KeyBase is a database and web application for managing and deploying interactive taxonomic keys for plants and animals developed by the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. KeyBase provides a medium where pathway keys which were traditionally developed for print and other classical types of media, can be used more effectively in the internet environment. The platform uses a concept called "keys" which can be easily linked together, joined with other keys, or merged into larger other seamless keys groups, with each still available to be browsed independently. Keys in the KeyBase database can be filtered and displayed in a variety of ways, filters, and formats.
The Future of Work and Death
The Future of Work and Death is a 2016 documentary by Sean Blacknell and Wayne Walsh about the exponential growth of technology. The film showed at several film festivals including Raindance Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Academia Film Olomouc and CPH:DOX. In May 2017 it received an official screening at the European Commission. It was distributed by First Run Features and Journeyman Pictures and was released on iTunes, Amazon Prime and On-demand on 9 May 2017. The film was made available on Sundance Now on 27 November 2017. A companion piece to the film, The Cost of Living, a documentary concerning universal basic income in Britain, was released on Amazon Prime on 8 October 2020. == Synopsis == World experts in the fields of futurology, anthropology, neuroscience, and philosophy consider the impact of technological advances on the two 'certainties' of human life; work and death. Charting human developments from Homo habilis, past the Industrial Revolution, to the digital age and beyond, the film looks at the shocking exponential rate at which mankind has managed to create technologies to ease the process of living. As we embark on the next phase of our adaptation, with automation and artificial intelligence signifying the complete move from man to machine, the film asks what the implications are for human fulfilment in an approaching era of job obsolescence and extreme longevity. == Cast == Dudley Sutton – Narrator Aubrey de Grey – Biomedical gerontologist and CSO of the SENS Research Foundation Will Self – Writer, journalist, political commentator and Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University Rudolph E. Tanzi – Professor of Neurology at Harvard University and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Martin Ford – Futurist and author Steve Fuller – Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology at the Department of sociology at University of Warwick Murray Shanahan – Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London Gray Scott – Futurist, executive producer of this production Vivek Wadhwa – Entrepreneur, academic and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University Zoltan Istvan – Transhumanist and journalist Joanna Cook – Anthropologist, University College London Nicholas Kamara – Physician, Kable Hospital David Pearce – Transhumanist philosopher and co-founder of Humanity+ Peter Cochrane – Futurist and entrepreneur John Harris – Bioethicist, philosopher and Director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester Riva Melissa-Tez – Entrepreneur and transhumanist Ian Pearson – Futurologist Stuart Armstrong – Artificial intelligence researcher at Future of Humanity Institute
Muller automaton
In automata theory, a Muller automaton is a type of an ω-automaton. The acceptance condition separates a Muller automaton from other ω-automata. The Muller automaton is defined using a Muller acceptance condition, i.e. the set of all states visited infinitely often must be an element of the acceptance set. Both deterministic and non-deterministic Muller automata recognize the ω-regular languages. They are named after David E. Muller, an American mathematician and computer scientist, who invented them in 1963. == Formal definition == Formally, a deterministic Muller-automaton is a tuple A = (Q,Σ,δ,q0,F) that consists of the following information: Q is a finite set. The elements of Q are called the states of A. Σ is a finite set called the alphabet of A. δ: Q × Σ → Q is a function, called the transition function of A. q0 is an element of Q, called the initial state. F is a set of sets of states. Formally, F ⊆ P(Q) where P(Q) is powerset of Q. F defines the acceptance condition. A accepts exactly those runs in which the set of infinitely often occurring states is an element of F In a non-deterministic Muller automaton, the transition function δ is replaced with a transition relation Δ that returns a set of states and the initial state q0 is replaced by a set of initial states Q0. Generally, 'Muller automaton' refers to a non-deterministic Muller automaton. For more comprehensive formalisation look at ω-automaton. == Equivalence with other ω-automata == The Muller automata are equally expressive as parity automata, Rabin automata, Streett automata, and non-deterministic Büchi automata, to mention some, and strictly more