The International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation is an international conference organised by the ELRA Language Resources Association every other year (on even years) with the support of institutions and organisations involved in Natural language processing. The series of LREC conferences was launched in Granada in 1998. == History of conferences == The survey of the LREC conferences over the period 1998-2013 was presented during the 2014 conference in Reykjavik as a closing session. It appears that the number of papers and signatures is increasing over time. The average number of authors per paper is higher as well. The percentage of new authors is between 68% and 78%. The distribution between male (65%) and female (35%) authors is stable over time. The most frequent technical term is "annotation", then comes "part-of-speech". == The LRE Map == The LRE Map was introduced at LREC 2010 and is now a regular feature of the LREC submission process for both the conference papers and the workshop papers. At the submission stage, the authors are asked to provide some basic information about all the resources (in a broad sense, i.e. including tools, standards and evaluation packages), either used or created, described in their papers. All these descriptors are then gathered in a global matrix called the LRE Map. This feature has been extended to several other conferences.
Captions (app)
Mirage (formerly known as Captions) is a video-generating, video-editing and AI research company headquartered in New York City. Their first app, Captions, is available on iOS, Android, and Web and offers a suite of tools aimed at streamlining the creation and editing of videos. Their enterprise platform, Mirage Studio, generates AI actors and videos for marketing assets and video campaigns. == History == Mirage was co-founded by Gaurav Misra and Dwight Churchill. During Misra's time leading design engineering at Snap Inc., he followed the rise of a new category of video, the "talking video." In 2021, Misra left Snap to found Mirage with his former colleague Churchill. Later that year, the Captions app launched with early backing from venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz as well as individual investors. In 2023, the company released Lipdub, an Al dubbing app which translates any video with spoken audio into 28 languages. In October 2023, Captions shared that it maintained over 100,000 daily active users with "about a million" videos being created monthly. In November 2024, Captions acquired AlpacaML, a generative AI company that focused on art and other images. In June 2025, Captions launched Mirage Studio, for marketers and advertising agencies. In September 2025, Captions rebranded their company to Mirage. This change reflects the company's focus on developing their proprietary foundation model and future video products. == Products == The Captions app offers features to automate common production tasks including captioning, editing, dubbing, script creation, and music integration. Mirage Studio allows users to generate AI avatars and create short-form videos from prompts or audio. == Awards == In 2023, the company was recognized as part of Fast Company's "Next Big Things In Tech" series. In 2024, the company won 2 Webby Awards for Best Use of AI & Machine Learning and Creative Production.
AI Clip Makers Reviews: What Actually Works in 2026
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Timo Honkela
Timo Untamo Honkela (August 4, 1962 – May 9, 2020) was a computer scientist at the University of Helsinki, Aalto University School of Science and Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture. He holds a PhD from Helsinki University of Technology. From 2014 until 2018 he held a fixed-term professorship at the University of Helsinki. Before joining the University of Helsinki he worked as a non-tenured professor in two Schools of the Aalto University, The School of Art, Design and Architecture and the School of Science. He has presented his thoughts on his studies and work in the joint blog 375 Humanists. Timo Honkela conducted research on several areas related to knowledge engineering, cognitive modeling and natural language processing. Honkela was born in Kalajoki. From 1998 to 2000 he worked as a professor in the Aalto Media Lab. To the media Lab Honkela brought his expertise in Kohonen self-organising map (SOM) and worked closely with artist and designers around the topic. In 2001 Honkela collaborated with George Legrady to produce an interactive museum installation, Pockets Full of Memories to the Centre Georges Pompidou, National Museum of Modern Art in Paris. The concept, created by Legrady, provided for visitors a possibility to scan their own objects to a database and then organise them by Kohonen Self-Organizing Map algorithm. In 2017 Honkela published a book in Finnish. The book Rauhankone (English: Peace Machine) presents his idea of designing artificial intelligence and machine learning to serve humanity, in practice to help people to live in peace with each other. He died in Helsinki. == Publications == Timo Honkela, Wlodzislaw Duch, Mark Girolami and Samuel Kaski (editors): Artificial Neural Networks and Machine Learning, Springer, 2011. Jorma Laaksonen and Timo Honkela (editors): Advances in Self-Organizing Maps, Springer, 2011. Timo Honkela: Rauhankone. Gaudeamus, 2017.
