Data preprocessing can refer to manipulation, filtration or augmentation of data before it is analyzed, and is often an important step in the data mining process. Data collection methods are often loosely controlled, resulting in out-of-range values, impossible data combinations, and missing values, amongst other issues. Preprocessing is the process by which unstructured data is transformed into intelligible representations suitable for machine-learning models. This phase of model deals with noise in order to arrive at better and improved results from the original data set which was noisy. This dataset also has some level of missing value present in it. The preprocessing pipeline used can often have large effects on the conclusions drawn from the downstream analysis. Thus, representation and quality of data is necessary before running any analysis. If there is a high proportion of irrelevant and redundant information present or noisy and unreliable data, then knowledge discovery during the training phase may be more difficult. Data preparation and filtering steps can take a considerable amount of processing time. Examples of methods used in data preprocessing include cleaning, instance selection, normalization, one-hot encoding, data transformation, feature extraction and feature selection. == Applications == === Data mining === Data preprocessing allows for the removal of unwanted data with the use of data cleaning, this allows the user to have a dataset to contain more valuable information after the preprocessing stage for data manipulation later in the data mining process. Editing such dataset to either correct data corruption or human error is a crucial step to get accurate quantifiers like true positives, true negatives, false positives and false negatives found in a confusion matrix that are commonly used for a medical diagnosis. Users are able to join data files together and use preprocessing to filter any unnecessary noise from the data which can allow for higher accuracy. Users use Python programming scripts accompanied by the pandas library which gives them the ability to import data from a comma-separated values as a data-frame. The data-frame is then used to manipulate data that can be challenging otherwise to do in Excel. Pandas (software) which is a powerful tool that allows for data analysis and manipulation; which makes data visualizations, statistical operations and much more, a lot easier. Many also use the R programming language to do such tasks as well. The reason why a user transforms existing files into a new one is because of many reasons. Aspects of data preprocessing may include imputing missing values, aggregating numerical quantities and transforming continuous data into categories (data binning). More advanced techniques like principal component analysis and feature selection are working with statistical formulas and are applied to complex datasets which are recorded by GPS trackers and motion capture devices. === Semantic data preprocessing === Semantic data mining is a subset of data mining that specifically seeks to incorporate domain knowledge, such as formal semantics, into the data mining process. Domain knowledge is the knowledge of the environment the data was processed in. Domain knowledge can have a positive influence on many aspects of data mining, such as filtering out redundant or inconsistent data during the preprocessing phase. Domain knowledge also works as constraint. It does this by using working as set of prior knowledge to reduce the space required for searching and acting as a guide to the data. Simply put, semantic preprocessing seeks to filter data using the original environment of said data more correctly and efficiently. There are increasingly complex problems which are asking to be solved by more elaborate techniques to better analyze existing information. Instead of creating a simple script for aggregating different numerical values into a single value, it make sense to focus on semantic based data preprocessing. The idea is to build a dedicated ontology, which explains on a higher level what the problem is about. In regards to semantic data mining and semantic pre-processing, ontologies are a way to conceptualize and formally define semantic knowledge and data. The Protégé (software) is the standard tool for constructing an ontology. In general, the use of ontologies bridges the gaps between data, applications, algorithms, and results that occur from semantic mismatches. As a result, semantic data mining combined with ontology has many applications where semantic ambiguity can impact the usefulness and efficiency of data systems. Applications include the medical field, language processing, banking, and even tutoring, among many more. There are various strengths to using a semantic data mining and ontological based approach. As previously mentioned, these tools can help during the per-processing phase by filtering out non-desirable data from the data set. Additionally, well-structured formal semantics integrated into well designed ontologies can return powerful data that can be easily read and processed by machines. A specifically useful example of this exists in the medical use of semantic data processing. As an example, a patient is having a medical emergency and is being rushed to hospital. The