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  • NIS2 Directive

    NIS2 Directive

    The Directive (EU) 2022/2555, commonly known as NIS2 is a directive of the European Union aimed at protecting digital infrastructure, in particular critical infrastructure. It broadened the sectors covered by EU network and information security rules and updated incident reporting and oversight compared to the NIS1. Member States were required to transpose NIS2 by 17 October 2024, and the earlier NIS Directive was repealed on 18 October 2024. Only 23 Member States have fully implemented the measures contained with the NIS Directive. Infringement proceedings against them to enforce the Directive have not taken place, and they are not expected to take place in the near future. This failed implementation has led to the fragmentation of cybersecurity capabilities across the EU, with differing standards, incident reporting requirements and enforcement requirements being implemented in different Member States. From the EFTA countries (to April 2026) only Liechtenstein has fully transposed the NIS2 Directive. While the EFTA commission is conducting preparations to transpose the directive into its legislation. == National implementations == === Czech Republic === It is implemented through the Act No. 264/2025 Coll. also called Zákon o kybernetické bezpečnosti (Cybersecurity law) and through another five implementing regulations. The transposing legislation came into force on November 1st, 2025. === Germany === It is implemented through the Gesetz zur Umsetzung der NIS-2-Richtlinie und zur Regelung wesentlicher Grundzüge des Informationssicherheitsmanagements in der Bundesverwaltung. === Ireland === It is implemented through the National Cyber Security Bill. === The Netherlands === It is implemented through the Cyberbeveiligingswet (Cbw). === Slovakia === It is implemented through via an amendment of the Act No. 69/2018 Coll. also called Zákon o kybernetickej bezpečnosti a o zmene a doplnení niektorých zákonov (Law on Cybersecurity and change and amendment of certain laws). It came into force on November 1st, 2025. === Spain === It is implemented through the Esquema Nacional de Seguridad (ENS).

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  • Kaggle

    Kaggle

    Kaggle is a data science competition platform and online community for data scientists and machine learning practitioners under Google LLC. Kaggle enables users to find and publish datasets, explore and build models in a web-based data science environment, work with other data scientists and machine learning engineers, and enter competitions to solve data science challenges. Kaggle has also facilitated the use of unethical and unreliable data in medical research. == History == Kaggle was founded by Anthony Goldbloom in April 2010. Jeremy Howard, one of the first Kaggle users, joined in November 2010 and served as the President and Chief Scientist. Also on the team was Nicholas Gruen serving as the founding chair. In 2011, the company raised $12.5 million and Max Levchin became the chairman. On March 8, 2017, Fei-Fei Li, Chief Scientist at Google, announced that Google was acquiring Kaggle. In June 2017, Kaggle surpassed 1 million registered users, and as of October 2023, it has over 15 million users in 194 countries. In 2022, founders Goldbloom and Hamner stepped down from their positions and D. Sculley became the CEO. In February 2023, Kaggle introduced Models, allowing users to discover and use pre-trained models through deep integrations with the rest of Kaggle’s platform. In April 2025, Kaggle partnered with Wikimedia Foundation. == Site overview == === Competitions === Many machine-learning competitions have been run on Kaggle since the company was founded. Notable competitions include gesture recognition for Microsoft Kinect, making a association football AI for Manchester City, coding a trading algorithm for Two Sigma Investments, and improving the search for the Higgs boson at CERN. The competition host prepares the data and a description of the problem; the host may choose whether it's going to be rewarded with money or be unpaid. Participants experiment with different techniques and compete against each other to produce the best models. Work is shared publicly through Kaggle Kernels to achieve a better benchmark and to inspire new ideas. Submissions can be made through Kaggle Kernels, via manual upload or using the Kaggle API. For most competitions, submissions are scored immediately (based on their predictive accuracy relative to a hidden solution file) and summarized on a live leaderboard. After the deadline passes, the competition host pays the prize money in exchange for "a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable and royalty-free license [...] to use the winning Entry", i.e. the algorithm, software and related intellectual property developed, which is "non-exclusive unless otherwise specified". Alongside its public competitions, Kaggle also offers private competitions, which are limited to Kaggle's top participants. Kaggle offers a free tool for data science teachers to run academic machine-learning competitions. Kaggle also hosts recruiting competitions in which data scientists compete for a chance to interview at leading data science companies like Facebook, Winton Capital, and Walmart. Kaggle's competitions have resulted in successful projects such as furthering HIV research, chess ratings and traffic forecasting. Geoffrey Hinton and George Dahl used deep neural networks to win a competition hosted by Merck. Vlad Mnih (one of Hinton's students) used deep neural networks to win a competition hosted by Adzuna. This resulted in the technique being taken up by others in the Kaggle community. Tianqi Chen from the University of Washington also used Kaggle to show the power of XGBoost, which has since replaced Random Forest as one of the main methods used to win Kaggle competitions. Several academic papers have been published based on findings from Kaggle competitions. A contributor to this is the live leaderboard, which encourages participants to continue innovating beyond existing best practices. The winning methods are frequently written on the Kaggle Winner's Blog. === Progression system === Kaggle has implemented a progression system to recognize and reward users based on their contributions and achievements within the platform. This system consists of five tiers: Novice, Contributor, Expert, Master, and Grandmaster. Each tier is achieved by meeting specific criteria in competitions, datasets, kernels (code-sharing), and discussions. The highest tier, Kaggle Grandmaster, is awarded to users who have ranked at the top of multiple competitions including high ranking in a solo team. As of April 2, 2025, out of 23.29 million Kaggle accounts, 2,973 have achieved Kaggle Master status and 612 have achieved Kaggle Grandmaster status. === Kaggle Notebooks === Kaggle includes a free, browser-based online integrated development environment, called Kaggle Notebooks, designed for data science and machine learning. Users can write and execute code in Python or R, import datasets, use popular libraries, and train models on CPUs, GPUs, or TPUs directly in the cloud. This environment is often used for competition submissions, tutorials, education, and exploratory data analysis. == Medical Research Problems == In December 2025, an article was published in The Transmitter titled "Exclusive: Springer Nature retracts, removes nearly 40 publications that trained neural networks on ‘bonkers’ dataset". The dataset in question was uploaded to Kaggle containing photographs of autistic and non-autistic children's faces. This dataset contained more than 2,900 images and it is unlikely that these children or their families gave consent for the photos for use in medical research or the images were ethically approved for research. The articles using the dataset in Springer Nature were retracted from the scientific literature. At least 90 other publications cite a version of the dataset. In April 2026, another two datasets were identified on Kaggle with no data provenance having been published in Nature titled: "Dozens of AI disease-prediction models were trained on dubious data". These datasets were used in 124 clinical prediction models, at least two of which have been used in hospitals in Indonesia and Spain, while one article using the dataset was referenced in a medical device patent. As of April 17, 2026, three of the articles using these datasets have been retracted from the scientific literature. In May 2026, an additional research publication using two image datasets from Kaggle is under investigation in Scientific Reports. An article in Retraction Watch "‘Comically bad’ datasets used to train clinical models for stroke and diabetes" highlighted the images included famous actors such as Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Daniel Craig as well as children. It would be unethical for the use of these child images in medical research without consent. Reverse searching images saw some of the images were not for stroke but for bell's palsy. One of the datasets is no longer available on Kaggle while the other one still remains and mentions the images may be subject to copyright. Kaggle relies on the community self-reporting metadata and provenance and mentions the stroke and diabetes dataset identified in "Evidence of unreliable data and poor data provenance in clinical prediction model research and clinical practice" does not violate their terms of service and they would have been removed if they had.

