AI Chatbot Creator

AI Chatbot Creator — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

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  Kai's Power Tools

  Kai's Power Tools (KPT) are a set of API plugins created by the German computer scientist Kai Krause in 1992 that were designed for use with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photo-Paint. Kai's Power Tools were sold to Corel in 2000 when MetaCreations was closed. There are various versions of Kai's Power Tools. KPT 3, 5, 6, and X sets are compilations of different filters. The program interface features a reward-based function in which a bonus function is revealed as the user moves towards more complex aspects of the tool. == Filters == The KPT Convolver is a mathematics based filter; the level of precision and varying effects can be achieved by using numerical values of colour, tint, hue, saturation, contrast, brightness, luminosity, and posterize. The KPT Projector takes the current image or selection and offers a number of interactive perspective warp effects. To a large extent, with its draggable distortion handles and its moving, scaling and rotating options, this simply duplicates Adobe Photoshop's Free Transform capabilities. What is completely different is the ability to rotate the bitmap image in 3D space and to tile the results if desired. It can also animate the distortions by dragging keyframes from the preview window into an animation palette. KPT 6 will then preview the animation and output it to various sizes in avi or mov format. This animation capability is even more useful with the KPT Turbulence filter. This is another distortion filter, but one that treats the image as if it was completely liquid. The preview panel shows the animation in real time. The KPT Goo filter is used to produce a single frame freeform liquid distortion. This filter is available both with KPT 6 and the standalone version. It works by effectively turning a bitmap image into a liquid that can be interactively smeared, smudged, twirled, and pinched with the range of tools on offer. The obvious use is to distort photographic portraits into caricatures. KPT Materializer can create advanced surface textures based on bump maps that define troughs and peaks. It can use any external image for the basis of the bump map or alternatively the user can pick out the hue, saturation, luminance or red, green, or blue channel of the current image. It can then offset, scale and rotate the texture map, control its lighting, and even blend in a reflection map. The filter can be used for anything from providing an oil-painting feel to an entire image, to giving the illusion of depth to a selection. Also producing the impression of depth is the KPT Gel filter which uses various paint tools to synthesize photo-realistic 3D materials such as metals, liquids, or plastics. Gel painting is very different from traditional 2D painting as the brush strokes pool together when they touch and refract the underlying image. It can also manipulate 3D paint—once it has been added—by twirling, pinching, and carving it. The opposite is true of the Equalizer filter, which is used for applying variations on sharpening effects. The filter has three modes. The first mode, Equalizer, looks and works rather like the graphic equalizer on a stereo system, enabling adjustment of the level of pixel contrast within nine bands of different visual frequencies. The second mode, Contrast Sharpen, allows for increasing the contrast between light and dark areas in an image. The third mode, Bounded Sharpen, can sharpen an image without causing oversharpening, which can lead to halo effects. This feature is particularly useful when pulling out the detail in an image softened by resizing. KPT SceneBuilder is used for producing photorealistic 3D scenes by importing and rendering 3DS files. The main image window offers three tabs for editing in 2D and 3D mode and for setting up the object's final texture. Many users regard this filter as being the most impressive because it acts as a standalone 3D rendering tool and provides control over everything from transparency, reflection, refraction, bump mapping through to multiple light sources, and so on but without the ability to create or edit objects. The final filter, KPT SkyEffects, also has its roots in Metacreations' experience with 3D programs such as Bryce and RayDream. This filter is designed to simulate the interaction between the light from the sun or moon with no less than six atmospheric layers of haze, fog and cloud. The filter is typical of the KPT 6 collection as a whole: at times the interface is inspired and offers the ability to create beautiful reddening sunsets simply by interactively dragging the sun toward the horizon, producing realistic sunsets and moonscapes. == Other effects == Kai's Power Tools 6 features a lens flare effect for precisely managing the type of glow, halo, streaks, and reflection. The addition of a library of preset effects helps to overcome this by allowing the user to choose a standard effect and then interactively position the flare in the image preview. KPT 6 provides a new engine in the form of the KPT Reaction, which takes a reaction seed and turns it into a seamlessly tiling pattern based on a reaction diffusion process. It offers random noise, regular dots or reticulated voronoi patterns or a bitmap image itself as the seed. Corel has no plans for any updates.

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  Data Transformation Services

  Data Transformation Services (DTS) is a Microsoft database tool with a set of objects and utilities to allow the automation of extract, transform and load operations to or from a database. The objects are DTS packages and their components, and the utilities are called DTS tools. DTS was included with earlier versions of Microsoft SQL Server, and was almost always used with SQL Server databases, although it could be used independently with other databases. DTS allows data to be transformed and loaded from heterogeneous sources using OLE DB, ODBC, or text-only files, into any supported database. DTS can also allow automation of data import or transformation on a scheduled basis, and can perform additional functions such as FTPing files and executing external programs. In addition, DTS provides an alternative method of version control and backup for packages when used in conjunction with a version control system, such as Microsoft Visual SourceSafe. DTS has been superseded by SQL Server Integration Services in later releases of Microsoft SQL Server though there was some backwards compatibility and ability to run DTS packages in the new SSIS for a time. == History == In SQL Server versions 6.5 and earlier, database administrators (DBAs) used SQL Server Transfer Manager and Bulk Copy Program, included with SQL Server, to transfer data. These tools had significant shortcomings, and many DBAs used third-party tools such as Pervasive Data Integrator to transfer data more flexibly and easily. With the release of SQL Server 7 in 1998, "Data Transformation Services" was packaged with it to replace all these tools. The concept, design, and implementation of the Data Transformation Services was led by Stewart P. MacLeod (SQL Server Development Group Program Manager), Vij Rajarajan (SQL Server Lead Developer), and Ted Hart (SQL Server Lead Developer). The goal was to make it easier to import, export, and transform heterogeneous data and simplify the creation of data warehouses from operational data sources. SQL Server 2000 expanded DTS functionality in several ways. It introduced new types of tasks, including the ability to FTP files, move databases or database components, and add messages into Microsoft Message Queue. DTS packages can be saved as a Visual Basic file in SQL Server 2000, and this can be expanded to save into any COM-compliant language. Microsoft also integrated packages into Windows 2000 security and made DTS tools more user-friendly; tasks can accept input and output parameters. DTS comes with all editions of SQL Server 7 and 2000, but was superseded by SQL Server Integration Services in the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 release in 2005. == DTS packages == The DTS package is the fundamental logical component of DTS; every DTS object is a child component of the package. Packages are used whenever one modifies data using DTS. All the metadata about the data transformation is contained within the package. Packages can be saved directly in a SQL Server, or can be saved in the Microsoft Repository or in COM files. SQL Server 2000 also allows a programmer to save packages in a Visual Basic or other language file (when stored to a VB file, the package is actually scripted—that is, a VB script is executed to dynamically create the package objects and its component objects). A package can contain any number of connection objects, but does not have to contain any. These allow the package to read data from any OLE DB-compliant data source, and can be expanded to handle other sorts of data. The functionality of a package is organized into tasks and steps. A DTS Task is a discrete set of functionalities executed as a single step in a DTS package. Each task defines a work item to be performed as part of the data movement and data transformation process or as a job to be executed. Data Transformation Services supplies a number of tasks that are part of the DTS object model and that can be accessed graphically through the DTS Designer or accessed programmatically. These tasks, which can be configured individually, cover a wide variety of data copying, data transformation and notification situations. For example, the following types of tasks represent some actions that you can perform by using DTS: executing a single SQL statement, sending an email, and transferring a file with FTP. A step within a DTS package describes the order in which tasks are run and the precedence constraints that describe what to do in the case damage or of failure. These steps can be executed sequentially or in parallel. Packages can also contain global variables which can be used throughout the package. SQL Server 2000 allows input and output parameters for tasks, greatly expanding the usefulness of global variables. DTS packages can be edited, password protected, scheduled for execution, and retrieved by version. == DTS tools == DTS tools packaged with SQL Server include the DTS wizards, DTS Designer, and DTS Programming Interfaces. === DTS wizards === The DTS wizards can be used to perform simple or common DTS tasks. These include the Import/Export Wizard and the Copy of Database Wizard. They provide the simplest method of copying data between OLE DB data sources. There is a great deal of functionality that is not available by merely using a wizard. However, a package created with a wizard can be saved and later altered with one of the other DTS tools. A Create Publishing Wizard is also available to schedule packages to run at certain times. This only works if SQL Server Agent is running; otherwise the package will be scheduled, but will not be executed. === DTS Designer === The DTS Designer is a graphical tool used to build complex DTS Packages with workflows and event-driven logic. DTS Designer can also be used to edit and customize DTS Packages created with the DTS wizard. Each connection and task in DTS Designer is shown with a specific icon. These icons are joined with precedence constraints, which specify the order and requirements for tasks to be run. One task may run, for instance, only if another task succeeds (or fails). Other tasks may run concurrently. The DTS Designer has been criticized for having unusual quirks and limitations, such as the inability to visually copy and paste multiple tasks at one time. Many of these shortcomings have been overcome in SQL Server Integration Services, DTS's successor. === DTS Query Designer === A graphical tool used to build queries in DTS. === DTS Run Utility === DTS Packages can be run from the command line using the DTSRUN Utility. The utility is invoked using the following syntax: dtsrun /S server_name[\instance_name] { {/[~]U user_name [/[~]P password]} | /E } ] { {/[~]N package_name } | {/[~]G package_guid_string} | {/[~]V package_version_guid_string} } [/[~]M package_password] [/[~]F filename] [/[~]R repository_database_name] [/A global_variable_name:typeid=value] [/L log_file_name] [/W NT_event_log_completion_status] [/Z] [/!X] [/!D] [/!Y] [/!C] ] When passing in parameters which are mapped to Global Variables, you are required to include the typeid. This is rather difficult to find on the Microsoft site. Below are the TypeIds used in passing in these values.

