AI Chat On Google

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  • Embodied cognitive science

    Embodied cognitive science

    Embodied cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field of research, the aim of which is to explain the mechanisms underlying intelligent behavior. It comprises three main methodologies: the modeling of psychological and biological systems in a holistic manner that considers the mind and body as a single entity; the formation of a common set of general principles of intelligent behavior; and the experimental use of robotic agents in controlled environments. == Contributors == Embodied cognitive science borrows heavily from embodied philosophy and the related research fields of cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Contributors to the field include: From the perspective of neuroscience, Gerald Edelman of the Neurosciences Institute at La Jolla, Francisco Varela of CNRS in France, and J. A. Scott Kelso of Florida Atlantic University From the perspective of psychology, Lawrence Barsalou, Michael Turvey, Vittorio Guidano and Eleanor Rosch From the perspective of linguistics, Gilles Fauconnier, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Leonard Talmy and Mark Turner From the perspective of language acquisition, Eric Lenneberg and Philip Rubin at Haskins Laboratories From the perspective of anthropology, Edwin Hutchins, Bradd Shore, James Wertsch and Merlin Donald. From the perspective of autonomous agent design, early work is sometimes attributed to Rodney Brooks or Valentino Braitenberg From the perspective of artificial intelligence, Understanding Intelligence by Rolf Pfeifer and Christian Scheier or How the Body Shapes the Way We Think, by Rolf Pfeifer and Josh C. Bongard From the perspective of philosophy, Andy Clark, Dan Zahavi, Shaun Gallagher, and Evan Thompson In 1950, Alan Turing proposed that a machine may need a human-like body to think and speak: It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. That process could follow the normal teaching of a child. Things would be pointed out and named, etc. Again, I do not know what the right answer is, but I think both approaches should be tried. == Traditional cognitive theory == Embodied cognitive science is an alternative theory to cognition in which it minimizes appeals to computational theory of mind in favor of greater emphasis on how an organism's body determines how and what it thinks. Traditional cognitive theory is based mainly around symbol manipulation, in which certain inputs are fed into a processing unit that produces an output. These inputs follow certain rules of syntax, from which the processing unit finds semantic meaning. Thus, an appropriate output is produced. For example, a human's sensory organs are its input devices, and the stimuli obtained from the external environment are fed into the nervous system which serves as the processing unit. From here, the nervous system is able to read the sensory information because it follows a syntactic structure, thus an output is created. This output then creates bodily motions and brings forth behavior and cognition. Of particular note is that cognition is sealed away in the brain, meaning that mental cognition is cut off from the external world and is only possible by the input of sensory information. == The embodied cognitive approach == Embodied cognitive science differs from the traditionalist approach in that it denies the input-output system. This is chiefly due to the problems presented by the Homunculus argument, which concluded that semantic meaning could not be derived from symbols without some kind of inner interpretation. If some little man in a person's head interpreted incoming symbols, then who would interpret the little man's inputs? Because of the specter of an infinite regress, the traditionalist model began to seem less plausible. Thus, embodied cognitive science aims to avoid this problem by defining cognition in three ways. === Physical attributes of the body === The first aspect of embodied cognition examines the role of the physical body, particularly how its properties affect its ability to think. This part attempts to overcome the symbol manipulation component that is a feature of the traditionalist model. Depth perception, for instance, can be better explained under the embodied approach due to the sheer complexity of the action. Depth perception requires that the brain detect the disparate retinal images obtained by the distance of the two eyes. In addition, body and head cues complicate this further. When the head is turned in a given direction, objects in the foreground will appear to move against objects in the background. From this, it is said that some kind of visual processing is occurring without the need of any kind of symbol manipulation. This is because the objects appearing to move the foreground are simply appearing to move. This observation concludes then that depth can be perceived with no intermediate symbol manipulation necessary. A more poignant example exists through examining auditory perception. Generally speaking the greater the distance between the ears, the greater the possible auditory acuity. Also relevant is the amount of density in between the ears, for the strength of the frequency wave alters as it passes through a given medium. The brain's auditory system takes these factors into account as it process information, but again without any need for a symbolic manipulation system. This is because the distance between the ears for example does not need symbols to represent it. The distance itself creates the necessary opportunity for greater auditory acuity. The amount of density between the ears is similar, in that it is the actual amount itself that simply forms the opportunity for frequency alteration. Thus under consideration of the physical properties of the body, a symbolic system is unnecessary and an unhelpful metaphor. === The body's role in the cognitive process === The second aspect draws heavily from George Lakoff's and Mark Johnson's work on concepts. They argued that humans use metaphors whenever possible to better explain their external world. Humans also have a basic stock of concepts in which other concepts can be derived from. These basic concepts include spatial orientations such as up, down, front, and back. Humans can understand what these concepts mean because they can directly experience them from their own bodies. For example, because human movement revolves around standing erect and moving the body in an up-down motion, humans innately have these concepts of up and down. Lakoff and Johnson contend this is similar with other spatial orientations such as front and back too. As mentioned earlier, these basic stocks of spatial concepts are the basis in which other concepts are constructed. Happy and sad for instance are seen now as being up or down respectively. When someone says they are feeling down, what they are really saying is that they feel sad for example. Thus the point here is that true understanding of these concepts is contingent on whether one can have an understanding of the human body. So the argument goes that if one lacked a human body, they could not possibly know what up or down could mean, or how it could relate to emotional states. [I]magine a spherical being living outside of any gravitational field, with no knowledge or imagination of any other kind of experience. What could UP possibly mean to such a being? While this does not mean that such beings would be incapable of expressing emotions in other words, it does mean that they would express emotions differently from humans. Human concepts of happiness and sadness would be different because human would have different bodies. So then an organism's body directly affects how it can think, because it uses metaphors related to its body as the basis of concepts. === Interaction of local environment === A third component of the embodied approach looks at how agents use their immediate environment in cognitive processing. Meaning, the local environment is seen as an actual extension of the body's cognitive process. The example of a personal digital assistant (PDA) is used to better imagine this. Echoing functionalism (philosophy of mind), this point claims that mental states are individuated by their role in a much larger system. So under this premise, the information on a PDA is similar to the information stored in the brain. So then if one thinks information in the brain constitutes mental states, then it must follow that information in the PDA is a cognitive state too. Consider also the role of pen and paper in a complex multiplication problem. The pen and paper are so involved in the cognitive process of solving the problem that it seems ridiculous to say they are somehow different from the process, in very much the same way the PDA is used for information like the brain. Another example examines how humans control and manipulate their environment

