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  • VOCEDplus

    VOCEDplus

    VOCEDplus is a free international research database about tertiary education, maintained and developed by staff at the c (NCVER) in Adelaide, South Australia. The focus of the database content is the relation of post-compulsory education and training to workforce needs, skills development, and social inclusion. == Structure == The content of the VOCEDplus database encompasses vocational education and training (VET), higher education, lifelong learning, informal learning, VET in schools, adult and community education, apprenticeships/traineeships, international education, providers of education and training, and workforce development. It is international in scope and contains over 84,000 English language records, many with links to full text documents. VOCEDplus contains extensive Australian materials and includes a wide range of international information, covering outcomes of tertiary education in the shape of published research, practice, policy, and statistics. Entries are included for the following types of publications: reports; annual reports; papers; discussion papers; occasional papers; working papers; books; book chapters; conference papers; conference proceedings; journals; journal articles; policy documents; published statistics; theses; podcasts; and teaching and training materials. Each database entry contains standard bibliographic information and an abstract. Many entries include full text access via the publisher's website or a digitised copy. == History == === 1989-1997 === In the early years VOCEDplus was known as VOCED. The original database was produced by a network of clearinghouses across Australia with the aim of sharing activities in the technical and further education (TAFE) sector. VOCED was produced in hardcopy and an electronic version was distributed on diskette. === 1997-2001 === 1997 - the first web version of VOCED was made available from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) organisational website 1998 - a major project to upgrade the database and expand its international coverage commenced 2001 - creation of VOCED's own website 2001 - VOCED endorsed as the UNESCO international database for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) research information === 2001-2009 === Many changes to the database and website occurred during this period with a focus on continuous improvement to meet the needs of users and utilise emerging technologies. 2006 - materials produced for two adult literacy and learning programs funded by the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) - the Workplace English Language and Learning (WELL) Programme and the Adult Literacy National Project (ALNP) included in VOCED 2007 - the Australian clearinghouse network transferred most of the hardcopy collections to NCVER, to form a centralised repository of resources 2009 - materials produced by Reframing the Future (RTF) a vocational education and training workforce development initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments included in VOCED === 2009-2014 === A major rebuild of the database and website was undertaken during this period to take advantage of the potential of new technologies to provide improved services and incorporate Web 2.0 technologies (RSS feeds, and share and bookmark tools). 2009 - scope expanded to more fully encompass the higher education sector 2011 - launch of VOCEDplus with the name change representing the enhanced features and extended focus 2012 - a major retrospective digitisation project commenced and by the end of the 2012-2013 financial year a total of 9,328 publications (593,534 pages/microfiche frames) had been digitised, ensuring these publications are available electronically for free === 2014-2019 === A number of significant curated content products were released during this period. 2015 - release of a refreshed look to adopt the new NCVER branding plus a number of search enhancements (Guided search, Expert search, and Glossary search) were added 2015 - first in the series of 'Focus on...' pages released 2016 - launch of the 'Pod Network', a convenient and efficient platform that allows instant access to research and a multitude of resources on a range of subjects 2017 - completion of the 'Pod Network', consisting of 20 Pods (on broad subjects including Apprenticeships and traineeships, Foundation skills, Teaching and learning, Career development, and Students) and 74 Podlets (on narrow topics including Online learning, Social media, VET in schools, STEM skills, and Adult literacy) 2018 - launch of the 'Timeline of Australian VET Policy Initiatives' and the 'VET Knowledge Bank' which contains a suite of products capturing Australia's diverse, complex and ever-changing VET system 2019 - after an internal review, a refreshed, streamlined version of the 'Pod Network' was released, consisting of 13 Pods and 20 Podlets 2019 - launch of the 'VET Practitioner Resource' which contains a range of information to support VET practitioners in their work and is organised into three sections: (1) Teaching, training and assessment: standards, guidance, research and good practice resources to inform daily work; (2) Practitioners as researchers: information for undertaking practitioner-led research; and (3) The VET workforce: information about VET teachers and trainers, and the professional development needs of the VET workforce 2019 - VOCEDplus celebrated 30 years of providing information to the tertiary education sector and the homepage was refreshed to make it more modern and easier to use === 2020- === VOCEDplus continued to be accessible throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020-2021 - the VET Knowledge Bank added a dedicated page, 'COVID-19 announcements', that showcases the measures introduced by the Australian, state and territory governments to mitigate the impact of the pandemic and promote economic recovery 2020-2024 - published research about the effects of the pandemic on education and training, providers, students, labour markets, employment and employees was collected and made permanently available in the database 2024 - VOCEDplus celebrated 35 years of providing information to the tertiary education sector. The homepage was refreshed and a number of enhancements and new features were implemented including a new My Profile feature, improvements to My Selection, accessible search history and saved searches, enhanced search functionality, and improved navigation.