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  Codebook

  A codebook is a type of document used for gathering and storing cryptography codes. Originally, codebooks were often literally books, but today "codebook" is a byword for the complete record of a series of codes, regardless of physical format. == Cryptography == In cryptography, a codebook is a document used for implementing a code. A codebook contains a lookup table for coding and decoding; each word or phrase has one or more strings which replace it. To decipher messages written in code, corresponding copies of the codebook must be available at either end. The distribution and physical security of codebooks presents a special difficulty in the use of codes compared to the secret information used in ciphers, the key, which is typically much shorter. The United States National Security Agency documents sometimes use codebook to refer to block ciphers; compare their use of combiner-type algorithm to refer to stream ciphers. Codebooks come in two forms, one-part or two-part: In one-part codes, the plaintext words and phrases and the corresponding code words are in the same alphabetical order. They are organized similar to a standard dictionary. Such codes are half the size of two-part codes but are more vulnerable since an attacker who recovers some code word meanings can often infer the meaning of nearby code words. One-part codes may be used simply to shorten messages for transmission or have their security enhanced with superencryption methods, such as adding a secret number to numeric code words. In two-part codes, one part is for converting plaintext to ciphertext, the other for the opposite purpose. They are usually organized similarly to a language translation dictionary, with plaintext words (in the first part) and ciphertext words (in the second part) presented like dictionary headwords. The earliest known use of a codebook system was by Gabriele de Lavinde in 1379 working for the Antipope Clement VII. Two-part codebooks go back as least as far as Antoine Rossignol in the 1800s. From the 15th century until the middle of the 19th century, nomenclators (named after nomenclator) were the most used cryptographic method. Codebooks with superencryption were the most used cryptographic method of World War I. The JN-25 code used in World War II used a codebook of 30,000 code groups superencrypted with 30,000 random additives. The book used in a book cipher or the book used in a running key cipher can be any book shared by sender and receiver and is different from a cryptographic codebook. == Social sciences == In social sciences, a codebook is a document containing a list of the codes used in a set of data to refer to variables and their values, for example locations, occupations, or clinical diagnoses. == Data compression == Codebooks were also used in 19th- and 20th-century commercial codes for the non-cryptographic purpose of data compression. Codebooks are used in relation to precoding and beamforming in mobile networks such as 5G and LTE. The usage is standardized by 3GPP, for example in the document TS 38.331, NR; Radio Resource Control (RRC); Protocol specification.

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  Media contacts database

  In public relations (PR) and marketing, a media contacts database is a resource which catalogs the names, contact information, and other details about people who work in various media professions. These include journalists, reporters, editors, publishers, contributors, freelance journalists, opinion writers, social media personalities/ influencers, TV show anchors, radio show hosts, DJs, and others. A media contacts database usually contains the following information: Full name of the media contact, The publication or channel they work for Designations (past and present) Topics they cover, or their beat Contact information found in public domains Online presence like blogs and other social networking sites Education Information == Overview == A media contacts database is a public relations tool that is maintained and used by PR professionals to pitch stories on a particular topic, product, or company to a specific group of journalists. These journalists would then write or speak about the particular topic in a relevant issue or episode of their shows. A media contacts database allows a PR professional to gain easy access to hundreds of journalists within a short span of time. Media contacts database are created and sold by many media research companies that offer such PR software for professionals.