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  • BRFplus

    BRFplus

    BRFplus (Business Rule Framework plus) is a business rule management system (BRMS) offered by SAP AG. BRFplus is part of the SAP NetWeaver ABAP stack. Therefore, all SAP applications that are based on SAP NetWeaver can access BRFplus within the boundaries of an SAP system. However, it is also possible to generate web services so that BRFplus rules can also be offered as a service in a SOA landscape, regardless of the software platform used by the service consumers. BRFplus development started as a supporting tool that was part of SAP Business ByDesign, an ERP solution targeted at small and medium size companies. By that time, the tool was called "Formula and Derivation Tool" (FDT). Later on, it was decided to maintain BRFplus on those codelines that serve as the basis for SAP Business Suite. With that, business rules that have been created for Business ByDesign can easily be taken over in a full-size SAP system where they are ready for use without any changes. == Overview == BRFplus offers a unified modeling and runtime environment for business rules that addresses both technical users (programmers, system administrators) as well as business users who take care of operational business processes (like procurement, bidding, tax form validation, etc.). The different requirements and usage scenarios of the different target groups can be covered with the help of the SAP authorization system and a user interface that can be individually customized. Being integrated into SAP NetWeaver, BRFplus-based applications can look at, and model, business rules from a strictly business-oriented perspective, rather than starting with the underlying technical artifacts. This is because the integration allows for direct access to the business objects available in the SAP dictionary (like customer, supplier, material, bill, etc.). In addition to the predefined expression types (decision table, decision tree, formula, database access, loops, etc.) and actions (sending e-mails, triggering a workflow, etc.), BRFplus can be extended by custom expression types. Also, direct calls of function modules as well as ABAP OO class methods are supported so that the entire range of the ABAP programming language is available for solving business tasks. BRFplus comes with an optional versioning mechanism. Versioning can be switched on and off for individual objects as well as for entire applications. Versioned business rules are needed in certain use cases for legal reasons, but they also allow for simulating the system behavior as it would have been at a particular point in time. Once the rule objects are in a consistent state and active, the system automatically generates ABAP OO classes that encapsulate the functional scope of the underlying rule object. This is done on an on-demand base and speeds up processing. The execution of functions as well as of single expressions can be simulated. The processing log of the simulation is useful for checking the implementation and for investigating problems. BRFplus applications can be exported and imported as an XML file. This is an easy way of creating a data backup. XML files can also be used for deploying rule applications throughout the company. == Main object types == === Application === The application object serves as a container for all the BRFplus objects that have been assembled to solve a particular business task. It is possible to define certain default settings on application level that are inherited by all objects that are created in the scope of that application. === Function === A function is used to connect a business application with the rule processing framework of BRFplus. The calling business application passes input values to the function which are then processed by the expressions and rulesets that are associated with the called function. The calculated result is then returned to the calling business application. === Expression types and action types === Boolean BRMS Connector Case Database Lookup Decision Table Decision Tree Formula Function Call Loop Procedure Call Random Number Search Tree Step Sequence Value Range1 XSL Transformation === Ruleset === A ruleset is a container for an arbitrary number of rule objects which in turn carry out the necessary calculations with the help of assigned expressions and actions. Instead of assigning an expression to a function, it is also possible to assign any number of rulesets to a function. When the function is called, all assigned rulesets are subsequently processed. === Data objects === BRFplus supports elementary data objects (text, number, boolean, time point, amount, quantity) as well as structures and tables. Structures can be nested. For all types of data objects it is possible to reference data objects that reside in the data dictionary of the backend system. With that, a BRFplus data object does not only inherit the type definition of the referenced object but can also access associated data like domain value lists or object documentation. === Other objects === With catalogs, it is possible to define business-specific subsets of the rule objects that reside in the system. This is helpful for hiding the complexity of a rule system, thus improving usability. Object filters are used by system administrators to ensure that for selected users, only a predefined subset of object types is visible. This is useful to enforce access rights as well as modeling policies. == Other BRM solutions offered by SAP == BRFplus is positioned as the successor product of an older business rule solution known as BRF (Business Rule Framework). For a longer transition phase, both solutions exist in parallel. However, an increasing number of SAP applications that used to be based on BRF are migrating to BRFplus. While BRFplus supports business rules for applications based on the SAP NetWeaver ABAP stack, SAP is offering another product named SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management (BRM). BRM supports business rule modeling for the SAP NetWeaver Java stack. Both products do not compete. They are available in parallel and can be used in a collaborative approach to deal with use cases where both technology stacks are used in parallel. BRFplus comes with a special expression type that helps bridging the gap between the two different technologies. == Availability == BRFplus has been delivered to the public with SAP NetWeaver 7.0 Enhancement Package 1 for the first time. Being part of SAP NetWeaver, the usage of BRFplus is covered by the "SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party Applications" license, with no additional costs. == Literature == Carsten Ziegler, Thomas Albrecht: BRFplus – Business Rule Management for ABAP Applications. Galileo Press 2011. ISBN 978-1-59229-293-6

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  • Layer (deep learning)

    Layer (deep learning)

    A layer in a deep learning model is a structure or network topology in the model's architecture, which takes information from the previous layers and then passes it to the next layer. == Layer types == The first type of layer is the Dense layer, also called the fully-connected layer, and is used for abstract representations of input data. In this layer, neurons connect to every neuron in the preceding layer. In multilayer perceptron networks, these layers are stacked together. The Convolutional layer is typically used for image analysis tasks. In this layer, the network detects edges, textures, and patterns. The outputs from this layer are then fed into a fully-connected layer for further processing. See also: CNN model. The Pooling layer is used to reduce the size of data input. The Recurrent layer is used for text processing with a memory function. Similar to the Convolutional layer, the output of recurrent layers are usually fed into a fully-connected layer for further processing. See also: RNN model. The Normalization layer adjusts the output data from previous layers to achieve a regular distribution. This results in improved scalability and model training. A Hidden layer is any of the layers in a Neural Network that aren't the input or output layers. == Differences with layers of the neocortex == There is an intrinsic difference between deep learning layering and neocortical layering: deep learning layering depends on network topology, while neocortical layering depends on intra-layers homogeneity.