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  • Big data

    Big data

    Big data primarily refers to data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing software. Data with many entries (rows) offers greater statistical power, while data with higher complexity (more attributes or columns) may lead to a higher false discovery rate. Big data analysis challenges include capturing data, data storage, data analysis, search, sharing, transfer, visualization, querying, updating, information privacy, and data sources. Big data was originally associated with three key concepts: volume, variety, and velocity. The analysis of big data that have only volume, velocity, and variety can pose challenges in sampling. A fourth concept, veracity, which refers to the level of reliability of data, was thus added. Without sufficient investment in expertise to ensure big data veracity, the volume and variety of data can produce costs and risks that exceed an organization's capacity to create and capture value from big data. Current usage of the term big data tends to refer to the use of predictive analytics, user behavior analytics, or certain other advanced data analytics methods that extract value from big data, and seldom to a particular size of data set. "There is little doubt that the quantities of data now available are indeed large, but that's not the most relevant characteristic of this new data ecosystem." Analysis of data sets can find new correlations to "spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on". Scientists, business executives, medical practitioners, advertising and governments alike regularly meet difficulties with large datasets in areas including Internet searches, fintech, healthcare analytics, geographic information systems, urban informatics, and business informatics. Scientists encounter limitations in e-Science work, including meteorology, genomics, connectomics, complex physics simulations, biology, and environmental research. The size and number of available data sets have grown rapidly as data is collected by devices such as mobile devices, cheap and numerous information-sensing Internet of things devices, aerial (remote sensing) equipment, software logs, cameras, microphones, radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers and wireless sensor networks. The world's technological per-capita capacity to store information has roughly doubled every 40 months since the 1980s; as of 2012, every day 2.5 exabytes (2.17×260 bytes) of data are generated. Based on an IDC report prediction, the global data volume was predicted to grow exponentially from 4.4 zettabytes to 44 zettabytes between 2013 and 2020. By 2025, IDC predicts there will be 163 zettabytes of data. According to IDC, global spending on big data and business analytics (BDA) solutions is estimated to reach $215.7 billion in 2021. Statista reported that the global big data market is forecasted to grow to $103 billion by 2027. In 2011 McKinsey & Company reported, if US healthcare were to use big data creatively and effectively to drive efficiency and quality, the sector could create more than $300 billion in value every year. In the developed economies of Europe, government administrators could save more than €100 billion ($149 billion) in operational efficiency improvements alone by using big data. And users of services enabled by personal-location data could capture $600 billion in consumer surplus. One question for large enterprises is determining who should own big-data initiatives that affect the entire organization. Relational database management systems and desktop statistical software packages used to visualize data often have difficulty processing and analyzing big data. The processing and analysis of big data may require "massively parallel software running on tens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers". What qualifies as "big data" varies depending on the capabilities of those analyzing it and their tools. Furthermore, expanding capabilities make big data a moving target. "For some organizations, facing hundreds of gigabytes of data for the first time may trigger a need to reconsider data management options. For others, it may take tens or hundreds of terabytes before data size becomes a significant consideration." == Definition == The term big data has been in use since the 1990s, with some giving credit to John Mashey for popularizing the term. Big data usually includes data sets with sizes beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to capture, curate, manage, and process data within a tolerable elapsed time. Big data philosophy encompasses unstructured, semi-structured and structured data; however, the main focus is on unstructured data. Big data "size" is a constantly moving target; as of 2012 ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many zettabytes of data. Big data requires a set of techniques and technologies with new forms of integration to reveal insights from datasets that are diverse, complex, and of a massive scale. Variability is often included as an additional quality of big data. A 2018 definition states "Big data is where parallel computing tools are needed to handle data", and notes, "This represents a distinct and clearly defined change in the computer science used, via parallel programming theories, and losses of some of the guarantees and capabilities made by Codd's relational model." In a comparative study of big datasets, Kitchin and McArdle found that none of the commonly considered characteristics of big data appear consistently across all of the analyzed cases. For this reason, other studies identified the redefinition of power dynamics in knowledge discovery as the defining trait. Instead of focusing on the intrinsic characteristics of big data, this alternative perspective pushes forward a relational understanding of the object claiming that what matters is the way in which data is collected, stored, made available and analyzed. === Big data vs. business intelligence === The growing maturity of the concept more starkly delineates the difference between "big data" and "business intelligence": Business intelligence uses applied mathematics tools and descriptive statistics with data with high information density to measure things, detect trends, etc. Big data uses mathematical analysis, optimization, inductive statistics, and concepts from nonlinear system identification to infer laws (regressions, nonlinear relationships, and causal effects) from large sets of data with low information density to reveal relationships and dependencies, or to perform predictions of outcomes and behaviors. == Characteristics == Big data can be described by the following characteristics: Volume The quantity of generated and stored data. The size of the data determines the value and potential insight, and whether it can be considered big data or not. The size of big data is usually larger than terabytes and petabytes. Variety The type and nature of the data. Earlier technologies like RDBMSs were capable to handle structured data efficiently and effectively. However, the change in type and nature from structured to semi-structured or unstructured challenged the existing tools and technologies. Big data technologies evolved with the prime intention to capture, store, and process the semi-structured and unstructured (variety) data generated with high speed (velocity), and huge in size (volume). Later, these tools and technologies were explored and used for handling structured data also but preferable for storage. Eventually, the processing of structured data was still kept as optional, either using big data or traditional RDBMSs. This helps in analyzing data towards effective usage of the hidden insights exposed from the data collected via social media, log files, sensors, etc. Big data draws from text, images, audio, video; plus it completes missing pieces through data fusion. Velocity The speed at which the data is generated and processed to meet the demands and challenges that lie in the path of growth and development. Big data is often available in real-time. Compared to small data, big data is produced more continually. Two kinds of velocity related to big data are the frequency of generation and the frequency of handling, recording, and publishing. Veracity The truthfulness or reliability of the data, which refers to the data quality and the data value. Big data must not only be large in size, but also must be reliable in order to achieve value in the analysis of it. The data quality of captured data can vary greatly, affecting an accurate analysis. Value The worth in information that can be achieved by the processing and analysis of large datasets. Value also can be measured by an assessment of the other qualities of big data. Value may also represent the profitability of information that is retrieved from the analysis of big data. Variability The characteristic of the changing formats, structure, or sources of big data. Big data can include structured, unstructured,

