Phase congruency is a measure of feature significance in computer images, a method of edge detection that is particularly robust against changes in illumination and contrast. == Foundations == Phase congruency reflects the behaviour of the image in the frequency domain. It has been noted that edgelike features have many of their frequency components in the same phase. The concept is similar to coherence, except that it applies to functions of different wavelength. For example, the Fourier decomposition of a square wave consists of sine functions, whose frequencies are odd multiples of the fundamental frequency. At the rising edges of the square wave, each sinusoidal component has a rising phase; the phases have maximal congruency at the edges. This corresponds to the human-perceived edges in an image where there are sharp changes between light and dark. == Definition == Phase congruency compares the weighted alignment of the Fourier components of a signal A n {\displaystyle A_{\rm {n}}} with the sum of the Fourier components. P C ( t ) = max ϕ ¯ ∑ n A n cos ( ϕ n ( t ) − ϕ ¯ ) ∑ n A n {\displaystyle PC(t)=\max _{\bar {\phi }}{\frac {\sum _{\rm {n}}A_{\rm {n}}\cos(\phi _{\rm {n}}(t)-{\bar {\phi }})}{\sum _{\rm {n}}A_{n}}}} where ϕ n {\displaystyle \phi _{\rm {n}}} is the local or instantaneous phase as can be calculated using the Hilbert transform and A n {\displaystyle A_{\rm {n}}} are the local amplitude, or energy, of the signal. When all the phases are aligned, this is equal to 1. Several ways of implementing phase congruency have been developed, of which two versions are available in open source, one written for MATLAB and the other written in Java as a plugin for the ImageJ software. Given the different notations used for its formulation, a unified version has been recently presented, where a methodology for the parameter tuning is also presented. == Advantages == The square-wave example is naive in that most edge detection methods deal with it equally well. For example, the first derivative has a maximal magnitude at the edges. However, there are cases where the perceived edge does not have a sharp step or a large derivative. The method of phase congruency applies to many cases where other methods fail. A notable example is an image feature consisting of a single line, such as the letter "l". Many edge-detection algorithms will pick up two adjacent edges: the transitions from white to black, and black to white. On the other hand, the phase congruency map has a single line. A simple Fourier analogy of this case is a triangle wave. In each of its crests there is a congruency of crests from different sinusoidal functions. == Disadvantages == Calculating the phase congruency map of an image is very computationally intensive, and sensitive to image noise. Techniques of noise reduction are usually applied prior to the calculation.
GeneRIF
A GeneRIF or Gene Reference Into Function is a short (255 characters or fewer) statement about the function of a gene. GeneRIFs provide a simple mechanism for allowing scientists to add to the functional annotation of genes described in the Entrez Gene database. In practice, function is constructed quite broadly. For example, there are GeneRIFs that discuss the role of a gene in a disease, GeneRIFs that point the viewer towards a review article about the gene, and GeneRIFs that discuss the structure of a gene. However, the stated intent is for GeneRIFs to be about gene function. Currently over half a million geneRIFs have been created for genes from almost 1000 different species. GeneRIFs are always associated with specific entries in the Entrez Gene database. Each GeneRIF has a pointer to the PubMed ID (a type of document identifier) of a scientific publication that provides evidence for the statement made by the GeneRIF. GeneRIFs are often extracted directly from the document that is identified by the PubMed ID, very frequently from its title or from its final sentence. GeneRIFs are usually produced by NCBI indexers, but anyone may submit a GeneRIF. To be processed, a valid Gene ID must exist for the specific gene, or the Gene staff must have assigned an overall Gene ID to the species. The latter case is implemented via records in Gene with the symbol NEWENTRY. Once the Gene ID is identified, only three types of information are required to complete a submission: a concise phrase describing a function or functions (less than 255 characters in length, preferably more than a restatement of the title of the paper); a published paper describing that function, implemented by supplying the PubMed ID of a citation in PubMed; a valid e-mail address (which will remain confidential). == Example == Here are some GeneRIFs taken from Entrez Gene for GeneID 7157, the human gene TP53. The PubMed document identifiers have been omitted from the examples. Note the wide variability with respect to the presence or absence of punctuation and of sentence-initial capital letters. p53 and c-erbB-2 may have independent role in carcinogenesis of gall bladder cancer Degradation of endogenous HIPK2 depends on the presence of a functional p53 protein. p53 codon 72 alleles influence the response to anticancer drugs in cells from aged people by regulating the cell cycle inhibitor p21WAF1 Logistic regression analysis showed p53 and COX-2 as dependent predictors in pancreatic carcinogenesis, and a reciprocal relationship to neoplastic progression between p53 and COX-2. GeneRIFs are an unusual type of textual genre, and they have recently been the subject of a number of articles from the natural language processing community.
