The Hyperion Cantos is a series of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. The title was originally used for the collection of the first pair of books in the series, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, and later came to refer to the overall storyline, including Endymion, The Rise of Endymion, and a number of short stories. More narrowly, inside the fictional storyline, after the first volume, the Hyperion Cantos is an epic poem written by the character Martin Silenus covering in verse form the events of the first two books. Of the four novels, Hyperion received the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1990; The Fall of Hyperion won the Locus and British Science Fiction Association Awards in 1991; and The Rise of Endymion received the Locus Award in 1998. All four novels were also nominated for various science fiction awards. == Works == === Hyperion (1989) === First published in 1989, Hyperion has the structure of a frame story, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. The story weaves the interlocking tales of a diverse group of travelers sent on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs on Hyperion. The travelers have been sent by the Hegemony (the government of the human star systems), the All Thing, and the Church of the Final Atonement, alternately known as the Shrike Church, to make a request of the Shrike. As they progress in their journey, each of the pilgrims tells their tale. === The Fall of Hyperion (1990) === This book concludes the story begun in Hyperion. It abandons the storytelling frame structure of the first novel, and is instead presented primarily as a series of dreams by John Keats. === Endymion (1996) === The story commences 274 years after the events in the previous novel. Few main characters from the first two books are present in the later two. The main character is Raul Endymion, an ex-soldier who receives a death sentence after an unfair trial. He is rescued by Martin Silenus and asked to perform a series of rather extraordinarily difficult tasks. The main task is to rescue and protect the daughter of Brawne Lamia (one of the main characters of Hyperion), Aenea, a messiah coming from the time period just after the first books via time travel. The Catholic Church has become a dominant force in the human universe and views Aenea as a potential threat to their power. The group of Aenea, Endymion, and A. Bettik (an android) evades the Church's forces on several worlds through use of the Consul's spaceship, ending the story on Earth. === The Rise of Endymion (1997) === This final novel in the series finishes the story begun in Endymion, expanding on the themes in Endymion, as Raul and Aenea battle the Church and meet their respective destinies. === Short stories === The series also includes three short stories: "Remembering Siri" (1983, included almost verbatim in Hyperion) "The Death of the Centaur" (1990) "Orphans of the Helix" (1999) == Development == The Hyperion universe originated when Simmons was an elementary school teacher, as an extended tale he told at intervals to his young students; this is recorded in "The Death of the Centaur", and its introduction. It then inspired his short story "Remembering Siri", which eventually became the nucleus around which Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion formed. After the quartet was published came the short story "Orphans of the Helix". "Orphans" is currently the final work in the Cantos, both chronologically and internally. The original Hyperion Cantos has been described as a novel published in two volumes, published separately at first for reasons of length. In his introduction to "Orphans of the Helix", Simmons elaborates: Some readers may know that I've written four novels set in the "Hyperion Universe"—Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion. A perceptive subset of those readers—perhaps the majority—know that this so-called epic actually consists of two long and mutually dependent tales, the two Hyperion stories combined and the two Endymion stories combined, broken into four books because of the realities of publishing. == Influences == Much of the appeal of the series stems from its extensive use of references and allusions from a wide array of thinkers such as Teilhard de Chardin, John Muir, Norbert Wiener, and to the poetry of John Keats, the famous 19th-century English Romantic poet, Norse mythology, and the monk Ummon. A large number of technological elements are acknowledged by Simmons to be inspired by elements of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World. The Hyperion series has many echoes of Jack Vance, explicitly acknowledged in one of the later books. The title of the first novel, "Hyperion", is taken from one of Keats's poems, the unfinished epic Hyperion. Similarly, the title of the third novel is from Keats' poem Endymion. Quotes from actual Keats poems and the fictional Cantos of Martin Silenus are interspersed throughout the novels. Simmons goes so far as to have two artificial reincarnations of John Keats ("cybrids": artificial intelligences in human bodies) play a major role in the series. == Setting == Much of the action in the series takes place on the planet Hyperion. It is described as having one-fifth less gravity than Earth standard. Hyperion has a number of peculiar indigenous flora and fauna, notably Tesla trees, which are essentially large electricity-spewing trees. It is also a "labyrinthine" planet, which means that it is home to ancient subterranean labyrinths of unknown purpose. Most importantly, Hyperion is the location of the Time Tombs, large artifacts surrounded by "anti-entropic" fields that allow them to move backward through time. In the fictional universe of the Hyperion Cantos, the Hegemony of Man encompasses over 200 planets. Faster than light communications technology, Fatlines, are said to operate through tachyon bursts. However, in later books it is revealed that they operate through the Void Which Binds. The Farcaster