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  • Geofence warrant

    Geofence warrant

    A geofence warrant or a reverse location warrant is a search warrant issued by a court to allow law enforcement to search a database to find all active mobile devices within a particular geo-fence area. Courts have granted law enforcement geo-fence warrants to obtain information from databases such as Google's Sensorvault, which collects users' historical geolocation data. Geo-fence warrants are a part of a category of warrants known as reverse search warrants. == History == Geofence warrants were first used in 2016. Google reported that it had received 982 such warrants in 2018, 8,396 in 2019, and 11,554 in 2020. A 2021 transparency report showed that 25% of data requests from law enforcement to Google were geo-fence data requests. Google is the most common recipient of geo-fence warrants and the main provider of such data, although companies including Apple, Snapchat, Lyft, and Uber have also received such warrants. == Legality == === United States === Some lawyers and privacy experts believe reverse search warrants are unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures, and requires any search warrants be specific to what and to whom they apply. The Fourth Amendment specifies that warrants may only be issued "upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Some lawyers, legal scholars, and privacy experts have likened reverse search warrants to general warrants, which were made illegal by the Fourth Amendment. Groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation have opposed geo-fence warrants in amicus briefs filed in motions to quash such orders to disclose geo-fence data. In 2024, a panel of the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals considered data acquired from Google’s Sensorvault not to be a search, but non-private business records when users opt-in to Google’s location history. However, upon a rehearing en banc, the Court vacated that decision. In April 2025, the full Court affirmed the judgment solely on the 'good faith' exception, leaving the underlying constitutional question of whether geofence warrants constitute a search unsettled in the Circuit. However, the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that geofence warrants are "categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment." The split in Circuits prompted the United States Supreme Court to agree to hear Chatrie v. United States in January 2026.

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  • Fragment (computer graphics)

    Fragment (computer graphics)

    In computer graphics, a fragment is the data necessary to generate a single pixel's worth of a drawing primitive in the frame buffer. These data may include, but are not limited to: raster position depth interpolated attributes (color, texture coordinates, etc.) stencil alpha window ID As a scene is drawn, drawing primitives (the basic elements of graphics output, such as points, lines, circles, text etc.) are rasterized into fragments which are textured and combined with the existing frame buffer. How a fragment is combined with the data already in the frame buffer depends on various settings. In a typical case, a fragment may be discarded if it is further away than the pixel which is already at that location (according to the depth buffer). If it is nearer than the existing pixel, it may replace what is already there, or, if alpha blending is in use, the pixel's color may be replaced with a mixture of the fragment's color and the pixel's existing color, as in the case of drawing a translucent object. In general, a fragment can be thought of as the data needed to shade the pixel, plus the data needed to test whether the fragment survives to become a pixel (depth, alpha, stencil, scissor, window ID, etc.). Shading a fragment is done through a fragment shader (or pixel shaders in Direct3D). In computer graphics, a fragment is not necessarily opaque, and could contain an alpha value specifying its degree of transparency. The alpha is typically normalized to the range of [0, 1], with 0 denotes totally transparent and 1 denotes totally opaque. If the fragment is not totally opaque, then part of its background object could show through, which is known as alpha blending.

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  • Lawbot

    Lawbot

    Lawbots are a broad class of customer-facing legal AI applications that are used to automate specific legal tasks, such as document automation and legal research. The terms robot lawyer and lawyer bot are used as synonyms to lawbot. A robot lawyer or a robo-lawyer refers to a legal AI application that can perform tasks that are typically done by paralegals or young associates at law firms. However, there is some debate on the correctness of the term. Some commentators say that legal AI is technically speaking neither a lawyer nor a robot and should not be referred to as such. Other commentators believe that the term can be misleading and note that the robot lawyer of the future will not be one all-encompassing application but a collection of specialized bots for various tasks. Lawbots use various artificial intelligence techniques or other intelligent systems to limit humans' direct ongoing involvement in certain steps of a legal matter. The user interfaces on lawbots vary from smart searches and step-by-step forms to chatbots. Consumer and enterprise-facing lawbot solutions often do not require direct supervision from a legal professional. Depending on the task, some client-facing solutions used at law firms operate under an attorney supervision. == Levels of autonomy == The following levels of autonomy (LoA) are suggested for automated AI legal reasoning: Level 0 (LoA0): No automation for AI legal reasoning Level 1 (LoA1): Simple assistance automation Level 2 (LoA2): Advanced assistance automation Level 3 (LoA3): Semi-autonomous automation Level 4 (LoA4): Domain automation Level 5 (LoA5): Fully-autonomous automation Level 6 (LoA6): Superhuman automation == Examples == Some legal AI solutions are developed and marketed directly to the customers or consumers, whereas other applications are tools for the attorneys at law firms. There are already hundreds of legal AI solutions that operate in multitude of ways varying in sophistication and dependence on scripted algorithms. One notable legal technology chatbot application is DoNotPay. It had started off as an app for contesting parking tickets, but has since expanded to include features that help users with many different types of legal issues, ranging from consumer protection to immigration rights and other social issues. == Impact on the legal industry == In the 2016 report, Deloitte estimated that more than 110,000 law jobs in just the United Kingdom alone could disappear within the next twenty years due to automation. This change could result in the creation of more highly skilled jobs and in the reduction of paralegal and temporary positions. Deloitte's report asserts that "there is significant potential for high-skilled roles that involve repetitive processes to be automated by smart and self-learning algorithms". According to Lawyers to Engage, between 22% of a lawyer’s work and 35% of a legal assistant’s work can be automated in the US. Top law schools like Harvard have already begun to integrate Artificial Intelligence into the curriculum. Legal tech start-up companies have begun developing applications that assist law firms with completing low-risk legal processes. These applications can enable lawyers to focus on more work that requires their specific expertise. The automation of processes like contract reviewing, enforcement of negotiations (smart contracts) and client intake (expert systems) allows law firms to streamline their procedures and improve efficiency. In addition, automation benefits small-to-medium law firms that do not have the resources to utilize junior talent on such routine tasks. The increase of law firms utilizing automated applications could result into legal tech becoming a necessity in the industry. Digital Reason CEO, Tim Estes, stated that those who refuse the opportunity to integrate AI in their workflow are “most at risk.” In 2018, Forbes reported a 713% increase in investments in legal tech. This rapid growth is reflective of law firms beginning to “cede business to… new model legal providers… that meld technological, business and legal expertise.” == Access to law and justice == It has been widely estimated for at least the last generation that all the programs and resources devoted to ensuring access to justice address only 20% of the civil legal needs of low-income people in the United States. Drawing on this experience, in late 2011, the U.S. government-funded Legal Services Corporation decided to convene a summit of leaders to explore how best to use technology in the access-to-justice community. The group adopted a mission for The Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice (Summit) consistent with the magnitude of the challenge: "to explore the potential of technology to move the United States toward providing some form of effective assistance to 100% of persons otherwise unable to afford an attorney for dealing with essential civil legal needs". In April 2017, joined by Microsoft and Pro Bono Net, the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) announced a pilot program to develop online, statewide legal portals to direct individuals with civil legal needs to the most appropriate forms of assistance. == Technological limitations == Current research in subjects such as computational privacy, explainable machine learning, Bayesian deep learning, knowledge-intensive machine learning, and transfer learning reveals that we do not yet have the technology to enable Level 4 to 6 AI lawbots. In 2023, OpenLaw began developing a model called Law Bot, which interacts in a conversational way as an attorney. The dialogue format makes it possible for Law Bot to answer follow-up questions, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. Currently, they try to ensure it is in full compliance with all laws and regulations while conducting further beta testing before releasing it to the general public.

