AI Content Improver

AI Content Improver — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

Fillrate

In computer graphics, a video card's pixel fillrate refers to the number of pixels that can be rendered on the screen and written to video memory in one second. Pixel fillrates are given in megapixels per second or in gigapixels per second (in the case of newer cards), and are obtained by multiplying the number of render output units (ROPs) by the clock frequency of the graphics processing unit (GPU) of a video card. A similar concept, texture fillrate, refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) the GPU can map to pixels in one second. Texture fillrate is obtained by multiplying the number of texture mapping units (TMUs) by the clock frequency of the GPU. Texture fillrates are given in mega or gigatexels per second. However, there is no full agreement on how to calculate and report fillrates. Another possible method is to multiply the number of pixel pipelines by the GPU's clock frequency. The results of these multiplications correspond to a theoretical number. The actual fillrate depends on many other factors. In the past, the fillrate has been used as an indicator of performance by video card manufacturers such as ATI and NVIDIA, however, the importance of the fillrate as a measurement of performance has declined as the bottleneck in graphics applications has shifted. For example, today, the number and speed of unified shader processing units has gained attention. Although fillrate doesn't provide a substantial bottleneck in games, it can still provide a bottleneck for certain parts of the game, for example applying a gaussian blur can be bottlenecked by fillrate. Scene complexity can be increased by overdrawing, which happens when an object is drawn to the frame buffer, and another object (such as a wall) is then drawn on top of it, covering it up. The time spent drawing the first object is thus wasted because it is not visible. When a sequence of scenes is extremely complex (many pixels have to be drawn for each scene), the frame rate for the sequence may drop. When designing graphics intensive applications, one can determine whether the application is fillrate-limited (or shader limited) by seeing if the frame rate increases dramatically when the application runs at a lower resolution or in a smaller window. Although this is not a full-proof method, modern videogame engines can dynamically reduce the level-of-detail required and thereby reducing fillrate-limited applications. The best way to find fillrate bottlenecks is to use GPU vendor software like NVIDIA Nsight Graphics, AMD Radeon GPU Profile and the Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers.
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Affordable affluence

Affordable affluence refers to a cultural phenomenon where consumers use accessible luxury goods and lifestyles to project status and align themselves with a higher social class, without requiring substantial wealth. This concept is embodied by brands such as Aritzia and Erewhon, which position themselves as offering high-end, trendy, or health-conscious products that are relatively accessible to the average consumer. A related concept is quiet luxury, where the ultra-wealthy signal wealth through subtle means. Quiet luxury emphasizes the widening gap between the ultra-wealthy and the general public, whereas accessible affluence provides a way for the general public to indulge in the lifestyle of the ultra-wealthy. == Origin of the term == An early use of the phrase in this context in a 2023 article in The Cut called "Meet the People Working 3 Jobs to Afford Erewhon." One of the interviewees used Erewhon as an archetype of affordable affluence. It was described as “a way for regular people to position themselves adjacent to the upper class.” == Background and description == The phenomenon arises due to an individual's desire to showcase status. For years, companies have strategized how to target the average consumers by providing a product that signals an elevated social status. For instance, Aritzia partnered with celebrities and micro-influencers to make it an aspirational brand at an affordable cost. Erewhon similarly has allowed middle class consumers to subtly signal a higher degree of perceived wealth by purchasing higher priced, but still attainable items. It has allowed middle-class individuals to feel as though they are part of an exclusive culture. This phenomenon has been seen particularly with Gen Z and Millennials in the setting of financial hardships in the 2020s. Affordable affluence is an example of the lipstick effect. Because traditional status symbols such as expensive cars became relatively more unattainable, posting clips on social media that showcase affordable affluence become an alternative status symbol. Particularly with food, the perception has evolved from a necessity to a luxury. A McKinsey & Company report demonstrated that these generations place a higher importance on groceries than restaurants, travel, and beauty/fashion.
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Asymmetric follow

An asymmetric follow social network is one which allows many people to follow an individual or account without having to follow them back. It is also known as asynchronous follow or sometimes asymmetric friendship. Asymmetric follow is a common pattern on Twitter, where someone may have thousands of followers, but themselves follow few (or no) accounts. In September 2010 Facebook started experimenting with a similar feature, which Facebook calls "Subscribe To."
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Errored second

In telecommunications and data communication systems, an errored second is an interval of a second during which any error whatsoever has occurred, regardless of whether that error was a single bit error or a complete loss of communication for that entire second. The type of error is not important for the purpose of counting errored seconds. In communication systems with very low uncorrected bit error rates, such as modern fiber-optic transmission systems, or systems with higher low-level error rates that are corrected using large amounts of forward error correction, errored seconds are often a better measure of the effective user-visible error rate than the raw bit error rate. For many modern packet-switched communication systems, even a single uncorrected bit error is enough to cause the loss of a data packet by causing its CRC check to fail; whether that packet loss was caused by a single bit error or a hundred-bit-long error burst is irrelevant. For systems using large amounts of forward error correction, the reverse applies; a single low-level bit error will almost never occur, since any small errors will almost always be corrected, but any error sufficiently large to cause the forward error correction to fail will almost always result in a large burst error. More specialist and precise definitions of errored seconds exist in standards such as the T1 and DS1 transport systems.
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Automation

Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines. Automation has been achieved by various means including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic devices, and computers, usually in combination. Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes, and ships typically use combinations of all of these techniques. The benefits of automation includes labor savings, reducing waste, savings in electricity costs, savings in material costs, and improvements to quality, accuracy, and precision. Automation includes the use of various equipment and control systems such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers, and heat-treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering, stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications and vehicles with reduced human intervention. Examples range from a household thermostat controlling a boiler to a large industrial control system with tens of thousands of input measurements and output control signals. In the simplest type of an automatic control loop, a controller compares a measured value of a process with a desired set value and processes the resulting error signal to change some input to the process, in such a way that the process stays at its set point despite disturbances. This closed-loop control is an application of negative feedback to a system. The mathematical basis of control theory began in the 18th century and advanced rapidly in the 20th. The term automation, inspired by the earlier word automatic (coming from automaton), was not widely used before 1947, when Ford established an automation department. It was during this time that the industry was rapidly adopting feedback controllers, Technological advancements introduced in the 1930s revolutionized various industries significantly. The World Bank's World Development Report of 2019 shows evidence that the new industries and jobs in the technology sector outweigh the economic effects of workers being displaced by automation. Job losses and downward mobility blamed on automation have been cited as one of many factors in the resurgence of nationalist, protectionist and populist politics in the US, UK and France, among other countries since the 2010s. == History == === Early history === It was a preoccupation of the Greeks and Arabs (in the period between about 300 BC and about 1200 AD) to keep an accurate track of time. In Ptolemaic Egypt, about 270 BC, Ctesibius described a float regulator for a water clock, a device not unlike the ball and cock in a modern flush toilet. This was the earliest feedback-controlled mechanism. The appearance of the mechanical clock in the 14th century made the water clock and its feedback control system obsolete. The Persian Banū Mūsā brothers, in their Book of Ingenious Devices (850 AD), described a number of automatic controls. Two-step level controls for fluids, a form of discontinuous variable structure controls, were developed by the Banu Musa brothers. They also described a feedback controller. The design of feedback control systems up through the Industrial Revolution was by trial-and-error, together with a great deal of engineering intuition. It was not until the mid-19th century that the stability of feedback control systems was analyzed using mathematics, the formal language of automatic control theory. The centrifugal governor was invented by Christiaan Huygens in the seventeenth century, and used to adjust the gap between millstones. === Industrial Revolution in Western Europe === The introduction of prime movers, or self-driven machines advanced grain mills, furnaces, boilers, and the steam engine created a new requirement for automatic control systems including temperature regulators (invented in 1624; see Cornelius Drebbel), pressure regulators (1681), float regulators (1700) and speed control devices. Another control mechanism was used to tent the sails of windmills. It was patented by Edmund Lee in 1745. Also in 1745, Jacques de Vaucanson invented the first automated loom. Around 1800, Joseph Marie Jacquard created a punch-card system to program looms. In 1771 Richard Arkwright invented the first fully automated spinning mill driven by water power, known at the time as the water frame. An automatic flour mill was developed by Oliver Evans in 1785, making it the first completely automated industrial process. A centrifugal governor was used by Mr. Bunce of England in 1784 as part of a model steam crane. The centrifugal governor was adopted by James Watt for use on a steam engine in 1788 after Watt's partner Boulton saw one at a flour mill Boulton & Watt were building. The governor could not actually hold a set speed; the engine would assume a new constant speed in response to load changes. The governor was able to handle smaller variations such as those caused by fluctuating heat load to the boiler. Also, there was a tendency for oscillation whenever there was a speed change. As a consequence, engines equipped with this governor were not suitable for operations requiring constant speed, such as cotton spinning. Several improvements to the governor, plus improvements to valve cut-off timing on the steam engine, made the engine suitable for most industrial uses before the end of the 19th century. Advances in the steam engine stayed well ahead of science, both thermodynamics and control theory. The governor received relatively little scientific attention until James Clerk Maxwell published a paper that established the beginning of a theoretical basis for understanding control theory. === 20th century === Relay logic was introduced with factory electrification, which underwent rapid adaptation from 1900 through the 1920s. Central electric power stations were also undergoing rapid growth and the operation of new high-pressure boilers, steam turbines and electrical substations created a great demand for instruments and controls. Central control rooms became common in the 1920s, but as late as the early 1930s, most process controls were on-off. Operators typically monitored charts drawn by recorders that plotted data from instruments. To make corrections, operators manually opened or closed valves or turned switches on or off. Control rooms also used color-coded lights to send signals to workers in the plant to manually make certain changes. The development of the electronic amplifier during the 1920s, which was important for long-distance telephony, required a higher signal-to-noise ratio, which was solved by negative feedback noise cancellation. This and other telephony applications contributed to the control theory. In the 1940s and 1950s, German mathematician Irmgard Flügge-Lotz developed the theory of discontinuous automatic controls, which found military applications during the Second World War to fire control systems and aircraft navigation systems. Controllers, which were able to make calculated changes in response to deviations from a set point rather than on-off control, began being introduced in the 1930s. Controllers allowed manufacturing to continue showing productivity gains to offset the declining influence of factory electrification. Factory productivity was greatly increased by electrification in the 1920s. U.S. manufacturing productivity growth fell from 5.2%/yr 1919–29 to 2.76%/yr 1929–41. Alexander Field notes that spending on non-medical instruments increased significantly from 1929 to 1933 and remained strong thereafter. The First and Second World Wars saw major advancements in the field of mass communication and signal processing. Other key advances in automatic controls include differential equations, stability theory and system theory (1938), frequency domain analysis (1940), ship control (1950), and stochastic analysis (1941). Starting in 1958, various systems based on solid-state digital logic modules for hard-wired programmed logic controllers (the predecessors of programmable logic controllers [PLC]) emerged to replace electro-mechanical relay logic in industrial control systems for process control and automation, including early Telefunken/AEG Logistat, Siemens Simatic, Philips/Mullard/Valvo Norbit, BBC Sigmatronic, ACEC Logacec, Akkord Estacord, Krone Mibakron, Bistat, Datapac, Norlog, SSR, or Procontic systems. In 1959 Texaco's Port Arthur Refinery became the first chemical plant to use digital control. Conversion of factories to digital control began to spread rapidly in the 1970s as the price of computer hardware fell. === Significant applications === The automatic telephone switchboard was introduced in 1892 along with dial telephones. By 1929, 31.9% of the Bell system was automatic. Automatic telephone switching originally used vacuum tube amplifiers and electro-mechanical switches, which consumed a large amount of electricity. Call volume eve
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CloudLibrary

