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  • Dental AI

    Dental AI

    Dental artificial intelligence (Dental AI) refers to the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning methods to oral healthcare data. These systems can be used to find patterns or make predictions that can aid in diagnosis, treatment, patient communication, or practice management. == History and development == Research into AI for dentistry dates to the 1990s and 2000s, alongside early CAD/CAM and image-analysis work in dental radiology. Recent developments in deep learning, especially those involving computer vision, such as convolutional neural networks, trained on large image datasets, led to a rapid improvement in performance, as well as a move from prototype technology to productization suitable for use in dental chairs. Dental schools and continuing education programs started incorporating AI content in the 2020s. == Definition and core technologies == The dental AI software accomplishes this task by using various dental images and patient data. Dental images and data used by the dental AI software include bitewing and periapical X-rays, complete mouth X-rays, detailed 3D images, intraoral images, and the patient’s medical history. The dental AI software utilizes several core technologies in accomplishing its task of assisting the dentist. First, the dental AI software utilizes machine learning and deep learning using programs that can learn from examples. Such programs are referred to as convolutional neural network (CNN) and can detect cavities and identify bone changes related to gum disease. The dental AI software utilizes computer vision, which enables the AI software to identify and quantify important features in images and data, whether they are 2D images or 3D images. Natural language processing (NLP) is used for the AI software to understand written text and can automatically generate dental notes and communicate with the patient. Furthermore, the dental AI software utilizes predictive analytics to identify patients that are more prone to dental complications and can suggest the best intervals for checkups or future dental procedures. == Applications in dentistry == Reported clinical and operational applications include diagnostic assistance for caries and periodontal disease, treatment planning assistance, patient education overlays, quality assurance, curriculum assistance for dental education, and claims documentation. Systematic reviews continue to find image-based applications such as caries detection with some variability in study design and a need for prospective validation. == Academic research and clinical validation == Several peer-reviewed studies have measured the effectiveness of AI for applications such as interproximal caries detection and periodontal bone level assessment, showing improvements over unaided readings with a focus on bias within the dataset. The Dental AI Council found variability among clinicians for diagnosis and treatment planning, suggesting the use of a standard tool as an assist. == Industry adoption == Multiple vendors offer FDA-cleared chairside AI for dental imaging: Pearl — Received U.S. FDA 510(k) clearance for its real-time radiologic aid (“Second Opinion”) in 2022 (2D), with subsequent clearances including pediatric and CBCT (“Second Opinion 3D”). TIME gave “Second Opinion” a special mention on its Best Inventions of 2022 list. Overjet — FDA-cleared for bone-level quantification and detection/outline of caries and calculus (e.g., K210187), with additional clearances expanding capabilities. VideaHealth — Received an FDA 510(k) covering 30+ detections across common dental findings (K232384), including indications for patients ages 3 and up; trade coverage has described elements of this as the first pediatric dental-AI clearance. == Regulations == In the U.S., AI-enabled dental imaging software is generally reviewed via the FDA’s 510(k) pathway. The FDA maintains a public AI-Enabled Medical Devices List, which includes numerous medical-imaging AI tools (including dental). Specific dental clearances include Overjet (K210187), VideaHealth (K232384), and Pearl entries such as “Second Opinion 3D” (K243989).

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  • Master data

    Master data

    Master data represents "data about the business entities that provide context for business transactions". The most commonly found categories of master data are parties (individuals and organisations, and their roles, such as customers, suppliers, employees), products, financial structures (such as ledgers and cost centres) and locational concepts. Master data should be distinguished from reference data. While both provide context for business transactions, reference data is concerned with classification and categorisation, while master data is concerned with business entities. Master data is, by its nature, almost always non-transactional in nature. There exist edge cases where an organization may need to treat certain transactional processes and operations as "master data". This arises, for example, where information about master data entities, such as customers or products, is only contained within transactional data such as orders and receipts and is not housed separately. ISO 8000 is the international standard for data quality and data portability in master data. == Alternative definition == An alternative definition of the term master data is that it represents the business objects that contain the most valuable, agreed upon information shared across an organization. In this sense, it gives context to business activities and transactions, answering questions like who, what, when and how as well as expanding the ability to make sense of these activities through categorizations, groupings and hierarchies. It can cover relatively static reference data, transactional, unstructured, analytical, hierarchical and metadata. What constitutes master data under this definition is therefore not about an essential quality of the data (e.g. it is a business entity that provides context for business transactions), but rather about the context in which the organisation has decided to treat the data. == Externally-defined master data == For most organisations, most or all master data is defined and managed within that organisation. Some master data, however, may be externally defined and managed. This represents the single source of basic business data used across a marketplace, regardless of organisation or location. Thus, it can be used by multiple enterprises within a value chain, facilitating "integration of multiple data sources and literally [putting] everyone in the market on the same page." An example of market master data is the Universal Product Code (UPC) found on consumer products. == Master data management == Curating and managing master data is key to ensuring its quality and thus fitness for purpose. All aspects of an organisation, operational and analytical, are greatly dependent on the quality of an organization's master data. Master Data is therefore the focus of the information technology (IT) discipline of master data management (MDM). Without this discipline in place, organisations commonly encounter difficulties with having multiple versions of "the truth" about a business entity, both within individual applications, and distributed across applications.