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  • Vatican News App

    Vatican News App

    The Vatican News App is an official mobile application software issued by the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication. Formerly titled The Pope App, the app was launched on January 23, 2013, under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, a now-defunct dicastery that was merged into the Secretariat (now Dicastery) for Communication in March 2016. Initially, The Pope App was available only on iOS devices, but became available for Android phones at the end of February 2013. The app is available for download on iOS and Android in five languages: English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. It was originally promoted as an application with focus on the figure of the Pope which made it possible to follow the Pope's events while they are taking place. Alerts notified the followers by informing and offering access to "official papal-related content in a variety of formats". The app also enabled its users to see areas of the Vatican through webcams allocated throughout St. Peter's Square in Rome that broadcast images. In early 2018, The Pope App was relaunched as the Vatican News App, accompanied by a redesign that eliminated many of the previous version's features, reducing the app to a more conventional news service, with increased emphasis on news from the Vatican and the worldwide Catholic Church and less focus on the day-to-day activities of the Pope.

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  • IMPACT (computer graphics)

    IMPACT (computer graphics)

    IMPACT (sometimes spelled Impact) is a computer graphics architecture for Silicon Graphics computer workstations. IMPACT Graphics was developed in 1995 and was available as a high-end graphics option on workstations released during the mid-1990s. IMPACT graphics gives the workstation real-time 2D and 3D graphics rendering capability similar to that of even high-end PCs made well after IMPACT's introduction. IMPACT graphics systems consist of either one or two Geometry Engines and one or two Raster Engines in various configurations. IMPACT graphics consists of five graphics subsystems: the Command Engine, Geometry Subsystem, Raster Engine, framebuffer and Display Subsystem. IMPACT Graphics can produce resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 pixels with 32-bit color and can also process unencoded NTSC and PAL analog television signals. IMPACT graphics subsystems come in three configurations for SGI Indigo2 IMPACT workstations: Solid IMPACT, High IMPACT, and Maximum IMPACT. The equivalent configurations also exist for the SGI Octane workstation but are referred to as SI, SSI, and MXI (I-series). Later Octane workstations used a similar configuration but with updated ASIC chips and are referred to as SE, SSE, and MXE (E-series). IMPACT uses Rambus RDRAM for texture memory. The IMPACT graphics architecture was superseded by SGI's VPro graphics architecture in 1997.

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  • Czekanowski distance

    Czekanowski distance

    The Czekanowski distance (sometimes shortened as CZD) is a per-pixel quality metric that estimates quality or similarity by measuring differences between pixels. Because it compares vectors with strictly non-negative elements, it is often used to compare colored images, as color values cannot be negative. This different approach has a better correlation with subjective quality assessment than PSNR. == Definition == Androutsos et al. give the Czekanowski coefficient as follows: d z ( i , j ) = 1 − 2 ∑ k = 1 p min ( x i k , x j k ) ∑ k = 1 p ( x i k + x j k ) {\displaystyle d_{z}(i,j)=1-{\frac {2\sum _{k=1}^{p}{\text{min}}(x_{ik},\ x_{jk})}{\sum _{k=1}^{p}(x_{ik}+x_{jk})}}} Where a pixel x i {\displaystyle x_{i}} is being compared to a pixel x j {\displaystyle x_{j}} on the k-th band of color – usually one for each of red, green and blue. For a pixel matrix of size M × N {\displaystyle M\times N} , the Czekanowski coefficient can be used in an arithmetic mean spanning all pixels to calculate the Czekanowski distance as follows: 1 M N ∑ i = 0 M − 1 ∑ j = 0 N − 1 ( 1 − 2 ∑ k = 1 3 min ( A k ( i , j ) , B k ( i , j ) ) ∑ k = 1 3 ( A k ( i , j ) + B k ( i , j ) ) ) {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{MN}}\sum _{i=0}^{M-1}\sum _{j=0}^{N-1}{\begin{pmatrix}1-{\frac {2\sum _{k=1}^{3}{\text{min}}(A_{k}(i,j),\ B_{k}(i,j))}{\sum _{k=1}^{3}(A_{k}(i,j)+B_{k}(i,j))}}\end{pmatrix}}} Where A k ( i , j ) {\displaystyle A_{k}(i,j)} is the (i, j)-th pixel of the k-th band of a color image and, similarly, B k ( i , j ) {\displaystyle B_{k}(i,j)} is the pixel that it is being compared to. == Uses == In the context of image forensics – for example, detecting if an image has been manipulated –, Rocha et al. report the Czekanowski distance is a popular choice for Color Filter Array (CFA) identification.

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  • NNDB

    NNDB

    The Notable Names Database (NNDB) is an online database of biographical details of over 40,000 people. Soylent Communications, a sole proprietorship that also hosted the later defunct Rotten.com, describes NNDB as an "intelligence aggregator" of noteworthy persons, highlighting their interpersonal connections. The Rotten.com domain was registered in 1996 by former Apple and Netscape software engineer Thomas E. Dell, who was also known by his internet alias, "Soylent". == Entries == Each entry has an executive summary followed by a brief narrative about their life. It also lists date and cause of death if deceased. Businesspeople and government officials are listed with chronologies of their posts, positions, and board memberships. As of 2022, the site is no longer updated. == NNDB Mapper == The NNDB Mapper, a visual tool for exploring connections between people, was made available in May 2008. It required Adobe Flash 7.