CloudLibrary (stylized as "cloudLibrary") is a cloud-based software system through which libraries lend electronic books; it is also the name of the app that users download to access the e-books. CloudLibrary was created in 2011 by 3M as part of its library systems unit as a competitor to OverDrive, Inc.; in 2015 3M sold the North American part of that unit to Bibliotheca Group GmbH, a company founded in 2011 that was funded by One Equity Partners Capital Advisors, a division of JP Morgan Chase. By 2019, Bibliotecha had tried, unsuccessfully, to negotiate with Amazon to add Kindle-ebook compatibility to cloudLibrary - something that, as of then, Amazon had only made available to Overdrive. In that year, cloudLibrary, along with hoopla offered by Midwest Tape, ODILO, and Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360, were the main competitors to the Overdrive and Libby apps offered by OverDrive, Inc. in the library e-book market. In April 2024, Bibliotheca sold cloudLibrary to the nonprofit cooperative OCLC. By that time, cloudLibrary was used by around 500 libraries in around 20 countries in around 50 languages, and was used to lend audiobooks, digital magazines, newspapers, and comics, and streaming media, along with e-books.
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IBM Retail Store Systems

This article describes IBM point of sale equipment from 1973 with the introduction of the IBM 3650 till 1986 with the introduction of the IBM 4680. IBM continued to announced new retail products until the sale of the IBM Retail Store Solutions business to Toshiba TEC, announced on 17 April 17 2012. == Background == IBM began selling retail point of sale systems starting in 1973 with the IBM 3650 Retail Store System aimed at department and chain stores and the IBM 3660 Supermarket System designed for supermarkets. The IBM 3650 was announced alongside other IBM vertical industry systems such as the IBM 3600 Finance Communication System, and the IBM 3790 communications system, the combination of which IBM described as a "revolution in terminal based systems". All of these systems relied on a significant number of developments across IBM: New chips: Large Scale Integration allowed advanced Field Effect Transistor logic chips that packed far more transistors onto a new metalized one-inch square ceramic substrate Gas panels: Developed as an alternative to cathode ray tubes, the neon argon gas panel provided clear and flicker-free images. Modem communications: Synchronous Data Link Control provided lower-cost communications over telephone lines New disks: The "Gulliver" disk file that supplied a hard drive smaller than three cubic feet and also the "Igar" diskette drive Smaller printers: A disk printer system called "spica" that used a rotating disk print element with engraved print elements that are struck by a single hammer as the disk rotates Belt printers: A new system, known as "Lynx," using a removable belt that was significantly cheaper, quieter and simpler than earlier chain printers Keyboards: New keyboard technology called "Calico" that could build a wide variety of keyboards using common manufacturing facilities Power supplies: Transistorised Switching Regulators or TsRs: compact power supplies that are one third to one-fourth the size of previous generations === Store Loop (SLOOP) architecture === The 36xx retail terminals are connected to the store controller via a loop also called a Store Loop, similar to that used by the IBM 3600 Finance System. If a terminal detects an error, it runs a self-diagnosis routine, displays an error code to the operator, and uses bypass circuitry to remove itself from the loop and allow the loop to continue operating. If the loop fails, the most downstream terminal transmits an error code to the controller. Intermittent errors are written to disk on the store controller. === Supplies Manufacturing === While IBM's Data Processing Division created the retail store systems, it's Information Record Division (IRD) also saw signifiant opportunity in manufacturing supplies for retail systems. As an example in their Dayton NJ plant they used a high-speed Webtron press to create up to 1 million magnet merchandise tags per shift. == IBM 3650 Retail Store System == The 3650 System is a family of products designed to computerise a retail store, both at the point of sale and for back office store management functions. It includes a method to generate encoded tickets for merchandise, rather than use the Universal Product Code (UPC). The key devices for the system were as follows: === Shop Floor === ==== 3653 Point of Sale Terminal ==== Designed for the store floor, it is a loop attached device with: a wire matrix printer with 3 stations: cash receipt, sales-check and transaction journal. a keyboard with 10 numeric keys and 19 function keys an 8 digit display and description lights. in addition to the 8 digits it also displays the following characters: "$", "." and "-" operator guidance panel with 20 backlit captions status indicators a cash drawer a check verification station. Options include a wand magnet label reader with a 4 foot flexible cord, and locks for the journal tape and the till cover. The terminal effectively loads its software remotely from the 3651 over the loop, which IBM calls an IML (initial microcode load). It can also be IMLed locally using a tape cassette recorder. IBM later offered a choice of OEM Wand Attachments that could be ordered by RPQ that could use OCR or scan UPCs, instead of a wand magnet label reader. Only one wand could be attached to a specific 3653. There are two models: Model 1, which is not programmable. Was announced 10 August 1973. Model P1, which is customer programmable. Has 36 KB of storage expandable to 60 KB. Was announced 13 October 1978. === Back office equipment === ==== 3651 Store Controller ==== Controls data flow inside either a single store or multiple stores and sends retail transactions to a mainframe using a modem. For point of sale it performed functions such as: Automatic price lookup from a master price file Automatic distribution of net sales by up to 54 departments Automatic application of applicable discounts and sales taxes Automatic control of food stamp maximums Check authorization facilities For back office it also helped report preparation such as: store summary individual cashier performance store office reconciliation sales by up to 54 departments Current inquiries for department sales; cashier performance & cash position; store cash position. Inquiries and changes to the master price records and operator authorization control records. Setting the time and date for the internal clock. Running the customer checkouts in training mode. Printing of messages received