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  • PeduliLindungi

    PeduliLindungi

    SatuSehat (Indonesian for "one health"), formerly PeduliLindungi (roughly "care to protect"), is a national integrated health data exchange platform, jointly developed by the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kemenkominfo), in partnership with Committee for COVID-19 Response and National Economic Recovery (KPCPEN), Ministry of Health (Kemenkes), Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (KemenBUMN), and Telkom Indonesia. The SatuSehat platform aims to facilitate data accessibility and service efficiency for health providers and the government, and assist the public as a tool to access their own electronic medical record data. This app was the official COVID-19 contact tracing app used for digital contact tracing in Indonesia, and originally known as TraceTogether but later changed because Singapore had its app using the same name. == Implementation == On 23 August 2021, Coordinating Minister for Maritime and Investments Affairs, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, encouraged the government to make this app a mandatory requirement before using public transportations, such as train, bus, ferry, and plane. Furthermore, citizen must have installed the app before entering shopping malls, factories, and sport venues. Every person who have received at least a dose of vaccine will receive a vaccine card and vaccination certificate which can be downloaded from the app. In December 2022, with the revocation of PPKM (Community Activities Restrictions Enforcement) starting from 1 January 2023, Ministry of Health issued a statement that the usage of the app is not a governmental mandatory requirement as it used to be. === Transition into a citizen health app === On 7 September 2022, it was announced that the app would be modified to become a citizen health app, capitalising on the reach of the app and the existing work done around the app. On 28 February 2023, the authorities announced that the app was rebranded to SATUSEHAT Mobile (lit. 'OneHealth Mobile'), with existing users needing to update the PeduliLindungi app and re-synchronise their COVID-19 related health information. The re-branded app would eventually be an all-in-one health service and records retrieval app for Indonesians. == Controversy == It was reported that the app requires continuous access to the phone's files, media, and GPS, which quickly drains the battery. Allowing location access only during use or denying it altogether will render the app unusable. This stands in stark contrast to COVID-19 apps used in other countries that only utilize Bluetooth and do not require any additional permissions. In September 2021, stored personal data of at least 1.3 million Indonesian residents were leaked online, including the vaccine certificate of President Joko Widodo. The data leak was also reported on eHAC (electronic Health Alert Card), a mandatory app used for air passengers.

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  • ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health

    ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health

    The ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health (AI for Health) was an inter-agency collaboration from 2018 between the World Health Organization and the ITU, which in 2019 created a benchmarking framework to assess the accuracy of AI in health. The organization convened an international network of experts and stakeholders from fields like research, practice, regulation, ethics, public health, etc, that developed guideline documentation and code. The documents have addressed ethics, assessment/evaluation, handling, and regulation of AI for health solutions, covering specific use cases including AI in ophthalmology, histopathology, dentistry, malaria detection, radiology, symptom checker applications, etc. FG-AI4H has established an ad hoc group concerned with digital technologies for health emergencies, including COVID-19. All documentation is public. The idea for the Focus Group came out of the Health Track of the 2018 AI for Good Global Summit. Administratively, FG-AI4H was created by ITU-T Study Group 16. Under ITU-T's framework, participation in Focus Groups is open to anyone from an ITU Member State. The secretariat is provided by the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (under Director Chaesub Lee). It was first created at the July 2018 meeting with a lifetime of two years, at the July 2020 meeting, this was extended for another two years, where the focus group also submitted its deliverables to its parent body. It was also presented at the NeurIPS 2020 health workshop. In July 2023 "the work was grandfathered in the Global Initiative on AI for Health (GI-AI4H)". == AI for Health Framework == The outline of the benchmarking framework was published in a 2019 commentary in The Lancet. The output of the Focus Group AI for Health were structured in the AI for Health Framework. Depending on their primary domain being health or ICT, the individual components of the AI for Health Framework were ratified by the corresponding United Nations Specialized Agency, as WHO Guidelines and ITU Recommendations respectively. Standards drawn up by FG-AI4H were titled as: AI4H ethics considerations AI4H regulatory [best practices | considerations] AI4H requirements specification AI software life cycle specification Data specification AI training best practices specification AI4H evaluation considerations AI4H scale-up and adoption AI4H applications and platforms Use cases of the ITU-WHO Focus Group on AI for Health

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  • RightsCon

    RightsCon

    RightsCon is an annual conference on digital rights hosted by Access Now. It convenes international leaders and organizations to discuss global problems including internet censorship, the regulation of algorithms, electronic surveillance, the ethics of technology, online hate speech, content moderation, cyberwarfare, and more. == History == The conference was first convened by Access (today, Access Now) in Silicon Valley in 2011, with the intention of gathering civil society to discuss impacts of the growing tech industry on digital rights and human rights. It sought the participation of leaders from both industry (including companies such as Twitter, Google, Mozilla, and Comcast) and civil society organizations (such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and New America). Keynote speakers included the then-Assistant Secretary of State, Michael Posner; Egyptian blogger and political prisoner, Alaa Abd El-Fattah; and then-director of public policy at Google, Bob Boorstin. RightsCon organizers have sought to ensure the event is accessible to attendees from across the globe, particularly global majority countries, informing the decision to hold the conference in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. === Online convenings === In 2020, RightsCon was to be held in San José, Costa Rica, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting took place in an online format. In 2021, the 10th edition of RightsCon was again held online from Monday, June 7 to Friday, June 11, 2021, due to the continued global COVID-19 pandemic which altered several digital rights physical meetings. The topics for RightsCon2021 included: Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation, data protection and user control, digital futures, democracy, elections, new business models, content control, peacebuilding, censorship, internet shutdowns, freedom of the media and many others were discussed by several digital rights organizations and individuals. === 2026 cancellation === The 14th RightsCon was scheduled to be held in Zambia from May 5 to 8, 2026. On April 29, 2026, the Zambian government abruptly postponed the conference, writing in a statement that the postponement was "necessitated by the need for comprehensive disclosure […] relating to key thematic issues proposed for discussion during the Summit." In May 2026, the conference was cancelled due to pressure from the Chinese government. In a statement the same day, Access Now wrote that it was "told that diplomats from the People's Republic of China (PRC) were putting pressure on the Government of Zambia because Taiwanese civil society participants were planning to join us in person." == List of conferences == Past RightsCon conferences include:

