AI Art Discord Server

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Joseph Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski

Joseph Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski AM, FRSA (also known as J. S. Ostoja-Kotkowski, Ostoja and Stan Ostoja-Kotkowski; 28 December 1922 – 2 April 1994) was best known for his ground-breaking work in chromasonics, laser kinetics and 'sound and image' productions. He earned recognition in Australia and overseas for his pioneering work in laser sound and image technology. His work included painting (instrumental in developing geometric art in Australia), photography, film-making, theatre design, fabric design, murals, kinetic and static sculpture, stained glass, vitreous enamel murals, op-collages, computer graphics, and laser art. Ostoja flourished between 1940 and 1994. Ostoja's films are still being exhibited. == Biography == Joseph Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski was born in Golub, Poland, on 28 December 1922, descending from an old noble family that was part of the Clan of Ostoja. He studied drawing under Olgierd Vetesco in Przasnysz from 1940-1945. After winning a scholarship, he completed his studies at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in Germany in 1949. In 1950 Ostoja migrated to Australia, arriving in Melbourne where he supported himself with work as a labourer. He enrolled at the Victorian School of Fine Arts National Gallery School under Alan Sumner and William Dargie 1950-1955 and there introduced the new abstract expression of Europe both to lecturers and students. He settled in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, on the Booth estate at Stirling, living under the patronage of the Booth family for over 40 years (Freya Booth, the wife of Edward Stirling Booth, was a daughter of the artist Sir Hans Heysen). His first one-man exhibition was also in South Australia at the Royal Society of Arts, Adelaide. In 1956 Ostoja met and collaborated with Ian Davidson in the production of the short film Five South Australian Artists, and became involved in stage and theatre set design. He co-produced several experimental films again with Ian Davidson, including The Quest of Time in 1957 Ostoja's work in abstract expression began to receive accolades. He won the Cornell Prize for the canvas Form in Landscape. He started to design sets for theatre and dance including for Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (1957); the South Australian production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1958); Gaetano Donizetti's Elixir of Love, with novel light settings and modulations, for the Elder Conservatorium of the University of Adelaide which used his techniques for their Opera Workshops (1959); for The Egg; and for two performances of the South Australian Ballet Theatre with light/colour abstract presentations (1959). 1960 This year he designed sets for a new opera group which would eventually grow into the South Australian Opera Company. Among other theatrical events, he designed and executed the scenery for Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John, and The Teahouse of the August Moon by John Patrick, (a production by the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild). He received artistic satisfaction but little financial reward for these efforts. In this year also, he staged a visual production on the theme of Orpheus, using dance, music and voice with several projectors. This was the first attempt at quadraphonic sound in Australia, working in collaboration with Derek Jolly, who provided the sound and projection equipment. It was also the first demonstration of "Chromasonics" - the science of translating sound into visual images. Ostoja then designed innovative "abstracted" scenery for a production of The Marriage of Figaro and Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw. 1961 Ostoja designed the sets for the controversial South Australian production of Patrick White's The Ham Funeral - also Alan Seymour's Swamp Creatures, both performed by the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. He designed and constructed six stained glass windows for the Refectory at the University of Adelaide. In this period Ostoja designed special lights and gauzes for difficult effects required in an ambitious production of the opera Don Carlos by the Opera Workshop, for the Elder Conservatorium. 1962 Ostoja designed and built sets for the production of J.B, by Archibald MacLeish, for the second Adelaide Festival of Arts. He exhibited vitreous enamel works in Melbourne's Argus Gallery. Max Harris, in The Bulletin of 20 October 1962, praised Ostoja's sets for My Cousin from Fiji in Union Theatre, Adelaide, and his technique of rear screen projections as later adopted throughout Australia. 1963 Ostoja continued to develop Multi-Image projections, demonstrating for the first time in Australia the concept later to be known as 'audio-visuals!'. Ostoja gave Sir Herbert Read, the art critic, a personal viewing of one of his visual presentations. At Christmas, in the Elder Conservatorium, collaborating again with Derek Jolly, Ostoja gave what was probably the world's first "visual concert", using special projectors and incorporating music, colours and shapes. 1964 With fellow Adelaide artist John Dallwitz, Ostoja co-designed the first of several experimental dance and stage productions in the Adelaide Festival of Arts Sound and Image. The production featured Adelaide dancer Elizabeth_Cameron_Dalman. Also for the Adelaide Festival of Arts of that year, he designed the largest light mosaic ever staged up to that time, upon the facade of an 11-storey building. Ostoja was invited to New Zealand, and exhibited the first electronically generated images in Australia in Melbourne, at the Argus Gallery. His design for the 50-foot (15 m) bas-relief mural for the new B.P. building in Melbourne was the subject of a film which won the "Blue Ribbon" Award in the American Film Festival in New York. 1965 Ostoja designed and made the first light kinetic mural in Australia, and continued to evolve theatrical works using multi-screen and Multi-projector techniques. The Production of Jean Genet's The Balcony was very controversial. With Elizabeth Dalman, Ostoja produced new dance forms for Melbourne Television. He introduced Op Art to Australia, both at South Yarra Gallery in Melbourne, and Gallery A in Sydney. 1966 With John Dallwitz, Ostoja was invited by the Adelaide Festival of Arts to present more experimental theatre, Sound and image 1966. This highly acclaimed production incorporated Australian poetry into the sound, electronic music, and visual images and featured the dancer Antonio Rodrigues. The architect Robin Boyd commissioned Ostoja to design two large Op murals for the Australian Pavilion entrance at the Expo 67. Ostoja was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, which enabled him to have extensive world travel, comparing art and technology in many countries. He began to work with language, contemporary poetry and prose, and computers. 1967 John Dallwitz and Ostoja presented Sound and Image at the Festival of Perth. In Berne, Switzerland, Ostoja received the "Excellence F.I.A.P." Award for innovative photography. 1968 At the Adelaide Festival of Arts, Ostoja and John Dallwitz collaborated again to stage Sound and Image. This was the first theatre production in the world to use a laser beam. It also included the first science fiction play (The Veldt by Ray Bradbury) performed in Australia. Ostoja's theatre methods were increasingly attracting the attention of critics to how plays were staged. "Chromasonics", developed and introduced by Ostoja, was now being used extensively in the entertainment industry. 1969 Ostoja staged Krzysztof Penderecki's St. Luke Passion, a controversial, contemporary religious work. The South Australian The Advertiser wrote an extensive critique of Ostoja's work. Robin Boyd commissioned Ostoja to build a "Chromasonic" exhibit located in the Space Tube at the Australian Pavilion for Expo '70 in Osaka. 1970 Ostoja presented an Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime theme in his "Sound and Image" theatre, working with leading contemporary figures in poetry, music and dance. This was the first production of its kind in Australia, and appeared after the Festival in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Perth. Ostoja's Space Scape mural, sixty feet long by ten feet high, won the Australia-wide competition for a mural for Adelaide Airport. His 120 feet (37 m) high 'light and sound' structure for the Adelaide Festival was the first of its kind in the world. 1971 Ostoja awarded a Creative Arts Fellowship at the Australian National University, Canberra. His 18-month stay resulted in the design and building of a "Chromasonics unit-laser", a 100 feet (30 m) Chromasonic tower, and a world premiere of a Synchronos concert. 1972 With Don Burrows and Don Banks, Ostoja presented Synchronos 72, where one could "hear the colours and see the sounds". Ostoja added Cymatics, developed during the Fellowship, to his workshop repertoire. He was invited to exhibit his photography in the National Gallery, Melbourne. 1973 Ostoja received a Fellowship from the Australian American Education Associatio
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Interactive machine translation

