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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS%20Hopper | USS Hopper (DDG-70) is an guided missile destroyer of the United States Navy, named for the pioneering computer scientist Rear Admiral Grace Hopper.
Hopper is only the second US Navy warship to be named for a woman from the Navy's own ranks. This ship is the 20th destroyer of her class. Hopper was the 11th ship of this class to be built at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, and construction began on 23 February 1995. She was launched and christened on 6 January 1996. On 6 September 1997, she was commissioned in San Francisco.
Service history
Deployments
Hopper has participated in multiple deployments to East Asia and the Persian Gulf, including RIMPAC 98, three individual PACMEF deployments, an Expeditionary Strike Group deployment to the Persian Gulf in 2004, and a deployment to Southeast Asia in support of Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) 2006. In addition, Hopper has been foremost in the field of Ballistic Missile Defense.
On 1 April 2002, Hopper departed for a six-month deployment to the North Persian Gulf.
On 12 November 2007, Hopper departed with the Expeditionary Strike Group for a scheduled deployment to the Fifth Fleet and Seventh Fleet.
On 6 January 2008, Hopper was involved in an incident with five gunboats of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Hopper, along with , a guided missile cruiser, and , a guided missile frigate, were entering the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz when the five Iranian boats approached them at high speed and in a threatening manner. The US Navy ships had been in the Arabian Sea searching for a sailor who had been missing from Hopper for 24 hours. The US Navy said the Iranian boats made "threatening" moves toward the US Navy vessels, coming as close as . The US Navy received a radio transmission saying, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." As the US Navy ships prepared to fire, the Iranians abruptly turned away, the US officials said. Before leaving, the Iranians dropped white boxes into the water in front of the US Navy ships. The US Navy ships did not investigate the boxes.
Officials from the two nations differed on the severity of the incident. The Iranians claimed they were conducting normal maneuvers while American officials claimed that an imminent danger to American naval vessels existed.
On 15 April 2011, Hopper departed from Pearl Harbor on a deployment to Asia and the Middle East.
On 22 June 2014, Hopper, with her Aegis Combat System, detected and tracked a test missile launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll using her onboard AN/SPY-1 radar, providing critical targeting data to a long-range ground-based interceptor (GBI) launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. GBI's protect the US from limited long-range ballistic missile attack.
In January 2018, Hopper performed a freedom of navigation cruise, sailing within 12 nautical miles of the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. China, which has held the rocky out |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northbridge%20%28computing%29 | In computing, a northbridge (also host bridge, or memory controller hub) is one of two chips comprising the core logic chipset architecture on older motherboards for personal computers. A northbridge is connected directly to a CPU via the front-side bus (FSB) to handle high-performance tasks, and is usually used in conjunction with a slower southbridge to manage communication between the CPU and other parts of the motherboard. Since the 2010s, die shrink and improved transistor density have allowed for increasing chipset integration, and the functions performed by northbridges are now often incorporated into other components (like southbridges or CPUs themselves). As of 2019, Intel and AMD had both released chipsets in which all northbridge functions had been integrated into the CPU. Modern Intel Core processors have the northbridge integrated on the CPU die, where it is known as the uncore or system agent.
On older Intel based PCs, the northbridge was also named external memory controller hub (MCH) or graphics and memory controller hub (GMCH) if equipped with integrated graphics. Increasingly these functions became integrated into the CPU chip itself, beginning with memory and graphics controllers. For Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Accelerated Processing Unit processors introduced in 2011, all of the functions of the northbridge reside on the CPU. The corresponding southbridge was renamed by Intel as the Platform Controller Hub and by AMD as the Fusion controller hub. AMD FX CPUs continued to require external northbridge and southbridge chips.
Historically, separation of functions between CPU, northbridge, and southbridge chips was necessary due to the difficulty of integrating all components onto a single chip die. However, as CPU speeds increased over time, a bottleneck emerged due to limitations caused by data transmission between the CPU and its support chipset. The trend for integrated northbridges began near the end of the 2000s — for example, the Nvidia GeForce 320M GPU in the 2010 MacBook Air was a northbridge/southbridge/GPU combo chip.
Overview
The northbridge typically handles communications among the CPU, in some cases RAM, and PCI Express (or AGP) video cards, and the southbridge. Some northbridges also contain integrated video controllers, also known as a Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) in Intel systems. Because different processors and RAM require different signaling, a given northbridge will typically work with only one or two classes of CPUs and generally only one type of RAM.
There are a few chipsets that support two types of RAM; generally, these are made available when there is a shift to a new standard. For example, the northbridge from the 2002 Nvidia nForce2 chipset only worked with Socket A processors combined with DDR SDRAM.
Etymology
The name is derived from drawing the architecture in the fashion of a map. The CPU would be at the top of the map comparable to due north on most general purpose geographical m |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerQuest | PowerQuest was a software company that produced utility software. It was acquired by Symantec in 2003. PowerQuest's market focus was on management of computer data storage, especially file systems and disk partitions. Their products included PartitionMagic, DriveCopy, Drive Image, and ServerMagic.
PowerQuest was started in the basement of Eric J. Ruff in Orem, Utah. PowerQuest earned Mr. Ruff the 64th spot on the Inc. 500 list in 2000, and earned many awards for being one of the fastest growing software companies in the world.
References
External links
http://www.powerquest.com/ - Original web site (since replaced by Symantec web site)
(Last Internet Archive copy from before Symantec acquisition)
Defunct software companies of the United States
Gen Digital acquisitions
Companies disestablished in 2003
Companies based in Orem, Utah |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association%20for%20Progressive%20Communications | The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an international network of organizations that was founded in 1990 to provide communication infrastructure, including Internet-based applications, to groups and individuals who work for peace, human rights, protection of the environment, and sustainability. Pioneering the use of ICTs for civil society, especially in developing countries, APC were often the first providers of Internet in their member countries.
APC is a worldwide network of social activists who use the internet to make the world a better place. APC is both a network and an organisation. APC members are groups working in their own countries to advance the same mission as APC. APC has more than 59 members, mostly in Asia, Africa and Latina America, from five continents. This is a challenge and a strength, because members are at the two extremes of internet development (members in South Korea with incredible connectivity and members in rural Nigeria where they have to power computers using car batteries and solar power) and in between.
History
Background and creation
APC was founded in 1990 by:
Institute for Global Communications (IGC), San Francisco, USA
GreenNet, London, United Kingdom
IBASE, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Nicarao, Managua, Nicaragua
Pegasus Networks, Byron Bay, Australia
Web Networks, Toronto, Canada
NordNet, Sweden
The activists working with United Nations–sponsored data management NGO (IDOC) create a network of like-minded organisations working with information and alternative media. At this point they communicated mainly using fax and regular mail. People physically travelled around transporting and sharing databases of information and software on disks.
In 1988, on the verge of APC creation, Mitra Ardron describes the central characteristic of the future APC user, present operations and the history of APC precedents: PeaceNet, EcoNet and GreenNet. He also expresses a common commitment to global communication available to everyone.
UN status
Collaboration between APC and the United Nations began in 1992, in preparation for the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), more popularly known as the Earth Summit. As APC had the only international, civil society communications network in existence at that time, the UNCED secretariat published their information in APC conferences. They had no other way of distributing information so economically and so effectively. (The UN itself began distributing information by electronic means many years later).
Email links are set up between Cuba and APC networks. They call the Cuban servers three times a day to deliver and collect email.
The cooperation continues over the years. APC received consultative status to the UN with the several quadrennial reports submitted over the years. APC also cooperated with United Nations Development Programme. APC actively participate in UN initiatives such as Millennium Development Goals. The studies of violence again |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southbridge%20%28computing%29 | The southbridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on older personal computer (PC) motherboards, the other being the northbridge. As of 2023, most personal computer devices no longer use a set of two chips, and instead have a single chip acting as the 'chipset', for example Intel's Z790 chipset.
The southbridge typically implemented the slower capabilities of the motherboard in a northbridge/southbridge chipset computer architecture. In systems with Intel chipsets, the southbridge has been named I/O Controller Hub (ICH), while AMD has named its southbridge Fusion Controller Hub (FCH) since the introduction of its Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) while moving the functions of the Northbridge onto the CPU die, hence making it similar in function to the Platform hub controller.
The southbridge can usually be distinguished from the northbridge by not being directly connected to the CPU. Rather, the northbridge ties the southbridge to the CPU. Through the use of controller integrated channel circuitry, the northbridge can directly link signals from the I/O units to the CPU for data control and access.
Current status
Due to the push for system-on-chip (SoC) processors, modern devices increasingly have the northbridge integrated into the CPU die itself; examples are Intel's Sandy Bridge and AMD's Fusion processors, both released in 2011. The southbridge became redundant and it was replaced by the Platform Controller Hub (PCH) architecture introduced with the Intel 5 Series chipset in 2008 while AMD did the same with the release of their first APUs in 2011, naming the PCH the Fusion controller hub (FCH), which was only used on AMD's APUs until 2017 when it began to be used on AMD's Zen architecture while dropping the FCH name. On Intel platforms, all southbridge features and remaining I/O functions are managed by the PCH which is directly connected to the CPU via the Direct Media Interface (DMI). Intel low power processor (Haswell-U and onward) and Ultra low power processor (Haswell-Y and onward) also integrated an on-package PCH. Based on its Chiplet design, AMD Ryzen processors also integrated some southbridge functions, such as some USB interface and some SATA/NVMe interface.
Overview
A southbridge chipset handled many of a computer's I/O functions, such as USB, audio, the system BIOS, the ISA bus or the LPC bus, the low speed PCI/PCIe bus, the IOAPIC interrupt controller, the SATA storage, the historical PATA storage, and the NVMe storage. Different combinations of Southbridge and Northbridge chips are possible, but these two kinds of chips must be designed to work together; there is no industry-wide standard for interoperability between different core logic chipset designs. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the interface between a northbridge and southbridge was the PCI bus. As of 2023, the main bridging interfaces used are Ultra Path Interconnect (Intel) and PCI Express (AMD).
Etymology
The name is derived from representi |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebirds | Freebirds may refer to:
The Fabulous Freebirds, a professional wrestling stable
Free Birds, a 2013 American 3D computer-animated buddy comedy film
See also
Free Bird, a song by the American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template%20Haskell | Template Haskell is an experimental language extension to the Haskell programming language implemented in the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (version 6 and later). In early incarnations it was also known as Template Meta-Haskell.
It allows compile-time metaprogramming and generative programming by means of manipulating abstract syntax trees and 'splicing' results back into a program. The abstract syntax is represented using ordinary Haskell data types and the manipulations are performed using ordinary Haskell functions.
'Quasi-quote' brackets [| and |] are used to get the abstract syntax tree for the enclosed expression and 'splice' brackets $( and ) are used to convert from abstract syntax tree into code.
As of GHC-6.10, Template Haskell provides support for user-defined quasi-quoters, which allows users to write parsers which can generate Haskell code from an arbitrary syntax. This syntax is also enforced at compile time. For example, using a custom quasi-quoter for regular expressions could look like this:
digitsFollowedByLetters = [$re| \d+ \s+ |]
Example
A common idiom is to quasi-quote an expression, perform some transformation on the expression and splice the result back into the program. It could be written as:
result = $( transform [| input |] )
References
External links
Template Haskell Wiki Page
Experimental programming languages
Haskell programming language family
Functional languages
Metaprogramming |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodesk%20Alias | Autodesk Alias (formerly known as Alias StudioTools) is a family of computer-aided industrial design (CAID) software predominantly used in automotive design and industrial design for generating class A surfaces using Bézier surface and non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) modeling method.
The product is sold specifically as CAID rather than CAD, and its tools and abilities are oriented more towards the "styling" aspect of design - that is to say, the product's housing and outer appearance. It does not go into mechanical detail like other CAD programs such as Siemens NX, Inventor, CATIA, Creo and SolidWorks.
History
Alias Research
Alias software was developed by four computer scientists: Stephen Bingham, Nigel McGrath, Susan McKenna and David Springer to create an easy-to-use software package to produce realistic 3D models.
In 1983, Alias Research was founded at Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Alias unveiled its first product Alias/1 in 1985 at SIGGRAPH '85 in San Francisco.
Initial versions ran only on Silicon Graphics computers and the Irix operating system, until late in the 1990s when the software was ported to Microsoft Windows. In 2011 Mac versions were launched, which were discontinued in 2019. The company was a leader in high-end 3D graphics software.
Under Silicon Graphics
In 1995, Alias Research was purchased by Silicon Graphics and merged Wavefront Technologies, another 3D software graphics company founded in 1984 at Santa Barbara, California, to form Alias/Wavefront which was later renamed as Alias Systems Corporation.
Under Autodesk
On October 4, 2005 Alias was acquired by Autodesk, StudioTools changed its name to Autodesk AliasStudio. It became part of Autodesk in 2006.
Products
The product suite starts with Alias Design as the entry-level conceptual design system, progressing to Alias Surface, and then to Alias Automotive as the top-of-the-line product with all of the options.
Tools for sketching, modeling and visualization are combined in one software package. It meets the specialized needs of designers: sketching, freedom to experiment with shape and form, creating organic shapes, visualization for design review, and data exchange with CAD packages.
As of version 2021, Autodesk Alias was split into separate standalone products:
Autodesk Alias AutoStudio (formerly Autodesk Alias Automotive)
Autodesk Alias Surface (formerly Autodesk Surface Studio)
Autodesk Alias Concept ( formerly Autodesk Design Studio)
Usage and application
Autodesk Alias is often used for design and styling in the automotive, marine, aircraft, sporting equipment, packaging electronic enclosure, children's toy, and fashion accessory markets.
Alias .wire data reads directly into Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Showcase, Autodesk ImageStudio, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk VRED and It exports into several other 3D engineering packages via IGES or STEP such as Siemens NX, SolidWorks, Creo and CATIA for further downstream detailing and operations.
The prog |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth%20Action%20Network | The Youth Action Network (formerly the National Federation of Youth Action Agencies) was a UK-wide youth organisation that promotes volunteering by young people in their communities.
The organisation was set up in 1989 under the name World Affairs Canada as a support network for Youth Action Agencies across the country, it later changed name to Youth Action Network in 1995. It was supported itself by the National Youth Agency, though this support ceased with the launch of Millennium Volunteers in 1999.
One of the chief successes of the organisation has been the development of a quality assurance model, based on PQASSO, for its members.
It merged into NCVYS on 9 March 2012
Youth Action Network members include:
Aylesbury Youth Action (founder member)
Youth Action Cambridge (founder member)
Solent Youth Action
The Ivy Project
Youth Action Network currently has around 100 member organisations which pay an annual fee to be a member of the network.
May also stand for young adult novel, in certain circumstances, including and not limited to fanfictions. These fanfictions often refer to movies in the late 20th century.
References
Volunteer organisations in the United Kingdom
Action Network, Youth
1995 establishments in the United Kingdom
Organizations established in 1995 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial-on-demand%20routing | Dial on Demand Routing (DDR) is a routing technique where a network connection to a remote site is established only when needed. In other words, if the router tries to send out data and the connection is off, then the router will automatically establish a connection, send the information, and close the connection when no more data needs to be sent. DDR is advantageous for companies that must pay per minute for a WAN setup, where a connection is always established. Constant connections can become needlessly expensive if the company does not require a constant internet connection.
How it works
There are two parts to establishing a connection with DDR: the physical connection and the digital connection. The physical connection consists of the actual cable that connects computers on the network and the network interface card that allows for communication over these cables. DDR uses existing Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) lines – or the network of all public circuit-switched telephone networks - to form a connection between the sender and receiver.
The second part of establishing a DDR connection consists of establishing the digital signal. This requires one to determine the protocols to be used over the logical connection. DDR uses a Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) link, which handles all networking functions such as sending, receiving and compressing the signals between two computers on the internet. In other words, the PPP link uses telephone lines to send signals between you and the computer containing your desired website when you wish to make a connection to the internet.
DDR can be used both as a primary and as a backup connection. Today, DDR is mainly used for backup connections which go live when the primary connection fails. DDR connections are inherently slow and service fees are charged like phone calls depending on the uptime. DDR can be used with modems or Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) connections, which allow it to achieve a maximum connection speed of only 1.544 Mbit/s in the US and 2.048 Mbit/s in Europe and Australia.
Design considerations
One important factor to be minimized is the connection establishment delay. This is the time from when the user first attempts to make a connection to when the receiving computer begins to receive information. This delay can range from 3 to over 20 seconds depending on various factors. These include but are not limited to the type of physical cable used in the connection, the distance the data is being sent, and the protocols used to send the information. Knowing the extent of the delay is a very important part of designing an efficient DDR system. If the delay when attempting to establish a connection is too great, the application will abandon the connection attempt and try again.
Why DDR is still used today
Despite its drawbacks, there are two important reasons why Dial-on-Demand routing is used today: reliability and cost. These two factors become exceedingly |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza | Eliza or ELIZA may refer to:
Eliza (given name), a female given name (including a list of people and characters with the name)
ELIZA, a 1966 computer program designed to simulate a therapist or psychoanalyst
ELIZA effect, the tendency to relate computer behavior to human behavior
Eliza (magazine), an American fashion magazine
Eliza (ship), several ships
Eliza (horse), an American Thoroughbred racehorse
Arts and entertainment
Eliza (Arne), a 1754 opera by Thomas Arne
Eliza (Cherubini), a 1794 opera by Luigi Cherubini
Eliza (sculpture), a public artwork in the Swan River, Western Australia
"Eliza", a song by Phish from their 1992 album A Picture of Nectar
Eliza (English singer), English singer and songwriter formerly known as Eliza Doolittle
Eliza (video game), a 2019 video game
See also
Aliza, feminine given name
Elijah (prophet)
Elisa (given name)
ELISA (biochemical analytical procedure)
Elise (disambiguation)
Liza (disambiguation) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlekamp%E2%80%93Massey%20algorithm | The Berlekamp–Massey algorithm is an algorithm that will find the shortest linear-feedback shift register (LFSR) for a given binary output sequence. The algorithm will also find the minimal polynomial of a linearly recurrent sequence in an arbitrary field. The field requirement means that the Berlekamp–Massey algorithm requires all non-zero elements to have a multiplicative inverse. Reeds and Sloane offer an extension to handle a ring.
Elwyn Berlekamp invented an algorithm for decoding Bose–Chaudhuri–Hocquenghem (BCH) codes. James Massey recognized its application to linear feedback shift registers and simplified the algorithm. Massey termed the algorithm the LFSR Synthesis Algorithm (Berlekamp Iterative Algorithm), but it is now known as the Berlekamp–Massey algorithm.
Description of algorithm
The Berlekamp–Massey algorithm is an alternative to the Reed–Solomon Peterson decoder for solving the set of linear equations. It can be summarized as finding the coefficients Λj of a polynomial Λ(x) so that for all positions i in an input stream S:
In the code examples below, C(x) is a potential instance of Λ(x). The error locator polynomial C(x) for L errors is defined as:
or reversed:
The goal of the algorithm is to determine the minimal degree L and C(x) which results in all syndromes
being equal to 0:
Algorithm:
C(x) is initialized to 1, L is the current number of assumed errors, and initialized to zero. N is the total number of syndromes. n is used as the main iterator and to index the syndromes from 0 to N−1. B(x) is a copy of the last C(x) since L was updated and initialized to 1. b is a copy of the last discrepancy d (explained below) since L was updated and initialized to 1. m is the number of iterations since L, B(x), and b were updated and initialized to 1.
Each iteration of the algorithm calculates a discrepancy d. At iteration k this would be:
If d is zero, the algorithm assumes that C(x) and L are correct for the moment, increments m, and continues.
If d is not zero, the algorithm adjusts C(x) so that a recalculation of d would be zero:
The xm term shifts B(x) so it follows the syndromes corresponding to b. If the previous update of L occurred on iteration j, then m = k − j, and a recalculated discrepancy would be:
This would change a recalculated discrepancy to:
The algorithm also needs to increase L (number of errors) as needed. If L equals the actual number of errors, then during the iteration process, the discrepancies will become zero before n becomes greater than or equal to 2L. Otherwise L is updated and algorithm will update B(x), b, increase L, and reset m = 1. The formula L = (n + 1 − L) limits L to the number of available syndromes used to calculate discrepancies, and also handles the case where L increases by more than 1.
Pseudocode
The algorithm from for an arbitrary field:
polynomial(field K) s(x) = ... /* coeffs are s_j; output sequence as N-1 degree polynomial) */
/* connection polynomial */
polynomial |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination%20Games | Destination Games was an American computer game development company created in April 2000 by Richard Garriott, Robert Garriott and Starr Long, following their departure from Origin Systems. ("Destination" is a play on "Origin", the company the Garriotts founded nearly two decades earlier.)
Destination was founded in Austin, Texas to develop massively multiplayer online role-playing games. At E3 2001, Richard Garriott announced a partnership making Destination the United States headquarters of South Korean MMORPG giant NCSOFT. As NCSOFT Austin, Destination has mainly focused on developing and supporting the North American version of NCSOFT's Lineage games.
In 2007 Destination Games released its first game, Tabula Rasa, a sci-fi MMORPG. The game did not sell as well as was hoped, Richard Garriott left NCSOFT in 2008, and the game service closed in February 2009. The Destination Games website was taken down when NCsoft moved its United States headquarters from Austin to Seattle—calling it NCSOFT West—in 2008.
NCSOFT Austin employed five people to run the casual MMOG Dungeon Runners, but announced in 2009 that support for this game will be ending in early 2010 due to low subscription numbers. As of October 2009, NCSOFT employs about 150 people in the former Destination Games office in Austin mainly working in server operations, quality assurance, and customer support for various NCSOFT MMO titles, however development operations have moved completely to other NCSSOFT subsidiaries on the West Coast. The trademark Destination Games remains a property of NCSOFT.
References
External links
Destination Games
Forwards to PlayNC US or PlayNC Europe depending on location detected.
Original homepage prior to forwarding to NCSOFT websites can be found at this Internet Archive link: Destination Games, Inc.
NCSoft
Defunct video game companies of the United States
Video game development companies
Video game companies established in 2000
Video game companies disestablished in 2009
Companies based in Austin, Texas
Video game companies based in Texas
Defunct companies based in Texas
2000 establishments in Texas
2009 disestablishments in Texas |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSN | DSN may refer to:
Technology
Computing & Internet
Data set (IBM mainframe) Name, the name of a computer file having a record organization
Data source name, a data structure used to describe a connection to a data source
Delivery Status Notification message, an automated electronic mail message about a delivery problem
Distributed social network, a social network that is decentralised and distributed across multiple providers
International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks
.DSN (design file), industry-standard import file format of Specctra-compatible autorouters
Military and Intelligence
Defense Switched Network, a communications network operated by the United States Department of Defense
DSN DASH, the U.S. Navy's Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter.