emergency responders are trying to figure out the best medicine to administer to help the patient. Under normal data processing, scouring all the patient’s medical data to ensure they are getting the best treatment could take too long and risk the patients’ health or even life. However, using semantically processed ontologies, the first responders could save the patient’s life. Tools like a semantic reasoner can use ontology to infer the what best medicine to administer to the patient is based on their medical history, such as if they have a certain cancer or other conditions, simply by examining the natural language used in the patient's medical records. This would allow the first responders to quickly and efficiently search for medicine without having worry about the patient’s medical history themselves, as the semantic reasoner would already have analyzed this data and found solutions. In general, this illustrates the incredible strength of using semantic data mining and ontologies. They allow for quicker and more efficient data extraction on the user side, as the user has fewer variables to account for, since the semantically pre-processed data and ontology built for the data have already accounted for many of these variables. However, there are some drawbacks to this approach. Namely, it requires a high amount of computational power and complexity, even with relatively small data sets. This could result in higher costs and increased difficulties in building and maintaining semantic data processing systems. This can be mitigated somewhat if the data set is already well organized and formatted, but even then, the complexity is still higher when compared to standard data processing. Below is a simple a diagram combining some of the processes, in particular semantic data mining and their use in ontology. The diagram depicts a data set being broken up into two parts: the characteristics of its domain, or domain knowledge, and then the actual acquired data. The domain characteristics are then processed to become user understood domain knowledge that can be applied to the data. Meanwhile, the data set is processed and stored so that the domain knowledge can applied to it, so that the process may continue. This application forms the ontology. From there, the ontology can be used to analyze data and process results. Fuzzy preprocessing is another, more advanced technique for solving complex problems. Fuzzy preprocessing and fuzzy data mining make use of fuzzy sets. These data sets are composed of two elements: a set and a membership function for the set which comprises 0 and 1. Fuzzy preprocessing uses this fuzzy data set to ground numerical values with linguistic information. Raw data is then transformed into natural language. Ultimately, fuzzy data mining's goal is to help deal with inexact information, such as an incomplete database. Currently fuzzy preprocessing, as well as other fuzzy based data mining techniques see frequent use with neural networks and artificial intelligence.
Google Research
Google Research (also known as Research at Google) is the research division of Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.. According to its official website, Google Research publishes findings, releases open-source software, and applies research results within Google products and services as well as within the wider scientific community. == Notable contributions == The 2017 landmark paper Attention Is All You Need, which introduced the Transformer architecture, which has subsequently been used to build modern large language models. Advances in neural machine translation powering Google Translate. Time series forecasting. Development of scalable learning systems and infrastructure for large-model training. Flood forecasting. Research into computational discovery via Google Accelerated Science including demonstrating the first below-threshold quantum calculations.
Ibotta
Ibotta, Inc. is an American mobile technology company headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 2011, the company offers cash back rewards on various purchases through its Ibotta Performance Network and direct to consumer app. Ibotta partners with CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands and network publishers to provide these rewards. As of 2024, the company operates solely in the United States. The company's rewards-as-a-service offering, the Ibotta Performance Network, went live in 2022. In August 2019, Ibotta received a $1 billion valuation after its Series D funding, and in 2023, the company surpassed $1.5 billion cash rewards paid to over 50 million consumers since the company's founding. Ibotta became a publicly traded company in April 2024 with a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. As of September 2025, Ibotta is trading at approximately $27.13 per share, marking a 69% decline from its initial public offering price of $88 per share on April 18, 2024. == History == === Founding through early 2019 === Ibotta was founded by current CEO Bryan Leach. The company was incorporated in 2011 and the app launched to both the App Store and Google Play stores in 2012. Early investors included entrepreneur and computer scientist Jim Clark and Tom “TJ” Jermoluk, Chairman of @Home Network. In 2015, Ibotta expanded beyond item level grocery, adding