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  • OpenL Tablets

    OpenL Tablets

    OpenL Tablets is a business rule management system (BRMS) and a business rules engine (BRE) based on table representation of rules. Engine implements optimized sequential algorithm. OpenL includes such table types as decision table, decision tree, spreadsheet-like calculator. == History == The OpenL Tablets project was started as an in-house development project in 2003 and later in 2006 was uploaded to SourceForge. Initially it was an open-source business rule engine for Java. Starting from version 5 it became a BRMS. == Technology == OpenL Tablets engine is specially designed for business rules and uses table rules presentation. Table format enforces rules to be structured and format itself is close to tables found in various business documents. OpenL Tablets is based on OpenL framework for creating custom languages running on Java VM. The engine is designed to allow pluggable language implementations. Currently, it uses 2 languages: table structure for rules format and java-like for code snippets in rules. Java-like language is Java 5.0 implementation with Business User Extensions. OpenL Tablets rules are mixture of declarative programming for rules logic and imperative programming for workflow control. Table formats are flexible enough to match the semantics of the problem domain. Tests, traces, benchmarks are integral part of the engine. It also provides powerful type definition capabilities to handle rules domain model inside rules files. The project is written in Java, but can be used at any platform using Service-oriented architecture approach, e.g. via web service. === Patents === The OpenL Tablets engine has patent pending validation feature. There are usages of OpenL Tablets which may be patented. == BRMS == OpenL Tablets includes several productivity tools and applications addressing BRMS related capabilities. They include web application to edit rules called OpenL WebStudio, web application to deploy rules as web services, Rules Repository to store and manage rules, Eclipse plug-ins to work with rules projects. == Related systems == CLIPS: public domain software tool for building expert systems. ILOG rules: a business rule management system. JBoss Drools: a business rule management system (BRMS). JESS: a rule engine for the Java platform - it is a superset of CLIPS programming language. Prolog: a general purpose logic programming language. DTRules: a Decision Table-based, open-sourced rule engine for Java.

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  • Boyfriend Maker

    Boyfriend Maker

    Boyfriend Maker was a dating sim, romance chatbot smartphone app for iOS (iPhone) and Android devices, developed by Japanese studio 36 You Games (styled as 36You) and distributed under the freemium business model. Boyfriend Maker incorporated advanced artificial intelligence chat technology a decade before products such as ChatGPT. According to the developer's website, Boyfriend Maker is an "app that lets you interact and chat with quirky virtual boyfriends". While each virtual boyfriend has certain unique characteristics, the various instances of the boyfriend are powered by a chat engine, that (at least within a language and market) can utilise vocabulary and knowledge acquired in a chat with one user in subsequent chats with other users. == Gameplay == Users gain experience points and in-game coins. Users can customize their virtual boyfriend's appearance by selecting items such as hair, clothing, face, and a necklace. == Apple delisting and reintroduction == In late November 2012, the original iOS Boyfriend Maker app was delisted from the Apple App Store due to "ribald" chat, according to the New York Times. Boyfriend Maker was removed by Apple due to "reports of references to violent sexual acts and pedophilia". Boyfriend Maker had an age rating of 4+, even though the chat bot "responds with often strange and explicit text unsuitable for young children". User-posted chat excerpts indicate that the virtual boyfriend would sometimes transition abruptly to sexual chat in response to a seemingly innocent question. In one user-posted example, in response to the question, "what kind of wedding cake will we have" the boyfriend responds, "a good sex ima be on top of u u gonna ride oon me bitin the pillow gurrl ima fuck da shit out of u". The developer's use of the SimSimi-created third-party chat engine may be responsible for the sexual text. As the virtual boyfriend converses with human users, the SimSimi chat engine acquires vocabulary from users of the game and applies this "learned" vocabulary in chats with other users. The chat engine might also employ lines harvested from human-human chat logs, song lyrics, movies or TV shows. In April 2013, a detuned and presumably tamer version of the app, titled Boyfriend Plus, was permitted on Apple's App Store.

