In automata theory, a self-verifying finite automaton (SVFA) is a special kind of a nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) with a symmetric kind of nondeterminism introduced by Hromkovič and Schnitger. Generally, in self-verifying nondeterminism, each computation path is concluded with any of the three possible answers: yes, no, and I do not know. For each input string, no two paths may give contradictory answers, namely both answers yes and no on the same input are not possible. At least one path must give answer yes or no, and if it is yes then the string is considered accepted. SVFA accept the same class of languages as deterministic finite automata (DFA) and NFA but have different state complexity. == Formal definition == An SVFA is represented formally by a 6-tuple, A=(Q, Σ, Δ, q0, Fa, Fr) such that (Q, Σ, Δ, q0, Fa) is an NFA, and Fa, Fr are disjoint subsets of Q. For each word w = a1a2 … an, a computation is a sequence of states r0,r1, …, rn, in Q with the following conditions: r0 = q0 ri+1 ∈ Δ(ri, ai+1), for i = 0, …, n−1. If rn ∈ Fa then the computation is accepting, and if rn ∈ Fr then the computation is rejecting. There is a requirement that for each w there is at least one accepting computation or at least one rejecting computation but not both. == Results == Each DFA is a SVFA, but not vice versa. Jirásková and Pighizzini proved that for every SVFA of n states, there exists an equivalent DFA of g ( n ) = Θ ( 3 n / 3 ) {\displaystyle g(n)=\Theta (3^{n/3})} states. Furthermore, for each positive integer n, there exists an n-state SVFA such that the minimal equivalent DFA has exactly g ( n ) {\displaystyle g(n)} states. Other results on the state complexity of SVFA were obtained by Jirásková and her colleagues.
The Cancer Imaging Archive
The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA) is an open-access database of medical images for cancer research. The site is funded by the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Cancer Imaging Program, and the contract is operated by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Data within the archive is organized into collections which typically share a common cancer type and/or anatomical site. The majority of the data consists of CT, MRI, and nuclear medicine (e.g. PET) images stored in DICOM format, but many other types of supporting data are also provided or linked to, in order to enhance research utility. All data are de-identified in order to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and National Institutes of Health data sharing policies. TCIA resources are intended to support: Development of computer aided diagnosis methods (quantitative imaging) Evaluation of unbiased science reproducibility by acceptable standard statistical methods Research on correlation of clinical diagnostic medical images with digital microscopic histological images Exploratory biomarker research for which imaging is a key element Collaboration between cross-disciplinary investigators where imaging is crucial to research on tumor heterogeneity, between patients and within the tumor; tissue temporal response tracking - objective measurements of tumor progression; imaging genomics and Big Data linkages and analysis (clinical, histo-pathology, genomics) TCIA is recognized as a recommended repository for the Scientific Data, PLOS One, and F1000Research journals. It is also listed in the Registry of Research Data Repositories. == History == Prior to the creation of TCIA, the NCI funded development of the National Biomedical Imaging Archive. NBIA is an open-source Web application which was designed to allow the storage and query of DICOM images. TCIA was subsequently initiated in December 2010 to expand data sharing activities by funding a service component which would help address the technical and policy challenges associated with medical imaging research. TCIA leverages open-source tools such as NBIA and Clinical Trials Processor in order to provide its services. == Organization of the archive == The site content is organized into five categories: About Us - Provides a general overview of the site the organizations responsible for operating it. Share Your Data - Provides an overview of how to apply to upload data to the archive. Access the Archive - Provides information about the available data, methods for accessing that data and system usage metrics. Research Activities - Provides information about major research initiatives being conducted using TCIA data as well as information about publication guidelines. Help - Provides information about how to get support using the archive as well as documentation and data usage policies. == Methods for accessing data == Most collections on the Cancer Imaging Archive can be accessed without an account, but a few are restricted to specific users and therefore require an account to access them. TCIA has several ways to browse, filter, and download data. They include: Downloading the entire contents of a collection in bulk Leveraging the NBIA application to filter or search within or across collections Utilizing the RESTful Application programming interface to filter or search within or across collections === Browsing, bulk downloading and access to supporting data === The home page includes a list of all available collections. Basic information about the data such as the cancer type, cancer location, modalities, and number of subjects are also provided. Clicking on a collection name presents a page which describes the data including its original research purpose, how the data were generated, and how it might be useful to other TCIA users. For example, doi:10.7937/K9/TCIA.2015.L4FRET6Z describes the NSCLC-Radiomics-Genomics Collection. In the lower section of