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  • Bitmap index

    Bitmap index

    A bitmap index is a special kind of database index that uses bitmaps. Bitmap indexes have traditionally been considered to work well for low-cardinality columns, which have a modest number of distinct values, either absolutely, or relative to the number of records that contain the data. The extreme case of low cardinality is Boolean data (e.g., does a resident in a city have internet access?), which has two values, True and False. Bitmap indexes use bit arrays (commonly called bitmaps) and answer queries by performing bitwise logical operations on these bitmaps. Bitmap indexes have a significant space and performance advantage over other structures for query of such data. Their drawback is they are less efficient than the traditional B-tree indexes for columns whose data is frequently updated: consequently, they are more often employed in read-only systems that are specialized for fast query - e.g., data warehouses, and generally unsuitable for online transaction processing applications. Some researchers argue that bitmap indexes are also useful for moderate or even high-cardinality data (e.g., unique-valued data) which is accessed in a read-only manner, and queries access multiple bitmap-indexed columns using the AND, OR or XOR operators extensively. Bitmap indexes are also useful in data warehousing applications for joining a large fact table to smaller dimension tables such as those arranged in a star schema. == Example == Continuing the internet access example, a bitmap index may be logically viewed as follows: On the left, Identifier refers to the unique number assigned to each resident, HasInternet is the data to be indexed, the content of the bitmap index is shown as two columns under the heading bitmaps. Each column in the left illustration under the Bitmaps header is a bitmap in the bitmap index. In this case, there are two such bitmaps, one for "has internet" Yes and one for "has internet" No. It is easy to see that each bit in bitmap Y shows whether a particular row refers to a person who has internet access. This is the simplest form of bitmap index. Most columns will have more distinct values. For example, the sales amount is likely to have a much larger number of distinct values. Variations on the bitmap index can effectively index this data as well. We briefly review three such variations. Note: Many of the references cited here are reviewed at (John Wu (2007)). For those who might be interested in experimenting with some of the ideas mentioned here, many of them are implemented in open source software such as FastBit, the Lemur Bitmap Index C++ Library, the Roaring Bitmap Java library and the Apache Hive Data Warehouse system. == Compression == For historical reasons, bitmap compression and inverted list compression were developed as separate lines of research, and only later were recognized as solving essentially the same problem. Software can compress each bitmap in a bitmap index to save space. There has been considerable amount of work on this subject. Though there are exceptions such as Roaring bitmaps, Bitmap compression algorithms typically employ run-length encoding, such as the Byte-aligned Bitmap Code, the Word-Aligned Hybrid code, the Partitioned Word-Aligned Hybrid (PWAH) compression, the Position List Word Aligned Hybrid, the Compressed Adaptive Index (COMPAX), Enhanced Word-Aligned Hybrid (EWAH) and the COmpressed 'N' Composable Integer SEt (CONCISE). These compression methods require very little effort to compress and decompress. More importantly, bitmaps compressed with BBC, WAH, COMPAX, PLWAH, EWAH and CONCISE can directly participate in bitwise operations without decompression. This gives them considerable advantages over generic compression techniques such as LZ77. BBC compression and its derivatives are used in a commercial database management system. BBC is effective in both reducing index sizes and maintaining query performance. BBC encodes the bitmaps in bytes, while WAH encodes in words, better matching current CPUs. "On both synthetic data and real application data, the new word aligned schemes use only 50% more space, but perform logical operations on compressed data 12 times faster than BBC." PLWAH bitmaps were reported to take 50% of the storage space consumed by WAH bitmaps and offer up to 20% faster performance on logical operations. Similar considerations can be done for CONCISE and Enhanced Word-Aligned Hybrid. The performance of schemes such as BBC, WAH, PLWAH, EWAH, COMPAX and CONCISE is dependent on the order of the rows. A simple lexicographical sort can divide the index size by 9 and make indexes several times faster. The larger the table, the more important it is to sort the rows. Reshuffling techniques have also been proposed to achieve the same results of sorting when indexing streaming data. == Encoding == Basic bitmap indexes use one bitmap for each distinct value. It is possible to reduce the number of bitmaps used by using a different encoding method. For example, it is possible to encode C distinct values using log(C) bitmaps with binary encoding. This reduces the number of bitmaps, further saving space, but to answer any query, most of the bitmaps have to be accessed. This makes it potentially not as effective as scanning a vertical projection of the base data, also known as a materialized view or projection index. Finding the optimal encoding method that balances (arbitrary) query performance, index size and index maintenance remains a challenge. Without considering compression, Chan and Ioannidis analyzed a class of multi-component encoding methods and came to the conclusion that two-component encoding sits at the kink of the performance vs. index size curve and therefore represents the best trade-off between index size and query performance. == Binning == For high-cardinality columns, it is useful to bin the values, where each bin covers multiple values and build the bitmaps to represent the values in each bin. This approach reduces the number of bitmaps used regardless of encoding method. However, binned indexes can only answer some queries without examining the base data. For example, if a bin covers the range from 0.1 to 0.2, then when the user asks for all values less than 0.15, all rows that fall in the bin are possible hits and have to be checked to verify whether they are actually less than 0.15. The process of checking the base data is known as the candidate check. In most cases, the time used by the candidate check is significantly longer than the time needed to work with the bitmap index. Therefore, binned indexes exhibit irregular performance. They can be very fast for some queries, but much slower if the query does not exactly match a bin. == History == The concept of bitmap index was first introduced by Professor Israel Spiegler and Rafi Maayan in their research "Storage and Retrieval Considerations of Binary Data Bases", published in 1985. The first commercial database product to implement a bitmap index was Computer Corporation of America's Model 204. Patrick O'Neil published a paper about this implementation in 1987. This implementation is a hybrid between the basic bitmap index (without compression) and the list of Row Identifiers (RID-list). Overall, the index is organized as a B+tree. When the column cardinality is low, each leaf node of the B-tree would contain long list of RIDs. In this case, it requires less space to represent the RID-lists as bitmaps. Since each bitmap represents one distinct value, this is the basic bitmap index. As the column cardinality increases, each bitmap becomes sparse and it may take more disk space to store the bitmaps than to store the same content as RID-lists. In this case, it switches to use the RID-lists, which makes it a B+tree index. == In-memory bitmaps == One of the strongest reasons for using bitmap indexes is that the intermediate results produced from them are also bitmaps and can be efficiently reused in further operations to answer more complex queries. Many programming languages support this as a bit array data structure. For example, Java has the BitSet class and .NET have the BitArray class. Some database systems that do not offer persistent bitmap indexes use bitmaps internally to speed up query processing. For example, PostgreSQL versions 8.1 and later implement a "bitmap index scan" optimization to speed up arbitrarily complex logical operations between available indexes on a single table. For tables with many columns, the total number of distinct indexes to satisfy all possible queries (with equality filtering conditions on either of the fields) grows very fast, being defined by this formula: C n [ n 2 ] ≡ n ! ( n − [ n 2 ] ) ! [ n 2 ] ! {\displaystyle \mathbf {C} _{n}^{\left[{\frac {n}{2}}\right]}\equiv {\frac {n!}{\left(n-\left[{\frac {n}{2}}\right]\right)!\left[{\frac {n}{2}}\right]!}}} . A bitmap index scan combines expressions on different indexes, thus requiring only one index per column t

