Christopher Kenneth Ingle Williams (born 1960) is a professor at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, working in Artificial intelligence, and particularly the areas of Machine learning and Computer vision. == Education == Williams received a BA in Physics and Theoretical Physics from the University of Cambridge in 1982, followed by Part III Mathematics (1983). He did a MSc in Water Resources at the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, then worked in Lesotho on low-cost sanitation. In 1988, he studied at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Toronto under the supervision of Geoffrey Hinton. He obtained his MSc and PhD both in computer science, in 1990 and 1994, respectively. == Career and research == In 1994, Williams moved to Aston University as a Research Fellow. He became a Lecturer in August 1995. He moved to the University of Edinburgh in July 1998 and became Reader in 2000. He obtained a Personal Chair in Machine Learning in 2005 in the School of Informatics. Williams has been a Fellow of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) since 2019. Williams' research interests are in machine learning and computer vision. He has worked on new models for understanding time-series and images, and for finding structure in data. He is best known for his work on Gaussian processes and for the book Gaussian Processes for Machine Learning, co-authored with Carl Rasmussen. The book received the 2009 DeGroot Prize of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis. Williams was an organizer of the PASCAL Visual Object Classes (VOC) project (2005–2012) along with Mark Everingham, Luc van Gool, John Winn, and Andrew Zisserman. == Awards and honours == In 2021 Williams was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).
Zamzar
Zamzar is an online file converter and compressor, created by brothers Mike and Chris Whyley in England in 2006. It allows users to convert files online, without downloading a software tool, and supports over 1,200 different conversion types. Since its formation, the service has converted over 510 million files for users from 245 different countries. The service supports the conversion of documents, images, audio, video, e-Books, CAD files and compressed file formats. Users can type in a URL or upload one or more files (if they are all of the same format) from their computer; Zamzar will then convert the file(s) to another user-specified format, such as an Adobe PDF file to a Microsoft Word document. Once conversion is complete, users can immediately download the file from their web browser. Users can also choose to receive an email with a link to download the converted file. In February 2021 Zamzar expanded their tool and announced a new file compression service. The compressor is visually similar to the conversion tool with a drag and drop download feature. As with the converter, users have the option to subscribe for a paid plan if they wish to compress multiple or larger files than the free service permits == File conversion API == in 2015 Zamzar launched a file conversion API, allowing users to integrate file conversion capabilities into their own websites and applications. Sample code is provided to allow users to integrate file conversion capabilities in C#, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python and cURL. Zamzar also maintains a project on GitHub which allows users to perform file conversion from the command line on Linux, MacOS or Windows systems. == Email file conversion == It is also possible to send files for conversion by emailing them to Zamzar. Zamzar launched this capability in 2012, allowing users to email files to dedicated email addresses for the file to be automatically converted to a different format. A link is then emailed back to the end user to allow them to download their converted file. == User privilege levels == Zamzar is currently free to use, but there is a limit of two conversions per hour for files up to 100MB. Users can pay a monthly subscription in order to access preferential features, such as unlimited file conversions, online file management, shorter response and queuing times and other benefits. == Name == Its name comes from Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Its main character is called Gregor Samsa and it is from his surname that Zamzar is derived. The founders of the service considered three other names – Konvertieren, Khamailen and Obrogo – before settling on Zamzar.