the page there are links to search or download the images and any available supporting data in the Data Access tab. Additional tabs provide information about data versions and how to cite the data if used in publications. Many collections contain additional data types such as genomics, patient demographics, treatment details, and expert analyses of the images. This data is usually only found by browsing the collection pages as opposed to searching in NBIA or using the API. === Filtering or searching with NBIA === On each Collection page and also in the main menu of the site there are links to "Search TCIA". This will load the NBIA application which allows simple, advanced and free text searches. Search results follow the conventional DICOM hierarchy of patient -> study -> series. TCIA provides comprehensive documentation on the various features of the NBIA software. === RESTful API === A number of search and download commands are also available through the API. New iterations on the API are released as new versions, so that existing applications developed against older versions of the API continue to function. == Research activities == A list of known publications based on TCIA data is maintained as a convenience to researchers who might want to investigate how it has been used previously. In addition to peer-reviewed publications there are also several major research initiatives described in the Research Activities section of the site. === The CIP TCGA Radiology Initiative for Radiogenomics Research === A large number of collections contain subjects which were analyzed as part of the NIH/NHGRI database known as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). This offers researchers the ability to correlate clinical images using shared unique identifiers each study that has in TCGA extensive genomic analysis, digital pathology slides and bulk download of individual demographic data and clinical data. A multi-institutional network of investigators volunteering their time is using the data to develop methods to determine prognosis or predict the response to therapy. TCGA collections are designated by nomenclature shared by the TCGA Data Portal (e.g.: TCGA-BRCA, TCGA-GBM, etc). They are subject to a special publication policy which is unique from the other public data on TCIA. === Challenge competitions === TCIA also provides specific data sets used for "Challenge" competitions such as international digital image-focused professional societies like MICCAI, SPIE, or ISBI. A directory of previous and upcoming challenges is maintained on the site. === Digital object identifiers === To facilitate data sharing, many publications encourage authors to include data citations to the data that the authors used in creating the results described in their scholarly papers. In addition, new journals are now available for describing data collections outright (e.g., Nature Scientific Data). TCIA assigns digital object identifiers (DOIs) to all collections when they are submitted, and also has the ability to create persistent identifiers linked to subsets of data held within TCIA that authors may use for data citations in their scholarly papers.
WYSIWYM (interaction technique)
What you see is what you meant (WYSIWYM) is a text editing interaction technique that emerged from two projects at University of Brighton. It allows users to create abstract knowledge representations such as those required by the Semantic Web using a natural language interface. Natural language understanding (NLU) technology is not employed. Instead, natural language generation (NLG) is used in a highly interactive manner. The text editor accepts repeated refinement of a selected span of text as it becomes progressively less vacuous of authored semantics. Using a mouse, a text property held in the evolving text can be further refined by a set of options derived by NLG from a built-in ontology. An invisible representation of the semantic knowledge is created which can be used for multilingual document generation, formal knowledge formation, or any other task that requires formally specified information. The two projects at Brighton worked in the field of Conceptual Authoring to lay a foundation for further research and development of a Semantic Web Authoring Tool (SWAT). This tool has been further explored as a means for developing a knowledge base by those without prior experience with Controlled Natural Language tools.
Tractable (company)
Tractable is a technology company specializing in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assess damage to property and vehicles. The AI allows users to appraise damage digitally. == Technology == Tractable's technology uses computer vision and deep learning to automate the appraisal of visual damage in accident and disaster recovery, for example to a vehicle. Drivers can be directed to use the application by their insurer after an accident, with the aim of settling their claim more quickly. The AI evaluates the damage from images, and therefore doesn't assess what isn't visible (such as, for example, interior damage to a vehicle or property). == History == Alexandre Dalyac and Razvan Ranca founded Tractable in 2014, and Adrien Cohen joined as co-founder in 2015. The company employs more than 300 staff members, largely in the United Kingdom. Tractable was named one of the 100 leading AI companies in the world in 2020 and 2021 by CB Insights. It won the Best Technology Award in the 2020 British Insurance Awards. In June 2021, Tractable announced a venture round that valued the company at $1 billion. Tractable was the UK's 100th billion-dollar tech company, or unicorn. In July 2023, the company received a $65 million investment from SoftBank Group, through its Vision Fund 2.