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  • Letter frequency

    Letter frequency

    Letter frequency is the number of times letters of the alphabet appear on average in written language. Letter frequency analysis dates back to the Arab mathematician Al-Kindi (c. AD 801–873), who formally developed the method to break ciphers. Letter frequency analysis gained importance in Europe with the development of movable type in AD 1450, wherein one must estimate the amount of type required for each letterform. Linguists use letter frequency analysis as a rudimentary technique for language identification, where it is particularly effective as an indication of whether an unknown writing system is alphabetic, syllabic, or logographic. The use of letter frequencies and frequency analysis plays a fundamental role in cryptograms and several word puzzle games, including hangman, Scrabble, Wordle and the television game show Wheel of Fortune. One of the earliest descriptions in classical literature of applying the knowledge of English letter frequency to solving a cryptogram is found in Edgar Allan Poe's famous story "The Gold-Bug", where the method is successfully applied to decipher a message giving the location of a treasure hidden by Captain Kidd. Herbert S. Zim, in his classic introductory cryptography text Codes and Secret Writing, gives the English letter frequency sequence as "ETAON RISHD LFCMU GYPWB VKJXZQ", the most common letter pairs as "TH HE AN RE ER IN ON AT ND ST ES EN OF TE ED OR TI HI AS TO", and the most common doubled letters as "LL EE SS OO TT FF RR NN PP CC". Different ways of counting can produce somewhat different orders. Letter frequencies also have a strong effect on the design of some keyboard layouts. The most frequent letters are placed on the home row of the Blickensderfer typewriter, the Dvorak keyboard layout, Colemak and other optimized layouts, while the commonly used QWERTY layout places common letters apart from each other to prevent typewriter jamming. == Background == The frequency of letters in text has been studied for use in cryptanalysis, and frequency analysis in particular, dating back to the Arab mathematician al-Kindi (c. AD 801–873 ), who formally developed the method (the ciphers breakable by this technique go back at least to the Caesar cipher used by Julius Caesar, so this method could have been explored in classical times). Letter frequency analysis gained additional importance in Europe with the development of movable type in AD 1450, wherein one must estimate the amount of type required for each letterform, as evidenced by the variations in letter compartment size in typographer's type cases. No exact letter frequency distribution underlies a given language, since all writers write slightly differently. However, most languages have a characteristic distribution which is strongly apparent in longer texts. Even language changes as extreme as from Old English to modern English (regarded as mutually unintelligible) show strong trends in related letter frequencies: over a small sample of Biblical passages, from most frequent to least frequent, enaid sorhm tgþlwu æcfy ðbpxz of Old English compares to eotha sinrd luymw fgcbp kvjqxz of modern English, with the most extreme differences concerning letterforms not shared. Linotype machines for the English language assumed the letter order, from most to least common, to be etaoin shrdlu cmfwyp vbgkqj xz based on the experience and custom of manual compositors. The equivalent for the French language was elaoin sdrétu cmfhyp vbgwqj xz. Arranging the alphabet in Morse into groups of letters that require equal amounts of time to transmit, and then sorting these groups in increasing order, yields e it san hurdm wgvlfbk opxcz jyq. Letter frequency was used by other telegraph systems, such as the Murray Code. Similar ideas are used in modern data-compression techniques such as Huffman coding. Letter frequencies, like word frequencies, tend to vary, both by writer and by subject. For instance, ⟨d⟩ occurs with greater frequency in fiction, as most fiction is written in past tense and thus most verbs will end in the inflectional suffix -ed / -d. One cannot write an essay about x-rays without using ⟨x⟩ frequently, and the essay will have an idiosyncratic letter frequency if the essay is about, say, Queen Zelda of Zanzibar requesting X-rays from Qatar to examine hypoxia in zebras. Different authors have habits which can be reflected in their use of letters. Hemingway's writing style, for example, is visibly different from Faulkner's. Letter, bigram, trigram, word frequencies, word length, and sentence length can be calculated for specific authors and used to prove or disprove authorship of texts, even for authors whose styles are not so divergent. Accurate average letter frequencies can only be gleaned by analyzing a large amount of representative text. With the availability of modern computing and collections of large text corpora, such calculations are easily made. Examples can be drawn from a variety of sources (press reporting, religious texts, scientific texts and general fiction) and there are differences especially for general fiction with the position of ⟨h⟩ and ⟨i⟩, with ⟨h⟩ becoming more common. Different dialects of a language will also affect a letter's frequency. For example, an author in the United States would produce something in which ⟨z⟩ is more common than an author in the United Kingdom writing on the same topic: words like "analyze", "apologize", and "recognize" contain the letter in American English, whereas the same words are spelled "analyse", "apologise", and "recognise" in British English. This would highly affect the frequency of the letter ⟨z⟩, as it is rarely used by British writers in the English language. The "top twelve" letters constitute about 80% of the total usage. The "top eight" letters constitute about 65% of the total usage. Letter frequency as a function of rank can be fitted well by several rank functions, with the two-parameter Cocho/Beta rank function being the best. Another rank function with no adjustable free parameter also fits the letter frequency distribution reasonably well (the same function has been used to fit the amino acid frequency in protein sequences.) A spy using the VIC cipher or some other cipher based on a straddling checkerboard typically uses a mnemonic such as "a sin to err" (dropping the second "r") or "at one sir" to remember the top eight characters. == Relative frequencies of letters in the English language == There are three ways to count letter frequency that result in very different charts for common letters. The first method, used in the chart below, is to count letter frequency in lemmas of a dictionary. The lemma is the word in its canonical form. The second method is to include all word variants when counting, such as "abstracts", "abstracted" and "abstracting" and not just the lemma of "abstract". This second method results in letters like ⟨s⟩ appearing much more frequently, such as when counting letters from lists of the most used English words on the Internet. ⟨s⟩ is especially common in inflected words (non-lemma forms) because it is added to form plurals and third person singular present tense verbs. A final method is to count letters based on their frequency of use in actual texts, resulting in certain letter combinations like ⟨th⟩ becoming more common due to the frequent use of common words like "the", "then", "both", "this", etc. Absolute usage frequency measures like this are used when creating keyboard layouts or letter frequencies in old fashioned printing presses. An analysis of entries in the Concise Oxford dictionary, ignoring frequency of word use, gives an order of "EARIOTNSLCUDPMHGBFYWKVXZJQ". The letter-frequency table above is taken from Pavel Mička's website, which cites Robert Lewand's Cryptological Mathematics. According to Lewand, arranged from most to least common in appearance, the letters are: etaoinshrdlcumwfgypbvkjxqz. Lewand's ordering differs slightly from others, such as Cornell University Math Explorer's Project, which produced a table after measuring 40,000 words. In English, the space character occurs almost twice as frequently as the top letter (⟨e⟩) and the non-alphabetic characters (digits, punctuation, etc.) collectively occupy the fourth position (having already included the space) between ⟨t⟩ and ⟨a⟩. == Relative frequencies of the first letters of a word in the English language == The frequency of the first letters of words or names is helpful in pre-assigning space in physical files and indexes. Given 26 filing cabinet drawers, rather than a 1:1 assignment of one drawer to one letter of the alphabet, it is often useful to use a more equal-frequency-letter code by assigning several low-frequency letters to the same drawer (often one drawer is labeled VWXYZ), and to split up the most-frequent initial letters (⟨s, a, c⟩) into several drawers (often 6 drawers Aa-An, Ao-Az, Ca-Cj, Ck-Cz, Sa-Si, Sj-Sz). The same system is used in some mult

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  • Strategic Air Command Digital Information Network

    Strategic Air Command Digital Information Network

    The Strategic Air Command DIgital Network (SACDIN) was a United States military computer network that provided computerized record communications, replacing the Data Transmission Subsystem and part of the Data Display Subsystem of the SAC Automated Command and Control System. SACDIN enabled a rapid flow of communications from headquarters SAC to its fielded forces, such as B-52 bases and ICBM Launch Control Centers. == Logistics == Major portions of SACDIN were developed, engineered and installed by the International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) company, under contract to the Electronic Systems Center. == Chronology == 1969 - Headquarters SAC submits a request to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study an expanded communications system, known as the SAC Total Information Network (SATIN). It would interconnect Air Force Satellite Communications (AFSATCOM), Advanced Airborne Command Post (AABNCP), Airborne Command Post (ABNCP), high frequency/single sideband radio HF/SSB radio, SAC Automated Command and Control System (SACCS), Automatic Digital Information Network (AUTODIN), Survivable Low Frequency Communications System (SLFCS) and Command Data Buffer (CDB) 1977 1 November - SATIN IV was effectively terminated by Congress. The restructured program was renamed SAC Digital Network (SACDIN), and was formulated to meet SAC's minimum essential data communications requirements, but also had the capability to grow in a modular fashion. 1986 ?? ??? - SACDIN replaces much of the SAC Automated Command and Control System (SACCS) and the SAC Automated Total Information Network (SATIN)

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  • Josh (app)

    Josh (app)