network was given to humanity by the TechnoCore and again it was another use of the Void Which Binds that allowed this instantaneous travel between worlds. The Hawking Drive was developed by human scientists, allowing the faster than light travel which led to the Hegira (from the Arabic word هجرة Hijra, meaning 'migration'). The Gideon drive, a Core-provided starship drive, allows for near-instantaneous travel between any two points in human-occupied space. The drive's use kills any human on board a Gideon-propelled starship; thus, the technology is only of use with remote probes or when used in conjunction with the Pax's resurrection technology. The resurrection creche can regenerate someone carrying a cruciform from their remains. Treeships are living trees that are propelled by ergs (spider-like solid-state alien being that emits force fields) through space. === The Shrike === The region of the Tombs is also the home of the Shrike, a menacing half-mechanical, half-organic four-armed creature that features prominently in the series. It appears in all four Hyperion Cantos books and is an enigma in the initial two; its purpose is not revealed until the second book, but is still left nebulous. The Shrike appears to act both autonomously and as a servant of some unknown force or entity. In the first two Hyperion books, it exists solely in the area around the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion. Its portrayal is changed significantly in the last two books, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. In these novels, the Shrike appears effectively unfettered and protects the heroine Aenea against assassins of the opposing TechnoCore. Surrounded in mystery, the object of fear, hatred, and even worship by members of the Church of the Final Atonement (the Shrike Cult), the Shrike's origins are described as uncertain. It is portrayed as composed of razorwire, thorns, blades, and cutting edges, having fingers like scalpels and long, curved toe blades. It has the ability to control the flow of time, and may thus appear to travel infinitely fast. The Shrike may kill victims in a flash or it may transport them to an eternity of impalement upon an enormous artificial 'Tree of Thorns,' or 'Tree of Pain' in Hyperion's distant future. The Tree of Thorns is described as an unimaginably large, metallic tree, alive with the agonized writhing of countless human victims of all ages and races. It is also hinted in the second book that the Tree of Thorns is actually a simulation generated by a mystical interface which connects to human brains via a strong and pulsing (as if it were alive) cord. The name Shrike seems a reference to birds of the shrike family, a family of birds that impales their victims on thorns, spines, or twigs. === Worlds and Systems === In the fictional universe of the Hyperion Cantos, the Hegemony of Man encompasses over 200 planets. The following planets appear or are specifically mentioned in the Hyperion Cantos. Planets of
Materialized view
In computing, a materialized view is a database object that contains the results of a query. For example, it may be a local copy of data located remotely, or may be a subset of the rows and/or columns of a table or join result, or may be a summary using an aggregate function. The process of setting up a materialized view is sometimes called materialization. This is a form of caching the results of a query, similar to memoization of the value of a function in functional languages, and it is sometimes described as a form of precomputation. As with other forms of precomputation, database users typically use materialized views for performance reasons, i.e. as a form of optimization. Materialized views that store data based on remote tables were also known as snapshots (deprecated Oracle terminology). In any database management system following the relational model, a view is a virtual table representing the result of a database query. Whenever a query or an update addresses an ordinary view's virtual table, the DBMS converts these into queries or updates against the underlying base tables. A materialized view takes a different approach: the query result is cached as a concrete ("materialized") table (rather than a view as such) that may be updated from the original base tables from time to time. This enables much more efficient access, at the cost of extra storage and of some data being potentially out-of-date. Materialized views find use especially in data warehousing scenarios, where frequent queries of the actual base tables can be expensive. In a materialized view, indexes can be built on any column. In contrast, in a normal view, it's typically only possible to exploit indexes on columns that come directly from (or have a mapping to) indexed columns in the base tables; often this functionality is not offered at all. == Implementations == === Oracle === Materialized views were implemented first by the Oracle Database: the Query rewrite feature was added from version 8i. Example syntax to create a materialized view in Oracle: === PostgreSQL === In PostgreSQL, version 9.3 and newer natively support materialized views. In version 9.3, a materialized view is not auto-refreshed, and is populated only at time of creation (unless WITH NO DATA is used). It may be refreshed later manually using REFRESH MATERIALIZED VIEW. In version 9.4, the refresh may be concurrent with selects on the materialized view if CONCURRENTLY is used. Example syntax to create a materialized view in PostgreSQL: === SQL Server === Microsoft SQL Server differs from other RDBMS by the way of implementing materialized view via a concept known as "Indexed Views". The main difference is that such views do not require a refresh because they are in fact always synchronized to the original data of the tables that compound the view. To achieve this, it is necessary that the lines of origin and destination are "deterministic" in their mapping, which limits the types of possible queries to do this. This mechanism has been realised since the 2000 version of SQL Server. Example syntax to create a materialized view in SQL Server: === Stream processing frameworks === Apache Kafka (since v0.10.2), Apache Spark (since v2.0), Apache Flink, Kinetica DB, Materialize, RisingWave, and Epsio all support materialized views on streams of data. === Others === Materialized views are also supported in Sybase SQL Anywhere. In IBM Db2, they are called "materialized query tables". ClickHouse supports materialized views that automatically refresh on merges. MySQL doesn't support materialized views natively, but workarounds can be implemented by using triggers or stored procedures or by using the open-source application Flexviews. Materialized views can be implemented in Amazon DynamoDB using data modification events captured by DynamoDB Streams. Google announced in 8 April 2020 the availability of materialized views for BigQuery as a beta release.
List of large language models
A large language model (LLM) is a type of machine learning model designed for natural language processing tasks such as language generation. LLMs are language models with many parameters, and are trained with self-supervised learning on a vast amount of text. == List == For the training cost column, 1 petaFLOP-day equals 1 petaFLOP/sec × 1 day, or 8.64×1019 FLOP (floating point operations). Only the cost of the largest model is shown. The number of parameters is measured in billions, and the training cost is measured in petaFLOP-days. === 2018 === === 2019 === === 2020 === === 2021 === === 2022 === === 2023 === === 2024 === === 2025 === === 2026 ===
Common data model
A common data model (CDM) can refer to any standardised data model which allows for data and information exchange between different applications and data sources. Common data models aim to standardise logical infrastructure so that related applications can "operate on and share the same data", and can be seen as a way to "organize data from many sources that are in different formats into a standard structure". A common data model has been described as one of the components of a "strong information system". A standardised common data model has also been described as a typical component of a well designed agile application besides a common communication protocol. Providing a single common data model within an organisation is one of the typical tasks of a data warehouse. == Examples of common data models == === Border crossings === X-trans.eu was a cross-border pilot project between the Free State of Bavaria (Germany) and Upper Austria with the aim of developing a faster procedure for the application and approval of cross-border large-capacity transports. The portal was based on a common data model that contained all the information required for approval. === Climate data === The Climate Data Store Common Data Model is a common data model set up by the Copernicus Climate Change Service for harmonising essential climate variables from different sources and data providers. === General information technology === Within service-oriented architecture, S-RAMP is a specification released by HP, IBM, Software AG, TIBCO, and Red Hat which defines a common data model for SOA repositories as well as an interaction protocol to facilitate the use of common tooling and sharing of data. Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) is an open standard for inter-operation of different content management systems over the internet, and provides a common data model for typed files and folders used with version control. The NetCDF software libraries for array-oriented scientific data implements a common data model called the NetCDF Java common data model, which consists of three layers built on top of each other to add successively richer semantics. === Health === Within genomic and medical data, the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) research program established under the U.S. National Institutes of Health has created a common data model for claims and electronic health records which can accommodate data from different sources around the world. PCORnet, which was developed by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, is another common data model for health data including electronic health records and patient claims. The Sentinel Common Data Model was initially started as Mini-Sentinel in 2008. It is used by the Sentinel Initiative of the USA's Food and Drug Administration. The Generalized Data Model was first published in 2019. It was designed to be a stand-alone data model as well as to allow for further transformation into other data models (e.g., OMOP, PCORNet, Sentinel). It has a hierarchical structure to flexibly capture relationships among data elements. The JANUS clinical trial data repository also provides a common data model which is based on the SDTM standard to represent clinical data submitted to regulatory agencies, such as tabulation datasets, patient profiles, listings, etc. === Logistics === SX000i is a specification developed jointly by the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) and the American Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) to provide information, guidance and instructions to ensure compatibility and the commonality. The associated SX002D specification contains a common data model. === Microsoft Common Data Model === The Microsoft Common Data Model is a collection of many standardised extensible data schemas with entities, attributes, semantic metadata, and relationships, which represent commonly used concepts and activities in various businesses areas. It is maintained by Microsoft and its partners, and is published on GitHub. Microsoft's Common Data Model is used amongst others in Microsoft Dataverse and with various Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Dynamics 365 services. === Rail transport === RailTopoModel is a common data model for the railway sector. === Other === There are many more examples of various common data models for different uses published by different sources.
Immuni
Immuni was an open-source COVID-19 contact tracing app used for digital contact tracing in Italy, dismissed on 31 December 2022, after a long and debated criticism for having been a failure due to the lack of trust placed by citizens. Immuni COVID-19 contact-tracing app had in fact been downloaded only by 12% of Italians between 14 and 75 years old (the government had previously stated that, in order for the app to work properly, it should have been downloaded by at least 60% of Italians). It makes use of the Apple/Google Exposure Notification system. == Development == It was developed by Bending Spoons and released by the Italian Ministry of Health on 1 June 2020. After a testing phase in 4 Italian regions (Abruzzo, Apulia, Liguria, Marche), the app started being active in the whole country on 15 June 2020. The app was initially released on App Store and Google Play, and since 1 February 2021 it is available on the Huawei AppGallery as well. === Source code === The source code was published on GitHub on the 25 May. The app only works in Italy, but compatibility with other European contact tracing apps was a goal. Since 19 October 2020 the app supports key-exchanges with the EU Interoperability Gateway and is therefore able to communicate with contact tracing apps of other EU countries. == Shutdown == As of 16 December 2020, the app was downloaded more than 10 million times, a number which increased to 21.882.502 downloads the day before the app's shutdown. On 27 December 2022 the Italian Ministry of Health announced that the app and its infrastructures will be dismissed on the 31 December of the same year.
Gallery software
Gallery software is software that helps the user publish or share photos, pictures, videos or other digital media. Most galleries are located on Web servers, where users are allowed to register and publish their pictures. Gallery software usually features automatic image resizing, allows digital media be categorized into sets, and allows comments. == Types == Early digital media publishing and sharing was done with imageboards. The boards are by topics, sometimes called "chan". Each discussion in a "chan" are started with a piece of digital media, and follow-up discussions can contain another piece too. Software works in this way: Futallaby, Danbooru. Traditionally, galleries are managed. An administrator maintains a set of or hierarchy of albums. The users can upload their digital media in one of the existing albums defined by an administrator, or create their own albums. The users with sufficient permission can re-categorise the digital media others uploaded. Often, the site's administrator can define which album the users are allowed to categorise their media into, or delete other user's content. Examples are open source galleries Coppermine, Gallery Project. There are decentralised gallery software that does not have an administrator for managing contents. Pinterest, Flickr and DeviantArt has been successful with this model. Open source gallery software MediaGoblin works in this way. Each user can create their own "collections", to categorise theirs or other users' media. However users cannot put media into other user's collections. Each user's category is separate. There is no centralised theme or hierarchy for the media.
Pandorabots
Pandorabots, Inc. is an artificial intelligence company that runs a web service for building and deploying chatbots. Pandorabots implements and supports development of the Artificial Intelligence Markup Language and makes portions of its code accessible for free. The Pandorabots Platform is "one of the oldest and largest chatbot hosting services in the world", allowing creation of virtual agents to hold human-like text or voice chats with consumers. The platform is written in Allegro Common LISP. == Use Cases == Common use cases include advertising, virtual assistance, e-learning, entertainment and education. The platform has also been used by academics and universities use the platform for teaching and research.