Interactive machine translation (IMT), is a specific sub-field of computer-aided translation. Under this translation paradigm, the computer software that assists the human translator attempts to predict the text the user is going to input by taking into account all the information it has available. Whenever such prediction is wrong and the user provides feedback to the system, a new prediction is performed considering the new information available. Such process is repeated until the translation provided matches the user's expectations. Interactive machine translation is specially interesting when translating texts in domains where it is not admissible to output a translation containing errors, hence requiring a human user to amend the translations provided by the system. In such cases, interactive machine translation has been proved to provide benefit to potential users. Nevertheless, there are few commercial software that implements interactive machine translation and work done in the field is mostly restrained to academic research. == History == Historically, interactive machine translation is born as an evolution of the computer-aided translation paradigm, where the human translator and the machine translation system were intended to work as a tandem. This first work was extended within the TransType research project, funded by the Canadian government. In this project, the human interaction was aimed towards producing the target text for the first time by embedding data-driven machine translation techniques within the interactive translation environment with the goal of achieving the best of both actors: the efficiency of the automatic system and the reliability of human translators. Later, a larger-scale research project, TransType2, funded by the European Commission extended such work by analyzing the incorporation of a complete machine translation system into the process, with the goal of producing a complete translation hypothesis, which the human user is allowed to amend or accept. If the user decides to amend the hypothesis, the system then attempts to make the best use of such feedback in order to produce a new translation hypothesis that takes into account the modifications introduced by the user. More recently, CASMACAT, also funded by the European Commission, aimed at developing novel types of assistance to human translators and integrated them into a new workbench, consisting of an editor, a server, and analysis and visualisation tools. The workbench was designed in a modular fashion and can be combined with existing computer aided translation tools. Furthermore, the CASMACAT workbench can learn from the interaction with the human translator by updating and adapting its models instantly based on the translation choices of the user. Recent work on involving an extensive evaluation with human users revealed the fact that interactive machine translation may even be used by users that do not speak the source language in order to achieve near professional translation quality. Moreover, it also elucidated the fact that an interactive scenario is more beneficial than a classic post-edition scenario. The previously described approaches rely on a tightly coupled underlying corpus-based machine translation system (usually, a Statistical machine translation system) that is used as a glass box, therefore inheriting the shortcomings of the translation systems and limiting the usage of interactive machine translation for some scenarios. For this reason, an approach that uses any kind of bilingual resource (not limited to machine translation) as a black-box to provide interactive machine translation was developed. This approach is not able to extract as much information from the bilingual resources used, due to the black-box nature of the interaction, but can use any resource available to the user. Forecat is a black-box interactive machine translation implementation that is available both as a web application (that includes a webpage and a web services interface) and as a plugin for OmegaT (Forecat-OmegaT). == Process == The interactive machine translation process starts with the system suggesting a translation hypothesis to the user. Then, the user may accept the complete sentence as correct, or may modify it if he considers there is some error. Typically, when modifying a given word, it is assumed that the prefix until that word is correct, leading to a left-to-right interaction scheme. Once the user has changed the word considered incorrect, the system then proposes a new suffix, i.e. the remainder of the sentence. Such process continues until the translation provided satisfies the user. Although explained at the word level, the previous process may also be implemented at the character level, and hence the system provides a suffix whenever the human translator types in a single character. In addition, there is ongoing effort towards changing the typical left-to-right interaction scheme in order to make human-machine interaction easier. A similar approach is used in the Caitra translation tool. == Evaluation == Evaluation is a difficult issue in interactive machine translation. Ideally, evaluation should take place in experiments involving human users. However, given the high monetary cost this would imply, this is seldom the case. Moreover, even when considering human translators in order to perform a true evaluation of interactive machine translation techniques, it is not clear what should be measured in such experiments, since there are many different variables that should be taken into account and cannot be controlled, as is for instance the time the user takes in order to get used to the process. In the CASMACAT project, some field trials have been carried out to study some of these variables. For quick evaluations in laboratory conditions, interactive machine translation is measured by using the key stroke ratio or the word stroke ratio. Such criteria attempt to measure how many key-strokes or words did the user need to introduce before producing the final translated document. == Differences with classical computer-aided translation == Although interactive machine translation is a sub-field of computer-aided translation, the main attractive of the former with respect to the latter is the interactivity. In classical computer-aided translation, the translation system may suggest one translation hypothesis in the best case, and then the user is required to post-edit such hypothesis. In contrast, in interactive machine translation the system produces a new translation hypothesis each time the user interacts with the system, i.e. after each word (or letter) has been introduced.
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Ellen Voorhees