the ability to get cash back on in-store retail purchases. In 2016, in-app mobile commerce began, allowing users to navigate from the Ibotta app to its partners' apps to earn cash back on purchases. In 2016 with a Series C investment, Ibotta had raised over $73 million in funding. In March of that year, Ibotta partnered with Anheuser-Busch to offer cash back for adults who purchased its products. In May, the company partnered with LiveRamp so that companies could use their CRM data to create segmented, personalized campaigns. At the time, the company had around 200 full- and part-time employees and moved from offices in Lower Downtown Denver (LoDo) to a 40,000-square-foot office in the central Denver business district. A year later, the company had to expand to a second floor as it added almost another 100 employees. In 2017, Ibotta added cash back for Uber to its app as well as cash back rewards for online and mobile purchases. In 2018, Ibotta was listed on the Inc. 5,000 list as one of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. A year later, in January 2019, the Ibotta app had been downloaded more than 30 million times with users receiving a reported $500 million in cash back rewards. That year, Ibotta was the largest mobile company in Colorado with six million monthly active users. === August 2019 to present === In August 2019, Ibotta was valued at $1 billion, following a Series D round of funding. The round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. 2019 was also the year the company introduced Pay with Ibotta, which allowed users to complete purchases at key retailers on the Ibotta app and earn instant cash back in the process. With that new service, users were able to enter their purchase total and use a QR code to checkout and receive immediate cash back. In 2020, the company partnered with Trees for the Future to plant up to 1 million trees as part of an Earth Month campaign to raise awareness about the waste of unused paper coupons. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ibotta partnered with CPG brands in their “Here to Help” campaign and together committed over $10 million in cash back to American consumers. The company added the ability to earn cash back from online grocery pick-up and delivery orders. Later that year, Ibotta started its free Thanksgiving program, providing users with 100% cash back on select groceries needed for a Thanksgiving meal. By 2022, the company had provided approximately 10 million Thanksgiving meals. In 2021, Ibotta acquired the company OctoShop (originally InStok), a shopping browser extension company. The OctoShop app enables users to compare prices across stores and set restock and price-drop alerts. In April 2022, the Ibotta Performance Network (IPN) was launched. The IPN allows brands to deliver digital offers to consumers through third party publishers. Retailers including Walmart, Dollar General and Family Dollar, food delivery services including Instacart, and convenience stores including Shell are all part of the Ibotta Performance Network. This pay-per-sales or success-based performance network reaches over 200 million consumers. On April 18, 2024, Ibotta had its initial public offering (IPO), trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol IBTA. It was the largest technology IPO in Colorado history. In October 2025, Ibotta announced a partnership with technology and analytics company Circana, integrating Circana's Household Lift measurement into Ibotta campaigns to give CPG brands an increased understanding of the impact of their promotional campaigns. On November 3, 2025, Ibotta launched LiveLift, a tool for companies to measure the return on investment of digital promotions, in order to optimize performance marketing goals. === Athletic partnerships === Ibotta became the official jersey patch partner of the New Orleans Pelicans, a professional men's basketball team in the National Basketball Association (NBA), for the 2020–2021 and 2023–2024 seasons. Ibotta became the official jersey patch partner of the 2023 NBA champion Denver Nuggets baskeetball team beginning in the 2023–2024 season. In March 2023, F1 driver Logan Sargeant, the first U.S. racer to compete in F1 since 2015, partnered with Ibotta. The Ibotta logo was displayed on Sargeant's racing helmet throughout his F1 career. In June 2023, UConn Huskies women's basketball player Paige Bueckers entered into a "name, image, and likeness" (NIL) promotional agreement with Ibotta. According to a press release by Ibotta, the company has agreements with The Brandr Group, which finds NIL opportunities for women college athletes, and the Pearpop social media marketing platform to promote Ibotta. == Legal issues == In April 2025, shareholders filed a class action lawsuit—Fortune v. Ibotta, Inc., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado (Case No. 25-cv-01213)—alleging that the registration statement in connection with Ibotta’s April 2024 initial public offering omitted material information. The complaint claims that, although Ibotta disclosed detailed terms for its contract with Walmart Inc., it failed to warn investors that its agreement with The Kroger Co., its second-largest client, was terminable at will and thus could be canceled without warning, creating a misleading impression of stability.
