Alexei "Alyosha" A. Efros (born 9 April 1975) is a Russian-American computer scientist and professor at University of California, Berkeley. He has contributed to the field of computer vision, and his work has been referenced in Wired, BBC News, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. == Early life and education == Efros was born in St. Petersburg in the Soviet Union. His father is Alexei L. Efros, then a physics professor at the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute. His family emigrated to the United States when he was 14 to accommodate his father's career and the family settled in Salt Lake City in 1991. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1997, and attended University of California, Berkeley for his PhD, where he was advised by Jitendra Malik and graduated in 2003. He then spent a year as a research fellow at the University of Oxford, where he worked with Andrew Zisserman. == Career == Efros joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he remained until 2013 when he joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008. He received the 2016 ACM Prize in Computing.
Snap (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, snapping allows an object to be easily positioned in alignment with grid lines, guide lines or another object, by causing it to automatically jump to an exact position when the user drags it to the proximity of the desired location. Some CAD software provides a "Snap" pull-down menu with diverse options as preferences for the practice of the operation. In Windows, with the "snap windows" option enabled, snapping a window against the top (or side) edge of the screen causes it to change into full screen (or half-screen for multitasking). Software snapping is analogous to hardware detents which serve to indicate discrete values or steps of an input device.
Eimear Kenny
Eimear E. Kenny is a researcher in population genetics and translation genomics, and is the Founding Director of the Institute for Genomic Health, and Endowed Chair and Professor of Genomic Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is known for novel approaches in computational genomics, advancing the study of human genetic variation and its connection to disease risk and diagnosis. Her research has laid the foundation for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and genomics into precision medicine and routine clinical care. By combining genomics, computer science, and medicine, her work leverages genomic sequencing technologies and machine learning algorithms to uncover insights that improve patient care, accelerate genomic data analysis, and enable the future of AI-driven healthcare. She has led multiple genomics-based clinical trials, applying computational biology and AI in clinical settings to advance genomic medicine and precision healthcare. == Research == A recipient of the Early-Career Award from the American Society of Human Genetics (USA), Kenny, as of 2024, leads a team in genetics, computer science, and medicine, focusing on genetic ancestry, large-scale genomics, clinical trials, and genomic medicine at the Institute for Genomic Health. The lab works to advance understanding of genetic ancestry and its impact on health in order to inform better clinical medicine models. She is recognized for her work to leverage biobanks for translational genomics and her development of new genetic tests an strategies for health care management. In one study, she and her colleagues investigated genetic disorders that might be under-diagnosed due to insufficient data, and found a variant in a collagen gene associated with Steel syndrome. This syndrome caused short stature and bone and joint issues and was thought to be rare. However, the study revealed it is common in individuals with Puerto Rican ancestry. Three of Kenny's genomic medicine clinical trials assessed how to bring new technology, such as digital apps, or information, such as polygenic risk scores, into routine clinical care. In the 2010s, Kenny was instrumental in several large-scale sequencing studies, including the 1000 Genomes Project, the Exome Sequencing Project, the Genome Sequencing Project, and the Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine. In 2012, she led work that discovered the variant responsible for blond hair in Melanesia, work that was featured in the Smithsonian NHGRI Human Genome Exhibit in Washington, D.C. In 2017, her group was one of the first to demonstrate that polygenic risk scores derived in predominantly European populations have reduced accuracy when applied in populations now widely acknowledged as a major challenge in the field of genomic risk prediction. As of 2024, she is Principal Investigator in many NIH-funded international consortium focused on computational genomics and genomic medicine, including Electronic Medical Records and Genomics, Polygenic Risk Methods in Diverse Populations, and the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium. In 2023, Kenny played a key role in a groundbreaking advancement in genomics research by helping to map a diverse human pangenome—a major shift from reliance on a single reference genome. Unlike the earlier genetic map, based on one man of mixed European and African ancestry in Buffalo, this new pangenome project captures far greater human genetic diversity. As reported by The Washington Post, Kenny's work demonstrates how a more inclusive human genome can drive discoveries in rare genetic diseases, improve genomic medicine, and accelerate the future of precision healthcare. Kenny was co-developer and current license holder for Random Forest adMIXture (RFMix), a patented software for inferring continental and sub-continental ancestry at genomic loci. == Education and career == Kenny graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a BA in Biochemistry in 1999 and did a masters in Bioinformatics at Leeds