Ellen Marie Voorhees (born March 13, 1958) is an American computer scientist known for her work in document retrieval, information retrieval, and natural language processing. She works in the retrieval group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). == Education and career == Voorhees was born in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, and was the 1976 valedictorian at Bensalem High School. She completed her undergraduate studies at Pennsylvania State University, graduating in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in computer science. She attended Cornell University, where she received her master's degree and then went on to complete her Ph.D. in 1985. Her dissertation, The Effectiveness and Efficiency of Agglomerative Hierarchic Clustering in Document Retrieval, was supervised by Gerard Salton. Prior to joining NIST, she was a senior member of the technical staff at Siemens Corporate Research in Princeton, New Jersey. == Recognition == Voorhees was elected as an ACM Fellow in 2018 for "contributions in evaluation of information retrieval, question answering, and other language technologies". In 2023, Voorhees was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Glasgow in recognition of her body of work in the evaluation of information retrieval, question answering, and other language technologies. In 2024, Voorhees received the Gerard Salton Award, a lifetime achievement award given by ACM's Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval (SIGIR).
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AI Background Removers Reviews: What Actually Works in 2026

Trying to pick the best AI background remover? An AI background remover is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it scales effortlessly from a single task to thousands. The best picks balance beginner-friendly simplicity with the depth power users need, and they ship updates often. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI background remover slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. This guide breaks down the top picks, their pros and cons, and who each one is best for.
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Wetware computer