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  • Drop shadow

    Drop shadow

    In graphic design and computer graphics, a drop shadow is a visual effect consisting of a drawing element which looks like the shadow of an object, giving the impression that the object is raised above the objects behind it. The drop shadow is often used for elements of a graphical user interface such as windows or menus, and for simple text. The text label for icons on desktops in many desktop environments has a drop shadow, as this effect effectively distinguishes the text from any colored background it may be in front of. A simple way of drawing a drop shadow of a rectangular object is to draw a gray or black area underneath and offset from the object. In general, a drop shadow is a copy in black or gray of the object, drawn in a slightly different position. Realism may be increased by: Darkening the colors of the pixels where the shadow casts instead of making them gray. This can be done with alpha blending the shadow with the area it is cast on. Softening the edges of the shadow. This can be done by adding Gaussian blur to the shadow's alpha channel before blending. Inset drop shadows are a type which draws the shadows inside the element. This allows the interface element to appear as if it is sunken into the interface. == Photo editing == In photo editing or photography post-production, a drop shadow may be added right beneath a model or product in the image. It is used to create contrast between the background and the subject. To add a drop shadow, retouchers use graphic editing tools like Adobe Photoshop. Drop shadows are often used as a visual effect in e-commerce. This is done to improve the presentation of product images and create depth in the image. == Use == Generally, window managers which are capable of compositing allow drop shadow effects, whereas incapable window managers do not. In some operating systems like macOS, drop shadow is used to differentiate between active and inactive windows. Websites are able to use drop shadow effects through the CSS properties box-shadow, text-shadow, and drop-shadow() filter function in filter. The first two are used for elements and text respectively, while the filter applies to the element's content, letting it support oddly shaped elements or transparent images.

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  • Texture filtering

    Texture filtering

    In computer graphics, texture filtering or texture smoothing is the method used to determine the texture color for a texture mapped pixel, using the colors of nearby texels (ie. pixels of the texture). Filtering describes how a texture is applied at many different shapes, size, angles and scales. Depending on the chosen filter algorithm, the result will show varying degrees of blurriness, detail, spatial aliasing, temporal aliasing and blocking. Depending on the circumstances, filtering can be performed in software (such as a software rendering package) or in hardware, eg. with either real time or GPU accelerated rendering circuits, or in a mixture of both. For most common interactive graphical applications, modern texture filtering is performed by dedicated hardware which optimizes memory access through memory cacheing and pre-fetch, and implements a selection of algorithms available to the user and developer. There are two main categories of texture filtering: magnification filtering and minification filtering. Depending on the situation, texture filtering is either a type of reconstruction filter where sparse data is interpolated to fill gaps (magnification), or a type of anti-aliasing (AA) where texture samples exist at a higher frequency than required for the sample frequency needed for texture fill (minification). There are many methods of texture filtering, which make different trade-offs between computational complexity, memory bandwidth and image quality. == The need for filtering == During the texture mapping process for any arbitrary 3D surface, a texture lookup takes place to find out where on the texture each pixel center falls. For texture-mapped polygonal surfaces composed of triangles typical of most surfaces in 3D games and movies, every pixel (or subordinate pixel sample) of that surface will be associated with some triangle(s) and a set of barycentric coordinates, which are used to provide a position within a texture. Such a position may not lie perfectly on the "pixel grid," necessitating some function to account for these cases. In other words, since the textured surface may be at an arbitrary distance and orientation relative to the viewer, one pixel does not usually correspond directly to one texel. Some form of filtering has to be applied to determine the best color for the pixel. Insufficient or incorrect filtering will show up in the image as artifacts (errors in the image), such as 'blockiness', jaggies, or shimmering. There can be different types of correspondence between a pixel and the texel/texels it represents on the screen. These depend on the position of the textured surface relative to the viewer, and different forms of filtering are needed in each case. Given a square texture mapped on to a square surface in the world, at some viewing distance the size of one screen pixel is exactly the same as one texel. Closer than that, the texels are larger than screen pixels, and need to be scaled up appropriately — a process known as texture magnification. Farther away, each texel is smaller than a pixel, and so one pixel covers multiple texels. In this case an appropriate color has to be picked based on the covered texels, via texture minification. Graphics APIs such as OpenGL allow the programmer to set different choices for minification and magnification filters. Note that even in the case where the pixels and texels are exactly the same size, one pixel will not necessarily match up exactly to one texel. It may be misaligned or rotated, and cover parts of up to four neighboring texels. Hence some form of filtering is still required. == Mipmapping == Mipmapping is a standard technique used to save some of the filtering work needed during texture minification. It is also highly beneficial for cache coherency - without it the memory access pattern during sampling from distant textures will exhibit extremely poor locality, adversely affecting performance even if no filtering is performed. During texture magnification, the number of texels that need to be looked up for any pixel is always four or fewer; during minification, however, as the textured polygon moves farther away potentially the entire texture might fall into a single pixel. This would necessitate reading all of its texels and combining their values to correctly determine the pixel color, a prohibitively expensive operation. Mipmapping avoids this by prefiltering the texture and storing it in smaller sizes down to a single pixel. As the textured surface moves farther away, the texture being applied switches to the prefiltered smaller size. Different sizes of the mipmap are referred to as 'levels', with Level 0 being the largest size (used closest to the viewer), and increasing levels used at increasing distances. == Filtering methods == This section lists the most common texture filtering methods, in increasing order of computational cost and image quality. === Nearest-neighbor interpolation === Nearest-neighbor interpolation is the simplest and crudest filtering method — it simply uses the color of the texel closest to the pixel center for the pixel color. While simple, this results in a large number of artifacts - texture 'blockiness' during magnification, and aliasing and shimmering during minification. This method is fast during magnification but during minification the stride through memory becomes arbitrarily large and it can often be less efficient than MIP-mapping due to the lack of spatially coherent texture access and cache-line reuse. === Nearest-neighbor with mipmapping === This method still uses nearest neighbor interpolation, but adds mipmapping — first the nearest mipmap level is chosen according to distance, then the nearest texel center is sampled to get the pixel color. This reduces the aliasing and shimmering significantly during minification but does not eliminate it entirely. In doing so it improves texture memory access and cache-line reuse through avoiding arbitrarily large access strides through texture memory during rasterization. This does not help with blockiness during magnification as each magnified texel will still appear as a large rectangle. === Linear mipmap filtering === Less commonly used, OpenGL and other APIs support nearest-neighbor sampling from individual mipmaps whilst linearly interpolating the two nearest mipmaps relevant to the sample. === Bilinear filtering === In Bilinear filtering, the four nearest texels to the pixel center are sampled (at the closest mipmap level), and their colors are combined by weighted average according to distance. This removes the 'blockiness' seen during magnification, as there is now a smooth gradient of color change from one texel to the next, instead of an abrupt jump as the pixel center crosses the texel boundary. Bilinear filtering for magnification filtering is common. When used for minification it is often used with mipmapping; though it can be used without, it would suffer the same aliasing and shimmering problems as nearest-neighbor filtering when minified too much. For modest minification ratios, however, it can be used as an inexpensive hardware accelerated weighted texture supersample. The Nintendo 64 used an unusual version of bilinear filtering where only three pixels are used known as 3-point texture filtering, instead of four due to hardware optimization concerns. This introduces a noticeable "triangulation bias" in some textures. === Trilinear filtering === Trilinear filtering is a remedy to a common artifact seen in mipmapped bilinearly filtered images: an abrupt and very noticeable change in quality at boundaries where the renderer switches from one mipmap level to the next. Trilinear filtering solves this by doing a texture lookup and bilinear filtering on the two closest mipmap levels (one higher and one lower quality), and then linearly interpolating the results. This results in a smooth degradation of texture quality as distance from the viewer increases, rather than a series of sudden drops. Of course, closer than Level 0 there is only one mipmap level available, and the algorithm reverts to bilinear filtering. === Anisotropic filtering === Anisotropic filtering is the highest quality filtering available in current consumer 3D graphics cards. Simpler, "isotropic" techniques use only square mipmaps which are then interpolated using bi– or trilinear filtering. (Isotropic means same in all directions, and hence is used to describe a system in which all the maps are squares rather than rectangles or other quadrilaterals.) When a surface is at a high angle relative to the camera, the fill area for a texture will not be approximately square. Consider the common case of a floor in a game: the fill area is far wider than it is tall. In this case, none of the square maps are a good fit. The result is blurriness and/or shimmering, depending on how the fit is chosen. Anisotropic filtering corrects this by sampling the texture as a non-square shape. The goal is