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  • Linear belief function

    Linear belief function

    Linear belief functions are an extension of the Dempster–Shafer theory of belief functions to the case when variables of interest are continuous. Examples of such variables include financial asset prices, portfolio performance, and other antecedent and consequent variables. The theory was originally proposed by Arthur P. Dempster in the context of Kalman Filters and later was elaborated, refined, and applied to knowledge representation in artificial intelligence and decision making in finance and accounting by Liping Liu. == Concept == A linear belief function intends to represent our belief regarding the location of the true value as follows: We are certain that the truth is on a so-called certainty hyperplane but we do not know its exact location; along some dimensions of the certainty hyperplane, we believe the true value could be anywhere from –∞ to +∞ and the probability of being at a particular location is described by a normal distribution; along other dimensions, our knowledge is vacuous, i.e., the true value is somewhere from –∞ to +∞ but the associated probability is unknown. A belief function in general is defined by a mass function over a class of focal elements, which may have nonempty intersections. A linear belief function is a special type of belief function in the sense that its focal elements are exclusive, parallel sub-hyperplanes over the certainty hyperplane and its mass function is a normal distribution across the sub-hyperplanes. Based on the above geometrical description, Shafer and Liu propose two mathematical representations of a LBF: a wide-sense inner product and a linear functional in the variable space, and as their duals over a hyperplane in the sample space. Monney proposes still another structure called Gaussian hints. Although these representations are mathematically neat, they tend to be unsuitable for knowledge representation in expert systems. == Knowledge representation == A linear belief function can represent both logical and probabilistic knowledge for three types of variables: deterministic such as an observable or controllable, random whose distribution is normal, and vacuous on which no knowledge bears. Logical knowledge is represented by linear equations, or geometrically, a certainty hyperplane. Probabilistic knowledge is represented by a normal distribution across all parallel focal elements. In general, assume X is a vector of multiple normal variables with mean μ and covariance Σ. Then, the multivariate normal distribution can be equivalently represented as a moment matrix: M ( X ) = ( μ Σ ) . {\displaystyle M(X)=\left({\begin{array}{{20}c}\mu \\\Sigma \end{array}}\right).} If the distribution is non-degenerate, i.e., Σ has a full rank and its inverse exists, the moment matrix can be fully swept: M ( X → ) = ( μ Σ − 1 − Σ − 1 ) {\displaystyle M({\vec {X}})=\left({\begin{array}{{20}c}\mu \Sigma ^{-1}\\-\Sigma ^{-1}\end{array}}\right)} Except for normalization constant, the above equation completely determines the normal density function for X. Therefore, M ( X → ) {\displaystyle M({\vec {X}})} represents the probability distribution of X in the potential form. These two simple matrices allow us to represent three special cases of linear belief functions. First, for an ordinary normal probability distribution M(X) represents it. Second, suppose one makes a direct observation on X and obtains a value μ. In this case, since there is no uncertainty, both variance and covariance vanish, i.e., Σ = 0. Thus, a direct observation can be represented as: M ( X ) = ( μ 0 ) {\displaystyle M(X)=\left({\begin{array}{{20}c}\mu \\0\end{array}}\right)} Third, suppose one is completely ignorant about X. This is a very thorny case in Bayesian statistics since the density function does not exist. By using the fully swept moment matrix, we represent the vacuous linear belief functions as a zero matrix in the swept form follows: M ( X → ) = [ 0 0 ] {\displaystyle M({\vec {X}})=\left[{\begin{array}{{20}c}0\\0\end{array}}\right]} One way to understand the representation is to imagine complete ignorance as the limiting case when the variance of X approaches to ∞, where one can show that Σ−1 = 0 and hence M ( X → ) {\displaystyle M({\vec {X}})} vanishes. However, the above equation is not the same as an improper prior or normal distribution with infinite variance. In fact, it does not correspond to any unique probability distribution. For this reason, a better way is to understand the vacuous linear belief functions as the neutral element for combination (see later). To represent the remaining three special cases, we need the concept of partial sweeping. Unlike a full sweeping, a partial sweeping is a transformation on a subset of variables. Suppose X and Y are two vectors of normal variables with the joint moment matrix: M ( X , Y ) = [ μ 1 Σ 11 Σ 21 μ 2 Σ 12 Σ 22 ] {\displaystyle M(X,Y)=\left[{\begin{array}{{20}c}{\begin{array}{{20}c}\mu _{1}\\\Sigma _{11}\\\Sigma _{21}\end{array}}&{\begin{array}{{20}c}\mu _{2}\\\Sigma _{12}\\\Sigma _{22}\end{array}}\end{array}}\right]} Then M(X, Y) may be partially swept. For example, we can define the partial sweeping on X as follows: M ( X → , Y ) = [ μ 1 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 − ( Σ 11 ) − 1 Σ 21 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 μ 2 − μ 1 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 Σ 12 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 Σ 12 Σ 22 − Σ 21 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 Σ 12 ] {\displaystyle M({\vec {X}},Y)=\left[{\begin{array}{{20}c}{\begin{array}{{20}c}\mu _{1}(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\\-(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\\\Sigma _{21}(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\end{array}}&{\begin{array}{{20}c}\mu _{2}-\mu _{1}(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\Sigma _{12}\\(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\Sigma _{12}\\\Sigma _{22}-\Sigma _{21}(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\Sigma _{12}\end{array}}\end{array}}\right]} If X is one-dimensional, a partial sweeping replaces the variance of X by its negative inverse and multiplies the inverse with other elements. If X is multidimensional, the operation involves the inverse of the covariance matrix of X and other multiplications. A swept matrix obtained from a partial sweeping on a subset of variables can be equivalently obtained by a sequence of partial sweepings on each individual variable in the subset and the order of the sequence does not matter. Similarly, a fully swept matrix is the result of partial sweepings on all variables. We can make two observations. First, after the partial sweeping on X, the mean vector and covariance matrix of X are respectively μ 1 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 {\displaystyle \mu _{1}(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}} and − ( Σ 11 ) − 1 {\displaystyle -(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}} , which are the same as that of a full sweeping of the marginal moment matrix of X. Thus, the elements corresponding to X in the above partial sweeping equation represent the marginal distribution of X in potential form. Second, according to statistics, μ 2 − μ 1 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 Σ 12 {\displaystyle \mu _{2}-\mu _{1}(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\Sigma _{12}} is the conditional mean of Y given X = 0; Σ 22 − Σ 21 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 Σ 12 {\displaystyle \Sigma _{22}-\Sigma _{21}(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\Sigma _{12}} is the conditional covariance matrix of Y given X = 0; and ( Σ 11 ) − 1 Σ 12 {\displaystyle (\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\Sigma _{12}} is the slope of the regression model of Y on X. Therefore, the elements corresponding to Y indices and the intersection of X and Y in M ( X → , Y ) {\displaystyle M({\vec {X}},Y)} represents the conditional distribution of Y given X = 0. These semantics render the partial sweeping operation a useful method for manipulating multivariate normal distributions. They also form the basis of the moment matrix representations for the three remaining important cases of linear belief functions, including proper belief functions, linear equations, and linear regression models. === Proper linear belief functions === For variables X and Y, assume there exists a piece of evidence justifying a normal distribution for variables Y while bearing no opinions for variables X. Also, assume that X and Y are not perfectly linearly related, i.e., their correlation is less than 1. This case involves a mix of an ordinary normal distribution for Y and a vacuous belief function for X. Thus, we represent it using a partially swept matrix as follows: M ( X → , Y ) = [ 0 0 0 μ 2 0 Σ 22 ] {\displaystyle M({\vec {X}},Y)=\left[{\begin{array}{{20}c}{\begin{array}{{20}c}0\\0\\0\end{array}}&{\begin{array}{{20}c}\mu _{2}\\0\\\Sigma _{22}\\\end{array}}\end{array}}\right]} This is how we could understand the representation. Since we are ignorant on X, we use its swept form and set μ 1 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 = 0 {\displaystyle \mu _{1}(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}=0} and − ( Σ 11 ) − 1 = 0 {\displaystyle -(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}=0} . Since the correlation between X and Y is less than 1, the regression coefficient of X on Y approaches to 0 when the variance of X approaches to ∞. Therefore, ( Σ 11 ) − 1 Σ 12 = 0 {\displaystyle (\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\Sigma _{12}=0} . Similarly, one can prove that μ 1 ( Σ 11 ) − 1 Σ 12 = 0 {\displaystyle \mu _{1}(\Sigma _{11})^{-1}\Sigma _{12}=0} and Σ 21 ( Σ 11 ) −

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  • Preferential entailment

    Preferential entailment

    Preferential entailment is a non-monotonic logic based on selecting only models that are considered the most plausible. The plausibility of models is expressed by an ordering among models called a preference relation, hence the name preference entailment. Formally, given a propositional formula F {\displaystyle F} and an ordering over propositional models ≤ {\displaystyle \leq } , preferential entailment selects only the models of F {\displaystyle F} that are minimal according to ≤ {\displaystyle \leq } . This selection leads to a non-monotonic inference relation: F ⊨ pref G {\displaystyle F\models _{\text{pref}}G} holds if and only if all minimal models of F {\displaystyle F} according to ≤ {\displaystyle \leq } are also models of G {\displaystyle G} . Circumscription can be seen as the particular case of preferential entailment when the ordering is based on containment of the sets of variables assigned to true (in the propositional case) or containment of the extensions of predicates (in the first-order logic case).