StyleGAN
The Style Generative Adversarial Network, or StyleGAN for short, is an extension to the GAN architecture introduced by Nvidia researchers in December 2018, and made source available in February 2019. StyleGAN depends on Nvidia's CUDA software, GPUs, and Google's TensorFlow, or Meta AI's PyTorch, which supersedes TensorFlow as the official implementation library in later StyleGAN versions. The second version of StyleGAN, called StyleGAN2, was published on February 5, 2020. It removes some of the characteristic artifacts and improves the image quality. Nvidia introduced StyleGAN3, described as an "alias-free" version, on June 23, 2021, and made source available on October 12, 2021. == History == A direct predecessor of the StyleGAN series is the Progressive GAN, published in 2017. In December 2018, Nvidia researchers distributed a preprint with accompanying software introducing StyleGAN, a GAN for producing an unlimited number of (often convincing) portraits of fake human faces. StyleGAN was able to run on Nvidia's commodity GPU processors. In February 2019, Uber engineer Phillip Wang used the software to create the website This Person Does Not Exist, which displayed a new face on each web page reload. Wang himself has expressed amazement, given that humans are evolved to specifically understand human faces, that nevertheless StyleGAN can competitively "pick apart all the relevant features (of human faces) and recompose them in a way that's coherent." In September 2019, a website called Generated Photos published 100,000 images as a collection of stock photos. The collection was made using a private dataset shot in a controlled environment with similar light and angles. Similarly, two faculty at the University of Washington's Information School used StyleGAN to create Which Face is Real?, which challenged visitors to differentiate between a fake and a real face side by side. The faculty stated the intention was to "educate the public" about the existence of this technology so they could be wary of it, "just like eventually most people were made aware that you can Photoshop an image". The second version of StyleGAN, called StyleGAN2, was published on February 5, 2020. It removes some of the characteristic artifacts and improves the image quality. In 2021, a third version was released, improving consistency between fine and coarse details in the generator. Dubbed "alias-free", this version was implemented with PyTorch. === Illicit use === In December 2019, Facebook took down a network of accounts with false identities, and mentioned that some of them had used profile pictures created with machine learning techniques. == Architecture == === Progressive GAN === Progressive GAN is a method for training GAN for large-scale image generation stably, by growing a GAN generator from small to large scale in a pyramidal fashion. Like SinGAN, it decomposes the generator as G = G 1 ∘ G 2 ∘ ⋯ ∘ G N {\displaystyle G=G_{1}\circ G_{2}\circ \cdots \circ G_{N}} , and the discriminator as D = D N ∘ D N − 1 ∘ ⋯ ∘ D 1 {\displaystyle D=D_{N}\circ D_{N-1}\circ \cdots \circ D_{1}} . During training, at first only G N , D N {\displaystyle G_{N},D_{N}} are used in a GAN game to generate 4x4 images. Then G N − 1 , D N − 1 {\displaystyle G_{N-1},D_{N-1}} are added to reach the second stage of GAN game, to generate 8x8 images, and so on, until we reach a GAN game to generate 1024x1024 images. To avoid discontinuity between stages of the GAN game, each new layer is "blended in" (Figure 2 of the paper). For example, this is how the second stage GAN game starts: Just before, the GAN game consists of the pair G N , D N {\displaystyle G_{N},D_{N}} generating and discriminating 4x4 images. Just after, the GAN game consists of the pair ( ( 1 − α ) + α ⋅ G N − 1 ) ∘ u ∘ G N , D N ∘ d ∘ ( ( 1 − α ) + α ⋅ D N − 1 ) {\displaystyle ((1-\alpha )+\alpha \cdot G_{N-1})\circ u\circ G_{N},D_{N}\circ d\circ ((1-\alpha )+\alpha \cdot D_{N-1})} generating and discriminating 8x8 images. Here, the functions u , d {\displaystyle u,d} are image up- and down-sampling functions, and α {\displaystyle \alpha } is a blend-in factor (much like an alpha in image composing) that smoothly glides from 0 to 1. === StyleGAN === StyleGAN is designed as a combination of Progressive GAN with neural style transfer. The key architectural choice of StyleGAN-1 is a progressive growth mechanism, similar to Progressive GAN. Each generated image starts as a constant 4 × 4 × 512 {\displaystyle 4\times 4\times 512} array, and repeatedly passed through style blocks. Each style block applies a "style latent vector" via affine transform ("adaptive instance normalization"), similar to how neural style transfer uses Gramian matrix. It then adds noise, and normalize (subtract the mean, then divide by the variance). At training time, usually only one style latent vector is used per image generated, but sometimes two ("mixing regularization") in order to encourage each style block to independently perform its stylization without expecting help from other style blocks (since they might receive an entirely different style latent vector). After training, multiple style latent vectors can be fed into each style block. Those fed to the lower layers control the large-scale styles, and those