University. She received her PhD in Computational Genomics at Rockefeller University, and did her post-doctoral work in the lab of Dr. Carlos D. Bustamante at Stanford University. === Academic appointments === As of 2024, at Mount Sinai, she serves as the Endowed Chair and Professor of Genomic Health, Professor at the Department of Medicine and Professor at the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences. Since 2018 she has served as the Founding Director of the Institute for Genomic Health, and since 2022, she also serves as the Founding Director of the Center for Translational Genomics. She is also the Director of Translational Research, Division for Genomic Medicine. Former appointments include Assistant Professor at the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and Member at The Charles Bronfman Institute of Personalized Medicine, both at Mount Sinai. She was also Bioinformatics Programmer at the California Institute of Technology, and research assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. == Publications == As of 2024, Kenny is an advisor to Cell Genomics. Google Scholar reports 50,623 citations, an h-index of 66 and an i10-index of 130. The five most-cited articles she contributed to are: Auton, A; Brooks, LD; Durbin, RM; Garrison, EP; Kang, HM; Korbel, JO; Marchini, JL; McCarthy, S; McVean, GA; Abecasis, GR (2015). "A global reference for human genetic variation". Nature. 526 (7571): 68–74. Bibcode:2015Natur.526...68T. doi:10.1038/nature15393. PMC 4750478. PMID 26432245.. Cited by 14847 Abecasis, GR; Auton, A; Brooks, LD; DePristo, MA; Durbin, RM; Handsaker, RE; Kang, HM; Marth, GT; McVean, GA (2012). "An integrated map of genetic variation from 1,092 human genomes". Nature. 491 (7422): 56–65. Bibcode:2012Natur.491...56T. doi:10.1038/nature11632. PMC 3498066. PMID 23128226.. Cited by 8287 Jacob A. Tennessen et al. Evolution and Functional Impact of Rare Coding Variation from Deep Sequencing of Human Exomes.Science337,64–69(2012).DOI:10.1126/science.1219240 Cited by 1886 Taliun, D.; Harris, D.N.; Kessler, M.D.; et al. (2021). "Sequencing of 53,831 diverse genomes from the NHLBI TOPMed Program". Nature. 590 (7845): 290–299. Bibcode:2021Natur.590..290T. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03205-y. PMC 7875770. PMID 33568819.. Cited by 1369 Vilhjálmsson, BJ; et al. (2015). "Modeling Linkage Disequilibrium Increases Accuracy of Polygenic Risk Scores". Am J Hum Genet. 97 (4): 576–92. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2015.09.001. PMC 4596916. PMID 26430803.. Cited by 1327
RightsCon
RightsCon is an annual conference on digital rights hosted by Access Now. It convenes international leaders and organizations to discuss global problems including internet censorship, the regulation of algorithms, electronic surveillance, the ethics of technology, online hate speech, content moderation, cyberwarfare, and more. == History == The conference was first convened by Access (today, Access Now) in Silicon Valley in 2011, with the intention of gathering civil society to discuss impacts of the growing tech industry on digital rights and human rights. It sought the participation of leaders from both industry (including companies such as Twitter, Google, Mozilla, and Comcast) and civil society organizations (such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and New America). Keynote speakers included the then-Assistant Secretary of State, Michael Posner; Egyptian blogger and political prisoner, Alaa Abd El-Fattah; and then-director of public policy at Google, Bob Boorstin. RightsCon organizers have sought to ensure the event is accessible to attendees from across the globe, particularly global majority countries, informing the decision to hold the conference in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. === Online convenings === In 2020, RightsCon was to be held in San José, Costa Rica, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting took place in an online format. In 2021, the 10th edition of RightsCon was again held online from Monday, June 7 to Friday, June 11, 2021, due to the continued global COVID-19 pandemic which altered several digital rights physical meetings. The topics for RightsCon2021 included: Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation, data protection and user control, digital futures, democracy, elections, new business models, content control, peacebuilding, censorship, internet shutdowns, freedom of the media and many others were discussed by several digital rights organizations and individuals. === 2026 cancellation === The 14th RightsCon was scheduled to be held in Zambia from May 5 to 8, 2026. On April 29, 2026, the Zambian government abruptly postponed the conference, writing in a statement that the postponement was "necessitated by the need for comprehensive disclosure […] relating to key thematic issues proposed for discussion during the Summit." In May 2026, the conference was cancelled due to pressure from the Chinese government. In a statement the same day, Access Now wrote that it was "told that diplomats from the People's Republic of China (PRC) were putting pressure on the Government of Zambia because Taiwanese civil society participants were planning to join us in person." == List of conferences == Past RightsCon conferences include:
Parallel terraced scan
The parallel terraced scan is a multi-agent based search technique that is basic to cognitive architectures, such as Copycat, Letter-string, the Examiner, Tabletop, and others. It was developed by John Rehling and Douglas Hofstadter at the Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition at Indiana University, Bloomington. The parallel terraced scan builds on the concepts of the workspace, coderack, conceptual memory, and temperature. According to Hofstadter the parallel and random nature of the processing captures aspects of human cognition.