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  • Turing test

    Turing test

    The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1949, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to that of a human. In the test, a human evaluator judges a text transcript of a natural-language conversation between a human and a machine. The evaluator tries to identify the machine, and the machine passes if the evaluator cannot reliably tell them apart. The results would not depend on the machine's ability to answer questions correctly, only on how closely its answers resembled those of a human. Since the Turing test is a test of indistinguishability in performance capacity, the verbal version generalizes naturally to all of human performance capacity, verbal as well as nonverbal (robotic). The test was introduced by Turing in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" while working at the University of Manchester. It opens with the words: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'." Because "thinking" is difficult to define, Turing chooses to "replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words". Turing describes the new form of the problem in terms of a three-person party game called the "imitation game", in which an interrogator asks questions of a man and a woman in another room in order to determine the correct sex of the two players. Turing's new question is: "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?" This question, Turing believed, was one that could actually be answered. In the remainder of the paper, he argued against the major objections to the proposition that "machines can think". Since Turing introduced his test, it has been highly influential in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, resulting in substantial discussion and controversy, as well as criticism from philosophers like John Searle, who argue against the test's ability to detect consciousness. == History == === Philosophical background === The question of whether it is possible for machines to think has a long history, which is firmly entrenched in the distinction between dualist and materialist views of the mind. René Descartes prefigures aspects of the Turing test in his 1637 Discourse on the Method when he writes: [H]ow many different automata or moving machines could be made by the industry of man ... For we can easily understand a machine's being constituted so that it can utter words, and even emit some responses to action on it of a corporeal kind, which brings about a change in its organs; for instance, if touched in a particular part it may ask what we wish to say to it; if in another part it may exclaim that it is being hurt, and so on. But it never happens that it arranges its speech in various ways, in order to reply appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence, as even the lowest type of man can do. Here Descartes notes that automata are capable of responding to human interactions but argues that such automata cannot respond appropriately to things said in their presence in the way that any human can. Descartes therefore prefigures the Turing test by defining the insufficiency of appropriate linguistic response as that which separates the human from the automaton. Descartes fails to consider the possibility that future automata might be able to overcome such insufficiency, and so does not propose the Turing test as such, even if he prefigures its conceptual framework and criterion. Denis Diderot formulates in his 1746 book Pensées philosophiques a Turing-test criterion, though with the important implicit limiting assumption maintained, of the participants being natural living beings, rather than considering created artifacts: If they find a parrot who could answer to everything, I would claim it to be an intelligent being without hesitation. This does not mean he agrees with this, but that it was already a common argument of materialists at that time. According to dualism, the mind is non-physical (or, at the very least, has non-physical properties) and, therefore, cannot be explained in purely physical terms. According to materialism, the mind can be explained physically, which leaves open the possibility of minds that are produced artificially. In 1936, philosopher Alfred Ayer considered the standard philosophical question of other minds: how do we know that other people have the same conscious experiences that we do? In his book, Language, Truth and Logic, Ayer suggested a protocol to distinguish between a conscious man and an unconscious machine: "The only ground I can have for asserting that an object which appears to be conscious is not really a conscious being, but only a dummy or a machine, is that it fails to satisfy one of the empirical tests by which the presence or absence of consciousness is determined". (This suggestion is very similar to the Turing test, but it is not certain that Ayer's popular philosophical classic was familiar to Turing.) In other words, a thing is not conscious if it fails the consciousness test. === Cultural background === A rudimentary idea of the Turing test appears in the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. When Gulliver is brought before the king of Brobdingnag, the king thinks at first that Gulliver might be a "a piece of clock-work (which is in that country arrived to a very great perfection) contrived by some ingenious artist". Even when he hears Gulliver speaking, the king still doubts whether Gulliver was taught "a set of words" to make him "sell at a better price". Gulliver tells that only after "he put several other questions to me, and still received rational answers" the king became satisfied that Gulliver was not a machine. Tests where a human judges whether a computer or an alien is intelligent were an established convention in science fiction by the 1940s, and it is likely that Turing would have been aware of these. Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey" (1934) provides an example of how nuanced such tests could be. Earlier examples of machines or automatons attempting to pass as human include the Ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion who creates a sculpture of a woman that is animated by Aphrodite, Carlo Collodi's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, about a puppet who wants to become a real boy, and E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 story "The Sandman," where the protagonist falls in love with an automaton. In all these examples, people are fooled by artificial beings that—up to a point—pass as human. === Alan Turing and the imitation game === Researchers in the United Kingdom had been exploring "machine intelligence" for up to ten years prior to the founding of the field of artificial intelligence (AI) research in 1956. It was a common topic among the members of the Ratio Club, an informal group of British cybernetics and electronics researchers that included Alan Turing. Turing, in particular, had been running the notion of machine intelligence since at least 1941 and one of the earliest-known mentions of "computer intelligence" was made by him in 1947. In Turing's report, "Intelligent Machinery," he investigated "the question of whether or not it is possible for machinery to show intelligent behaviour" and, as part of that investigation, proposed what may be considered the forerunner to his later tests: It is not difficult to devise a paper machine which will play a not very bad game of chess. Now get three men A, B and C as subjects for the experiment. A and C are to be rather poor chess players, B is the operator who works the paper machine. ... Two rooms are used with some arrangement for communicating moves, and a game is played between C and either A or the paper machine. C may find it quite difficult to tell which he is playing. "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (1950) was the first published paper by Turing to focus exclusively on machine intelligence. Turing begins the 1950 paper with the claim, "I propose to consider the question 'Can machines think?'" As he highlights, the traditional approach to such a question is to start with definitions, defining both the terms "machine" and "think". Turing chooses not to do so; instead, he replaces the question with a new one, "which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words". In essence he proposes to change the question from "Can machines think?" to "Can machines do what we (as thinking entities) can do?" The advantage of the new question, Turing argues, is that it draws "a fairly sharp line between the physical and intellectual capacities of a man". To demonstrate this approach Turing proposes a test inspired by a party game, known as the "imitation game", in which a man and a woman go into separate rooms and guests try to tell them apart by writing a series of questions and reading the typewritten answers sent back. In this game, both the man and the woman aim to convince the guests that they ar