from the host mainframe Entry of messages to send to the host mainframe Reporting of customer stock returns Updating the system with data received from the mainframe Preparing shelf Labels Basic features include: Each loop attaches up to 63 or 64 terminals depending on traffic volumes and desired response times Has an error and operator panel. There were many models including: A25 Has a 5 MB internal disk. Has 60K of memory expandable to 76KB. Supports one store loop. Attaches to 3275, 3653 and 3663. Announced 19 May 1978, withdrawn 19 February 1981 B25 Same as a A25 with a 9.2 MB internal disk. Announced 19 May 1978 C25 Announced 15 May 1981, withdrawn 15 December 1987 A50 Has a 5 MB internal disk. Announced 5 May 1975. Announced 10 August 1973, withdrawn 15 December 1987 B50 Same as B50 with a 9.2 MB internal disk. Announced 5 May 1975, withdrawn 15 December 1987 A60 Has a 5 MB internal disk. Has an integrated 3669. Attaches up to 24 3663 terminals. Announced 11 October 1973, withdrawn 15 December 1987 B60 Same as A60 with a 9.3 MB internal disk. Announced 17 November 1975, withdrawn 15 December 1987 A75 Has 5 MB internal disk. Has 60K of memory expandable to 124KB. Supports one to three store loops. Attaches to 3275, 3653, 3657, 3784 and 3663 terminals. Announced 19 May 1978 B75 Same as A75 with 9.3 MB internal disk. Announced 19 May 1978, withdrawn 15 December 1987 C75 Same as A75 with 18.6 MB internal disk. Announced 19 May 1978, withdrawn 15 December 1987 D75 Same as A75 with 27.9 MB internal disk. Announced 19 May 1978, withdrawn 15 December 1987 There were also two additional models that could be used instead of the 3651: 7480 Model 1: Has a 18.6 MB internal disk 7480 Model 2: Has a 27.9 MB internal disk ==== 3872 Modem ==== Used to attach to a 3659 for remote loops. Each 3872 can attach three 3659s. ==== 3659 Remote Communication Unit ==== Connected to an IBM 3872 and provides a remote loop for up to 64 point of sale terminals. Announced 10 August 1973, withdrawn 15 December 1987 (Model 2, announced 17 March 1976, withdrawn 20 December 1982) Intended to be used in a back office location like the store manager's office or the data entry office ==== 3275-3 Display Station ==== It is a loop attached display terminal with printer attachment hardware ==== 3784 Line Printer ==== A belt printer for higher-volume end-of-day reporting. The maximum print speed is 155 Ipm using a 48 character set. ==== 3657 Ticket Unit ==== Used to print tickets and encoded labels to attach to store merchandise. It is a loop attached device. It prints the following: 1" by 1" adhesive backed labels with up to 11 characters at 500 tickets per minute. IBM sold these in rolls of 9000 1" x 2" tickets with up to 42 encoded characters and two lines of print of up to 21 characters at 250 tickets per minute. IBM sold these in rolls of 2800 1" x 3" tickets with up to 79 encoded characters and two lines of print of up to 32 characters at 167 tickets per minute. IBM sold these in rolls of 1900 It can also batch read the tickets for validation, separating good tickets from bad ones into two cartridges. Announced 10 August 1973, withdrawn 15 December 1987 ==== 7481 Data Storage Unit ==== This optional unit is used to record transaction data and initialize terminals if the store controller is not available. It uses a built in tape drive to store this data. === Early deployments === The first customer installation of a 3650 was at a Dillard's department store in Little Rock, Arkansas, in late 1974. They placed arou
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NexDock

NexDock is a series of lapdock devices (containing a laptop screen, keyboard, trackpad, and battery connected to a phone or other device) sold by Nex Computer LLC. The product can be used with mobile desktop environments, including Samsung DeX and the former Windows Continuum. Critical reception for the series has been mixed, with reviewers praising the concept's utility for mobile productivity while noting hardware limitations and its niche appeal. == History == The first NexDock was introduced in 2016 through a successful Indiegogo campaign. Its development coincided with interest in smartphone-powered desktop interfaces, and it was marketed as a companion for Windows 10 Mobile's Continuum feature. Subsequent models, often launched via Kickstarter, added features like higher-resolution displays, touchscreens, and convertible hinges to adapt to the growing capabilities of smartphones. == Models == === NexDock (Original, 2016) === The first model featured a 14.1-inch 1366x768 display and connected primarily via a mini HDMI port. === NexDock 2 (2019) === This model introduced a 13.3-inch 1080p IPS display and a USB-C port, improvements aimed at better supporting platforms like Samsung DeX. === NexDock Touch (2020) === A touchscreen was added to the 13.3-inch display, allowing for more direct interaction with the connected device's operating system. === NexDock 360 (2021) === This version incorporated a 360-degree hinge, allowing the device to be used in laptop, tablet, tent, or stand modes. === NexDock Wireless (2023) === Wireless display connectivity was the key feature of this model, offering a cable-free connection to compatible phones and computers. === NexDock XL (2023) === The screen size was increased to 15.6 inches. It retained the 360-degree hinge and also offered a version with wireless charging for a connected phone. == Reception == Reviews of NexDock products have been mixed, generally praising the concept while pointing out execution flaws. The devices are often lauded for their utility with Samsung DeX, turning a high-end Samsung phone into a viable portable workstation. A review of the NexDock 2 from ZDNet concluded it was a "great companion for the modern road warrior," and Digital Trends called the original a "no-brainer shell" for expanding a phone's capability. However, reviewers have consistently highlighted hardware limitations. In its review of the NexDock Touch, TechRadar stated that while it was a "compelling package for a very specific niche," the "trackpad and keyboard are a bit of a letdown and the screen could be brighter." This sentiment was echoed in other reviews, with criticism often aimed at the trackpad's performance and feel. A review of the NexDock 2 from Android Authority described the experience as being "janky at times," concluding that the device "delivers on its promise — sort of." A common point across many reviews is that the overall performance is entirely dependent on the power of the connected phone, and the experience is often best suited for light productivity tasks rather than replacing a dedicated laptop.
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Lynda Soderholm