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  • Data Science Africa

    Data Science Africa

    Data Science Africa (DSA) is a non-profit knowledge sharing professional group that aims at bringing together leading researchers and practitioners working on data science methods or applications relevant to Africa, and providing training on state of the art data science methods to students and others interested in developing practical skills. Since 2013, DSA has been organizing conference, workshops and summer schools on machine learning and data science across East Africa. Facilitators of Summer School and workshops are researchers and practitioners from the academia, private and public institutions across the world. == Summer schools and workshops == The first summer school which started as Gaussian Process Summer School was held at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda from 6th to 9 August 2013. The First Data Science Summer School and Workshop was held at Dedan Kimathi University of Technology in Nyeri, Kenya from 15th to 19 June 2015. The Second Data Science Summer School was held at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda from 27th to 29 July 2016, and the workshop was held at Pulse Lab, Kampala, Uganda from 30 July to 1 August 2016. The Third Data Science Summer School and Workshop was held at Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology, Tanzania from 19th to 21 July 2017. Among the sponsors of the event was ARM

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  • Flajolet–Martin algorithm

    Flajolet–Martin algorithm

    The Flajolet–Martin algorithm is an algorithm for approximating the number of distinct elements in a stream with a single pass and space-consumption logarithmic in the maximal number of possible distinct elements in the stream (the count-distinct problem). The algorithm was introduced by Philippe Flajolet and G. Nigel Martin in their 1984 article "Probabilistic Counting Algorithms for Data Base Applications". Later it has been refined in "LogLog counting of large cardinalities" by Marianne Durand and Philippe Flajolet, and "HyperLogLog: The analysis of a near-optimal cardinality estimation algorithm" by Philippe Flajolet et al. In their 2010 article "An optimal algorithm for the distinct elements problem", Daniel M. Kane, Jelani Nelson and David P. Woodruff give an improved algorithm, which uses nearly optimal space and has optimal O(1) update and reporting times. == The algorithm == Assume that we are given a hash function h a s h ( x ) {\displaystyle \mathrm {hash} (x)} that maps input x {\displaystyle x} to integers in the range [ 0 ; 2 L − 1 ] {\displaystyle [0;2^{L}-1]} , and where the outputs are sufficiently uniformly distributed. Note that the set of integers from 0 to 2 L − 1 {\displaystyle 2^{L}-1} corresponds to the set of binary strings of length L {\displaystyle L} . For any non-negative integer y {\displaystyle y} , define b i t ( y , k ) {\displaystyle \mathrm {bit} (y,k)} to be the k {\displaystyle k} -th bit in the binary representation of y {\displaystyle y} , such that: y = ∑ k ≥ 0 b i t ( y , k ) 2 k . {\displaystyle y=\sum _{k\geq 0}\mathrm {bit} (y,k)2^{k}.} We then define a function ρ ( y ) {\displaystyle \rho (y)} that outputs the position of the least-significant set bit in the binary representation of y {\displaystyle y} , and L {\displaystyle L} if no such set bit can be found as all bits are zero: ρ ( y ) = { min { k ≥ 0 ∣ b i t ( y , k ) ≠ 0 } y > 0 L y = 0 {\displaystyle \rho (y)={\begin{cases}\min\{k\geq 0\mid \mathrm {bit} (y,k)\neq 0\}&y>0\\L&y=0\end{cases}}} Note that with the above definition we are using 0-indexing for the positions, starting from the least significant bit. For example, ρ ( 13 ) = ρ ( 1101 2 ) = 0 {\displaystyle \rho (13)=\rho (1101_{2})=0} , since the least significant bit is a 1 (0th position), and ρ ( 8 ) = ρ ( 1000 2 ) = 3 {\displaystyle \rho (8)=\rho (1000_{2})=3} , since the least significant set bit is at the 3rd position. At this point, note that under the assumption that the output of our hash function is uniformly distributed, then the probability of observing a hash output ending with 2 k {\displaystyle 2^{k}} (a one, followed by k {\displaystyle k} zeroes) is 2 − ( k + 1 ) {\displaystyle 2^{-(k+1)}} , since this corresponds to flipping k {\displaystyle k} heads and then a tail with a fair coin. Now the Flajolet–Martin algorithm for estimating the cardinality of a multiset M {\displaystyle M} is as follows: Initialize a bit-vector BITMAP to be of length L {\displaystyle L} and contain all 0s. For each element x {\displaystyle x} in M {\displaystyle M} : Calculate the index i = ρ ( h a s h ( x ) ) {\displaystyle i=\rho (\mathrm {hash} (x))} . Set B I T M A P [ i ] = 1 {\displaystyle \mathrm {BITMAP} [i]=1} . Let R {\displaystyle R} denote the smallest index i {\displaystyle i} such that B I T M A P [ i ] = 0 {\displaystyle \mathrm {BITMAP} [i]=0} . Estimate the cardinality of M {\displaystyle M} as 2 R / ϕ {\displaystyle 2^{R}/\phi } , where ϕ ≈ 0.77351 {\displaystyle \phi \approx 0.77351} . The idea is that if n {\displaystyle n} is the number of distinct elements in the multiset M {\displaystyle M} , then B I T M A P [ 0 ] {\displaystyle \mathrm {BITMAP} [0]} is accessed approximately n / 2 {\displaystyle n/2} times, B I T M A P [ 1 ] {\displaystyle \mathrm {BITMAP} [1]} is accessed approximately n / 4 {\displaystyle n/4} times and so on. Consequently, if i ≫ log 2 ⁡ n {\displaystyle i\gg \log _{2}n} , then B I T M A P [ i ] {\displaystyle \mathrm {BITMAP} [i]} is almost certainly 0, and if i ≪ log 2 ⁡ n {\displaystyle i\ll \log _{2}n} , then B I T M A P [ i ] {\displaystyle \mathrm {BITMAP} [i]} is almost certainly 1. If i ≈ log 2 ⁡ n {\displaystyle i\approx \log _{2}n} , then B I T M A P [ i ] {\displaystyle \mathrm {BITMAP} [i]} can be expected to be either 1 or 0. The correction factor ϕ ≈ 0.77351 {\displaystyle \phi \approx 0.77351} (OEIS: A244256) is found by calculations, which can be found in the original article. == Improving accuracy == A problem with the Flajolet–Martin algorithm in the above form is that the results vary significantly. A common solution has been to run the algorithm multiple times with k {\displaystyle k} different hash functions and combine the results from the different runs. One idea is to take the mean of the k {\displaystyle k} results together from each hash function, obtaining a single estimate of the cardinality. The problem with this is that averaging is very susceptible to outliers (which are likely here). A different idea is to use the median, which is less prone to be influences by outliers. The problem with this is that the results can only take form 2 R / ϕ {\displaystyle 2^{R}/\phi } , where R {\displaystyle R} is integer. A common solution is to combine both the mean and the median: Create k ⋅ l {\displaystyle k\cdot l} hash functions and split them into k {\displaystyle k} distinct groups (each of size l {\displaystyle l} ). Within each group use the mean for aggregating together the l {\displaystyle l} results, and finally take the median of the k {\displaystyle k} group estimates as the final estimate. The 2007 HyperLogLog algorithm splits the multiset into subsets and estimates their cardinalities, then it uses the harmonic mean to combine them into an estimate for the original cardinality.