Pumping lemma for regular languages
In the theory of formal languages, the pumping lemma for regular languages is a lemma that describes an essential property of all regular languages. Informally, it says that all sufficiently long strings in a regular language may be pumped—that is, have a middle section of the string repeated an arbitrary number of times—to produce a new string that is also part of the language. The pumping lemma is useful for proving that a specific language is not a regular language, by showing that the language does not have the property. Specifically, the pumping lemma says that for any regular language L {\displaystyle L} , there exists a constant p {\displaystyle p} such that any string w {\displaystyle w} in L {\displaystyle L} with length at least p {\displaystyle p} can be split into three substrings x {\displaystyle x} , y {\displaystyle y} and z {\displaystyle z} ( w = x y z {\displaystyle w=xyz} , with y {\displaystyle y} being non-empty), such that the strings x z , x y z , x y y z , x y y y z , . . . {\displaystyle xz,xyz,xyyz,xyyyz,...} are also in L {\displaystyle L} . The process of repeating y {\displaystyle y} zero or more times is known as "pumping". Moreover, the pumping lemma guarantees that the length of x y {\displaystyle xy} will be at most p {\displaystyle p} , thus giving a "small" substring x y {\displaystyle xy} that has the desired property. Languages with a finite number of strings vacuously satisfy the pumping lemma by having p {\displaystyle p} equal to the maximum string length in L {\displaystyle L} plus one. By doing so, no strings at all in L {\displaystyle L} have length at least p {\displaystyle p} . The pumping lemma was first proven by Michael Rabin and Dana Scott in 1959, and rediscovered shortly after by Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, Micha A. Perles, and Eli Shamir in 1961, as a simplification of their pumping lemma for context-free languages. == Formal statement == Let L {\displaystyle L} be a regular language. Then there exists an integer p ≥ 1 {\displaystyle p\geq 1} depending only on L {\displaystyle L} such that every string w {\displaystyle w} in L {\displaystyle L} of length at least p {\displaystyle p} ( p {\displaystyle p} is called the "pumping length") can be written as w = x y z {\displaystyle w=xyz} (i.e., w {\displaystyle w} can be divided into three substrings), satisfying the following conditions: | y | ≥ 1 {\displaystyle |y|\geq 1} | x y | ≤ p {\displaystyle |xy|\leq p} ( ∀ n ≥ 0 ) ( x y n z ∈ L ) {\displaystyle (\forall n\geq 0)(xy^{n}z\in L)} y {\displaystyle y} is the substring that can be pumped (removed or repeated any number of times, and the resulting string is always in L {\displaystyle L} ). (1) means the loop y {\displaystyle y} to be pumped must be of length at least one, that is, not an empty string; (2) means the loop must occur within the first p {\displaystyle p} characters. | x | {\displaystyle |x|} must be smaller than p {\displaystyle p} (conclusion of (1) and (2)), but apart from that, there is no restriction on x {\displaystyle x} and z {\displaystyle z} . In simple words, for any regular language L {\displaystyle L} , any sufficiently long string w {\displaystyle w} (in L {\displaystyle L} ) can be split into 3 parts, i.e. w = x y z {\displaystyle w=xyz} , such that all the strings x y n z {\displaystyle xy^{n}z} for n ≥ 0 {\displaystyle n\geq 0} are also in L {\displaystyle L} . Below is a formal expression of the pumping lemma. ∀ L ⊆ Σ ∗ , regular ( L ) ⟹ ∃ p ≥ 1 , ∀ w ∈ L , | w | ≥ p ⟹ ∃ x , y , z ∈ Σ ∗ , ( w = x y z ) ∧ ( | y | ≥ 1 ) ∧ ( | x y | ≤ p ) ∧ ( ∀ n ≥ 0 , x y n z ∈ L ) {\displaystyle {\begin{array}{l}\forall L\subseteq \Sigma ^{},{\mbox{regular}}(L)\implies \\\quad \exists p\geq 1,\forall w\in L,|w|\geq p\implies \\\qquad \exists x,y,z\in \Sigma ^{},(w=xyz)\land (|y|\geq 1)\land (|xy|\leq p)\land (\forall n\geq 0,xy^{n}z\in L)\end{array}}} == Use of the lemma to prove non-regularity == The pumping lemma is often used to prove that a particular language is non-regular: a proof by contradiction may consist of exhibiting a string (of the required length) in the language that lacks the property outlined in the pumping lemma. Example: The language L = { a n b n : n ≥ 0 } {\displaystyle L=\{a^{n}b^{n}:n\geq 0\}} over the alphabet Σ = { a , b } {\displaystyle \Sigma =\{a,b\}} can be shown to be non-regular as follows: Assume that some constant p ≥ 1 {\displaystyle p\geq 1} exists as required by the lemma. Let w {\displaystyle w} in L {\displaystyle L} be given by w = a p b p {\displaystyle w=a^{p}b^{p}} , which is a string longer than p {\displaystyle p} . By the pumping lemma, there must exist a decomposition w = x y z {\displaystyle w=xyz} with | x y | ≤ p {\displaystyle |xy|\leq p} and | y | ≥ 1 {\displaystyle |y|\geq 1} such that x y i z {\displaystyle xy^{i}z} in L {\displaystyle L} for every i ≥ 0 {\displaystyle i\geq 0} . Since | x y | ≤ p {\displaystyle |xy|\leq p} , the string y {\displaystyle y} only consists of instances of a {\displaystyle a} . Because | y | ≥ 1 {\displaystyle |y|\geq 1} , it contains at least one instance of the letter a {\displaystyle a} . Pumping y {\displaystyle y} to give x y 2 z {\displaystyle xy^{2}z} gives a word with more instances of the letter a {\displaystyle