Luma (video)
In video, luma ( Y ′ {\displaystyle Y'} ) represents the brightness in an image (the "black-and-white" or achromatic portion of the image). Luma is typically paired with chroma. Luma represents the achromatic image, while the chroma components represent the color information. Converting R′G′B′ sources (such as the output of a three-CCD camera) into luma and chroma allows for chroma subsampling: because human vision has finer spatial sensitivity to luminance ("black and white") differences than chromatic differences, video systems can store and transmit chromatic information at lower resolution, optimizing perceived detail at a particular bandwidth. == Luma versus relative luminance == Luma is the weighted sum of gamma-compressed R′G′B′ components of a color video—the prime symbols ′ denote gamma compression. The word was proposed to prevent confusion between luma as implemented in video engineering and relative luminance as used in color science (i.e. as defined by CIE). Relative luminance is formed as a weighted sum of linear RGB components, not gamma-compressed ones. Even so, luma is sometimes erroneously called luminance. SMPTE EG 28 recommends the symbol Y ′ {\displaystyle Y'} to denote luma and the symbol Y {\displaystyle Y} to denote relative luminance. === Use of relative luminance === While luma is more often encountered, relative luminance is sometimes used in video engineering when referring to the brightness of a monitor. The formula used to calculate relative luminance uses coefficients based on the CIE color matching functions and the relevant standard chromaticities of red, green, and blue (e.g., the original NTSC primaries, SMPTE C, or Rec. 709). For the Rec. 709 (and sRGB) primaries, the linear combination, based on pure colorimetric considerations and the definition of relative luminance is: Y = 0.2126 R + 0.7152 G + 0.0722 B {\displaystyle Y=0.2126R+0.7152G+0.0722B} The formula used to calculate luma in the Rec. 709 spec arbitrarily also uses these same coefficients, but with gamma-compressed components: Y ′ = 0.2126 R ′ + 0.7152 G ′ + 0.0722 B ′ , {\displaystyle Y'=0.2126R'+0.7152G'+0.0722B',} where the prime symbol ′ denotes gamma compression. == Rec. 601 luma versus Rec. 709 luma coefficients == For digital formats following CCIR 601 (i.e. most digital standard definition formats), luma is calculated with this formula: Y 601 ′ = 0.299 R ′ + 0.587 G ′ + 0.114 B ′ {\displaystyle Y'_{\text{601}}=0.299R'+0.587G'+0.114B'} Formats following ITU-R Recommendation BT. 709 (i.e. most digital high definition formats) use a different formula: Y 709 ′ = 0.2126 R ′ + 0.7152 G ′ + 0.0722 B ′ {\displaystyle Y'_{\text{709}}=0.2126R'+0.7152G'+0.0722B'} Modern HDTV systems use the 709 coefficients, while transitional 1035i HDTV (MUSE) formats may use the SMPTE 240M coefficients: Y 240 ′ = 0.212 R ′ + 0.701 G ′ + 0.087 B ′ = Y 145 ′ {\displaystyle Y'_{\text{240}}=0.212R'+0.701G'+0.087B'=Y'_{\text{145}}} These coefficients correspond to the SMPTE RP 145 primaries (also known as "SMPTE C") in use at the time the standard was created. The change in the luma coefficients is to provide the "theoretically correct" coefficients that reflect the corresponding standard chromaticities ('colors') of the primaries red, green, and blue. However, there is some controversy regarding this decision. The difference in luma coefficients requires that component signals must be converted between Rec. 601 and Rec. 709 to provide accurate colors. In consumer equipment, the matrix required to perform this conversion may be omitted (to reduce cost), resulting in inaccurate color. == Luma and luminance errors == As well, the Rec. 709 luma coefficients may not necessarily provide better performance. Because of the difference between luma and relative luminance, luma does not exactly represent the luminance in an image. As a result, errors in chroma can affect luminance. Luma alone does not perfectly represent luminance; accurate luminance requires both accurate luma and chroma. Hence, errors in chroma "bleed" into the luminance of an image. Note the bleeding in lightness near the borders. Due to the widespread usage of chroma subsampling, errors in chroma typically occur when it is lowered in resolution/bandwidth. This lowered bandwidth, coupled with high frequency chroma components, can cause visible errors in luminance. An example of a high frequency chroma component would be the line between the green and magenta bars of the SMPTE color bars test pattern. Error in luminance can be seen as a dark band that occurs in this area.