Emergent (software)
Emergent (formerly PDP++) is a biologically-based neural simulation software that is primarily intended for creating models of the brain and cognitive processes. Development initially began in 1995 at Carnegie Mellon University, and as of 2014, continues at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The 3.x release of the software, which was known as PDP++, is featured in the textbook Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience. == Features == Emergent features a modular design, based on the principles of object-oriented programming. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Darwin / macOS and Linux. C-Super-Script (variously, CSS and C^C), a built-in C++-like interpreted scripting language, allows access to virtually all simulator objects and can initiate all the same actions as the GUI, and more. Version 4 and upward features a full 3D environment for visualizations, based on Qt and Open Inventor. Robotics simulations are made possible by integration with the Open Dynamics Engine. A plugin system allows for expanding the software in many ways. Version 5 introduced parallel threading support, numerous speed improvements, a help browser featuring an interface to the project's Wiki and auto-generated documentation, undo and redo using diffs and a definable undo depth. In addition, 5.0.2 introduced a built-in plugin source code editor, and plugins can now be compiled from the main interface, enabling full development of plugins within Emergent. Emergent also provides an implementation of Leabra which was developed by Randall C. O'Reilly in his PhD thesis.
Babel Fish (website)
Yahoo! Babel Fish was a free Web-based machine translation service by Yahoo!. In May 2012 it was replaced by Bing Translator (now Microsoft Translator), to which queries were redirected. Although Yahoo! has transitioned its Babel Fish translation services to Bing Translator, it did not sell its translation application to Microsoft outright. As the oldest free online language translator, the service translated text or Web pages in 36 pairs between 13 languages, including English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The internet service derived its name from the Babel fish, a fictional species in Douglas Adams's book and radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that could instantly translate languages. In turn, the name of the fictional creature refers to the biblical account of the confusion of languages that arose in the city of Babel. == History == On December 9, 1997, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and SYSTRAN S.A. launched AltaVista Translation Service at babelfish.altavista.com, which was developed by a team of researchers at DEC. In February 2003, AltaVista was bought by Overture Services, Inc. In July 2003, Overture, in turn, was taken over by Yahoo!. The web address for Babel Fish remained at babelfish.altavista.com until May 9, 2008, when the address changed to babelfish.yahoo.com. In 2012, the Web address changed again, this time redirecting babelfish.yahoo.com to www.microsofttranslator.com when Microsoft's Bing Translator replaced Yahoo Babel Fish. As of June 2013, babelfish.yahoo.com no longer redirects to the Microsoft Bing Translator. Instead, it refers directly back to the main Yahoo.com page.