a} than the letter b {\displaystyle b} , since some instances of a {\displaystyle a} but none of b {\displaystyle b} were added. Therefore, x y 2 z {\displaystyle xy^{2}z} is not in L {\displaystyle L} which contradicts the pumping lemma. Therefore, L {\displaystyle L} cannot be regular. The proof that the language of balanced (i.e., properly nested) parentheses is not regular follows the same idea. Given p {\displaystyle p} , there is a string of balanced parentheses that begins with more than p {\displaystyle p} left parentheses, so that y {\displaystyle y} will consist entirely of left parentheses. By repeating y {\displaystyle y} , a string can be produced that does not contain the same number of left and right parentheses, and so they cannot be balanced. == Proof of the pumping lemma == For every regular language there is a finite-state automaton (FSA) that accepts the language. The number of states in such an FSA are counted and that count is used as the pumping length p {\displaystyle p} . For a string of length at least p {\displaystyle p} , let q 0 {\displaystyle q_{0}} be the start state and let q 1 , . . . , q p {\displaystyle q_{1},...,q_{p}} be the sequence of the next p {\displaystyle p} states visited as the string is emitted. Because the FSA has only p {\displaystyle p} states, within this sequence of p + 1 {\displaystyle p+1} visited states there must be at least one state that is repeated. Write q s {\displaystyle q_{s}} for such a state. The transitions that take the machine from the first encounter of state q s {\displaystyle q_{s}} to the second encounter of state q s {\displaystyle q_{s}} match some string. This string is called y {\displaystyle y} in the lemma, and since the machine will match a string without the y {\displaystyle y} portion, or with the string y {\displaystyle y} repeated any number of times, the conditions of the lemma are satisfied. For example, the following image shows an FSA. The FSA accepts the string: abcd. Since this string has a length at least as large as the number of states, which is four (so the total number of states that the machine passes through to scan abcd would be 5), the pigeonhole principle indicates that there must be at least one repeated state among the start state and the next four visited states. In this example, only q 1 {\displaystyle q_{1}} is a repeated state. Since the substring bc takes the machine through transitions that start at state q 1 {\displaystyle q_{1}} and end at state q 1 {\displaystyle q_{1}} , that portion could be repeated and the FSA would still accept, giving the string abcbcd. Alternatively, the bc portion could be removed and the FSA would still accept giving the string ad. In terms of the pumping lemma, the string abcd is broken into an x {\displaystyle x} portion a, a y {\displaystyle y} portion bc and a z {\displaystyle z} portion d. As a side remark, the problem of checking whether a given string can be accepted by a given nondeterministic finite automaton without visiting any state repeatedly, is NP hard. == General version of pumping lemma for regular languages == If a language L {\displaystyle L} is regular, then there exists a number p ≥ 1 {\displaystyle p\geq 1} (the pumping length) such that every string u w v {\displaystyle uwv} in L {\displaystyle L} with | w | ≥ p {\displaystyle |w|\geq p} can be written in the form u w v = u x y z v {\displaystyle uwv=uxyzv} with strings x {\displaystyle x} , y {\displaystyle y} and z {\displaystyle z} such that | x y | ≤ p {\displaystyle |xy|\leq p} , | y | ≥ 1 {\displaystyle |y|\geq 1} and u x y i z v {\displaystyle uxy^{i}zv} is in L {\displaystyle L} for every integer i ≥ 0 {\displaystyle i\geq 0} . From this, the above standard v
Schema-agnostic databases
Schema-agnostic databases or vocabulary-independent databases aim at supporting users to be abstracted from the representation of the data, supporting the automatic semantic matching between queries and databases. Schema-agnosticism is the property of a database of mapping a query issued with the user terminology and structure, automatically mapping it to the dataset vocabulary. The increase in the size and in the semantic heterogeneity of database schemas bring new requirements for users querying and searching structured data. At this scale it can become unfeasible for data consumers to be familiar with the representation of the data in order to query it. At the center of this discussion is the semantic gap between users and databases, which becomes more central as the scale and complexity of the data grows. == Description == The evolution of data environments towards the consumption of data from multiple data sources and the growth in the schema size, complexity, dynamicity and decentralisation (SCoDD) of schemas increases the complexity of contemporary data management. The SCoDD trend emerges as a central data management concern in Big Data scenarios, where users and applications have a demand for more complete data, produced by independent data sources, under different semantic assumptions and contexts of use, which is the typical scenario for Semantic Web Data applications. The evolution of databases in the direction of heterogeneous data environments strongly impacts the usability, semiotics and semantic assumptions behind existing