Lynda Soderholm is a physical chemist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory with a specialty in f-block elements. She is a senior scientist and the lead of the Actinide, Geochemistry & Separation Sciences Theme within Argonne's Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division. Her specific role is the Separation Science group leader within Heavy Element Chemistry and Separation Science (HESS), directing basic research focused on low-energy methods for isolating lanthanide and actinide elements from complex mixtures. She has made fundamental contributions to understanding f-block chemistry and characterizing f-block elements. Soderholm became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2013, and is also an Argonne Distinguished Fellow. == Early life and education == Soderholm was awarded her PhD in 1982 by McMaster University under the direction of Prof John Greedan. Her dissertation focused on characterizing the structural and magnetic properties of a series of ternary f-ion oxides. After graduating, she was awarded a NATO postdoctoral fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in France from 1982 until 1985. After a short postdoctoral appointment as an Argonne postdoctoral fellow she was promoted to staff scientist the same year. Over several years, she moved up the ranks, becoming a senior chemist in 2001. She was also an adjunct professor at the University of Notre Dame from 2003 until 2007. In 2021, Soderholm was appointed interim Division Director for the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division. == Career and research == === Uncovering structure of Yttrium-123 Superconductor === Early in her career, Soderholm focused on the characterizing the magnetic and electronic behavior of compounds containing f-ions (lanthanides and actinides) with a focus on high-Tc materials, compounds that are superconducting under usually high temperatures. She was part of the research group that first determined the structure of YBa2Cu3O7. Their discovery formed the foundation for the further developments in the broad field of superconductivity. === Understanding f-ion speciation in solution === Continuing her interest in the f-elements, Soderholm shifted her focus from solid-state materials to nanoparticles and solutions, taking advantage of advances in X-ray structural probes made available by synchrotron facilities. Building on her earlier work using neutron scattering, her team became the first to discover that plutonium exists in solution as tiny, well-defined nanoparticles. This work solved a longstanding problem in understanding transport of plutonium in the environment and resulted in the development of a new, patented approach to separating plutonium during nuclear reprocessing. === Using machine learning to evaluate molecular structures === Soderholm's more recent projects use machine learning to understand the influence of complex molecular structuring in solutions, in connection with low-energy processes for separation of f-block elements from complex mixtures. == Awards and honors == University of Chicago Board of Governors' Distinguished Performance Award, 2009. Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2013. Argonne Distinguished Fellow, 2016 DOE materials sciences research competition for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishments in Solid State Physics, 1987. == Select publications == Beno, M. A.; Soderholm, L.; Capone, D. W., II; Hinks, D. G.; Jorgensen, J. D.; Grace, J. D.; Schuller, I. K.; Segre, C. U.; Zhang, K., Structure of the single-phase high-temperature superconductor yttrium barium copper oxide (YBa2Cu3O7−δ). Appl. Phys. Lett. 1987, 51 (1), 57–9. Soderholm, L.; Zhang, K.; Hinks, D. G.; Beno, M. A.; Jorgensen, J. D.; Segre, C. U.; Schuller, I. K., Incorporation of praseodymium in YBa2Cu3O7−δ: electronic effects on superconductivity. Nature (London) 1987, 328 (6131), 604–5. Antonio, M. R.; Williams, C. W.; Soderholm, L., Berkelium redox speciation. Radiochim. Acta 2002, 90 (12), 851–856. Soderholm, L.; Skanthakumar, S.; Neuefeind, J., Determination of actinide speciation in solution using high-energy X-ray scattering. Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 2005, 383 (1), 48–55. Forbes, T. Z.; Burns, P. C.; Skanthakumar, S.; Soderholm, L., Synthesis, structure, and magnetism of Np2O5. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2007, 129 (10), 2760–2761. Soderholm, L.; Almond, P. M.; Skanthakumar, S.; Wilson, R. E.; Burns, P. C., The structure of the plutonium oxide nanocluster [Pu38O56Cl54(H2O)8]14-. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2008, 47 (2), 298–302. Jensen, M. P.; Gorman-Lewis, D.; Aryal, B.; Paunesku, T.; Vogt, S.; Rickert, P. G.; Seifert, S.; Lai, B.; Woloschak, G. E.; Soderholm, L., An iron-dependent and transferrin-mediated cellular uptake pathway for plutonium. Nat. Chem. Biol. 2011, 7 (8), 560–565. Wilson, R. E.; Skanthakumar, S.; Soderholm, L., Separation of Plutonium Oxide Nanoparticles and Colloids. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2011, 50 (47), 11234–11237. Knope, K. E.; Soderholm, L., Solution and solid-state structural chemistry of actinide hydrates and their hydrolysis and condensation products. Chem. Rev. 2013, 113 (2), 944–994. Luo, G.; Bu, W.; Mihaylov, M.; Kuzmenko, I.; Schlossman, M. L.; Soderholm, L., X-ray reflectivity reveals a nonmonotonic ion-density profile perpendicular to the surface of ErCl3 aqueous solutions. J. Phys. Chem. C 2013, 117 (37), 19082–19090. Jin, G. B.; Lin, J.; Estes, S. L.; Skanthakumar, S.; Soderholm, L., Influence of countercation hydration enthalpies on the formation of molecular complexes: A thorium-nitrate example. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139 (49), 18003–18008. == Patents == Solvent extraction system for plutonium colloids and other oxide nano-particles, (2016).
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AMiner (database)