Jiaya Jia
Jiaya Jia (Chinese: 贾佳亚) is a Chair Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He is an IEEE Fellow, the associate editor-in-chief of one of IEEE’s flagship and premier journals- Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), as well as on the editorial board of International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV). == Early life and education == Jiaya Jia joined CUHK in 2004 as an assistant professor, and was promoted to full professor in 2015. He obtained his PhD degree in computer science jointly from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Microsoft Research in 2004. From March 2003 to August 2004, he was a visiting scholar at Microsoft. He conducted collaborative research at Adobe Research in 2007. == Career == Jiaya Jia is a distinguished scientist in the fields of computer vision and artificial intelligence. His research team at HKUST, DV Lab, is one of the largest vision AI research teams in the world and has been making significant contribution to advanced development of computer vision algorithms and technologies with focuses on image/video understanding, detection and segmentation, multi-modal AI, computational imaging, practical optimization, and advanced learning for visual content since 2000. Jiaya Jia has published 200+ top papers and was cited 80,000+ times on Google Scholar with H-Index 110+. 40+ PhDs and fellows from this group are now active in academia and industry, and have become prominent AI tech leaders as professors, directors in major research labs, and founders of several successful startups. Jiaya Jia assumes the position of associate editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI) since 2021. He is also on the editorial board of International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV). Jiaya Jia has served as the area chair of ICCV, CVPR, AAAI, ECCV, and several other premium international AI conferences for years. He was on program committees of major conferences in graphics and computational imaging, including ICCP, SIGGRAPH, and SIGGRAPH Asia. == Research == The research areas of Jiaya Jia are computer vision, large X models, and deep learning. Jiaya Jia has made outstanding contributions to computer vision technology, algorithms and engineering, and is among the world's leading experts in the field. His research partners include numerous renowned multinational technology companies, such as Microsoft, Qualcomm, Adobe, Intel, NVIDIA, Amazon, and Lenovo. Jia has cultivated a number of outstanding talents with Master's and PhDs who continue to engage in scientific research and development in computer vision. Many technologies in image analysis and processing developed by Jiaya Jia are still leading in the field worldwide. Wherein, his achievements in image deblurring, filtering, image sparse processing, multi-band image signal fusion and enhancement, large range motion estimation, texture and structure-based layering, etc. have been published in the industry's most influential conferences and publications, and implemented in the real-world applications. These achievements have demonstrated outstanding performance in established systems, and most of which are open source so as to enable wider applications across industries such as aviation, medical imaging, safety management, robotic design, meteorological analysis and many more. == Selected publications == In his over 20 years of research experience, Jiaya Jia has published 200+ top papers that have been cited more than 80,000 times. According to HKUST Website in August 2024, Jiaya Jia has accumulatively published over 200 scientific papers in books, journals and conferences, such as IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV) "Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)", and "International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV)". Representative papers include: Jiaya Jia: Mathematical Models and Practical Solvers for Uniform Motion Deblurring (in Motion Deblurring: Algorithms and Systems), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781107044364, 2014; Jiaya Jia: “Matte Extraction” Book: Computer Vision - A Reference Guide, Springer, ISBN 9780387307718 Editor-in-chief: Ikeuchi, Katsushi; Jiaya Jia, Chi-Keung Tang:Image Stitching Using Structure Deformation,IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), Vol. 30, No. 4, 2008; Jiaya Jia, Jian Sun, Chi-Keung Tang, Heung-Yeung Shum:Drag-and-Drop Pasting,ACM Transactions on Graphics (also in SIGGRAPH 2006), Vol. 25, No. 3, 2006. Xiaojuan Qi, Zheng zhe Liu, Renjie Liao, Philip HS Torr, Raquel Urtasun, Jiaya Jia:GeoNet++: Iterative Geometric Neural Network with Edge-Aware Refinement for Joint Depth and Surface Normal Estimation,IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI). Accepted. == Selected honors and awards == ACM Fellow. 1st Place of WAD Drivable Area Segmentation Challenge 2018; 1st Place of LSUN'17 Instance and Semantic Segmentation Challenges; 1st Place of COCO Instance Segmentation Challenge 2017; 2nd Place in COCO Detection Challenge 2017; 1st Place of ImageNet Scene Parsing Challenge 2016 with the paper PSPNet presented in CVPR 2017.
