Seeing AI is an artificial intelligence application developed by Microsoft for iOS. Seeing AI uses the device camera to identify people and objects, and then the app audibly describes those objects for visually impaired people. == Capabilities == Seeing AI is primarily used to describe short text, documents, products, people, currency scenery, colors, handwriting and light. The app can scan a barcode to describe a product and uses sounds to assist the user in focusing on the barcode. When the app describes people, it attempts to estimate the person's age, gender, and emotional status. Additionally, in a test run by German journalists in December 2019, Seeing AI apparently used some sort of facial recognition system to identify people on photographs by name. Some functions are performed on the device, however more complex functions such as describing a scene or recognizing handwriting require an Internet connection. In December 2017, Seeing AI introduced the ability for currency recognition for US and Canadian dollar, British pounds and Euros. In December 2019, Seeing AI added support for five more languages, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Spanish. Seeing AI is available in 70 countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Albania, Bhutan, etc. Supported on iPhone 5C, 5S and later best performance with iPhone 6S, SE and later models
Cygwin
Cygwin ( SIG-win) is a free and open-source Unix-like environment and command-line interface (CLI) for Microsoft Windows. The project also provides a software repository containing open-source packages. Cygwin allows source code for Unix-like operating systems to be compiled and run on Windows. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications. The terminal emulator mintty is the default command-line interface provided to interact with the environment. The Cygwin installation directory layout mimics the root file system of Unix-like systems, with directories such as /bin, /home, /etc, /usr, and /var. Cygwin is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3. It was originally developed by Cygnus Solutions, which was later acquired by Red Hat (now part of IBM), to port the GNU toolchain to Win32, including the GNU Compiler Suite. Rather than rewrite the tools to use the Win32 runtime environment, Cygwin implemented a POSIX-compatible environment in the form of a DLL. The brand motto is "Get that Linux feeling – on Windows", although Cygwin doesn't have Linux in it. == History == Cygwin began in 1995 as a project of Steve Chamberlain, a Cygnus engineer who observed that Windows NT and 95 used COFF as their object file format, and that GNU already included support for x86 and COFF, and the C library newlib. He thought that it would be possible to retarget GCC and produce a cross compiler generating executables that could run on Windows. A prototype was later developed. Chamberlain bootstrapped the compiler on a Windows system, to emulate Unix to let the GNU configure shell script run. Initially, Cygwin was called Cygwin32. When Microsoft registered the trademark Win32, the "32" was dropped to simply become Cygwin. In 1999, Cygnus offered Cygwin 1.0 as a commercial product. Subsequent versions have not been released, instead relying on continued open source releases. Geoffrey Noer was the project lead from 1996 to 1999. Christopher Faylor was lead from 1999 to 2004; he left Red Hat and became co-lead with Corinna Vinschen. Corinna Vinschen has been the project lead from mid-2014 to date (as of September, 2024). From June 23, 2016, the Cygwin library version 2.5.2 was licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 3. == Description == Cygwin is provided in two versions: the full 64-bit version and a stripped-down 32-bit version, whose final version was released in 2022. Cygwin consists of a library that implements the POSIX system call API in terms of Windows system calls to enable the running of a large number of application programs equivalent to those on Unix systems, and a GNU development toolchain (including GCC and GDB). Programmers have ported the X Window System, K Desktop Environment 3, GNOME, Apache, and