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  Weak supervision

  Weak supervision (also known as semi-supervised learning) is a paradigm in machine learning, the relevance and notability of which increased with the advent of large language models due to the large amount of data required to train them. It is characterized by using a combination of a small amount of human-labeled data (exclusively used in more expensive and time-consuming supervised learning paradigm), followed by a large amount of unlabeled data (used exclusively in unsupervised learning paradigm). In other words, the desired output values are provided only for a subset of the training data. The remaining data is unlabeled or imprecisely labeled. Intuitively, it can be seen as an exam and labeled data as sample problems that the teacher solves for the class as an aid in solving another set of problems. In the transductive setting, these unsolved problems act as exam questions. In the inductive setting, they become practice problems of the sort that will make up the exam. == Problem == The acquisition of labeled data for a learning problem often requires a skilled human agent (e.g. to transcribe an audio segment) or a physical experiment (e.g. determining the 3D structure of a protein or determining whether there is oil at a particular location). The cost associated with the labeling process thus may render large, fully labeled training sets infeasible, whereas acquisition of unlabeled data is relatively inexpensive. In such situations, semi-supervised learning can be of great practical value. Semi-supervised learning is also of theoretical interest in machine learning and as a model for human learning. == Technique == More formally, semi-supervised learning assumes a set of l {\displaystyle l} independently identically distributed examples x 1 , … , x l ∈ X {\displaystyle x_{1},\dots ,x_{l}\in X} with corresponding labels y 1 , … , y l ∈ Y {\displaystyle y_{1},\dots ,y_{l}\in Y} and u {\displaystyle u} unlabeled examples x l + 1 , … , x l + u ∈ X {\displaystyle x_{l+1},\dots ,x_{l+u}\in X} are processed. Semi-supervised learning combines this information to surpass the classification performance that can be obtained either by discarding the unlabeled data and doing supervised learning or by discarding the labels and doing unsupervised learning. Semi-supervised learning may refer to either transductive learning or inductive learning. The goal of transductive learning is to infer the correct labels for the given unlabeled data x l + 1 , … , x l + u {\displaystyle x_{l+1},\dots ,x_{l+u}} only. The goal of inductive learning is to infer the correct mapping from X {\displaystyle X} to Y {\displaystyle Y} . It is unnecessary (and, according to Vapnik's principle, imprudent) to perform transductive learning by way of inferring a classification rule over the entire input space; however, in practice, algorithms formally designed for transduction or induction are often used interchangeably. == Assumptions == In order to make any use of unlabeled data, some relationship to the underlying distribution of data must exist. Semi-supervised learning algorithms make use of at least one of the following assumptions: === Continuity / smoothness assumption === Points that are close to each other are more likely to share a label. This is also generally assumed in supervised learning and yields a preference for geometrically simple decision boundaries. In the case of semi-supervised learning, the smoothness assumption additionally yields a preference for decision boundaries in low-density regions, so few points are close to each other but in different classes. === Cluster assumption === The data tend to form discrete clusters, and points in the same cluster are more likely to share a label (although data that shares a label may spread across multiple clusters). This is a special case of the smoothness assumption and gives rise to feature learning with clustering algorithms. === Manifold assumption === The data lie approximately on a manifold of much lower dimension than the input space. In this case learning the manifold using both the labeled and unlabeled data can avoid the curse of dimensionality. Then learning can proceed using distances and densities defined on the manifold. The manifold assumption is practical when high-dimensional data are generated by some process that may be hard to model directly, but which has only a few degrees of freedom. For instance, human voice is controlled by a few vocal folds, and images of various facial expressions are controlled by a few muscles. In these cases, it is better to consider distances and smoothness in the natural space of the generating problem, rather than in the space of all possible acoustic waves or images, respectively. == History == The heuristic approach of self-training (also known as self-learning or self-labeling) is historically the oldest approach to semi-supervised learning, with examples of applications starting in the 1960s. The transductive learning framework was formally introduced by Vladimir Vapnik in the 1970s. Interest in inductive learning using generative models also began in the 1970s. A probably approximately correct learning bound for semi-supervised learning of a Gaussian mixture was demonstrated by Ratsaby and Venkatesh in 1995. == Methods == === Generative models === Generative approaches to statistical learning first seek to estimate p ( x | y ) {\displaystyle p(x|y)} , the distribution of data points belonging to each class. The probability p ( y | x ) {\displaystyle p(y|x)} that a given point x {\displaystyle x} has label y {\displaystyle y} is then proportional to p ( x | y ) p ( y ) {\displaystyle p(x|y)p(y)} by Bayes' rule. Semi-supervised learning with generative models can be viewed either as an extension of supervised learning (classification plus information about p ( x ) {\displaystyle p(x)} ) or as an extension of unsupervised learning (clustering plus some labels). Generative models assume that the distributions take some particular form p ( x | y , θ ) {\displaystyle p(x|y,\theta )} parameterized by the vector θ {\displaystyle \theta } . If these assumptions are incorrect, the unlabeled data may actually decrease the accuracy of the solution relative to what would have been obtained from labeled data alone. However, if the assumptions are correct, then the unlabeled data necessarily improves performance. The unlabeled data are distributed according to a mixture of individual-class distributions. In order to learn the mixture distribution from the unlabeled data, it must be identifiable, that is, different parameters must yield different summed distributions. Gaussian mixture distributions are identifiable and commonly used for generative models. The parameterized joint distribution can be written as p ( x , y | θ ) = p ( y | θ ) p ( x | y , θ ) {\displaystyle p(x,y|\theta )=p(y|\theta )p(x|y,\theta )} by using the chain rule. Each parameter vector θ {\displaystyle \theta } is associated with a decision function f θ ( x ) = argmax y p ( y | x , θ ) {\displaystyle f_{\theta }(x)={\underset {y}{\operatorname {argmax} }}\ p(y|x,\theta )} . The parameter is then chosen based on fit to both the labeled and unlabeled data, weighted by λ {\displaystyle \lambda } : argmax Θ ( log ⁡ p ( { x i , y i } i = 1 l | θ ) + λ log ⁡ p ( { x i } i = l + 1 l + u | θ ) ) {\displaystyle {\underset {\Theta }{\operatorname {argmax} }}\left(\log p(\{x_{i},y_{i}\}_{i=1}^{l}|\theta )+\lambda \log p(\{x_{i}\}_{i=l+1}^{l+u}|\theta )\right)} === Low-density separation === Another major class of methods attempts to place boundaries in regions with few data points (labeled or unlabeled). One of the most commonly used algorithms is the transductive support vector machine, or TSVM (which, despite its name, may be used for inductive learning as well). Whereas support vector machines for supervised learning seek a decision boundary with maximal margin over the labeled data, the goal of TSVM is a labeling of the unlabeled data such that the decision boundary has maximal margin over all of the data. In addition to the standard hinge loss ( 1 − y f ( x ) ) + {\displaystyle (1-yf(x))_{+}} for labeled data, a loss function ( 1 − | f ( x ) | ) + {\displaystyle (1-|f(x)|)_{+}} is introduced over the unlabeled data by letting y = sign ⁡ f ( x ) {\displaystyle y=\operatorname {sign} {f(x)}} . TSVM then selects f ∗ ( x ) = h ∗ ( x ) + b {\displaystyle f^{}(x)=h^{}(x)+b} from a reproducing kernel Hilbert space H {\displaystyle {\mathcal {H}}} by minimizing the regularized empirical risk: f ∗ = argmin f ( ∑ i = 1 l ( 1 − y i f ( x i ) ) + + λ 1 ‖ h ‖ H 2 + λ 2 ∑ i = l + 1 l + u ( 1 − | f ( x i ) | ) + ) {\displaystyle f^{}={\underset {f}{\operatorname {argmin} }}\left(\displaystyle \sum _{i=1}^{l}(1-y_{i}f(x_{i}))_{+}+\lambda _{1}\|h\|_{\mathcal {H}}^{2}+\lambda _{2}\sum _{i=l+1}^{l+u}(1-|f(x_{i})|)_{+}\right)} An exact solution is intractable due to the non-convex term ( 1 − | f ( x ) | ) + {\displayst

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  List of broadband over power line deployments