Personal cloud
A personal cloud is a collection of digital content and services that are accessible from any device through the Internet. It is not a tangible entity, but a place that gives users the ability to store, synchronize, stream and share content on a relative core, moving from one platform, screen and location to another. Created on connected services and applications, it reflects and sets consumer expectations for how next-generation computing services will work. The four primary types of personal cloud in use today are: Online cloud, NAS device cloud, server device cloud, and home-made clouds. == Online cloud == The online cloud is sometimes referred to as the public cloud. It is the cloud computing model where online resources like software and data storage are made available over the Internet. Typically, an individual or organization has little control over the ecosystem in which the online cloud is hosted, and the core infrastructure is shared between many individuals and organizations. The data and applications provided by the service provider are logically segregated so that only those authorized are allowed access. == NAS device cloud == A network-attached storage (NAS) device is a computer connected to a network that provides only file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. Although it may technically be possible to run other software on a NAS device, it is not designed to be a general purpose server. Cloud NAS is remote storage that is accessed over the Internet as if it were local. A cloud NAS is often used for backups and archiving. One of the benefits of NAS Cloud is that data in the cloud can be accessed at any time from anywhere. The main drawback, however, is that the speed of the transfer rate is only as fast as the network connection the data is accessed over and can therefore be fairly slow. == Server device cloud == In many ways cloud servers work in the same way as physical servers but the functions they perform can be very different. Typically, the cloud server is an on-premises device that is connected to the Internet and gives users the functions available on the online cloud but with the added benefit and security of the files being in their control on their premises. The server cloud has been historically enterprise-based deployed by businesses needing an in-house cloud. However, there are also in-house options available for individual users. == Home-made clouds == For the more technologically proficient user a common solution for using a personal cloud is to create a home-made cloud system by connecting an external USB hard drive to a Wi-Fi router. This enables both wired and wireless computers to access the USB hard drive and use it for storage or for retrieving files a user needs to share on the network thereby acting like a cloud. Setting up a personal cloud requires a user to have particular skills in technology and network setup. One of the risks associated with improper setup is security, and leaving the files accessible to anyone with technical knowledge. Not every router supports this type of access and modification.
Wasserstein GAN
The Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network (WGAN) is a variant of generative adversarial network (GAN) proposed in 2017 that aims to "improve the stability of learning, get rid of problems like mode collapse, and provide meaningful learning curves useful for debugging and hyperparameter searches". Compared with the original GAN discriminator, the Wasserstein GAN discriminator provides a better learning signal to the generator. This allows the training to be more stable when generator is learning distributions in very high dimensional spaces. == Motivation == === The GAN game === The original GAN method is based on the GAN game, a zero-sum game with 2 players: generator and discriminator. The game is defined over a probability space ( Ω , B , μ r e f ) {\displaystyle (\Omega ,{\mathcal {B}},\mu _{ref})} , The generator's strategy set is the set of all probability measures μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} on ( Ω , B ) {\displaystyle (\Omega ,{\mathcal {B}})} , and the discriminator's strategy set is the set of measurable functions D : Ω → [ 0 , 1 ] {\displaystyle D:\Omega \to [0,1]} . The objective of the game is L ( μ G , D ) := E x ∼ μ r e f [ ln D ( x ) ] + E x ∼ μ G [ ln ( 1 − D ( x ) ) ] . {\displaystyle L(\mu _{G},D):=\mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{ref}}[\ln D(x)]+\mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{G}}[\ln(1-D(x))].