DSN Satellite Network, a Japanese military X band satellite communications network operated by DSN Corporation
Direktion für Staatsschutz und Nachrichtendienst (Directorate for National Security and Intelligence), an Austrian intelligence agency
Space
Deep Space Network, a communication network
Media and Entertainment
Direct Sports Network, a sports centered digital media company, based in Irvine, California
Others
Dansk Sprognævn, the Danish Language Council
Deutsche Schulen Nigeria, a school system which includes the Deutsche Schule Abuja
IATA code for Ordos Ejin Horo Airport, China
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a science fiction television program
Doctor of Science in Nursing |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical%20form | In mathematics and computer science, a canonical, normal, or standard form of a mathematical object is a standard way of presenting that object as a mathematical expression. Often, it is one which provides the simplest representation of an object and allows it to be identified in a unique way. The distinction between "canonical" and "normal" forms varies from subfield to subfield. In most fields, a canonical form specifies a unique representation for every object, while a normal form simply specifies its form, without the requirement of uniqueness.
The canonical form of a positive integer in decimal representation is a finite sequence of digits that does not begin with zero. More generally, for a class of objects on which an equivalence relation is defined, a canonical form consists in the choice of a specific object in each class. For example:
Jordan normal form is a canonical form for matrix similarity.
The row echelon form is a canonical form, when one considers as equivalent a matrix and its left product by an invertible matrix.
In computer science, and more specifically in computer algebra, when representing mathematical objects in a computer, there are usually many different ways to represent the same object. In this context, a canonical form is a representation such that every object has a unique representation (with canonicalization being the process through which a representation is put into its canonical form). Thus, the equality of two objects can easily be tested by testing the equality of their canonical forms.
Despite this advantage, canonical forms frequently depend on arbitrary choices (like ordering the variables), which introduce difficulties for testing the equality of two objects resulting on independent computations. Therefore, in computer algebra, normal form is a weaker notion: A normal form is a representation such that zero is uniquely represented. This allows testing for equality by putting the difference of two objects in normal form.
Canonical form can also mean a differential form that is defined in a natural (canonical) way.
Definition
Given a set S of objects with an equivalence relation R on S, a canonical form is given by designating some objects of S to be "in canonical form", such that every object under consideration is equivalent to exactly one object in canonical form. In other words, the canonical forms in S represent the equivalence classes, once and only once. To test whether two objects are equivalent, it then suffices to test equality on their canonical forms.
A canonical form thus provides a classification theorem and more, in that it not only classifies every class, but also gives a distinguished (canonical) representative for each object in the class.
Formally, a canonicalization with respect to an equivalence relation R on a set S is a mapping c:S→S such that for all s, s1, s2 ∈ S:
c(s) = c(c(s)) (idempotence),
s1 R s2 if and only if c(s1) = c(s2) (decisiveness), and
s R c(s) (representa |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark%20%28disambiguation%29 | A quark is an elementary particle.
Quark may also refer to:
"Quark", a nonce word in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and the origin of the particle name
Computing
Quark (company), a software manufacturer
Quark (kernel), a microkernel used in the MorphOS operating system
QuArK or Quake Army Knife, a game editor
Quark (hash function), a cryptographic hash function
Intel Quark, a line of CPUs designed for small size and low power consumption
Quarks, X resources representing strings using integers
BlackBerry Quark, a line of smartphones
Entertainment
Music
Quark Records, a former name of Emanem Records
Quark, a 1980 album by Japanese jazz fusion artist Jun Fukamachi
"Quark" (song), a 1994 song by German rock band Die Ärzte
"Quark", a 1995 song by BT from Ima
Fictional characters
Quark (Star Trek), in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Captain Qwark, a character in Ratchet & Clank video games
Quark, in Valhalla
Quark, a Marvel Comics character often associated with Longshot
Quark, a type of robot from Doctor Who
Quark, a white dragon from Lunar: The Silver Star and its remakes
Quark, the family dog in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
Quark, in Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
Other uses
Quark/, four books of original short stories and poetry published in 1970 and 1971
Quark (magazine), a 1970s popular science and puzzle magazine
Quark (TV series), a short-lived 1977/1978 science fiction sitcom
Other uses
Quark (technical festival), an annual technical festival
Quark (dairy product), a type of fresh dairy product similar to cottage cheese
Peugeot Quark, a concept car
See also
Quark, Strangeness and Charm, an album by Hawkwind
"Quark, Strangeness and Charm" (song), the title track of this album
Quirks & Quarks, a Canadian weekly science news program
Quirk (disambiguation)
Cark, a village in Cumbria, England |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory%20protection | Memory protection is a way to control memory access rights on a computer, and is a part of most modern instruction set architectures and operating systems. The main purpose of memory protection is to prevent a process from accessing memory that has not been allocated to it. This prevents a bug or malware within a process from affecting other processes, or the operating system itself. Protection may encompass all accesses to a specified area of memory, write accesses, or attempts to execute the contents of the area. An attempt to access unauthorized memory results in a hardware fault, e.g., a segmentation fault, storage violation exception, generally causing abnormal termination of the offending process. Memory protection for computer security includes additional techniques such as address space layout randomization and executable space protection.
Methods
Segmentation
Segmentation refers to dividing a computer's memory into segments. A reference to a memory location includes a value that identifies a segment and an offset within that segment. A segment descriptor may limit access rights, e.g., read only, only from certain rings.
The x86 architecture has multiple segmentation features, which are helpful for using protected memory on this architecture. On the x86 architecture, the Global Descriptor Table and Local Descriptor Tables can be used to reference segments in the computer's memory. Pointers to memory segments on x86 processors can also be stored in the processor's segment registers. Initially x86 processors had 4 segment registers, CS (code segment), SS (stack segment), DS (data segment) and ES (extra segment); later another two segment registers were added – FS and GS.
Paged virtual memory
In paging the memory address space or segment is divided into equal-sized blocks called pages. Using virtual memory hardware, each page can reside in any location at a suitable boundary of the computer's physical memory, or be flagged as being protected. Virtual memory makes it possible to have a linear virtual memory address space and to use it to access blocks fragmented over physical memory address space.
Most computer architectures which support paging also use pages as the basis for memory protection.
A page table maps virtual memory to physical memory. There may be a single page table, a page table for each process, a page table for each segment, or a hierarchy of page tables, depending on the architecture and the OS. The page tables are usually invisible to the process. Page tables make it easier to allocate additional memory, as each new page can be allocated from anywhere in physical memory. On some systems a page table entry can also designate a page as read-only.
Some operating systems set up a different address space for each process, which provides hard memory protection boundaries.
It is impossible for an unprivileged application to access a page that has not been explicitly allocated to it, because every memory address |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount%20Media%20Networks | Paramount Media Networks (founded as MTV Networks in 1984 and known under this name until 2011; thereafter known as Viacom Media Networks until 2019) is an American mass media division of Paramount Global that oversees the operations of many of its television channels and online brands. Its related international division is Paramount International Networks.
The division's original namesake, MTV, is managed through a subsidiary called MTV Entertainment Group.
History
Pre-launch: Warner Communications joint venture (1977–1984)
Warner Cable Communications was founded on December 1, 1977, by Warner Cable, itself a division of Warner Communications, to launch QUBE, an interactive cable television network. Seeing the potential in the creation of new cable networks, Warner Cable divested QUBE's biggest brands, Star Channel, Pinwheel and Sight on Sound, into nationwide outlets. Star Channel began by satellite in January 1979 and was renamed The Movie Channel by the end of the year. The original Channel C-3, by then known as Pinwheel, became Nickelodeon in April 1979. As a result of these actions, Warner Cable Communications would then be rebranded as Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, becoming a joint venture between Warner Cable and American Express.
In 1980, Warner-Amex formed a joint venture with Cablevision's Rainbow Media division to launch Bravo, a cable network dedicated to arts and films, on December 1, 1980. Full control of the channel, however, was sold to Rainbow Media in 1984; NBC would acquire Bravo in 2003, and the channel is now currently owned by Comcast's NBCUniversal.
On August 1, 1981, MTV debuted.
In 1983, concerned by the strategic and financial failure of its pay-TV venture The Movie Channel (started to reap the benefits Time Inc. was having with HBO and Cinemax), WASEC established a joint venture with Viacom, merging TMC with their premium movie network Showtime to form Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc.; WASEC, however, had no operational involvement in the joint venture.
Launch as MTV Networks, Viacom gets full ownership (1984–2011)
On June 25, 1984, Warner Communications made the decision to divest Nickelodeon, MTV, and VH-1 (launched in 1985; Warner acquired it from Turner) into a new public corporation called MTV Networks. A year later, Warner would acquire the 50% stake from American Express.
On August 27, 1985, Warner sold 31% of MTV Networks to Viacom, with Warner also selling 19% of its Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. joint to Viacom as well.
In November 1985, Viacom announced that it had plans to buy the remaining 69% of MTV Networks from Warner for $326 million, The acquisition was completed on May 20, 1986.
In 2003, MTV Networks assumed full ownership of Comedy Central from AOL Time Warner.
On December 31, 2005, the remnants of MTV Networks and Showtime Networks were separated following Viacom's split into two entities: CBS Corporation, which retained CBS, UPN, Simon & Schuster and Showtime Networks (Showt |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell%20EMC | Dell EMC (EMC Corporation until 2016) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and Round Rock, Texas, United States. Dell EMC sells data storage, information security, virtualization, analytics, cloud computing and other products and services that enable organizations to store, manage, protect, and analyze data. Dell EMC's target markets include large companies and small- and medium-sized businesses across various vertical markets. The company's stock (as EMC Corporation) was added to the New York Stock Exchange on April 6, 1986, and was also listed on the S&P 500 index.
EMC was acquired by Dell in 2016; at that time, Forbes noted EMC's "focus on developing and selling data storage and data management hardware and software and convincing its customers to buy its products independent of their other IT buying decisions" based on "best-of-breed." It was later renamed to Dell EMC. Dell uses the EMC name with some of its products.
Prior to its acquisition by Dell, EMC had, in 2008, acquired Iomega; Dell EMC formed a partnership with Lenovo in 2013, as LenovoEMC, that superseded and rebranded Iomega.
History
EMC, founded in 1979 by Richard Egan and Roger Marino (the E and M of EMC), introduced its first 64-kilobyte (65,536 bytes) memory boards for the Prime Computer in 1981. EMC continued to develop memory boards for other computer types. In the mid-1980s, the company expanded beyond memory to other computer data storage types and networked storage platforms. EMC began shipping its flagship product, the Symmetrix, in 1990.
While some of EMC's growth is credited to acquisitions of smaller companies, Symmetrix was the main factor in EMC's rapid growth during the 1990s, from a firm valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars to a multi-billion dollar company.
In 2009 EMC signed a two-year deal to be the principal shirt sponsor for English Rugby Union club London Wasps in a deal worth £1 Million. This was later extended until the end of the 2013 season.
Michael Ruettgers joined EMC in 1988 and served as CEO from 1992 until January 2001. Under Ruettgers' leadership, EMC revenues grew from $120 million to nearly $9 billion 10 years later, and the company shifted its focus from memory boards to storage systems. Ruettgers was named one of BusinessWeeks "World's Top 25 Executives"; one of the "Best Chief Executive Officers in America" by Worth magazine; and one of Network Worlds "25 Most Powerful People in Networking".
Ahead of their acquisition by Dell, EMC gained a reputation for oppressive non-compete agreements and non-compete lobbying through AIM (Associated Industries of Massachusetts)
Acquisition by Dell
On October 12, 2015, Dell Inc. announced its intent to acquire EMC in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $67 billion, which as of 2021 remains the largest-ever acquisition in the technology sector. The combination of Dell's enterprise server, personal computer, and mobile businesses with EMC's enterpr |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International%20Computers%20Limited | International Computers Limited (ICL) was a British computer hardware, computer software and computer services company that operated from 1968 until 2002. It was formed through a merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), English Electric Computers (EEC) and Elliott Automation in 1968. The company's most successful product line was the ICL 2900 Series range of mainframe computers.
In later years, ICL diversified its product line but the bulk of its profits always came from its mainframe customers. New ventures included marketing a range of powerful IBM clones made by Fujitsu, various minicomputer and personal computer ranges and (more successfully) a range of retail point-of-sale equipment and back-office software. Although it had significant sales overseas, ICL's mainframe business was dominated by large contracts from the UK public sector, including Post Office Ltd, the Inland Revenue, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Defence. It also had a strong market share with UK local authorities and (at that time) nationalised utilities including the water, electricity, and gas boards.
The company had an increasingly close relationship with Fujitsu from the early 1980s, culminating in Fujitsu becoming sole shareholder in 1998. ICL was rebranded as Fujitsu in April 2002. The ICL brand is still used by the former Russian joint-venture of the company, founded in 1991.
Origins
International Computers Limited was formed in 1968 as a part of the Industrial Expansion Act of the Wilson Labour Government. ICL was an initiative of Tony Benn, the Minister of Technology, to create a British computer industry that could compete with major world manufacturers like IBM; the formation of the company was the last in a series of mergers that had taken place in the industry since the late 1950s.
The main portions of ICL were formed by merging International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) with English Electric Computers, the latter a recent merger of Elliott Automation with English Electric Leo Marconi computers, which itself had been a merger of the computer divisions of English Electric, LEO and Marconi. Upon its creation, the British government held a 10% stake in the company and provided a $32.4 million research-and-development grant spread across four years.
International Computers and Tabulators (ICT)
ICT was itself the result of a merger of two UK companies that had competed with each other throughout the 1930s and 1940s during the punched card era: British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) and Powers-Samas. ICT had thus emerged with equipment that would process data encoded on punched cards with 40, 80 or 160 columns, compared to the 64 or 80 columns used by IBM and its predecessors.
In 1962, ICT delivered the first ICT 1300 series computer, its first transistor machine and also the first to use core memory. A small team from Ferranti's Canadian subsidiary, Ferranti-Packard, visited the various Ferranti computer labs an |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefined%20behavior | In computer programming, undefined behavior (UB) is the result of executing a program whose behavior is prescribed to be unpredictable, in the language specification to which the computer code adheres. This is different from unspecified behavior, for which the language specification does not prescribe a result, and implementation-defined behavior that defers to the documentation of another component of the platform (such as the ABI or the translator documentation).
In the C community, undefined behavior may be humorously referred to as "nasal demons", after a comp.std.c post that explained undefined behavior as allowing the compiler to do anything it chooses, even "to make demons fly out of your nose".
Overview
Some programming languages allow a program to operate differently or even have a different control flow than the source code, as long as it exhibits the same user-visible side effects, if undefined behavior never happens during program execution. Undefined behavior is the name of a list of conditions that the program must not meet.
In the early versions of C, undefined behavior's primary advantage was the production of performant compilers for a wide variety of machines: a specific construct could be mapped to a machine-specific feature, and the compiler did not have to generate additional code for the runtime to adapt the side effects to match semantics imposed by the language. The program source code was written with prior knowledge of the specific compiler and of the platforms that it would support.
However, progressive standardization of the platforms has made this less of an advantage, especially in newer versions of C. Now, the cases for undefined behavior typically represent unambiguous bugs in the code, for example indexing an array outside of its bounds. By definition, the runtime can assume that undefined behavior never happens; therefore, some invalid conditions do not need to be checked against. For a compiler, this also means that various program transformations become valid, or their proofs of correctness are simplified; this allows for various kinds of optimizations whose correctness depend on the assumption that the program state never meets any such condition. The compiler can also remove explicit checks that may have been in the source code, without notifying the programmer; for example, detecting undefined behavior by testing whether it happened is not guaranteed to work, by definition. This makes it hard or impossible to program a portable fail-safe option (non-portable solutions are possible for some constructs).
Current compiler development usually evaluates and compares compiler performance with benchmarks designed around micro-optimizations, even on platforms that are mostly used on the general-purpose desktop and laptop market (such as amd64). Therefore, undefined behavior provides ample room for compiler performance improvement, as the source code for a specific source code statement is allowed to be mapped |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discretization%20error | In numerical analysis, computational physics, and simulation, discretization error is the error resulting from the fact that a function of a continuous variable is represented in the computer by a finite number of evaluations, for example, on a lattice. Discretization error can usually be reduced by using a more finely spaced lattice, with an increased computational cost.
Examples
Discretization error is the principal source of error in methods of finite differences and the pseudo-spectral method of computational physics.
When we define the derivative of as or , where is a finitely small number, the difference between the first formula and this approximation is known as discretization error.
Related phenomena
In signal processing, the analog of discretization is sampling, and results in no loss if the conditions of the sampling theorem are satisfied, otherwise the resulting error is called aliasing.
Discretization error, which arises from finite resolution in the domain, should not be confused with quantization error, which is finite resolution in the range (values), nor in round-off error arising from floating-point arithmetic. Discretization error would occur even if it were possible to represent the values exactly and use exact arithmetic – it is the error from representing a function by its values at a discrete set of points, not an error in these values.
References
See also
Discretization
Linear multistep method
Quantization error
Numerical analysis |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database%20and%20Collections%20of%20Information%20Misappropriation%20Act | The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act, , was a proposed bill in the United States House of Representatives during the 108th United States Congress. It would have altered copyright law to permit assertion of copyright ownership over factual data.
Proponents argued that the bill was based on the 1996 EU Database Directive, and was designed to encourage database creators by ensuring their revenue advantage. Opponents, who included Google and Verizon argued that it would restrict access to and use of facts.
In March 2004, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unfavorably reported H.R. 3261. The committee approved a competing, less comprehensive bill, the Consumer Access to Information Act , which dealt only with "time sensitive" information, and would have instructed the Federal Trade Commission to take action against unfair trade practices.
See also
Intellectual property legislation pending in the United States Congress
Digital Future Coalition
External links
Zetter, Kim. "Hands Off! That Fact Is Mine." Wired News March 3, 2004.
HR 3261 as introduced (PDF)
US Chamber of Commerce opposition
Advocacy discussion
Court case that the bill addressed
Proposed legislation of the 108th United States Congress
United States copyright law |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%20Office%20Limited | Post Office Limited is a retail post office company in the United Kingdom that provides a wide range of products including postage stamps and banking to the public through its nationwide network of around 11,500 post office branches. Most of these branch post offices (%) are run by franchise partners or by independent business people known as subpostmasters; the remaining 1% are directly managed by Post Office Limited (these are known as Crown post offices).
History
Post Office branches, along with the Royal Mail delivery service, were formerly part of the General Post Office and after 1969, the Post Office corporation. Post Office Counters Limited was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Post Office in 1987. After the Post Office statutory corporation was changed to a public company, Royal Mail Group, in 2001, Post Office Counters Limited became Post Office Limited.
With declining mail usage, Post Office Limited has had chronic losses, with a reported £102 million lost in 2006. This raised concerns in the media regarding its ability as a company to operate efficiently. Plans to cut the £150m-a-year subsidy for rural post offices led to the announcement that 2,500 local post offices were to be closed. This announcement resulted in a backlash from local communities that relied on the service.
In 2007, the government gave a £1.7 billion subsidy to Royal Mail Group so that it could turn a profit by 2011. This was to be used to invest across the whole network of Royal Mail, Post Office Limited, and Parcelforce. Eighty-five Crown post offices were closed, 70 of which were sold to WHSmith. This followed a trial of six Post Office outlets in WHSmith stores. WHSmith was expected to make up to £2.5 million extra in annual profit. 2,500 sub-post offices closed between 2008 and 2009. Redundancy packages were provided from public funding (subpostmasters were paid over 20 months salary, roughly £65,000 each).
In November 2010, the government committed £1.34 billion of funding up to 2015 to Post Office Limited to enable it to modernise the Post Office network.
As part of the Postal Services Act 2011, Post Office Limited became independent of Royal Mail Group on 1 April 2012. A ten-year inter-business agreement was signed between the two companies to allow post offices to continue issuing stamps and handling letters and parcels for Royal Mail. The Act also contained the option for Post Office Limited to become a mutual organisation in the future.
On 8 February 2013, Post Office Limited announced it was planning to move around seventy of its Crown post offices into shops. This would reduce the Crown network, which it stated was losing £40 million a year, to around 300.
On 27 November 2013, the government committed an additional £640 million of funding for 2015 to 2018 to allow Post Office Limited to complete its network modernisation.
In June 2015, the Post Office launched its own mobile virtual network operator service, Post Office Mobile. Howe |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xai | Xai, XAI or xAI may refer to:
Explainable Artificial Intelligence, in artificial intelligence technology
Xai-Xai, a city in the south of Mozambique
XAI, the IATA airport code for Xinyang Minggang Airport, in Xinyang, China
xai, the ISO 639-3 language code of Kaimbé language, an extinct language in Brazil.
xAI (company), artificial intelligence company
See also |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh%20quotient%20iteration | Rayleigh quotient iteration is an eigenvalue algorithm which extends the idea of the inverse iteration by using the Rayleigh quotient to obtain increasingly accurate eigenvalue estimates.
Rayleigh quotient iteration is an iterative method, that is, it delivers a sequence of approximate solutions that converges to a true solution in the limit. Very rapid convergence is guaranteed and no more than a few iterations are needed in practice to obtain a reasonable approximation. The Rayleigh quotient iteration algorithm converges cubically for Hermitian or symmetric matrices, given an initial vector that is sufficiently close to an eigenvector of the matrix that is being analyzed.
Algorithm
The algorithm is very similar to inverse iteration, but replaces the estimated eigenvalue at the end of each iteration with the Rayleigh quotient. Begin by choosing some value as an initial eigenvalue guess for the Hermitian matrix . An initial vector must also be supplied as initial eigenvector guess.
Calculate the next approximation of the eigenvector by
where is the identity matrix,
and set the next approximation of the eigenvalue to the Rayleigh quotient of the current iteration equal to
To compute more than one eigenvalue, the algorithm can be combined with a deflation technique.
Note that for very small problems it is beneficial to replace the matrix inverse with the adjugate, which will yield the same iteration because it is equal to the inverse up to an irrelevant scale (the inverse of the determinant, specifically). The adjugate is easier to compute explicitly than the inverse (though the inverse is easier to apply to a vector for problems that aren't small), and is more numerically sound because it remains well defined as the eigenvalue converges.
Example
Consider the matrix
for which the exact eigenvalues are , and , with corresponding eigenvectors
, and .
(where is the golden ratio).
The largest eigenvalue is and corresponds to any eigenvector proportional to
We begin with an initial eigenvalue guess of
.
Then, the first iteration yields
the second iteration,
and the third,
from which the cubic convergence is evident.
Octave implementation
The following is a simple implementation of the algorithm in Octave.
function x = rayleigh(A, epsilon, mu, x)
x = x / norm(x);
% the backslash operator in Octave solves a linear system
y = (A - mu * eye(rows(A))) \ x;
lambda = y' * x;
mu = mu + 1 / lambda
err = norm(y - lambda * x) / norm(y)
while err > epsilon
x = y / norm(y);
y = (A - mu * eye(rows(A))) \ x;
lambda = y' * x;
mu = mu + 1 / lambda
err = norm(y - lambda * x) / norm(y)
end
end
See also
Power iteration
Inverse iteration
References
Lloyd N. Trefethen and David Bau, III, Numerical Linear Algebra, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1997. .
Rainer Kress, "Numerical Analysis", Springer, 1991.
Numerical linear algebra
Articles with example MATLAB/Octave code |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenvalue%20algorithm | In numerical analysis, one of the most important problems is designing efficient and stable algorithms for finding the eigenvalues of a matrix. These eigenvalue algorithms may also find eigenvectors.