fed to the higher layers control the fine-detail styles. Style-mixing between two images x , x ′ {\displaystyle x,x'} can be performed as well. First, run a gradient descent to find z , z ′ {\displaystyle z,z'} such that G ( z ) ≈ x , G ( z ′ ) ≈ x ′ {\displaystyle G(z)\approx x,G(z')\approx x'} . This is called "projecting an image back to style latent space". Then, z {\displaystyle z} can be fed to the lower style blocks, and z ′ {\displaystyle z'} to the higher style blocks, to generate a composite image that has the large-scale style of x {\displaystyle x} , and the fine-detail style of x ′ {\displaystyle x'} . Multiple images can also be composed this way. === StyleGAN2 === StyleGAN2 improves upon StyleGAN in two ways. One, it applies the style latent vector to transform the convolution layer's weights instead, thus solving the "blob" problem. The "blob" problem roughly speaking is because using the style latent vector to normalize the generated image destroys useful information. Consequently, the generator learned to create a "distraction" by a large blob, which absorbs most of the effect of normalization (somewhat similar to using flares to distract a heat-seeking missile). Two, it uses residual connections, which helps it avoid the phenomenon where certain features are stuck at intervals of pixels. For example, the seam between two teeth may be stuck at pixels divisible by 32, because the generator learned to generate teeth during stage N-5, and consequently could only generate primitive teeth at that stage, before scaling up 5 times (thus intervals of 32). This was updated by the StyleGAN2-ADA ("ADA" stands for "adaptive"), which uses invertible data augmentation. It also tunes the amount of data augmentation applied by starting at zero, and gradually increasing it until an "overfitting heuristic" reaches a target level, thus the name "adaptive". === StyleGAN3 === StyleGAN3 improves upon StyleGAN2 by solving the "texture sticking" problem, which can be seen in the official videos. They analyzed the problem by the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem, and argued that the layers in the generator learned to exploit the high-frequency signal in the pixels they operate upon. To solve this, they proposed imposing strict lowpass filters between each generator's layers, so that the generator is forced to operate on the pixels in a way faithful to the continuous signals they represent, rather than operate on them as merely discrete signals. They further imposed rotational and translational invariance by using more signal filters. The resulting StyleGAN-3 is able to generate images that rotate and translate smoothly, and without texture sticking.
Comparison of operating systems
These tables provide a comparison of operating systems, of computer devices, as listing general and technical information for a number of widely used and currently available PC or handheld (including smartphone and tablet computer) operating systems. The article "Usage share of operating systems" provides a broader, and more general, comparison of operating systems that includes servers, mainframes and supercomputers. Because of the large number and variety of available Linux distributions, they are all grouped under a single entry; see comparison of Linux distributions for a detailed comparison. There is also a variety of BSD and DOS operating systems, covered in comparison of BSD operating systems and comparison of DOS operating systems. == Nomenclature == The nomenclature for operating systems varies among providers and sometimes within providers. For purposes of this article the terms used are; kernel In some operating systems, the OS is split into a low level region called the kernel and higher level code that relies on the kernel. Typically the kernel implements processes but its code does not run as part of a process. hybrid kernel monolithic kernel Nucleus In some operating systems there is OS code permanently present in a contiguous region of memory addressable by unprivileged code; in IBM systems this is typically referred to as the nucleus. The nucleus typically contains both code that requires special privileges and code that can run in an unprivileged state. Typically some code in the nucleus runs in the context of a dispatching unit, e.g., address space, process, task, thread, while other code runs independent of any dispatching unit. In contemporary operating systems unprivileged applications cannot alter the nucleus. License and pricing policies vary widely among different systems. Among others, the tables below use the following terms: BSD BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. bundled The fee is included in the price of the hardware == General information == == Technical information == == Security == == Commands == For POSIX compliant (or partly compliant) systems like FreeBSD, Linux, macOS or Solaris, the basic commands are the same because they are standardized. NOTE: Linux systems may vary by distribution which specific program, or even 'command' is called, via the POSIX alias function. For example, if you wanted to use the DOS dir to give you a directory listing with one detailed file listing per line you could use alias dir='ls -lahF' (e.g. in a session configuration file).