} The generator aims to minimize it, and the discriminator aims to maximize it. A basic theorem of the GAN game states that Repeat the GAN game many times, each time with the generator moving first, and the discriminator moving second. Each time the generator μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} changes, the discriminator must adapt by approaching the ideal D ∗ ( x ) = d μ r e f d ( μ r e f + μ G ) . {\displaystyle D^{}(x)={\frac {d\mu _{ref}}{d(\mu _{ref}+\mu _{G})}}.} Since we are really interested in μ r e f {\displaystyle \mu _{ref}} , the discriminator function D {\displaystyle D} is by itself rather uninteresting. It merely keeps track of the likelihood ratio between the generator distribution and the reference distribution. At equilibrium, the discriminator is just outputting 1 2 {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{2}}} constantly, having given up trying to perceive any difference. Concretely, in the GAN game, let us fix a generator μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} , and improve the discriminator step-by-step, with μ D , t {\displaystyle \mu _{D,t}} being the discriminator at step t {\displaystyle t} . Then we (ideally) have L ( μ G , μ D , 1 ) ≤ L ( μ G , μ D , 2 ) ≤ ⋯ ≤ max μ D L ( μ G , μ D ) = 2 D J S ( μ r e f ‖ μ G ) − 2 ln 2 , {\displaystyle L(\mu _{G},\mu _{D,1})\leq L(\mu _{G},\mu _{D,2})\leq \cdots \leq \max _{\mu _{D}}L(\mu _{G},\mu _{D})=2D_{JS}(\mu _{ref}\|\mu _{G})-2\ln 2,} so we see that the discriminator is actually lower-bounding D J S ( μ r e f ‖ μ G ) {\displaystyle D_{JS}(\mu _{ref}\|\mu _{G})} . === Wasserstein distance === Thus, we see that the point of the discriminator is mainly as a critic to provide feedback for the generator, about "how far it is from perfection", where "far" is defined as Jensen–Shannon divergence. Naturally, this brings the possibility of using a different criteria of farness. There are many possible divergences to choose from, such as the f-divergence family, which would give the f-GAN. The Wasserstein GAN is obtained by using the Wasserstein metric, which satisfies a "dual representation theorem" that renders it highly efficient to compute: A proof can be found in the main page on Wasserstein metric. == Definition == By the Kantorovich-Rubenstein duality, the definition of Wasserstein GAN is clear:A Wasserstein GAN game is defined by a probability space ( Ω , B , μ r e f ) {\displaystyle (\Omega ,{\mathcal {B}},\mu _{ref})} , where Ω {\displaystyle \Omega } is a metric space, and a constant K > 0 {\displaystyle K>0} . There are 2 players: generator and discriminator (also called "critic"). The generator's strategy set is the set of all probability measures μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} on ( Ω , B ) {\displaystyle (\Omega ,{\mathcal {B}})} . The discriminator's strategy set is the set of measurable functions of type D : Ω → R {\displaystyle D:\Omega \to \mathbb {R} } with bounded Lipschitz-norm: ‖ D ‖ L ≤ K {\displaystyle \|D\|_{L}\leq K} . The Wasserstein GAN game is a zero-sum game, with objective function L W G A N ( μ G , D ) := E x ∼ μ G [ D ( x ) ] − E x ∼ μ r e f [ D ( x ) ] . {\displaystyle L_{WGAN}(\mu _{G},D):=\mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{G}}[D(x)]-\mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{ref}}[D(x)].} The generator goes first, and the discriminator goes second. The generator aims to minimize the objective, and the discriminator aims to maximize the objective: min μ G max D L W G A N ( μ G , D ) . {\displaystyle \min _{\mu _{G}}\max _{D}L_{WGAN}(\mu _{G},D).} By the Kantorovich-Rubenstein duality, for any generator strategy μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} , the optimal reply by the discriminator is D ∗ {\displaystyle D^{}} , such that L W G A N ( μ G , D ∗ ) = K ⋅ W 1 ( μ G , μ r e f ) . {\displaystyle L_{WGAN}(\mu _{G},D^{})=K\cdot W_{1}(\mu _{G},\mu _{ref}).