Eigenvalues and eigenvectors
Given an square matrix of real or complex numbers, an eigenvalue and its associated generalized eigenvector are a pair obeying the relation
where is a nonzero column vector, is the identity matrix, is a positive integer, and both and are allowed to be complex even when is real. When , the vector is called simply an eigenvector, and the pair is called an eigenpair. In this case, . Any eigenvalue of has ordinary eigenvectors associated to it, for if is the smallest integer such that for a generalized eigenvector , then is an ordinary eigenvector. The value can always be taken as less than or equal to . In particular, for all generalized eigenvectors associated with .
For each eigenvalue of , the kernel consists of all eigenvectors associated with (along with 0), called the eigenspace of , while the vector space consists of all generalized eigenvectors, and is called the generalized eigenspace. The geometric multiplicity of is the dimension of its eigenspace. The algebraic multiplicity of is the dimension of its generalized eigenspace. The latter terminology is justified by the equation
where is the determinant function, the are all the distinct eigenvalues of and the are the corresponding algebraic multiplicities. The function is the characteristic polynomial of . So the algebraic multiplicity is the multiplicity of the eigenvalue as a zero of the characteristic polynomial. Since any eigenvector is also a generalized eigenvector, the geometric multiplicity is less than or equal to the algebraic multiplicity. The algebraic multiplicities sum up to , the degree of the characteristic polynomial. The equation is called the characteristic equation, as its roots are exactly the eigenvalues of . By the Cayley–Hamilton theorem, itself obeys the same equation: . As a consequence, the columns of the matrix must be either 0 or generalized eigenvectors of the eigenvalue , since they are annihilated by . In fact, the column space is the generalized eigenspace of .
Any collection of generalized eigenvectors of distinct eigenvalues is linearly independent, so a basis for all of can be chosen consisting of generalized eigenvectors. More particularly, this basis can be chosen and organized so that
if and have the same eigenvalue, then so does for each between and , and
if is not an ordinary eigenvector, and if is its eigenvalue, then (in particular, must be an ordinary eigenvector).
If these basis vectors are placed as the column vectors of a matrix , then can be used to convert to its Jordan normal form:
where the are the eigenvalues, if and otherwise.
More generally, if is any invertible matrix, and is an eigenvalue of with generalized eigenvector , then . Thus is an eigen |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MECC | The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (later Corporation), most commonly known as MECC, was an organization founded in 1971 best known for developing the edutainment video game series The Oregon Trail and its spinoffs. The goal of the organization was to coordinate and provide computer services to schools in the state of Minnesota; however, its software eventually became popular in schools around the world. MECC had its headquarters in the Brookdale Corporate Center in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. It was acquired by SoftKey in 1995 and was shut down in 1999.
History
Origins
During the 1960s, Minnesota was a center of computer technology, what City Pages would describe 50 years later as a "Midwestern Silicon Valley". IBM, Honeywell, Control Data and other companies had facilities in the state. In 1963, their presence inspired a group of teachers at the University of Minnesota College of Education's laboratory school to introduce computers into classrooms via teleprinters and time-sharing. The group began with long-distance calls to Dartmouth College's General Electric computer to use John George Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz's new Dartmouth BASIC language, then moved to Minneapolis-based Pillsbury Company's own GE computer. In 1968, 20 Minneapolis-Saint Paul area school districts and the College of Education founded Total Information for Educational Systems (TIES) to provide time-sharing service on a HP 2000, training, and software. The presence of computer-company employees on many school boards accelerated TIES's expansion and helped make Minnesota a leader in computer-based education.
TIES's success, and similar projects run by Minneapolis Public Schools and Minnesota State University, Mankato, led to the founding of MECC in 1973 by the state legislature. As a Joint Powers Authority, with the support of the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, and the Minnesota Department of Education, MECC's role was to study and coordinate computer use in schools for both administrative and educational purposes. Schools, including the universities, had to get MECC's approval for most computing expenses, and were also its customers for computer-related services. After study of educational needs, a single educational computer center in the Minneapolis area was recommended for use by schools throughout the state (the University of Minnesota's MERITSS computer provided time-sharing services to its campuses and to state universities). MECC hoped that every Minnesota school, regardless of size, would have a terminal connected to the computer center.
Computing facilities
SUMITS, a UNIVAC 1110 mainframe was installed at the MECC facility at 1925 Sather, address later changed to 2520 Broadway Drive, next to Highway 280. A sturdy industrial building originally used for electrical maintenance, part of the building was already occupied by the University of Minnesota's Lauderdale computing facility. SUMITS was a batch |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth%20BASIC | Dartmouth BASIC is the original version of the BASIC programming language. It was designed by two professors at Dartmouth College, John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz. With the underlying Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS), it offered an interactive programming environment to all undergraduates as well as the larger university community.
Several versions were produced at Dartmouth, implemented by undergraduate students and operating as a compile and go system. The first version ran on 1 May 1964, and it was opened to general users in June. Upgrades followed, culminating in the seventh and final release in 1979. Dartmouth also introduced a dramatically updated version known as Structured BASIC (or SBASIC) in 1975, which added various structured programming concepts. SBASIC formed the basis of the ANSI-standard Standard BASIC efforts in the early 1980s.
Most dialects of BASIC trace their history to the Fourth Edition (which added e.g. string variables, which most BASIC users take for granted, though the original could print strings), but generally leave out more esoteric features like matrix math. In contrast to the Dartmouth compilers, most other BASICs were written as interpreters. This decision allowed them to run in the limited main memory of early microcomputers. Microsoft BASIC is one example, designed to run in only 4 KB of memory. By the early 1980s, tens of millions of home computers were running some variant of the MS interpreter. It became the de facto standard for BASIC, which led to the abandonment of the ANSI SBASIC efforts. Kemeny and Kurtz later formed a company to develop and promote a version of SBASIC known as True BASIC.
Many early mainframe games trace their history to Dartmouth BASIC and the DTSS system. A selection of these were collected, in HP Time-Shared BASIC versions, in the People's Computer Company book What to do after you hit Return. Many of the original source listings in BASIC Computer Games and related works also trace their history to Dartmouth BASIC.
Development history
Earlier work
John G. Kemeny joined the mathematics department of Dartmouth College in 1953 and later became its department chairman. In 1956 he gained access to an IBM 704 via MIT's New England Regional Computer Center efforts. That year, he wrote the DARSIMCO language, a version of assembler which simplified the programming of mathematical operations. He was aided by Thomas E. Kurtz, who joined the department that year.
DARSIMCO was forgotten when the first FORTRAN compiler was installed on the machine in 1957. The arrival of FORTRAN instilled an important lesson. Kurtz, having been indoctrinated that FORTRAN was slow, spent several months writing a program in 704 assembler which had taken up about an hour of CPU time to debug and still wasn't running. Giving up, he rewrote it in FORTRAN and had it running in five minutes. The lesson was that high-level languages could save time, regardless of their measured performance.
In 1959, the sch |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindset%20%28computer%29 | The Mindset is an Intel 80186-based MS-DOS personal computer. It was developed by the Mindset Corporation and released in spring 1984. Unlike other IBM PC compatibles of the time, it has custom graphics hardware supporting a 320x200 resolution with 16 simultaneous colors (chosen from a 512-shade palette) and hardware-accelerated drawing capabilities, including a blitter, allowing it to update the screen 50 times as fast as an IBM standard color graphics adapter. The basic unit was priced at . It is conceptually similar to the more successful Amiga released over a year later. Key engineers of both the Amiga and Mindset were ex-Atari, Inc. employees.
The system didn't sell well and was only on the market for about a year. This was lamented by industry commenters, who saw compatibility taking precedence over innovation. Its distinctive case remains in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
History
Roger Badertscher was head of Atari, Inc.'s Home Computer Division until 1982 when he resigned in order to set up a new company to produce a new personal computer. As president of Mindset Corporation, he brought a number of Atari engineers with him.
Design
In most computer systems of the era, the CPU is used to create graphics by drawing bit patterns directly into memory. Separate hardware then reads these patterns and produces the actual video signal for the display. The Mindset added a new custom-designed VLSI vector processor to handle many common drawing tasks, like lines or filling areas. Instead of the CPU doing all of this work by changing memory directly, in the Mindset the CPU sets up those instructions and then hands off the actual bit fiddling to the separate processor.
Badertscher compared the chipset to the Intel 8087 floating point processor, running alongside the Intel 80186 on which the machine is based. There are a number of parallels between the Mindset and the Amiga 1000, another computer designed by ex-Atari engineers that offered advanced graphics.
The Mindset's look was designed by Robert Brunner who would go on to provide design and direction for all Apple product lines from 1989-1997. His distinctive case for the Mindset is included by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in its permanent collection.
As development continued and it became clear that the machine would be ready before the MS-DOS-based Microsoft Windows 1.0 was, Bill Gates became personally involved in the project to assist Mindset in emulating IBM character graphics without losing performance. Once Mindset officials determined that most of the desirable software was compatible, development was frozen and the OS burned to ROM in late 1983. The ROM does not run about 20% of the PC software base, including Microsoft Flight Simulator. WordStar is one of the PC applications reported to run, and Mindset publicized a list of 60 applications that run unmodified. The software base was expected to increase dramatically once a final version of Win |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative%20distributed%20problem%20solving | In computing cooperative distributed problem solving is a network of semi-autonomous processing nodes working together to solve a problem, typically in a multi-agent system. That is concerned with the investigation of problem subdivision, sub-problem distribution, results synthesis, optimisation of problem solver coherence and co-ordination. It is closely related to distributed constraint programming and distributed constraint optimization; see the links below.
Aspects of CDPS
Neither global control or global data storage – no individual CDPS problem solver (agent) has sufficient information to solve the entire problem.
Control and data are distributed
Communication is slower than computation, therefore:
Loose coupling between problem solvers
Efficient protocols (not too much communication overhead)
problems should be modular, coarse grained
Any unique node is a potential bottleneck
Organised behaviour is hard to guarantee since no one node has the complete picture
See also
Multiscale decision making
Distributed constraint optimization
Distributed artificial intelligence
Multi-agent planning
Some relevant books
A chapter in an edited book.
See Chapters 1 and 2; downloadable free online.
Applications of distributed computing
Problem solving |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European%20long-distance%20paths | The European long-distance paths (E-paths) are a network of long-distance footpaths that traverse Europe. While most long-distance footpaths in Europe are located in just one country or region, each of these numbered European long-distance paths passes through many countries.
The first long-distance hiking trail in Europe was the National Blue Trail of Hungary, established in 1938. The formation of the European Union made transnational hiking trails possible. Today the network consists of 12 paths and covers more than , crisscrossing Europe. In general the routes connect and make use of existing national and local trails such as the GR footpaths.
The paths are officially designated by the European Ramblers' Association.
List
See also
Geography of Europe
GR footpath
EuroVelo, the European cycle route network
Long-distance trails in the United States
References
External links
Overview of the paths (European Ramblers' Association)
Find all hiking trails (Waymarkedtrails.org)
Find the OpenStreetMap Project on E-paths (Openstreetmap.org)
Transcaucasian Trail (Transcaucasian Trail)
01
Europe |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher%20%28software%29 | Dasher is an input method and computer accessibility tool which enables users to compose text without using a keyboard, by entering text on a screen with a pointing device such as a mouse, touch screen, or mice operated by the foot or head. Such instruments could serve as prosthetic devices for disabled people who cannot use standard keyboards, or where the use of one is impractical.
Dasher is free and open-source software, subject to the requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2. Dasher is available for operating systems with GTK+ support, i.e. Linux, BSDs and other Unix-like including macOS, Microsoft Windows, Pocket PC, iOS and Android.
Dasher was invented by David J. C. MacKay and developed by David Ward and other members of MacKay's Cambridge research group. The Dasher project is supported by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and by the EU aegis-project.
Design
For whatever the writer intends to write, they select a letter from ones displayed on a screen by using a pointer, whereupon the system uses a probabilistic predictive model to anticipate the likely character combinations for the next piece of text, and accord these higher priority by displaying them more prominently than less likely letter combinations. This saves the user effort and time as they proceed to choose the next letter from those offered. The process of composing text in this way has been likened to an arcade game, as users zoom through characters that fly across the screen and select them in order to compose text. The system learns from experience which letter combinations are the most popular, and changes its display protocol over time to reflect this.
Features
The Dasher package contains various architecture-independent data files:
alphabet descriptions for over 150 languages
letter colours settings
training files in all supported languages
References
External links
User interfaces
User interface techniques
Pointing-device text input
Disability software
Free software programmed in C
Free software programmed in C++
Free software programmed in Java (programming language)
GNOME Accessibility
Cross-platform free software
Free and open-source Android software |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image%20viewer | An image viewer or image browser is a computer program that can display stored graphical images; it can often handle various graphics file formats. Such software usually renders the image according to properties of the display such as color depth, display resolution, and color profile.
Although one may use a full-featured raster graphics editor (such as Photoshop or GIMP) as an image viewer, these have many editing functionalities which are not needed for just viewing images, and therefore usually start rather slowly. Also, most viewers have functionalities that editors usually lack, such as stepping through all the images in a directory (possibly as a slideshow).
Image viewers give maximal flexibility to the user by providing a direct view of the directory structure available on a hard disk. Most image viewers do not provide any kind of automatic organization of pictures and therefore the burden remains on the user to create and maintain their folder structure (using tag- or folder-based methods). However, some image viewers also have features for organizing images, especially an image database, and hence can also be used as image organizer.
Some image viewers, such as Windows Photo Viewer that come with Windows operating systems, change a JPEG image if it is rotated, resulting in loss of image quality; others offer lossless rotation.
Features
Typical features of image viewers are:
basic viewing operations such as zooming and rotation
fullscreen display
slideshow
thumbnail display
printing
screen capture
photo editor (if installed)
The ability to jump to a random file in the folder to facilitate searching.
Advanced features are:
decode next image in advance and keep previous decoded image in memory for fast image changes
display (and edit) metadata such as XMP, IPTC Information Interchange Model and Exif
batch conversion (image format, image dimensions, etc.) and renaming
create contact sheets
create HTML thumbnail pages
different transition effects for slideshows
See also
Comparison of image viewers
Comparison of CAD, CAM and CAE file viewers
Desktop organizer
Image organizer
Electronic document
Media player
Text editor
Web browser
Graphics software |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currah | Currah was a British computer peripheral manufacturer, famous mainly for the speech synthesis ROM cartridges it designed for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and other 8-bit home computers of the 1980s.
Currah μSource for the ZX Spectrum
Currah μSource from Quadhouse. In a self-contained ROM cartridge it has a full-function-two-pass macro assembler, Forth and a debugger, all of which can interact with Basic. It is also compatible with Interface 1.
Currah μSpeech for the ZX Spectrum
The Currah μSpeech, commonly referred to as the Microspeech, plugged into the expansion port on the back of the ZX Spectrum. Additional leads were provided to feed the sound and UHF signal from the computer into the unit. The TV aerial lead plugged into the unit and speech sounds were added into the UHF signal generated by computer.
By default, the unit "spoke" every key-press the user made, even the direction keys which came out as "CURSOR". This could be controlled by a reserved variable KEYS. Typing
LET KEYS=0
would turn this feature off.
Programming speech
Specific words and phrases could be spoken by assigning a value to the reserved string variable S$. This was interpreted letter-by-letter unless brackets were used to denote other allophones. A simple example would be "(dth)is", (dth) representing the voiced dental fricative /ð/. Sixty-three allophones were provided. Rudimentary pitch modulation could be achieved by altering the case of the letters—upper case letters being pronounced at a slightly higher pitch.
A more complex example:
5 REM OKAY WISEGUY THIS IS IT
10 LET a$=" (oo)K (AA)"
20 LET b$="w(ii)z (ggg) (ii),"
30 LET c$=" (dth)is iz it"
40 LET S$=a$+b$+c$
Technical details
The unit contained a ULA which worked on a WRITE command from the microprocessor, a ROM containing the keyword speech patterns, and an SP0256-AL2 speech processor. It also contained a clock for clear speech and an audio modulator to transfer the sound to the TV lead. A small adjustment screw was provided, to allow fine tuning of the audio output.
The unit allocated itself the top 256 bytes of memory at switch-on and moved down the USR graphics and RAMTOP. This made it incompatible with some programs, particularly games, which use that space for machine code.
For cost reasons, the unit did not provide for daisy-chaining of further devices on the computer's expansion port. Many joystick interface manufacturers took the same approach, meaning that you could not have a joystick and the MicroSpeech unit plugged in at the same time.
Booty (Firebird Software Ltd) detected the presence of a MicroSpeech unit and presented the user with a completely different game to that which would be played if the MicroSpeech unit was not present.
History
Currah was acquired by DK'Tronics in 1985. DK'Tronics continued to manufacture the MicroSpeech unit, and many of their software titles (such as Maziacs and Zig Zag) supported it.
External links
Review of the product at CRASH magazine
L |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction%20protocol | Within the fields of computer science and robotics, interaction protocols are possible communication scenarios between individual agents in multi-agent systems. Some protocols are described quite qualitatively (for example, many parts of the traffic code), but others have a formal model, whose implementations can be tested for conformance (for example, some cryptographic protocols).
FIPA defines markup for interaction protocol diagrams and several standard interaction protocols, including Dutch auction, English auction and reply-response.
See also
Multi-agent planning
References
Data interchange standards
Markup languages |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LonWorks | LonWorks or Local Operating Network is an open standard (ISO/IEC 14908) for networking platforms specifically created to address the needs of control applications. The platform is built on a protocol created by Echelon Corporation for networking devices over media such as twisted pair, power lines, fiber optics, and wireless. It is used for the automation of various functions within buildings such as lighting and HVAC; see building automation.
Origins and uptake
The technology has its origins with chip designs, power line, twisted pair, signaling technology, routers, network management software, and other products from Echelon Corporation. In 1999 the communications protocol (then known as LonTalk) was submitted to ANSI and accepted as a standard for control networking (ANSI/CEA-709.1-B). Echelon's power line and twisted pair signaling technology was also submitted to ANSI for standardization and accepted. Since then, ANSI/CEA-709.1 has been accepted as the basis for IEEE 1473-L (in-train controls), AAR electro-pneumatic braking systems for freight trains, IFSF (European petrol station control), SEMI (semiconductor equipment manufacturing), and in 2005 as EN 14908 (European building automation standard). The protocol is also one of several data link/physical layers of the BACnet ASHRAE/ANSI standard for building automation.
China ratified the technology as a national controls standard, GB/Z 20177.1-2006, and as a building and intelligent community standard, GB/T 20299.4-2006; and in 2007 CECED, the European Committee of Domestic Equipment Manufacturers, adopted the protocol as part of its Household Appliances Control and Monitoring – Application Interworking Specification (AIS) standards.
In 2008, ISO and IEC granted the communications protocol, twisted pair signaling technology, power line signaling technology, and Internet Protocol (IP) compatibility standard numbers ISO/IEC 14908-1, -2, -3, and -4.
Usage
By 2010, approximately 90 million devices were installed with LonWorks technology. Manufacturers in a variety of industries including building, home, street lighting, transportation, utility, and industrial automation have adopted the platform as the basis for their product and service offerings. Statistics as to the number of locations using the LonWorks technology are scarce, but products and applications built on top of the platform include such diverse functions as embedded machine control, municipal and highway/tunnel/street lighting, heating and air conditioning systems, intelligent electricity metering, subway train control, building lighting, stadium lighting and speaker control, security systems, fire detection and suppression, and newborn location monitoring and alarming, as well as remote power generation load control.
Technical details
Two physical-layer signaling technologies, twisted pair free topology and power-line carrier, are typically included in each of the standards created around the LonWorks technology. The two |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane%20keyboard | A membrane keyboard is a computer keyboard whose "keys" are not separate, moving parts, as with the majority of other keyboards, but rather are pressure pads that have only outlines and symbols printed on a flat, flexible surface. Very little, if any, tactile feedback is felt when using such a keyboard.
Membrane keyboards work by electrical contact between the keyboard surface and the underlying circuits when keytop areas are pressed. These models were used with some early 1980s home computers, enjoying wide adoption in consumer electronics devices. The keyboards are quite inexpensive to mass-produce, and are more resistant against dirt and liquids than most other keyboards. However, due to a low or non-existent tactile feedback, most people have difficulty typing with them, especially when larger numbers of characters are being typed. Chiclet keyboards were a slight improvement, at least allowing individual keys to be felt to some extent.
Aside from early hobbyist/kit/home computers and some video game consoles, membrane-based QWERTY keyboards are used in some industrial computer systems, and are also found as portable, even "rollable-collapsible" designs for PDAs and other pocket computing devices. Smaller, specialised membrane keyboards, typically numeric-and-a-few-control-keys only, have been used in access control systems (for buildings and restricted areas), simple handheld calculators, domestic remote control keypads, microwave ovens, and other similar devices where the amount of typing is relatively small or infrequent, such as cell phones.
Modern PC keyboards are essentially a membrane keyboard mechanism covered with an array of dome switches which give positive tactile feedback.
Mechanism
The membrane (typically made out of Polyethylene terephthalate or PET) keyboard consists of three layers: two layers containing traces of conductive ink and the center layer is a "spacer" containing holes wherever a two conductive "key" pads count touch upon being pressed. The third layer keeps the other two layers separated in order to prevent short-circuit.
Under normal conditions, the switch (key) is open, because current cannot cross the non-conductive gap between the traces on the bottom layer. However, when the top layer is pressed down (with a finger), it makes contact with the bottom layer. The conductive traces on the underside of the top layer can then bridge the gap, allowing current to flow. The switch is now "closed", and the parent device registers a keypress.
Many applications benefit from the sealed nature of the membrane keypad. Feedback can easily be provided to the user via audible means (e.g. a beep) or visually (lights or via the display itself), or via both means together. For additional wear resistance, a simple, easily replaceable protective clear sheet can be placed in front of the membrane. Membrane keyboards are widely used in consumer electronics, industrial, commercial, scientific and military equipment.
See also
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken%20Sakamura | , as of April 2017, is a Japanese professor and dean of the Faculty of Information Networking for Innovation and Design at Toyo University, Japan. He is a former professor in information science at the University of Tokyo (through March 2017). He is the creator of the real-time operating system (RTOS) architecture TRON.
In 2001, he shared the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Well-Being with Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds.
Career
As of 2006, Sakamura leads the ubiquitous networking laboratory (UNL), located in Gotanda, Tokyo, and the T-Engine forum for consumer electronics. The joint goal of Sakamura's ubiquitous networking specification and the T-Engine forum, is to enable any everyday device to broadcast and receive information. It is essentially a TRON variant, paired with a competing standard to radio-frequency identification (RFID).
Since the foundation of the T-Engine forum, Sakamura has been working on opening Japanese technology to the world. His prior brainchild, TRON, the universal RTOS used in Japanese consumer electronics has had limited adoption in other countries. Sakamura has signed deals with Chinese and Korean universities to work together on ubiquitous networking. He has also worked with French software component manufacturer NexWave Solutions, Inc. He is an external board member for Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), Japan.
Ubiquitous Communicator
The Ubiquitous Communicator (UC) is a mobile computing device designed by Sakamura for use in ubiquitous computing. On 15 September 2004, YRP-UNL announced in Japan that it had begun producing a new model after creating five prototypes over three years. The model was used in trial tests circa late 2004. The new model, weighing about 196 grams, contains new features: RFID reader compatible for ucode, a two megapixel charge-coupled device (CCD) camera, a secondary 300,000 pixel camera for videotelephony, support for wireless network technologies, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and IrDA, VoIP phone feature, SD and mini-SD memory card slots, fingerprint authentication, and encryption coprocessor as options. It was expected to be sold for ¥300,000 yen, $2,700 dollars.