TeX. Cygwin permits installing inetd, syslogd, sshd, Apache, and other daemons as standard Windows services. Cygwin programs have full access to the Windows API and other Windows libraries. Cygwin programs are installed by running Cygwin's "setup" program, which downloads them from repositories on the Internet. The Cygwin API library is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 (or later), with an exception to allow linking to any free and open-source software whose license conforms to the Open Source Definition. Cygwin consists of two parts: A dynamic-link library in the form of a C standard library that acts as a compatibility layer for the POSIX API and A collection of software tools and applications that provide a Unix-like look and feel. Cygwin supports POSIX symbolic links, representing them as plain-text files with the system attribute set. Cygwin 1.5 represented them as Windows Explorer shortcuts, but this was changed for reasons of performance and POSIX correctness. Cygwin also recognises NTFS junction points and symbolic links and treats them as POSIX symbolic links, but it does not create them. The POSIX API for handling access control lists (ACLs) is supported. === Technical details === A Cygwin-specific version of the Unix mount command allows mounting Windows paths as "filesystems" in the Unix file space. Initial mount points can be configured in /etc/fstab, which has a format very similar to Unix systems, except that Windows paths appear in place of devices. Filesystems can be mounted in binary mode (by default), or in text mode, which enables automatic conversion between LF and CRLF endings (which only affects programs that open files without explicitly specifying text or binary mode). Cygwin 1.7 introduced comprehensive support for POSIX locales, and the UTF-8 Unicode encoding became the default. The fork system call for duplicating a process is fully implemented, but the copy-on-write optimization strategy could not be used. Cygwin's default user interface is the bash shell running in the mintty terminal emulator. The DLL also implements pseudo terminal (pty) devices, and Cygwin ships with a number of terminal emulators that are based on them, including rxvt/urxvt and xterm. The version of GCC that comes with Cygwin has various extensions for creating Windows DLLs, such as specifying whether a program is a windowing or console-mode program. Support for compiling programs that do not require the POSIX compatibility layer provided by the Cygwin DLL used to be included in the default GCC, but as of 2014, it is provided by cross-compilers contributed by the MinGW-w64 project. == Software packages == Cygwin's base package selection is approximately 100MB, containing the bash (interactive user) and dash (installation) shells and the core file and text manipulation utilities. Additional packages are available as optional installs from within the Cygwin "setup" program and package manager ("setup-x86_64.exe" – 64 bit). The Cygwin Ports project provided additional packages that were not available in the Cygwin distribution itself. Examples included GNOME, K Desktop Environment 3, MySQL database, and the PHP scripting language. Most ports have been adopted by volunteer maintainers as Cygwin packages, and Cygwin Ports are no longer maintained. Cygwin ships with GTK+ and Qt. The Cygwin/X project allows graphical Unix programs to display their user interfaces on the Windows desktop for both local and remote programs.
Algorithms and Combinatorics
Algorithms and Combinatorics (ISSN 0937-5511) is a book series in mathematics, and particularly in combinatorics and the design and analysis of algorithms. It is published by Springer Science+Business Media, and was founded in 1987. == Books == The books published in this series include: The Simplex Method: A Probabilistic Analysis (Karl Heinz Borgwardt, 1987, vol. 1) Geometric Algorithms and Combinatorial Optimization (Martin Grötschel, László Lovász, and Alexander Schrijver, 1988, vol. 2; 2nd ed., 1993) Systems Analysis by Graphs and Matroids (Kazuo Murota, 1987, vol. 3) Greedoids (Bernhard Korte, László Lovász, and Rainer Schrader, 1991, vol. 4) Mathematics