    Josh (stylized as JOSH) was a video-sharing social networking service but it has since evolved into a live call and chat application owned by VerSe Innovation – an Indian technology company based in Bangalore, India. Josh was an Indian short video app that was launched in immediately after the Indian Government banned TikTok and other Chinese apps in June 2020. The founders of the platform have promoted the app as the “Instagram for Bharat” referring to their focus on the Indian audience that speaks its own regional and state languages. Josh was among the top 10 most downloaded apps social and entertainment apps in India of 2021 and had 150 million monthly active users as per April 2022. The word 'Josh' translates to fervour or passion. The app was launched under the aegis of the Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign and to compete with the duopoly of Google and Facebook in India. Josh's parent company VerSe Innovations Pvt. Ltd. owns another startup Dailyhunt, which a content and news aggregator application. Both Dailyhunt and Josh are a part of the VerSe's focus on the "next billion" regional language users of India. Founders Virendra Gupta and Umang Bedi conceptualised Josh as a short-video platform that made content creation accessible to vernacular language users, essentially the non-English speaking audience in India. == Features == Josh is currently available in 12 Indian languages and allows users to upload, share, remix bite-sized videos of up to 120 seconds. There are various categories across the video section including viral, trending, glamour, dance, devotion, yoga and cooking among others. Similar to Instagram and TikTok, it has a video feed which is curated for individuals on the basis of their app behaviour. The app hosts many daily, weekly and monthly social media challenges. == Funding == In December 2020, within 3 months of its launch, Josh's parent app VerSe Innovation raised more than $100 million from investors including Alphabet Inc's Google and Microsoft. In February 2021, VerSe Innovation raised $100 million in Series H funding from Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, and Glade Brook Capital Partners. In August 2021, VerSe raised over $450 million in its Series I financing round with a valuation of $1 billion. Investors included Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II affiliates, and others. The startup announced its plan to expand overseas and broaden its ecommerce play for both Dailyhunt and Josh. In April 2022, VerSe announced that it has raised $805 million in funding from investors at a valuation of nearly $5 billion. ByteDance Offloads Stake In Josh Parent VerSe, Exits At 56% Discount == Partnerships == In February 2021, Saregama and Josh signed a music licensing deal, wherein Josh expanded its musical library with 1.3 lakh songs from Saregama in 25 different languages. To improve their user experience, Josh partnered with computer vision company D-ID in August 2021. The company helped Josh introduce photo-to-video features, live portrait technology, animate their photos etc. In order to solidify their efforts in enhancing Josh, VerSe acquired Indian social networking platform GolBol in October 2021. The move came as an effort by the startup to strengthen their discovery initiatives on the platform and classify content at scale and understand the core behaviour of Indian regional audiences. Josh has also announced its plans to include live commerce as a potential revenue stream through its partnership with multiple large e-commerce players. == Notable campaigns == Say No To Dowry – In association with Josh, the Kerala Police partook in the #SayNo2Dowry online social media campaign that was started to highlight and stop the social evil in the state. Salute India – Josh entered the Guinness World Records by creating the largest online video album of people saluting (29,529). It organised an online campaign #SaluteIndia on the app during the 75th Independence Day of India during 10–15 August 2021.

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  • Social employee

    Social employee

    A social employee is a worker operating within a social business model. Following an organization's social computing guidelines, social employees use social media tools both for internal workflow and collaboration purposes and for external engagement with customers, prospects and stakeholders through a combination of social media marketing, content marketing, social marketing, and social selling. Social employee programs are considered to be as much about culture and engagement as they are about business processes and best practices. In addition to increased leads and sales, social employee best practices are said to improve business outcomes important to social media marketing, such as increased connections and web traffic, improved brand identification and "chatter", and better customer advocacy. == Overview == The term "social employee" was first introduced to describe those exhibiting the emerging characteristics of workers operating under a social business model. The term is often used interchangeably with similar designations like "employee advocate" or "social employee advocate". Crucial to the perceived value of the social employee is the concept of the digital footprint. While organizations are able to generate large bases of followers through social media, research shows that brand marketing and engagement efforts through these networks are not as effective as those of individual employees. In fact, some research indicates that employee experts are more trusted than any other member of an organization. Because of this, social employee programs are designed to train, empower, and support employee engagement efforts in the hopes of authentically engaging larger communities, increasing the frequency of shares, reviews, and other forms of "earned media" and expanding the brand's presence on the web. == The personal or employee brand == A foundational concept of the social employee is the idea of the personal or employee brand. This concept first gained popular attention in a 1997 FastCompany article by business leader Tom Peters titled "The Brand Called You". In the article, Peters argued that the premium placed on branding impacted workers' lives to such an extent that creating and cultivating a distinct personal brand had become a professional necessity. According to Peters, doing so built trust, loyalty, visibility, influence, and employability. With increased adoption of social media tools by both businesses and consumers in the early 21st century, many business leaders became increasingly concerned with social engagement, both internally among employees and externally with customers and other stakeholders. While many in the business community acknowledged the potential social tools had for improved collaboration, productivity, and brand messaging, the concern that employees would misrepresent their brand, disclose proprietary information, or otherwise damage their company's reputation or ability to conduct business persisted. As a result, many began to advocate for employee branding as a solution to this problem. This helped give new meaning to the concept of brand ambassadorship, positioning everyday employees in public, and potentially high-profile, engagement roles. == Characteristics == === Engaged === Because social employee advocacy is dependent on the perceived authenticity of the employee, engagement is highly valued in social organizations. Further, data show the measurable impact of employee engagement on organizational productivity and profitability: Happy employees were found to be 12 percent more productive. In one study, engaged employees were found to be 38 percent more likely to produce at above-average rates. In another, organizations with engaged employees had a 19 percent higher than average shareholder return, while organizations with disengaged employees experienced shareholder return that was 44 percent below average. Engaged companies were found to outperform disengaged companies by up to 202 percent. Companies with strong focus on culture were found to have an average 13.9 percent turnover rate, while those with a low focus experience were found to have a 48.4 percent turnover rate. === Flexible job environment and work–life balance === The number of professionals working mobile or remote has risen considerably since 2010. While estimates vary, one study found that number of organizations with mobile or remote employees is expected to rise from 24 percent in 2012 to 89 percent by 2020. Other research has estimated that by 2020, 105.4 million professionals will work remotely in America, about 72.3 percent of the total workforce. This change has been linked to a rise in social technologies, including biometrics, wearables, near-field communications, and augmented reality. Social employees have also put a greater emphasis on work–life balance, with many believing that advances in technology can directly support efforts in this area. Purported benefits of this shift include a more flexible workforce, reduced business costs, and greater organizational leverage in attracting and retaining top talent. === Buys into the brand's story === In 2009, thought leader Simon Sinek presented a speech called "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" at a TEDxPugetSound event. Sinek's central argument in this speech was, "People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it." This concept—that the story behind a business or product offering is a more compelling sales tool than the product itself—is frequently cited in social media marketing as a way to build authentic connections with stakeholders. However, others have argued that for employees to share a brand's story authentically, they must be engaged in that story themselves, and as a result, many companies have made storytelling part of their culture programs. === Collaborative === An implicit tenet in social business is that social technologies aren't a barrier to productivity, but rather a path to increased connectivity. The shift in enterprise software systems like IBM Connections to incorporate social communication models, such as mentions, wikis, and newsfeeds, reflects the changing communication dynamics within business. With an increase in diversity and sophistication in collaborative software platforms, social organizations have sought to find new creative ways to utilize these tools and secure employee buy-in around them. Crowdsourcing has also become popular in social businesses. Examples include AT&T's program The Innovation Pipeline (TIP), begun in 2009, which has generated over 28,000 ideas that have led to over 75 projects with funding exceeding $44 million. IBM has also put considerable resources into such processes, producing its social computing guidelines through employee crowdsourcing, as well as its Connections platform through the Technology Adoption Program (TAP), a more formalized crowdsourcing initiative. Another popular form of internal collaboration is the hack day, or hackathon. Organizations such as Netflix, Facebook, and IBM use hack days to pull employees out of their day-to-day work environments and encourage them to collaborate in nontraditional ways in an attempt to drive disruptive innovation. Social employees are often encouraged to seek external collaboration opportunities with customers and prospects. For example, Procter & Gamble introduced the Live Well Collaborative to connect with external stakeholders and develop products and services for the 50+ demographic. === Social listener === A social listener is someone who engages in social listening, or social media monitoring, for professional means. Social employees can use social media monitoring for a variety of reasons, including professional development, industry news and trends, and gauging market sentiment. Some have argued that social listening is one of the most important components of social business, as it enables organizations to collect rich market data, make more informed strategic decisions, and respond to customer needs more authentically. === Customer-centric === Advocates of customer-centricity in social business argue that social media has changed the dynamic from one-way brand messaging to shared interactions between brand and customer. Brand and customer engagement is seen as a means of creating more lasting connections with customers and prospects and empowering them to become brand promoters. Customer-centric interactions are seen to have distinct value to brands, as research shows that prospects are far more likely to trust brand-related messaging from a friend or family member than they are from a brand. As a means of building social employees, some social advocates have also called for a broader definition of customer to include the employees themselves. In the book The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence, authors Vala Afshar and Brad Martin made the following argument: A social business operates with the guiding principle that each employee's responsi