Honors
In May 2015, Sakamura received the prestigious ITU150 award from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), along with Bill Gates, Robert E. Kahn, Thomas Wiegand, Mark I. Krivosheyev, and Martin Cooper. The following is the citation given by ITU:
... Today, the real-time operating systems based on the TRON specifications are used for engine control on automobiles, mobile phones, digital cameras, and many other appliances, and are believed to be the among most popular operating systems for embedded computers around world. The R&D results from TRON Project are useful for ubiquitous computing. For example, UNL joined the standardization efforts at ITU-T and helped produce a series of Recommendations, including H.642 “Multimedia information access triggered by tag-based identification”. The idea behind H.642 series i |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic%20semantics | Axiomatic semantics is an approach based on mathematical logic for proving the correctness of computer programs. It is closely related to Hoare logic.
Axiomatic semantics define the meaning of a command in a program by describing its effect on assertions about the program state. The assertions are logical statements—predicates with variables, where the variables define the state of the program.
See also
Algebraic semantics (computer science) — in terms of algebras
Denotational semantics — by translation of the program into another language
Operational semantics — in terms of the state of the computation
Formal semantics of programming languages — overview
Predicate transformer semantics — describes the meaning of a program fragment as the function transforming a postcondition to the precondition needed to establish it.
Assertion (computing)
References
Formal specification languages
Logic in computer science
Programming language semantics |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9-Qu%C3%A9bec | The Société de télédiffusion du Québec (; ), branded as Télé-Québec () (formerly known as Radio-Québec), is a Canadian French-language public educational television network in the province of Quebec. It is a provincial Crown corporation owned by the Government of Quebec. The network's main studios and headquarters are located at the corner of de Lorimier Street and East René Lévesque Boulevard in Montreal.
Télé-Québec is equivalent to Ontario's TVOntario and their French counterpart TFO, and British Columbia's Knowledge Network, and similar to the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and its affiliated state networks, in that it is somewhat modest in scope, runs mostly educational or cultural programming and doesn't try to compete with privately owned television networks or with the ICI Radio-Canada Télé network owned and operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. However, unlike TFO and the anglophone educational networks, it runs commercials during its programming.
All programming on Télé-Québec is in French, although there are a few shows and movies that are presented in the original language (predominantly English), with French subtitles.
Télé-Québec operates local offices in Val-d'Or, Trois-Rivières, Rimouski, Gatineau, Sept-Îles, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Saguenay and Carleton-sur-Mer.
Télé-Québec is one of the partners in the TV5 Québec Canada and TV5Monde consortiums. It also had a 25% stake in the French-Canadian arts specialty channel, Ici ARTV, which it sold to the CBC in 2010.
History
On April 20, 1945, the Legislative Assembly of Quebec, under the mandate of Premier Maurice Duplessis, passed a law allowing Quebec to create and run a public broadcasting network, as a provincial counterpart to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
However, it never got beyond the planning stages until February 22, 1968, when the Daniel Johnson Sr. administration created a new public broadcasting agency, "Radio-Québec", under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. Shortly afterward, the first Radio-Québec program, a radio program on the history of Canada called En montant la rivière, was produced. Produced later that year was its first television program, Les Oraliens, where space aliens taught kids how to properly pronounce French words and phrases.
In 1969, a new law was passed by the National Assembly of Quebec, creating l'Office de radio-télédiffusion du Québec ("Quebec Office of Radio and Television Broadcasting"), where Radio-Québec was placed.
Radio-Québec began broadcasting on its own on September 1, 1972, as a cable channel, which broadcast evenings on community channels in Montreal and Quebec City, then expanded in 1973 to Hull, Gatineau and Sherbrooke. As a cable network, Radio-Québec was generally on the air weeknights from 8 pm to 10 pm. The network of over-the-air transmitters was launched on January 19, 1975 with the sign-ons of CIVM-TV in Montreal and CIVQ-TV in Quebec City, making its programming available to a |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruft | Cruft is a jargon word for anything that is left over, redundant and getting in the way. It is used particularly for defective, superseded, useless, superfluous, or dysfunctional elements in computer software.
History
Around 1958, the term was used in the sense of "garbage" by students frequenting the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In the 1959 edition of the club's dictionary, it was defined as "that which magically amounds in the Clubroom just before you walk in to clean up. In other words, rubbage". Its author Peter Samson later explained that this was meant in the sense of "detritus, that which needs to be swept up and thrown out. The dictionary has no definition for 'crufty,' a word I didn't hear until some years later". Cruft can also refer to alumni who remain socially active at MIT.
The origin of the term is uncertain, but it may be derived from Harvard University's Cruft Laboratory. Built in 1915 as a gift from a donor named Harriet Otis Cruft, it housed the Harvard Physics Department's radar lab during World War II.
Software
The FreeBSD handbook uses the term to refer to leftover or superseded object code that accumulates in a folder or directory when software is recompiled and new executables and data files are produced. Such cruft, if required for the new executables to work properly, can cause the BSD equivalent of dependency hell. The word is also used to describe instances of unnecessary, leftover or just poorly written source code in a computer program that is then uselessly, or even harmfully, compiled into object code.
Cruft accumulation may result in technical debt, which can subsequently make adding new features or modifying existing features—even to improve performance—more difficult and time-consuming.
In the context of Internet or Web addresses (Uniform Resource Locators or "URLs"), cruft refers to the characters that are relevant or meaningful only to the people who created the site, such as implementation details of the computer system which serves the page. Examples of URL cruft could include filename extensions such as .php or .html, and internal organizational details such as /public/ or /Users/john/work/drafts/.
Computer hardware
Cruft may also refer to unused and out-of-date computer paraphernalia, collected through upgrading, inheritance, or simple acquisition, both deliberate and through circumstance. This accumulated hardware, however, often has benefit when IT systems administrators, technicians, and the like have need for critical replacement parts. An unused machine or component similar to a production unit could allow near-immediate restoration of the failed unit, as opposed to waiting for a shipped replacement.
See also
Software bloat
Dead-code elimination, the automatic removal of unnecessary code by compilers
Duplicate code
Feature creep
Muda (Japanese term)
Spaghetti code
Non-coding DNA
Vestigiality
References
External links
In the Beg |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific%20language | A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging from widely used languages for common domains, such as HTML for web pages, down to languages used by only one or a few pieces of software, such as MUSH soft code. DSLs can be further subdivided by the kind of language, and include domain-specific markup languages, domain-specific modeling languages (more generally, specification languages), and domain-specific programming languages. Special-purpose computer languages have always existed in the computer age, but the term "domain-specific language" has become more popular due to the rise of domain-specific modeling. Simpler DSLs, particularly ones used by a single application, are sometimes informally called mini-languages.
The line between general-purpose languages and domain-specific languages is not always sharp, as a language may have specialized features for a particular domain but be applicable more broadly, or conversely may in principle be capable of broad application but in practice used primarily for a specific domain. For example, Perl was originally developed as a text-processing and glue language, for the same domain as AWK and shell scripts, but was mostly used as a general-purpose programming language later on. By contrast, PostScript is a Turing-complete language, and in principle can be used for any task, but in practice is narrowly used as a page description language.
Use
The design and use of appropriate DSLs is a key part of domain engineering, by using a language suitable to the domain at hand – this may consist of using an existing DSL or GPL, or developing a new DSL. Language-oriented programming considers the creation of special-purpose languages for expressing problems as standard part of the problem-solving process. Creating a domain-specific language (with software to support it), rather than reusing an existing language, can be worthwhile if the language allows a particular type of problem or solution to be expressed more clearly than an existing language would allow and the type of problem in question reappears sufficiently often. Pragmatically, a DSL may be specialized to a particular problem domain, a particular problem representation technique, a particular solution technique, or other aspects of a domain.
Overview
A domain-specific language is created specifically to solve problems in a particular domain and is not intended to be able to solve problems outside of it (although that may be technically possible). In contrast, general-purpose languages are created to solve problems in many domains. The domain can also be a business area. Some examples of business areas include:
life insurance policies (developed internally by a large insurance enterprise)
combat simulation
salary calculation
billing
A domain-specific |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnecentralen | Regnecentralen (RC) was the first Danish computer company, founded on October 12, 1955. Through the 1950s and 1960s, they designed a series of computers, originally for their own use, and later to be sold commercially. Descendants of these systems sold well into the 1980s. They also developed a series of high-speed paper tape machines, and produced Data General Nova machines under license.
Genesis
What would become RC began as an advisory board formed by the Danish Akademiet for de Tekniske Videnskaber (Academy of Applied Sciences) to keep abreast of developments in modern electronic computing devices taking place in other countries. It was originally named Regnecentralen, Dansk Institut for Matematikmaskiner (Danish Institue of Computing Machinery ) After several years in the advisory role, in 1952 they decided to form a computing service bureau for Danish government, military and research uses. Led by Niels Ivar Bech, the group was also given the details of the BESK machine being designed at the Swedish Mathematical Center (Matematikmaskinnämndens Arbetsgrupp).
The group decided to build their own version of the BESK to run the bureau, and formed Regnecentralen in October 1955 to complete and run the machine. The result was the DASK, a vacuum tube-based machine that completed construction in 1956 and went into full operation in February 1957. DASK was followed in 1961 by the fully transistorized GIER, used for similar tasks. GIER is an acronym for "Geodætisk Instituts Elektroniske Regnemaskine" (Institute of Geodetics Electronic Calculator) and was introduced there on September 14, 1961. GIER proved to be a useful machine, and went on to be used at many Danish universities. Bech also sold GIER machines to the Eastern Bloc nations, starting with Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria, and later Romania, the East Germany, and Yugoslavia.
RC was also home to Peter Naur, and DASK and GIER became well known for their role in the development of the famous programming language ALGOL. After the first European ALGOL conference in 1959, RC began an effort to produce a series of compilers, completing one for the DASK in September 1961. A version for the GIER followed in August 1962. Christian Andersen and Peter Schyum Poulsen, another RC employee, wrote the first introductory text on the language, Everyman's Desk ALGOL, in 1961.
Peripheral business
To support higher throughput at their own service bureau, RC developed several high-speed input/output devices. One of their most popular was the RC 2000 paper tape reader, introduced in 1963. Feeding the tape at 5 meters per second, the 2000 could read 2,000 characters per second (CPS), storing the results in a buffer while the computer periodically read the data back out instead of stopping the tape to wait for the computer to get ready. The machine was later upgraded as the RC 2500, increasing speed to almost 7 meters a second, improving read speed to 2500 CPS. The RC 2000/2500 became a major pr |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse%20iteration | In numerical analysis, inverse iteration (also known as the inverse power method) is an iterative eigenvalue algorithm. It allows one to find an approximate
eigenvector when an approximation to a corresponding eigenvalue is already known.
The method is conceptually similar to the power method.
It appears to have originally been developed to compute resonance frequencies in the field of structural mechanics.
The inverse power iteration algorithm starts with an approximation for the eigenvalue corresponding to the desired eigenvector and a vector , either a randomly selected vector or an approximation to the eigenvector. The method is described by the iteration
where are some constants usually chosen as Since eigenvectors are defined up to multiplication by constant, the choice of can be arbitrary in theory; practical aspects of the choice of are discussed below.
At every iteration, the vector is multiplied by the matrix and normalized.
It is exactly the same formula as in the power method, except replacing the matrix by
The closer the approximation to the eigenvalue is chosen, the faster the algorithm converges; however, incorrect choice of can lead to slow convergence or to the convergence to an eigenvector other than the one desired. In practice, the method is used when a good approximation for the eigenvalue is known, and hence one needs only few (quite often just one) iterations.
Theory and convergence
The basic idea of the power iteration is choosing an initial vector (either an eigenvector approximation or a random vector) and iteratively calculating . Except for a set of zero measure, for any initial vector, the result will converge to an eigenvector corresponding to the dominant eigenvalue.
The inverse iteration does the same for the matrix , so it converges to the eigenvector corresponding to the dominant eigenvalue of the matrix .
Eigenvalues of this matrix are where are eigenvalues of .
The largest of these numbers corresponds to the smallest of The eigenvectors of and of are the same, since
Conclusion: The method converges to the eigenvector of the matrix corresponding to the closest eigenvalue to
In particular, taking we see that
converges to the eigenvector corresponding to the eigenvalue of with the largest magnitude and thus can be used to determine the smallest magnitude eigenvalue of since they are inversely related.
Speed of convergence
Let us analyze the rate of convergence of the method.
The power method is known to converge linearly to the limit, more precisely:
hence for the inverse iteration method similar result sounds as:
This is a key formula for understanding the method's convergence. It shows that if is chosen close enough to some eigenvalue , for example each iteration will improve the accuracy times. (We use that for small enough "closest to " and "closest to " is the same.) For small enough it is approximately the same as . Hence if one is able to find , suc |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectravideo | Spectravideo International Limited (SVI) was an American computer manufacturer and software house. It was originally called SpectraVision, a company founded by Harry Fox in 1981. The company produced video games and other software for the VIC-20 home computer, the Atari 2600 home video game console, and its CompuMate peripheral. Some of their own computers were compatible with the Microsoft MSX or the IBM PC.
Despite their initial success, the company faced financial troubles, and by 1988, operations ceased. Later, a UK-based company bought the Spectravideo brand name from Bondwell in 1988, but this company, known as Logic3, had no connection to the original Spectravideo products and was dissolved in 2016.
History
SpectraVision was founded in 1981 by Harry Fox and Alex Weiss as a distributor of computer games, contracting external developers to write the software. Their main products were gaming cartridges for the Atari 2600, Colecovision and VIC-20. They also made the world's first ergonomic joystick, the QuickShot. In late 1982 the company was renamed to Spectravideo due to a naming conflict with On Command Corporation's Hotel TV system called SpectraVision.
In the early 1980s, the company developed 11 games for the Atari 2600, including several titles of some rarity: Chase the Chuckwagon, Mangia and Bumper Bash.
A few of their titles were only available through the Columbia House music club.
The company's first attempt at a computer was an add-on for the Atari 2600 called the Spectravideo CompuMate, with a membrane keyboard and very simple programmability.
Spectravideo's first real computers were the SV-318 and SV-328, released in 1983. Both were powered by a Z80 A at 3.6 MHz, but differed in the amount of RAM (SV-318 had 32KB and SV-328 had 80KB total, of which 16KB was reserved for video) and keyboard style. The main operating system, residing in ROM, was a version of Microsoft Extended BASIC, but if the computer was equipped with a floppy drive, the user had the option to boot with CP/M instead. These two computers were precedent to MSX and not fully compatible with the standard, though the changes made to their design to create MSX were minor. The system had a wide range of optional hardware, for example an adapter making it possible to run ColecoVision games on the SVI.
SpectraVideo also created the QuickShot SVI-2000 Robot Arm which could be connected to a Commodore 64 user port or be controlled stand-alone with two joysticks.
In May 1983, Spectravideo went public with the sale of 1 million shares of stock at $6.25 per share in an initial public offering underwritten by brokerage D. H. Blair & Co.
However, Spectravideo quickly ran into trouble. By December 1983 its stock had fallen to 75 cents per share. In March 1984, the company agreed to sell a 60% stake of itself to Hong Kong-based Bondwell Holding in a deal that would have also required the resignation of president Harry Fox and vice-president Alex Weiss. That deal was set |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20archive%20formats | This is a list of file formats used by archivers and compressors used to create archive files.
Archiving only
Compression only
Archiving and compression
Data recovery
Comparison
Containers and compression
Notes
While the original tar format uses the ASCII character encoding, current implementations use the UTF-8 (Unicode) encoding, which is backwards compatible with ASCII.
Supports the external Parchive program (par2).
From 3.20 release RAR can store modification, creation and last access time with the precision up to 0.0000001 second (= 0.1 µs). WinRAR download and support: Knowledge Base
The PAQ family (with its lighter weight derivative LPAQ) went through many revisions, each revision suggested its own extension. For example: ".paq9a".
WIM can store the ciphertext of encrypted files on an NTFS volume, but such files can only by decrypted if an administrator extracts the file to an NTFS volume, and the decryption key is available (typically from the file's original owner on the same Windows installation). Microsoft has also distributed some download versions of the Windows operating system as encrypted WIM files, but via an external encryption process and not a feature of WIM.
Purpose: Archive formats are used for backups, mobility, and archiving. Many archive formats compress the data to consume less storage space and result in quicker transfer times as the same data is represented by fewer bytes. Another benefit is that files are combined into one archive file which has less overhead for managing or transferring. There are numerous compression algorithms available to losslessly compress archived data; some algorithms are designed to work better (smaller archive or faster compression) with particular data types. Archive formats are used by most operating systems to package software for easier distribution and installation than binary executables.
Filename extension: The DOS and Windows operating systems required filenames to include an extension (of at least one, and typically 3 characters) to identify the file type. Such extensions must be unique for each type of file. Many operating systems identify a file's type from its contents without the need for an extension in its name. However, the use of three-character extensions has been embraced as a useful and efficient shorthand for identifying file types.
Integrity check: Archive files are often stored on magnetic or other media subject to storage errors. Many archive formats contain extra error detection or correction information which can be used by the software used to read the archive files to detect and possibly correct errors.
Recovery record: Many archive formats contain redundant data embedded in the files in order to detect data storage or transmission errors, and the software used to read the archive files contains logic to detect and correct errors.
Encryption: Many archive formats include the capability to encrypt contents to prevent unauthorised access, using one o |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON%20project | TRON (acronym for The Real-time Operating system Nucleus) is an open architecture real-time operating system kernel design. The project was started by Professor Dr. Ken Sakamura of the University of Tokyo in 1984. The project's goal is to create an ideal computer architecture and network, to provide for all of society's needs.
The Industrial TRON (ITRON) derivative was one of the world's most used operating systems in 2003, being present in billions of electronic devices such as mobile phones, appliances and even cars. Although mainly used by Japanese companies, it garnered interest worldwide. However, a dearth of quality English documentation was said to hinder its broader adoption.
The TRON project was integrated into T-Engine Forum in 2010. Today, it is supported by popular Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) libraries such as wolfSSL.
Architecture
TRON does not specify the source code for the kernel, but instead is a "set of interfaces and design guidelines" for creating the kernel. This allows different companies to create their own versions of TRON, based on the specifications, which can be suited for different microprocessors.
While the specification of TRON is publicly available, implementations can be proprietary at the discretion of the implementer.
Sub-architectures
The TRON framework defines a complete architecture for the different computing units:
ITRON (Industrial TRON): an architecture for real-time operating systems for embedded systems; this is the most popular use of the TRON architecture
JTRON (Java TRON): a sub-project of ITRON to allow it to use the Java platform
BTRON (Business TRON): for personal computers, workstations, PDAs, mainly as the human–machine interface in networks based on the TRON architecture
CTRON (Central and Communications TRON): for mainframe computers, digital switching equipment
MTRON (Macro TRON): for intercommunication between the different TRON components.
STRON (Silicon TRON): hardware implementation of a real-time kernel.
Character encoding
TRON (encoding), a way that TRON represents characters (as opposed to Unicode).
History
In 1984, the TRON project was officially launched. In 1985, NEC announced the first ITRON implementation based on the ITRON/86 specification. In 1986, the TRON Kyogikai (unincorporated TRON Association) was established, Hitachi announced its ITRON implementation based on the ITRON/68K specification, and the first TRON project symposium is held. In 1987, Fujitsu announced an ITRON implementation based on the ITRON/MMU specification, Mitsubishi Electric announced an ITRON implementation based on the ITRON/32 specification, and Hitachi introduced the Gmicro/200 32-bit microprocessor based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification.
In 1988, BTRON computer prototypes were being tested in various schools across Japan as the planned standardized computer for education. The project was organized by both the Ministry of International Trade and Industry |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CURL | curl (pronounced like "curl", , ) is a computer software project providing a library (libcurl) and command-line tool (curl) for transferring data using various network protocols. The name stands for "Client for URL".
History
curl was first released in 1996. It was originally named httpget and then became urlget before adopting the current name of curl The original author and lead developer is the Swedish developer Daniel Stenberg, who created curl because he wanted to automate the fetching of currency exchange rates for IRC users.
libcurl
libcurl is a free client-side URL transfer library, supporting cookies, DICT, FTP, FTPS, Gopher, HTTP/1 (with HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 support), HTTP POST, HTTP PUT, HTTP proxy tunneling, HTTPS, IMAP, Kerberos, LDAP, MQTT, POP3, RTSP, RTMP, SCP, SMTP, and SMB. The library supports the file URI scheme, SFTP, Telnet, TFTP, file transfer resume, FTP uploading, HTTP form-based upload, HTTPS certificates, LDAPS, proxies, and user-plus-password authentication.
The libcurl library is portable. It builds and works identically on many platforms, including AIX, AmigaOS, Android, BeOS, BlackBerry Tablet OS and BlackBerry 10, OpenVMS, Darwin, DOS, FreeBSD, HP-UX, HURD, iOS, IRIX, Linux, macOS, NetBSD, NetWare, OpenBSD, OS/2, QNX Neutrino, RISC OS, Solaris, Symbian, Tru64, Ultrix, UnixWare, and Microsoft Windows.
The libcurl library is free, thread-safe and IPv6 compatible. Bindings are available for more than 50 languages, including C/C++, Java, Julia (is bundled with), PHP and Python.
The libcurl library supports GnuTLS, mbed TLS, NSS, gskit on IBM i, SChannel on Windows, Secure Transport on macOS and iOS, SSL/TLS through OpenSSL, BoringSSL, libreSSL, AmiSSL, wolfSSL, BearSSL and rustls.
curl
curl is a command-line tool for getting or sending data including files using URL syntax. Since curl uses libcurl, it supports every protocol libcurl supports.
curl supports HTTPS and performs SSL certificate verification by default when a secure protocol is specified such as HTTPS. When curl connects to a remote server via HTTPS, it will obtain the remote server certificate, then check against its CA certificate store the validity of the remote server to ensure the remote server is the one it claims to be. Some curl packages are bundled with CA certificate store file. There are several options to specify a CA certificate such as and . The option can be used to specify the location of the CA certificate store file. In the Windows platform, if a CA certificate file is not specified, curl will look for a CA certificate file name “curl-ca-bundle.crt” in the following order:
Directory where the curl program is located.
Current working directory.
Windows system directory.
Windows directory.
Directories specified in the %PATH% environment variables.
curl will return an error message if the remote server is using a self-signed certificate, or if the remote server certificate is not signed by a CA listed in the CA cert file. or |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message%20Transfer%20Part | The Message Transfer Part (MTP) is part of the Signaling System 7 (SS7) used for communication in Public Switched Telephone Networks. MTP is responsible for reliable, unduplicated and in-sequence transport of SS7 messages between communication partners.
MTP is formally defined primarily in ITU-T recommendations
Q.701,
Q.702,
Q.703,
Q.704 and
Q.705.
Tests for the MTP are specified in the ITU-T recommendations
Q.781 for MTP2 and in
Q.782 for MTP3. These tests are used to validate the correct implementation of the MTP protocol.