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  • Weibo

    Weibo

    Weibo (Chinese: 微博; pinyin: Wēibó), or Sina Weibo (Chinese: 新浪微博; pinyin: Xīnlàng Wēibó), is a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily active users) as of Q1 2022. The platform has been highly successful but has faced criticism for heavy censorship. Sina had gone public on the Nasdaq in 2000. In March 2014, Sina announced a spinoff of Weibo and filed an IPO under the symbol WB. Sina carved out 11% of Weibo in the IPO, with Alibaba owning 32% post-IPO. The company began trading publicly on 17 April 2014. In March 2017, Sina launched Sina Weibo International Version. In November 2018, Sina Weibo suspended its registration function for minors under the age of 14. In July 2019, Sina Weibo announced that it would launch a two-month campaign to clean up pornographic and vulgar information, named "Project Deep Blue" (蔚蓝计划). On 29 September 2020, the company announced it would go private again due to rising tensions between the US and China. == Name == "Weibo" (微博) is the Chinese word for "microblog". Sina Weibo launched its new domain name weibo.com on 7 April 2011, deactivating and redirecting from the old domain, t.sina.com.cn, to the new one. Due to its popularity, the media sometimes refers to the platform simply as "Weibo", despite the numerous other Chinese microblogging services including Tencent Weibo, Sohu Weibo, and NetEase Weibo. However, the latter three have stopped providing services. == Background == Sina Weibo is a platform based on fostering user relationships to share, disseminate, and receive information. Through the website or the mobile app, users can upload pictures and videos publicly for instant sharing, with other users being able to comment with text, pictures and videos, or use a multimedia instant messaging service. The company initially invited a large number of celebrities to join the platform at the beginning and has since invited many media personalities, government departments, businesses and non-governmental organizations to open accounts for the purpose of publishing and communicating information. To avoid the impersonation of celebrities, Sina Weibo uses verification symbols; celebrity accounts have an orange letter "V" and organizations' accounts have a blue letter "V". Sina Weibo has more than 500 million registered users; out of these, 313 million are monthly active users, 85% use the Weibo mobile app, 70% are college-aged, 50.10% are male and 49.90% are female. There are over 100 million messages posted by users each day. With more than 100 million followers, actress Xie Na holds the record for the most followers on the platform. Despite fierce competition among Chinese social media platforms, Sina Weibo remains the most popular. == History == After the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, China shut down most domestic microblogging services, including Fanfou, the very first weibo service. Many popular non-China-based microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook, and Plurk have since been blocked. Sina Corporation CEO Charles Chao considered this to be an opportunity, and on 14 August 2009, Sina launched the tested version of Sina Weibo. Basic functions including message, private message, comment and reposting were made available that September. A Sina Weibo–compatible API platform for developing third-party applications was launched on 28 July 2010. On 1 December 2010, the website experienced an outage, which administrators later said was due to the ever-increasing numbers of users and posts. Registered users surpassed 100 million in February 2011. Since 23 March 2011, t.cn has been used as Sina Weibo's official shortened URL in lieu of sinaurl.cn. On 7 April 2011, weibo.com replaced t.sina.com.cn as the new main domain name used by the website. The official logo was also updated. In June 2011, Sina announced an English-language version of Sina Weibo would be developed and launched, though content would still be governed by Chinese law. On 11 January 2013, Sina Weibo and Alibaba China (a subsidiary of Alibaba Group) signed a strategic cooperation agreement. With more and more foreign celebrities using Sina Weibo, language translation has become an urgent need for Chinese users who wish to communicate with their idols online, especially Korean. In January 2013, Sina Weibo and NetEase.com announced that they had reached a strategic cooperation agreement. When users browse foreign language content, they can now directly obtain translation results through the YouDao Dictionary. The Sina Weibo financial report in February 2013 showed that its total revenue was approximately US$66 million and that the number of registered users had exceeded the 500 million mark. In April 2013, Sina officially announced that Sina Weibo had signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Alibaba. The two sides conducted in-depth cooperation in areas such as user account interoperability, data exchange, online payment, and internet marketing. At the same time, Sina announced that Alibaba, through its wholly owned subsidiary, had purchased the preferred shares and common shares issued by Sina Weibo Company for US$586 million, which accounted for approximately 18% of Weibo's fully diluted and diluted total shares. === Ownership === On 9 April 2013, Alibaba Group announced that it would acquire 18% of Sina Weibo for US$586 million, with the option to buy up to 30% in the future. Alibaba exercised this option when Weibo was listed on the NASDAQ in April 2014. == Users == According to iResearch's report on 30 March 2011, Sina Weibo had 56.5% of China's microblogging market based on active users and 86.6% based on browsing time over competitors such as Tencent Weibo and Baidu. According to research by Sina Corporation, the number of active users reached over 400 million by Q1 2018, making Sina Weibo the 7th platform with at least 400 million active users, and daily usage increased by 21%. As of 2017, approximately 80% of its users were in their 20s and 30s. The top 100 users had over 485 million followers combined. More than 5,000 companies and 2,700 media organizations in China use Sina Weibo. The site is maintained by a growing microblogging department of 200 employees responsible for technology, design, operations, and marketing. Sina executives invited and persuaded many Chinese celebrities to join the platform. Users now include Asian celebrities, movie stars, singers, famous business and media figures, athletes, scholars, artists, organizations, religious figures, government departments, and officials from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Macau, as well as some famous foreign individuals and organizations, including Kevin Rudd, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Narendra Modi, Toshiba, and the Germany national football team. Sina Weibo has a verification program for known people and organizations. Once an account is verified, a verification badge is added beside the account name. == Features == Many of Sina Weibo's features resemble those of Twitter. A user may post with a 140-character limit (increased to 2,000 as of January 2016 with the exception of reposts and comments). An analysis of 29 million Weibo posts found the median length was 14 characters. Users may mention or talk to other people using "@UserName" formatting, add hashtags, follow other users to make their posts appear in one's own timeline, re-post with "//@UserName" similar to Twitter's retweet function "RT @UserName", select posts for one's favorites list, and verify the account if the user is a celebrity, brand, business or otherwise of public interest. URLs are automatically shortened using the domain name t.cn, akin to Twitter's t.co. Official and third-party applications can access Sina Weibo from other websites or platforms. Users may: Submit up to 18 images/video files in every post Send personal messages to followers Follow others and be followed Post "stories" like on Instagram React to posts using different emojis Receive monetary rewards that can be used in a digital store linked to Weibo View posts identified as "hot" or popular Display the location they post from Hashtags differ slightly between Sina Weibo and Twitter, using the double-hashtag "#HashName#" format (the lack of spacing between Chinese characters necessitates a closing tag). Users can own a hashtag by requesting hashtag monitoring; the company reviews these requests and responds within one to three days. Once a user owns a hashtag, they have access to a wide variety of functions available only to them on the condition that they remain active (less than 1 post per calendar week revokes these privileges). Additionally, comments appear as a list below each post. A commenter can also choose to re-post the comment, quoting the whole original post, to their own page. Unregistered users can only browse a few post