of Ramsey Theory (Jaroslav Nešetřil and Vojtěch Rödl, eds., 1990, vol. 5) Matroid Theory and its Applications in Electric Network Theory and in Statics (Andras Recszki, 1989, vol. 6) Irregularities of Partitions: Papers from the meeting held in Fertőd, July 7–11, 1986 (Gábor Halász and Vera T. Sós, eds., 1989, vol. 8) Paths, Flows, and VLSI-Layout: Papers from the meeting held at the University of Bonn, Bonn, June 20–July 1, 1988 (Bernhard Korte, László Lovász, Hans Jürgen Prömel, and Alexander Schrijver, eds., 1990, vol. 9) New Trends in Discrete and Computational Geometry (János Pach, ed., 1993, vol. 10) Discrete Images, Objects, and Functions in Z n {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} ^{n}} (Klaus Voss, 1993, vol. 11) Linear Optimization and Extensions (Manfred Padberg, 1999, vol. 12) The Mathematics of Paul Erdős I (Ronald Graham and Jaroslav Nešetřil, eds., 1997, vol. 13) The Mathematics of Paul Erdős II (Ronald Graham and Jaroslav Nešetřil, eds., 1997, vol. 14) Geometry of Cuts and Metrics (Michel Deza and Monique Laurent, 1997, vol. 15) Probabilistic Methods for Algorithmic Discrete Mathematics (M. Habib, C. McDiarmid, J. Ramirez-Alfonsin, and B. Reed, 1998, vol. 16) Modern Cryptography, Probabilistic Proofs and Pseudorandomness (Oded Goldreich, 1999, vol. 17) Geometric Discrepancy: An Illustrated Guide (Jiří Matoušek, 1999, vol. 18) Applied Finite Group Actions (Adalbert Kerber, 1999, vol. 19) Matrices and Matroids for Systems Analysis (Kazuo Murota, 2000, vol. 20; corrected ed., 2010) Combinatorial Optimization (Bernhard Korte and Jens Vygen, 2000, vol. 21; 5th ed., 2012) The Strange Logic of Random Graphs (Joel Spencer, 2001, vol. 22) Graph Colouring and the Probabilistic Method (Michael Molloy and Bruce Reed, 2002, Vol. 23) Combinatorial Optimization: Polyhedra and Efficiency (Alexander Schrijver, 2003, vol. 24. In three volumes: A. Paths, flows, matchings; B. Matroids, trees, stable sets; C. Disjoint paths, hypergraphs) Discrete and Computational Geometry: The Goodman-Pollack Festschrift (B. Aronov, S. Basu, J. Pach, and M. Sharir, eds., 2003, vol. 25) Topics in Discrete Mathematics: Dedicated to Jarik Nešetril on the Occasion of his 60th birthday (M. Klazar, J. Kratochvíl, M. Loebl, J. Matoušek, R. Thomas, and P. Valtr, eds., 2006, vol. 26) Boolean Function Complexity: Advances and Frontiers (Stasys Jukna, 2012, Vol. 27) Sparsity: Graphs, Structures, and Algorithms (Jaroslav Nešetřil and Patrice Ossona de Mendez, 2012, vol. 28) Optimal Interconnection Trees in the Plane (Marcus Brazil and Martin Zachariasen, 2015, vol. 29) Combinatorics and Complexity of Partition Functions (Alexander Barvinok, 2016, vol. 30)
Token-based replay
Token-based replay technique is a conformance checking algorithm that checks how well a process conforms with its model by replaying each trace on the model (in Petri net notation ). Using the four counters produced tokens, consumed tokens, missing tokens, and remaining tokens, it records the situations where a transition is forced to fire and the remaining tokens after the replay ends. Based on the count at each counter, we can compute the fitness value between the trace and the model. == The algorithm == Source: The token-replay technique uses four counters to keep track of a trace during the replaying: p: Produced tokens c: Consumed tokens m: Missing tokens (consumed while not there) r: Remaining tokens (produced but not consumed) Invariants: At any time: p + m ≥ c ≥ m {\displaystyle p+m\geq c\geq m} At the end: r = p + m − c {\displaystyle r=p+m-c} At the beginning, a token is produced for the source place (p = 1) and at the end, a token is consumed from the sink place (c' = c + 1). When the replay ends, the fitness value can be computed as follows: 1 2 ( 1 − m c ) + 1 2 ( 1 − r p ) {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {m}{c}})+{\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {r}{p}})} == Example == Suppose there is a process model in Petri net notation as follows: === Example 1: Replay the trace (a, b, c, d) on the model M === Step 1: A token is initiated. There is one produced token ( p = 1 {\displaystyle p=1} ). Step 