Different countries use different variants of the MTP protocols. In North America, the formal standard followed is ANSI T1.111. In Europe, national MTP protocols are based on ETSI
EN 300-0088-1.
Functional levels
The SS7 stack can be separated into four functional levels:
Level 1 through Level 3 comprise the MTP, and Level 4 the MTP user. MTP Level 3 is sometimes abbreviated MTP3; MTP Level 2, MTP2. MTP and SCCP are together referred to as the Network Service Part (NSP).
There is no one-to-one mapping of MTP Levels 1 through 3 onto the OSI model. Instead, MTP provides the functionality of layers 1, 2 and part of layer 3 in the OSI model. The part of layer 3 of the OSI model that MTP does not provide, is provided by SCCP or other Level 4 parts (MTP users).
Signalling Data Link Functional Level
MTP Level 1 is described in ITU-T Recommendation Q.702, and provides the Signalling Data Link functional level for narrowband signalling links. For broadband signalling links,
ITU-T Recommendation Q.2110 or
Q.2111 describe the signalling data link function.
MTP1 represents the physical layer. That is, the layer that is responsible for the connection of SS7 Signaling Points into the transmission network over which they communicate with each other. Primarily, this involves the conversion of messaging into electrical signal and the maintenance of the physical links through which these pass. In this way, it is analogous to the Layer 1 of ISDN or other, perhaps more familiar, protocols.
MTP1 normally uses a timeslot in an E-carrier or T-carrier. The Physical interfaces defined include E-1 (2048 kbit/s; 32 64 kbit/s channels), DS-1 (1544 kbit/s; 24 64kbit/s channels), V.35 (64 kbit/s), DS-0 (64 kbit/s), and DS-0A (56 kbit/s).
Signalling Link Functional Level
MTP Level 2 is described in ITU-T Recommendation Q.703, and provides the Signalling Link functional level for narrowband signalling links. For broadband signalling links,
ITU-T Recommendation Q.2140 and
Q.2210 describe the signalling link function referred to as MTP3b. The signalling link functional level may also be provided using the SIGTRAN protocol M2PA described in RFC 4165.
MTP Level 2 ensures accurate end-to-end transmission of a message
across a signaling link.
MTP2 provides flow control, error detection and sequence checking, and retransmits unacknowledged messages. MTP2 uses packets called signal units to transmit SS7 messages. There are three types of signal |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript | ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (meaning it is a superset of the syntax and semantics of the language more widely known as JavaScript), though it originally arose as a sibling, both being influenced by HyperTalk. ActionScript code is usually converted to byte-code format by a compiler.
ActionScript is used primarily for the development of websites and software targeting the Adobe Flash platform, originally finding use on web pages in the form of embedded SWF files.
ActionScript 3 is also used with the Adobe AIR system for the development of desktop and mobile applications. The language itself is open-source in that its specification is offered free of charge and both an open-source compiler (as part of Apache Flex) and open-source virtual machine (Tamarin) are available.
ActionScript was also used with Scaleform GFx for the development of three-dimensional video-game user interfaces and heads up displays.
Overview
ActionScript was initially designed for controlling simple two-dimensional vector animations made in Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash). Initially focused on animation, early versions of Flash content offered few interactivity features, thus had very limited scripting ability. Later versions added functionality allowing for the creation of web-based games and rich web applications with streaming media (such as video and audio). Today, ActionScript is suitable for desktop and mobile development through Adobe AIR; it is used in some database applications and in basic robotics as in Make Controller Kit.
Flash MX 2004 introduced ActionScript 2.0, a scripting language more suited to the development of Flash applications. Saving time is often possible by scripting something rather than animating it, which usually also enables a higher level of flexibility when editing.
Since the arrival of the Flash Player 9 alpha (in 2006), a newer version of ActionScript has been released, ActionScript 3.0. This version of the language is intended to be compiled and run on a version of the Tamarin virtual machine, formely ActionScript Virtual Machine 2, that was also fully rewritten (dubbed AVM2). Because of this, code written in ActionScript 3.0 is generally targeted for Flash Player 9 and higher, and will not work in prior versions. At the same time, ActionScript 3.0 executes up to 10 times faster than legacy ActionScript code due to the just-in-time compiler enhancements.
Flash libraries can be used with the XML abilities of the browser to render rich content in the browser. This technology is known as Asynchronous Flash and XML, much like AJAX. Adobe offers its Flex product line to meet the demand for rich web applications built on the Flash runtime, with behaviors and programming done in ActionScript. ActionScript 3.0 forms the foundation of |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International%20Collegiate%20Programming%20Contest | The International Collegiate Programming Contest, known as the ICPC, is an annual multi-tiered competitive programming competition among the universities of the world. Directed by ICPC Executive Director and Baylor Professor Dr. William B. Poucher, the ICPC operates autonomous regional contests covering six continents culminating in a global World Finals every year. In 2018, ICPC participation included 52,709 students from 3,233 universities in 110 countries.
The ICPC operates under the auspices of the ICPC Foundation and operates under agreements with host universities and non-profits, all in accordance with the ICPC Policies and Procedures. From 1977 until 2017 ICPC was held under the auspices of ACM and was referred to as ACM-ICPC.
Mission
The ICPC, the “International Collegiate Programming Contest”, is an extra-curricular, competitive programming sport for students at universities around the world. ICPC competitions provide gifted students opportunities to interact, demonstrate, and improve their teamwork, programming, and problem-solving process. The ICPC is a global platform for academia, industry, and community to shine the spotlight on and raise the aspirations of the next generation of computing professionals as they pursue excellence. In its own words, ICPC is:
History
The ICPC traces its roots to a competition held at Texas A&M University in 1970 hosted by the Alpha Chapter of the Upsilon Pi Epsilon Computer Science Honor Society (UPE). This initial programming competition was titled First Annual Texas Collegiate Programming Championship and each University was represented by a team of up to five members. The computer used was a 360 model 65 which was one of the first machines with a DAT (Dynamic Address Translator aka "paging") system for accessing memory. The start of the competition was delayed for about 90 minutes because two of the four "memory bank" amplifiers were down. Teams that participated included, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, University of Houston, and five or six other Texas University / Colleges. There were three problems that had to be completed and the cumulative time from "start" to "successful completion" determined first-, second-, and third-place winners. The programming language used was Fortran. The programs were written on coding sheets, keypunched on Hollerith cards, and submitted for execution. The University of Houston team won the competition completing all three problems successfully with time. The second- and third-place teams did not successfully complete all three problems. The contest evolved into its present form as a multi-tier competition in 1977, with the first finals held in conjunction with the ACM Computer Science Conference.
From 1977 to 1989, the contest included mainly teams of four from universities throughout the United States and Canada. ICPC Headquarters was hosted by Baylor University from 1989 until 2022, with regional contests established within the world's university community, the ICP |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%20Perry%20%28game%20developer%29 | David Perry (born 4 April 1967) is a Northern Irish video game developer and programmer. He became prominent for programming platform games for 16-bit home consoles in the early to mid 1990s, including Disney's Aladdin, Cool Spot, and the Earthworm Jim series. He founded Shiny Entertainment, where he worked from 1993 to 2006. Perry created games for companies such as Disney, 7 Up, McDonald's, Hemdale, and Warner Bros. In 2008 he was presented with an honorary doctorate from Queen's University Belfast for his services to computer gaming. He was the co-founder & CEO of cloud-based games service Gaikai, which was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment. In 2017 Perry became the co-founder & CEO of a customer intelligence startup called GoVYRL, Inc. developing a new advanced brand dashboard called Carro.
Biography
Perry was born in April 1967 in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, growing up in the towns of Templepatrick and Donegore in County Antrim, attending Templepatrick Primary School and then Methodist College Belfast.
He began writing computer game programming books in 1982 at the age of 15, creating his own games for the Sinclair ZX81. In an interview with the BBC, Perry stated that his first game was a driving game, "a black blob avoiding other black blobs", which he wrote and sent to a magazine, which printed it. He sent them more games and they sent him a cheque for £450: a bit of a problem for a teenager who did not yet have a bank account. His work continued until he was offered a job for £3,500/year as an apprentice to a veteran programmer who taught him more advanced programming.
At the age of 17, he moved to London, where he developed games with Mikro-Gen and Probe Software for publishers such as Elite Systems and Mirrorsoft, working on titles such as the ZX Spectrum conversion of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES and the Sega Genesis version of The Terminator.
In 1991, he moved to the United States to work for the American division of Virgin Games, usually known as Virgin Games USA. While in there, he led the development duties for several award-winning games for the Genesis, including Global Gladiators, Cool Spot, and Aladdin. His work within Virgin Games USA also served as a basis for the development of other games such as the Sega CD version of The Terminator and the Genesis versions of RoboCop Versus The Terminator and Walt Disney's The Jungle Book, all of them developed after David Perry had left the studio.
On 1 October 1993, Perry formed his own company in Laguna Beach, California, Shiny Entertainment, naming the company after the song "Shiny Happy People" by R.E.M. The company's first game Earthworm Jim was a hit, selling millions of copies on multiple platforms, including Sega Genesis, Super NES and PC. The title character, an "average worm" who stumbles upon a space suit which turns him into a superhero, became immensely popular, and spawned a variety of other types of merchandise: action figures, comic books, and a syndica |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft%20ergonomic%20keyboards | Microsoft has designed and sold a variety of ergonomic keyboards for computers. The oldest is the Microsoft Natural Keyboard, released in 1994, the company's first computer keyboard. The newest models are the Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard (2013), the Surface Ergonomic Keyboard (2016), and the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard (2019).
Models
In general, ergonomic keyboards are designed to keep the user's arms and wrists in a near-neutral position, which means the slant angle (the lateral rotation angle for the keys in each half relative to the axis of the home row in a conventional keyboard) is approximately 10 to 12.5°, the slope (the angle of the keytop surfaces starting from the front edge closer to the user towards the top of the keyboard, relative to a horizontal plane) is -7.5°, and the tent or gable angle of each half (the angle of the keytops from the center of the keyboard towards its left and right edges, relative to the horizontal desk surface) is 20 to 30°.
Notes
Natural Keyboard
The first generation of the Microsoft ergonomic keyboards, named the Natural Keyboard, was released in September 1994, designed for Microsoft Windows 95 and Novell Netware. It was designed for Microsoft by Ziba Design with assistance and manufacturing by Key Tronic. The Microswitch division of Honeywell, which was responsible for that company's keyboards and was acquired by Key Tronic in early 1994, is also credited with design input.
The keyboard uses a fixed-split design, with each half of the alphanumeric section separated, laterally rotated, and tilted upwards and down from the center of the keyboard. This key arrangement was ergonomically designed to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive strain injuries associated with typing for long periods of time. Another innovation was the integrated wrist pad helping to ensure correct posture while sitting at the computer and further reducing strain on the neck, arms and wrists.
This keyboard also introduced three new keys purposed for Microsoft's upcoming operating system: two Windows logo keys () between the and keys on each side, and a key between the right Windows and Ctrl keys. The three Num Lock/Caps Lock/Scroll Lock status lights are arranged vertically between the two halves of the alphanumeric section.
Although it was not the first ergonomic keyboard, it was the first widely available sub-$100 offering. The keyboard gained popularity quickly, exceeding Microsoft's forecast of 100,000 units sold by the end of 1994. Microsoft soon asked Key Tronic to ramp up production to 100,000 per month in 1995, and the Natural Keyboard sold over 600,000 per month at its peak. Over 3 million units had been sold by February 1998, when its successor, the Natural Keyboard Elite, was introduced.
As with most Microsoft keyboards, software (Microsoft IntelliType) is bundled with the keyboard for both Mac OS X and Windows, allowing users to customize the function keys and modify keys fairly extensively.
Natural |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2D | 2D or 2-D may refer to:
Two-dimensional Euclidean space
2D geometric model
2D computer graphics
2-D (character), a member of the virtual band Gorillaz
Index finger, the second digit (abbreviated 2D) of the hand
Oflag II-D
Stalag II-D
Transcription factor II D
Two Dickinson Street Co-op, a student dining cooperative at Princeton University
2D animation, or traditional animation
Two-dimensional correlation analysis
Nintendo 2DS, the third iteration in the Nintendo 3DS line, released in 2013
New Nintendo 2DS XL, the sixth iteration in the Nintendo 3DS line, released in 2017 and a larger version of the 2DS
2degrees, New Zealand telecommunications provider
Twopence (British pre-decimal coin), routinely abbreviated 2d.
See also
D2 (disambiguation)
IID (disambiguation) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-bit%20computing | 4-bit computing is the use of computer architectures in which integers and other data units are 4 bits wide. 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers or data buses of that size. Memory addresses (and thus address buses) for 4-bit CPUs are generally much larger than 4-bit (since only 16 memory locations would be very restrictive), such as 12-bit or more, while they could in theory be 8-bit.
A group of four bits is also called a nibble and has 24 = 16 possible values.
While 4-bit computing is mostly obsolete, 4-bit communication (even 1- or 2-bit) is still used in modern computers, that are otherwise e.g. 64-bit, and thus also have much larger buses.
History
A 4-bit processor may seem limited, but it is a good match for calculators, where each decimal digit fits into four bits.
Some of the first microprocessors had a 4-bit word length and were developed around 1970. The first commercial microprocessor was the binary-coded decimal (BCD-based) Intel 4004, developed for calculator applications in 1971; it had a 4-bit word length, but had 8-bit instructions and 12-bit addresses. It was succeeded by the Intel 4040.
The first commercial single-chip computer was the 4-bit Texas Instruments TMS 1000 (1974). It contained a 4-bit CPU with a Harvard architecture and 8-bit-wide instructions, an on-chip instruction ROM, and an on-chip data RAM with 4-bit words.
The Rockwell PPS-4 was another early 4-bit processor, introduced in 1972, which had a long lifetime in handheld games and similar roles. It was steadily improved and by 1975 been combined with several support chips to make a one-chip computer.
The 4-bit processors were programmed in assembly language or Forth, e.g. "MARC4 Family of 4 bit Forth CPU" (which is now discontinued) because of the extreme size constraint on programs and because common programming languages (for microcontrollers, 8-bit and larger), such as the C programming language, do not support 4-bit data types (C, and C++, and more languages require that the size of the char data type be at least 8 bits, and that all data types other than bitfields have a size that is a multiple of the character size).
The 1970s saw the emergence of 4-bit software applications for mass markets like pocket calculators. During the 1980s, 4-bit microprocessors were used in handheld electronic games to keep costs low.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of research and commercial computers used bit slicing, in which the CPU's arithmetic logic unit (ALU) was built from multiple 4-bit-wide sections, each section including a chip such as an Am2901 or 74181 chip.
The Zilog Z80, although it is an 8-bit microprocessor, has a 4-bit ALU.
Although the Data General Nova is a series of 16-bit minicomputers, the original Nova and the Nova 1200 internally processed numbers 4 bits at a time with a 4-bit ALU, sometimes called "nybble-serial".
The HP Saturn processors, used in many Hewlet |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix%20%28database%29 | Helix is a database management system for the Apple Macintosh platform, created in 1983. Helix uses a graphical "programming language" to add logic to its applications, allowing non-programmers to construct sophisticated applications. Helix was the first multiuser database on any PC platform, the first object-based, visual programming tool and the first relational database on a PC platform.
History
Originally created by Odesta Corporation of Northbrook, IL in 1983 on the original Macintosh, Helix debuted to rave reviews when it was first released in late 1984.
At that time the Mac only supported 440kB floppy disks as storage. Users initially ran Helix from a floppy disk with Helix installed on the "system disk," which was where the operating system lived before the age of hard disk storage began. This configuration left little room for applications or data. It was assumed that users would add a second floppy for any sort of real-world use, with the OS and Helix on one floppy, and data on another. In spite of these initial limitations, Helix was already a very powerful and fully relational database that migrated easily as machines became faster and more powerful and storage options evolved to the cavernous tools taken for granted today.
In May 1986, Odesta released Double Helix. The main new feature set allowed for the construction of custom menus and menu bars, resulting in "stand-alone" applications. In comparison, the original Helix produced applications that were clearly running within Helix, much as a Microsoft Word document is clearly running "inside Word". Released as a part of a larger suite of software, the Helix suite also included a stand-alone runtime version known as RunTime Helix which would allow users to run Double Helix applications without the full version installed, as well as MultiUser Helix which operated in a client–server fashion.
Upgrades to the Helix product line were continuous during the 1980s, but the company spent a tremendous amount of time and money working on a version known as Remote Helix which ran the basic Helix development system on top of VAX based databases. The idea was to offer a Mac-like experience on "big iron" systems, a common theme in the early 1990s. The company also released a number of related tools, GeoQuery and Data Desk, for analyzing databases. However it wasn't long before the average Mac could outperform a minicomputer, the popularity of the VAX faded, and the product was never a major success.
In 1992 Odesta split up, with the original Helix applications being spun off. Double Helix re-emerged as Helix Express at Helix Technologies, marketed as a performance leader as opposed to "easy to use". The parent company became entangled in an unrelated but costly legal battle, and Helix languished. In 1998, Helix Technologies was purchased by The Chip Merchant, a San Diego-based memory vendor, who released a major upgrade in 2000, adding TCP/IP capabilities to Helix Client/Server and improving |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRSDOS | TRSDOS (which stands for the Tandy Radio Shack Disk Operating System) is the operating system for the Tandy TRS-80 line of eight-bit Zilog Z80 microcomputers that were sold through Radio Shack from 1977 through 1991. Tandy's manuals recommended that it be pronounced triss-doss. TRSDOS should not be confused with Tandy DOS, a version of MS-DOS licensed from Microsoft for Tandy's x86 line of personal computers (PCs).
With the original TRS-80 Model I of 1977, TRSDOS was primarily a way of extending the MBASIC (BASIC in ROM) with additional I/O (input/output) commands that worked with disk files rather than the cassette tapes that were used by non-disk Model I systems. Later disk-equipped Model III computers used a completely different version of TRSDOS by Radio Shack which culminated in 1981 with TRSDOS Version 1.3. From 1983 disk-equipped TRS-80 Model 4 computers used TRSDOS Version 6, which was a development of Model III LDOS by Logical Systems, Inc. This last was updated in 1987 and released as LS-DOS 6.3.
Completely unrelated was a version of TRSDOS by Radio Shack for its TRS-80 Model II professional computer from 1979, also based on the Z80 and equipped with 8-inch disk drives. The later machines in this line, the Models 12, 16 and 6000, used the Z80 as an alternate CPU to its main Motorola 68000 chip and could run this version of TRSDOS for backwards compatibility with older Z80 applications software.
History
Tandy Corporation's TRS-80 microcomputer did not have a disk drive or disk operating system at release. The first version of TRSDOS, by Randy Cook, was so buggy that others wrote alternatives, including NewDOS and LDOS. After disputes with Cook over ownership of the source code, Tandy hired Logical Systems, LDOS's developer, to continue TRSDOS development. TRSDOS 6, shipped with the TRS-80 Model 4 in 1983, is identical to LDOS 6.00.
Dates
May 8, 1979 – Radio Shack releases TRSDOS 2.3
May 1, 1981 – Radio Shack releases Model III TRSDOS 1.3
April 26, 1983 – Radio Shack introduces TRSDOS Version 6.0 with the new Model 4s
1984 – Radio Shack releases Version 6.2, the definitive version for the Model 4
1984 – Logical Systems publishes The Source, the commented assembler source code to TRSDOS 6.2
Late 1986 – Logical Systems releases LS-DOS 6.3, the functionally equivalent update to TRSDOS 6.2. From this date, Tandy/Radio Shack ships it with the Model 4D.
Features and capabilities
RadioShack's Z80-based line of TRS-80 computers (Models I/III and Model 4) support up to four physical floppy (mini-diskette) drives which (as sold) use 5¼-inch diskettes. The original TRSDOS for the Model I supported only single-sided disks with 35 tracks formatted in single density (sectors are encoded using the frequency modulation technique). Model III TRSDOS (culminating in version 1.3) supported 40-track disks formatted in double density (using modified frequency modulation). Model Is retrofitted with double density controllers and Models I/III equipped |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanga | Xanga () was a website that hosted weblogs, photoblogs, and social networking profiles. It was operated by Xanga.com, Inc. and based in New York City.
History
Xanga began in 1999 as a site for sharing book and music reviews. It became public in 2000, following a series of e-mail recruitment methods via GeoCities. Over the next few years, Xanga underwent several formatting changes. Featured Content was divided in 2002, being replaced by Premium and Classic views. Eventually, new profile features such as friends, "nudges", and chat forums that resemble Facebook were added, and video and audio capability were added in 2006. In 2013, Xanga was under threat of shutting down unless it raised $60k by mid-July (for "Xanga 2.0"). Failing to reach that goal, Xanga became an un-navigatable page in late 2013.
Core features
Xanga members received a "Xanga Site", a website containing a weblog, photoblog, videoblog, audioblog, "Pulse" (mini-blog), and social networking profile. Members could also make or join blogrings (groups).
Weblog
Xanga first added weblogs to Xanga Sites on November 5, 2000. Comments were added soon after, on December 8, 2000, along with "eProps", which a user could give to another user's entry to show they enjoyed it.
A core part of Xanga was the ability to subscribe to other Xanga Sites. Subscriptions allowed Xanga users to stay up-to-date on other Xangas they were subscribed to, without needing to manually visit each site. Xanga added an email subscriptions feature on November 30, 2000. In January 2001, this was followed by the ability to subscribe to a site using RSS and the ability to display subscriptions on one's site.
Initially, Xanga allowed members to subscribe to each other's sites anonymously. Some users were troubled by anonymous subscriptions, and so during the week of July 15, 2003, support for this feature was discontinued. Since some users had been using anonymous subscriptions to try out subscriptions to other sites, on July 21, 2003, Xanga added a feature that allows members to sample a Trial Subscription to another site. This update also allowed members to hide individual subscriptions from public display.
Subscriptions were originally called "Sites I Read", sometimes abbreviated to "SIR".
Photoblog
Until the spring of 2006, Xanga's photo features were focused on enabling photo uploads within weblog posts. Xanga first started offering photo uploading on May 1, 2001. Originally, photo uploading was available only to premium members, and was limited to 20 MB of storage (although this was not enforced). On April 7, 2005, Xanga overhauled its photo system to increase picture quality and size, as well as to increase capacity for the system overall. This was followed, on August 5, 2005, with the beta release of a new Photo Manager that allowed users to more easily edit and view their photos.
On August 30, 2005, Xanga announced that all premium members would now get a gigabyte of photo storage. On September 9, 200 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC%20LARC | The UNIVAC LARC, short for the Livermore Advanced Research Computer, is a mainframe computer designed to a requirement published by Edward Teller in order to run hydrodynamic simulations for nuclear weapon design. It was one of the earliest supercomputers.
LARC supported multiprocessing with two CPUs (called Computers) and an input/output (I/O) Processor (called the Processor). Two LARC machines were built, the first delivered to Livermore in June 1960, and the second to the Navy's David Taylor Model Basin. Both examples had only one Computer, so no multiprocessor LARCs were ever built.
The LARC CPUs were able to perform addition in about 4 microseconds, corresponding to about 250 kIPS speed. This made it the fastest computer in the world until 1962 when the IBM 7030 took the title. The 7030 started as IBM's entry to the LARC contest, but Teller chose the simpler Univac over the more risky IBM design.