data accessibility methods such as structured queries, keyword-based search and visual query systems. With schema-less databases containing potentially millions of dynamically changing attributes, it becomes unfeasible for some users to become aware of the 'schema' or vocabulary in order to query the database. At this scale, the effort in understanding the schema in order to build a structured query can become prohibitive. == Schema-agnostic queries == Schema-agnostic queries can be defined as query approaches over structured databases which allow users satisfying complex information needs without the understanding of the representation (schema) of the database. Similarly, Tran et al. defines it as "search approaches, which do not require users to know the schema underlying the data". Approaches such as keyword-based search over databases allow users to query databases without employing structured queries. However, as discussed by Tran et al.: "From these points, users however have to do further navigation and exploration to address complex information needs. Unlike keyword search used on the Web, which focuses on simple needs, the keyword search elaborated here is used to obtain more complex results. Instead of a single set of resources, the goal is to compute complex sets of resources and their relations." The development of approaches to support natural language interfaces (NLI) over databases have aimed towards the goal of schema-agnostic queries. Complementarily, some approaches based on keyword search have targeted keyword-based queries which express more complex information needs. Other approaches have explored the construction of structured queries over databases where schema constraints can be relaxed. All these approaches (natural language, keyword-based search and structured queries) have targeted different degrees of sophistication in addressing the problem of supporting a flexible semantic matching between queries and data, which vary from the completely absence of the semantic concern to more principled semantic models. While the demand for schema-agnosticism has been an implicit requirement across semantic search and natural language query systems over structured data, it is not sufficiently individuated as a concept and as a necessary requirement for contemporary database management systems. Recent works have started to define and model the semantic aspects involved on schema-agnostic queries. === Schema-agnostic structured queries === Consist of schema-agnostic queries following the syntax of a structured standard (for example SQL, SPARQL). The syntax and semantics of operators are maintained, while different terminologies are used. ==== Example 1 ==== SELECT ?y { BillClinton hasDaughter ?x . ?x marriedTo ?y . } which maps to the following SPARQL query in the dataset vocabulary: ==== Example 2 ==== which maps to the following SPARQL query in the dataset vocabulary: === Schema-agnostic keyword queries === Consist of schema-agnostic queries using keyword queries. In this case the syntax and semantics of operators are different from the structured query syntax. ==== Example ==== "Bill Clinton daughter married to" "Books by William Goldman with more than 300 pages" == Semantic complexity == As of 2016 the concept of schema-agnostic queries has been developed primarily in academia. Most of schema-agnostic query systems have been investigated in the context of Natural Language Interfaces over databases or over the Semantic Web. These works explore the application of semantic parsing techniques over large, heterogeneous and schema-less databases. More recently, the individuation of the concept of schema-agnostic query systems and databases have appeared more explicitly within the literature. Freitas et al. provide a probabilistic model on the semantic complexity of mapping schema-agnostic queries.
Seppo Linnainmaa
Seppo Ilmari Linnainmaa (born 28 September 1945) is a Finnish mathematician and computer scientist known for creating the modern version of backpropagation. == Biography == He was born in Pori. He received his MSc in 1970 and introduced a reverse mode of automatic differentiation in his MSc thesis. In 1974 he obtained the first doctorate ever awarded in computer science at the University of Helsinki. In 1976, he became Assistant Professor. From 1984 to 1985 he was Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland, USA. From 1986 to 1989 he was Chairman of the Finnish Artificial Intelligence Society. From 1989 to 2007, he was Research Professor at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. He retired in 2007. == Backpropagation == Explicit, efficient error backpropagation in arbitrary, discrete, possibly sparsely connected, neural networks-like networks was first described in Linnainmaa's 1970 master's thesis, albeit without reference to NNs, when he introduced the reverse mode of automatic differentiation (AD), in order to efficiently compute the derivative of a differentiable composite function that can be represented as a graph, by recursively applying the chain rule to the building blocks of the function. Linnainmaa published it first, following Gerardi Ostrowski who had used it in the context of certain process models in chemical engineering some five years earlier, but didn't publish.