AMiner (formerly ArnetMiner) is a free online service used to index, search, and mine big scientific data. == Overview == AMiner (ArnetMiner) is designed to search and perform data mining operations against academic publications on the Internet, using social network analysis to identify connections between researchers, conferences, and publications. This allows it to provide services such as expert finding, geographic search, trend analysis, reviewer recommendation, association search, course search, academic performance evaluation, and topic modeling. AMiner was created as a research project in social influence analysis, social network ranking, and social network extraction. A number of peer-reviewed papers have been published arising from the development of the system. It has been in operation for more than three years, and has indexed 130,000,000 researchers and more than 265 million publications. The research was funded by the Chinese National High-tech R&D Program and the National Science Foundation of China. AMiner is commonly used in academia to identify relationships between and draw statistical correlations about research and researchers. It has attracted more than 10 million independent IP accesses from 220 countries and regions. The product has been used in Elsevier's SciVerse platform, and academic conferences such as SIGKDD, ICDM, PKDD, WSDM. == Operation == AMiner automatically extracts the researcher profile from the web. It collects and identifies the relevant pages, then uses a unified approach to extract data from the identified documents. It also extracts publications from online digital libraries using heuristic rules. It integrates the extracted researchers’ profiles and the extracted publications. It employs the researcher name as the identifier. A probabilistic framework has been proposed to deal with the name ambiguity problem in the integration. The integrated data is stored into a researcher network knowledge base (RNKB). The principal other product in the area are Google Scholar, Elsevier's Scirus, and the open source project CiteSeer. == History == It was initiated and created by professor Jie Tang from Tsinghua University, China. It was first launched in March 2006. The following provide a list of updates in the past years: March 2006, Version 0.1, Functions include researcher profiling, expert search, conference search, and publication search. The system was developed in Perl; August 2006, Version 1.0, The system was re-implemented in Java; July 2007, Version 2.0, New functions include researcher interest mining, association search, survey paper finding (unavailable now); April 2008, Version 3.0, New functions include query understanding, new GUI, and search log analysis; November 2008, Version 4.0, New functions include graph search, topic modeling, NSF/NSFC funding information extraction; April 2009, Version 5.0, New functions include Profile edition, open API service, Bole search, course search (unavailable now); December 2009, Version 6.0, New functions include academic performance evaluation, user feedback, conference analysis; May 2010, Version 7.0, New functions include name disambiguation, paper-reviewer recommendation, ArnetPage creation; March 2012, Version II, renamed as AMiner, rewrote all the codes and redesign the GUI. New functions include: geographic search, ArnetAPP platform. June 2014, Version II, renamed as AMiner, rewrote all the codes and redesign the GUI. New functions include: geographic search, ArnetAPP platform. December 2015, a completely new version got online. May 2017, professional version got online. April 2018, New functions include Trend Analysis, a deep learning based Name Disambiguation == Resources == AMiner published several datasets for academic research purpose, including Open Academic Graph, DBLP+citation (a data set augmenting citations into the DBLP data from Digital Bibliography & Library Project), Name Disambiguation, Social Tie Analysis. For more available datasets and source codes for research, please refer to.
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Digital entertainment

Digital entertainment Industry includes, but is not restricted to, any combination of the following industries (that themselves have a considerable degree of overlap): digital media new media video on demand video games interactive entertainment online gambling mobile entertainment social media streaming services "Digital entertainment", largely a hard to define marketing term, rests upon entertainment technology and ultimately on the enabling basic technologies computers, Internet/World Wide Web, digital rights management, multimedia and streaming media. Apart from pure entertainment, the term rests upon the observation that already in 2011 in the UK, for example, "nearly half of people’s waking hours are spent using media content and communications services" ("screen time"). Digital entertainment is inextricably connected with digital marketing. People who follow influencers on social media for entertainment will receive a fair share of advertising at the same time. Digital merchandise is distributed with every computer game and popup ads or similar are ubiquitous in the online (gaming) world.
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Outline of telecommunication