Information Coding Classification
The Information Coding Classification (ICC) is a classification system covering almost all extant 6500 knowledge fields (knowledge domains). Its conceptualization goes beyond the scope of the well known library classification systems, such as Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), and Library of Congress Classification (LCC), by extending also to knowledge systems that so far have not afforded to classify literature. ICC actually presents a flexible universal ordering system for both literature and other kinds of information, set out as knowledge fields. From a methodological point of view, ICC differs from the above-mentioned systems along the following three lines: Its main classes are not based on disciplines but on nine live stages of development, so-called ontical levels. It breaks them roughly down into hierarchical steps by further nine categories which makes decimal number coding possible. The contents of a knowledge field is earmarked via a digital position scheme, which makes the first hierarchical step refer to the nine ontical levels (object areas as subject categories), and the second hierarchical step refer to nine functionally ordered form categories. Respective knowledge fields permit to step down by the same principle to a third and forth level, and even further to a fifth and sixth level. Finally, knowledge field subdivisions will have to conform to said digital position scheme. Hence, for a given knowledge field identical codes will mark identical categories under respective numbers of the coding system. This mnemotechnical aspect of the system helps memorizing and straightaway retrieving the whereabouts of respective interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary fields. The first two hierarchical levels may be regarded as a top- or upper ontology for ontologies and other applications. The terms of the first three hierarchical levels were set out in German and English in Wissensorganisation. Entwicklung, Aufgabe, Anwendung, Zukunft, on pp. 82 to 100. It was published in 2014 and available so far only in German. In the meantime, also the French terms of the knowledge fields have been collected. Competence for maintenance and further development rests with the German Chapter of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO) e.V. == Historical development == At the end of 1970, Prof. Alwin Diemer, Univ.of Düsseldorf proposed to Ingetraut Dahlberg to undertake a philosophical dissertation on The universal classification system of knowledge, its ontological, epistemological, and information theoretical foundations. Diemer had in mind an innovating ontological approach for such a system based on the whole spectrum of kinds of being and complying with epistemological requirements. The third requirement had already been taken up somehow in the Indian Colon Classification, yet it still called for explanations and additions. In 1974, the dissertation was published in German entitled Grundlagen universaler Wissensordnung. It started with conceptual clarifications, and why and how the term „universal“ was linked to knowledge, including knowledge fields, such as commodity science, artefacts, statistics, patents, standardization, communication, utility services et al. In chapter 3, six universal classification systems (DDC, UDC, LCC, BC, CC and BBK) were presented, analyzed and compared. While preparing the dissertation, Dahlberg started with elaborating the new universal system by first gleaning a lot of extant designations of knowledge fields from whatever available reference works. This was funded by the German Documentation Society (DGD) (1971-2) under the title of Order system of knowledge fields. In addition, the syllabuses of German universities and polytechniques were explored for relevant terms and documented (1975). Thereafter, it seemed necessary to add definitions from special dictionaries and encyclopediae; it soon appeared that the 12.500 terms included numerous synonyms, so that the whole collection boiled down to about 6.500 concept designations (Project Logstruktur, supported by the German Science Foundation (DFG) 1976-78). The outcome of this work was the formulation of 30 theses which ended up in 12 principles for the new system, published 40 years later under. These principles refer not only to theoretical foundations but also to structure and other organizational aspects of the whole array of knowledge fields. In 1974, the digital position scheme for field subdivision had already been developed to allow for classifying classification literature in the bibliographical section of the first issue of the Journal International Classification. In 1977, the entire ICC was ready for presentation at a seminar in Bangalore, India. A publication of the first three hierarchical levels appeared however only in 1982. It was applied to the bibliography of classification systems and thesauri in vol.1 of the International Classification and Indexing Bibliography; it has been updated. == Governing principles == These were published in full length in the book Wissensorganisation. Entwicklung, Aufgabe, Anwendung, Zukunft and the article Information Coding Classification. Geschichtliches, Prinzipien, Inhaltliches, hence it suffices to just mention their topics with some necessary additions. Principle 1: Concept theoretical approaches. Concepts are the contents of ICC, they are understood as being units of knowledge. The „birth“ of a concept. Where do the characteristics, the knowledge elements come from? How do conceptual relations arise? Principle 2: The four kinds of concept relations and their applications. Principle 3: Decimal numbers form the ICC codes as its universal language. Principle 4: The nine ontical levels of ICC. They were grouped under three captions: Prolegomena (1-3), life sciences (4-6) and human output (7-9): Structure and form Matter and energy