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  • Simulation noise

    Simulation noise

    Simulation noise is a function that creates a divergence-free vector field. This signal can be used in artistic simulations for the purpose of increasing the perception of extra detail. The function can be calculated in three dimensions by dividing the space into a regular lattice grid. With each edge is associated a random value, indicating a rotational component of material revolving around the edge. By following rotating material into and out of faces, one can quickly sum the flux passing through each face of the lattice. Flux values at lattice faces are then interpolated to create a field value for all positions. Perlin noise is the earliest form of lattice noise, which has become very popular in computer graphics. Perlin Noise is not suited for simulation because it is not divergence-free. Noises based on lattices, such as simulation noise and Perlin noise, are often calculated at different frequencies and summed together to form band-limited fractal signals. Other approaches developed later that use vector calculus identities to produce divergence free fields, such as "Curl-Noise" as suggested by Rook Bridson, and "Divergence-Free Noise" due to Ivan DeWolf. These often require calculation of lattice noise gradients, which sometimes are not readily available. A naive implementation would call a lattice noise function several times to calculate its gradient, resulting in more computation than is strictly necessary. Unlike these noises, simulation noise has a geometric rationale in addition to its mathematical properties. It simulates vortices scattered in space, to produce its pleasing aesthetic. == Curl noise == The vector field is created as follows, for every point (x,y,z) in the space a vector field G is created, every component x, y and z of the vector field (Gx, Gy, Gz) is defined by a 3D perlin or simplex noise function with x, y and z as parameters. The partial derivative of Gx, Gy, and Gz respect to x, y and z is obtained with the gradient of the perlin or simplex noise by finite differences of implicit calculation inside the simplex noise. The partial derivatives are used to calculate F as the curl of G given by F = ( ∂ G z ∂ y − ∂ G y ∂ z , ∂ G x ∂ z − ∂ G z ∂ x , ∂ G y ∂ x − ∂ G x ∂ y ) {\displaystyle F=({\frac {\partial Gz}{\partial y}}-{\frac {\partial Gy}{\partial z}},{\frac {\partial Gx}{\partial z}}-{\frac {\partial Gz}{\partial x}},{\frac {\partial Gy}{\partial x}}-{\frac {\partial Gx}{\partial y}})} == Bitangent noise == This method is based in the fact that the curl of the gradient of scalar field is zero and the identity that expand the divergence of a cross product of two vectors A and B as the difference of the dot products of each vector with the curl of the other: ∇ × ( ∇ φ ) = 0 . {\displaystyle \nabla \times (\nabla \varphi )=\mathbf {0} .} ∇ ⋅ ( A × B ) = ( ∇ × A ) ⋅ B − A ⋅ ( ∇ × B ) {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot (\mathbf {A} \times \mathbf {B} )=\ (\nabla {\times }\mathbf {A} )\cdot \mathbf {B} \,-\,\mathbf {A} \cdot (\nabla {\times }\mathbf {B} )} which means that if the curl of both vector fields is zero then the divergence of the product of two vectors that are the gradients of scalar fields is zero too. This result in a divergence free vector field by construction only calling two noise functions to create the scalar fields. The vector field es created as follows, two scalar fields are calculated ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } and ψ {\displaystyle \psi } using 3D perlin or simplex noise functions, then the gradients A and B of each of this fields is calculated, the cross product of A and B gives a divergence free vector field. == Signed distance noise == The vector field is created based on a closed and differentiable implicit surface S = F(x,y,z) = 0. For every point in the space, frequently outside or near the surface, we get a vector g that is normal to the surface, this is the gradient of S or the partial derivatives respect to x, y and z, this vector is not unitary, but we can get a unitary normal n by dividing each component of the point by the magnitude of the gradient g. Outside of the surface all these normals point away from the surface. g = ∇ F ( x , y , z ) = ( ∂ F ∂ x , ∂ F ∂ y , ∂ F ∂ z ) {\displaystyle g=\nabla F(x,y,z)=\left({\frac {\partial F}{\partial x}},{\frac {\partial F}{\partial y}},{\frac {\partial F}{\partial z}}\right)} n = g ( x , y , z ) ‖ ∇ F ( x , y , z ) ‖ {\displaystyle \mathbf {n} ={\frac {g(x,y,z)}{\|\nabla F(x,y,z)\|}}} ‖ ∇ F ( x , y , z ) ‖ = ( ∂ F ∂ x ) 2 + ( ∂ F ∂ y ) 2 + ( ∂ F ∂ z ) 2 {\displaystyle \|\nabla F(x,y,z)\|={\sqrt {\left({\frac {\partial F}{\partial x}}\right)^{2}+\left({\frac {\partial F}{\partial y}}\right)^{2}+\left({\frac {\partial F}{\partial z}}\right)^{2}}}} Afterwards we calculate a scalar value p for that point in the space using a 3D perlin or simplex noise function. Now we create a vector field V = pn pointing outside of the surface. The curl of this vector field gives the direction in every point in the space where the particles should move. S D N = ( ∂ V z ∂ y − ∂ V y ∂ z , ∂ V x ∂ z − ∂ V z ∂ x , ∂ V y ∂ x − ∂ V x ∂ y ) {\displaystyle SDN=({\frac {\partial Vz}{\partial y}}-{\frac {\partial Vy}{\partial z}},{\frac {\partial Vx}{\partial z}}-{\frac {\partial Vz}{\partial x}},{\frac {\partial Vy}{\partial x}}-{\frac {\partial Vx}{\partial y}})} By construction this vector SDN will point in a tangent direction to an isosurface at the level of the signed distance to the original surface and can be used to confine the movements of the particles to stay in that surface.