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  • IBM 37xx

    IBM 37xx

    IBM 37xx (or 37x5) is a family of IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA) programmable front-end processors used mainly in mainframe environments. All members of the family ran one of three IBM-supplied programs. Emulation Program (EP) mimicked the operation of the older IBM 270x non-programmable controllers. Network Control Program (NCP) supported Systems Network Architecture devices. Partitioned Emulation Program (PEP) combined the functions of the two. == Models == === 370x series === 3705 — the oldest of the family, introduced in 1972 to replace the non-programmable IBM 270x family. The 3705 could control up to 352 communications lines. 3704 was a smaller version, introduced in 1973. It supported up to 32 lines. === 371x === The 3710 communications controller was introduced in 1984. === 372x series === The 3725 and the 3720 systems were announced in 1983. The 3725 replaced the hardware line scanners used on previous 370x machines with multiple microcoded processors. The 3725 was a large-scale node and front end processor. The 3720 was a smaller version of the 3725, which was sometimes used as a remote concentrator. The 3726 was an expansion unit for the 3725. With the expansion unit, the 3725 could support up to 256 lines at data rates up to 256 kbit/s, and connect to up to eight mainframe channels. Marketing of the 372x machines was discontinued in 1989. IBM discontinued support for the 3705, 3720, 3725 in 1999. === 374x series === The 3745, announced in 1988, provides up to eight T1 circuits. At the time of the announcement, IBM was estimated to have nearly 85% of the over US$825 million market for communications controllers over rivals such as NCR Comten and Amdahl Corporation. The 3745 is no longer marketed, but still supported and used. The 3746 "Nways Controller" model 900, unveiled in 1992, was an expansion unit for the 3745 supporting additional Token Ring and ESCON connections. A stand-alone model 950 appeared in 1995. == Successors == IBM no longer manufactures 37xx processors. The last models, the 3745/46, were withdrawn from marketing in 2002. Replacement software products are Communications Controller for Linux on System z and Enterprise Extender. == Clones == Several companies produced clones of 37xx controllers, including NCR COMTEN and Amdahl Corporation.

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  • Payment tokenization

    Payment tokenization

    Payment tokenization is a data security process that replaces sensitive payment information, such as credit card numbers, with a unique identifier or "token." This token can be used in place of actual data during transactions but has no exploitable value if breached, thereby reducing the risk of data theft and fraud. == Overview == Payment tokenization is generally categorized into two types: security tokens and payment tokens. Security tokens, also known as post-authorization tokens, are used to replace sensitive information like Primary Account Numbers (PANs), such as credit card numbers either after a payment is authorized or for storing data securely (data-at-rest), such as in merchant databases. These models have been in use since the mid-2000s, following the introduction of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard in 2004, which established standards for safeguarding cardholder data. The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council's 2011 Tokenization Guidelines and the proposed American National Standards Institute X9 standards emphasize using tokens primarily to secure sensitive information, not as replacements for payment credentials processed over financial networks. Traditionally, merchants stored PANs to support backend operations such as settlements, reconciliations, chargebacks, loyalty programs, and customer service. However, with the adoption of security tokenization, merchants can substitute PANs with tokens in their systems. This not only reduces their exposure to fraud but also helps minimize the scope and cost of PCI-DSS compliance, offering a more secure and efficient way to manage cardholder data. == Applications == Payment tokenization is widely used by mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay use tokenization to safely store card data on devices. E-commerce platforms rely on it to securely retain customer payment details for recurring purchases. At the physical point of sale, EMV-enabled systems use tokenization to protect card information during in-store transactions. Also, subscription billing services implement tokenization to manage and safeguard payment credentials for ongoing charges.

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  • Texture atlas

    Texture atlas

    In computer graphics, a texture atlas (also called a spritesheet or an image sprite in 2D game development) is an image containing multiple smaller images, usually packed together to reduce overall dimensions. An atlas can consist of uniformly-sized images or images of varying dimensions. A sub-image is drawn using custom texture coordinates to pick it out of the atlas. == Benefits == In an application where many small textures are used frequently, it is often more efficient to store the textures in a texture atlas which is treated as a single unit by the graphics hardware. This reduces both the disk I/O overhead and the overhead of a context switch by increasing memory locality. Careful alignment may be needed to avoid bleeding between sub textures when used with mipmapping and texture compression. In web development, images are packed into a sprite sheet to reduce the number of image resources that need to be fetched in order to display a page. == Gallery ==

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  • Consumer relationship system

    Consumer relationship system

    Consumer relationship systems (CRS) are specialized customer relationship management (CRM) software applications that are used to handle a company's dealings with its customers. Current consumer relationship systems integrate the software with telephone and call recording systems as well as with corporate systems for input and reporting. Customers can provide input from the company's website directly into the CRS. These systems are popular because they can deliver the 'voice of the consumer' that contributes to product quality improvement and that ultimately increases corporate profits. Consumer relationship systems that provide automated support as well as advanced systems may have artificial intelligence (AI) interfaces that can extract and analyse data collected, or handle basic questions and complaints. == History == The first CRS was developed in the 1980s. In 1981 Michael Wilke and Robert Thornton founded Wilke/Thornton, Inc in Columbus, Ohio, to develop new CRS software.