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  • Transderivational search

    Transderivational search

    Transderivational search (often abbreviated to TDS) is a psychological and cybernetics term, meaning when a search is being conducted for a fuzzy match across a broad field. In computing the equivalent function can be performed using content-addressable memory. Unlike usual searches, which look for literal (i.e. exact, logical, or regular expression) matches, a transderivational search is a search for a possible meaning or possible match as part of communication, and without which an incoming communication cannot be made any sense of whatsoever. It is thus an integral part of processing language, and of attaching meaning to communication. In NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming), a transderivational search (Bandler and Grinder, 1976) is essentially the process of searching back through one's stored memories and mental representations to find the personal reference experiences from which a current understanding or mental map has been derived. By the end of 1976, Grinder and Bandler had combined Satir’s and Perls’ language patterns and Erickson’s hypnotic language and use of metaphor with anchoring to create new processes that they called collapsing anchors, trans-derivational search, changing personal history, and reframing. A psychological example of TDS is in Ericksonian hypnotherapy, where vague suggestions are used that the patient must process intensely in order to find their own meanings, thus ensuring that the practitioner does not intrude his own beliefs into the subject's inner world. == TDS in human communication and processing == Because TDS is a compelling, automatic and unconscious state of internal focus and processing (i.e. a type of everyday trance state), and often a state of internal lack of certainty, or openness to finding an answer (since something is being checked out at that moment), it can be utilized or interrupted, in order to create, or deepen, trance. TDS is a fundamental part of human language and cognitive processing. Arguably, every word or utterance a person hears, for example, and everything they see or feel and take note of, results in a very brief trance while TDS is carried out to establish a contextual meaning for it. === Examples === Leading statements: "And those thoughts you had yesterday..." the human mind cannot process hearing this phrase, without at some level searching internally for some thoughts or other that it had yesterday, to make the subject of the sentence. "The many colors that fruit can be" likewise starts the human mind considering even if briefly, different fruit sorted by color. "You did it again, didn't you!" This everyday manipulative use of TDS usually sends the recipient looking internally for some "it" they may have done for which blame is being fairly given. Regardless of whether such a matter can be identified, guilt or anger may result. "There has been pain, hasn't there" the mind of a patient suffering an illness will find it very hard or impossible to hear or answer this sentence without conducting internal searches to verify whether this is true or not, or to find an example if so. "You'd forgotten something [or: some part of your body], hadn't you?" the mind usually checks through the various things, or parts of the body, on hearing this, seeing if each in turn has been forgotten. Textual ambiguity: "Do you remember line dancing on the steps?" Without sufficient context, some statements may trigger TDS in order to resolve inherent ambiguity in the interpretation of a posed question. Do I remember a bygone fad called "line dancing on the steps"? Do I remember personally engaging in dancing in the past? Do I remember my routine practice dancing by focusing on the steps of the dance? Do I tend to forget about dancing when I am standing on steps? "Penny-wise and pound the table dance to the beat of a different drummer". The mixing of cliché and stock phrases may trigger TDS in order to reconcile the discrepancies between expected and actual utterances in sequence. Although TDS is often associated with spoken language, it can be induced in any perceptual system. Thus Milton Erickson's "hypnotic handshake" is a technique that leaves the other person performing TDS in search of meaning to a deliberately ambiguous use of touch.

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  • How to Solve it by Computer

    How to Solve it by Computer

    How to Solve it by Computer is a computer science book by R. G. Dromey, first published by Prentice-Hall in 1982. It is occasionally used as a textbook, especially in India. It is an introduction to the whys of algorithms and data structures. Features of the book: The design factors associated with problems, The creative process behind coming up with innovative solutions for algorithms and data structures, The line of reasoning behind the constraints, factors and the design choices made. The very fundamental algorithms portrayed by this book are mostly presented in pseudocode and/or Pascal notation.