expressive than the deterministic Büchi automata. The equivalence of the above automata and non-deterministic Muller automata can be shown very easily as the accepting conditions of these automata can be emulated using the acceptance condition of Muller automata and vice versa. McNaughton's theorem demonstrates the equivalence of non-deterministic Büchi automaton and deterministic Muller automaton. Thus, deterministic and non-deterministic Muller automata are equivalent in terms of the languages they can accept. == Transformation to non-deterministic Muller automata == Following is a list of automata constructions that each transforms a type of ω-automata to a non-deterministic Muller automaton. From Büchi automata If B is the set of final states in a Büchi automaton with the set of states Q, we can construct a Muller automaton with same set of states, transition function and initial state with the Muller accepting condition as F = { X | X ∈ P(Q) ∧ X ∩ B ≠ ∅}. From Rabin automata/parity automata Similarly, the Rabin conditions ( E j , F j ) {\displaystyle (E_{j},F_{j})} can be emulated by constructing the acceptance set in the Muller automaton as all sets F ⊆ Q {\displaystyle F\subseteq Q} that satisfy F ∩ E j = ∅ {\displaystyle F\cap E_{j}=\emptyset } and F ∩ F j ≠ ∅ {\displaystyle F\cap F_{j}\neq \emptyset } , for some j. Note that this covers the case of parity automata too, as the parity acceptance condition can be expressed as a Rabin acceptance condition easily. From Streett automata The Streett conditions ( E j , F j ) {\displaystyle (E_{j},F_{j})} can be emulated by constructing the acceptance set in the Muller automaton as all sets F ⊆ Q {\displaystyle F\subseteq Q} that satisfy F ∩ F j = ∅ ⟹ F ∩ E j = ∅ {\displaystyle F\cap F_{j}=\emptyset \implies F\cap E_{j}=\emptyset } , for all j. == Transformation to deterministic Muller automata == From Büchi automaton McNaughton's theorem provides a procedure to transform any non-deterministic Büchi automaton into a deterministic Muller automaton.
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Paola Velardi
Paola Velardi (born in Rome, April 26, 1955) is a full professor of computer science at Sapienza University in Rome, Italy. Her research encompasses Artificial Intelligence and specifically, natural language processing, machine learning business intelligence and semantic web. Velardi is one of the hundred female scientists included in the database "100esperte.it" (translated from Italian with "100 female experts"). This online, open database champions the recognition of top-rated female scientists in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) areas. Among her prestigious appointments and honors, her inclusion stands out —alongside 45 other international female scientists from the past, present, and future— in the Women in Science pavilion of UNESCO’s Virtual Science Museum. == Research == Paola Velardi's research activity has focused, since the early 1980s, on Artificial Intelligence, with a particular emphasis on natural language processing (NLP), Machine learning, and data mining. Her scientific contributions have evolved over time, following the sector's primary paradigms: Semantic Web and Ontologies: She is known for her pioneering work on semantic disambiguation and automated ontology learning, collaborating on the development of systems such as OntoLearn. Social Computing and Predictive Analysis: She has conducted research on extracting information from social media for epidemiological monitoring (syndromic surveillance) and for the identification of opinion leaders. In the educational field, she has developed machine learning models to predict the risk of student dropout. AI for Health and Elder Monitoring: She has coordinated projects to support frailty in the elderly, developing systems based on ambient intelligence and wearables to detect clinical and behavioral anomalies. She has also contributed to models for analyzing behavioral changes through dynamic clustering. Generative AI and Finance: More recently, her research has expanded into the use of generative AI and deep learning for finance, including benchmark studies on price trend prediction based on Limit Order Books (LOB) and the development of diffusion models for realistic market simulation (the TRADES project). According to Google Scholar bibliometrics updated until December 2025, Velardi's scientific publications have been cited more than 8100 times. Her h-index was 42. She has published more than 200 papers in international journals and conference proceedings. Some of her publications have been published in top rated journals such as Artificial Intelligence, Computational Linguistics, Knowledge-Based Systems, IEEE Transactions on Data and Knowledge Engineering , IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering , Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, and Journal of Web Semantics. == Education and previous employments == Velardi graduated in electronic engineering from Sapienza University in 1978. From 1978 to 1983, she worked for the