Cosmos and earth Biosphere Anthroposphere Sociosphere Material products (economics and technology) Intellectual products (knowledge and information) Spiritual products (products of mind and culture) Principle 5: Knowledge fields are structured by categories, based on the Aristotelian form-categories, under a digital position scheme, a kind of scaling rule for subdividing a given field as follows: General area: problems, theories, principles (axiom and structure) Object area: objects, kinds, parts, properties of objects Activity area: methods, processes, activities Field properties or first characterization Persons or secondary characterization Societies or tertiary characterization Influences from outside Applications of the field to other fields Field information and synthesizing tasks The digital position scheme, called Systematifier, has also been used for structuring the entire system via the categories figuring on the upper zero level. An example of its application is the structure of the classification system for knowledge organization literature Gliederung der Klassifikationsliteratur. (A simplified version with an additional introduction is given in, p. 71) Principle 6: The ontical levels outlined under principle 4 conform to the „integrative level theory“ which means that every level is integrated in the following one. In addition, each knowledge area presumes the following one. Principle 7: The combination potential of knowledge fields (interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity)is determined by the digital position scheme. (Examples are given in, p. 103-4) Principle 8: The categories of the zero-level are general concepts, their possible subdivisions could once be used for classificatory statements. (These subdivisions still need elaboration) Principle 9 and 10: These relate to the combination potential of classificatory statements with space and time concepts. (Still to be elaborated) Principle 11: The system's mnemotechnical aspect relies on the fixed system position codes and on the 3x3 form- and subject-categories. Principle 12: The combination potential of system position 1, 8 and 9 make ICC to a self-networking system which complies with the present scientific development. == In matrix form == The first two levels of ICC can be represented by following matrix. The first hierarchical level of the 9 subject categories results from the first vertical array under codes 1-9. The second hierarchical level of subject categories is structured by the 9 functionally ordered form categories, listed in the first horizontal line under codes 01-09. Some exceptions are mentioned in principle 7. == Research == === Exploration of automatic classification === For classifying web documents as conceived by Jens Hartmann, University of Karlsruhe, Prof.Walter Koch, University of Graz, has explored in his Institute for Applied Information Technology Research Society (AIT) the application of ICC to automatically classifying metadata of some 350.000 documents. This was facilitated by data generated within the framework of an E
WaveNet
WaveNet is a deep neural network for generating raw audio. It was created by researchers at London-based AI firm DeepMind. The technique, outlined in a paper in September 2016, is able to generate relatively realistic-sounding human-like voices by directly modelling waveforms using a neural network method trained with recordings of real speech. Tests with US English and Mandarin reportedly showed that the system outperforms Google's best existing text-to-speech (TTS) systems, although as of 2016 its text-to-speech synthesis still was less convincing than actual human speech. WaveNet's ability to generate raw waveforms means that it can model any kind of audio, including music. == History == Generating speech from text is an increasingly common task thanks to the popularity of software such as Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant. Most such systems use a variation of a technique that involves concatenated sound fragments together to form recognisable sounds and words. The most common of these is called concatenative TTS. It consists of large library of speech fragments, recorded from a single speaker that are then concatenated to produce complete words and sounds. The result sounds unnatural, with an odd cadence and tone. The reliance on a recorded library also makes it difficult to modify or change the voice. Another technique, known as parametric TTS, uses mathematical models to recreate sounds that are then assembled into words and sentences. The information required to generate the sounds is stored in the parameters of the model. The characteristics of the output speech are controlled via the inputs to the model, while the speech is typically created using a voice synthesiser known as a vocoder. This can also result in unnatural sounding audio. == Design and ongoing research == === Background === WaveNet is a type of feedforward neural network known as a deep convolutional neural network (CNN). In WaveNet, the CNN takes a raw signal as an input and synthesises an output one sample at a time. It does so by sampling from a softmax (i.e. categorical) distribution of a signal value that is encoded using μ-law companding transformation and quantized to 256 possible values. === Initial concept and results === According to the original September 2016 DeepMind research paper WaveNet: A Generative Model for Raw Audio, the network was fed real waveforms of speech in English and Mandarin. As these pass through the network, it learns a set of rules to describe how the audio waveform evolves over time. The trained network can then be used to create new speech-like waveforms at 16,000 samples per second. These waveforms include realistic breaths and lip smacks – but do not conform to any language. WaveNet is able to accurately model different voices, with the accent and tone of the input