A wetware computer is an organic computer (which can also be known as an artificial organic brain or a neurocomputer) composed of organic material "wetware" such as "living" neurons. Wetware computers composed of neurons are different than conventional computers because they use biological materials, and offer the possibility of substantially more energy-efficient computing. While a wetware computer is still largely conceptual, there has been limited success with construction and prototyping, which has acted as a proof of the concept's realistic application to computing in the future. The most notable prototypes have stemmed from the research completed by biological engineer William Ditto during his time at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His work constructing a simple neurocomputer capable of basic addition from leech neurons in 1999 was a significant discovery for the concept. This research was a primary example driving interest in creating these artificially constructed, but still organic brains. == Origins and theoretical foundations == The term wetware came from cyberpunk fiction, notably through Gibson's Neuromancer, but was quickly taken up in scientific literature to explain computation by biological material. Theories of early biological computation borrowed from Alan Turing's morphogenesis model, which showed that chemical interactions could produce complex patterns without centralized control. Hopfield's associative memory networks also provided a foundation for biological information systems with fault tolerance and self-organization. == Major characteristics and processes == Biological wetware systems demonstrate dynamic reconfigurability underpinned by neuroplasticity and enable continuous learning and adaptation. Reaction-diffusion-based computing and molecular logic gates allow spatially parallel information processing unachievable in conventional systems. These systems also show fault tolerance and self-repair at the cellular and network level. The development of cerebral organoids—miniature lab-grown brains—demonstrates spontaneous learning behavior and suggests biological tissue as a viable computational substrate. == Overview == The concept of wetware is an application of specific interest to the field of computer manufacturing. Moore's law, which states that the number of transistors which can be placed on a silicon chip is doubled roughly every two years, has acted as a goal for the industry for decades, but as the size of computers continues to decrease, the ability to meet this goal has become more difficult, threatening to reach a plateau. Due to the difficulty in reducing the size of computers because of size limitations of transistors and integrated circuits, wetware provides an unconventional alternative. A wetware computer composed of neurons is an ideal concept because, unlike conventional materials which operate in binary (on/off), a neuron can shift between thousands of states, constantly altering its chemical conformation, and redirecting electrical pulses through over 200,000 channels in any of its many synaptic connections. Because of this large difference in the possible settings for any one neuron, compared to the binary limitations of conventional computers, the space limitations are far fewer. == Background == The concept of wetware is distinct and unconventional and draws slight resonance with both hardware and software from conventional computers. While hardware is understood as the physical architecture of traditional computational devices, comprising integrated circuits and supporting infrastructure, software represents the encoded architecture of storage and instructions. Wetware is a separate concept that uses the formation of organic molecules, mostly complex cellular structures (such as neurons), to create a computational device such as a computer. In wetware, the ideas of hardware and software are intertwined and interdependent. The molecular and chemical composition of the organic or biological structure would represent not only the physical structure of the wetware but also the software, being continually reprogrammed by the discrete shifts in electrical pulses and chemical concentration gradients as the molecules change their structures to communicate signals. The responsiveness of a cell, proteins, and molecules to changing conformations, both within their structures and around them, ties the idea of internal programming and external structure together in a way that is alien to the current model of conventional computer architecture. The structure of wetware represents a model where the external structure and internal programming are interdependent and unified; meaning that changes to the programming or internal communication between molecules of the device would represent a physical change in the structure. The dynamic nature of wetware borrows from the function of complex cellular structures in biological organisms. The combination of "hardware" and "software" into one dynamic, and interdependent system which uses organic molecules and complexes to create an unconventional model for computational devices is a specific example of applied biorobotics. === The cell as a model of wetware === Cells in many ways can be seen as their form of naturally occurring wetware, similar to the concept that the human brain is the preexisting model system for complex wetware. In his book Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell (2009) Dennis Bray explains his theory that cells, which are the most basic form of life, are just a highly complex computational structure, like a computer. To simplify one of his arguments a cell can be seen as a type of computer, using its structured architecture. In this architecture, much like a traditional computer, many smaller components operate in tandem to receive input, process the information, and compute an output. In an overly simplified, non-technical analysis, cellular function can be broken into the following components: Information and instructions for execution are stored as DNA in the cell, RNA acts as a source for distinctly encoded input, processed by ribosomes and other transcription factors to access and process the DNA and to output a protein. Bray's argument in favor of viewing cells and cellular structures as models of natural computational devices is important when considering the more applied theories of wetware to biorobotics. === Biorobotics === Wetware and biorobotics are closely related concepts, which both borrow from similar overall principles. A biorobotic structure can be defined as a system modeled from a preexisting organic complex or model such as cells (neurons) or more complex structures like organs (brain) or whole organisms. Unlike wetware, the concept of biorobotics is not always a system composed of organic molecules, but instead could be composed of conventional material which is designed and assembled in a structure similar or derived from a biological model. Biorobotics have many applications and are used to address the challenges of conventional computer architecture. Conceptually, designing a program, robot, or computational device after a preexisting biological model such as a cell, or even a whole organism, provides the engineer or programmer the benefits of incorporating into the structure the evolutionary advantages of the model. == Effects on users == Wetware technologies such as BCIs and neuromorphic chips offer new possibilities for user autonomy. For those with disabilities, such systems could restore motor or sensory functions and enhance quality of life. However, these technologies raise ethical questions: cognitive privacy, consent over biological data, and risk of exploitation. Without proper oversight, wetware technologies may also widen inequality, favoring those with access to cognitive enhancements. Open governance frameworks and ethical AI design grounded in neuro ethics will be essential. With the development of wetware devices, disparities in access could exacerbate social inequalities, benefiting those who have resources to enhance cognitive or physical abilities. It is necessary to create strong ethical frameworks, inclusive development practices, and open systems of governance to reduce risks and make sure that wetware advances are beneficial to all segments of society. == Applications and goals == === Basic neurocomputer composed of leech neurons === In 1999 William Ditto and his team of researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University created a basic form of a wetware computer capable of simple addition by harnessing leech neurons. Leeches were used as a model organism due to the large size of their neuron, and the ease associated with their collection and manipulation. However, these results have never been published in a peer-reviewed journal, prompting questions about the validity of the claims. The computer was able to complete basic addition through electrical probes
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MemoQ

memoQ is a computer-assisted translation software suite which runs on Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is developed by the Hungarian software company memoQ Fordítástechnológiai Zrt. (memoQ Translation Technologies), formerly Kilgray, a provider of translation management software established in 2004 and cited as one of the fastest-growing companies in the translation technology sector in 2012, and 2013. memoQ provides translation memory, terminology, machine translation integration and reference information management in desktop, client/server and web application environments. == History == memoQ, a translation environment tool first released in 2006, was the first product created by memoQ Translation Technologies, a company founded in Hungary by the three language technologists Balázs Kis, István Lengyel and Gábor Ugray. In the years since the software was first presented, it has grown in popularity and is now among the most frequent TEnT applications used for translation (it was rated as the third most used CAT tool in a Proz.com study in 2013 and as the second most widely used tool in a June 2010 survey of 458 working translators), after SDL Trados, Wordfast, Déjà Vu, OmegaT and others. Today it is available in desktop versions for translators (Translator Pro edition), and project managers (Project Manager edition), as well as site-installed and hosted server applications offering integration with the desktop versions and a web browser interface. There are currently several active online forums in which users provide each other with independent advice and support on the software's functions, as well as many online tutorials created by professional trainers and active users. Before its commercial debut, a version of memoQ (2.0) was distributed as postcardware.
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Dan Hendrycks