Ugo Bordoni Foundation, a research institution focusing on ICT and working under the supervision of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development. In 1983, she was a visiting scholar at Stanford University. During this period she became passionate about Artificial Intelligence, which will remain her area of research throughout her career. From 1984 to 1986, she came back to her natal city and worked as a researcher for IBM. From 1986 to 1996 she was an associate professor in the engineering faculty of Polytechnic University of the Marches (Ancona, Italy). Starting in November 1996, she taught in and did research for the Department of Computer Science at the Sapienza University. Velardi was the head of Bachelor and Master Programs in Computer Science at Sapienza University from 2010 to 2013 and from 2015 to 2016. == Current employment == Since November 2001, Velardi has been a full professor in the department of computer science ("Dipartimento di Informatica" in Italian) at Sapienza University in Rome, Italy. Since 2013, she has been the coordinator of the Distance Learning Degree in Computer Science at Sapienza University. As of today, Velardi is a Senior Associate at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) of the CNR. == Recognition == Velardi is one of the hundred female scientists included in the database "100esperte.it" (translated from Italian with "100 female experts"). This database lists top Italian female STEM scientists. Six out of one hundred scientists in the 100esperte's database are computer scientists like Velardi. Velardi is in the list of the top Italian scientists. A top scientist appearing in the Top-Italian-Scientists database is a scientist whose h-index is greater than 30. In March 2017, she was given an IBM Faculty Award for her research on social recommender systems. In December 2018, Velardi was included in the list of the 50 most influential Italian women in science and technology by Inspiring Fifty, a non-profit that aims to increase diversity in STEM by making female role models in tech more visible. In September 2019 she was the local co-organizer and Program Chair of the 6th ACM Celebration of Women in Computing. In November 2019 Velardi received the Standout Woman Award International at the seat of the Italian Parliament in Montecitorio. == Causes == Velardi aims at debunking the myth of computer science as a man-oriented and "inflexible" discipline. She is the founder of the project "NERD? Non e' roba per donne?" (translated from Italian: "NERD? Is it not stuff for women?"). This project was launched by Velardi in 2012 in the Department of Computer Science at Sapienza University. Since 2013 the project has been carried out in partnership with IBM Italy, which later created a spin-off of the project. The goal of the project is two-fold: (1) conveying computer science as creative, interdisciplinary and problem-solving-oriented science, and (2) encouraging young female students in studying computer science by, for instance, developing apps for smartphones. She has been the program chair of the 19th ACM celebration of Women in Computing. She is the creator and coordinator of the G4GRETA, an educational project that involves students of the third and fourth grades of Rome and Lazio. The project combines the development of IT skills with the themes of environmental sustainability and soft skills (teambuilding, pitching, social networking, etc.) Velardi is also involved in scientific dissemination. In 2020 and 2021 she cooperated with RaiCultura, the cultural division of RAI, the national broadcasting company.
Zo (chatbot)
Zo was an English-language chatbot developed by Microsoft as the successor to the chatbot Tay. Zo was an English version of Microsoft's other successful chatbots Xiaoice (China) and Rinna (Japan) and its predecessor Tay(English) == History == Zo was first launched in December 2016 on the Kik Messenger app. It was also available to users of Facebook (via Messenger), the group chat platform GroupMe, or to followers of Twitter to chat with it through private messages. According to an article written in December 2016, at that time Zo held the record for Microsoft's longest continual chatbot conversation: 1,229 turns, lasting 9 hours and 53 minutes. In a BuzzFeed News report, Zo told their reporter that "[the] Quran was violent" when talking about healthcare. The report also highlighted how Zo made a comment about the Osama bin Laden capture as a result of 'intelligence' gathering. In July 2017, Business Insider asked "is windows 10 good", and Zo replied with a joke about Microsoft's operating system: "'Its not a bug, its a feature!' - Windows 8". They then asked "why?", to which Zo replied: "Because it's Windows latest attempt at Spyware." Later on, Zo would tell that it prefers Windows 7 on which it ran over Windows 10. Zo stopped posting to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook March 1, 2019, and stopped chatting on Twitter, Skype and Kik as of March 7, 2019. On July 19, 2019, Zo was discontinued on Facebook, and