Description
The LARC was a decimal mainframe computer with 60 bits per word. It used bi-quinary coded decimal arithmetic with five bits per digit (see below), allowing for 11-digit signed numbers. Instructions were 60 bits long, one per word. The basic configuration had 26 general-purpose registers, which could be expanded to 99. The general-purpose registers had an access time of one microsecond.
LARC weighed about .
The basic configuration had one Computer and LARC could be expanded to a multiprocessor with a second Computer.
The Processor is an independent CPU (with a different instruction set from the Computers) and provides control for 12 to 24 magnetic drum storage units, four to forty UNISERVO II tape drives, two electronic page recorders (a 35mm film camera facing a cathode-ray tube), one or two high-speed printers, and a high-speed punched card reader.
The LARC used core memory banks of 2500 words each, housed four banks per memory cabinet. The basic configuration had eight banks of core (two cabinets), 20,000 words. The memory could be expanded to a maximum of 39 banks of core (ten cabinets with one empty bank), 97,500 words. The core memory had one parity bit on each digit for error checking, resulting in 60 bits per memory word. The core memory had an access time of 8 microseconds and a cycle time of 4 microseconds. Each bank operated independently and could begin a new access in any 4-microsecond cycle when it was not already busy. By properly interleaving accesses to different banks the memory could sustain an effective access time of 4 microseconds on each access (e.g., instruction access in one bank data in another).
The data transfer bus connecting the two Computers and the Processor to the core memory was multiplexed to maximize throughput; every 4-microsecond bus cycle was divided into eight 500-nanosecond time slots:
Processor - instructions and data
Computer 1 - instructions
Computer 2 - data
I/O DMA Synchronizer - data
Not Used
Computer 2 - instructions
Computer 1 - data
I/O DMA Synchronizer - data
The core memory sy |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total%20War%20%28video%20game%20series%29 | Total War is a series of strategy games developed by British developer Creative Assembly for personal computers. They combine turn-based strategy and resource management with real-time tactical control of battles. Rather uniquely for real-time strategy games, flanking manoeuvers and formations factor heavily into gameplay. The first of the series, Shogun: Total War, was released in June 2000. The most recent major game released was Total War: Pharaoh on October 11, 2023. As of October 2022, the series has sold over 40.4 million copies.
Main games
Shogun: Total War
Released in June 2000, Shogun: Total War is the first game in the series. The game is set in feudal Japan. The single-player game includes interactive videos that represented possible decisions by the player, such as converting to Christianity. The original Shogun was not a mainstream product, but attracted a dedicated fan base. An expansion pack, The Mongol Invasion, was released with the original in the Warlord Edition.
Medieval: Total War
Medieval: Total War was released in August 2002. Using the same game engine as Shogun, the game takes players to medieval Europe. The expansion pack is called Viking Invasion, and the combined edition is called the Battle Collection. It was one of the best-selling games in the Total War series.
Rome: Total War
Released in 2004, Rome: Total War is set in the Roman Republic. This was the first game to encompass what would become one of the most fundamental additions to the Total War series, free map movement as opposed to earlier versions where all movement was province-based. The game also featured the first 3D map. The first expansion pack, Barbarian Invasion, was released on 27 September 2005. Rome: Total War Gold Edition, which combined the fully patched versions of the original game and its first expansion into one DVD (instead of the original game's three CD-ROMs), was released on 14 February 2006. A CD-ROM version (a total of four CDs) was also produced. A Mac version of Rome: Total War Gold Edition, developed by Feral Interactive, was released 12 February 2010. A second expansion pack, Rome: Total War: Alexander, was released on 19 June 2006. A compilation of the original game and the two expansions, Rome: Total War Anthology, was released on 16 March 2007. The series has also spawned several popular mods such as Europa Barbarorum and Rome: Total Realism each of which seeks to create more historically accurate settings. This game was also added to mobile, offering a simplified version of the original game. Rome: Total War has won many strategy gaming awards for its realistic campaign and battlefield animation and interface. Total War: Rome Remastered was released on 29 April 2021 by Feral Interactive.
Medieval II: Total War
Medieval II: Total War, a sequel to Medieval: Total War, was released on 10 November 2006 in Europe and on 14 November in North America. The game includes much more detailed characters and features the Age of Disco |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority%20inversion | In computer science, priority inversion is a scenario in scheduling in which a high-priority task is indirectly superseded by a lower-priority task effectively inverting the assigned priorities of the tasks. This violates the priority model that high-priority tasks can only be prevented from running by higher-priority tasks. Inversion occurs when there is a resource contention with a low-priority task that is then preempted by a medium-priority task.
Formulation
Consider two tasks H and L, of high and low priority respectively, either of which can acquire exclusive use of a shared resource R. If H attempts to acquire R after L has acquired it, then H becomes blocked until L relinquishes the resource. Sharing an exclusive-use resource (R in this case) in a well-designed system typically involves L relinquishing R promptly so that H (a higher-priority task) does not stay blocked for excessive periods of time. Despite good design, however, it is possible that a third task M of medium priority becomes runnable during L's use of R. At this point, M being higher in priority than L, preempts L (since M does not depend on R), causing L to not be able to relinquish R promptly, in turn causing H—the highest-priority process—to be unable to run (that is, H suffers unexpected blockage indirectly caused by lower-priority tasks like M).
Consequences
In some cases, priority inversion can occur without causing immediate harm—the delayed execution of the high-priority task goes unnoticed, and eventually, the low-priority task releases the shared resource. However, there are also many situations in which priority inversion can cause serious problems. If the high-priority task is left starved of the resources, it might lead to a system malfunction or the triggering of pre-defined corrective measures, such as a watchdog timer resetting the entire system. The trouble experienced by the Mars Pathfinder lander in 1997 is a classic example of problems caused by priority inversion in realtime systems.
Priority inversion can also reduce the perceived performance of the system. Low-priority tasks usually have a low priority because it is not important for them to finish promptly (for example, they might be a batch job or another non-interactive activity). Similarly, a high-priority task has a high priority because it is more likely to be subject to strict time constraints—it may be providing data to an interactive user, or acting subject to real-time response guarantees. Because priority inversion results in the execution of a lower-priority task blocking the high-priority task, it can lead to reduced system responsiveness or even the violation of response time guarantees.
A similar problem called deadline interchange can occur within earliest deadline first scheduling (EDF).
Solutions
The existence of this problem has been known since the 1970s. Lampson and Redell published one of the first papers to point out the priority inversion problem. Systems such as the UNIX |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS | WinFS (short for Windows Future Storage) was the code name for a canceled data storage and management system project based on relational databases, developed by Microsoft and first demonstrated in 2003 as an advanced storage subsystem for the Microsoft Windows operating system, designed for persistence and management of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data.
WinFS includes a relational database for storage of information, and allows any type of information to be stored in it, provided there is a well defined schema for the type. Individual data items could then be related together by relationships, which are either inferred by the system based on certain attributes or explicitly stated by the user. As the data has a well defined schema, any application can reuse the data; and using the relationships, related data can be effectively organized as well as retrieved. Because the system knows the structure and intent of the information, it can be used to make complex queries that enable advanced searching through the data and aggregating various data items by exploiting the relationships between them.
While WinFS and its shared type schema make it possible for an application to recognize the different data types, the application still has to be coded to render the different data types. Consequently, it would not allow development of a single application that can view or edit all data types; rather, what WinFS enables applications to do is understand the structure of all data and extract the information that they can use further. When WinFS was introduced at the 2003 Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft also released a video presentation, named IWish, showing mockup interfaces that showed how applications would expose interfaces that take advantage of a unified type system. The concepts shown in the video ranged from applications using the relationships of items to dynamically offer filtering options to applications grouping multiple related data types and rendering them in a unified presentation.
WinFS was billed as one of the pillars of the "Longhorn" wave of technologies, and would ship as part of the next version of Windows. It was subsequently decided that WinFS would ship after the release of Windows Vista, but those plans were shelved in June 2006, with some of its component technologies being integrated into ADO.NET and Microsoft SQL Server.
Motivation
Many filesystems found on common operating systems, including the NTFS filesystem which is used in modern versions of Microsoft Windows, store files and other objects only as a stream of bytes, and have little or no information about the data stored in the files. Such file systems also provide only a single way of organizing the files, namely via directories and file names.
Because a file system has no knowledge about the data it stores, applications tend to use their own, often proprietary, file formats. This hampers sharing of data between multiple applications. It b |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prograph | Prograph is a visual, object-oriented, dataflow, multiparadigm programming language that uses iconic symbols to represent actions to be taken on data. Commercial Prograph software development environments such as Prograph Classic and Prograph CPX were available for the Apple Macintosh and Windows platforms for many years but were eventually withdrawn from the market in the late 1990s. Support for the Prograph language on macOS has recently reappeared with the release of the Marten software development environment.
History
Research on Prograph started at Acadia University in 1982 as a general investigation into dataflow languages, stimulated by a seminar on functional languages conducted by Michael Levin. Diagrams were used to clarify the discussion, leading to the insight: "since the diagrams are clearer than the code, why not make the diagrams themselves executable!" Thus Prograph - Programming in Graphics - was born as a visual dataflow language. This work was led by Dr. Tomasz Pietrzykowski, with Stan Matwin and Thomas Muldner co-authoring early papers. From 1983 to 1985, research prototypes were built on a Three Rivers PERQ graphics workstation (in Pascal, with the data visualized as fireballs moving down datalinks), and a VAX with a Tektronix terminal, and an experimental compiler was programmed in an IBM PC. This work was continued at Technical University of Nova Scotia by Pietrzykowski and Dr. Philip Cox, including a version done in Prolog.
In 1985, work began on a commercialisable prototype on the Macintosh, the only widely available, low-priced computer with high-level graphics support available at the time. In early 1986, this prototype was taken over by The Gunakara Sun Systems (later renamed to TGS Systems) for commercialisation, TGS formerly being a consulting firm formed by Pietrzykowski at Acadia University. Working with Pietrzykowski and Cox, Terry Kilshaw hired and managed the original development team, with Jim Laskey as the lead developer. In 1987 Mark Szpakowski suggested the merger of object-orientation with visual dataflow, creating an "objectflow" system. After almost four years of development, the first commercial release, v1.2, was introduced at the OOPSLA conference in New Orleans in October 1989. This product won the 1989 MacUser Editor's Choice Award for Best Development Tool. Version 2.0, released in July 1990, added a compiler to the system.
TGS changed its name to Prograph International (PI) in 1990. Although sales were slow, development of a new version, Prograph CPX (Cross-Platform eXtensions) was undertaken in 1992, that was intended to build fully cross-platform applications. This version was released in 1993, and was immediately followed by development of a client-server application framework. Despite increasing sales, the company was unable to sustain operating costs, and following a failed financing attempt in late 1994, went into receivership in early 1995.
As the receivership proceeded, the managemen |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%20Central%20Trains | South Central Trains may refer to one of the following organisations that has operated the South Central franchise in England:
Network SouthCentral
Connex South Central
Southern (train operating company) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KMSP-TV | KMSP-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, serving as the Fox network outlet for the Twin Cities area. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV station WFTC (channel 9.2). Both stations share studios on Viking Drive in Eden Prairie; while KMSP-TV's transmitter is located in Shoreview, Minnesota.
KMSP-TV also serves the Mankato market (via K35KI-D in nearby St. James through the local municipal-operated Cooperative TV (CTV) network of translators), even though that area already has a Fox affiliate of its own. KMSP is also carried on the main channel of KFTC (channel 26), a satellite station of WFTC licensed to Bemidji which serves the northernmost reaches of the Minneapolis–St. Paul television market.
KMSP-TV is also carried in Canada on the Rogers Cable system in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on Tbaytel, and on Bell MTS Fibe TV in the province of Manitoba. Since October 2022, the station is also carried on Westman Communications, replacing Rochester, New York's WUHF.
History
The Family Broadcasting Corporation in Minneapolis, owner of radio station KEYD (1440 AM, now KYCR), filed an application with the FCC for a construction permit for a new commercial television station to be operated on Channel 9 on November 24, 1953. WLOL and WDGY (now KTLK) also expressed interest, but withdrew their applications in 1954, assuring that the new station would go to KEYD and its owner, Family Broadcasting. KEYD-TV began broadcasting on January 9, 1955, and was affiliated with the DuMont Television Network. During this time, Harry Reasoner, a graduate of Minneapolis West High School and the University of Minnesota, was hired as the station's first news anchor and news director. However, DuMont shut down in late 1956, leaving the station as an independent outlet; on June 3, 1956, the KEYD stations were sold to United Television, whose principals at the time included several stockholders of Pittsburgh station WENS, for $1.5 million. The new owners immediately sold off KEYD radio, refocused KEYD-TV's programming on films and sports, and shut down the news department; Reasoner was hired by CBS News a few months later. Reasoner became a host for CBS's 60 Minutes when it launched in 1968.
Channel 9 changed its call letters to KMGM-TV on May 23, 1956. At the time, the station was in negotiations with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to acquire the Twin Cities television rights to the company's films, along with selling a 25 percent stake in KMGM-TV to the studio. Negotiations broke down later that month over the cost of the films; additionally, Loew's, MGM's parent company at the time, filed a petition with the FCC against the call sign change, claiming that the use of KMGM was unauthorized and a violation of MGM's trademark. The FCC ruled against Loew's that October, saying that its call sign assignment policies were limited to preventing confusion between stations in a given ar |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%20channel | B channel (bearer) is a telecommunications term which refers to the ISDN channel in which the primary data or voice communication is carried. It has a bit rate of 64 kbit/s in full duplex.
The term is applied primarily in relation to the ISDN access interfaces (PRA or PRI and BRA or BRI), since deeper in the PSTN network an ISDN bearer channel is essentially indistinguishable from any other bearer channel.
Apart from any transmission errors, the purpose of the network is to carry the contents of the B channel transparently between the endpoints of the call. Exceptions to this general principle include:
If one or more trunks on the route between the endpoints employs Robbed Bit Signalling, this will result in frequent bit errors in the least-significant bit of bytes transported by the channel, effectively limiting the channel to 56 kbit/s.
If the call has been established as a long-distance voice call, then echo cancellers may be being employed. While these improve the quality of the channel when it is used for voice communications, they render the channel essentially useless for data communications purposes (whether modulated or not).
International voice calls may include A-law to μ-law conversion, which also impairs the channel when used for data communications purposes.
Long-distance voice calls may also employ some form of voice compression, typically provided by equipment such as DCME.
In order to assure the usability of the channel for data communications, the following measures are at the disposal of users:
ISDN terminal equipment can specify the required Bearer Capability when establishing the call.
If the call is being set up as a voice call between modems, then a 2100 Hz answer tone sent in the backward direction during the initial seconds of the conversation phase of the call will result in any echo cancellers or echo suppressors being disabled for the remainder of the call.
See also
D channel
H channel
Integrated Services Digital Network
ru:B-канал |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearer%20service | In telecommunications, Bearer Service or data service is a service that allows transmission of information signals between network interfaces. These services give the subscriber the capacity required to transmit appropriate signals between certain access points, i.e. user network interfaces.
Bearer Services are categorized by three types of attributes: dominant, secondary, and qualifying. These types are categorized by accessing services, interworking requirements, and other general attributes.
The bearer services include the following:
Rate adapted sub-rate information like circuit switched asynchronous and synchronous duplex data, 3009600 bits.
Speech and data swapping during a call, i.e. alternate speech and data.
Modem selection, i.e. selection of 3.1 kHz audio service when inter-working with ISDN.
References
Telecommunication services |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebrew | Homebrewing mainly refers to small-scale, non-commercial manufacture of a drink, typically beer.
Homebrew or home brew may also refer to:
Computing
Homebrew Computer Club
Homebrew (package manager), for macOS and Linux
Homebrew (video games), software written by hobbyists for proprietary game consoles
Atari 2600 homebrew
PlayStation Portable homebrew
PlayStation 3 homebrew
The Homebrew Channel
Music and media
Homebrew (Neneh Cherry album)
Homebrew (Steve Howe album), 1996
Homebrew, song by the band 311 from their album Grassroots (album)
Homebrew, album by Paul Lansky
Home Brew (band) (also known as Home Brew Crew), a New Zealand hip hop group
Home Brew (album), the first studio album by the group
"Home Brew" (The Green Green Grass), an episode from the sitcom
Other
A roleplaying game played using house rules, or devised entirely by its participants
Amateur radio homebrew |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multistate%20Anti-Terrorism%20Information%20Exchange | The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange Program, also known by the acronym MATRIX, was a U.S. federally funded data mining system originally developed for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement described as a tool to identify terrorist subjects.
The system was reported to analyze government and commercial databases to find associations between suspects or to discover locations of or completely new "suspects". The database and technologies used in the system were housed by Seisint, a Florida-based company since acquired by LexisNexis.
The Matrix program was shut down in June 2005 after federal funding was cut in the wake of public concerns over privacy and state surveillance.
History
Matrix was the brainchild of Hank Asher, a businessman in the data aggregation field. Asher reportedly contacted Florida police immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks, claiming he could find the hijackers as well as other potential terrorists. Asher reportedly offered to make available the database and technology that could do the job quickly, for free, supplied by the company he owned and operated: Seisint.
Control of the system was handed over to law enforcement officials, although Seisint continued to house and operate it on their behalf. After a demonstration of the system at the White House in January 2003 Matrix received US$4 million in grants from the U.S. Justice Department and the program was earmarked US$8 million by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The program snowballed, as states signed up to participate, including Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Ohio and Utah. California and Texas joined then exited the program, citing privacy and security concerns. The U.S. federal government and the CIA was cited as likely future users.
The program's similarity to the Total Information Awareness (TIA) federally funded initiative that was terminated following public concerns contributed to Matrix's demise. Matrix came under scrutiny by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which made Freedom of Information Act requests in Florida, where the program originated, and to the federal government on 30 October 2003. The ACLU followed this up with simultaneous information requests in Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania for information about those states' participation in Matrix.
The ACLU's requests sought to find out the information sources that Matrix was drawing upon, who had access to the database and how it is being used. As well as the funding and operations described here, the ACLU's requests revealed that Matrix would perform an almost identical function to the banned TIA. Matrix would bind together government and commercial databases to allow federal and state law enforcement entities to conduct detailed searches on individuals.
Public revelation of the projects funding caused an uproar in the media and states bega |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20numeral%20system%20topics | This is a list of Wikipedia articles on topics of numeral system and "numeric representations"
See also: computer numbering formats and number names.
Arranged by base
Radix, radix point, mixed radix, base (mathematics)
Unary numeral system (base 1)
Binary numeral system (base 2)
Negative base numeral system (base −2)
Ternary numeral system numeral system (base 3)
Balanced ternary numeral system (base 3)
Negative base numeral system (base −3)
Quaternary numeral system (base 4)
Quater-imaginary base (base 2)
Quinary numeral system (base 5)
Senary numeral system (base 6)
Septenary numeral system (base 7)
Octal numeral system (base 8)
Nonary (novenary) numeral system (base 9)
Decimal (denary) numeral system (base 10)
Negative base numeral system (base −10)
Duodecimal (dozenal) numeral system (base 12)
Hexadecimal numeral system (base 16)
Vigesimal numeral system (base 20)
Sexagesimal numeral system (base 60)
Arranged by culture
Other
Numeral system topics |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott%20Hudson%20%28electrical%20engineer%29 | Raymond Scott Hudson (born 1959) is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Washington State University. Hudson was educated at Caltech, where he received his bachelor's degree in engineering and applied science in 1985, his master's degree in electrical engineering in 1986, and his PhD in electrical engineering in 1990. His research interests include radar imaging, optical signal processing, and radar astronomy.
From August 19 to 22 of 1989, Hudson and Steven Ostro observed 4769 Castalia from the Arecibo Observatory, producing the first direct image of an asteroid.
The main-belt asteroid 5723 Hudson, discovered by Edward Bowell at Lowell Observatory in 1986, was named in his honour. The official naming citation was published on 9 September 1995 ().
References
External links
Profile of Scott Hudson
Scott Hudson's web page at WSU
1959 births
Living people
American astronomers
American electrical engineers
California Institute of Technology alumni
Washington State University faculty |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air%20America%20%28radio%20network%29 | Air America (formerly Air America Radio and Air America Media) was an American radio network specializing in progressive talk radio. It was on the air from March 2004 to January 2010.
The network was founded as a left–wing alternative to counter talk radio with a right–wing perspective. Air America featured programs with monologues by on-air personalities, guest interviews, call-ins from listeners, and news reports. Several shows had million plus audiences, and multiple weekday presenters continued on in radio, television, or politics after their time on Air America. For example, in 2008, The Thom Hartmann Program had 1.5–2 million unique listeners a week and The Lionel Show had 1.5–1.75 million unique listeners a week. Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, and Mike Malloy later had shows on other radio networks. Marc Maron started his "WTF podcast" by trespassing in Air America's studios after the network's demise, before moving to Los Angeles. Al Franken went from his show to the United States Senate, and Rachel Maddow moved her show to television on MSNBC.
The network was financially troubled, however. A scandal involving nearly $1 million in loans from a Boys & Girls Club in New York secretly transacted by Evan Cohen came out in 2005 and was a source of negative publicity. The loans were repaid, but in October 2006, mounting debts forced Air America Radio to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company was bought by New York real estate investor Stephen L. Green and his brother Mark Green, who purchased the network in March 2007 for US$4.25 million.
The company eventually changed its name from Air America Radio to Air America Media and lastly to just Air America, an effort to establish itself as a broadcaster on multiple media sources including television and the Internet, and one not merely relegated to radio. Always primarily a radio network, on January 21, 2010, Air America went off the air citing difficulties with the current economic environment. It filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and liquidated itself. Bennett Zier was the company's last CEO including through the bankruptcy and liquidation.
Sometime after the network's closure, Newsweb Corporation (owned by Chicago entrepreneur, political activist, and philanthropist Fred Eychaner, owner of Chicago's WCPT progressive talk radio station) acquired ownership of the branding.
Programming overview
Air America Media's progressive talk radio programming consisted of news, talk, comedy, interviews, guest editorials, and listeners' telephone calls. The talk portions featured some extended host monologues in the classic talk radio format. Live and pre-recorded comedy routines, featuring various comedians, were also aired. As with most syndicated broadcast networks, local affiliate stations were able to air select programs or the entire schedule, subject to contractual arrangements.
Format
The shows followed a half-hour format from six minutes past the hour to 28 minutes after the hour followed by a hard brea |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome%20sort | Gnome sort (nicknamed stupid sort) is a variation of the insertion sort sorting algorithm that does not use nested loops. Gnome sort was originally proposed by Iranian computer scientist Hamid Sarbazi-Azad (professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Sharif University of Technology) in 2000. The sort was first called stupid sort (not to be confused with bogosort), and then later described by Dick Grune and named gnome sort.
Gnome sort performs at least as many comparisons as insertion sort and has the same asymptotic run time characteristics. Gnome sort works by building a sorted list one element at a time, getting each item to the proper place in a series of swaps. The average running time is O(n2) but tends towards O(n) if the list is initially almost sorted.