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  • IPO underpricing algorithm

    IPO underpricing algorithm

    IPO underpricing is the increase in stock value from the initial offering price to the first-day closing price. Many believe that underpriced IPOs leave money on the table for corporations, but some believe that underpricing is inevitable. Investors state that underpricing signals high interest to the market which increases the demand. On the other hand, overpriced stocks will drop long-term as the price stabilizes so underpricing may keep the issuers safe from investor litigation. == IPO underpricing algorithms == Underwriters and investors and corporations going for an initial public offering (IPO), issuers, are interested in their market value. There is always tension that results since the underwriters want to keep the price low while the companies want a high IPO price. Underpricing may also be caused by investor over-reaction causing spikes on the initial days of trading. The IPO pricing process is similar to pricing new and unique products where there is sparse data on market demand, product acceptance, or competitive response. Thus it is difficult to determine a clear price which is compounded by the different goals issuers and investors have. The problem with developing algorithms to determine underpricing is dealing with noisy, complex, and unordered data sets. Additionally, people, environment, and various environmental conditions introduce irregularities in the data. To resolve these issues, researchers have found various techniques from artificial intelligence that normalizes the data. == Evolutionary models == Evolutionary programming is often paired with other algorithms e.g. artificial neural networks to improve the robustness, reliability, and adaptability. Evolutionary models reduce error rates by allowing the numerical values to change within the fixed structure of the program. Designers provide their algorithms the variables, they then provide training data to help the program generate rules defined in the input space that make a prediction in the output variable space. In this approach, the solution is made an individual and the population is made of alternatives. However, the outliers cause the individuals to act unexpectedly as they try to create rules to explain the whole set. === Rule-based system === For example, Quintana first abstracts a model with 7 major variables. The rules evolved from the Evolutionary Computation system developed at Michigan and Pittsburgh: Underwriter prestige – Is the underwriter prestigious in role of lead manager? 1 for true, 0 otherwise. Price range width – The width of the non-binding reference price range offered to potential customers during the roadshow. This width can be interpreted as a sign of uncertainty regarding the real value of the company and a therefore, as a factor that could influence the initial return. Price adjustment – The difference between the final offer price and the price range width. It can be viewed as uncertainty if the adjustment is outside the previous price range. Offering price – The final offer price of the IPO Retained stock – Ratio of number of shares sold at the IPO divided by post-offering number of shares minus the number of shares sold at the IPO. Offering size – Logarithm of the offering size in millions of dollars excluding the over-allotment option Technology – Is this a technology company? 1 for true, 0 otherwise. Quintana uses these factors as signals that investors focus on. The algorithm his team explains shows how a prediction with a high-degree of confidence is possible with just a subset of the data. === Two-layered evolutionary forecasting === Luque approaches the problem with outliers by performing linear regressions over the set of data points (input, output). The algorithm deals with the data by allocating regions for noisy data. The scheme has the advantage of isolating noisy patterns which reduces the effect outliers have on the rule-generation system. The algorithm can come back later to understand if the isolated data sets influence the general data. Finally, the worst results from the algorithm outperformed all other algorithms' predictive abilities. == Agent-based modelling == Currently, many of the algorithms assume homogeneous and rational behavior among investors. However, there's an approach alternative to financial modeling, and it's called agent-based modelling (ABM). ABM uses different autonomous agents whose behavior evolves endogenously which lead to complicated system dynamics that are sometimes impossible to predict from the properties of individual agents. ABM is starting to be applied to computational finance. Though, for ABM to be more accurate, better models for rule-generation need to be developed.

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  • BabelNet

    BabelNet

    BabelNet is a multilingual lexical-semantic knowledge graph, ontology and encyclopedic dictionary developed at the NLP group of the Sapienza University of Rome under the supervision of Roberto Navigli. BabelNet was automatically created by linking Wikipedia to the most popular computational lexicon of the English language, WordNet. The integration is done using an automatic mapping and by filling in lexical gaps in resource-poor languages by using statistical machine translation. The result is an encyclopedic dictionary that provides concepts and named entities lexicalized in many languages and connected with large amounts of semantic relations. Additional lexicalizations and definitions are added by linking to free-license wordnets, OmegaWiki, the English Wiktionary, Wikidata, FrameNet, VerbNet and others. Similarly to WordNet, BabelNet groups words in different languages into sets of synonyms, called Babel synsets. For each Babel synset, BabelNet provides short definitions (called glosses) in many languages harvested from both WordNet and Wikipedia. == Statistics of BabelNet == As of December 2023, BabelNet (version 5.3) covers 600 languages. It contains almost 23 million synsets and around 1.7 billion word senses (regardless of their language). Each Babel synset contains 2 synonyms per language, i.e., word senses, on average. The semantic network includes all the lexico-semantic relations from WordNet (hypernymy and hyponymy, meronymy and holonymy, antonymy and synonymy, etc., totaling around 364,000 relation edges) as well as an underspecified relatedness relation from Wikipedia (totaling around 1.9 billion edges). Version 5.3 also associates around 61 million images with Babel synsets and provides a Lemon RDF encoding of the resource, available via a SPARQL endpoint. 2.67 million synsets are assigned domain labels. == Applications == BabelNet has been shown to enable multilingual natural language processing applications. The lexicalized knowledge available in BabelNet has been shown to obtain state-of-the-art results in: Semantic relatedness, Multilingual word-sense disambiguation and entity linking, with the Babelfy system, Video games with a purpose. == Prizes and acknowledgments == BabelNet received the META prize 2015 for "groundbreaking work in overcoming language barriers through a multilingual lexicalised semantic network and ontology making use of heterogeneous data sources". The Artificial Intelligence Journal paper that describes BabelNet won the Prominent Paper Award in 2017. BabelNet featured prominently in a Time magazine article about the new age of innovative and up-to-date lexical knowledge resources available on the Web.

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