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  • Master data

    Master data

    Master data represents "data about the business entities that provide context for business transactions". The most commonly found categories of master data are parties (individuals and organisations, and their roles, such as customers, suppliers, employees), products, financial structures (such as ledgers and cost centres) and locational concepts. Master data should be distinguished from reference data. While both provide context for business transactions, reference data is concerned with classification and categorisation, while master data is concerned with business entities. Master data is, by its nature, almost always non-transactional in nature. There exist edge cases where an organization may need to treat certain transactional processes and operations as "master data". This arises, for example, where information about master data entities, such as customers or products, is only contained within transactional data such as orders and receipts and is not housed separately. ISO 8000 is the international standard for data quality and data portability in master data. == Alternative definition == An alternative definition of the term master data is that it represents the business objects that contain the most valuable, agreed upon information shared across an organization. In this sense, it gives context to business activities and transactions, answering questions like who, what, when and how as well as expanding the ability to make sense of these activities through categorizations, groupings and hierarchies. It can cover relatively static reference data, transactional, unstructured, analytical, hierarchical and metadata. What constitutes master data under this definition is therefore not about an essential quality of the data (e.g. it is a business entity that provides context for business transactions), but rather about the context in which the organisation has decided to treat the data. == Externally-defined master data == For most organisations, most or all master data is defined and managed within that organisation. Some master data, however, may be externally defined and managed. This represents the single source of basic business data used across a marketplace, regardless of organisation or location. Thus, it can be used by multiple enterprises within a value chain, facilitating "integration of multiple data sources and literally [putting] everyone in the market on the same page." An example of market master data is the Universal Product Code (UPC) found on consumer products. == Master data management == Curating and managing master data is key to ensuring its quality and thus fitness for purpose. All aspects of an organisation, operational and analytical, are greatly dependent on the quality of an organization's master data. Master Data is therefore the focus of the information technology (IT) discipline of master data management (MDM). Without this discipline in place, organisations commonly encounter difficulties with having multiple versions of "the truth" about a business entity, both within individual applications, and distributed across applications.

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  • Query rewriting

    Query rewriting

    Query rewriting is a typically automatic transformation that takes a set of database tables, views, and/or queries, usually indices, often gathered data and query statistics, and other metadata, and yields a set of different queries, which produce the same results but execute with better performance (for example, faster, or with lower memory use). Query rewriting can be based on relational algebra or an extension thereof (e.g. multiset relational algebra with sorting, aggregation and three-valued predicates i.e. NULLs as in the case of SQL). The equivalence rules of relational algebra are exploited, in other words, different query structures and orderings can be mathematically proven to yield the same result. For example, filtering on fields A and B, or cross joining R and S can be done in any order, but there can be a performance difference. Multiple operations may be combined, and operation orders may be altered. The result of query rewriting may not be at the same abstraction level or application programming interface (API) as the original set of queries (though often is). For example, the input queries may be in relational algebra or SQL, and the rewritten queries may be closer to the physical representation of the data, e.g. array operations. Query rewriting can also involve materialization of views and other subqueries; operations that may or may not be available to the API user. The query rewriting transformation can be aided by creating indices from which the optimizer can choose (some database systems create their own indexes if deemed useful), mandating the use of specific indices, creating materialized and/or denormalized views, or helping a database system gather statistics on the data and query use, as the optimality depends on patterns in data and typical query usage. Query rewriting may be rule based or optimizer based. Some sources discuss query rewriting as a distinct step prior to optimization, operating at the level of the user accessible algebra API (e.g. SQL). There are other, largely unrelated concepts also named similarly, for example, query rewriting by search engines.