2: The activity a {\displaystyle \mathbf {a} } consumes 1 token to be fired and produces 2 tokens ( p = 1 + 2 = 3 {\displaystyle p=1+2=3} and c = 1 {\displaystyle c=1} ). Step 3: The activity b {\displaystyle \mathbf {b} } consumes 1 token and produces 1 token ( p = 3 + 1 = 4 {\displaystyle p=3+1=4} and c = 1 + 1 = 2 {\displaystyle c=1+1=2} ). Step 4: The activity c {\displaystyle \mathbf {c} } consumes 1 token and produces 1 token ( p = 4 + 1 = 5 {\displaystyle p=4+1=5} and c = 2 + 1 = 3 {\displaystyle c=2+1=3} ). Step 5: The activity d {\displaystyle \mathbf {d} } consumes 2 tokens and produces 1 token ( p = 5 + 1 = 6 {\displaystyle p=5+1=6} , c = 3 + 2 = 5 {\displaystyle c=3+2=5} ). Step 6: The token at the end place is consumed ( c = 5 + 1 = 6 {\displaystyle c=5+1=6} ). The trace is complete. The fitness of the trace ( a , b , c , d {\displaystyle \mathbf {a,b,c,d} } ) on the model M {\displaystyle \mathbf {M} } is: 1 2 ( 1 − m c ) + 1 2 ( 1 − r p ) = 1 2 ( 1 − 0 6 ) + 1 2 ( 1 − 0 6 ) = 1 {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {m}{c}})+{\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {r}{p}})={\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {0}{6}})+{\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {0}{6}})=1} === Example 2: Replay the trace (a, b, d) on the model M === Step 1: A token is initiated. There is one produced token ( p = 1 {\displaystyle p=1} ). Step 2: The activity a {\displaystyle \mathbf {a} } consumes 1 token to be fired and produces 2 tokens ( p = 1 + 2 = 3 {\displaystyle p=1+2=3} and c = 1 {\displaystyle c=1} ). Step 3: The activity b {\displaystyle \mathbf {b} } consumes 1 token and produces 1 token ( p = 3 + 1 = 4 {\displaystyle p=3+1=4} and c = 1 + 1 = 2 {\displaystyle c=1+1=2} ). Step 4: The activity d {\displaystyle \mathbf {d} } needs to be fired but there are not enough tokens. One artificial token was produced and the missing token counter is increased by one ( m = 1 {\displaystyle m=1} ). The artificial token and the token at place [ b , d ] {\displaystyle [\mathbf {b,d} ]} are consumed ( c = 2 + 2 = 4 {\displaystyle c=2+2=4} ) and one token is produced at place end ( p = 4 + 1 = 5 {\displaystyle p=4+1=5} ). Step 5: The token in the end place is consumed ( c = 4 + 1 = 5 {\displaystyle c=4+1=5} ). The trace is complete. There is one remaining token at place [ a , c ] {\displaystyle [\mathbf {a,c} ]} ( r = 1 {\displaystyle r=1} ). The fitness of the trace ( a , b , d {\displaystyle \mathbf {a,b,d} } ) on the model M {\displaystyle \mathbf {M} } is: 1 2 ( 1 − m c ) + 1 2 ( 1 − r p ) = 1 2 ( 1 − 1 5 ) + 1 2 ( 1 − 1 5 ) = 0.8 {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {m}{c}})+{\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {r}{p}})={\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {1}{5}})+{\frac {1}{2}}(1-{\frac {1}{5}})=0.8}
Energy informatics
Energy informatics is a research field covering the use of information and communication technology to address energy utilization and management challenges. Methods used for "smart" implementations often combine IoT sensors with artificial intelligence and machine learning. Energy Informatics is founded on flow networks that are the major suppliers and consumers of energy. Their efficiency can be improved by collecting and analyzing information. == Application areas == The field among other consider application areas within: Smart Buildings by developing ICT-centred solutions for improving the energy-efficiency of buildings. Smart Cities by investigating the synergies between demand patterns and supply availability of energy flows in cities and communities to improve energy efficiency, increase integration of renewable sources, and provide resilience towards system faults caused by extreme situations, like hurricanes and flooding. Smart Industries including the development of ICT-centred solutions for improving the energy efficiency and predictability of energy intensive industrial processes, without compromising process and product quality. Smart Energy Networks by developing ICT-centred solutions for coordinating the supply and demand in environmentally sustainable energy networks.