List of Fortran software and tools
This is a list of Fortran software and tools, including IDEs, compilers, libraries, debugging tools, numerical and scientific computing tools, and related projects. == Fortran compilers == Absoft Pro Fortran — Absoft Pro Fortran is discontinued and ran on Linux and macOS AOCC — from AMD Classic Flang — part of the LLVM Project LLVM Flang — part of the LLVM Project Fortran 77 — Fortran 77 was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation, it is discontinued. G95 – portable open-source Fortran 95 compiler GCC (GNU Fortran) PGI compilers – NVIDIA developed compilers after acquiring The Portland Group IBM XL Fortran — IBM XL Fortran is current and runs on Linux (Power/AIX) and integrates with Eclipse Intel Fortran Compiler – part of Intel OneAPI HPC toolkit LFortran — LFortran is current, cross-platform, and has IDE support. MinGW – cross compiler and forked into Mingw-w64 nAG Fortran Compiler - from nAG Open64 — Open64 is an open-source compiler that has been terminated and ran on Linux Open Watcom — Open Watcom is current, runs on MS-DOS and OS/2, and has IDE support. Oracle Fortran — Oracle Fortran is discontinued, ran on Linux and Solaris. ROSE — source-to-source compiler framework developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Silverfrost FTN95 — FTN95 from Silverfrost is current, runs on Windows, and has IDE support. == Integrated development environments (IDEs) and editors == Code::Blocks — supports Fortran with plugins Eclipse IDE — with Fortran support via Photran Emacs — extensible text editor with built-in Fortran modes and support for modern tooling via language servers Geany — lightweight cross-platform IDE based on GTK IntelliJ IDEA — cross-platform IDE by JetBrains with Fortran pluggin KDevelop — KDE-based IDE NetBeans — Apache software foundation IDE with Fortran configuration OpenWatcom — IDE and compiler suite for C, C++, and Fortran Simply Fortran — standalone Fortran IDE for Windows, Linux, and macOS Vim — modal text editor with native Fortran syntax support and extensive plugin-based development features Visual Studio — with Intel Fortran integration Visual Studio Code — supports Fortran via extensions == Mathematical libraries == == Scientific libraries == ABINIT — software suite to calculate optical, mechanical, vibrational, and other observable properties of materials Cantera — chemical kinetics, thermodynamics, and transport tool suite CERN Program Library — collection of Fortran libraries for physics applications from CERN CP2K — quantum chemistry and solid-state physics software package for atomistic simulations Dalton — molecular electronic structure program FFTPACK — subroutines for the fast Fourier transform Kinetic PreProcessor – open-source software tool used in atmospheric chemistry MESA — Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics Nek5000 — MPI parallel higher-order spectral element CFD solver NWChem — open-source high-performance computational chemistry software Octopus — real-space Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory code MODTRAN – model atmospheric propagation of electromagnetic radiation MOLCAS — quantum chemistry software package for multiconfigurational electronic structure calculations NOVAS – software library for astrometry-related numerical computations Physics Analysis Workstation – data analysis and graphical presentation in high-energy physics Quantum ESPRESSO — integrated suite for electronic-structure calculations and materials modeling SIESTA — first-principles materials simulation code using density functional theory Tinker — software tools for molecular design == Debugging and performance tools == GDB — GNU Debugger with Fortran support Valgrind — memory debugging and profiling tool VTune Profiler — performance analysis tool Allinea Forge — debugger and profiler for HPC applications == Build and package management == Autotools — build system supporting Fortran projects CMake — cross-platform build system supporting Fortran Make — build automation tool Spack — package manager for HPC software including Fortran libraries == Machine learning and AI libraries == Athena Fiats (Functional Inference And Training for Surrogates) FNN (Fortran Neural Network) FortNN Fortran-TF-lib (Fortran interface to TensorFlow) FTorch (Fortran interface to PyTorch) MlFortran RoseNNa == Parallel and high-performance computing tools == MPI Fortran bindings — standard interface for distributed-memory parallelism OpenMP — shared-memory parallel programming support through compiler directives Coarray Fortran — parallel programming model introduced in Fortran 2008 ScaLAPACK — parallel linear algebra package built on top of LAPACK == Testing frameworks == FUnit — open-source unit testing framework developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center, for Fortran 90, 95, and 2003. pFUnit — unit testing framework for Fortran, modeled after JUnit == Documentation and code analysis tools == FORD — automatic documentation generator for modern Fortran projects SQuORE — software quality and management platform with code analysis support Understand — static analysis and code comprehension tool for large Fortran projects