  This is a list of broadband over power line deployments. In this sense, "broadband" usually refers to Internet access using power line communication technology. == BPL pilot projects - 1st Gen (UPA) == === Inactive pilot projects === North America: United States: The United Telecom Council publishes the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-mandated BPL Interference Resolution website, which provides a list of all BPL deployments in the US. Canada: Quebec: As of 2005, PLC communication technology developed by Ariane Controls is being installed inside and outside existing buildings to control lights and other energy-hungry devices. The cheap devices allow energy consumption to be better managed, and so save much energy and bring a clear return on investment. Western Europe: Sweden: Vattenfall is using PLC technology at 1200 baud for automatic meter reading based on an Iskraemeco product. Central and Eastern Europe, and Eurasia: Russian Federation: Electro-com has deployed widely BPL/PLC technology and offers internet access service in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Kaluga and Rostov-on-Don, planning to extend coverage to main Russian cities. Currently the company does not provide other services, though plans to start providing telephone, and television services someday. Base equipment is a DefiDev modem with a DS2 chipset. The company had 35,000 subscribers and an annual growth of 15-20%. The company has, however, halted operations in Moscow in September, 2008, having sold its client network to an IDSL internet provider. Romania: In January, 2006, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology introduced a PLC trial in the rural locality of Band, Mureș County, offering phone and broadband internet access for €7 per month. The technology was introduced to 50 households. Montenegro: In March, 2002, the Internet Crna Gora biggest internet provider in Montenegro launched a pilot project in town of Cetinje. Serbia: In August 2002, the Star Engineering from Niš launched a pilot project to show a completely new way to access the Internet, which is a new in that time in most countries around the world. Hungary: The first powerline service in Hungary was realized in September, 2003, in the Riverside apartment house in Budapest by 23Vnet Ltd. The PLC equipment was supplied by ASCOM Powerline. After four months the service was counting 100 users from 450 apartment owners. The bandwidth is 4.5 Mbit/s. Asia, Pacific, and Oceania: Indonesia: PT Kejora Gemilang Internusa "KEJORA", under their banner PLANET BROADBAND, is currently rolling out broadband over power line, with over 300,000 homes expected to be enabled by August 2010. PT. Kejora Gemilang Internusa signed an 8-year Joint Venture concession agreement with ICON+ a division of PT. Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Indonesia electricity company). Under the terms of the agreement PLAnet Broadband are to supply BPL/PLC to Jakarta West and West Java. Another company, PT. Broadband Powerline Indonesia, has been developing broadband over power line in apartment buildings since 2006. PT. BPI also produces data couplers to make broadband over powerline possible in three phases (R, S, T) with a single master. India : In India IIIT Allahabad has completed a project in co-operation with Corinex Communications Canada to implement a prototype of BPL for University campus and nearby villages. Africa and the Middle East: Egypt: The Engineering Office for Integrated Projects (EOIP) has deployed PLC technology widely in Alexandria, Fayed, and Tanta. Based on a locally developed system, the company provides AMR for electricity utilities. Currently, the company has about 70,000 subscribers. South Africa: Goal Technology Solutions (GTS) trialled the technology and is offering service in the suburbs of Pretoria, and plans to extend it to other areas. The tests were done with Mitsubishi equipment using a DS2 chipset, and the company claims a maximum throughput of 90 Mbit/s although initially only "512 Kbits/s ADSL equivalent speeds" are available. Now it uses DefiDev's equipment, and according to GTS's website, it will expand available bandwidth up to 5-20 Mbit/s. Ghana: Cactel Communications, Ltd. successfully deployed an MV solution pilot project in the Graphic Communications Group in Accra in June, 2005. A Cactel Remote Energy Management System (REMS) pilot project for the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is running a 40-user pilot project at the University of Ghana in Legon. The current project combines fiber, radio link, Wi-Fi and PLC to provide broadband internet access and telephony. It showcases the interoperability of PLC technology and the company's expertise in emerging market design and deployment. Cactel hopes to deploy nationally, and is in deliberations with the national stakeholders and with Ghana's Ministry of Communications (MoC). AllTerra Communications successfully implemented a pilot test of broadband over power lines in Akosombo. In partnership with VRA, this test involves demonstrating transmission of broadband from medium to low voltage signals. AllTerra is working with VRA to expand the pilot project to include essential grid management utilities that will help balance and manage the current electricity transmission throughout their various substations. Using IT as a catalyst for economic development, AllTerra is expanding into numerous areas throughout Ghana. Vobiss Solutions Ltd successfully implemented a Hybrid Fibre BPL pilot network within EMEFS Hillview Estate in collaboration with ECG. Saudi Arabia: ElectroNet has been working with the Saudi Electric Company since 2005 on a pilot project using broadband over power lines over medium voltage cables and linking into low voltage distribution within a shopping mall. The pilot project also integrates automatic meter readers. Powerlines Communications Co. Ltd. implemented an AMR pilot project for Saudi Electricity Company in 2006. The project was located in the city of Jeddah on the west coast of Saudi Arabia. Digital KWh meters were installed in parallel with analog KWh meters. Readings taken by the Saudi Electricity Company showed variations of less than 1%. A BPL pilot project was included. Saudi Arabian Computer Management Consultants (SACMAC) has signed a deal to become an official system integrator and distributor for Mitsubishi PLC. It is expected to become a great success, because the existing broadband service, monopolized by the Saudi Telecom Company, is expensive and has poor customer service (some clients report that company techs arrive months after ordering). SACMAC has declined to talk about specifics of availability and price but says it will start rolling out the service in a few months (as of May 2006) and its price will be lower than current broadband providers. === Concluded pilot projects === The following pilot projects have ended: Australia, Tasmania: In November 2007, electricity retailer Aurora Energy ended its involvement with BPL and announced it was switching to Optical Fiber. This ended their commercial trial begun in September 2005, offering BPL services to 500 homes in the suburb of Tolmans Hill near Hobart, which had followed a successful technological trial earlier that year. Portugal ended BPL/PLC deployments in the country in October 2006, reportedly for economic reasons., Russian Federation: In September 2008, Russia's only BPL provider Electro-com ended deployments in Moscow for economic reasons. Spain: In May 2007 Iberdrola and Endesa (the main power companies in Spain) ended their projects to deploy PLC. United States: As of July 2010, the City of Manassas, VA has shut down their BPL deployment, which was the largest in the country. As of April 2007, Motorola has shuttered its Powerline LV Access BPL and reportedly plans to re-purpose the technology to a new system called Powerline MU, which is for use within multiple-unit dwellings. Motorola's system uses only residential-side low-voltage power lines for transmission to reduce the antenna effect, and successfully demonstrated frequency-notching for reduced potential for interference over the Amperion Inc. and Current Technologies LLC systems. Motorola invited the American Radio Relay League to participate with these tests, and even installed the Motorola system at their headquarters. Preliminary results were very positive with regard to interference, because the Motorola system does not use BPL on the powerlines leading up to the neighborhood. The BPL carrier is only used for the last leg of the trip from the pole to the house, and gets the signal to the pole via radio. This limits the interference to the area surrounding the last leg to the house. === Dismantled pilot projects === The following other BPL trials in the US are dismantled as of May 2008:

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  List of cryptography journals

  List of cryptography journals includes notable peer-reviewed academic journals that focus on cryptography, cryptanalysis, information security, and related areas in computer science and mathematics. == Notable journals == Cryptologia Designs, Codes and Cryptography IEEE Transactions on Information Theory International Journal of Information Security Journal of Cryptology Journal of Computer Security ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security Information Processing Letters Information and Computation

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  Commit (data management)

  In computer science and data management, a commit is a behavior that marks the end of a transaction and provides Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID) in transactions. The submission records are stored in the submission log for recovery and consistency in case of failure. In terms of transactions, the opposite of committing is giving up tentative changes to the transaction, which is rolled back. Due to the rise of distributed computing and the need to ensure data consistency across multiple systems, commit protocols have been evolving since their emergence in the 1970s. The main developments include the Two-Phase Commit (2PC) first proposed by Jim Gray, which is the fundamental core of distributed transaction management. Subsequently, the Three-phase Commit (3PC), Hypothesis Commit (PC), Hypothesis Abort (PA), and Optimistic Commit protocols gradually emerged, solving the problems of blocking and fault recovery. Today, new fields such as e-commerce payment and blockchain technology are emerging, and submission protocols play a significant role in various business areas. By effectively handling transactions, resolving faults and recovering problems, the commit protocol becomes crucial in ensuring the reliability and consistency of data management. == History == The concept of Commit originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when computer technology was rapidly advancing and data management was becoming an important requirement in business and finance. Enterprises have gradually replaced the traditional paper records with computers, which has fully improved the work efficiency. The reliability and consistency of data have become a necessary requirement. Transaction management at this stage is relatively simple, limited to using a single computer for processing. It merely effectively records the changes in data to ensure that the data remains stable after the transaction is completed or terminated. In the late 1970s, as database systems moved from a single calculator operation to multiple distributed collaborations, ensuring data consistency and reliability became a new challenge. In 1978, computer scientist Jim Gray proposed the famous two-phase Commit Protocol (2PC), which became an effective solution for distributed transaction management, successfully managing data synchronization problems between multiple nodes. However, this commit protocol has some potential transaction blocking problems when nodes fail. In the early 1980s, researchers discovered that although the two-step commit protocol was effective at synchronizing data, there could be long waits and even system crashes, with limitations. To improve this problem, people have begun to explore new and effective methods, including enhancing efficiency by reducing message communication during the protocol process. IBM's R database introduced the Assumed Commit and Assumed abort protocols, which contributed significantly to transaction management efficiency. These two protocols have greatly improved the processing efficiency of distributed transactions by reducing communication overhead and have become an important breakthrough in the technology of transaction commit protocols. By the early 1990s, with the increase in business demands and the complexity of transactions, enterprises required higher efficiency in distributed transaction processing. In order to adapt to the needs of different environments, the scientific community has gradually developed various variants of commit protocols to provide more flexible transaction management options for different needs. For example, the three-phase commit protocol promotes the commit of transactions more effectively and reduces the occurrence of blocking problems by adding a pre-commit protocol and a timeout mechanism. In the 21st century, with the popularization of mobile Internet and wireless technology, the commit protocol has been further developed, and researchers have begun to pay attention to how to reduce the blocking in the transaction process to solve the problem of broadband limitation, battery life and network instability in the mobile environment. The proposal of optimistic commit protocol marks the extension of commit technology from traditional database to the emerging mobile data field. This protocol allows transactions to temporarily use unconfirmed data, improving the user experience in cases of poor network conditions. In recent years, with the rise of blockchain and decentralized technologies, submission protocols and consensus mechanisms have gradually merged. These consensus algorithms play a role in tamper-proofing and preventing malicious attacks on node pairs in a decentralized environment. This enables commit to no longer be confined to the scope of traditional database management, but to become the core technology of trust computing and distributed ledgers, further expanding the application field of commit in the digital age. This integration has brought about extensive application impacts. Each transaction can achieve the effect of tracking global submissions through the verification of the consensus mechanism, becoming an important technical foundation for promoting the circulation of digital assets, the operation of cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications. == Commit Protocol Types == In the world of data management, a transaction is a series of database operations, such as bank transfers and order submission. In order to ensure the accuracy, consistency, and security of the data, transactions are usually completed completely, or cancelled completely, leaving no partially completed results. Commit protocol is the method used to coordinate this process. Different protocols are applicable to different submission scenarios and have their own advantages and disadvantages. There are four major commit protocols. === Two-Phase Commit (2PC) === The two-phase commit protocol is the most classic and broadest approach to distributed transactions, which includes both a preparation phase and a commit phase. This commit protocol is designed to allow the database coordinator to determine if all participating nodes agree. The preparation phase is the phase in which the coordination node sends a ready to commit request to all nodes participating in the transaction. The commit phase is a global commit after all participating nodes are ready, and if no agreement is reached, all nodes roll back the transaction and undo all previous operations. Although the two-phase commit protocol is the easiest to operate and widely used, its obvious drawback is that it can cause transactions to be blocked for a long time when nodes fail, resulting in a decline in system performance and making it difficult to terminate or continue immediately. === Three-Phase Commit (3PC) === The three-phase commit protocol is an improved non-blocking protocol based on 2PC, which is divided into three stages: preparation, pre-commit and commit. Firstly, each node sends a "preparation" request. After confirmation, a "pre-submission" stage is added. At this point, each node has completed most of the preparatory work and is waiting for the final confirmation. Finally, in the formal commit stage, after all nodes send the "commit" request, the transaction is completed and committed. Compared with 2PC, it increases the timeout mechanism, avoids the blocking problem caused by single point of failure, and improves the reliability of the system. The three-phase commit protocol significantly optimizes transaction reliability, but adds additional overhead for message transmission and state maintenance. It is more suitable for distributed application scenarios with high transaction sensitivity and no acceptance of long waiting times. === Presumed Commit (PC) and Presumed Abort (PA) === Presumed Commit (PC) is the default that the transaction will be committed successfully and rollback will be notified unless an anomaly is encountered. This commit reduces the message overhead and logging costs of a normal commits. Presumed Abort (PA) is assumed that the default state of the transaction is a rollback and will only be committed when all nodes have explicitly agreed. This commit is applicable to transactions that are not updated frequently or have a low probability of successful commit. The IBM R Distributed Database management System was the first to propose and practice the PC and PA protocols, handling distributed transaction management very efficiently and becoming a classic case in the field of database transaction management. === Optimistic Commit Protocol === With the rise of the Internet, the previous commit protocols are facing new challenges, especially in mobile scenarios with unstable networks. Excessively long transaction waiting times can affect the user experience. The Optimistic Commit Protocol allows a transaction to temporarily access uncommitted data before committing to avoid wait times. This type of commit is suitable f