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  • Pixlr

    Pixlr

    Pixlr is a group of SaaS creative tools including Pixlr.com, Designs.ai and Vectr.com. Pixlr.com is a cloud-based set of image editing tools and utilities, including AI image generation and enhancements. The Pixlr suite targets users who require subjectively simple, or more advanced, photo editing as well as graphic design. It features a freemium business model with subscription plans—Plus, Premium and Teams. The platform can be used on desktop and also smartphones and tablets. Pixlr is compatible with various image formats such as JPEG, PNG, WEBP, GIF, PSD (Photoshop Document) and PXZ (native Pixlr document format). Designs.ai lets users create content using AI, with a goal of being within two minutes, across different media types including videos, text, banners and audio. Vectr.com was acquired in 2017 before being spun out into Pixlr Group in 2023. == History == Pixlr was founded in 2008 and built on Macromedia Flash. On 19 July 2011, Autodesk announced that they had acquired the Pixlr suite. In 2013, Time listed Pixlr as one of the top 50 websites of the year. In 2017, Pixlr was acquired from Autodesk. It was subsequently rebuilt and relaunched in HTML5 in 2019. In September 2023, Pixlr was awarded as the Top 13 GenAi Web Product by the world's top venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. In November 2023, Pixlr, Designs.ai and Vectr were combined as a new business group named Pixlr Group focusing on generative AI and creative software solutions. In May 2024, Pixlr was featured as one of the top 18 progressive web applications highlighted on Google I/O. == Versions == Pixlr.com rebranded itself as a full creative suite in 2019 by introducing Pixlr X, Pixlr E and Pixlr M. The platform introduced more features in December 2021 with a new logo and added tools which included: Brushes, the 'Heal tool', Animation, and Batch upload. The brush feature enables the creation of hand-drawn effects. The Heal tool allows users to remove unwanted objects from their images whereas the Animation feature can be used to include movements into their edits. Users can also utilize Batch upload to edit up to 50 images simultaneously. In November 2022, Pixlr 2023 was launched, adding more tools such as "AI smart resize", colorization, text wrapping and other additional effects. In November 2023, Pixlr 2024 was launched with Pixlr Designer and new AI-powered updates which includes AI image generation, AI infill, AI inpainting and more.

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  • Resilience week

    Resilience week

    Resilience week is an annual symposium established to enable cross-disciplinary and role based discussions to advance strategies and research that engenders resilience in critical infrastructure systems and communities. Damaging storms, cyber attack and the interconnection of critical infrastructure systems can lead to cascading events that not only affect local but also across regions. However, many of these interdependencies are not easily recognized and obscure and complicate the mitigation of risk. The purpose of the symposia series is hence to facilitate best practice in managing critical infrastructure risks, by bringing together businesses, government and researchers. == Background == Originally organized in 2008 as a focus on the new research area of resilient control systems, including the disciplinary areas of control system, cyber-security, cognitive psychology and any number of critical infrastructure domains. Resilience has long been recognized as an area that requires not only the contributions of multiple disciplines or multidisciplinary participation, but interdisciplinary interaction where there is a common language and familiarity of the contributors to what other disciplines (and roles) contribute. The resulting interactions developed by Resilience Week and associated activities are intended to culture this sharing environment as a safe zone for inclusion; more importantly, an environment that lends to developing the new science and practice. As the attributes of resilience are complex, the contributions and topics for the event have included both the disciplinary and the project considerations, in keynotes, panels and research presentations. Keynotes have included senior leadership in the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies in addition to National Academy and professional organization fellows and senior industry leaders. Project panels and research presentations include emergent topics in resilience to climate change, cyber attack, damaging storms and the energy assurance. Topics Areas of focus have included: Control Systems Cyber Systems Cognitive Systems Communications Systems Communities and Infrastructure Project Focus Areas have included: Dependencies and Interdependencies Cyber Resilience for Operating Technology Commercializing Research and Development Building Critical Infrastructure Resilience through Distributed Energy Resources Energy Equity and Community Resilience Proceedings are developed for each year of the event, documenting the diversity of the research and engagements within these topical areas. == Impacts for the future == Since its inception, the Resilience Week community has evolved from one that primarily included only university researchers to one that includes many government laboratories, universities and private industries in the US and internationally. This type of collaboration forms a feedback loop that informs the research with the current needs and hones best practices. The future of the event is to further advance discussions that advance investment, recognize priorities and expedite technologies and tools to proactively address our energy future, in light of the natural and manmade challenges, and rationalizing the complex relationships that exist in critical infrastructure.