} Consequently, if the discriminator is good, the generator would be constantly pushed to minimize W 1 ( μ G , μ r e f ) {\displaystyle W_{1}(\mu _{G},\mu _{ref})} , and the optimal strategy for the generator is just μ G = μ r e f {\displaystyle \mu _{G}=\mu _{ref}} , as it should. == Comparison with GAN == In the Wasserstein GAN game, the discriminator provides a better gradient than in the GAN game. Consider for example a game on the real line where both μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} and μ r e f {\displaystyle \mu _{ref}} are Gaussian. Then the optimal Wasserstein critic D W G A N {\displaystyle D_{WGAN}} and the optimal GAN discriminator D {\displaystyle D} are plotted as below: For fixed discriminator, the generator needs to minimize the following objectives: For GAN, E x ∼ μ G [ ln ( 1 − D ( x ) ) ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{G}}[\ln(1-D(x))]} . For Wasserstein GAN, E x ∼ μ G [ D W G A N ( x ) ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{G}}[D_{WGAN}(x)]} . Let μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} be parametrized by θ {\displaystyle \theta } , then we can perform stochastic gradient descent by using two unbiased estimators of the gradient: ∇ θ E x ∼ μ G [ ln ( 1 − D ( x ) ) ] = E x ∼ μ G [ ln ( 1 − D ( x ) ) ⋅ ∇ θ ln ρ μ G ( x ) ] {\displaystyle \nabla _{\theta }\mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{G}}[\ln(1-D(x))]=\mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{G}}[\ln(1-D(x))\cdot \nabla _{\theta }\ln \rho _{\mu _{G}}(x)]} ∇ θ E x ∼ μ G [ D W G A N ( x ) ] = E x ∼ μ G [ D W G A N ( x ) ⋅ ∇ θ ln ρ μ G ( x ) ] {\displaystyle \nabla _{\theta }\mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{G}}[D_{WGAN}(x)]=\mathbb {E} _{x\sim \mu _{G}}[D_{WGAN}(x)\cdot \nabla _{\theta }\ln \rho _{\mu _{G}}(x)]} where we used the reparameterization trick. As shown, the generator in GAN is motivated to let its μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} "slide down the peak" of ln ( 1 − D ( x ) ) {\displaystyle \ln(1-D(x))} . Similarly for the generator in Wasserstein GAN. For Wasserstein GAN, D W G A N {\displaystyle D_{WGAN}} has gradient 1 almost everywhere, while for GAN, ln ( 1 − D ) {\displaystyle \ln(1-D)} has flat gradient in the middle, and steep gradient elsewhere. As a result, the variance for the estimator in GAN is usually much larger than that in Wasserstein GAN. See also Figure 3 of. The problem with D J S {\displaystyle D_{JS}} is much more severe in actual machine learning situations. Consider training a GAN to generate ImageNet, a collection of photos of size 256-by-256. The space of all such photos is R 256 2 {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{256^{2}}} , and the distribution of ImageNet pictures, μ r e f {\displaystyle \mu _{ref}} , concentrates on a manifold of much lower dimension in it. Consequently, any generator strategy μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} would almost surely be entirely disjoint from μ r e f {\displaystyle \mu _{ref}} , making D J S ( μ G ‖ μ r e f ) = + ∞ {\displaystyle D_{JS}(\mu _{G}\|\mu _{ref})=+\infty } . Thus, a good discriminator can almost perfectly distinguish μ r e f {\displaystyle \mu _{ref}} from μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} , as well as any μ G ′ {\displaystyle \mu _{G}'} close to μ G {\displaystyle \mu _{G}} . Thus, the gradient ∇ μ G L ( μ G , D ) ≈ 0 {\displaystyle \nabla _{\mu _{G}}L(\mu _{G},D)\approx 0} , creating no learning signal for the generator. Detailed theorems can be found in. == Training Wasserstein GANs == Training the generator in Wasserstein GAN is just gradient descent, the same as in GAN (or most deep learning methods), but training the discriminator is different, as the discriminator is now restricted to have bounded Lipschitz norm. There are several methods for this. === Upper-bounding the Lipschitz norm === Let the discriminator function D {\displaystyle D} to be implemented by a multilayer perceptron: D = D n ∘ D n − 1 ∘ ⋯ ∘ D 1 {\displaystyle D=D_{n}\circ D_{n-1}\circ \cdots \circ D_{1}} where D i ( x ) = h ( W i x ) {\displaystyle D_{i}(x)=h(W_