Dan Hendrycks (born 1994 or 1995) is an American machine learning researcher. He serves as the director of the Center for AI Safety, a nonprofit research organization based in San Francisco, California. == Early life and education == Hendrycks was raised in a Christian evangelical household in Marshfield, Missouri. He received a B.S. from the University of Chicago in 2018 and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Computer Science in 2022. == Career and research == Hendrycks' research focuses on topics that include machine learning safety, machine ethics, and robustness. He credits his participation in the effective altruism (EA) movement-linked 80,000 Hours program for his career focus towards AI safety, though denies being an advocate for EA. Hendrycks is the main author of the research paper that introduced the activation function GELU in 2016, and of the paper that introduced the language model benchmark MMLU (Massive Multitask Language Understanding) in 2020. In February 2022, Hendrycks co-authored recommendations for the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to inform the management of risks from artificial intelligence. In September 2022, Hendrycks wrote a paper providing a framework for analyzing the impact of AI research on societal risks. He later published a paper in March 2023 examining how natural selection and competitive pressures could shape the goals of artificial agents. This was followed by "An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks", which discusses four categories of risks: malicious use, AI race dynamics, organizational risks, and rogue AI agents. Hendrycks is the safety adviser of xAI, an AI startup company founded by Elon Musk in 2023. To avoid any potential conflicts of interest, he receives a symbolic one-dollar salary and holds no company equity. In November 2024, he also joined Scale AI as an advisor collecting a one-dollar salary. Hendrycks is the creator of Humanity's Last Exam, a benchmark for evaluating the capabilities of large language models, which he developed in collaboration with Scale AI. In 2024, Hendrycks published the textbook Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society, based on courseware he had previously developed. == Selected publications == Hendrycks, Dan; Gimpel, Kevin (2020-07-08). "Gaussian Error Linear Units (GELUs)". arXiv:1606.08415 [cs.LG]. Hendrycks, Dan; Gimpel, Kevin (2018-10-03). "A Baseline for Detecting Misclassified and Out-of-Distribution Examples in Neural Networks". International Conference on Learning Representations 2017. arXiv:1610.02136. Hendrycks, Dan; Mazeika, Mantas; Dietterich, Thomas (2019-01-28). "Deep Anomaly Detection with Outlier Exposure". International Conference on Learning Representations 2019. arXiv:1812.04606. Hendrycks, Dan; Mazeika, Mantas; Zou, Andy (2021-10-25). "What Would Jiminy Cricket Do? Towards Agents That Behave Morally". Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems 2021. arXiv:2110.13136.
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Self-verifying finite automaton

In automata theory, a self-verifying finite automaton (SVFA) is a special kind of a nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) with a symmetric kind of nondeterminism introduced by Hromkovič and Schnitger. Generally, in self-verifying nondeterminism, each computation path is concluded with any of the three possible answers: yes, no, and I do not know. For each input string, no two paths may give contradictory answers, namely both answers yes and no on the same input are not possible. At least one path must give answer yes or no, and if it is yes then the string is considered accepted. SVFA accept the same class of languages as deterministic finite automata (DFA) and NFA but have different state complexity. == Formal definition == An SVFA is represented formally by a 6-tuple, A=(Q, Σ, Δ, q0, Fa, Fr) such that (Q, Σ, Δ, q0, Fa) is an NFA, and Fa, Fr are disjoint subsets of Q. For each word w = a1a2 … an, a computation is a sequence of states r0,r1, …, rn, in Q with the following conditions: r0 = q0 ri+1 ∈ Δ(ri, ai+1), for i = 0, …, n−1. If rn ∈ Fa then the computation is accepting, and if rn ∈ Fr then the computation is rejecting. There is a requirement that for each w there is at least one accepting computation or at least one rejecting computation but not both. == Results == Each DFA is a SVFA, but not vice versa. Jirásková and Pighizzini proved that for every SVFA of n states, there exists an equivalent DFA of g ( n ) = Θ ( 3 n / 3 ) {\displaystyle g(n)=\Theta (3^{n/3})} states. Furthermore, for each positive integer n, there exists an n-state SVFA such that the minimal equivalent DFA has exactly g ( n ) {\displaystyle g(n)} states. Other results on the state complexity of SVFA were obtained by Jirásková and her colleagues.
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LENA Foundation

The LENA Foundation is an American nonprofit organisation which provides tools for measuring children's language acquisition and exposure. Specifically, the LENA system consists of a digital language processor which is worn by a child and records and analyses their auditory environment, using propriety software. It then presents a summary of child-adult conversation, such as conversation turns and word counts. The purpose of the LENA system is to encourage interactive talk between children (between the age of two to forty-eight months) and their caretakers. The LENA system is also used for research; while useful for researchers who wish to save transcription costs or observe the child in its natural state, the accuracy of this system, while often quite high, varies between contexts, for example notably in the case of hard of hearing children. Because of this, several researchers recommend caution in using only the LENA system on its own for the purposes of scientific research. == History == The LENA Foundation was established in 2009 by Terrance and Judith Paul, founders of Renaissance Learning, Inc., with the purpose of aiding children with disabilities and assisting with early learning. They were inspired by the book "Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of American Children" by Dr. Betty Hart and Dr. Todd Risley. A pilot version of the LENA system was launched in February 2006. The LENA Research Foundation was registered as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit in September 2010. The organisation was renamed simply LENA in 2018 and adopted the tagline "Building brains through early talk." LENA has been used for parental feedback, linguistics or paediatrics research, and for specific clinical cases. == Scientific background == In 2018, research using the LENA system showed that there was a link between children's conversational turns and activation of Broca's area (a part of the brain responsible, although not necessarily essential, for language processing). The LENA foundation cites research by its own employees as evidence for the scientific basis of its technology. Said research claims that verbal interaction with young children has an effect on language acquisition, including verbal comprehension skills during adolescence. == LENA System == The LENA software analyses a child's natural language environment, such as verbal exposure, and provides several metrics, such as adult and child speech time, television/recorded audio time, word count, or conversation turn count. The LENA hardware is a recorder that is usually placed into a child's specially-designed vest. The software was trained on over 65,000 hours of manually annotated American English audio recordings. It splits the audio into segments which are categorised as "key child", "other child", "male adult", "noise", etc. The advantages of LENA as opposed to manual transcription are its speed and ease of use; the disadvantages are its potential inaccuracies and lack of transcription capability (which LENA does not profess to attempt). The LENA system has also been criticised for prioritising quantity of speaking over quality (i.e., mastery of the language, as opposed to babble). == Product lines == === LENA Start === LENA Start is a program for parents that utilises feedback from the LENA System in conjunction with weekly group sessions in order to address the home language environment. It was introduced in 2015 and implemented across several U.S. states. In October 2020, during the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, Read Aloud Delaware began a virtual LENA Start program with families statewide, where parents received feedback and participated in one-hour Zoom workshops each week during the 10-week program. === LENA Grow === LENA Grow is a professional development program for teachers in early childhood classrooms. Before launching at sites around the country, the program was first piloted in Escambia County, Florida. === LENA Home === LENA Home is a supplement to existing parent coaching curricula. Typically, home visitors facilitate the use of the LENA System to help parents track their progress towards increasing interactive talk in their homes. === Developmental Snapshot === The LENA Developmental Snapshot, based on a 52-question parent survey, assesses both expressive and receptive language skills and provides an estimate of a child's developmental age from 2 months to 36 months.
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Trevor Hastie