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  MyPertamina

  MyPertamina is a digital financial service platform from Pertamina that integrated with the apps LinkAja. This application is used for non-cash fuel oil payments at Pertamina's public fueling stations. == History == Originally, MyPertamina were merchandise outlets of Pertamina products. It was launched on December 21, 2016, with 3 outlets in Jakarta. MyPertamina sells clothes, hats, and other products with Pertamina products brands. One month later (January 2017), Pertamina and Bank Mandiri entered into a partnership to launch the Mandiri Credit Card Pertamina Mastercard product, so that consumers can make payments when users fill up fuel at Pertamina gas stations. In August 2017, MyPertamina app and electronic card were launched through MyPertamina Loyalty program at Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show 2017. The card can be used on EDC machines for non-cash payments. Initial balances are in its own app, that can be top up by ATMs and online banking.

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  CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance

  The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance are a set of principles intended to guide open data projects in engaging Indigenous Peoples rights and interests. CARE was created in 2019 by the International Indigenous Data Sovereignty Interest Group, a group that is a part of the Research Data Alliance. It outlines collective rights related to open data in the context of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous data sovereignty. CARE is an acronym which stands for Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics. The CARE Principles are 'people and purpose-oriented, reflecting the crucial role of data in advancing Indigenous innovation and self-determination', and intended as a complement to the data-oriented perspective of other standards such as FAIR data (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable). The CARE principles have been embedded into the Beta version of Standardised Data on Initiatives (STARDIT). CARE principles were the basis of a submission to the UN's Global Digital Compact.

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  Conditional disclosure of secrets

