Autostereogram

Autostereogram An autostereogram is a single-image stereogram (SIS), designed to create the visual illusion of a three-dimensional (3D) scene from a two-dimensional image in the human brain. In order to perceive 3D shapes in these autostereograms, the brain must overcome the normally automatic coordination between focusing and vergence.

The simplest type of autostereogram consists of horizontally repeating patterns and is known as a wallpaper autostereogram. When viewed with proper vergence, the repeating patterns appear to float above or below the background. The Magic Eye books feature another type of autostereogram called a random dot autostereogram. One such autostereogram is illustrated above right. In this type of autostereogram, every pixel in the image is computed from a pattern strip and a depth map. Usually, a hidden 3D scene emerges when the image is viewed with the correct vergence.

Autostereograms are similar to normal stereograms except they are viewed without a stereoscope. A stereoscope presents 2D images of the same object from slightly different angles to the left eye and the right eye, allowing the brain to reconstruct the original object via binocular disparity. With an autostereogram, the brain receives repeating 2D patterns from both eyes, but fails to correctly match them. It pairs two adjacent patterns into a virtual object based on wrong parallax angles, thus placing the virtual object at a depth different from that of the autostereogram image.

There are two ways an autostereogram can be viewed: wall-eyed and cross-eyed. Most autostereograms (including those in this article) are designed to be viewed in only one way, which is usually wall-eyed. Wall-eyed viewing requires that the two eyes adopt a relatively parallel angle, while cross-eyed viewing requires a relatively convergent angle.

Autoresponder

Autoresponder An autoresponder is a program or script on a mail server that automatically replies to e-mails. Though it is run from the mail server, an autoresponder can usually be set up by the user through a Web-based interface. For example, a company might set up an autoresponder for their support e-mail address to let users know they have received their support requests. The automated reply might read something like, “Thank you, we have received your message. One of our technicians will attempt to answer your question after he finishes his dart game in the lobby.”Individuals may also use autoresponders to let people know when they are away from their computer and won’t be able to respond to any e-mails for awhile. For example, you might set up an autoresponder for your personal e-mail address to say, “Sorry, I am on vacation in the Bahamas indefinitely. I’ll respond to your message whenever I decide to come back.” Of course, it is important to reply to messages even after the autroresponder has sent a esponse. After all, most people like to communicate with other people rather than computers.

Autonomic System (computing)

Autonomic System (computing)  An autonomic system is a system that operates and serves its purpose by managing itself without external intervention even in case of environmental changes.

Autonomous Agent An autonomous agent is a system situated in, and part of, an environment, which senses that environment, and acts on it, over time, in pursuit of its own agenda. This agenda evolves from drives (or programmed goals). The agent acts to change the environment and influences what it senses at a later time.

Non-biological examples include intelligent agents, autonomous robots, and various software agents, including artificial life agents, and many computer viruses.

Autonomic Networking

Autonomic Networking  Autonomic Networking follows the concept of Autonomic Computing, an initiative started by IBM in 2001. Its ultimate aim is to create self-managing networks to overcome the rapidly growing complexity of the Internet and other networks and to enable their further growth, far beyond the size of today.

Autonomic Computing

Autonomic Computing Autonomic Computing is an initiative started by IBM in 2001. Its ultimate aim is to develop computer systems capable of self-management, to overcome the rapidly growing complexity of computing systems management, and to reduce the barrier that complexity poses to further growth. In other words, autonomic computing refers to the self-managing characteristics of distributed computing resources, adapting to unpredictable changes whilst hiding intrinsic complexity to operators and users. An autonomic system makes decisions on its own, using high-level policies; it will constantly check and optimise its status and automatically adapt itself to changing conditions. As widely reported in literature, an autonomic computing framework might be seen composed by Autonomic Components (AC) interacting with each other. An AC can be modeled in terms of two main control loops (local and global) with sensors (for self-monitoring), effectors (for self-adjustment), knowledge and planer/adapter for exploiting policies based on self- and environment awareness.

Driven by such vision, a variety of architectural frameworks based on “self-regulating” autonomic components has been recently proposed.  A very similar trend has recently characterised significant research work in the area of multi-agent systems. However, most of these approaches are typically conceived with centralised or cluster-based server architectures in mind and mostly address the need of reducing management costs rather than the need of enabling complex software systems or providing innovative services.

Autonomy-oriented computation is a paradigm proposed by Jiming Liu, in 2001 that uses artificial systems imitating social animals’ collective behaviours to solve hard computational problems. 

Automatic Waste Container

Automatic Waste Container An automatic waste container is a waste container which is automatic. It has an infrared system that allows it to detect human presence and open or close the waste container.

These wastes containers are mostly made of stainless steel. In the European Union, they can be purchased for the price of 100 euros.