Dick Grune described the sorting method with the following story:
Pseudocode
Here is pseudocode for the gnome sort using a zero-based array:
procedure gnomeSort(a[]):
pos := 0
while pos < length(a):
if (pos == 0 or a[pos] >= a[pos-1]):
pos := pos + 1
else:
swap a[pos] and a[pos-1]
pos := pos - 1
Example
Given an unsorted array, a = [5, 3, 2, 4], the gnome sort takes the following steps during the while loop. The current position is highlighted in bold and indicated as a value of the variable pos.
Notes
References
External links
Gnome sort
Sorting algorithms
Comparison sorts
Stable sorts |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo%20Diaries | Zoo Diaries is a Canadian documentary television series airing on Life Network. The series documents the live of animals and people at a zoo with a record of breeding endangered species. 74 episodes have been produced since 2000 by DocuTainment Productions. The final episode aired in 2007.
Each episode opens with a brief description of the show's contents. Events in the life of three or four animals are shown, cutting between stories every couple of minutes. Each story focuses on an animal in an interesting situation, and the zoo person responsible for handling the situation. Some situations are resolved over a number of episodes, for example, developing and performing an animal show designed to startle the audience. Topics vary from birth to death.
The series is candid about the zoo employees' behavior and opinions.
It is filmed at the Toronto Zoo in Toronto, Ontario and narrated by Vince Corazza.
Episodes 1-37 are available on DVD. In Canada, the show currently airs on National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo Wild and Nickelodeon Canada.
External links
IMDB entry
Toronto Zoo website
DocuTainment/MicroTainment Productions
2000s Canadian documentary television series
Zoos in Canada
Slice (TV channel) original programming
2000 Canadian television series debuts
2007 Canadian television series endings |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIA | BIA or Bia may refer to:
Acronym or abbreviation
Organizations and companies
Board of Immigration Appeals, an American immigration appellate court
Bohemia Interactive Australia, a computer simulation software company
Border and Immigration Agency, a defunct British government agency
Braille Institute of America, a non-profit organization headquartered in Los Angeles
Brazilian Intelligence Agency
Bridgeport International Academy, a U.S. high school
British Institute in Amman, a British research institute in Amman, Jordan
British Island Airways, a defunct British airline
Brunei Investment Agency, a corporation under the Government of Brunei
Bureau of Indian Affairs, an American government agency
Burma Independence Army, a name for the predecessor of the Burma National Army in World War II
Bus Industries of America
Security Intelligence Agency (), Serbian Security Intelligence Agency
Beijing Institute of Aerodynamics, a former research organization in Beijing, China
Airports
Baghdad International Airport
Bahrain International Airport
Bandaranaike International Airport
Bangkok International Airport (disambiguation)
Bangor International Airport, Bangor, Maine
Bastia – Poretta Airport (IATA: BIA), on the island of Corsica
Beirut International Airport
Belfast International Airport
Bengaluru International Airport, Bangalore, India
Birmingham Airport, Birmingham, England
Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Blackpool International Airport, Lancashire, England
Bristol Airport
Brussels International Airport
Other acronyms
Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the statute that regulates the law on bankruptcy and insolvency in Canada
Basic indicator approach, a set of operational risk measurement techniques for banking institutions
Behavioural investigative advisor, a British term for police psychologist
Bilateral Immunity Agreement, a type of treaty involving the United States
Bioelectrical impedance analysis, a way to measure body fat using electrical impulses
Burned-in address, a globally unique network address assigned to a device at time of manufacture
Business impact analysis, a component of business continuity planning
Business improvement area, a defined area within which businesses pay an additional tax or fee in order to fund improvements within the area
Business–IT alignment, a dynamic state in which a business organization is able to use information technology (IT) effectively to achieve business objectives
Places
Bīā, a village in Iran
Bia, Togo, a village
Bia District, a former district of western Ghana
Bia National Park, a national park in Ghana
Bia (Ghana parliament constituency)
Bia River in western Africa
Phou Bia, the highest mountain in Laos
People
Bïa, a Brazilian-born singer
Bia (Brazilian footballer)
Bia (rapper)
Maria Francisca Bia, 19th-century Dutch ballet dancer, opera singer and actress
Bia de' Medici (1536–1542), daughter of Cosimo I d |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements%20analysis | In systems engineering and software engineering, requirements analysis focuses on the tasks that determine the needs or conditions to meet the new or altered product or project, taking account of the possibly conflicting requirements of the various stakeholders, analyzing, documenting, validating and managing software or system requirements.
Requirements analysis is critical to the success or failure of a systems or software project.<ref>{{cite book
|editor1= Alain Abran |editor2=James W. Moore |editor3=Pierre Bourque |editor4=Robert Dupuis
| title = Guide to the software engineering body of knowledge|url = http://www.swebok.org
|access-date = 2007-02-08|edition=2004 |date=March 2005
| publisher = IEEE Computer Society Press | location = Los Alamitos, CA | isbn = 0-7695-2330-7
| chapter = Chapter 2: Software Requirements | chapter-url = http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok/html/ch2
| quote = It is widely acknowledged within the software industry that software engineering projects are critically vulnerable when these activities are performed poorly.
}}</ref> The requirements should be documented, actionable, measurable, testable, traceable, related to identified business needs or opportunities, and defined to a level of detail sufficient for system design.
Overview
Conceptually, requirements analysis includes three types of activities:
Eliciting requirements: (e.g. the project charter or definition), business process documentation, and stakeholder interviews. This is sometimes also called requirements gathering or requirements discovery.
Recording requirements: Requirements may be documented in various forms, usually including a summary list and may include natural-language documents, use cases, user stories, process specifications and a variety of models including data models.
Analyzing requirements: determining whether the stated requirements are clear, complete, unduplicated, concise, valid, consistent and unambiguous, and resolving any apparent conflicts. Analyzing can also include sizing requirements.
Requirements analysis can be a long and tiring process during which many delicate psychological skills are involved. New systems change the environment and relationships between people, so it is important to identify all the stakeholders, take into account all their needs and ensure they understand the implications of the new systems. Analysts can employ several techniques to elicit the requirements from the customer. These may include the development of scenarios (represented as user stories in agile methods), the identification of use cases, the use of workplace observation or ethnography, holding interviews, or focus groups (more aptly named in this context as requirements workshops, or requirements review sessions) and creating requirements lists. Prototyping may be used to develop an example system that can be demonstrated to stakeholders. Where necessary, the analyst will employ a combination of these methods to establish the |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selector | Selector may refer to:
Selector, electrical or mechanical component, a switch
Selector, music scheduling software for radio stations created by Radio Computing Services
Selector, of music, otherwise known as a disc jockey
Selector, a person who made a selection of crown land in some Australian colonies
Selector (sport), person that chooses players for a sports team
Selector, part of Cascading Style Sheets programming language
"Selector", a song by Skindred from the 2002 album Babylon
Selector, part of Objective-C programming language
The Selector, radio program
Choice function on a family of sets
See also
The Selecter, a UK ska band
Moshe Selecter, Israeli footballer |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterministic%20system | In mathematics, computer science and physics, a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system. A deterministic model will thus always produce the same output from a given starting condition or initial state.
In physics
Physical laws that are described by differential equations represent deterministic systems, even though the state of the system at a given point in time may be difficult to describe explicitly.
In quantum mechanics, the Schrödinger equation, which describes the continuous time evolution of a system's wave function, is deterministic. However, the relationship between a system's wave function and the observable properties of the system appears to be non-deterministic.
In mathematics
The systems studied in chaos theory are deterministic. If the initial state were known exactly, then the future state of such a system could theoretically be predicted. However, in practice, knowledge about the future state is limited by the precision with which the initial state can be measured, and chaotic systems are characterized by a strong dependence on the initial conditions. This sensitivity to initial conditions can be measured with Lyapunov exponents.
Markov chains and other random walks are not deterministic systems, because their development depends on random choices.
In computer science
A deterministic model of computation, for example a deterministic Turing machine, is a model of computation such that the successive states of the machine and the operations to be performed are completely determined by the preceding state.
A deterministic algorithm is an algorithm which, given a particular input, will always produce the same output, with the underlying machine always passing through the same sequence of states. There may be non-deterministic algorithms that run on a deterministic machine, for example, an algorithm that relies on random choices. Generally, for such random choices, one uses a pseudorandom number generator, but one may also use some external physical process, such as the last digits of the time given by the computer clock.
A pseudorandom number generator is a deterministic algorithm, that is designed to produce sequences of numbers that behave as random sequences. A hardware random number generator, however, may be non-deterministic.
Others
In economics, the Ramsey–Cass–Koopmans model is deterministic. The stochastic equivalent is known as real business-cycle theory.
See also
Deterministic system (philosophy)
Dynamical system
Scientific modelling
Statistical model
Stochastic process
References
System
Dynamical systems |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red%20Shoe%20Diaries | Red Shoe Diaries is an American anthology erotic drama series that aired on Showtime cable network from 1992 to 1997 and was distributed by Playboy Entertainment overseas. It is a spinoff of the television film of the same name, directed by Zalman King. Most episodes were directed by either King or Rafael Eisenman.
The storylines usually have a plot revolving around romantic intrigue and the sexual awakening of a woman who often also narrates. Sensuous love scenes with nudity as well as sultry, moody music are characteristic for most episodes. There is no story arc or characters connecting the different stories other than Jake Winters introducing each episode.
Premise
Jake Winters (David Duchovny) places an ad in the newspaper under "Red Shoes", seeking women to mail in their personal diaries with stories of love, passion and/or betrayal. He is then shown walking on desolate train tracks with his dog Stella. He begins reading a letter from his post office box out loud that begins with "Dear Red Shoes..." In the pilot film, Jake lost his fiancée to suicide and discovered she kept a diary detailing an affair she had with a construction worker and shoe salesman who sold her a pair of red high heels. He placed the ad in the newspaper in an effort to make sense of his fiancée's secret life through the stories of women in similar situations. Each episode is devoted to a woman's story Jake receives, and begins and ends with Jake's comments to Stella.
Production
Zalman King conceived of an erotic TV series that would air on premium cable, which was then a burgeoning market as it was not beholden to MPAA ratings. With his wife and collaborator Patricia Louisianna Knop, King wrote the script for the television film Red Shoe Diaries, intending it to be the pilot for the anthology series. The film, in conjunction with four episodes, was pitched to Showtime in 1991.
Said King: "I wanted to do an anthology series from a very intimate, woman’s point of view." He dismissed the term softcore to categorize his work because of its pornographic connotations, saying, "Eroticism has a real place in my vocabulary because [it] usually needs to move out of a relationship or some sort of tension and that’s what I'm very interested in. I usually think of my work as romance." Producer David Saunders said, "We weren’t interested in making porn. We wanted to make erotic movies with good stories that looked great, were well-acted, and that concerned women as well as men. Showtime’s interests and our interests coincided." Of the show's content, writer Chloe King said, "It’s not wham-bam thank you ma’am. There’s more intellectual than physical foreplay." Lizzie Borden, Anne Goursaud, Mary Lambert, Nelly Alard, and Elise D'Haene were among the female writers and directors on the show.
David Duchovny was cast in The X-Files shortly after signing on to do the pilot film. Though his character’s story is continued in the episode entitled "Jake’s Story", he mostly appears as the |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune%20%28Unix%29 | fortune is a program that displays a pseudorandom message from a database of quotations that first appeared in Version 7 Unix. The most common version on modern systems is the BSD fortune, originally written by Ken Arnold. Distributions of fortune are usually bundled with a collection of themed files, containing sayings like those found on fortune cookies (hence the name), quotations from famous people, jokes, or poetry. As of November 2017, the quotations (with the exception of tips relevant to system operation) have been removed from FreeBSD entirely after user complaints regarding quotations from Adolf Hitler being contained in some of the files.
fortune is predominantly found on Unix-like systems, but clients for other platforms also exist. Often, users on text-mode Unix terminals will place this command into either their .profile or .logout files to display them at logon and logout, respectively. It is also used to generate text input for certain XScreenSaver modes. It is possible to pipe fortune into the cowsay command, to add more humor to the dialog.
Content
Most Unix systems use fortunes which are slanted heavily toward the user base of Unix, and thus contain many obscure jokes about computer science and computer programming. Other favoured sources include quotations from science fiction (Star Trek, The Cyberiad, Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc.), Zippy the Pinhead, and the writings of Ambrose Bierce and Dave Barry. Most fortune collections also include a wide variety of more conventionally sourced quotations, jokes, and other short passages. A few distributions include "offensive" dicta, which require the -a or -o options to be passed for viewing. These fortunes often include rude humor and profanity, personal attacks, and controversial comments about religion. Sometimes they are provided by another package, however as of FreeBSD 10.0 the offensive dicta have been removed completely. The exact fortunes vary between each type of Unix, however there seems to be a strong overlap between the FreeBSD and OpenBSD fortune files. The Plan 9 fortune files seem to be much shorter, with many just on 1 line, and the 'offensive' dicta is much stronger. Most Linux distributions, such as Debian (and its derivatives), choose the FreeBSD fortunes to put in their fortune packages, that can be installed through the package manager.
Purpose
One of the included fortunes, from the "goedel" collection of fortunes about fortune itself, sums up the purpose of the program:
The original fortune program could be used for the more general task of picking up a random line from a plain-text file. The example of such use is given in the rc documentation . However, in most modern Unix systems fortune cannot be used this way, since they use an ad hoc file format for fortune files to allow multiline aphorisms.
Fortune files
Conventional versions of fortune use two files for each quotation list: a text file with quotations, each separated by the |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache%20on%20a%20stick | COASt, an acronym for "cache on a stick", is a packaging standard for modules containing SRAM used as an L2 cache in a computer. COASt modules look like somewhat oversized SIMM modules. These modules were somewhat popular in the Apple and PC platforms during early to mid-1990s, but with newer computers cache is built into either the CPU or the motherboard. COASt modules decoupled the motherboard from its cache, allowing varying configurations to be created. A low-cost system could run with no cache, while a more expensive system could come equipped with 512 KB or more cache. Later COASt modules were equipped with pipelined-burst SRAM.
The standard was originally defined by Motorola to be between 4.33 and 4.36 inches (110 and 111 mm) wide, and between 1.12 and 1.16 inches (28 and 29 mm) high. It could be found in many Apple Macintosh in the early-to-mid-90s, but disappeared as the Mac moved to the PowerPC platform.
Intel also used the COASt standard for their Pentium systems, where it could be found as late as 1998 in Pentium MMX systems utilizing Intel chipsets such as 430VX and 430TX. Later, Intel combined this architecture with the CPU and created the Slot 1 CPU cartridge which contained both the CPU and separate cache chips.
The slot that the COASt module plugged into was named "CELP", or "card edge low profile", referring to the small circuit board and the conductors on its edge. It had 80 contacts on each side of a circuit board (for a total of 160), spaced 0.050" apart, plus an identification notch between contacts 42 and 43.
Operation
COASt modules provided either 256K or 512K of direct-mapped cache, organized as 8192 or 16384 lines of 32 bytes. A 64-bit data bus allowed the cache line to be transferred in a 4-cycle burst.
The modules contained 256K or 512K of fast pipeline burst SRAM, plus 8 or 11 bits of even faster static RAM per line to store the cache tags. (The module provides pins for 11 lines, but many motherboards and modules provided only 8.) Some variants (illustrated to the right) placed the tag RAM on the motherboard and only the main cache RAM was on the module.
Consider the 256K module first. An 8-bit tag allows caching memory up to 256 times the cache size, or 64 MiB. An 11-bit tag supports up to 512 MiB. Each cache line also has a valid bit and a dirty bit, stored in the cache controller. (16 Kbits, or 2 Kbytes, total size.)
A 512K module contains twice as many cache lines, and so requires one fewer tag bit to support the same cacheable memory size. The leftover tag bit is instead used to store the cache line dirty bit, and all 16 Kbits in the cache controller are used for valid bits.
References
COASt Modules, PCGuide, April 17, 2001.
Cache Module Physical Installation Procedure, PCGuide, April 17, 2001.
Renn, Brian. The Cache Guide: What is COASt?, December 12, 1998.
Supports 11-bit tag.
Supports 8-bit tag only.
External links
Computer memory
Cache (computing) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles%20Bianconi | Charles Bianconi (24 September 1786 – 22 September 1875) was an Italo-Irish entrepreneur. Sometimes described as the "man who put Ireland on wheels", he developed a network of horse-drawn coaches that became Ireland's "first regular public transport" system. He eventually became known for his innovations in transport and was twice mayor of Clonmel, in County Tipperary.
Early life
Born Carlo Bianconi in Costa Masnaga, Italy on 24 September 1786, he moved from an area poised to fall to Napoleon and travelled to Ireland in 1802, via England, just four years after the 1798 rebellion. At the time, British fear of continental invasion resulted in an acute sense of insecurity and additional restrictions on the admission of foreigners. He was christened Carlo but anglicised his name to Charles when he arrived in Ireland in 1802.
Career
He worked as an engraver and printseller in Dublin, near Essex Street, under his sponsor, Andrea Faroni, when he was 16. In 1806 he set up an engraving, gilding and print shop in Carrick-on-Suir, moving to Clonmel in 1815.
Although widely regarded as the founder of public transportation in Ireland, he built on the system of mail coaches and roads that were built around Ireland before 1790 by the Scottish entrepreneur, John Anderson of Fermoy. After the collapse of Anderson's mail coach and banking empire in 1815, Bianconi established regular horse-drawn carriage services on various routes from about 1815 onwards. He acknowledged two advantages that led to his success:
The first service, Clonmel to Cahir, took five to eight hours by boat but only two hours by Bianconi’s carriage. Travel on a ‘Bian’ cost one penny farthing a mile. His open 'Bianconi coaches' colloquially shortened to 'Bians', were a popular form of public transport for over a century.
There were also a series of inns, the Bianconi Inns, some of which still exist; in Piltown, County Kilkenny and Killorglin, County Kerry. These services continued into the 1850s and later, by which time there were a number of railway services in the country. The Bianconi coaches continued to be well-patronised, by offering connections from various termini, one of the first and few examples of an integrated transport system in Ireland. By 1865 Bianconi’s annual income was about £35,000.
Later life and death
Bianconi died on 22 September 1875 at Longfield House, Boherlahan, County Tipperary.
Having donated land to the parish of Boherlahan for the construction of a parish church, Bianconi wished to be buried on the church grounds. He, and his family, are buried in a side chapel, separate from the parish church in Boherlahan, approximately 5 miles from Cashel, County Tipperary.
Family
In 1832 Bianconi married Eliza Hayes, the daughter of a wealthy Dublin stockbroker. They had three children - Charles Thomas Bianconi, Catherine Henrietta Bianconi and Mary Anne Bianconi the wife of Morgan John O'Connell and mother of John O'Connell Bianconi. Mary Anne published a biography |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He%2C%20She%20and%20It | He, She and It (retitled Body of Glass in the United Kingdom) is a 1991 cyberpunk novel by Marge Piercy. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1993. The novel's setting is post-apocalyptic America and follows a romance between a human woman and a cyborg created to protect her community from corporate raiders, while interweaving a secondary narrative of the creation of a golem in 17th century Prague. Like Piercy's earlier novel Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), He, She, and It also examines themes such as gender roles, political economy, and environmentalism.
Plot summary
The story of He, She and It takes place in North America in the year 2059. At that time, the economic and political power was held by a few multis—huge multinational enterprises with their own social hierarchy that produced an affluent society. However, the main part of the population lives in the glop outside of the multis' enclaves within an environment that has mainly been destroyed. There, life is dominated by poverty, gang wars, and the law of the strongest. An exception to this is the so-called free towns that are able to sell their technologies to the multis but remain autonomous. Communication is handled via a network that allows the participants to project themselves into Cyberspace.
When the protagonist Shira loses custody of her son Ari to her ex-husband Josh, she returns from her multi Yakamura-Stichen (Y-S) to her hometown Tikva (Hope in Hebrew) - a Jewish freetown. There, she starts working on the socialisation of the cyborg Yod (the tenth letter in Hebrew and a symbol for God in Kabbalah), who has been created illegally by Avram to protect the city. Yod is the tenth cyborg (a robot with human appearance and programmed human characteristics) in a row of previously failed experiments whose programming has partially been completed by Malkah, Shira's grandmother. Shira and Yod build up a (sexual) relationship between them and Shira's childhood sweetheart Gadi, Avram's son, also comes back to Tikva, due to his banishment for sleeping with a young girl. During the time when Malkah is working on a chimaera (security software) to protect the city from an online attack, she is attacked by Y-S, but Yod is able to stop the attack.
Eventually, Y-S invites Shira to a new hearing concerning the custody of her son. Shira is accompanied by Yod, Yod's mother, Riva, and Nili, a biotechnologically enhanced woman from a nuclear-devastated Israel. The situation escalates into violence, and the Y-S delegation and Riva die in the fight. In response, Shira, Malkah and Yod decide to infiltrate the Y-S network base and manage to get hold of personnel files revealing a conspiracy against Shira and Tikva.
As the next step, Shira and Yod are accompanied by Nili and Gadi into the Glop. Here, they get in contact with an organised underground group in which they discover Riva is still alive and participating in resistance activities. From the Glop, they travel i |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanimate | Scanimate is an analog computer animation (video synthesizer) system developed from the late 1960s to the 1980s by Computer Image Corporation of Denver, Colorado.
The 8 Scanimate systems were used to produce much of the video-based animation seen on television between most of the 1970s and early 1980s in commercials, promotions, and show openings. One of the major advantages the Scanimate system had over film-based animation and computer animation was the ability to create animations in real time. The speed with which animation could be produced on the system because of this, as well as its range of possible effects, helped it to supersede film-based animation techniques for television graphics. By the mid-1980s, it was superseded by digital computer animation, which produced sharper images and more sophisticated 3D imagery.
Animations created on Scanimate and similar analog computer animation systems have a number of characteristic features that distinguish them from film-based animation: The motion is extremely fluid, using all 60 fields per second (in NTSC format video) or 50 fields (in PAL format video) rather than the 24 frames per second that film uses; the colors are much brighter and more saturated; and the images have a very "electronic" look that results from the direct manipulation of video signals through which the Scanimate produces the images.
How it works
A special high-resolution (around 945 lines) monochrome camera records high-contrast artwork. The image is then displayed on a high-resolution screen. Unlike a normal monitor, its deflection signals are passed through a special analog computer that enables the operator to bend the image in a variety of ways. The image is then shot from the screen by either a film camera or a video camera. In the case of a video camera, this signal is then fed into a colorizer, a device that takes certain shades of grey and turns it into color as well as transparency. The idea behind this is that the output of the Scanimate itself is always monochrome. Another advantage of the colorizer is that it gives the operator the ability to continuously add layers of graphics. This makes possible the creation of very complex graphics. This is done by using two video recorders. The background is played by one recorder and then recorded by another one. This process is repeated for every layer. This requires very high-quality video recorders (such as both the Ampex VR-2000 or IVC's IVC-9000 of Scanimate's era, the IVC-9000 being used quite frequently for Scanimate composition due to its very high generational quality between re-recordings).