Vero (app)
Vero (stylized as VERO) is a social media platform and mobile app company. Vero markets itself as a social network free from advertisements, data mining and algorithms. == History == The app was founded by French-Lebanese billionaire Ayman Hariri who is the son of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri. The name is taken from the Italian word for true. The app launched officially in 2015 as an alternative to Facebook and their popular photo-blogging app Instagram. Within weeks of its release the app surged in popularity although users expressed mixed reports with some feeling confused about how the app worked. Cosplayers were early to adopt the app as their photo-sharing platform of choice, favouring the app's pinch and zoom magnification feature over Instagram's zoom feature. Other creative communities soon followed, and the app became popular with niche groups of makeup artists, tattoo artists, and skateboarders. In March 2018, Vero's popularity surged, partly helped by an exodus from Facebook and Instagram following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. In the wake of the scandal, Vero devised an advertising campaign aimed at defected Facebook and Instagram users, hoping the app's policies and privacy settings would assuage concerns over sharing personal information on the internet. Within the space of one week, the app went from being a small service, akin to Ello or Peach, to being the most downloaded app in eighteen countries. In December 2020, Vero released its most significant update to date, Vero 2.0 which introduced new features including voice and video calls, game and app posts and bookmarks, and refinements to the UI. In October 2021, Vero introduced their Desktop app (beta) with multiple post options and a re-sizable multi-column feed. == Concept and funding == Vero's content feed resembles Instagram's although users can share a wider variety of content and the app has a chronological content feed whereas Facebook and Instagram's feeds are algorithm based. Vero's business plan is also distinct from similar social media apps. Whereas its competitors such as Facebook or Instagram make money from in-app advertising revenue and the sale of user data, Vero's business plan was to invite the first one million users to use the app for free then charge any subsequent users a subscription fee. The app was entirely funded by its founder and generated additional revenues by charging affiliate fees when someone buys a product they find on Vero. == Awards == Vero was recognized at the 2021 Webbys, being named as an Honoree in the Best Visual Design - Aesthetic Category. == Controversies == === Privacy === Vero has faced some criticism over the wording of their manifesto, in particular, the statement "Vero only collects the data we believe is necessary to provide users with a great experience and to ensure the security of their accounts." Because this policy does not explicitly state that the app will not sell data on to third parties some users fear that the need to monetise the app through data might prove too tempting. Users have also complained about not being able to delete their accounts. While this was never the case, the option was hidden deep in the app's settings. === Russian involvement === Although Vero remains transparent about the app's Russian development team, they have been caught up in concerns about Russian interference on social media platforms. The app's founder Ayman Hariri was quick to dismiss the remarks as xenophobic and defend the nationality of his employees, stating in an interview with Time Magazine; "At the end of the day, where people are from is really not how anybody should judge anyone". === Criticism of the app's founder === Until 2013, Vero's founder Ayman Harari was deputy CEO and chairman of Saudi Oger, the Saudi Arabian construction company which collapsed in 2017, mired by controversies over the welfare and treatment of their employees. However, Hariri is quick to point out that he divested from the firm in 2014 and the worker's rights violations occurred after he had left the company.