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  • NHS COVID-19

    NHS COVID-19

    NHS COVID-19 was a voluntary contact tracing app for monitoring the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in England and Wales, in use from 24 September 2020 until 27 April 2023. It was available for Android and iOS smartphones, and could be used by anyone aged 16 or over. Two versions of the app were created. The first was commissioned by NHSX and developed by the Pivotal division of American software company VMware. A pilot deployment began in May 2020, but on 18 June development of the app was abandoned in favour of a second design using the Apple/Google Exposure Notification system. Scotland and Northern Ireland had separate contact tracing apps. A 2023 study estimated that in its first year of use, the app's contact tracing function prevented an estimated 1 million cases, and 9,600 deaths. == Description == The app allowed users to: See the alert level of their local authority area (in Wales) or information about restrictions (in England); to enable this, the user must enter the first half of their postcode "Check in" at places displaying an NHS QR code poster (no longer required by legislation after 26 January 2022, removed from the app the next month) Be notified when they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus Be notified when local health protection teams determine that people with the virus had attended a business or other venue around the same time as the user Check their symptoms, and book a coronavirus test if necessary If asked to self-isolate, receive information and a daily "countdown". At first, "close contact" was defined as being within 2 metres for 15 minutes, or within 4 metres for a longer time. These time durations were reduced from 29 October 2020, to as little as three minutes when the other person is at their most infectious, i.e. soon after they begin showing symptoms. === Implementation === The Android app was coded in Kotlin, and the iOS app in Swift. The backend used Java and is deployed to Amazon Web Services using Terraform. The code of the app and back-end is open-source and available on GitHub. == Context == The app was part of the UK's test and trace programme which was chaired by Dido Harding; from 12 May 2020 Tom Riordan, chief executive of Leeds City Council, led the tracing effort. == First phase and cancellation == === Description === In March 2020, NHSX commissioned a contact tracing app to monitor the spread in the United Kingdom of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the 2020 pandemic, developed by the Pivotal division of American software company VMware. The app used a centralised approach, in contrast to the Google / Apple contact tracing project. NHSX consulted ethicists and GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) about the privacy aspects. The app recorded the make and model of the phone and asked the user for their postcode area. It generated a unique installation identification number and also a daily identification number. It then used Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to record the daily identification number of other users nearby. If a user was unwell, they could tell the app about symptoms which are characteristic of COVID-19, such as a fever and cough. These details were then passed to a central NHS server. This would assess the information and notify other users that have been in contact, giving them appropriate advice such as physical distancing. The NHS would also arrange for a swab test of the unwell user and the outcome would determine further notifications to contacts: if the test confirmed infection with COVID-19, the contacts would be asked to isolate. By June 2020, £11.8 million had been spent on the app; in 2020–21, £35 million was spent on the app. === Deployment === The first public trial of the app began on the Isle of Wight on 5 May 2020 and by 11 May it had been downloaded 55,000 times. When the first national contact tracing schemes were launched – Test, Trace, Protect in Wales on 13 May, then on 28 May NHS Test and Trace in England, and Test and Protect in Scotland – the app was not ready to be included. Replying to a question at the government's daily briefing on 8 June, Hancock was unable to give a date for rollout of the app in England, saying it would be brought in "when it's right to do so". On 17 June, Lord Bethell, junior minister for Innovation at the Department of Health and Social Care, said "we're seeking to get something going before the winter ... it isn't a priority for us at the moment". On 18 June, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced development would switch to the Apple/Google system after admitting that Apple's restrictions on usage of Bluetooth prevented the app from working effectively. At the same press briefing Dido Harding, leader of the UK's test and trace programme, said "What we've done in really rigorously testing both our own Covid-19 app and the Google-Apple version is demonstrate that none of them are working sufficiently well enough to be actually reliable to determine whether any of us should self-isolate for two weeks [and] that's true across the world". === Concerns === The first, ultimately rejected, version of the app was subject to privacy concerns, the government backtracking on initial statements that the data collected from the app would not be shared outside the NHS. Matthew Gould, CEO of NHSX, the government department responsible for the app, said the data would be accessible to other organisations, but did not disclose which. Data collected would not necessarily be anonymised and would be held in a centralised repository. Over 150 of the UK's security and privacy experts warned the app's data could be used by 'a bad actor (state, private sector, or hacker)' to spy on citizens. Fears were discussed by the House of Commons' Human Rights Select Committee about plans for the app to record user location data. Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights said this version of the app should not be released without proper privacy protections. The second version of the app, released nationwide, addressed these concerns by employing a decentralised framework, the Apple/Google Exposure Notification system. Under this system, users remain pseudonymous: a person diagnosed with COVID-19 does not know which people are informed about an encounter, and contacted persons do not receive any information about the person diagnosed with COVID-19. The functionality of the app was also questioned in late April and early May 2020, as the software's use of Bluetooth required the app to be constantly running, meaning users could not use other apps or lock their device if the app was to function properly. The developers of the app were said to have found a way of working around this restriction. === Related contracts === Faculty – a company linked to Cambridge Analytica – provided research and modelling to NHSX in support of the response to the pandemic. Palantir, also linked to Cambridge Analytica, provided their data management platform. These contracts began in February and March respectively. == Second phase == As outlined on cancellation of the first app on 18 June 2020, the Department of Health and Social Care published on 30 July a brief description of the "next phase" app. Users would be able to scan a QR code at venues they visit, and later be notified if they had visited a place which was the source of a number of infections; the app would also assist with identifying symptoms and ordering a test. By using the Exposure Notification system from Apple and Google, personal data would be decentralised. Zuhlke Engineering Ltd, the UK branch of Swiss-based Zühlke Group, used 70 staff to complete the development of the app in 12 weeks. Zuhlke Engineering was awarded "Development Team of the Year" title at UK IT Industry awards in November 2021 for development of NHS COVID-19 application. === Timeline === Testing of the app by NHS volunteer responders, and selected residents of the Isle of Wight and the London Borough of Newham, began around 13 August. The app was made available to the public (aged 16 or over) in England and Wales on 24 September. An updated app released on 29 October, in part from collaboration with the Alan Turing Institute, improved the accuracy of measurements of the distance between the user's phone and other phones. At the same time, the duration threshold for determining exposure was reduced; this was expected to lead to an increase in the number of users told to self-isolate. An update to the app in April 2021, timed to coincide with easing of restrictions on hospitality businesses, was blocked by Apple and Google. It was intended that users who tested positive would be asked to share their history of visited venues, to assist in warning others, but this would have contravened assurances by Apple and Google that location data from devices would not be shared. === Statistics and effectiveness === The app was downloaded six million times on the first day it was generally availa

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  • Reverse data management

    Reverse data management

    Reverse data management describes a branch and set of research questions in relational database theory that aim to reverse the common focus of standard data management. Instead of focusing on the "forward" transformation of an input databases (a set of relational tables) to an output table, which is the main focus of standard query evaluation, reverse data management reverses that focus and studies the possible input database transformations that would achieve a desired output. Usually the objective is to find an intervention (a deletion, addition, or change of tuples) of minimal size, in order to achieve a particular change in the output. The problem has been studied at least since the 1980s, but has received renewed attention due to an influential paper in the early 2000s that made a connection between provenance and view propagation. The term was coined in a VLDB 2011 vision paper. The problem has been receiving significant attention in recent years due to its connection to computational fairness. == Topics in reverse data management problems == Example topics in reverse data management include: Deletion propagation with source side-effects: Find a minimal number of tuples to delete in the database in order to delete a particular tuple in the output. Deletion propagation with view side-effects: Find a set of tuples to delete in the database in order to delete a particular tuple in the output, while removing the minimal number of other output tuples. Causal responsibility: Find a minimal number of tuples to delete in the database in order to make a particular input tuple counterfactual. This notion is inspired by the notions of actual cause and causal responsibility from the work of Halpern and Pearl. Resilience: Find a minimal number of tuples to delete in the database in order to make a Boolean query false. The complexity of this problem is identical to the problem of deletion propagation with source-side effects over a different database. Smallest witness problem: Find a minimal number of tuples to keep in the a database (or equivalently, delete a maximal number of tuples) while keeping a particular tuple in the output. Minimum repair: Given a database that violates certain integrity constraints, find a minimal number of tuples to delete in the database in order to fulfill all constraints (also called to "repair" the database).