correlating with the output. For example, if it is trained with German, it produces German speech. The capability also means that if the WaveNet is fed other inputs – such as music – its output will be musical. At the time of its release, DeepMind showed that WaveNet could produce waveforms that sound like classical music. === Content (voice) swapping === According to the June 2018 paper Disentangled Sequential Autoencoder, DeepMind has successfully used WaveNet for audio and voice "content swapping": the network can swap the voice on an audio recording for another, pre-existing voice while maintaining the text and other features from the original recording. "We also experiment on audio sequence data. Our disentangled representation allows us to convert speaker identities into each other while conditioning on the content of the speech." (p. 5) "For audio, this allows us to convert a male speaker into a female speaker and vice versa [...]." (p. 1) According to the paper, a two-digit minimum amount of hours (c. 50 hours) of pre-existing speech recordings of both source and target voice are required to be fed into WaveNet for the program to learn their individual features before it is able to perform the conversion from one voice to another at a satisfying quality. The authors stress that "[a]n advantage of the model is that it separates dynamical from static features [...]." (p. 8), i. e. WaveNet is capable of distinguishing between the spoken text and modes of delivery (modulation, speed, pitch, mood, etc.) to maintain during the conversion from one voice to another on the one hand, and the basic features of both source and target voices that it is required to swap on the other. The January 2019 follow-up paper Unsupervised speech representation learning using WaveNet autoencoders details a method to successfully enhance the proper automatic recognition and discrimination between dynamical and static features for "content swapping", notably including swapping voices on existing audio recordings, in order to make it more reliable. Another follow-up paper, Sample Efficient Adaptive Text-to-Speech, dated September 2018 (latest revision January 2019), states that DeepMind has successfully reduced the minimum amount of real-life recordings required to sample an existing voice via WaveNet to "merely a few minutes of audio data" while maintaining high-quality results. Its ability to clone voices has raised ethical concerns about WaveNet's ability to mimic the voices of living and dead persons. According to a 2016 BBC article, companies working on similar voice-cloning technologies (such as Adobe Voco) intend to insert watermarking inaudible to humans to prevent counterfeiting, while maintaining that voice cloning satisfying, for instance, the needs of entertainment-industry purposes would be of a far lower complexity and use different methods than required to fool forensic evidencing methods and electronic ID devices, so that natural voices and voices cloned for entertainment-industry purposes could still be easily told apart by technological analysis. == Applications == At the time of its release, DeepMind said that WaveNet required too much computational processing power to be used in real world applications. As of October 2017, Google announced a 1,000-fold performance improvement along with better voice quality. WaveNet was then used to generate Google Assistant voices for US English and Japanese across all Google platforms. In November 2017, DeepMind researchers released a research paper detailing a proposed method of "generating high-fidelity speech samples at more than 20 times faster than real-time", called "Probability Density Distillation". At the annual I/O developer conference in May 2018, it was announced that new Google Assistant voices were available and made possible by WaveNet; WaveNet greatly reduced the number of audio recordings that were required to create a voice model by modeling the raw audio of the voice actor samples.
OpenVINO
OpenVINO is an open-source software toolkit developed by Intel for optimizing and deploying deep learning models. It supports several popular model formats and categories, such as large language models, computer vision, and generative AI. OpenVINO is optimized for Intel hardware, but offers support for ARM/ARM64 processors. It sees great use in AI Sound Processing drivers when tied with Intel's Gaussian & Neural Accelerator (GNA). Based in C++, it extends API support for C and Python, as well as Node.js (in early preview). OpenVINO is cross-platform and free for use under Apache License 2.0. == Workflow == The simplest OpenVINO usage involves obtaining a model and running it as is. Yet for the best results, a more complete workflow is suggested: obtain a model in one of supported frameworks, convert the model to OpenVINO IR using the OpenVINO Converter tool, optimize the model, using training-time or post-training options provided by OpenVINO's NNCF. execute inference, using OpenVINO Runtime by specifying one of several inference modes. == OpenVINO model format == OpenVINO IR is the default format used to run inference. It is saved as a set of two files, .bin and .xml, containing weights and topology, respectively. It is obtained by converting a model from one of the supported frameworks, using the application's API or a dedicated converter. Models of the supported formats may also be used for inference directly, without prior conversion to OpenVINO IR. Such an approach is more convenient but offers fewer optimization options and lower performance, since the conversion is performed automatically before inference. Some pre-converted models can be found in the Hugging Face repository. The supported model formats are: PyTorch TensorFlow TensorFlow Lite ONNX (including formats that may be serialized to ONNX) PaddlePaddle JAX/Flax == OS support == OpenVINO runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS.