Kubeflow is an open-source platform for machine learning and MLOps on Kubernetes introduced by Google. The different stages in a typical machine learning lifecycle are represented with different software components in Kubeflow, including model development (Kubeflow Notebooks), model training (Kubeflow Pipelines, Kubeflow Training Operator), model serving (KServe), and automated machine learning (Katib). Each component of Kubeflow can be deployed separately, and it is not a requirement to deploy every component. == History == The Kubeflow project was first announced at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2017 by Google engineers David Aronchick, Jeremy Lewi, and Vishnu Kannan to address a perceived lack of flexible options for building production-ready machine learning systems. The project has also stated it began as a way for Google to open-source how they ran TensorFlow internally. The first release of Kubeflow (Kubeflow 0.1) was announced at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2018. Kubeflow 1.0 was released in March 2020 via a public blog post announcing that many Kubeflow components were graduating to a "stable status", indicating they were now ready for production usage. In October 2022, Google announced that the Kubeflow project had applied to join the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. In July 2023, the foundation voted to accept Kubeflow as an incubating stage project. == Components == === Kubeflow Notebooks for model development === Machine learning models are developed in the notebooks component called Kubeflow Notebooks. The component runs web-based development environments inside a Kubernetes cluster, with native support for Jupyter Notebook, Visual Studio Code, and RStudio. === Kubeflow Pipelines for model training === Once developed, models are trained in the Kubeflow Pipelines component. The component acts as a platform for building and deploying portable, scalable machine learning workflows based on Docker containers. Google Cloud Platform has adopted the Kubeflow Pipelines DSL within its Vertex AI Pipelines product. === Kubeflow Training Operator for model training === For certain machine learning models and libraries, the Kubeflow Training Operator component provides Kubernetes custom resources support. The component runs distributed or non-distributed TensorFlow, PyTorch, Apache MXNet, XGBoost, and MPI training jobs on Kubernetes. === KServe for model serving === The KServe component (previously named KFServing) provides Kubernetes custom resources for serving machine learning models on arbitrary frameworks including TensorFlow, XGBoost, scikit-learn, PyTorch, and ONNX. KServe was developed collaboratively by Google, IBM, Bloomberg, NVIDIA, and Seldon. Publicly disclosed adopters of KServe include Bloomberg, Gojek, the Wikimedia Foundation, and others. === Katib for automated machine learning === Lastly, Kubeflow includes a component for automated training and development of machine learning models, the Katib component. It is described as a Kubernetes-native project and features hyperparameter tuning, early stopping, and neural architecture search. == Release timeline ==
Robotics
Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. A roboticist is someone who specializes in robotics. Robotics usually combines four aspects of design work: a power source (e.g. a battery), mechanical construction, a control system (electrical circuits), and software (run by remote control or artificial intelligence). The goal of most robotics is to design machines that can assist humans in various fields, such as agriculture, construction, domestic work, food processing, inventory management, manufacturing, medicine, military, mining, space exploration, and transportation. Robots impact humans by displacing workers. Some expect this to occur at an increasing rate, leading to proposed solutions such as basic income. Robotics is itself a lucrative business that creates careers, especially for postgraduates. Roboticists often aim to create machines that seem to interface naturally with humans. The field is under active research and development, with areas of interest including robot kinematics and quantum robotics. == Design == Robotics usually combines four aspects of design work to create a robot: Power source: Potential energy sources include wired electricity, a battery, and/or petrol. Mechanical construction: A physical form or combination of forms is designed to functionally achieve tasks within a given range of environments. This can include locomotive elements such as wheels and caterpillar tracks, as well as hydraulic limbs and manipulators (e.g. hands). Control system: Electrical circuits (utilizing components such as diodes and transistors) are used to run software, govern motor movement, and read sensors. Software: A program is how a robot decides when or how to do something. Robotic programs can be run by remote control, artificial intelligence (AI), or a hybrid of the two. AI programming is an important part of robotic navigation and human–robot interaction. === Power source === Many different types of batteries can be used as a power source. Most are lead–acid batteries, which are safe and have relatively long shelf lives but are rather heavy compared to silver–cadmium batteries, which are much smaller in volume and much more expensive. Designing a battery-powered robot needs to take into account factors such as safety, cycle lifetime, and weight. Generators, often some type of internal combustion engine, can also be used, but are often mechanically complex and inefficient. Additionally, a tether could connect the robot to a power supply, saving weight and space, but requiring a cumbersome cable. Potential power sources include: Flywheel energy storage Hydraulics Nuclear Organic garbage (through anaerobic digestion) Pneumatics (compressed gases) Solar power === Mechanical construction === Actuators are the "muscles" of a robot, the parts which convert stored energy into movement. The most popular actuators are electric motors that rotate a wheel or gear and linear actuators that control factory robots. Most robots use electric motors—often brushed and brushless DC motors in portable robots or AC motors in industrial robots and computer numerical control machines—especially in systems with lighter loads and where the predominant form of motion is rotational. Meanwhile, linear actuators move in and out and often have quicker direction changes, particularly when large forces are needed, such as with industrial robotics. They are typically powered by oil or compressed air, but can also be powered by electricity, usually via a motor and a leadscrew. The mechanical rack and pinion is common. Recent alternatives to DC motors are piezoelectric motors, including ultrasonic motors, in which tiny piezoceramic elements vibrate many thousands of times per second, causing linear or rotary motion. One type uses the vibration of the piezo elements to step the motor in a circle or a straight line; another type uses the piezo elements to vibrate a nut or drive a screw. The advantages of these motors are nanometer resolution, speed, and force for their size. Series elastic actuation (SEA) relies on introducing intentional elasticity between the motor actuator and the load for robust force control. Due to the resultant lower reflected inertia, series elastic actuation improves safety during robot interactions or collisions. Further, it provides energy efficiency and shock absorption (mechanical filtering) while reducing excessive wear on the transmission and other components. This approach has successfully been employed in various robots, particularly advanced manufacturing robots and walking humanoid robots. The controller design of a series elastic actuator is most often performed within the passivity framework as it ensures the safety of interaction with unstructured environments. However, this framework suffers from stringent limitations imposed on the controller, which may impact performance. Pneumatic artificial muscles, also known as air muscles, are special tubes that expand (typically up to 42%) when air is forced inside them; they are used in some robot applications. Muscle wire, also known as shape memory alloy, is a material that contracts (under 5%) when electricity is applied; they have been used for some small robots. Electroactive polymers are a plastic material that can contract substantially (up to 380% activation strain) from electricity and have been used in the facial muscles and arms of humanoid robots, as well as to enable new robots to float, fly, swim or walk. Additionally, elastic carbon nanotubes are a promising experimental artificial muscle technology. The absence of defects in carbon nanotubes enables these filaments to deform elastically by several percent, with energy storage levels of perhaps 10 J/cm3 for metal nanotubes. Human biceps could be replaced with wire of this material measuring 8 millimetres (3⁄8 in) in diameter, feasibly allowing future robots to outperform humans. ==== Locomotion ==== Robots with only one or two wheel(s) can have advantages such as greater efficiency, reduced parts, and navigation through confined areas. A one-wheeled robot balances on a round ball; Carnegie Mellon University's Ballbot is the approximate height and width of a person. Several attempts have also been made to build spherical robots (also known as orb bots or ball bots), which move by spinning a weight inside the ball or rotating outer shells. Two-wheeled balancing robots generally use a gyroscope to detect how much a robot is falling and drive the wheels proportionally up to hundreds of times per second to counterbalance the fall, based on inverted pendulum dynamics. NASA's Robonaut has been mounted to a Segway for a similar effect. Most mobile robots have four wheels or continuous tracks. Six wheels can give better traction in outdoor terrain, while tracks provide even more grip. Tracked wheels are common for outdoor off-road robots, but are difficult to use indoors. A small number of skating robots have been developed, one of which is a multimodal walking and skating device with four legs and unpowered wheels. Several robots have been made that can walk on two legs, but not yet as reliably as a human. Many other robots have been built that walk on more than two legs, being significantly easier. Walking robots could be used for uneven terrains, providing a high degree of mobility and efficiency, but two-legged robots can currently only handle flat floors or perhaps stairs. Some approaches have included: The zero moment point (ZMP) is the algorithm used by robots such as Honda's ASIMO. The robot's onboard computer tries to keep the total inertial forces (the combination of Earth's gravity and the acceleration and deceleration of walking) exactly opposed by the floor reaction force (the force of the floor pushing back on the robot's foot). In this way, the two forces cancel out, leaving no moment (force causing the robot to rotate and fall over). Human observers note that this is not exactly how a human walks, with some describing ASIMO's walk as looking like it needs use the bathroom. ASIMO's walking algorithm utilizes some dynamic balancing, but requires a flat surface. Several robots, built in the 1980s by Marc Raibert at the MIT Leg Laboratory, successfully demonstrated very dynamic walking. Initially, a robot with only one leg, and a very small foot could stay upright simply by hopping. The movement is the same as that of a person on a pogo stick. As the robot falls to one side, it would jump slightly in that direction to catch itself. Soon, the algorithm was generalized to two and four legs. A bipedal robot was demonstrated running and even performing somersaults. A quadruped was also demonstrated which could trot, run, pace, and bound. A more advanced approach is a dynamic balancing algorithm, which constantly monitors the robot's motion and places the feet to maintain stability. This technique has been demonstrated by Anybots' Dexter robot (
Alexander Gammerman
Alexander Gammerman (born 2 November 1944) is a British computer scientist, and professor at Royal Holloway University of London. He is the co-inventor of conformal prediction. He is the founding director of the Centre for Machine Learning at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. == Career == Gammerman's academic career has been pursued in the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. He started working as a Research Fellow in the Agrophysical Research Institute, St. Petersburg. In 1983, he emigrated to the United Kingdom and was appointed as a lecturer in the Computer Science Department at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Together with Roger Thatcher, Gammerman published several articles on Bayesian inference. In 1993, he was appointed to the established chair in Computer Science at University of London tenable at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, where he served as the Head of Computer Science department from 1995 to 2005. In 1998, the Centre for Reliable Machine Learning was established, and Gammerman became the first director of the centre. Gammerman has written 7 books. == Honours and awards == In 1996, Gammerman received the P.W. Allen Award from the Forensic Science Society. In 2006, he became an Honorary Professor, at University College London. In 2009, he became a Distinguished Professor at Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. In 2019, he received a research grant funded by the energy company Centrica about predicting the time to the next failure of equipment. In 2020, he received the Amazon Research Award for the project titled Conformal Martingales for Change-Point Detection == Selected books == Measures of Complexity (2016), Springer, ISBN 3319357786. Algorithmic Learning in a Random World (2005), Springer, ISBN 0387001522. Causal Models and Intelligent Data Management (1999), Springer, ISBN 978-3-642-58648-4. Probabilistic Reasoning and Bayesian Belief Networks (1998), Nelson Thornes Ltd, ISBN 1872474268. Computational Learning and Probabilistic Reasoning (1996), Wiley, ISBN 0471962791.
Best AI Copywriting Tools in 2026
Looking for the best AI copywriting tool? An AI copywriting tool is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it can save you hours every week by automating repetitive work. Most options offer a generous free tier, with paid plans unlocking higher limits, faster processing, and team features. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI copywriting tool slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. This guide breaks down the top picks, their pros and cons, and who each one is best for.
Sequential minimal optimization
Sequential minimal optimization (SMO) is an algorithm for solving the quadratic programming (QP) problem that arises during the training of support-vector machines (SVM). It was invented by John Platt in 1998 at Microsoft Research. SMO is widely used for training support vector machines and is implemented by the popular LIBSVM tool. The publication of the SMO algorithm in 1998 has generated a lot of excitement in the SVM community, as previously available methods for SVM training were much more complex and required expensive third-party QP solvers. == Optimization problem == Consider a binary classification problem with a dataset (x1, y1), ..., (xn, yn), where xi is an input vector and yi ∈ {-1, +1} is a binary label corresponding to it. A soft-margin support vector machine is trained by solving a quadratic programming problem, which is expressed in the dual form as follows: max α ∑ i = 1 n α i − 1 2 ∑ i = 1 n ∑ j = 1 n y i y j K ( x i , x j ) α i α j , {\displaystyle \max _{\alpha }\sum _{i=1}^{n}\alpha _{i}-{\frac {1}{2}}\sum _{i=1}^{n}\sum _{j=1}^{n}y_{i}y_{j}K(x_{i},x_{j})\alpha _{i}\alpha _{j},} subject to: 0 ≤ α i ≤ C , for i = 1 , 2 , … , n , {\displaystyle 0\leq \alpha _{i}\leq C,\quad {\mbox{ for }}i=1,2,\ldots ,n,} ∑ i = 1 n y i α i = 0 {\displaystyle \sum _{i=1}^{n}y_{i}\alpha _{i}=0} where C is an SVM hyperparameter and K(xi, xj) is the kernel function, both supplied by the user; and the variables α i {\displaystyle \alpha _{i}} are Lagrange multipliers. == Algorithm == SMO is an iterative algorithm for solving the optimization problem described above. SMO breaks this problem into a series of smallest possible sub-problems, which are then solved analytically. Because of the linear equality constraint involving the Lagrange multipliers α i {\displaystyle \alpha _{i}} , the smallest possible problem involves two such multipliers. Then, for any two multipliers α 1 {\displaystyle \alpha _{1}} and α 2 {\displaystyle \alpha _{2}} , the constraints are reduced to: 0 ≤ α 1 , α 2 ≤ C , {\displaystyle 0\leq \alpha _{1},\alpha _{2}\leq C,} y 1 α 1 + y 2 α 2 = k , {\displaystyle y_{1}\alpha _{1}+y_{2}\alpha _{2}=k,} and this reduced problem can be solved analytically: one needs to find a minimum of a one-dimensional quadratic function. k {\displaystyle k} is the negative of the sum over the rest of terms in the equality constraint, which is fixed in each iteration. The algorithm proceeds as follows: Find a Lagrange multiplier α 1 {\displaystyle \alpha _{1}} that violates the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions for the optimization problem. Pick a second multiplier α 2 {\displaystyle \alpha _{2}} and optimize the pair ( α 1 , α 2 ) {\displaystyle (\alpha _{1},\alpha _{2})} . Repeat steps 1 and 2 until convergence. When all the Lagrange multipliers satisfy the KKT conditions (within a user-defined tolerance), the problem has been solved. Although this algorithm is guaranteed to converge, heuristics are used to choose the pair of multipliers so as to accelerate the rate of convergence. This is critical for large data sets since there are n ( n − 1 ) / 2 {\displaystyle n(n-1)/2} possible choices for α i {\displaystyle \alpha _{i}} and α j {\displaystyle \alpha _{j}} . == Related work == The first approach to splitting large SVM learning problems into a series of smaller optimization tasks was proposed by Bernhard Boser, Isabelle Guyon, and Vladimir Vapnik. It is known as the "chunking algorithm". The algorithm starts with a random subset of the data, solves this problem, and iteratively adds examples which violate the optimality conditions. One disadvantage of this algorithm is that it is necessary to solve QP-problems scaling with the number of SVs. On real world sparse data sets, SMO can be more than 1000 times faster than the chunking algorithm. In 1997, E. Osuna, R. Freund, and F. Girosi proved a theorem which suggests a whole new set of QP algorithms for SVMs. By the virtue of this theorem a large QP problem can be broken down into a series of smaller QP sub-problems. A sequence of QP sub-problems that always add at least one violator of the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions is guaranteed to converge. The chunking algorithm obeys the conditions of the theorem, and hence will converge. The SMO algorithm can be considered a special case of the Osuna algorithm, where the size of the optimization is two and both Lagrange multipliers are replaced at every step with new multipliers that are chosen via good heuristics. The SMO algorithm is closely related to a family of optimization algorithms called Bregman methods or row-action methods. These methods solve convex programming problems with linear constraints. They are iterative methods where each step projects the current primal point onto each constraint.
NRD Cyber Security
NRD Cyber Security is a Lithuanian company that provides cybersecurity solutions, consulting, and other services. The organization specializes in CSIRT and SOC creation, modernization and training. It has helped to establish national and sectorial CSIRTs around the world, including countries, such as Bangladesh, Egypt, Bhutan, Kosovo, Malawi and others. NRD Cyber Security was found in 2013 to provide quality cybersecurity services to nations and organizations. In 2018 it was included in The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 in Europe list. In 2024 it was awarded the #98 place in MSSP Alert Top 250 world's managed security service providers. The company is a member of various cybersecurity organizations, such as Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), The Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE), Unicrons Lt. It is a strategic partner of The Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre (GCSCC) at University of Oxford.
MedSLT
MedSLT is a medium-ranged open source spoken language translator developed by the University of Geneva. It is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The system has been designed for the medical domain. It currently covers the doctor-patient diagnosis dialogues for the domains of headache, chest and abdominal pain in English, French, Japanese, Spanish, Catalan and Arabic. The vocabulary used ranges from 350 to 1000 words depending on the domain and language pair. == Motivation for creating MedSLT == With more than 6000 languages worldwide, language barriers become an increasing problem for healthcare. The lack of medical interpreters can lead to disastrous consequences. These range from prolonged hospital stays to wrong diagnosis and medication. A study found that only about half of the 23 million people with limited proficiency in English in the United States had been provided with a medical interpreter. Millions of refugees and immigrants worldwide face similar problems, although not always as severe. The gap between need and availability of language services might be closed with speech translation systems. == Challenges == The biggest challenge is and was to develop an ideal system, though it is not possible to do so at this moment. This system would fit the needs of doctors and the patients alike, and would provide accurate and flexible translation. A realisation of an ideal translation tool is impossible without the use of unrestricted language and a large vocabulary. Medical professionals demand high reliability from translation. This favours rule-based architectures over data-driven. The latter are more suitable for inexperienced users. Rule-based architectures achieve higher accuracy especially if used by experts. Though it is highly desirable to build a bidirectional system supporting a two-way dialogue, which concentrates on patient-centered communication, the patients will have difficult access to the system. Most patients have no experience with such systems. Less reliable results for translation from the patient-to-doctor direction are the outcome. To overcome this the system needs to provide either easy access or an integrated help tool to guide the users through the process. Although controlled rule-based systems achieve good results, they are brittle. To receive good translations the user needs to be familiar with the system and has to know what is covered by the grammar. Covering different sub-domains (headache, chest and abdominal pain) and language pairs presents additional problems. A shared structure and grammar for all subdomains and language pairs minimises development and maintenance costs. The integration of new doctor and patient languages is also a key challenge. Adding new languages should be quick and rather simple, because he system has to be used in many countries to cover multiple language pairs. Direct translation from source to target language proves to be rather difficult. Using interlingua for unidirectional translation instead of a bidirectional approach helps to simplify the translation process. On top of this, the system has to run on different platforms, because mobility is a key issue for many attending physicians. A portable version addresses these issues, but has to deal with the heavy load of the translation process. == The MedSLT system == The system's speech recognition is based on the Nuance 8.5 platform that supports grammar-based language models. All grammars used for recognition, analysis and generation are compiled from a small set of unification grammars. These core grammars are created by the open-source Regulus Grammar Compiler and are automatically specialised using corpus-driven methods. The specialisation considers both the task (recognition, analysis and generation) and the sub-domain (headache, chest and abdominal pain). The specialisation uses the explanation-based learning algorithm to create a treebank from the training corpus. These examples are divided into sets of subtrees by using domain- and grammar-specific rules (also known as "operationality criteria" in machine translation). The subtree rules are combined into a single rule, creating a specialised unification grammar. The grammar is compiled to an executable form, for analysis and generation by a parser or generator, and for recognition of a CFG grammar. A CFG grammar is required for the Nuance engine. Compilation by Nuance-specific criteria turns the grammar into speech recognition packages. The final step uses the training corpus again for statistical tuning of the language model. MedSLT translation processes are based on a rule-based interlingua. The interlingua is treated as an actual language (it is a very simple version of English) and is specified by a Regulus grammar. This grammar does not take account of complex surface syntax phenomena of real languages like movement or agreement. A set of rules is the base for translating the source language semantic representation to interlingua. Another set of rules covers the translation from interlingua to the target language. The semantic representations are converted to surface words using a target language grammar. Defining semantics for a specific domain enables the developers to specify interlingua with a small, tightly constraint semantic grammar. The translations based on interlingua match direct translations almost perfectly, because the development shifts to a decoupled monolingual architecture. A set of combined interlingua corpora, with one corpus per sub-domain, is the core of this architecture. All source language development corpora are translated to interlingua. These are sorted and grouped together with the corresponding source language examples. The interlingua forms are then translated into each target language, and the results are attached together. This organisation improves the translation process. There is no duplicated effort for multilingual regression testing, because each parsing and generation step is performed once. This allows more frequent testing. The representation language used for all forms is Almost Flat Functional semantics. AFF is derived from the Spoken Language Translator, the precursor of MEdSLT. SLT uses Quasi Logical Form, a logical based representation language. QLF is an expressive yet very complex language, causing high development and maintenance costs. A minimal solution was planned for the medical translator. Early versions of the system utilised a language using simple feature-value lists. These lists were supplemented with an optional level of nesting to represent subordinate clauses (i.e. embedded clauses). Determiners were not included, because they are hard to translate and it is difficult to reliably distinguish and recognise them. This way, translation rules became a lot simpler, because only a list of feature-value pairs had to be mapped to another list of pairs. The language turned out to be underconstrained. Adding natural sortal constraints to the grammar solved this problem, but also returned the language to a more expressive formalism. The newly created AFF combines elements of QLF and the feature-value list semantics. This version of flat semantics is enhanced with additional functional markings. This together with a relatively small vocabulary solved the ambiguity problem of the original flat representation language without creating overly complex rules. In addition, the syntactic structures are treated carefully by a compromise of linguistic and engineering traditions. The grammars are in fact retrieved from linguistically motivated resource, using corpus-based methods. They are driven by small sets of examples. This results in simpler and flatter domain-specific grammars. The semantics are less sophisticated and represent a minimal approach in the engineering tradition. Each lexical item contributes a set of feature-value pairs. This leads to simple-to-write translation rules. There are only lists of features-value pairs to map to other feature-value pairs. However, as a result the machine translation channel model becomes underspecified and is weakened, whereas the target language model is strengthened. An intelligent help module is integrated into the system to support users in utilising the full coverage of the grammars. This tool provides the user with examples as close as possible to the users original utterance. The output is based on a library. Each sub-domain and language pair has its own library. The contents are extracted from the combined interlingua corpora. The help module scans the corpus for the tagged source language form mapped with the corresponding target language form. Additionally a second statistical recogniser is used as backup. The results are used to select similar examples from the library. According to the generation preferences, one of the derived strings is picked and the target language string is realised as spoken language. Some statistical corpus based meth