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  • Zassenhaus algorithm

    Zassenhaus algorithm

    In mathematics, the Zassenhaus algorithm is a method to calculate a basis for the intersection and sum of two subspaces of a vector space. It is named after Hans Zassenhaus, but no publication of this algorithm by him is known. It is used in computer algebra systems. == Algorithm == === Input === Let V be a vector space and U, W two finite-dimensional subspaces of V with the following spanning sets: U = ⟨ u 1 , … , u n ⟩ {\displaystyle U=\langle u_{1},\ldots ,u_{n}\rangle } and W = ⟨ w 1 , … , w k ⟩ . {\displaystyle W=\langle w_{1},\ldots ,w_{k}\rangle .} Finally, let B 1 , … , B m {\displaystyle B_{1},\ldots ,B_{m}} be linearly independent vectors so that u i {\displaystyle u_{i}} and w i {\displaystyle w_{i}} can be written as u i = ∑ j = 1 m a i , j B j {\displaystyle u_{i}=\sum _{j=1}^{m}a_{i,j}B_{j}} and w i = ∑ j = 1 m b i , j B j . {\displaystyle w_{i}=\sum _{j=1}^{m}b_{i,j}B_{j}.} === Output === The algorithm computes the base of the sum U + W {\displaystyle U+W} and a base of the intersection U ∩ W {\displaystyle U\cap W} . === Algorithm === The algorithm creates the following block matrix of size ( ( n + k ) × ( 2 m ) ) {\displaystyle ((n+k)\times (2m))} : ( a 1 , 1 a 1 , 2 ⋯ a 1 , m a 1 , 1 a 1 , 2 ⋯ a 1 , m ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ a n , 1 a n , 2 ⋯ a n , m a n , 1 a n , 2 ⋯ a n , m b 1 , 1 b 1 , 2 ⋯ b 1 , m 0 0 ⋯ 0 ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ b k , 1 b k , 2 ⋯ b k , m 0 0 ⋯ 0 ) {\displaystyle {\begin{pmatrix}a_{1,1}&a_{1,2}&\cdots &a_{1,m}&a_{1,1}&a_{1,2}&\cdots &a_{1,m}\\\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots &\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots \\a_{n,1}&a_{n,2}&\cdots &a_{n,m}&a_{n,1}&a_{n,2}&\cdots &a_{n,m}\\b_{1,1}&b_{1,2}&\cdots &b_{1,m}&0&0&\cdots &0\\\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots &\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots \\b_{k,1}&b_{k,2}&\cdots &b_{k,m}&0&0&\cdots &0\end{pmatrix}}} Using elementary row operations, this matrix is transformed to the row echelon form. Then, it has the following shape: ( c 1 , 1 c 1 , 2 ⋯ c 1 , m ∙ ∙ ⋯ ∙ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ c q , 1 c q , 2 ⋯ c q , m ∙ ∙ ⋯ ∙ 0 0 ⋯ 0 d 1 , 1 d 1 , 2 ⋯ d 1 , m ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ 0 0 ⋯ 0 d ℓ , 1 d ℓ , 2 ⋯ d ℓ , m 0 0 ⋯ 0 0 0 ⋯ 0 ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ 0 0 ⋯ 0 0 0 ⋯ 0 ) {\displaystyle {\begin{pmatrix}c_{1,1}&c_{1,2}&\cdots &c_{1,m}&\bullet &\bullet &\cdots &\bullet \\\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots &\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots \\c_{q,1}&c_{q,2}&\cdots &c_{q,m}&\bullet &\bullet &\cdots &\bullet \\0&0&\cdots &0&d_{1,1}&d_{1,2}&\cdots &d_{1,m}\\\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots &\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots \\0&0&\cdots &0&d_{\ell ,1}&d_{\ell ,2}&\cdots &d_{\ell ,m}\\0&0&\cdots &0&0&0&\cdots &0\\\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots &\vdots &\vdots &&\vdots \\0&0&\cdots &0&0&0&\cdots &0\end{pmatrix}}} Here, ∙ {\displaystyle \bullet } stands for arbitrary numbers, and the vectors ( c p , 1 , c p , 2 , … , c p , m ) {\displaystyle (c_{p,1},c_{p,2},\ldots ,c_{p,m})} for every p ∈ { 1 , … , q } {\displaystyle p\in \{1,\ldots ,q\}} and ( d p , 1 , … , d p , m ) {\displaystyle (d_{p,1},\ldots ,d_{p,m})} for every p ∈ { 1 , … , ℓ } {\displaystyle p\in \{1,\ldots ,\ell \}} are nonzero. Then ( y 1 , … , y q ) {\displaystyle (y_{1},\ldots ,y_{q})} with y i := ∑ j = 1 m c i , j B j {\displaystyle y_{i}:=\sum _{j=1}^{m}c_{i,j}B_{j}} is a basis of U + W {\displaystyle U+W} and ( z 1 , … , z ℓ ) {\displaystyle (z_{1},\ldots ,z_{\ell })} with z i := ∑ j = 1 m d i , j B j {\displaystyle z_{i}:=\sum _{j=1}^{m}d_{i,j}B_{j}} is a basis of U ∩ W {\displaystyle U\cap W} . === Proof of correctness === First, we define π 1 : V × V → V , ( a , b ) ↦ a {\displaystyle \pi _{1}:V\times V\to V,(a,b)\mapsto a} to be the projection to the first component. Let H := { ( u , u ) ∣ u ∈ U } + { ( w , 0 ) ∣ w ∈ W } ⊆ V × V . {\displaystyle H:=\{(u,u)\mid u\in U\}+\{(w,0)\mid w\in W\}\subseteq V\times V.} Then π 1 ( H ) = U + W {\displaystyle \pi _{1}(H)=U+W} and H ∩ ( 0 × V ) = 0 × ( U ∩ W ) {\displaystyle H\cap (0\times V)=0\times (U\cap W)} . Also, H ∩ ( 0 × V ) {\displaystyle H\cap (0\times V)} is the kernel of π 1 | H {\displaystyle {\pi _{1}|}_{H}} , the projection restricted to H. Therefore, dim ⁡ ( H ) = dim ⁡ ( U + W ) + dim ⁡ ( U ∩ W ) {\displaystyle \dim(H)=\dim(U+W)+\dim(U\cap W)} . The Zassenhaus algorithm calculates a basis of H. In the first m columns of this matrix, there is a basis y i {\displaystyle y_{i}} of U + W {\displaystyle U+W} . The rows of the form ( 0 , z i ) {\displaystyle (0,z_{i})} (with z i ≠ 0 {\displaystyle z_{i}\neq 0} ) are obviously in H ∩ ( 0 × V ) {\displaystyle H\cap (0\times V)} . Because the matrix is in row echelon form, they are also linearly independent. All rows which are different from zero ( ( y i , ∙ ) {\displaystyle (y_{i},\bullet )} and ( 0 , z i ) {\displaystyle (0,z_{i})} ) are a basis of H, so there are dim ⁡ ( U ∩ W ) {\displaystyle \dim(U\cap W)} such z i {\displaystyle z_{i}} s. Therefore, the z i {\displaystyle z_{i}} s form a basis of U ∩ W {\displaystyle U\cap W} . == Example == Consider the two subspaces U = ⟨ ( 1 − 1 0 1 ) , ( 0 0 1 − 1 ) ⟩ {\displaystyle U=\left\langle \left({\begin{array}{r}1\\-1\\0\\1\end{array}}\right),\left({\begin{array}{r}0\\0\\1\\-1\end{array}}\right)\right\rangle } and W = ⟨ ( 5 0 − 3 3 ) , ( 0 5 − 3 − 2 ) ⟩ {\displaystyle W=\left\langle \left({\begin{array}{r}5\\0\\-3\\3\end{array}}\right),\left({\begin{array}{r}0\\5\\-3\\-2\end{array}}\right)\right\rangle } of the vector space R 4 {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{4}} . Using the standard basis, we create the following matrix of dimension ( 2 + 2 ) × ( 2 ⋅ 4 ) {\displaystyle (2+2)\times (2\cdot 4)} : ( 1 − 1 0 1 1 − 1 0 1 0 0 1 − 1 0 0 1 − 1 5 0 − 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 5 − 3 − 2 0 0 0 0 ) . {\displaystyle \left({\begin{array}{rrrrrrrr}1&-1&0&1&&1&-1&0&1\\0&0&1&-1&&0&0&1&-1\\\\5&0&-3&3&&0&0&0&0\\0&5&-3&-2&&0&0&0&0\end{array}}\right).} Using elementary row operations, we transform this matrix into the following matrix: ( 1 0 0 0 ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ 0 1 0 − 1 ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ 0 0 1 − 1 ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ 0 0 0 0 1 − 1 0 1 ) {\displaystyle \left({\begin{array}{rrrrrrrrr}1&0&0&0&&\bullet &\bullet &\bullet &\bullet \\0&1&0&-1&&\bullet &\bullet &\bullet &\bullet \\0&0&1&-1&&\bullet &\bullet &\bullet &\bullet \\\\0&0&0&0&&1&-1&0&1\end{array}}\right)} (Some entries have been replaced by " ∙ {\displaystyle \bullet } " because they are irrelevant to the result.) Therefore ( ( 1 0 0 0 ) , ( 0 1 0 − 1 ) , ( 0 0 1 − 1 ) ) {\displaystyle \left(\left({\begin{array}{r}1\\0\\0\\0\end{array}}\right),\left({\begin{array}{r}0\\1\\0\\-1\end{array}}\right),\left({\begin{array}{r}0\\0\\1\\-1\end{array}}\right)\right)} is a basis of U + W {\displaystyle U+W} , and ( ( 1 − 1 0 1 ) ) {\displaystyle \left(\left({\begin{array}{r}1\\-1\\0\\1\end{array}}\right)\right)} is a basis of U ∩ W {\displaystyle U\cap W} .