Trevor John Hastie (born 27 June 1953) is an American statistician and computer scientist. He is currently serving as the John A. Overdeck Professor of Mathematical Sciences and Professor of Statistics at Stanford University. Hastie is known for his contributions to applied statistics, especially in the field of machine learning, data mining, and bioinformatics. He has authored several popular books in statistical learning, including The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction. Hastie has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Mathematics by the ISI Web of Knowledge. He also contributed to the development of S. == Education and career == Hastie was born on 27 June 1953 in South Africa. He received his B.S. in statistics from the Rhodes University in 1976 and master's degree from University of Cape Town in 1979. Hastie joined the doctoral program at Stanford University in 1980 and received his Ph.D. in 1984 under the supervision of Werner Stuetzle. His dissertation was "Principal Curves and Surfaces". Hastie began his professional career in 1977 with the South African Medical Research Council. After receiving his master's degree in 1979, he spent a year interning at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and the Biomath department at Oxford University. After receiving his doctoral degree from Stanford, Hastie returned to South Africa to work with his former employer South African Medical Research Council. He returned to United States in 1986 and joined the AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey and remained there for nine years. Working with John Chambers, he co-directed the development of the S programming language. He joined Stanford University in 1994 as Associate Professor in Statistics and Biostatistics. He was promoted to full Professor in 1999. During the period 2006–2009, he was the chair of the Department of Statistics at Stanford University. In 2013 he was named the John A. Overdeck Professor of Mathematical Sciences. == Awards and honors == Hastie is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society since 1979. He is also an elected Fellow of several professional and scholarly societies, including the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the American Statistical Association, and the South African Statistical Society. He is a recipient of 'Myrto Lefkopolou Distinguished Lectureship' award of Biostatistics Department at the Harvard School of Public Health. In 2018, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2019 Hastie became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hastie was named for the C.R. and Bhargavi Rao Prize in 2025. Hastie and Hui Zou received the 2025 Founders of Statistics prize for their elastic net paper. == Publications == Hastie is a prolific author of scientific works on numerous topics in applied statistics, including statistical learning, data mining, statistical computing, and bioinformatics. He along with his collaborators has authored about 125 scientific articles. Many of Hastie's scientific articles were coauthored by his longtime collaborator, Robert Tibshirani. Hastie has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Mathematics by the ISI Web of Knowledge. He has coauthored the following books: T. Hastie and R. Tibshirani, Generalized Additive Models, Chapman and Hall, 1990. J. Chambers and T. Hastie, Statistical Models in S, Wadsworth/Brooks Cole, 1991. T. Hastie, R. Tibshirani, and J. Friedman, The Elements of Statistical Learning: Prediction, Inference and Data Mining, Second Edition, Springer Verlag, 2009 (available for free from the author's website). G. James, D. Witten, T. Hastie, R. Tibshirani, An Introduction to Statistical Learning with Applications in R, Springer Verlag, 2013 (available for free from the co-author's website). T. Hastie, R. Tibshirani, M. Wainwright, Statistical Learning with Sparsity: the Lasso and Generalizations, CRC Press, 2015 (available for free from the author's website). Bradley Efron; Trevor Hastie (2016). Computer Age Statistical Inference. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107149892.
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Is an Conversational AI Platform Worth It in 2026?

Looking for the best conversational AI platform? An conversational AI platform is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it can save you hours every week by automating repetitive work. Most options offer a generous free tier, with paid plans unlocking higher limits, faster processing, and team features. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right conversational AI platform slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. This guide breaks down the top picks, their pros and cons, and who each one is best for.
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Wang-Chiew Tan

Wang-Chiew Tan is a Singaporean computer scientist specializing in data management and natural language processing. Her work in data management includes data provenance (or data lineage) and data integration. She is currently a Research Scientist at Facebook AI, and was previously the Director of Research at Megagon Labs in Mountain View, California. At Megagon Labs, Tan was the lead researcher on a study with the University of Tokyo that concluded that the company of other people is more effective than pets at making people happy. == Education and career == Tan earned her bachelor's degree in computer science (first-class) at the National University of Singapore, and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. Her 2002 dissertation, Data Annotations, Provenance, and Archiving, was jointly supervised by Peter Buneman and Sanjeev Khanna. Before working at Megagon, she has been a professor of computer science at the University of California, Santa Cruz beginning in 2002, and, from 2010 to 2012, was on leave from Santa Cruz as a researcher at IBM Research - Almaden. == Recognition == Tan was named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2015 "for contributions to data provenance and to the foundations of information integration".
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Prosthesis

