Taipei, obtaining several mentions even in the international press. The technical leader presented the project in Poland during DevConf2017 in Kraków. It was also presented in the Google News Lab in 2017. It was presented by Yaso, when she was the Director of the initiative, at the MIT Media Lab/Berkman Klein Center Initiative for Artificial Intelligence ethics, and at the Artificial Intelligence and Inclusion Symposium, an initiative of the Global Network of Internet & Society Centers (NoC). It was also presented both by Irio and Yaso at the Digital Harvard Kennedy School, over a lunch seminar, where the transparency of the platform and the main solutions found were discussed, so that the code and data are always available to verify its suitability. This infographic provides information about the first results of Operation Serenata de Amor, a project that analyzes open data on public spending to find discrepancies. The project was presented by Yaso to the House Audit and Control Committee of the Chamber of Deputies in August 2017, and raised the interest of House officials who work with open data. The operation has been a source of inspiration for other civic projects that aim to work with similar goals, demonstrating the broader impact of artificial intelligence also in industry in Brazil. Participation of several team members in events throughout Brazil and abroad can be found on the Internet, such as presentation at OpenDataDay, held at Calango Hackerspace in the Federal District, Campus Party Bahia, Campus Party Brasilia, Friends of Tomorrow, XIII National Meeting of Internal Control, in the event USP Talks Hackfest against corruption in João Pessoa, the latter being also highlighted in the National Press.
Apache Drill
Apache Drill is an open-source software framework that supports data-intensive distributed applications for interactive analysis of large-scale datasets. Built chiefly by contributions from developers from MapR, Drill is inspired by Google's Dremel system. Drill is an Apache top-level project. Drill supports a variety of NoSQL databases and file systems, including Alluxio, HBase, MongoDB, MapR-DB, HDFS, MapR-FS, Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, Swift, NAS and local files. A single query can join data from multiple datastores. Drill's datastore-aware optimizer automatically restructures a query plan to leverage the datastore's internal processing capabilities. In addition, Drill supports data locality, if Drill and the datastore are on the same nodes. Tom Shiran is the founder of the Apache Drill Project. It was designated an Apache Software Foundation top-level project in December 2016. == Features == One explicitly stated design goal is that Drill is able to scale to 10,000 servers or more and to be able to process petabytes of data and trillions of records in seconds. Schema-free JSON document model similar to MongoDB and Elasticsearch, without requiring a formal schema to be declared Industry-standard APIs: ANSI SQL, ODBC/JDBC, RESTful APIs Extremely user and developer friendly Pluggable architecture enables connectivity to multiple datastores Version 1.9 added dynamic user-defined functions Version 1.11 added cryptographic-related functions and PCAP file format support == Back-end support == Drill is primarily focused on non-relational datastores, including Apache Hadoop text files, NoSQL, and cloud storage. A notable feature also includes in situ querying of local JSON and Apache Parquet files. Some additional datastores that it supports include: All Hadoop distributions (HDFS API 2.3+), including Apache Hadoop, MapR, CDH and Amazon EMR NoSQL: MongoDB, Apache HBase, Apache Cassandra Online Analytical Processing: Apache Kudu, Apache Druid, OpenTSDB Cloud storage: Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, Swift, IBM Cloud Object Storage Diverse data formats, including Apache Avro, Apache Parquet and JSON RDBMs storage plugins (Using JDBC to connect to MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others) A new datastore can be added by developing a storage plugin. Drill's "schema-free" JSON data model enables it to query non-relational datastores in-situ . == Front-end support == Drill itself can be queried via JDBC, ODBC, or REST through a variety of methods and languages including Python and Java. The default install includes a web interface allowing end-users to execute ANSI SQL directly and export data tables as CSV files without any programming. The dashboard library, Apache Superset, is particularly well suited for visualization of data queried with Drill.