Automated Reasoning

Automated Reasoning Automated reasoning is an area of computer science dedicated to understanding different aspects of reasoning in a way that allows the creation of software which allows computers to reason completely or nearly completely, automatically. As such, it is usually considered a subfield of artificial intelligence, but it also has strong connections to theoretical computer science and even philosophy.

The most developed subareas of automated reasoning probably are automated theorem proving (and the less automated but more pragmatic subfield of interactive theorem proving) and automated proof checking (viewed as guaranteed correct reasoning under fixed assumptions), but extensive work has also been done in reasoning by analogy induction and abduction. Other important topics are reasoning under uncertainty and non-monotonic reasoning. An important part of the uncertainty field is that of argumentation, where further constraints of minimality and consistency are applied on top of the more standard automated deduction. John Pollock’s Oscar system is an example of an automated argumentation system that is more specific than being just an automated theorem prover.

Tools and techniques include the classical logics and calculi from automated theorem proving, but also fuzzy logic, Bayesian inference, reasoning with maximal entropy and a large number of less formal ad-hoc techniques.

Automated Mathematician

Automated Mathematician The Automated Mathematician (AM) is one of the earliest successful discovery systems. It was created by Doug Lenat in Lisp, and in 1977 led to Lenat being awarded the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award.

AM worked by generating and modifying short Lisp programs which were then interpreted as defining various mathematical concepts; for example, a program that tested equality between the length of two lists was considered to represent the concept of numerical equality, while a program that produced a list whose length was the product of the lengths of two other lists was interpreted as representing the concept of multiplication. The system had elaborate heuristics for choosing which programs to extend and modify, based on the experiences of working mathematicians in solving mathematical problems.

Autognostics

Autognostics Autognostics is a new paradigm that describes the capacity for computer networks to be self-aware. It is considered as one of the major components of Autonomic Networking.

Autognostics is a new paradigm that describes the capacity for computer networks to be self-aware, in part and as a whole, and dynamically adapt to the applications running on them by autonomously monitoring, identifying, diagnosing, resolving issues, subsequently verifying that any remediation was successful, and reporting the impact with respect to the application’s use (i.e., providing visibility into the changes to networks and their effects).

Although similar to the concept of network awareness, i.e., the capability of network devices and applications to be aware of network characteristics, it is noteworthy that autognostics takes that concept one step further. The main difference is the auto part of autognostics, which entails that network devices are self-aware of network characteristics, and have the capability to adapt themselves as a result of continuous monitoring and diagnostics.

Autocommit

Autocommit In the context of data management, autocommit is the mode of operation of a database connection. Each individual database interaction (i.e., each SQL statement) submitted through the database connection in autocommit mode will be executed in its own transaction that is implicitly committed. An SQL statement executed in autocommit mode cannot be rolled back. Autocommit mode incurs per-statement transaction overhead, having often undesirable performance or resource utilisation impact.

The alternative to autocommit mode (non-autocommit) means that the SQL client application itself is responsible for issuing transaction initiation (start transaction) and termination (commit or rollback) commands. Transaction initiation command is often implied and not necessary. Non-autocommit mode enables grouping of multiple data manipulation SQL commands into a single atomic transaction.

Auto Run

Auto Run AutoRun and the companion feature AutoPlay are components of the Microsoft Windows operating system that dictate what actions the system takes when a drive is mounted. AutoRun was introduced in Windows 95 to ease application installation for non-technical users and reduce the cost of software support calls. When an appropriately configured CD-ROM is inserted into a CD-ROM drive, Windows detects the arrival and checks the contents for a special file containing a set of instructions. For a commercial application, these instructions normally initiate installation of the software from the CD-ROM. To maximise the likelihood of installation success, AutoRun also acts when the drive is accessed (“double-clicked”) in Windows Explorer (or “My Computer”).

Until the introduction of Windows XP, the terms AutoRun and AutoPlay were used interchangeably, developers often using the former term and end users the latter. This tendency is reflected in Windows Policy settings named AutoPlay that change Windows Registry entries named AutoRun, and in the autorun.inf file which causes “AutoPlay” to be added to drives’ context menus. The terminology was of little importance until the arrival of Windows XP and its addition of a new feature to assist users in selecting appropriate actions when new media and devices were detected. This new feature was called AutoPlay and a differentiation between the two terms was created.

Atomistix Virtual NanoLab

Atomistix Virtual NanoLab Atomistix Virtual NanoLab (VNL) is a commercial point-and-click software for simulation and analysis of physical and chemical properties of nanoscale devices. Virtual NanoLab is developed and sold commercially by QuantumWise A/S.

With its graphical interface, Virtual NanoLab provides a user-friendly approach to atomic-scale modeling. The software contains a set of interactive instruments that allows the user to design nanosystems, to set up and execute numerical calculations, and to visualise the results. Samples such as molecules, nanotubes, crystalline systems, and two-probe systems (i.e. a nanostructure coupled to two electrodes) are built with a few mouse clicks.