  Conditional disclosure of secrets (CDS) is a primitive, studied in information-theoretic cryptography, that allows distributed, non-communicating parties to coordinate the release of information to a third party. CDS was initially introduced for use in the context of private information retrieval, and has been related to communication complexity and non-local quantum computation. == Definition of conditional disclosure of secrets == The conditional disclosure of secrets setting involves three players; Alice, Bob and the referee. Alice receives an input x ∈ { 0 , 1 } n {\displaystyle x\in \{0,1\}^{n}} and a secret z ∈ { 0 , 1 } {\displaystyle z\in \{0,1\}} , and Bob receives a string y ∈ { 0 , 1 } n {\displaystyle y\in \{0,1\}^{n}} . A choice of Boolean function f : { 0 , 1 } 2 n → { 0 , 1 } {\displaystyle f:\{0,1\}^{2n}\rightarrow \{0,1\}} is fixed in advance and known to all players. Alice and Bob cannot communicate with one another, but share a string of random bits which we label r {\displaystyle r} . Alice and Bob compute messages m A = m A ( x , z , r ) {\displaystyle m_{A}=m_{A}(x,z,r)} and m B = m B ( y , r ) {\displaystyle m_{B}=m_{B}(y,r)} , which they send to the referee. The referee knows ( x , y ) {\displaystyle (x,y)} . A CDS protocol consists of the encoding maps applied by Alice and Bob. A protocol is said to be ϵ {\displaystyle \epsilon } -correct if, for all ( x , y ) ∈ f − 1 ( 1 ) {\displaystyle (x,y)\in f^{-1}(1)} , the referee can determine z {\displaystyle z} with probability 1 − ϵ {\displaystyle 1-\epsilon } . A protocol is said to be δ {\displaystyle \delta } -secure if, for all ( x , y ) ∈ f − 1 ( 0 ) {\displaystyle (x,y)\in f^{-1}(0)} the distribution of the messages is δ {\displaystyle \delta } close to a simulator distribution (in total variation distance), where the simulator distribution is independent of z {\displaystyle z} . The communication complexity of a CDS protocol P is the total number of bits of message sent by Alice and Bob. The CDS communication cost of a function, C D S ϵ , δ ( f ) {\displaystyle CDS_{\epsilon ,\delta }(f)} is the minimal communication cost of an ϵ {\displaystyle \epsilon } -correct, δ {\displaystyle \delta } secure protocol that implements f {\displaystyle f} . The randomness complexity and randomness cost of implementing a function in the CDS model are defined similarly, but consider the number of bits of shared random bits held by Alice and Bob. == Basic properties of the primitive == === Amplification === Supposing we have an ϵ {\displaystyle \epsilon } -correct and δ {\displaystyle \delta } -secure CDS protocol, it is known that we can find a new protocol which reduces the correctness and privacy errors at the expense of an increased communication and randomness cost. More specifically, the following theorem has been proven Theorem (Amplification). A CDS protocol for f which supports a single-bit secret with privacy and correctness error of 1/3 can be transformed into a new CDS protocol with privacy and correctness error of 2 − Ω ( k ) {\displaystyle 2^{-\Omega (k)}} and communication/randomness complexity which are larger than those of the original protocol by a multiplicative factor of O(k). In fact, somewhat more than the above theorem is true in that the size of the secret can also be made to be of length k {\displaystyle k} , while simultaneously reducing the correctness and privacy errors as above. The proof involves first encoding the secret z {\displaystyle z} into a secret sharing scheme, and then running the original CDS protocol on each share of the resulting scheme. === Closure === If a CDS protocol for a function f {\displaystyle f} is known, then certain simple modifications of f {\displaystyle f} have CDS protocols with similar efficiency. The simplest case is to consider a CDS protocol for function f {\displaystyle f} and ask for a similarly efficient protocol for the negation of f {\displaystyle f} , labelled ¬ f {\displaystyle \neg f} . This is addressed by the following theorem Theorem (CDS is closed under complement). Suppose that f has a CDS protocol with randomness cost of ρ {\displaystyle \rho } bits, communication complexity of t {\displaystyle t} bits, and privacy and correctness errors δ = ϵ = 2 − k {\displaystyle \delta =\epsilon =2^{-k}} . Then ¬ f {\displaystyle \neg f} has a CDS scheme with similar privacy and correctness errors, and randomness and communication complexity of O ( k 3 ρ 2 t + k 3 ρ 3 ) {\displaystyle O(k^{3}\rho ^{2}t+k^{3}\rho ^{3})} . The cost of a CDS protocol is also closed under formula's, in the following sense. Consider two functions f 1 {\displaystyle f_{1}} and f 2 {\displaystyle f_{2}} . Then, the communication and randomness costs of f 1 ∧ f 2 {\displaystyle f_{1}\wedge f_{2}} as well as f 1 ∨ f 2 {\displaystyle f_{1}\vee f_{2}} are not much larger than the sum of the costs for f 1 {\displaystyle f_{1}} and f 2 {\displaystyle f_{2}} . See Applebaum et al. for a precise statement. == Upper and lower bounds on communication cost == Given a function f {\displaystyle f} we would like to understand the communication and randomness costs to implement f {\displaystyle f} in the CDS setting. Towards understanding this, protocols for implementing CDS have been developed (which give an upper bound on the cost) and lower bound strategies have been developed. For most functions, there is a large gap between the known upper and lower bound, so understanding the cost of CDS remains largely an open problem. This section presents some of what is known so far about the cost of CDS. === Secret sharing based upper bound === A subject with a close relationship to CDS is secret sharing. Secret sharing constructions provide an upper bound on the cost of CDS protocols. A secret sharing scheme encodes a secret, s {\displaystyle s} into a set of shares S 1 , . . . , S n {\displaystyle S_{1},...,S_{n}} . Associated to any secret sharing scheme is an access structure, which consists of a set of authorized sets A = A 1 , . . . , A k {\displaystyle {\mathcal {A}}={A_{1},...,A_{k}}} with A i ⊆ { S 1 , . . . , S n } {\displaystyle A_{i}\subseteq \{S_{1},...,S_{n}\}} . The authorized sets are those subsets of the A i {\displaystyle A_{i}} from which it is possible to recover the secret recorded into the scheme. A succinct way to describe an access structure is in terms of a function f A : { 0 , 1 } n → { 0 , 1 } {\displaystyle f_{\mathcal {A}}:\{0,1\}^{n}\rightarrow \{0,1\}} . Each subset of the shares K [ x ] ⊂ { S 1 , . . . , S n } {\displaystyle K[x]\subset \{S_{1},...,S_{n}\}} is labelled by a string x ∈ { 0 , 1 } n {\displaystyle x\in \{0,1\}^{n}} such that x i = 1 {\displaystyle x_{i}=1} if and only if S i ∈ K {\displaystyle S_{i}\in K} . Then we define f A {\displaystyle f_{\mathcal {A}}} to be such that f A ( x ) = 1 {\displaystyle f_{\mathcal {A}}(x)=1} if and only if K [ x ] ∈ A {\displaystyle K[x]\in {\mathcal {A}}} . In words, the function f A {\displaystyle f_{\mathcal {A}}} is 1 when given an authorized subset as input, and 0 otherwise. A basic result in the theory of secret sharing is that an access structure A {\displaystyle {\mathcal {A}}} can be realized in a secret sharing scheme if and only if f A {\displaystyle f_{\mathcal {A}}} is monotone. The size of a secret sharing scheme is defined as the total number of bits in the shares S i {\displaystyle S_{i}} . For monotone functions, there is an upper bound on the communication cost in CDS for any monotone function f {\displaystyle f} in terms of the size of any secret sharing scheme with access structure given by f {\displaystyle f} , C D S ϵ = 0 , δ = 0 ( f ) ≤ S h a r i n g S i z e ( f ) {\displaystyle CDS_{\epsilon =0,\delta =0}(f)\leq SharingSize(f)} For some concrete classes of secret sharing schemes, this relationship can be extended to general (non-monotone) Boolean functions. This leads to an upper bound on CDS cost in terms of the size of any span program that computes f {\displaystyle f} , C D S ϵ = 0 , δ = 0 ( f ) ≤ S P k ( f ) {\displaystyle CDS_{\epsilon =0,\delta =0}(f)\leq SP_{k}(f)} The class of problems with efficient (polynomial size) span program is the complexity class M o d k L {\displaystyle Mod_{k}L} , so problems in this class have efficient CDS protocols. === Sub-exponential upper bounds for all functions === Using a matching vector family based construction, it has been proven that ∀ f , C D S ϵ = 0 , δ = 0 ( f ) ≤ 2 O ( n log ⁡ n ) {\displaystyle \forall f,\,\,\,\,\,\,CDS_{\epsilon =0,\delta =0}(f)\leq 2^{O({\sqrt {n\log n}})}} . The technique for this proof is similar to one used to prove upper bounds on private information retrieval. This upper bound on CDS also leads to sub-exponential upper bounds on the size of a large class of secret sharing schemes. === Lower bounds from communication complexity === In a CDS protocol, the referee is given the inputs ( x , y ) {\displaystyle (x,y)} . This means it is not clear if the messages sent by Alice a

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  Professional network service

  A professional network service (or, in an Internet context, simply a professional network) is a type of social network service that focuses on interactions and relationships for business opportunities and career growth, with less emphasis on activities in personal life. A professional network service is used by working individuals, job-seekers, and businesses to establish and maintain professional contacts, to find work or hire employees, share professional achievements, sell or promote services, and stay up-to-date with industry news and trends. According to LinkedIn managing director Clifford Rosenberg in an interview with AAP in 2010, "[t]his is a call to action for professionals to re-address their use of social networks and begin to reap as many rewards from networking professionally as they do personally." Businesses mostly depend on resources and information outside the company and to get what they need, they need to reach out and professionally network with others, such as employees or clients as well as potential opportunities. "Nardi, Whittaker, and Schwarz (2002) point out three main tasks that they believe networkers need to attend to keep a successful professional (intentional) network: building a network, maintaining the network, and activating selected contacts. They stress that networkers need to continue to add new contacts to their network to access as many resources as possible and to maintain their network by staying in touch with their contacts. This is so that the contacts are easy to activate when the networker has work that needs to be done." By using a professional network service, businesses can keep all of their networks up-to-date, and in order, and helps figure out the best way to efficiently get in touch with each of them. A service that can do all that helps relieve some of the stress when trying to get things done. Not all professional network services are online sites that help promote a business. Some services connect the user to other services that help promote the business other than online sites, such as phone/Internet companies that provide services and companies that specifically are designed to do all of the promoting, online and in person, for a business. == History == In 1997, professional network services started up throughout the world and continue to grow. The first recognizable site to combine all features, such as creating profiles, adding friends, and searching for friends, was SixDegrees.com. According to Boyd and Ellison's article, "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship", from 1997 to 2001, several community tools began supporting various combinations of profiles and publicly articulated Friends. Boyd and Ellison go on to say that the next wave began with Ryze.com in 2001. It was introduced as a new way "to help people leverage their business networks". == Inside the works == Quite a lot of work is put into a professional network service, such as the number of hours that go into them and the type of people they work for, as well as the business model of it all, such as the professional interaction and the multiple services they deal with. === Types of services === Some professional network services not only help promote the business but can also help in connecting to other people. Those services may include a specific phone and/or Internet company or a company that helps to connect with other businesses. According to the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), there are at least nine online professional networks that are being used. === Professional interaction === Kaplan and Haenlein elaborate on five key considerations for companies when utilizing media. These include the importance of careful selection, the option to choose existing applications or develop custom ones, ensuring alignment with organizational activities, integrating a comprehensive media plan, and providing accessibility to all stakeholders. ==== Choose carefully ==== "Choosing the right medium for any given purpose depends on the target group to be reached and the message to be communicated. On one hand, each Social Media application usually attracts a certain group of people, and firms should be active wherever their customers are present. On the other hand, there may be situations whereby certain features are necessary to ensure effective communication, and these features are only offered by one specific application." ==== Ensure activity alignment ==== "Sometimes you may decide to rely on various Social Media, or a set of different applications within the same group, to have the largest possible reach." "Using different contact channels can be a worthwhile and profitable strategy." According to the Society for New Communications Research at Harvard University, "the average professional belongs to 3–5 online networks for business use, and LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are among the top used." ==== Integrate a media plan ==== Social media and traditional media are "both part of the same: your corporate image" in the customers' eyes. ==== Allow access to all ==== "...once the firm has decided to utilize Social Media applications, it is worth checking that all employees may access them." According to the SNCR, "the convergence of Internet, mobile, and social media has taken significant shape as professionals rely on anywhere access to information, relationships, and networks." ==== Online usage ==== "Half of the respondents report participating in 3 to 5 online professional networks. Another three in ten participate in 6 or more professional networks." "Popular social networks are now being used frequently as Professional Communities. More than nine in ten respondents indicated that they use LinkedIn and half reported using Facebook. Twitter and blogs were frequently listed as 'professional networks'." === Business model === According to Michael Rappa's article, Business models on the Web", "a business model is the method of doing business by which a company can sustain itself – that is, generate revenue. The business model spells out how a company makes money by specifying where it is positioned in the value chain." Rappa mentions that there are at least nine basic categories from which a business model can be separated. Those categories are a brokerage, advertising, infomediary, merchant, manufacturer, affiliate, community, subscription, and utility. "...a firm may combine several different models as part of its overall Internet business strategy." At first, Flickr started as a way to mainstream public relations. == Social impact == When it comes to the social impact that professional network services have on today's society, it has proved to increase activity. According to the SNCR, "[t]hree quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions. Reliance has increased for essentially all respondents over the past three years. Younger (20–35) and older professionals (55+) are more active users of social tools than middle-aged professionals. More people are collaborating outside their company wall than within their organizational intranet." == Limitations == Since the internet and social media are a part of this "world where consumers can speak so freely with each other and businesses have increasingly less control over the information available about them in cyberspace", most firms and businesses are uncomfortable with all the freedom. According to Kaplan and Haenlein's article, "Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media", businesses are pushed aside and are only able to sit back and watch as their customers publicly post comments, which may or may not be well-written.