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to telecommunication: Telecommunication – the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. In modern times, this process almost always involves the use of electromagnetic waves by transmitters and receivers, but in earlier years it also involved the use of drums and visual signals such as smoke, fire, beacons, semaphore lines and other optical communications. == Modes of telecommunication == E-mail Fax Instant messaging Radio Satellite SMS Telegraphy Telephony Television Television broadcasting mobile telephony Videoconferencing VoIP Voicemail == Types of telecommunication networks == Telecommunications network Computer networks ARPANET Ethernet Internet Wireless networks Public switched telephone networks (PSTN) Packet switched networks Radio network Broadband Wireless Broadband == Aspects of telecommunication transmission == Telecommunication Analog Digital Functional profile Optics === Telecommunication technology === Modulation Amplitude modulation Frequency modulation Quadrature amplitude modulation Nyquist rate Nyquist ISI criterion Pulse shaping Intersymbol interference === Communications media types === Physical media for Telecommunication Twisted pair Coaxial cable Optical fiber Telecommunication through Free Space Broadcast radio frequency including television and radio Line-of-sight Communications satellite Terrestrial Microwave Wireless LAN === Relationship between media and transmitters === Physical access to media Simplex Duplex (telecommunications) Logical relationships Return channel Two-way alternating Two-way simultaneous === Multiple access to media === Multiplexing Analog Frequency division multiplexing Space division multiplexing Digital Time-division multiplexing Statistical multiplexing and Packet switching Media Access Control Contention Token-based Centralized token control Distributed token control == History of telecommunication == History of telecommunication History of telegraphy History of the telephone Invention of the telephone Timeline of the telephone History of radio History of television History of videophones History of mobile phones History of computing hardware History of the Internet == Major telecommunications equipment manufacturers == Alcatel-Lucent – French global telecommunications equipment company Aricent – Former company AT&T – American telecommunications company Avaya – American technology company Ciena – American telecommunications company Cisco Systems – American multinational technology companyPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Ericsson – Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company Fujitsu – Japanese multinational technology company HCL Technologies – Indian multinational technology companyPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Huawei – Chinese multinational technology company NEC – Japanese technology corporation Nokia – Multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company ShoreTel – US telecommunications company Verizon – American telecommunications company ZTE – Chinese telecommunications company == Major telecommunications service providers == List of mobile network operators List of telephone operating companies == Telecommunication organizations == Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions Telecommunications Industry Association == Telecommunication publications == Magazines Billing and OSS World Cabling Installation & Maintenance Call Center Communications News Communications System Design Lightwave Mobile Radio Technology (MRT) New Telephony Phone+ RCR Wireless News Telecom Asia Telecommunications Magazine Telephony WhatSatphone Magazine Wireless Systems Design Wireless Week Xchange == Persons influential in telecommunication == Edwin Howard Armstrong – American radio-frequency engineer and inventor (1890–1954) John Logie Baird – Scottish inventor (1888–1946) Paul Baran – American-Jewish engineer (1926–2011) Alexander Graham Bell – Inventor of the telephone (1847–1922) Tim Berners-Lee – English computer scientist (born 1955) Jagadish Chandra Bose – Physicist, biologist and botanist (1857–1937) Vint Cerf – American computer scientist and Internet pioneer (born 1943) Claude Chappe – Late 18th-century French inventor Donald Davies – British computer scientist (1924–2000) Louis Pouzin – French computer scientist and Internet pioneer (born 1931) Lee de Forest – American inventor (1873–1961) Philo Farnsworth – American inventor (1906–1971) Reginald Fessenden – Canadian-American electrical engineer and inventor (1866–1932) Elisha Gray – American electrical engineer (1835–1901) Innocenzo Manzetti – Italian inventor (1826–1877) Guglielmo Marconi – Italian radio-frequency engineer and inventor (1874–1937) Antonio Meucci – Italian inventor (1808–1889) Alexander Stepanovich Popov – Russian physicist (1859–1906)Pages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Johann Philipp Reis – German scientist and inventor Almon Brown Strowger – American inventor of the telephone exchange (1839–1902) Nikola Tesla – Serbian-American engineer and inventor (1856–1943) Camille Tissot – French physicist (1868–1917) Alfred Vail – 19th-century American machinist and inventor Charles Wheatstone – English physicist and inventor (1802–1875) Vladimir K. Zworykin – Russian-American engineer (1888–1982)
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Toy problem

In scientific disciplines, a toy problem or a puzzlelike problem is a problem that is not of immediate scientific interest, yet is used as an expository device to illustrate a trait that may be shared by other, more complicated, instances of the problem, or as a way to explain a particular, more general, problem solving technique. A toy problem is useful to test and demonstrate methodologies. Researchers can use toy problems to compare the performance of different algorithms. They are also good for game designing. For instance, while engineering a large system, the large problem is often broken down into many smaller toy problems which have been well understood in detail. Often these problems distill a few important aspects of complicated problems so that they can be studied in isolation. Toy problems are thus often very useful in providing intuition about specific phenomena in more complicated problems. As an example, in the field of artificial intelligence, classical puzzles, games and problems are often used as toy problems. These include sliding-block puzzles, N-Queens problem, missionaries and cannibals problem, tic-tac-toe, chess, Tower of Hanoi and others.
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Web engineering