Atomistix ToolKit

Atomistix ToolKit  Atomistix ToolKit (ATK) is a commercial software for atomic-scale modeling and simulation of nanosystems. The software was originally developed by Atomistix A/S, and was later acquired by QuantumWise A/S following the Atomistix bankruptcy.

Atomistix ToolKit is a further development of TranSIESTA-C, which in turn is based on the technology, models, and algorithms developed in the academic codes TranSIESTA and McDCal, employing localised basis sets as developed in SIESTA.

ATM

ATM Stands for “Asynchronous Transfer Mode.” Most people know of ATMs as automated teller machines — those friendly boxes that allow you to withdraw cash from your bank or credit account while charging you a ridiculous surcharge for the service. In the computer world, however, ATM has a different meaning. Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a networking technology that transfers data in packets or cells of a fixed size. ATM uses 53-byte cells (5 bytes for the address header and 48 bytes for the data). These extremely small cells can be processed through an ATM switch (not an automated teller machine) fast enough to maintain data transfer speeds of over 600 mbps. The technology was designed for the high-speed transmission of all forms of media from basic graphics to full-motion video. Because the cells are so small, ATM equipment can transmit large amounts of data over a single connection while ensuring that no single transmission takes up all the bandwidth. It also allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to assign limited bandwidth to each customer. While this may seem like a downside for the customer, it actually improves the efficiency of the ISP’s Internet connection, causing the overall speed of the connection to be faster for everybody.

ATA

ATA Stands for “Advanced Technology Attachment.” It is a type of disk drive that integrates the drive controller directly on the drive itself. Computers can use ATA hard drives without a specific controller to support the drive. The motherboard must still support an ATA connection, but a separate card (such as a SCSI card for a SCSI hard drive) is not needed. Some different types of ATA standards include ATA-1, ATA-2 (a.k.a. Fast ATA), ATA-3, Ultra ATA (33 MBps maximum transfer rate), ATA/66 (66 MBps), and ATA/100 (100 MBps).The term IDE, or “Integrated Drive Electronics,” is also used to refer to ATA drives. Sometimes (to add extra confusion to people buying hard drives), ATA drives are labeled as “IDE/ATA.” Technically, ATA uses IDE technology, but the important thing to know is that they refer to the same thing.

Astronomical Algorithm

Astronomical Algorithm  Astronomical algorithms are the algorithms used to calculate ephemerides, calendars, and positions (as in celestial navigation or satellite navigation). Examples of large and complex astronomical algorithms are those used to calculate the position of the Moon. A simple example is the calculation of the Julian day. Numerical model of solar system discusses a generalised approach to local astronomical modeling. 

Associative Entities

Associative Entities An associative entity is an element of the Entity-relationship model. The database relational model doesn’t offer direct support to many-to-many relationships, even though such relationships happen frequently in normal usage. The solution to this problem is the creation of another table to hold the necessary information for this relationship. This new table is called an associative entity.  

An associative entity can be thought of as both an entity and a relationship since it encapsulates properties from both. It is a relationship since it is serving to join two or more entities together, but it is also an entity since it may have its own properties. The associative entity must have identifiers, Primary Keys, for both adjoining tables, but may also contain its own unique identifier and other information about the relationship.

ASR-complete

ASR-complete ASR-complete is, by analogy to NP-completeness in complexity theory, a term to indicate that the difficulty of a computational problem is equivalent to solving the central Automatic Speech Recognition problem, i.e. recognise and understanding spoken language. Note that unlike NP-completeness, this term is typically used more informally.

Such problems are hypothesised to include:

• Spoken natural language understanding

• Understanding speech from far-field microphones - i.e. handling the reverbation and background noise

These problems are easy for humans to do (in fact, they are described directly in terms of imitating humans). Some systems can solve very simple restricted versions of these problems, but none can solve them in their full generality.

ASP.NET

ASP.NET ASP.NET is a set of Web development tools offered by Microsoft. Programs like Visual Studio .NET and Visual Web Developer allow Web developers to create dynamic websites using a visual interface. Of course, programmers can write their own code and scripts and incorporate it into ASP.NET websites as well. Though it often seen as a successor to Microsoft’s ASP programming technology, ASP.NET also supports Visual Basic.NET, JScript .NET and open-source languages like Python and Perl. ASP.NET is built on the .NET framework, which provides an application program interface (API) for software programmers. The .NET development tools can be used to create applications for both the Windows operating system and the Web. Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server is by far the most common platform for ASP.NET websites. While there are some open-source options available for Linux-based systems, these alternatives often provide less than full support for ASP.NET applications.

ASP

ASP Just to confuse ordinary people like you and me, there are two equally important definitions of ASP. The term can refer to 1) an Active Server Page, or 2) an Application Service Provider.