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  WinFIG

  WinFIG is a proprietary shareware vector graphics editor application. The file format and rendering are as close to Xfig as possible, but the program takes advantage of Windows features like clipboard, printer preview, multiple documents etc. As of 2011, WinFIG is under active development, with new features being added regularly. == History == The first release was in March 2003 and based on the Amiga program AmiFIG by the same author, which is also an Xfig compatible vector drawing application. WinFIG was not created by porting the Xfig source code to Windows. It is an independent implementation. Starting with release 4.0 WinFIG was ported from MFC to the Qt toolkit as the application framework and thereby enabling the first release of a Linux version. After Version 7.8 the Version scheme changes to years with version 2021.1. == Interface and usability == WinFIG is designed to provide a clear, efficient and convenient graphical user interface. It allows working on multiple documents using an MDI user interface and provides unlimited undo and redo of actions. == Features == === Object creation === The basic types of objects in WinFIG are: Open and closed Splines Ellipses Polylines and Polygons Texts LaTeX formatted texts Arcs Images: PNG, GIF, JPEG, EPS and more Compound objects, which are hierarchical compositions of objects Objects can have several attributes, which depend on the object type: Line width Line style Line cap style Line join style Arrows Outline color, fill color and fill pattern === Object manipulation === move copy scale rotate align add/delete points from lines or splines copy object attributes Numerical input of point coordinates === Exports === WinFIG can export into various formats: Raster formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PPM, XBM, XPM, PCX, TIFF, SLD Formats for printed documents: PostScript, PDF, LaTeX, HP-GL (printer control language used by Hewlett-Packard plotters), Vector graphics formats: EPS, SVG, PSTricks, TPIC, PIC, CGM, Metafont, MetaPost, EMF, Tk. === Miscellaneous === Winfig can handle smart links. A smart link is a moving connection from a source to a target object. It is established by connecting the end point of a line or spline to another object. The connecting line or spline segment follows the movements of the target object. Smart links are useful for diagrams, graphs etc. WinFIG can show a grid and provides several magnet modes for constraining editing operations to discrete coordinates. Objects can be organized in layers to control their Z-order. This is important to control overlapping of filled shapes. Object library: drawings can be stored in a special sub-folder in the program installation directory, which makes them available in the library dialog for easy reuse.

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  InfiniBand

  InfiniBand (IB) is a computer networking standard used in high-performance computing that features very high throughput and very low latency. It is used for data interconnect both among and within computers. InfiniBand is also used as either a direct or switched interconnect between servers and storage systems, as well as an interconnect between storage systems. It is designed to be scalable and uses a switched fabric network topology. Between 2014 and June 2016, it was the most commonly used interconnect in the TOP500 list of supercomputers. Mellanox (acquired by Nvidia) manufactures InfiniBand host bus adapters and network switches, which are used by large computer system and database vendors in their product lines. As a computer cluster interconnect, IB competes with Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and Intel Omni-Path. The technology is promoted by the InfiniBand Trade Association. == History == InfiniBand originated in 1999 from the merger of two competing designs: Future I/O and Next Generation I/O (NGIO). NGIO was led by Intel, with a specification released in 1998, and joined by Sun Microsystems and Dell. Future I/O was backed by Compaq, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard. This led to the formation of the InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA), which included both sets of hardware vendors as well as software vendors such as Microsoft. At the time it was thought some of the more powerful computers were approaching the interconnect bottleneck of the PCI bus, in spite of upgrades like PCI-X. Version 1.0 of the InfiniBand Architecture Specification was released in 2000. Initially the IBTA vision for IB was simultaneously a replacement for PCI in I/O, Ethernet in the machine room, cluster interconnect and Fibre Channel. IBTA also envisaged decomposing server hardware on an IB fabric. Mellanox had been founded in 1999 to develop NGIO technology, but by 2001 shipped an InfiniBand product line called InfiniBridge at 10 Gbit/second speeds. Following the burst of the dot-com bubble there was hesitation in the industry to invest in such a far-reaching technology jump. By 2002, Intel announced that instead of shipping IB integrated circuits ("chips"), it would focus on developing PCI Express, and Microsoft discontinued IB development in favor of extending Ethernet. Sun Microsystems and Hitachi continued to support IB. In 2003, the System X supercomputer built at Virginia Tech used InfiniBand in what was estimated to be the third largest computer in the world at the time. The OpenIB Alliance (later renamed OpenFabrics Alliance) was founded in 2004 to develop an open set of software for the Linux kernel. By February, 2005, the support was accepted into the 2.6.11 Linux kernel. In November 2005 storage devices finally were released using InfiniBand from vendors such as Engenio. Cisco, desiring to keep technology superior to Ethernet off the market, adopted a "buy to kill" strategy. Cisco successfully killed InfiniBand switching companies such as Topspin via acquisition. Of the top 500 supercomputers in 2009, Gigabit Ethernet was the internal interconnect technology in 259 installations, compared with 181 using InfiniBand. In 2010, market leaders Mellanox and Voltaire merged, leaving just one other IB vendor, QLogic, primarily a Fibre Channel vendor. At the 2011 International Supercomputing Conference, links running at about 56 gigabits per second (known as FDR, see below), were announced and demonstrated by connecting booths in the trade show. In 2012, Intel acquired QLogic's InfiniBand technology, leaving only one independent supplier. By 2014, InfiniBand was the most popular internal connection technology for supercomputers, although within two years, 10 Gigabit Ethernet started displacing it. In 2016, it was reported that Oracle Corporation (an investor in Mellanox) might engineer its own InfiniBand hardware. In 2019 Nvidia acquired Mellanox, the last independent supplier of InfiniBand products. == Specification == Specifications are published by the InfiniBand trade association. === Performance === Original names for speeds were single-data rate (SDR), double-data rate (DDR) and quad-data rate (QDR) as given below. Subsequently, other three-letter initialisms were added for even higher data rates. Notes Each link is duplex. Links can be aggregated: most systems use a 4 link/lane connector (QSFP). HDR often makes use of 2x links (aka HDR100, 100 Gb link using 2 lanes of HDR, while still using a QSFP connector). NDR introduced OSFP connectors which host one or two links at 2x (NDR200) or 4x (NDR400). They are not logically configured as a single 8x link, even when connecting switches together with an OSFP cable. InfiniBand provides remote direct memory access (RDMA) capabilities for low CPU overhead. === Topology === InfiniBand uses a switched fabric topology, as opposed to early shared medium Ethernet. All transmissions begin or end at a channel adapter. Each processor contains a host channel adapter (HCA) and each peripheral has a target channel adapter (TCA). These adapters can also exchange information for security or quality of service (QoS). === Messages === InfiniBand transmits data in packets of up to 4 KB that are taken together to form a message. A message can be: a remote direct memory access read or write a channel send or receive a transaction-based operation (that can be reversed) a multicast transmission an atomic operation === Physical interconnection === In addition to a board form factor connection, it can use both active and passive copper (up to 10 meters) and optical fiber cable (up to 10 km). QSFP connectors are used. The InfiniBand Association also specified the CXP connector system for speeds up to 120 Gbit/s over copper, active optical cables, and optical transceivers using parallel multi-mode fiber cables with 24-fiber MPO connectors. === Software interfaces === Mellanox operating system support is available for Solaris, FreeBSD, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), Windows, HP-UX, VMware ESX, and AIX. InfiniBand has no specific standard application programming interface (API). The standard only lists a set of verbs such as ibv_open_device or ibv_post_send, which are abstract representations of functions or methods that must exist. The syntax of these functions is left to the vendors. Sometimes for reference this is called the verbs API. The de facto standard software is developed by OpenFabrics Alliance and called the Open Fabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED). It is released under two licenses GPL2 or BSD license for Linux and FreeBSD, and as Mellanox OFED for Windows (product names: WinOF / WinOF-2; attributed as host controller driver for matching specific ConnectX 3 to 5 devices) under a choice of BSD license for Windows. It has been adopted by most of the InfiniBand vendors, for Linux, FreeBSD, and Microsoft Windows. IBM refers to a software library called libibverbs, for its AIX operating system, as well as "AIX InfiniBand verbs". The Linux kernel support was integrated in 2005 into the kernel version 2.6.11. === Ethernet over InfiniBand === Ethernet over InfiniBand, abbreviated to EoIB, is an Ethernet implementation over the InfiniBand protocol and connector technology. EoIB enables multiple Ethernet bandwidths varying on the InfiniBand (IB) version. Ethernet's implementation of the Internet Protocol Suite, usually referred to as TCP/IP, is different in some details compared to the direct InfiniBand protocol in IP over IB (IPoIB).