Afghan Girls Robotics Team
The Afghan Girls Robotics Team, also known as the Afghan Dreamers, is an all-girl robotics team from Herat, Afghanistan, founded through the Digital Citizen Fund (DCF) in 2017 by Roya Mahboob and Alireza Mehraban. It is made up of girls between ages 12 and 18 and their mentors. Several members of the team were relocated to Qatar and Mexico by humanitarian and tech entrepreneur Sarah Porter following the fall of Kabul in August 2021. A documentary film featuring members of the team, titled Afghan Dreamers, was released by MTV Documentary Films in 2023. == Origins == The Afghan Girls Robotics Team was co-founded in 2017 by Roya Mahboob, who is their coach, mentor and sponsor, and founder of the Digital Citizen Fund (DCF), which is the parent organization for the team. Dean Kamen was planning a 2017 competition in the United States and had recruited Mahboob to form a team from Afghanistan. Out of 150 girls, 12 were selected for the first team. Before parts were sent by Kamen, they trained in the basement of the home of Mahboob's parents, with scrap metal and without safety equipment under the guidance of their coach, Mahboob's brother Alireza Mehraban, who is also a co-founder of the team. == 2017 and 2018 == In 2017, six members of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team traveled to the United States to participate in the international FIRST Global Challenge robotics competition. Their visas were rejected twice after they made two journeys from Herat to Kabul through Taliban-controlled areas, before officials in the United States government intervened to allow them to enter the United States. Customs officials also detained their robotics kits, which left them two weeks to construct their robot, unlike some teams that had more time. They were awarded a Silver medal for Courageous Achievement. One week after they returned home from the competition, the father of team captain Fatemah Qaderyan, Mohammad Asif Qaderyan, was killed in a suicide bombing. After their United States visas expired, the team participated in competitions in Estonia and Istanbul. Three of the 12 members participated in the 2017 Entrepreneurial Challenge at the Robotex festival in Estonia, and won the competition for their solar-powered robot designed to assist farmers. In 2018, the team trained in Canada, continued to travel in the United States for months and participate in competitions. == 2019 == The Afghan Girls Robotics team had aspirations to develop a science and technology school for girls in Afghanistan. Roya Mahboob interfaced with the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the School of Architecture, and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies Yale University to design the infrastructure for what they named The Dreamer Institute. == 2020 == In March 2020, the governor of Herat at the time, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Afghanistan and a scarcity of ventilators, sought help with the design of low-cost ventilators, and the Afghan Girls Robotics Team was one of six teams contacted by the government. Using a design from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and with guidance from MIT engineers and Douglas Chin, a surgeon in California, the team developed a prototype with Toyota Corolla parts and a chain drive from a Honda motorcycle. UNICEF also supported the team with the acquisition of necessary parts during the three months they spent building the prototype that was completed in July 2020. Their design costs around $500 compared to $50,000 for a ventilator. In December 2020, Minister of Industry and Commerce Nizar Ahmad Ghoryani donated funding and obtained land for a factory to produce the ventilators. Under the direction of their mentor Roya Mahboob, the Afghan Dreamers also designed a UVC Robot for sanitization, and a Spray Robot for disinfection, both of which were approved by the Ministry of Health for production. == 2021 == In early August 2021, Somaya Faruqi, former captain of the team, was quoted by Public Radio International about the future of Afghanistan, stating, "We don’t support any group over another but for us what’s important is that we be able to continue our work. Women in Afghanistan have made a lot of progress over the past two decades and this progress must be respected." On August 17, 2021, the Afghan Girls Robotics Team and their coaches were reported to be attempting to evacuate, but unable to obtain a flight out of Afghanistan, and a lawyer appealed to Canada for assistance regarding the evacuation of the team members. As of August 19, 2021, nine members of the team and their coaches had evacuated to Qatar. The founder of the team, Roya Mahboob, and DCF board member, Elizabeth Schaeffer Brown, were previously in contact with the Qatari government to assist the team members in their evacuation from Afghanistan. By August 25, 2021, some members arrived in Mexico. Saghar, a team member who evacuated to Mexico, said, "We wanted to continue the path that we started to continue to go for our achievements and to go for having our dreams through reality. So that's why we decided to leave Afghanistan and go for somewhere safe" in an interview with The Associated Press. The members who have left Afghanistan participated in an online robotics competition in September and plan to continue their education. A documentary film titled Afghan Dreamers, produced by Beth Murphy and directed by David Greenwald, was in post-production when the team began to evacuate. == 2022 == The Afghan Dreamers were involved in a training program at the Texas A&M University at Qatar’s STEM Hub. == 2023 == The Afghan Girls Robotics Team had a booth at the 5th UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries, where they displayed some of the robots the team