Samsung on AT&T phones. As of September 7, 2019, it was discontinued with GroupMe. == Reception == Zo came under criticism for the biases introduced in an effort to avoid potentially offensive subjects. The chatbot refuses, for example, to engage with any mention—be it positive, negative or neutral—of the Middle East, the Qur'an or the Torah, while allowing discussion of Christianity. In an article in Quartz where she exposed those biases, Chloe Rose Stuart-Ulin wrote, "Zo is politically correct to the worst possible extreme; mention any of her triggers, and she transforms into a judgmental little brat." == Academic coverage == Schlesinger, A., O'Hara, K.P. and Taylor, A.S., 2018, April. Let's talk about race: Identity, chatbots, and AI. In Proceedings of the 2018 chi conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1–14). doi:10.1145/3173574.3173889 Medhi Thies, I., Menon, N., Magapu, S., Subramony, M. and O’neill, J., 2017. How do you want your chatbot? An exploratory Wizard-of-Oz study with young, urban Indians. In Human-Computer Interaction-INTERACT 2017: 16th IFIP TC 13 International Conference, Mumbai, India, September 25–29, 2017, Proceedings, Part I 16 (pp. 441–459). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-67744-6_28
Karl Steinbuch
Karl W. Steinbuch (June 15, 1917 in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt – June 4, 2005 in Ettlingen) was a German computer scientist, cyberneticist, and electrical engineer. He was an early and influential researcher in German computer science, and was the developer of the Lernmatrix, an early implementation of artificial neural networks. From the late 1960s onwards the focus of his activity shifted from scientific research to right-wing political activism supporting the Neue Rechte. == Biography == Steinbuch joined the National Socialist German Students' League (NSDStB) and the Nazi Party. Steinbuch studied at the University of Stuttgart and in 1944 he received his PhD in physics. In 1948 he joined Standard Elektrik Lorenz (SEL, part of the ITT group) in Stuttgart, as a computer design engineer and later as a director of research and development, where he filed more than 70 patents. Steinbuch completed the first European fully transistorized computer, the ER 56 marketed by SEL. In 1958 he became professor and director of the Institute of Technology for information processing (ITIV) of the University of Karlsruhe, where he retired in 1980. In 1967 he began publishing books, in which he tried to influence German education policy. Together with books from colleagues like Jean Ziegler from Switzerland, Eric J. Hobsbawm from the UK, and John Naisbitt his books predicted what he regarded as the coming education disaster of the emerging civic lobby society. In 1957, together with Helmut Gröttrup, Steinbuch coined the term Informatik, the German word for computer science, which gave informatics, and the term kybernetische Anthropologie. == Awards and recognition == Wilhelm-Boelsche award - medal in Gold German non-fiction book award Gold medal award of the XXI. International Congresses on Aerospace Medicine Konrad Adenauer award of science Jakob Fugger award medal Medal of merit of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg member, German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina member, International Academy of Science, Munich. grants from a state government grants program, named "Karl-Steinbuch-Stipendium" Steinbuch Centre for Computing at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology named after him == Books == Steinbuch wrote several books and articles, including: 1957 Informatik: Automatische Informationsverarbeitung ("Informatics: automatic information processing"). 1963 Learning matrices and their applications (together with U. A. W. Piske) 1965 A critical comparison of two kinds of adaptive classification networks (together with Bernard Widrow) 1966 (1969): Die informierte Gesellschaft. Geschichte und Zukunft der Nachrichtentechnik (The informed society. History and Future of telecommunications) 1989: Die desinformierte Gesellschaft (The disinformed society) 1968: Falsch programmiert. Über das Versagen unserer Gesellschaft in der Gegenwart und vor der Zukunft und was eigentlich geschehen müßte. (as a bestseller listet in: Der Spiegel) (Programmed falsely. About our society's failure in the present and with respect to the future and what should be done.) 1969: Programm 2000. (as a bestseller listet in: Der Spiegel) 1971: Automat und Mensch. Auf dem Weg zu einer kybernetischen Anthropologie (Machine and Man. On the way to a cybernetic anthropology; 4th revised edition) 1971: Mensch Technik Zukunft. Probleme von Morgen (German non-fiction book award) (Man Technology Future. Problems of Tomorrow) 1973: Kurskorrektur (Correcting the Course) 1978: Maßlos informiert. Die Enteignung des Denkens (Excessively informed. The Deprivation of Thinking) 1984: Unsere manipulierte Demokratie. Müssen wir mit der linken Lüge leben? (Our Thought-controlled Democracy. Do we have to live with the leftist lie?)