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  • OpenSMILE

    OpenSMILE

    openSMILE is source-available software for automatic extraction of features from audio signals and for classification of speech and music signals. "SMILE" stands for "Speech & Music Interpretation by Large-space Extraction". The software is mainly applied in the area of automatic emotion recognition and is widely used in the affective computing research community. The openSMILE project exists since 2008 and is maintained by the German company audEERING GmbH since 2013. openSMILE is provided free of charge for research purposes and personal use under a source-available license. For commercial use of the tool, the company audEERING offers custom license options. == Application Areas == openSMILE is used for academic research as well as for commercial applications in order to automatically analyze speech and music signals in real-time. In contrast to automatic speech recognition which extracts the spoken content out of a speech signal, openSMILE is capable of recognizing the characteristics of a given speech or music segment. Examples for such characteristics encoded in human speech are a speaker's emotion, age, gender, and personality, as well as speaker states like depression, intoxication, or vocal pathological disorders. The software further includes music classification technology for automatic music mood detection and recognition of chorus segments, key, chords, tempo, meter, dance-style, and genre. The openSMILE toolkit serves as benchmark in manifold research competitions such as Interspeech ComParE, AVEC, MediaEval, and EmotiW. == History == The openSMILE project was started in 2008 by Florian Eyben, Martin Wöllmer, and Björn Schuller at the Technical University of Munich within the European Union research project SEMAINE. The goal of the SEMAINE project was to develop a virtual agent with emotional and social intelligence. In this system, openSMILE was applied for real-time analysis of speech and emotion. The final SEMAINE software release is based on openSMILE version 1.0.1. In 2009, the emotion recognition toolkit (openEAR) was published based on openSMILE. "EAR" stands for "Emotion and Affect Recognition". In 2010, openSMILE version 1.0.1 was published and was introduced and awarded at the ACM Multimedia Open-Source Software Challenge. Between 2011 and 2013, the technology of openSMILE was extended and improved by Florian Eyben and Felix Weninger in the context of their doctoral thesis at the Technical University of Munich. The software was also applied for the project ASC-Inclusion, which was funded by the European Union. For this project, the software was extended by Erik Marchi in order to teach emotional expression to autistic children, based on automatic emotion recognition and visualization. In 2013, the company audEERING acquired the rights to the code-base from the Technical University of Munich and version 2.0 was published under a source-available research license. Until 2016, openSMILE was downloaded more than 50,000 times worldwide and has established itself as a standard toolkit for emotion recognition. == Awards == openSMILE was awarded in 2010 in the context of the ACM Multimedia Open Source Competition. The software tool is applied in numerous scientific publications on automatic emotion recognition. openSMILE and its extension openEAR have been cited in more than 1000 scientific publications until today.

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  • Syman

    Syman

    SYMAN is an artificial intelligence technology that uses data from social media profiles to identify trends in the job market. SYMAN is designed to organize actionable data for products and services including recruiting, human capital management, CRM, and marketing. SYMAN was developed with a $21 million series B financing round secured by Identified, which was led by VantagePoint Capital Partners and Capricorn Investment Group.

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  • Algorism

    Algorism

    Algorism is the technique of performing basic arithmetic by writing numbers in place value form and applying a set of memorized rules and facts to the digits. One who practices algorism is known as an algorist. This positional notation system has largely superseded earlier calculation systems that used a different set of symbols for each numerical magnitude, such as Roman numerals, and in some cases required a device such as an abacus. == Etymology == The word algorism comes from the name Al-Khwārizmī (c. 780–850), a Persian mathematician, astronomer, geographer and scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, whose name means "the native of Khwarezm", which is now in modern-day Uzbekistan. He wrote a treatise in Arabic language in the 9th century, which was translated into Latin in the 12th century under the title Algoritmi de numero Indorum. This title means "Algoritmi on the numbers of the Indians", where "Algoritmi" was the translator's Latinization of Al-Khwarizmi's name. Al-Khwarizmi was the most widely read mathematician in Europe in the late Middle Ages, primarily through his other book, the Algebra. In late medieval Latin, algorismus, the corruption of his name, simply meant the "decimal number system" that is still the meaning of modern English algorism. During the 17th century, the French form for the word – but not its meaning – was changed to algorithm, following the model of the word logarithm, this form alluding to the ancient Greek arithmos = number. English adopted the French very soon afterwards, but it wasn't until the late 19th century that "algorithm" took on the meaning that it has in modern English. In English, it was first used about 1230 and then by Chaucer in 1391. Another early use of the word is from 1240, in a manual titled Carmen de Algorismo composed by Alexandre de Villedieu. It begins thus: Haec algorismus ars praesens dicitur, in qua / Talibus Indorum fruimur bis quinque figuris. which translates as: This present art, in which we use those twice five Indian figures, is called algorismus. The word algorithm also derives from algorism, a generalization of the meaning to any set of rules specifying a computational procedure. Occasionally algorism is also used in this generalized meaning, especially in older texts. == History == Starting with the integer arithmetic developed in India using base 10 notation, Al-Khwārizmī along with other mathematicians in medieval Islam, documented new arithmetic methods and made many other contributions to decimal arithmetic (see the articles linked below). These included the concept of the decimal fractions as an extension of the notation, which in turn led to the notion of the decimal point. This system was popularized in Europe by Leonardo of Pisa, now known as Fibonacci.

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  • Task Force on Process Mining

    Task Force on Process Mining

    The IEEE Task Force on Process Mining (TFPM) is a non-commercial association for process mining. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Task Force on Process Mining was established in October 2009 as part of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society at the Eindhoven University of Technology. The task force is supported by over 80 organizations and has around 750 members. The main goal of the task force is to promote the research, development, education, and understanding of process mining. == About == In 2012, the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence/ IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation held a session on Process Mining. Process mining is a type of research that is a mix of computational intelligence and data mining, as well as process modeling and analysis. === Activities and organization === The Task Force on Process Mining has a Steering Committee and an Advisory Board. The Steering Committee, was chaired by Wil van der Aalst in its inception in 2009, defined 15 action lines. These include the organization of the annual International Process Mining Conference (ICPM) series, standardization efforts leading to the IEEE XES standard for storing and exchanging event data, and the Process Mining Manifesto which was translated into 16 languages. The Task Force on Process Mining also publishes a newsletter, provides data sets, organizes workshops and competitions, and connects researchers and practitioners. In 2016, the IEEE Standards Association published the IEEE Standard for Extensible Event Stream (XES), which is a widely accepted file format by the process mining community. As of 2023, Boudewijn van Dongen serves as chair of the Steering Committee. Wil van der Aalst and Moe Wynn both serve as vice-chair of the Steering Committee.

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