The World Wide Web has become a major delivery platform for a variety of complex and sophisticated enterprise applications in several domains. In addition to their inherent multifaceted functionality, these Web applications exhibit complex behaviour and place some unique demands on their usability, performance, security, and ability to grow and evolve. However, a vast majority of these applications continue to be developed in an ad hoc way, contributing to problems of usability, maintainability, quality and reliability. While Web development can benefit from established practices from other related disciplines, it has certain distinguishing characteristics that demand special considerations. In recent years, there have been developments towards addressing these considerations. Web engineering focuses on the methodologies, techniques, and tools that are the foundation of Web application development and which support their design, development, evolution, and evaluation. Web application development has certain characteristics that make it different from traditional software, information systems, or computer application development. Web engineering is multidisciplinary and encompasses contributions from diverse areas: systems analysis and design, software engineering, hypermedia/hypertext engineering, requirements engineering, human-computer interaction, user interface, data engineering, information science, information indexing and retrieval, testing, modelling and simulation, project management, and graphic design and presentation. Web engineering is neither a clone nor a subset of software engineering, although both involve programming and software development. While Web Engineering uses software engineering principles, it encompasses new approaches, methodologies, tools, techniques, and guidelines to meet the unique requirements of Web-based applications. == As a discipline == Proponents of Web engineering supported the establishment of Web engineering as a discipline at an early stage of Web. Major arguments for Web engineering as a new discipline are: Web-based Information Systems (WIS) development process is different and unique. Web engineering is multi-disciplinary; no single discipline (such as software engineering) can provide a complete theory basis, body of knowledge and practices to guide WIS development. Issues of evolution and lifecycle management when compared to more 'traditional' applications. Web-based information systems and applications are pervasive and non-trivial. The prospect of Web as a platform will continue to grow and it is worth being treated specifically. However, it has been controversial, especially for people in other traditional disciplines such as software engineering, to recognize Web engineering as a new field. The issue is how different and independent Web engineering is, compared with other disciplines. Main topics of Web engineering include, but are not limited to, the following areas: === Modeling disciplines === Business Processes for Applications on the Web Process Modelling of Web applications Requirements Engineering for Web applications B2B applications === Design disciplines, tools, and methods === UML and the Web Conceptual Modeling of Web Applications (aka. Web modeling) Prototyping Methods and Tools Web design methods CASE Tools for Web Applications Web Interface Design Data Models for Web Information Systems === Implementation disciplines === Integrated Web Application Development Environments Code Generation for Web Applications Software Factories for/on the Web Web 2.0, AJAX, E4X, ASP.NET, PHP and Other New Developments Web Services Development and Deployment === Testing disciplines === Testing and Evaluation of Web systems and Applications. Testing Automation, Methods, and Tools. === Applications categories disciplines === Semantic Web applications Document centric Web sites Transactional Web applications Interactive Web applications Workflow-based Web applications Collaborative Web applications Portal-oriented Web applications Ubiquitous and Mobile Web Applications Device Independent Web Delivery Localization and Internationalization of Web Applications Personalization of Web Applications == Attributes == === Web quality === Web Metrics, Cost Estimation, and Measurement Personalisation and Adaptation of Web applications Web Quality Usability of Web Applications Web accessibility Performance of Web-based applications === Content-related === Web Content Management Content Management System (CMS) Multimedia Authoring Tools and Software Authoring of adaptive hypermedia == Education == Master of Science: Web Engineering as a branch of study within the MSc program Web Sciences at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria Diploma in Web Engineering: Web Engineering as a study program at the International Webmasters College (iWMC), Germany
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Digital zombie

A digital zombie is a person so engaged with digital technology or social media they are unable to separate themselves from a persistent online presence. Writing in 2017, University of Sydney researcher Andrew Campbell expressed concerns over whether or not the individual can truly live a full and healthy life while they are preoccupied with the digital world. Other individuals have also begun referencing certain types of behaviour with being a digital zombie. Stefanie Valentic, managing editor of EHS Today, refers to it as people hunting digital creatures through their smartphones in public spaces, always fixed on their phones. The University of Warwick has used the term to argue that further research needs to be done with people who exist in digital form after death to help people grieve their loss. == Modern applications == === Distracted walking === The term digital zombie can refer to a person performing distracted walking, which has been labelled dangerous by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. They created the "Digital Deadwalkers" campaign after physicians became aware of the risks associated with walking across intersections and sidewalks while paying attention only to smartphones and not one's surroundings. Also stating that the name is derived from the fact that "they're oblivious to everyone else, so it's like they're dead-walking, sleepwalking." === Living through media === The Department of Sociology, University of Warwick has also identified the term, digital zombie, to refer to an individual who has died but is digitally resurrected, reanimated and socially active. These digital zombies do things in death they did not do when they were alive as they "live" again through a digital self on a digital medium. Dead celebrities sometimes become digital zombies when they are reanimated to appear in commercial advertisements (such as Audrey Hepburn and Bob Monkhouse). Other accidental digital zombies include Tupac Shakur and Michael Jackson who were both digitally resurrected and recreated to perform "live" on stage years after their death. Researchers at the University of Warwick have carried out research into the area of human-computer interaction. in an effort to understand the affect these digital zombies have on grief and bereavement. === Mobile gaming === Writer for EHS Today, Stefanie Valentic, has made observations with the mobile phone video game Pokémon Go, which offers players the experience to hunt and collect digital creatures called Pokémon through their smartphone in real world. Players can be observed simultaneously gazing at their phone while also obliviously walking around their environments looking for Pokémon. Stefanie references these individuals as "digital zombies" since they walk around with no cognition of their surroundings while engaged with their phone. == Health risks == === Heavy use of technology === Research by the University of Sydney has begun looking at how new technology such as digital media and smartphones impact our lives and questioning whether they can create new compulsions and obsessions. The research demonstrates that increased heavy technological use can have negative health consequences similar to drugs, smoking, and alcohol. Marcel O'Gorman, an associate professor of English at the University of Waterloo, has commented on the body of research examining how technology impacts cognition, stating currently that there is no empirical evidence to support any theories that suggest that technology can damage memory and attention span. === Heightened risk to children === Manfred Spitzer, a German psychiatrist, has raised concerns with providing digital devices to children. During the early childhood stage while their brains are rapidly growing, increased exposure to digital devices may deprive them of necessary development required to facilitate brain growth. These concerns are also shared by Korean doctors who believe giving digital devices, like smartphones to children, limits their cognitive development.
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