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  • Social media reach

    Social media reach

    Social media reach is a media analytics metric that refers to the number of users who have come across a particular content on a particular social media platform. Social media platforms have their own individual ways of tracking, analyzing and reporting the traffic on each of the individual platforms. As these platforms are a main source of communication between companies and their target audiences, by conducting research, companies are able to utilize analytical information, such as the reach of their posts, to better understand the interactions between the users and their content. There are multiple underlying factors that will determine what shows up on a newsfeed or timeline. Algorithms, for example, are a type of factor that can alter the reach of a post due to the way the algorithm is coded, which can affect who sees a post and when. Other examples of factors that can impede the reach can include the time at which posts are made, as well as how frequent the posts are between one another. In comparison, an impression is the total number of circumstances where content has been shown on a social timeline, meanwhile, engagement looks at how people interact with the content that they see on a social platform such as like, share or retweet. == Reach on Facebook == Facebook has their own analytic platform which allows the user to see how other users are interacting with their posts, with the use of multiple metrics. This is not something the average user uses, but rather a tool that is used by pages or public figures. For example, Facebook pages that represent a business often look at the activity their posts have generated. There are three types of reach that can be looked at on the Facebook analytic platform. === Types of reach === ==== Organic Reach ==== This type of reach regards the number of distinct users that have seen a specific post on their feed. Organic reach, in other words is the number of people who have seen the post being analyzed on their Facebook newsfeed. Data gathered from this type of reach can give intel to those doing the analysis, such as the demographics of those who have seen the post. ==== Paid Reach ==== This type of reach regards the number of times that distinct users have come across sponsored posts, ads or content. In other words, paid reach is the number of times Facebook users have seen a post that has been paid for by a company. Data collected can give insight, to advertisers or marketers for example, on the activity based around the reach of their post. ==== Viral Reach ==== This type of reach regards the number of views by distinct users on posts that have been commented on or shared by their friends on Facebook. In other words, viral reach looks at the number of people who have seen a post after a friend of theirs commented or shared the original post, therefore it showed on their timeline. Viral reach can be looked at in terms of a collective number of times that the post has been on individual user's timelines. Data collected from viral reach can be used in multiple ways, for example, it can be used to analyze the type of content that gets shared or commented on and can be further used to compare to other posts. === Engaged users === This refers to the number of individual users who have clicked and interacted with a post on Facebook. == Reach on Twitter == Twitter gives access to any of their users to analytics of their tweets as well as their followers. Their dashboard is user friendly, which allows anyone to take a look at the analytics behind their Twitter account. This open access is useful for both the average user and companies as it can provide a quick glance or general outlook of who has seen their tweets. The way that Twitter works is slightly different than the way of Facebook in terms of the reach. On Twitter, especially for users with a higher profile, they are not only engaging with the people who follow them, but also with the followers of their own followers. The reach metric on Twitter looks at the quantity of Twitter users who have been engaged, but also the number of users that follow them as well. This metric is useful to see the if the tweets/content being shared on Twitter are contributing to the growth of audience on this platform. == Reach on Instagram == Instagram gives their users access to their reach, in the Instagram Insights section. Instagram insights can be used to learn more about an account's followers and performance. Reach indicates the total number of unique Instagram accounts that have seen your Instagram post or story. You can find this data by looking at each individual post insights. == Uses of reach == The reach can be a useful metric to analyze for marketers and advertisers. Social media is a platform that is used by marketers to directly target their intended audience with ease. These platforms not only allow marketers to get a better understanding of their audience, but also allow advertisers to insert their ads onto the timelines of specific users to later be able to conduct research to see the reach of their posts/content. The basic goal of marketers is to increase their reach as much as possible to impact bigger audiences of their dream customers and, in the end, make more sales. When doing organic social media marketing, using paid methods like ads or doing influencer marketing whether it is paid or free, it allows marketers to track the performance of their strategy and tweak it based on what works and what does not. == Analytics and reach == Social analytics looks at the data collected based on the interactions of users on social media platforms. A lot of information can be gathered which can provide intel based on user activities on social media. When looking into analytics in regard to social media, each company or group has a different goal in mind to engage their audience. At a glance, the three might seem as if they are very similar, however the differences between them are significant. There are many aspects that can be analyzed from the data gathered from social media platforms, depending on what is being observed, the correct metric would then be selected to further analyze. One example of the many metrics that can be used through social analytics is the reach. == Reach formula == To calculate social media reach one can use the following formula: R = I f ¯ {\displaystyle R={\frac {I}{\bar {f}}}} where R {\displaystyle R} — is social media reach, I {\displaystyle I} stands for the number of impressions, f ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {f}}} is the average frequency of impressions per user. f ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {f}}} represents the number of events when the ad is shown to a particular user. The average value should be calculated over the time period with stable settings of advertisement campaign. == Commenting For Better Reach == Commenting For Better Reach also known as "CFBR" is a widely used strategy for organically boosting post reach on social media platforms. Algorithms tend to favor posts with substantial likes and comments, granting them broader exposure compared to less engaging content. Primarily seen on LinkedIn, a platform geared toward professional networking and business connections, the use of CFBR signals active engagement aimed at enhancing post visibility. It is important to note that genuine and meaningful comments are key to effective engagement. Spammy or irrelevant comments not only detract from the conversation but may also limit a post's potential reach and impact.

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  • Menu hack

    Menu hack

    A menu hack is a non-standard method of ordering food, usually at fast-food or fast casual restaurants, that offers a different result than what is explicitly stated on a menu. Menu hacks may range from a simple alternate flavor to "gaming the system" in order to obtain more food than normal. They are often spread on social media platforms such as TikTok, and are more popular with Generation Z, which has been known to customize their orders more than previous generations. Hacks are sometimes officially added to the menu after their popularity grows. However, in some cases, they have been criticized for overburdening fast food employees with outlandish requests, sparking debate as to whether certain menu hacks are unethical. The list of all possible menu hacks is called a secret menu. == History == The term "menu hack" stems from hacker culture and its tradition of overcoming previously imposed limitations. However, the tradition of ordering from a secret menu dates back to the early days of fast food. "Animal style" fries, a word of mouth menu item ordered from In-N-Out since the 1960s, was rumored to have been created by local surfers. In the Information Age, the rise of social media gave influencers the ability to communicate unique food combinations to their followers, which proved to go viral easily. Design mistakes in food ordering apps also proved to be easily exploitable. In some cases, these hacks boosted the profile of brands on social media, while in others, they caused financial harm when the company was unprepared to handle the sudden influx of unusual orders. One restaurant chain notable for the phenomenon is Chipotle Mexican Grill. A viral hack from Alexis Frost, suggesting a quesadilla with fajita vegetables inside, dipped in Chipotle vinaigrette mixed with sour cream, obtained 1.9 million views on TikTok, overloading the chain's workers, who had to work harder to prepare more vegetables and vinaigrette. Some restaurants began to deny the dish to customers, forcing them to only order meat and cheese on quesadillas. The company ultimately left the dish on the menu, but urged customers to stop ordering it via social media. When it later officially added the Fajita Quesadilla to the menu, digital sales nearly doubled. A method to order nachos, which are not officially on the menu, was also noted by customers. Starbucks is also famous for menu hacks, including the Pink Drink, a "Barbiecore" beverage in which coconut milk replaced the water in the strawberry açaí refresher. After it went viral, the company made it a permanent menu item and distributed it bottled in grocery stores. == Controversy == Menu hacks have been subject to a growing backlash, with employees stating that they "dread" younger customers due to the proliferation of unusual orders. Service industry workers, already overworked and underpaid, have called the rise of menu hacks and their difficulty to make an additional reason to unionize and demand higher wages.