In medicine, a prosthesis (pl.: prostheses; from Ancient Greek: πρόσθεσις, romanized: prósthesis, lit. 'addition, application, attachment'), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through physical trauma, disease, or a condition present at birth (congenital disorder). Prostheses may restore the normal functions of the missing body part, or may perform a cosmetic function. A person who has undergone an amputation is sometimes referred to as an amputee, Rehabilitation for someone with an amputation is primarily coordinated by a physiatrist as part of an inter-disciplinary team consisting of physiatrists, prosthetists, nurses, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. Prostheses can be created by hand or with computer-aided design (CAD), a software interface that helps creators design and analyze the creation with computer-generated 2-D and 3-D graphics as well as analysis and optimization tools. == Types == A person's prosthetic device should be designed and assembled to meet their individual appearance and functional needs. Depending on personal circumstances, co-morbidities, budget or health insurance coverage, and access to medical care, decisions may need to balance aesthetics and function. In addition, for some individuals, a myoelectric device, a body-powered device, or an activity-specific device may be appropriate options. The person's future goals and vocational aspirations and potential capabilities may help them choose between one or more devices. Craniofacial prostheses include intra-oral and extra-oral prostheses. Extra-oral prostheses are further divided into hemifacial, auricular (ear), nasal, orbital and ocular. Intra-oral prostheses include dental prostheses, such as dentures, obturators, and dental implants. Prostheses of the neck include larynx substitutes, trachea and upper esophageal replacements, Some prostheses of the torso include breast prostheses which may be either single or bilateral, full breast devices or nipple prostheses. Penile prostheses are used to treat erectile dysfunction, perform phalloplasty procedures in men, and to build a new penis in female-to-male gender reassignment surgeries. === Limb prostheses === Limb prostheses include both upper- and lower-extremity prostheses. Upper-extremity prostheses are used at varying levels of amputation: forequarter, shoulder disarticulation, transhumeral prosthesis, elbow disarticulation, transradial prosthesis, wrist disarticulation, full hand, partial hand, finger, partial finger. A transradial prosthesis is an artificial limb that replaces an arm missing below the elbow. Upper limb prostheses can be categorized in three main categories: Passive devices, Body Powered devices, and Externally Powered (myoelectric) devices. Passive devices can either be passive hands, mainly used for cosmetic purposes, or passive tools, mainly used for specific activities (e.g. leisure or vocational). An extensive overview and classification of passive devices can be found in a literature review by Maat et.al. A passive device can be static, meaning the device has no movable parts, or it can be adjustable, meaning its configuration can be adjusted (e.g. adjustable hand opening). Despite the absence of active grasping, passive devices are very useful in bimanual tasks that require fixation or support of an object, or for gesticulation in social interaction. According to scientific data a third of the upper limb amputees worldwide use a passive prosthetic hand. Body Powered or cable-operated limbs work by attaching a harness and cable around the opposite shoulder of the damaged arm. A recent body-powered approach has explored the utilization of the user's breathing to power and control the prosthetic hand to help eliminate actuation cable and harness. The third category of available prosthetic devices comprises myoelectric arms. This particular class of devices distinguishes itself from the previous ones due to the inclusion of a battery system. This battery serves the dual purpose of providing energy for both actuation and sensing components. While actuation predominantly relies on motor or pneumatic systems, a variety of solutions have been explored for capturing muscle activity, including techniques such as Electromyography, Sonomyography, Myokinetic, and others. These methods function by detecting the minute electrical currents generated by contracted muscles during upper arm movement, typically employing electrodes or other suitable tools. Subsequently, these acquired signals are converted into gripping patterns or postures that the artificial hand will then execute. In the prosthetics industry, a trans-radial prosthetic arm is often referred to as a "BE" or below elbow prosthesis. Lower-extremity prostheses provide replacements at varying levels of amputation. These include hip disarticulation, transfemoral prosthesis, knee disarticulation, transtibial prosthesis, Syme's amputation, foot, partial foot, and toe. The two main subcategories of lower extremity prosthetic devices are trans-tibial (any amputation transecting the tibia bone or a congenital anomaly resulting in a tibial deficiency) and trans-femoral (any amputation transecting the femur bone or a congenital anomaly resulting in a femoral deficiency). A transfemoral prosthesis is an artificial limb that replaces a leg missing above the knee. Transfemoral amputees can have a very difficult time regaining normal movement. In general, a transfemoral amputee must use approximately 80% more energy to walk than a person with two whole legs. This is due to the complexities in movement associated with the knee. In newer and more improved designs, hydraulics, carbon fiber, mechanical linkages, motors, computer microprocessors, and innovative combinations of these technologies are employed to give more control to the user. In the prosthetics industry, a trans-femoral prosthetic leg is often referred to as an "AK" or above the knee prosthesis. A transtibial prosthesis is an artificial limb that replaces a leg missing below the knee. A transtibial amputee is usually able to regain normal movement more readily than someone with a transfemoral amputation, due in large part to retaining the knee, which allows for easier movement. Lower extremity prosthetics describe artificially replaced limbs located at the hip level or lower. In the prosthetics industry, a transtibial prosthetic leg is often referred to as a "BK" or below the knee prosthesis. Prostheses are manufactured and fit by clinical prosthetists. Prosthetists are healthcare professionals responsible for making, fitting, and adjusting prostheses and for lower limb prostheses will assess both gait and prosthetic alignment. Once a prosthesis has been fit and adjusted by a prosthetist, a rehabilitation physiotherapist (called physical therapist in America) will help teach a new prosthetic user to walk with a leg prosthesis. To do so, the physical therapist may provide verbal instructions and may also help guide the person using touch or tactile cues. This may be done in a clinic or home. There is some research suggesting that such training in the home may be more successful if the treatment includes the use of a treadmill. Using a treadmill, along with the physical therapy treatment, helps the person to experience many of the challenges of walking with a prosthesis. In the United Kingdom, 75% of lower limb amputations are performed due to inadequate circulation (dysvascularity). This condition is often associated with many other medical conditions (co-morbidities) including diabetes and heart disease that may make it a challenge to recover and use a prosthetic limb to regain mobility and independence. For people who have inadequate circulation and have lost a lower limb, there is insufficient evidence due to a lack of research, to inform them regarding their choice of prosthetic rehabilitation approaches. Lower extremity prostheses are often categorized by the level of amputation or after the name of a surgeon: Transfemoral (Above-knee) Transtibial (Below-knee) Ankle disarticulation (more commonly known as Syme's amputation) Knee disarticulation (also see knee replacement) Hip disarticulation, (also see hip replacement) Hemi-pelvictomy Partial foot amputations (Pirogoff, Talo-Navicular and Calcaneo-cuboid (Chopart), Tarso-metatarsal (Lisfranc), Trans-metatarsal, Metatarsal-phalangeal, Ray amputations, toe amputations). Van Nes rotationplasty ==== Prosthetic raw materials ==== Prosthetic are made lightweight for better convenience for the amputee. Some of these materials include: Plastics: Polyethylene Polypropylene Acrylics Polyurethane Wood (early prosthetics) Rubber (early prosthetics) Lightweight metals: Aluminum Composites: Carbon fiber reinforced polymers Wheeled prostheses have also been used extensively in the rehabilitation of injured domestic animals, including dogs, cats, pigs, rabbits, and
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AI Paraphrasing Tools Reviews: What Actually Works in 2026