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  Social media marketing

  Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for practitioners and researchers. Social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter, among others, have built-in data analytics tools that companies can use to track the progress, success, and engagement of social media marketing campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. On a strategic level, social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope (e.g. more active or passive use) and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone". Firms that use social media marketing can allow customers and Internet users to post user-generated content (e.g., online comments, product reviews, etc.), also known as "earned media", rather than use marketer-prepared advertising copy. == Purposes and tactics == Social media may be employed in marketing as a communications tool that makes companies accessible to those who are interested in their product and visible to those who are not familiar with their products. It is used by companies to create buzz, learn from customers, and target them. Of the top 10 factors that correlate with a strong Google organic search, seven are social media-dependent. This means that if brands with little to no social media presence tend to show up less on Google searches. While platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and—in the past—Google+ have a larger number of monthly users, the visual media-sharing-based mobile platforms garner a higher interaction rate in comparison, and have registered the fastest growth, and have changed the ways in which consumers engage with brand content. Instagram has an interaction rate of 1.46% with an average of 130 million users monthly as opposed to Twitter, which has a .03% interaction rate with an average of 210 million monthly users. Unlike traditional media that are often cost-prohibitive to many companies, a social media strategy does not require significant financial investment. To this end, companies make use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram to reach audiences much wider than through traditional print, television, or radio advertisements alone at a fraction of the cost, as most social networking sites can be used at little or no cost (however, some websites charge companies for premium services). This has changed the ways that companies approach and interact with customers, as a substantial percentage of consumer interactions are now being carried out over online platforms with much higher visibility. Customers can post reviews of products and services, rate customer service, and ask questions or voice concerns directly to companies through social media platforms. According to Measuring Success, over 80% of consumers use the web to research products and services. Thus social media marketing is also used by businesses in order to build relationships of trust with consumers. To this aim, companies may hire personnel to specifically handle these social media interactions, who usually report under the title of online community managers. Handling these interactions in a satisfactory manner can result in an increase of consumer trust. To both this aim and to fix the public's perception of a company, three steps are taken in order to address consumer concerns: Identifying the extent of the social chatter Engaging the influencers to help Developing a proportional response == Strategies == === Passive approach === Social media can be a useful source of market information and a way to hear customers' perspectives. Blogs, content communities, and forums are platforms where individuals share their reviews and recommendations of brands, products, and services. Businesses are able to tap into and analyze customer voices and feedback generated in social media for marketing purposes. In this sense, social media is a relatively inexpensive source of market intelligence which can be used by marketers and managers to track and respond to consumer-identified problems and detect market opportunities. === Active approach === Social media can be used as a public relations tool, a direct marketing tool, and a communication channel to target very specific audiences, with social media influencers and social media personalities as effective customer engagement tools. This tactic is widely known as influencer marketing, which gives brands the opportunity to reach their target audience via a group of selected influencers advertising their product or service. Brands were projected to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, per Business Insider Intelligence estimates, based on Mediakix data. The use of customer influencers, such as popular bloggers, can be an efficient and cost-effective method to launch new products or services. == Engagement == Engagement with the social web means that customers and stakeholders are active participants rather than passive spectators. An example of these are consumer advocacy groups and groups that criticize companies (e.g., lobby groups or advocacy organizations). The use of Social media in a business or political context allows people to express and share opinions about a company's products, services or business practices, or a government's actions. On social media, each participant becomes part of the marketing department (or a challenge to the marketing effort) as other customers read their comments or reviews. The effectiveness of social media marketing campaigns is dependent on the promotion of online engagement. With the advent of social media marketing, it has become increasingly important to gain customer interest in products and services, which can eventually be translated into buying behavior, or voting and donating behavior in a political context. New online marketing concepts of engagement and loyalty have emerged which aim to build customer participation and brand reputation. Engagement in social media for the purpose of a social media strategy is divided into two parts. The first is proactive, regular posting of new online content, which can be seen through digital photos, digital videos, text, and conversations. It is also represented through sharing of content and information from others via weblinks. The second part is reactive conversations, with social media users responding to those who reach out to others' social media profiles through comments or messages. == Campaigns == === Local businesses === Small businesses use social networking sites as a promotional technique. Businesses can follow individuals' social media usage in their local area and advertise specials and deals, which can be exclusive and in the form of "get a free drink with a copy of this tweet". This type of message encourages other locals to follow the business on their official websites in order to obtain the promotional deal. The business's brand visibility is enhanced in the process. Social networking sites are also used by small businesses to develop their own market research on new products and services. By encouraging their customers to give feedback on new product ideas, businesses can gain insights on whether or not a product may be accepted by their target market enough to merit full production. In addition, customers will feel the company has engaged them in the process of co-creation—the process in which the business uses customer feedback to create or modify a product or service to fill a need of the target market. Such feedback can be presented in various forms, such as surveys, contests, and polls. Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, also provide opportunities for small businesses to find candidates to fill staff positions. Review sites such as Yelp help small businesses build their reputation beyond brand visibility. Positive customer peer reviews help influence new prospects to purchase goods and services more than company advertising. == Benefits == Social Media Marketing allows companies to promote themselves to large, diverse audiences that could not be reached through traditional marketing such as phone and email-based advertising. Marketing on most social media platforms also comes at little to no cost, making it accessible to virtually any size business. Social Media Marketing accommodates personalized and direct marketing that targets specific demographics and markets. Companies can engage with customers directly, allowing them to obtain feedback and resolve issues almost immediately. Another advantage of social media marketing is that it's an ideal environment for a company to conduct market research. It can be used

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