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  • Foreign key

    Foreign key

    A foreign key is a set of attributes in a table that refers to the primary key of another table, linking these two tables. In the context of relational databases, a foreign key is subject to an inclusion dependency constraint that the tuples consisting of the foreign key attributes in one relation, R, must also exist in some other (not necessarily distinct) relation, S; furthermore that those attributes must also be a candidate key in S. In other words, a foreign key is a set of attributes that references a candidate key. For example, a table called TEAM may have an attribute, MEMBER_NAME, which is a foreign key referencing a candidate key, PERSON_NAME, in the PERSON table. Since MEMBER_NAME is a foreign key, any value existing as the name of a member in TEAM must also exist as a person's name in the PERSON table; in other words, every member of a TEAM is also a PERSON. == Summary == The table containing the foreign key is called the child table, and the table containing the candidate key is called the referenced or parent table. In database relational modeling and implementation, a candidate key is a set of zero or more attributes, the values of which are guaranteed to be unique for each tuple (row) in a relation. The value or combination of values of candidate key attributes for any tuple cannot be duplicated for any other tuple in that relation. Since the purpose of the foreign key is to identify a particular row of referenced table, it is generally required that the foreign key is equal to the candidate key in some row of the primary table, or else have no value (the NULL value.). This rule is called a referential integrity constraint between the two tables. Because violations of these constraints can be the source of many database problems, most database management systems provide mechanisms to ensure that every non-null foreign key corresponds to a row of the referenced table. For example, consider a database with two tables: a CUSTOMER table that includes all customer data and an ORDER table that includes all customer orders. Suppose the business requires that each order must refer to a single customer. To reflect this in the database, a foreign key column is added to the ORDER table (e.g., CUSTOMERID), which references the primary key of CUSTOMER (e.g. ID). Because the primary key of a table must be unique, and because CUSTOMERID only contains values from that primary key field, we may assume that, when it has a value, CUSTOMERID will identify the particular customer which placed the order. However, this can no longer be assumed if the ORDER table is not kept up to date when rows of the CUSTOMER table are deleted or the ID column altered, and working with these tables may become more difficult. Many real world databases work around this problem by 'inactivating' rather than physically deleting master table foreign keys, or by complex update programs that modify all references to a foreign key when a change is needed. Foreign keys play an essential role in database design. One important part of database design is making sure that relationships between real-world entities are reflected in the database by references, using foreign keys to refer from one table to another. Another important part of database design is database normalization, in which tables are broken apart and foreign keys make it possible for them to be reconstructed. Multiple rows in the referencing (or child) table may refer to the same row in the referenced (or parent) table. In this case, the relationship between the two tables is called a one to many relationship between the referencing table and the referenced table. In addition, the child and parent table may, in fact, be the same table, i.e. the foreign key refers back to the same table. Such a foreign key is known in SQL:2003 as a self-referencing or recursive foreign key. In database management systems, this is often accomplished by linking a first and second reference to the same table. A table may have multiple foreign keys, and each foreign key can have a different parent table. Each foreign key is enforced independently by the database system. Therefore, cascading relationships between tables can be established using foreign keys. A foreign key is defined as an attribute or set of attributes in a relation whose values match a primary key in another relation. The syntax to add such a constraint to an existing table is defined in SQL:2003 as shown below. Omitting the column list in the REFERENCES clause implies that the foreign key shall reference the primary key of the referenced table. Likewise, foreign keys can be defined as part of the CREATE TABLE SQL statement. If the foreign key is a single column only, the column can be marked as such using the following syntax: Foreign keys can be defined with a stored procedure statement. child_table: the name of the table or view that contains the foreign key to be defined. parent_table: the name of the table or view that has the primary key to which the foreign key applies. The primary key must already be defined. col3 and col4: the name of the columns that make up the foreign key. The foreign key must have at least one column and at most eight columns. == Referential actions == Because the database management system enforces referential constraints, it must ensure data integrity if rows in a referenced table are to be deleted (or updated). If dependent rows in referencing tables still exist, those references have to be considered. SQL:2003 specifies 5 different referential actions that shall take place in such occurrences: CASCADE RESTRICT NO ACTION SET NULL SET DEFAULT === CASCADE === Whenever rows in the parent (referenced) table are deleted (or updated), the respective rows of the child (referencing) table with a matching foreign key column will be deleted (or updated) as well. This is called a cascade delete (or update). === RESTRICT === A value cannot be updated or deleted when a row exists in a referencing or child table that references the value in the referenced table. Similarly, a row cannot be deleted as long as there is a reference to it from a referencing or child table. To understand RESTRICT (and CASCADE) better, it may be helpful to notice the following difference, which might not be immediately clear. The referential action CASCADE modifies the "behavior" of the (child) table itself where the word CASCADE is used. For example, ON DELETE CASCADE effectively says "When the referenced row is deleted from the other table (master table), then delete also from me". However, the referential action RESTRICT modifies the "behavior" of the master table, not the child table, although the word RESTRICT appears in the child table and not in the master table! So, ON DELETE RESTRICT effectively says: "When someone tries to delete the row from the other table (master table), prevent deletion from that other table (and of course, also don't delete from me, but that's not the main point here)." RESTRICT is not supported by Microsoft SQL 2012 and earlier. === NO ACTION === NO ACTION and RESTRICT are very much alike. The main difference between NO ACTION and RESTRICT is that with NO ACTION the referential integrity check is done after trying to alter the table. RESTRICT does the check before trying to execute the UPDATE or DELETE statement. Both referential actions act the same if the referential integrity check fails: the UPDATE or DELETE statement will result in an error. In other words, when an UPDATE or DELETE statement is executed on the referenced table using the referential action NO ACTION, the DBMS verifies at the end of the statement execution that none of the referential relationships are violated. This is different from RESTRICT, which assumes at the outset that the operation will violate the constraint. Using NO ACTION, the triggers or the semantics of the statement itself may yield an end state in which no foreign key relationships are violated by the time the constraint is finally checked, thus allowing the statement to complete successfully. === SET NULL, SET DEFAULT === In general, the action taken by the DBMS for SET NULL or SET DEFAULT is the same for both ON DELETE or ON UPDATE: the value of the affected referencing attributes is changed to NULL for SET NULL, and to the specified default value for SET DEFAULT. === Triggers === Referential actions are generally implemented as implied triggers (i.e. triggers with system-generated names, often hidden.) As such, they are subject to the same limitations as user-defined triggers, and their order of execution relative to other triggers may need to be considered; in some cases it may become necessary to replace the referential action with its equivalent user-defined trigger to ensure proper execution order, or to work around mutating-table limitations. Another important limitation appears with transaction isolation: your changes to a row may not be able to fully cascade because the row is ref

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