BRFplus
BRFplus (Business Rule Framework plus) is a business rule management system (BRMS) offered by SAP AG. BRFplus is part of the SAP NetWeaver ABAP stack. Therefore, all SAP applications that are based on SAP NetWeaver can access BRFplus within the boundaries of an SAP system. However, it is also possible to generate web services so that BRFplus rules can also be offered as a service in a SOA landscape, regardless of the software platform used by the service consumers. BRFplus development started as a supporting tool that was part of SAP Business ByDesign, an ERP solution targeted at small and medium size companies. By that time, the tool was called "Formula and Derivation Tool" (FDT). Later on, it was decided to maintain BRFplus on those codelines that serve as the basis for SAP Business Suite. With that, business rules that have been created for Business ByDesign can easily be taken over in a full-size SAP system where they are ready for use without any changes. == Overview == BRFplus offers a unified modeling and runtime environment for business rules that addresses both technical users (programmers, system administrators) as well as business users who take care of operational business processes (like procurement, bidding, tax form validation, etc.). The different requirements and usage scenarios of the different target groups can be covered with the help of the SAP authorization system and a user interface that can be individually customized. Being integrated into SAP NetWeaver, BRFplus-based applications can look at, and model, business rules from a strictly business-oriented perspective, rather than starting with the underlying technical artifacts. This is because the integration allows for direct access to the business objects available in the SAP dictionary (like customer, supplier, material, bill, etc.). In addition to the predefined expression types (decision table, decision tree, formula, database access, loops, etc.) and actions (sending e-mails, triggering a workflow, etc.), BRFplus can be extended by custom expression types. Also, direct calls of function modules as well as ABAP OO class methods are supported so that the entire range of the ABAP programming language is available for solving business tasks. BRFplus comes with an optional versioning mechanism. Versioning can be switched on and off for individual objects as well as for entire applications. Versioned business rules are needed in certain use cases for legal reasons, but they also allow for simulating the system behavior as it would have been at a particular point in time. Once the rule objects are in a consistent state and active, the system automatically generates ABAP OO classes that encapsulate the functional scope of the underlying rule object. This is done on an on-demand base and speeds up processing. The execution of functions as well as of single expressions can be simulated. The processing log of the simulation is useful for checking the implementation and for investigating problems. BRFplus applications can be exported and imported as an XML file. This is an easy way of creating a data backup. XML files can also be used for deploying rule applications throughout the company. == Main object types == === Application === The application object serves as a container for all the BRFplus objects that have been assembled to solve a particular business task. It is possible to define certain default settings on application level that are inherited by all objects that are created in the scope of that application. === Function === A function is used to connect a business application with the rule processing framework of BRFplus. The calling business application passes input values to the function which are then processed by the expressions and rulesets that are associated with the called function. The calculated result is then returned to the calling business application. === Expression types and action types === Boolean BRMS Connector Case Database Lookup Decision Table Decision Tree Formula Function Call Loop Procedure Call Random Number Search Tree Step Sequence Value Range1 XSL Transformation === Ruleset === A ruleset is a container for an arbitrary number of rule objects which in turn carry out the necessary calculations with the help of assigned expressions and actions. Instead of assigning an expression to a function, it is also possible to assign any number of rulesets to a function. When the function is called, all assigned rulesets are subsequently processed. === Data objects === BRFplus supports elementary data objects (text, number, boolean, time point, amount, quantity) as well as structures and tables. Structures can be nested. For all types of data objects it is possible to reference data objects that reside in the data dictionary of the backend system. With that, a BRFplus data object does not only inherit the type definition of the referenced object but can also access associated data like domain value lists or object documentation. === Other objects === With catalogs, it is possible to define business-specific subsets of the rule objects that reside in the system. This is helpful for hiding the complexity of a rule system, thus improving usability. Object filters are used by system administrators to ensure that for selected users, only a predefined subset of object types is visible. This is useful to enforce access rights as well as modeling policies. == Other BRM solutions offered by SAP == BRFplus is positioned as the successor product of an older business rule solution known as BRF (Business Rule Framework). For a longer transition phase, both solutions exist in parallel. However, an increasing number of SAP applications that used to be based on BRF are migrating to BRFplus. While BRFplus supports business rules for applications based on the SAP NetWeaver ABAP stack, SAP is offering another product named SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management (BRM). BRM supports business rule modeling for the SAP NetWeaver Java stack. Both products do not compete. They are available in parallel and can be used in a collaborative approach to deal with use cases where both technology stacks are used in parallel. BRFplus comes with a special expression type that helps bridging the gap between the two different technologies. == Availability == BRFplus has been delivered to the public with SAP NetWeaver 7.0 Enhancement Package 1 for the first time. Being part of SAP NetWeaver, the usage of BRFplus is covered by the "SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party Applications" license, with no additional costs. == Literature == Carsten Ziegler, Thomas Albrecht: BRFplus – Business Rule Management for ABAP Applications. Galileo Press 2011. ISBN 978-1-59229-293-6