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  • Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner

    Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner

    Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner (formerly Windows Live Safety Center and codenamed Vegas) was an online scanning, PC cleanup, and diagnosis service to help remove of viruses, spyware/adware, and other malware. It was a free web service that was part of Windows Live. On November 18, 2008, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of Windows Live OneCare, offering users a new free anti-malware suite Microsoft Security Essentials, which had been available since the second half of 2009. However, Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner, under the same branding as Windows Live OneCare, was not discontinued during that time. The service was officially discontinued on April 15, 2011 and replaced with Microsoft Safety Scanner. == Overview == Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner offered a free online scanning and protection from threats. The Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner must be downloaded and installed to your computer to scan your computer. The "Full Service Scan" looks for common PC health issues such as viruses, temporary files, and open network ports. It searches and removes viruses, improves a computer's performance, and removes unnecessary clutter on the PC's hard disk. The user can choose between a "Full Scan" (which can be customized) or a "Quick Scan". The "Full Scan" scans for viruses (comprehensive scan or quick scan), hard disk performance (Disk fragmentation scan and/or Desk cleanup scan) and network safety (open port scan). The "Quick Scan" only scans for viruses, only on specific areas on the computer. The quick scan is faster than the full scan, hence that appellation. The service also provides a virus database, information about online threats, and general computer security documentation and tools. == Limits == The virus scanner on the Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner site runs a scan of the user's computer only when the site is visited. It does not run periodic scans of the system, and does not provide features to prevent viruses from infecting the computer at the time, or thereafter. It simply resolves detected infections. Many users who have posted on the Product Feedback forum report script errors relating to Internet Explorer 7 (besides IE being the only browser supported by this service). The OneCare safety scanner team have been actively solving these problems, many of them registry-related.

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  • Locally recoverable code