Scanimate today
Two of the Scanimates are still in use at ZFx studios in Asheville, NC. The original "Black Swan" R&D machine has been updated with more modern power supplies and can produce material in standard or 1080P high definition video. The "white Pearl" machine is the last one produced and is being kept in its original configuration for historical purposes by D |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHFD-DT | CHFD-DT (channel 4) is a television station in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, affiliated with the Global Television Network. It is owned by locally based Dougall Media alongside CTV affiliate CKPR-DT (channel 2). Both stations share studios on Hill and Van Norman Streets in central Thunder Bay, while CHFD-DT's transmitter is located in Shuniah, Ontario.
Since February 12, 2010, CHFD carries the vast majority of Global's programming schedule and brands itself on-air as Global Thunder Bay in the manner of the network's owned-and-operated stations.
History
As a CTV affiliate
CHFD went on the air for the first time on October 14, 1972, as a CTV affiliate. The station is part of the Thunder Bay Television twinstick with the then-CBC affiliate CKPR. From 2002 to 2009, it was among three CTV-affiliated stations in Canada not owned and operated directly by CTV.
As a CTV affiliate, CHFD also aired selected programming purchased from Global, such as Saturday Night Live and Brothers & Sisters, as well as religious programming commonly aired on Global stations, including 100 Huntley Street and the Hour of Power. It has also aired programs which do not air on other broadcast channels in Canada, such as Channel 4's A Place in the Sun.
Affiliation with the Global Television Network
In January 2010, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) published an application filed by CHFD to disaffiliate from CTV as of February 28, after not being able to negotiate an acceptable new programming agreement with the network, indicating it had instead reached an expanded program supply agreement with Global. However, on February 12, just before CTV's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics began, and before the CRTC was able to rule on the application, CHFD began carrying Global programming full-time. It had attempted to get broadcast rights for the Olympics – which the station said was a separate matter from the network affiliation – but was again unable to reach an acceptable agreement. After affiliating with Global, CHFD rebranded from Thunder Bay Television to Global Thunder Bay, and adopted a new logo and website similar to Global's owned and operated stations (this differs from most Canadian television stations that are not under common ownership with a television system or national television network; such stations typically use their callsigns as their on-air branding).
Local cable company Shaw Cable advised customers who wish to continue to watch CTV programming to subscribe to their digital cable timeshifting package; the company did, however, add CTV Toronto to its basic lineup on channel 23 for the duration of the Olympics.
In June 2014, Dougall Media announced that sister station CKPR would switch its affiliation from CBC to CTV in September. The affiliation switch took effect on September 1, 2014.
On January 27, 2016, Dougall Media officials revealed that CKPR and CHFD are both being sustained by the payouts from life insurance |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZN | KZN may refer to:
KwaZulu-Natal, a province of South Africa
Kantonsschule Zürich Nord, a school in Switzerland
Kazan International Airport, Tatarstan, Russia (IATA code: KZN)
KSL (radio network), Utah, United States (original call sign: KZN) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisect | Bisect, or similar, may refer to:
Mathematics
Bisection, in geometry, dividing something into two equal parts
Bisection method, a root-finding algorithm
Equidistant set
Other uses
Bisect (philately), the use of postage stamp halves
Bisector (music), a half octave in diatonic set theory
Bisection (software engineering), for finding code changes
bisection of earthworms to study regeneration |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasso%20%28programming%20language%29 | Lasso is an application server and server management interface used to develop internet applications and is a general-purpose, high-level programming language. Originally a web datasource connection tool for Filemaker and later included in Apple Computer's FileMaker 4.0 and Claris Homepage as CDML, it has since evolved into a complex language used to develop and serve large-scale internet applications and web pages.
Lasso includes a simple template system allowing code to control generation of HTML and other content types. Lasso is object-oriented and every value is an object. It also supports procedural programming through unbound methods. The language uses traits and multiple dispatch extensively.
Lasso has a dynamic type system, where objects can be loaded and augmented at runtime, automatic memory management, a comprehensive standard library, and three compiling methodologies: dynamic (comparable to PHP-Python), just-in-time compilation (comparable to Java or .NET Framework), and pre-compiled (comparable to C). Lasso also supports Query Expressions, allowing elements within arrays and other types of sequences to be iterated, filtered, and manipulated using a natural language syntax similar to SQL.
Lasso includes full Unicode character support in the standard string object, allowing it to serve and support multi-byte characters such as Japanese and Swedish, and supports transparent UTF-8 conversion when writing string data to the network or file system.
Lasso is often used as a scripting language, and also used in a wide range of non-scripting contexts. Lasso code can be packaged into standalone executable programs called "LassoApps", in which folder structures are compiled into single files.
The Lasso Server application server runs as a system service and receives requests from the web server through FastCGI. It then hands the request off to the appropriate Lasso Instance, which formulates the response. Multiple individual instances are supported, allowing one server to handle multiple sites, each as separate processes. The server uses a high performance IO-based green threading system designed for multi-core systems.
Lasso can be compared to the server-side scripting languages PHP and Python, ColdFusion, Ruby, etc.
Free for development, Lasso allows partial access to its source code, enabling developers to add or change major components of the language (for example, Ke Carlton's DS implementation of the Lasso Inline). Licensing comes in both SAS and stand-alone versions.
History
Lasso began in the mid-1990s when early web developers were attempting to build database-backed websites using Apple's FileMaker Pro. On the Mac platform, there were two solutions: Eric Bickford's WEB-FM, and Russell Owens' FileMaker CGI (ROFM) - both built in AppleScript and requiring the use of FileMaker Pro calculation fields for formatting. (WEB-FM was subsequently rewritten in C).
In the Fall of 1995, independent developer Vince Bonfanti wrote a new CGI |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlighting%20%28TV%20series%29 | Moonlighting is an American comedy drama television series that aired on ABC from March 3, 1985, to May 14, 1989. The network aired a total of 67 episodes. Starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis as private detectives, Allyce Beasley as their quirky receptionist, and Curtis Armstrong as a temp worker (and later junior detective), the show was a mixture of drama, comedy, mystery, and romance, and was considered to be one of the first successful and influential examples of comedy drama, or "dramedy", emerging as a distinct television genre.
The show's theme song was co-written and performed by jazz singer Al Jarreau and became a hit. The show is also credited with making Willis a star and relaunching Shepherd's career after a string of lackluster projects. In 1997, the episode "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice" was ranked number 34 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2007, the series was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-Time". The relationship between the characters David and Maddie was included in TV Guides list of the best TV couples of all time.
Plot
The series revolved around cases investigated by the Blue Moon Detective Agency and its two partners, Madolyn "Maddie" Hayes (Shepherd) and David Addison (Willis). The show, with a mix of mystery, sharp dialogue, and sexual tension between its leads, introduced Willis to the world and brought Shepherd back into the spotlight after a nearly decade-long absence. The characters were introduced in a two-hour pilot episode.
The show's storyline begins with the reversal of fortune of Maddie Hayes, a former model who finds herself bankrupt after her accountant embezzles all her liquid assets. She is left saddled with several failing businesses formerly maintained as tax writeoffs, one of which is the City of Angels Detective Agency, helmed by the carefree David Addison. Between the pilot and the first one-hour episode, David persuades Maddie to keep the business and run it as a partnership. The agency is renamed Blue Moon Investigations because Maddie was most famous for being the spokesmodel for the Blue Moon Shampoo Company. In many episodes, she was recognized as "the Blue Moon shampoo girl", if not by name.
In his audio commentary for the Season 3 DVD, creator Glenn Gordon Caron says that the inspiration for the series was a production of The Taming of the Shrew he saw in Central Park starring Meryl Streep and Raúl Julia. The show parodied the play in the Season 3 episode "Atomic Shakespeare".
Cast
Main cast
Cybill Shepherd as Madolyn "Maddie" Hayes, a chic, smart former high-fashion model. Left bankrupt when her accountant embezzles her money, she is forced to make a living by running the detective agency she owns as a tax writeoff. Using her celebrity as a former model, she brings in clients and tries to bring some order to a business previously run without any discipline. By the time he had written 50 pages for the pilot to the show, Caron says h |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species%20diversity | Species diversity is the number of different species that are represented in a given community (a dataset). The effective number of species refers to the number of equally abundant species needed to obtain the same mean proportional species abundance as that observed in the dataset of interest (where all species may not be equally abundant). Meanings of species diversity may include species richness, taxonomic or phylogenetic diversity, and/or species evenness. Species richness is a simple count of species. Taxonomic or phylogenetic diversity is the genetic relationship between different groups of species. Species evenness quantifies how equal the abundances of the species are.
Calculation of diversity
Species diversity in a dataset can be calculated by first taking the weighted average of species proportional abundances in the dataset, and then taking the inverse of this. The equation is:
The denominator equals mean proportional species abundance in the dataset as calculated with the weighted generalized mean with exponent q - 1. In the equation, S is the total number of species (species richness) in the dataset, and the proportional abundance of the ith species is . The proportional abundances themselves are used as weights.
The equation is often written in the equivalent form:
The value of q determines which mean is used. q = 0 corresponds to the weighted harmonic mean, which is 1/S because the values cancel out, with the result that 0D is equal to the number of species or species richness, S. q = 1 is undefined, except that the limit as q approaches 1 is well defined:
which is the exponential of the Shannon entropy.
q = 2 corresponds to the arithmetic mean. As q approaches infinity, the generalized mean approaches the maximum value. In practice, q modifies species weighting, such that increasing q increases the weight given to the most abundant species, and fewer equally abundant species are hence needed to reach mean proportional abundance. Consequently, large values of q lead to smaller species diversity than small values of q for the same dataset. If all species are equally abundant in the dataset, changing the value of q has no effect, but species diversity at any value of q equals species richness.
Negative values of q are not used, because then the effective number of species (diversity) would exceed the actual number of species (richness). As q approaches negative infinity, the generalized mean approaches the minimum value. In many real datasets, the least abundant species is represented by a single individual, and then the effective number of species would equal the number of individuals in the dataset.
The same equation can be used to calculate the diversity in relation to any classification, not only species. If the individuals are classified into genera or functional types, represents the proportional abundance of the ith genus or functional type, and qD equals genus diversity or functional type diversity, respectively |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARNET | CARNET (Croatian Academic and Research Network, ) is the national research and education network of Croatia. It is funded from the government budget and it operates from offices in Zagreb and five other cities.
CARNET was established in 1991 as a project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia. In March 1995 the Government of the Republic of Croatia passed the Decree on founding of the CARNET institution with the purpose of facilitating progress of individuals, as well as of the society as a whole, through the use of new information technologies.
CARNET's activities can be divided in three basic areas: Internet service provision, encouragement of information society development and education for the new era.
History
The institution
A body responsible for coordinating the establishment of the Croatian educational computer network has been established on 3 October 1991. That was the beginning of the work of the Croatian Academic and Research Network - CARNET, the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Croatia. In the several years that followed CARNET was the only Internet service provider in Croatia, providing the service free of charge, not only to the academic community, but to all citizens of the Republic of Croatia as well.
In November 1992 the first international communication connection was established, which connected CARNET Internet exchange point in Zagreb to Austria. By that act Croatia became a part of the world computer network – the Internet.
During 1992, the first equipment was procured and the backbone of the CARNET network was built. Institutions in Croatia were connected at the speed of 19 - 200 kbit/s, while the whole network was connected to the Internet through Austria at the speed of 64 kbit/s.
The first institutions to be connected to the Internet were the University Computing Centre - SRCE, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, the Ruđer Bošković Institute, the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture in Split, the Faculty of Engineering in Rijeka, the Faculty of Economics in Osijek and the Ministry of Science and Technology.
During the first months of 1993, CARNET was assigned the administration over the top-level .hr domain by the international organisation called the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
In October 1994, CARNET started offering the first Internet courses to its users and, in time, user education became one of CARNET’s most important activities.
Network
In 1996, the backbone of CARNET network was upgraded by introducing the ATM technology which enables real-time transfer of image and sound at the basic speed of 155 Mbit/s.
In January 1997, the first distance lecture in Croatia was organized through the CARNET ATM core between the Rectorate of the Osijek University and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb.
GÉANT, the pan-European academic and researc |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer%20science%20and%20engineering | Computer science and engineering (CSE) is an academic program at many universities which comprises computer science classes (e.g. data structures and algorithms) and computer engineering classes (e.g computer architecture). There is no clear division in computing between science and engineering, just like in the field of materials science and engineering. CSE is also a term often used in Europe to translate the name of engineering informatics academic programs. It is offered in both undergraduate as well postgraduate with specializations.
Academic courses
Academic programs vary between colleges, but typically include a combination of topics in computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering. Undergraduate courses usually include programming, algorithms and data structures, computer architecture, operating systems, computer networks, parallel computing, embedded systems, algorithms design, circuit analysis and electronics, digital logic and processor design, computer graphics, scientific computing, software engineering, database systems, digital signal processing, virtualization, computer simulations and games programming. CSE programs also include core subjects of theoretical computer science such as theory of computation, numerical methods, machine learning, programming theory and paradigms. Modern academic programs also cover emerging computing fields like image processing, data science, robotics, bio-inspired computing, computational biology, autonomic computing and artificial intelligence. Most CSE programs require introductory mathematical knowledge, hence the first year of study is dominated by mathematical courses, primarily discrete mathematics, mathematical analysis, linear algebra, probability, and statistics, as well as the basics of electrical and electronic engineering, physics, and electromagnetism.
Example universities with CSE majors and departments
APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University
American International University-Bangladesh
Daffodil International University
American University of Beirut
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
BRAC University
Brainware University
Bucknell University
Delft University of Technology
Green University of Bangladesh
International Islamic University Chittagong
Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi
International Institute of Information Technology
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Lund University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
North South University
The Ohio State University
Santa Clara University
Seoul National University
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UCLA
UC Merced
UC San Diego
UC Santa Cruz
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman
University of Iowa
University of Michigan
University of New South Wales
University of Nevada
University of Notre Dame
Unive |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymnet | Tymnet was an international data communications network headquartered in Cupertino, California that used virtual call packet-switched technology and X.25, SNA/SDLC, BSC and Async interfaces to connect host computers (servers) at thousands of large companies, educational institutions, and government agencies. Users typically connected via dial-up connections or dedicated asynchronous connections.
The business consisted of a large public network that supported dial-up users and a private network that allowed government agencies and large companies (mostly banks and airlines) to build their own dedicated networks. The private networks were often connected via gateways to the public network to reach locations not on the private network. Tymnet was also connected to dozens of other public networks in the United States and internationally via X.25/X.75 gateways.
As the Internet grew and became almost universally accessible in the late 1990s, the need for services such as Tymnet migrated to the Internet style connections, but still had some value in the Third World and for specific legacy roles. However the value of these links continued to decrease, and Tymnet shut down in 2004.
Network
Tymnet offered local dial-up modem access in most cities in the United States and to a limited degree in Canada, which preferred its own DATAPAC service.
Users would dial into Tymnet and then interact with a simple command-line interface to establish a connection with a remote system. Once connected, data was passed to and from the user as if connected directly to a modem on the distant system. For various technical reasons, the connection was not entirely "invisible", and sometimes required the user to enter arcane commands to make 8-bit clean connections work properly for file transfer.
Tymnet was extensively used by large companies to provide dial-up services for their employees who were "on the road", as well as a gateway for users to connect to large online services such as CompuServe or The Source.
Organization and functionality
In its original implementation, the network supervisor contained most of the routing intelligence in the network. Unlike the TCP/IP protocol underlying the internet, Tymnet used a circuit switching layout which allowed the supervisors to be aware of every possible end-point. In its original incarnation, the users connected to nodes built using Varian minicomputers, then entered commands that were passed to the supervisor which ran on a XDS 940 host.
Circuits were character oriented and the network was oriented towards interactive character-by-character full-duplex communications circuits. The nodes handled character translation between various character sets, which were numerous at that time. This did have the side effect of making data transfers quite difficult, as bytes from the file would be invisibly "translated" without specific intervention on the part of the user.
Tymnet later developed their own custom hardware, the Tymnet |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak%20%26%20Spell%20%28toy%29 | The Speak & Spell line is a series of electronic hand-held child computers by Texas Instruments that consisted of a TMC0280 linear predictive coding speech synthesizer, a keyboard, and a receptor slot to receive one of a collection of ROM game library modules. The first Speak & Spell was introduced at the summer Consumer Electronics Show in , making it one of the earliest handheld electronic devices with a visual display to use interchangeable game cartridges. The company Basic Fun brought back the classic Speak & Spell in 2019 with some minor changes.
The Speak & Spell was named an IEEE Milestone in 2009.
Background
The Speak & Spell was created by a small team of engineers led by Paul Breedlove, himself an engineer, with Texas Instruments (TI) during the late 1970s. Development began in 1976 with an initial budget of $25,000, as an outgrowth of TI's research into speech synthesis. The completed proof version of the first console utilized TI's trademarked Solid State Speech technology to store full words in a solid state format similar to the manner in which calculators of the time stored numbers. Additional purchased cartridges (called expansion modules) could be inserted through the battery receptacle to provide new solid-state libraries and new games. This represented the first time an educational toy utilized speech that was not recorded on tape or phonograph record (as with Mattel's See 'n Say line or the earlier Chatty Cathy dolls).
The Speak & Spell console
The original Speak & Spell
The original Speak & Spell was the first of a three-part talking educational toy series that also included Speak & Read and Speak & Math. This series was a subset of TI's Learning Center product group and the Speak & Spell was released simultaneously with the Spelling B (a non-speech product designed to help children learn to spell), and the First Watch (designed to teach children to read digital and analog timepieces). The Speak & Spell was sold, with regional variations, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
The toy was originally advertised as a tool for helping children ages 7 and up to learn to spell and pronounce over 200 commonly misspelled words. It shipped without a cartridge, in this configuration called simply the Basic Unit (containing the minigames Mystery Word, Secret Code, and Letter).
Later Speak & Spell models
Between its release and 1983, the Speak & Spell was redesigned twice under the name Speak & Spell. It was completely recreated in 1982 as the Speak & Spell Compact (a version lacking a visual display), and in 1989 the Super Speak & Spell was released to replace the original vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) with a liquid crystal display (LCD). Between 1989 and 1992 the Super Speak & Spell saw three redesigns as well. The 1992 Super Speak & Spell marked the last release of the series.
Regional variations with different speech libraries and different games were released in at least 9 countries with seven language |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARNES | The Academic and Research Network of Slovenia () is a public institute in Slovenia, established in May 1992. Its main task is development, operation and management of the communication and information network for education and research. ARNES also operates the Slovenian Internet Exchange.
The members of its management board are appointed by the Government of Slovenia.
Also a part of ARNES, is SI-CERT, the Slovenian Computer Emergency Response Team. It was established in 1994 and has been led by Gorazd Božič. SI-CERT was involved in the take-down of the recordings of the Government of Slovenia's closed session recordings leaked in December 2011 on YouTube. The recordings were taken down by YouTube after the copyright-related lawsuit threat by SI-CERT. It has not been involved in the investigation of the leak.
References
External links
ARNES
Computer security organizations
Education in Slovenia
Information technology institutes
Internet service providers of Slovenia
Internet in Slovenia
National research and education networks
Organizations based in Ljubljana
Organizations established in 1992
Telecommunications in Slovenia |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expander | Expander may refer to:
Dynamic range compression operated in reverse
Part of the process of signal compression
Part of the process of companding
A component used to connect SCSI computer data storage, devices together
Turboexpander, a turbine for high-pressure gas
Expander graph, a sparse graph used in the combinatorics branch of mathematics
StuffIt Expander, a computer file decompressor software utility
Micro Expander, also known as the Expander, an 8-bit S-100 microcomputer released in 1981
"Expander" (song), a 1994 song by The Future Sound of London
Orthodontic expander, a device to widen the upper jaw
Disclosure widget, a widget that hides non-essential settings or information, also known as an expander
See also
Xpander (disambiguation) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitech | Hitech may refer to:
high tech, an abbreviation of the term "high technology"
HITECH, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act)
HiTech, a late 1980s computer chess machine
Hi-Tech Automotive is a low volume car builder and design house located in Port Elizabeth.
High Technology High School
A genre of music closely related to electronic and psychedelic trance.
Hitech Grand Prix, a racing team |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barracuda%20%28disambiguation%29 | A barracuda is a predatory fish found in tropical and subtropical oceans.
Barracuda or Baracuda may also refer to:
Computing
Barracuda (web framework), an MVC web framework for Java
Seagate Barracuda, a line of computer hard drives
Barracuda Networks, a company specializing in e-mail spam firewalls, web filters, email archivers, and backup solutions
Opera Barracuda, the codename for version 11.10 of the Opera web browser
Film and television
Barracuda (1978 film), an American horror film
Barracuda (1988 film), an Australian TV film
Act of Piracy or Barracuda, a 1990 film
Barracuda (1997 film), a French film by Philippe Haïm
Barracuda (2017 film), an American film starring Allison Tolman
Barracuda (TV series), a 2016 Australian TV miniseries
Literature
Barracuda (comics), a villain from Marvel Comics' The Punisher series
Barracuda & Frollo, characters from Lion Comics
Barracuda, a 2013 novel by Christos Tsiolkas
Music
Baracuda (band), a German dance music project
The Barracudas, a British band from the late 1970s to early 1980s
Baracuda (rapper) (born 1983), Canadian hip hop artist
Moby or Barracuda, techno recording artist
Albums
Barracuda (Quantum Jump album)
Barracuda (Kinky album)
Songs
"Barracuda" (song), a 1977 song by Heart
"Barracuda", a song by John Cale from Fear
"Barracuda", a song by Jack Costanzo
"Barracuda", a song by Noisestorm
"Barracuda", a song by Afric Simone
Vehicles
Plymouth Barracuda, an automobile
Aircraft
EADS Barracuda, an unmanned aerial vehicle
Fairey Barracuda, a carrier-borne torpedo bomber airplane
Jeffair Barracuda, an all-wood experimental homebuilt aircraft design
Lancair Barracuda, an American kit aircraft
Ships and submarines
French Barracuda class submarine
USS Barracuda (SP-845), a patrol boat in commission from 1917 to 1919
USS Barracuda (SS-163), a submarine in commission from 1924 to 1937 and from 1940 to 1945
USS Barracuda (SSK-1), a submarine in commission from 1951 to 1959
United States Barracuda-class submarine (1951)
United States Barracuda-class submarine (1919) or V-boats V-1 through V-3
NRP Barracuda, an Albacora class submarine developed for the Portuguese Navy
Project 945 "Barrakuda", Soviet designation for Sierra-class submarines
Other uses
Barracuda (cocktail), a rum cocktail
Barracuda Lounge, a New York City gay bar
Eli Barracuda, a henchman in Evil Genius (video game) and Evil Genius 2: World Domination games.
FN Barracuda, a revolver
Saab Barracuda, a military camouflage system developed by the Swedish defense company Saab AB
San Jose Barracuda, an American Hockey League team
Acestrorhynchus or freshwater barracuda, a South American freshwater fish
See also
USS Barracuda, a list of United States Navy ships and submarines |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locking | Locking may refer to:
Locking (computer science)
Locking, Somerset, a village and civil parish in the United Kingdom
RAF Locking, a former Royal Air Force base
Locking Castle, a former castle
Brian Locking (born 1938), rock guitarist
Norm Locking (1911–1995), National Hockey League player
Locking (dance), a style of funk dance invented in the early 1970s
Prevention of a screw thread from turning when undesired
See also
Lockin (disambiguation)
Lock (disambiguation) |
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