had constructed. == Afghan Dreamers documentary == The Afghan Dreamers documentary from MTV Documentary Films premiered in May 2023 on Paramount+. The film was directed by David Greenwald and produced by David Cowan and Beth Murphy. In a review for Screen Daily, Wendy Ide wrote, "This film, with its likeable cast of girl nerds and positive message, should enjoy a warm reception on the festival circuit, and will be of particular interest to events seeking to showcase women's stories from around the world. It also serves as a timely cautionary tale – a case study on just how quickly the rights and the opportunities of women can be curtailed, at the behest of the men in power." == Honors and awards == 2017 Silver medal for Courageous Achievement at the FIRST Global Challenge, science and technology 2017 Benefiting Humanity in AI Award at World Summit AI 2017 Winner, Entrepreneurship Challenge at Robotex in Estonia 2018 Permission to Dream Award, Raw Film Festival 2018 Conrad Innovation Challenge, Raw Film Festival 2018 Rookie All Star – District Championship, Canada 2018 Asia Game Changer Award Honoree 2019 Inspiring in Engineering Award – FIRST Detroit World Championship 2019 Asia Game Changer Award of California 2019 Safety Award – FIRST Global, Dubai 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2022 World Championships, Genoa, Switzerland
Ordered key–value store
An ordered key–value store (OKVS) is a type of data storage paradigm that can support multi-model databases. An OKVS is an ordered mapping of bytes to bytes. An OKVS will keep the key–value pairs sorted by the key lexicographic order. OKVS systems provides different set of features and performance trade-offs. Most of them are shipped as a library without network interfaces, in order to be embedded in another process. Most OKVS support ACID guarantees. Some OKVS are distributed databases. Ordered key–value stores found their way into many modern database systems including NewSQL database systems. == History == The origin of ordered key–value store stems from the work of Ken Thompson on dbm in 1979. Later in 1991, Berkeley DB was released that featured a B-Tree backend that allowed the keys to stay sorted. Berkeley DB was said to be very fast and made its way into various commercial product. It was included in Python standard library until 2.7. In 2009, Tokyo Cabinet was released that was superseded by Kyoto Cabinet that support both transaction and ordered keys. In 2011, LMDB was created to replace Berkeley DB in OpenLDAP. There is also Google's LevelDB that was forked by Facebook in 2012 as RocksDB. In 2014, WiredTiger, successor of Berkeley DB was acquired by MongoDB and is since 2019 the primary backend of MongoDB database. Other notable implementation of the OKVS paradigm are Sophia and SQLite3 LSM extension. Another notable use of OKVS paradigm is the multi-model database system called ArangoDB based on RocksDB. Some NewSQL databases are supported by ordered key–value stores. JanusGraph, a property graph database, has both a Berkeley DB backend and FoundationDB backend. == Key concepts == === Lexicographic encoding === There are algorithms that encode basic data types (boolean, string, number) and composition of those data types inside sorted containers (tuple, list, vector) that preserve their natural ordering. It is possible to work with an ordered key–value store without having to work directly with bytes. In FoundationDB, it is called the tuple layer. === Range query === Inside an OKVS, keys are ordered, and because of that it is possible to do range queries. A range query retrieves all keys between two specified keys, ensuring that the fetched keys are returned in a sorted order. === Subspaces === === Key composition === One can construct key spaces to build higher level abstractions. The idea is to construct keys, that takes advantage of the ordered nature of the top level key space. When taking advantage of the ordered nature of the key space, one can query ranges of keys that have particular pattern. === Denormalization === Denormalization, as in, repeating the same piece of data in multiple subspace is common practice. It allows to create secondary representation, also called indices, that will allow to speed up queries. == Higher level abstractions == The following abstraction or databases were built on top ordered key–value stores: Timeseries database, Record Database, also known as Row store databases, they behave similarly to what is dubbed RDBMS, Tuple Stores, also known as Triple Store or Quad Store but also Generic Tuple Store, Document database, that mimics MongoDB API, Full-text search Geographic Information Systems Property Graph Versioned Data Vector space database for Approximate Nearest Neighbor All those abstraction can co-exist with the same OKVS database and when ACID is supported, the operations happens with the guarantees offered by the transaction system. == Feature matrix == == Use-cases == OKVS are useful to implement two strategies: optimize a small feature e.g. to make a 10% improvement in read or write latency; the second strategy is to take advantage of the distributed nature of FoundationDB, and TiKV, for which there is no equivalent at very large scale in resilience. Both users need to re-implement the needed high level abstractions, because there are no portable ready-to-use libraries of high-level abstraction. There is still a complex balance, of complexity, maintainability, fine-tuning, and readily available features that makes it still a choice of experts. Sometime more specialized data-structures can be faster than a high-level abstraction on top of an OKVS. Another interest of OKVS paradigm stems from it simple, and versatile interface, that makes it an interesting target for experimental storage algorithms, and data structures.