    Locally recoverable code

    Locally recoverable codes are a family of error correction codes that were introduced first by D. S. Papailiopoulos and A. G. Dimakis and have been widely studied in information theory due to their applications related to distributive and cloud storage systems. An [ n , k , d , r ] q {\displaystyle [n,k,d,r]_{q}} LRC is an [ n , k , d ] q {\displaystyle [n,k,d]_{q}} linear code such that there is a function f i {\displaystyle f_{i}} that takes as input i {\displaystyle i} and a set of r {\displaystyle r} other coordinates of a codeword c = ( c 1 , … , c n ) ∈ C {\displaystyle c=(c_{1},\ldots ,c_{n})\in C} different from c i {\displaystyle c_{i}} , and outputs c i {\displaystyle c_{i}} . == Overview == Erasure-correcting codes, or simply erasure codes, for distributed and cloud storage systems, are becoming more and more popular as a result of the present spike in demand for cloud computing and storage services. This has inspired researchers in the fields of information and coding theory to investigate new facets of codes that are specifically suited for use with storage systems. It is well-known that LRC is a code that needs only a limited set of other symbols to be accessed in order to restore every symbol in a codeword. This idea is very important for distributed and cloud storage systems since the most common error case is when one storage node fails (erasure). The main objective is to recover as much data as possible from the fewest additional storage nodes in order to restore the node. Hence, Locally Recoverable Codes are crucial for such systems. The following definition of the LRC follows from the description above: an [ n , k , r ] {\displaystyle [n,k,r]} -Locally Recoverable Code (LRC) of length n {\displaystyle n} is a code that produces an n {\displaystyle n} -symbol codeword from k {\displaystyle k} information symbols, and for any symbol of the codeword, there exist at most r {\displaystyle r} other symbols such that the value of the symbol can be recovered from them. The locality parameter satisfies 1 ≤ r ≤ k {\displaystyle 1\leq r\leq k} because the entire codeword can be found by accessing k {\displaystyle k} symbols other than the erased symbol. Furthermore, Locally Recoverable Codes, having the minimum distance d {\displaystyle d} , can recover d − 1 {\displaystyle d-1} erasures. == Definition == Let C {\displaystyle C} be a [ n , k , d ] q {\displaystyle [n,k,d]_{q}} linear code. For i ∈ { 1 , … , n } {\displaystyle i\in \{1,\ldots ,n\}} , let us denote by r i {\displaystyle r_{i}} the minimum number of other coordinates we have to look at to recover an erasure in coordinate i {\displaystyle i} . The number r i {\displaystyle r_{i}} is said to be the locality of the i {\displaystyle i} -th coordinate of the code. The locality of the code is defined as An [ n , k , d , r ] q {\displaystyle [n,k,d,r]_{q}} locally recoverable code (LRC) is an [ n , k , d ] q {\displaystyle [n,k,d]_{q}} linear code C ∈ F q n {\displaystyle C\in \mathbb {F} _{q}^{n}} with locality r {\displaystyle r} . Let C {\displaystyle C} be an [ n , k , d ] q {\displaystyle [n,k,d]_{q}} -locally recoverable code. Then an erased component can be recovered linearly, i.e. for every i ∈ { 1 , … , n } {\displaystyle i\in \{1,\ldots ,n\}} , the space of linear equations of the code contains elements of the form x i = f ( x i 1 , … , x i r ) {\displaystyle x_{i}=f(x_{i_{1}},\ldots ,x_{i_{r}})} , where i j ≠ i {\displaystyle i_{j}\neq i} . == Optimal locally recoverable codes == Theorem Let n = ( r + 1 ) s {\displaystyle n=(r+1)s} and let C {\displaystyle C} be an [ n , k , d ] q {\displaystyle [n,k,d]_{q}} -locally recoverable code having s {\displaystyle s} disjoint locality sets of size r + 1 {\displaystyle r+1} . Then An [ n , k , d , r ] q {\displaystyle [n,k,d,r]_{q}} -LRC C {\displaystyle C} is said to be optimal if the minimum distance of C {\displaystyle C} satisfies == Tamo–Barg codes == Let f ∈ F q [ x ] {\displaystyle f\in \mathbb {F} _{q}[x]} be a polynomial and let ℓ {\displaystyle \ell } be a positive integer. Then f {\displaystyle f} is said to be ( r {\displaystyle r} , ℓ {\displaystyle \ell } )-good if • f {\displaystyle f} has degree r + 1 {\displaystyle r+1} , • there exist distinct subsets A 1 , … , A ℓ {\displaystyle A_{1},\ldots ,A_{\ell }} of F q {\displaystyle \mathbb {F} _{q}} such that – for any i ∈ { 1 , … , ℓ } {\displaystyle i\in \{1,\ldots ,\ell \}} , f ( A i ) = { t i } {\displaystyle f(A_{i})=\{t_{i}\}} for some t i ∈ F q {\displaystyle t_{i}\in \mathbb {F} _{q}} , i.e., f {\displaystyle f} is constant on A i {\displaystyle A_{i}} , – # A i = r + 1 {\displaystyle \#A_{i}=r+1} , – A i ∩ A j = ∅ {\displaystyle A_{i}\cap A_{j}=\varnothing } for any i ≠ j {\displaystyle i\neq j} . We say that { A 1 , … , A ℓ {\displaystyle A_{1},\ldots ,A_{\ell }} } is a splitting covering for f {\displaystyle f} . === Tamo–Barg construction === The Tamo–Barg construction utilizes good polynomials. • Suppose that a ( r , ℓ ) {\displaystyle (r,\ell )} -good polynomial f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} over F q {\displaystyle \mathbb {F} _{q}} is given with splitting covering i ∈ { 1 , … , ℓ } {\displaystyle i\in \{1,\ldots ,\ell \}} . • Let s ≤ ℓ − 1 {\displaystyle s\leq \ell -1} be a positive integer. • Consider the following F q {\displaystyle \mathbb {F} _{q}} -vector space of polynomials V = { ∑ i = 0 s g i ( x ) f ( x ) i : deg ⁡ ( g i ( x ) ) ≤ deg ⁡ ( f ( x ) ) − 2 } . {\displaystyle V=\left\{\sum _{i=0}^{s}g_{i}(x)f(x)^{i}:\deg(g_{i}(x))\leq \deg(f(x))-2\right\}.} • Let T = ⋃ i = 1 ℓ A i {\textstyle T=\bigcup _{i=1}^{\ell }A_{i}} . • The code { ev T ⁡ ( g ) : g ∈ V } {\displaystyle \{\operatorname {ev} _{T}(g):g\in V\}} is an ( ( r + 1 ) ℓ , ( s + 1 ) r , d , r ) {\displaystyle ((r+1)\ell ,(s+1)r,d,r)} -optimal locally coverable code, where ev T {\displaystyle \operatorname {ev} _{T}} denotes evaluation of g {\displaystyle g} at all points in the set T {\displaystyle T} . === Parameters of Tamo–Barg codes === • Length. The length is the number of evaluation points. Because the sets A i {\displaystyle A_{i}} are disjoint for i ∈ { 1 , … , ℓ } {\displaystyle i\in \{1,\ldots ,\ell \}} , the length of the code is | T | = ( r + 1 ) ℓ {\displaystyle |T|=(r+1)\ell } . • Dimension. The dimension of the code is ( s + 1 ) r {\displaystyle (s+1)r} , for s {\displaystyle s} ≤ ℓ − 1 {\displaystyle \ell -1} , as each g i {\displaystyle g_{i}} has degree at most deg ⁡ ( f ( x ) ) − 2 {\displaystyle \deg(f(x))-2} , covering a vector space of dimension deg ⁡ ( f ( x ) ) − 1 = r {\displaystyle \deg(f(x))-1=r} , and by the construction of V {\displaystyle V} , there are s + 1 {\displaystyle s+1} distinct g i {\displaystyle g_{i}} . • Distance. The distance is given by the fact that V ⊆ F q [ x ] ≤ k {\displaystyle V\subseteq \mathbb {F} _{q}[x]_{\leq k}} , where k = r + 1 − 2 + s ( r + 1 ) {\displaystyle k=r+1-2+s(r+1)} , and the obtained code is the Reed-Solomon code of degree at most k {\displaystyle k} , so the minimum distance equals ( r + 1 ) ℓ − ( ( r + 1 ) − 2 + s ( r + 1 ) ) {\displaystyle (r+1)\ell -((r+1)-2+s(r+1))} . • Locality. After the erasure of the single component, the evaluation at a i ∈ A i {\displaystyle a_{i}\in A_{i}} , where | A i | = r + 1 {\displaystyle |A_{i}|=r+1} , is unknown, but the evaluations for all other a ∈ A i {\displaystyle a\in A_{i}} are known, so at most r {\displaystyle r} evaluations are needed to uniquely determine the erased component, which gives us the locality of r {\displaystyle r} . To see this, g {\displaystyle g} restricted to A j {\displaystyle A_{j}} can be described by a polynomial h {\displaystyle h} of degree at most deg ⁡ ( f ( x ) ) − 2 = r + 1 − 2 = r − 1 {\displaystyle \deg(f(x))-2=r+1-2=r-1} thanks to the form of the elements in V {\displaystyle V} (i.e., thanks to the fact that f {\displaystyle f} is constant on A j {\displaystyle A_{j}} , and the g i {\displaystyle g_{i}} 's have degree at most deg ⁡ ( f ( x ) ) − 2 {\displaystyle \deg(f(x))-2} ). On the other hand | A j ∖ { a j } | = r {\displaystyle |A_{j}\backslash \{a_{j}\}|=r} , and r {\displaystyle r} evaluations uniquely determine a polynomial of degree r − 1 {\displaystyle r-1} . Therefore h {\displaystyle h} can be constructed and evaluated at a j {\displaystyle a_{j}} to recover g ( a j ) {\displaystyle g(a_{j})} . === Example of Tamo–Barg construction === We will use x 5 ∈ F 41 [ x ] {\displaystyle x^{5}\in \mathbb {F} _{41}[x]} to construct [ 15 , 8 , 6 , 4 ] {\displaystyle [15,8,6,4]} -LRC. Notice that the degree of this polynomial is 5, and it is constant on A i {\displaystyle A_{i}} for i ∈ { 1 , … , 8 } {\displaystyle i\in \{1,\ldots ,8\}} , where A 1 = { 1 , 10 , 16 , 18 , 37 } {\displaystyle A_{1}=\{1,10,16,18,37\}} , A 2 = 2 A 1 {\displaystyle A_{2}=2A_{1}} , A 3 = 3 A 1 {\displaystyle A_{3}=3A_{1}} , A 4 = 4 A 1 {\displaystyle A_{4}=4A_{1}} , A 5 = 5 A 1 {\displaystyle A_{5}=5A_{1}} , A 6 = 6 A 1 {\displaystyle A_{6}=6A_{1}}

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  • Social knowledge management

    Social knowledge management

    Social knowledge management is a business approach that aims to leverage the collective intelligence and social interactions of an organization’s members and stakeholders. It is a branch of knowledge management, which is a multidisciplinary field that deals with the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge in various domains, such as business, economics, psychology, and information management. Knowledge management seeks to enhance organizational performance, innovation, and competitiveness by managing the intangible assets of an organization, such as human capital, know-how, technology, customers, and networks. Social media plays a crucial role in social knowledge management by enhancing communication, collaboration, and learning among individuals and groups, both internally and externally. It offers valuable insights and feedback from customers, partners, and stakeholders, and aids in generating and disseminating new knowledge. In a business context, social media is utilized for various purposes, including sentiment analysis, social learning, social collaboration, and social knowledge management. Social knowledge management is one of the application areas of social media in a business context next to others like sentiment analysis, social learning or social collaboration. Social media use by businesses can strive to achieve the following things from social media strategy point of view: learn, listen, engage in conversation, measure and refine, develop capabilities, define activities, prioritize objectives etc. Social media are not only transforming private communication and interaction, they also will transform how people work. With social media knowledge work in organizations can be optimized extremely: like a better distribution sharing and access to knowledge. This will be more and more important, as in today's business world, speed and complexity increase dramatically, while work environments change constantly. == Examples of Social KM platforms == Elium, a European software application which combines social tagging, bookmarking and networking paradigms to address internal information management purposes. Sciomino was a startup enterprise social network for Social Knowledge Management.

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