Comparing the best AI paraphrasing tool? An AI paraphrasing tool is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it lowers the barrier so anyone can produce professional output. Privacy matters too: check whether your data trains the model and whether a no-log or enterprise tier is available. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI paraphrasing tool slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. We tested the leading options and ranked them by quality, value, and ease of use.
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Karl Steinbuch

Karl W. Steinbuch (June 15, 1917 in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt – June 4, 2005 in Ettlingen) was a German computer scientist, cyberneticist, and electrical engineer. He was an early and influential researcher in German computer science, and was the developer of the Lernmatrix, an early implementation of artificial neural networks. From the late 1960s onwards the focus of his activity shifted from scientific research to right-wing political activism supporting the Neue Rechte. == Biography == Steinbuch joined the National Socialist German Students' League (NSDStB) and the Nazi Party. Steinbuch studied at the University of Stuttgart and in 1944 he received his PhD in physics. In 1948 he joined Standard Elektrik Lorenz (SEL, part of the ITT group) in Stuttgart, as a computer design engineer and later as a director of research and development, where he filed more than 70 patents. Steinbuch completed the first European fully transistorized computer, the ER 56 marketed by SEL. In 1958 he became professor and director of the Institute of Technology for information processing (ITIV) of the University of Karlsruhe, where he retired in 1980. In 1967 he began publishing books, in which he tried to influence German education policy. Together with books from colleagues like Jean Ziegler from Switzerland, Eric J. Hobsbawm from the UK, and John Naisbitt his books predicted what he regarded as the coming education disaster of the emerging civic lobby society. In 1957, together with Helmut Gröttrup, Steinbuch coined the term Informatik, the German word for computer science, which gave informatics, and the term kybernetische Anthropologie. == Awards and recognition == Wilhelm-Boelsche award - medal in Gold German non-fiction book award Gold medal award of the XXI. International Congresses on Aerospace Medicine Konrad Adenauer award of science Jakob Fugger award medal Medal of merit of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg member, German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina member, International Academy of Science, Munich. grants from a state government grants program, named "Karl-Steinbuch-Stipendium" Steinbuch Centre for Computing at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology named after him == Books == Steinbuch wrote several books and articles, including: 1957 Informatik: Automatische Informationsverarbeitung ("Informatics: automatic information processing"). 1963 Learning matrices and their applications (together with U. A. W. Piske) 1965 A critical comparison of two kinds of adaptive classification networks (together with Bernard Widrow) 1966 (1969): Die informierte Gesellschaft. Geschichte und Zukunft der Nachrichtentechnik (The informed society. History and Future of telecommunications) 1989: Die desinformierte Gesellschaft (The disinformed society) 1968: Falsch programmiert. Über das Versagen unserer Gesellschaft in der Gegenwart und vor der Zukunft und was eigentlich geschehen müßte. (as a bestseller listet in: Der Spiegel) (Programmed falsely. About our society's failure in the present and with respect to the future and what should be done.) 1969: Programm 2000. (as a bestseller listet in: Der Spiegel) 1971: Automat und Mensch. Auf dem Weg zu einer kybernetischen Anthropologie (Machine and Man. On the way to a cybernetic anthropology; 4th revised edition) 1971: Mensch Technik Zukunft. Probleme von Morgen (German non-fiction book award) (Man Technology Future. Problems of Tomorrow) 1973: Kurskorrektur (Correcting the Course) 1978: Maßlos informiert. Die Enteignung des Denkens (Excessively informed. The Deprivation of Thinking) 1984: Unsere manipulierte Demokratie. Müssen wir mit der linken Lüge leben? (Our Thought-controlled Democracy. Do we have to live with the leftist lie?)
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