Enterprise bus matrix
The enterprise bus matrix is a data warehouse planning tool and model created by Ralph Kimball, and is part of the data warehouse bus architecture. The matrix is the logical definition of one of the core concepts of Kimball's approach to dimensional modeling conformed dimension. The bus matrix defines part of the data warehouse bus architecture and is an output of the business requirements phase in the Kimball lifecycle. It is applied in the following phases of dimensional modeling and development of the data warehouse. The matrix can be categorized as a hybrid model, being part technical design tool, part project management tool and part communication tool == Background == The need for an enterprise bus matrix stems from the way one goes about creating the overall data warehouse environment. Historically there have been two approaches: a structured, centralized and planned approach and a more loosely defined, department specific approach, in which solutions are developed in a more independent matter. Autonomous projects can result in a range of isolated stove pipe data marts. Naturally each approach has its issues; the visionary approach often struggles with long delivery cycles and lack of reaction time as needs emerge and scope issues arise. On the other hand, the development of isolated data marts leads to stovepipe systems that lack synergy in development. Over time this approach will lead to a so-called data-mart-in-a-box architecture where interoperability and lack of cohesion is apparent, and can hinder the realization of an overall enterprise data warehouse. As an attempt to handle this issue, Ralph Kimball introduced the enterprise bus. == Description == The bus matrix purpose is one of high abstraction and visionary planning on the data warehouse architectural level. By dictating coherency in the development and implementation of an overall data warehouse the bus architecture approach enables an overall vision of the broader enterprise integration and consistency while at the same time dividing the problem into more manageable parts – all in a technology and software independent manner. The bus matrix and architecture builds upon the concept of conformed dimensions, creating a structure of common dimensions that ideally can be used across the enterprise by all business processes related to the data warehouse and the corresponding fact tables from which they derive their context. According to Kimball and Margy Ross's article “Differences of Opinion” "The Enterprise Data warehouse built on the bus architecture ”identifies and enforces the relationship between business process metrics (facts) and descriptive attributes (dimensions)”. The concept of a bus is well known in the language of information technology, and is what reflects the conformed dimension concept in the data warehouse, creating the skeletal structure where all parts of a system connect, ensuring interoperability and consistency of data, and at the same time considers future expansion. This makes the conformed dimensions act as the integration ‘glue’, creating a robust backbone of the enterprise Data Warehouse.
Semantic translation
Semantic translation is the process of using semantic information to aid in the translation of data in one representation or data model to another representation or data model. Semantic translation takes advantage of semantics that associate meaning with individual data elements in one dictionary to create an equivalent meaning in a second system. An example of semantic translation is the conversion of XML data from one data model to a second data model using formal ontologies for each system such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL). This is frequently required by intelligent agents that wish to perform searches on remote computer systems that use different data models to store their data elements. The process of allowing a single user to search multiple systems with a single search request is also known as federated search. Semantic translation should be differentiated from data mapping tools that do simple one-to-one translation of data from one system to another without actually associating meaning with each data element. Semantic translation requires that data elements in the source and destination systems have "semantic mappings" to a central registry or registries of data elements. The simplest mapping is of course where there is equivalence. There are three types of Semantic equivalence: Class Equivalence - indicating that class or "concepts" are equivalent. For example: "Person" is the same as "Individual" Property Equivalence - indicating that two properties are equivalent. For example: "PersonGivenName" is the same as "FirstName" Instance Equivalence - indicating that two individual instances of objects are equivalent. For example: "Dan Smith" is the same person as "Daniel Smith" Semantic translation is very difficult if the terms in a particular data model do not have direct one-to-one mappings to data elements in a foreign data model. In that situation, an alternative approach must be used to find mappings from the original data to the foreign data elements. This problem can be alleviated by centralized metadata registries that use the ISO-11179 standards such as the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM).
User-subjective approach
The user-subjective approach is the first interaction design approach dedicated specifically to personal information management (PIM). The approach offers design principles with which PIM systems (e.g. operating systems, email applications and web browsers) can make systematic use of subjective (i.e. user-dependent) attributes. The approach evolved in three stages: (a) theoretical foundations first published in a Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology during 2003. The paper introduces the approach and its design principles (b) evidence and implementation was published in another JASIST paper in 2008. The paper gives empirical evidence in support of the approach as well as seven novel design schemes that derives from it. It has won the Best JASIST paper award in 2009.(c) specific design evaluation this stage has already begun with evaluation of the first user-subjective design prototype called GrayArea in a Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems paper published in 2009. == Theoretical foundations == The user-subjective approach takes advantage of the fact that in PIM the person who retrieves the information is the same person who had previously stored it. PIM can be seen as a communication between the person and him\her self at two different times: the time of storage and the time of retrieval. The PIM system design should help facilitate that unique communication by allowing the user use subjective (user-dependent) attributes in addition to the standard objective ones. PIM systems should capture these subjective attributes when the user interacts with the information item (either automatically or by using direct manipulation interface) in order to help the user retrieve the item later on. The user-subjective approach identifies three subjective attributes – the project which the item was classified to, its degree of importance to the user, and the context in which the item was used during the interaction with it. The approach also assigns a design principle for each. The principles (discussed below) are deliberately abstract to allow for a variety of different implementations. === The subjective project classification principle === The subjective project classification principle suggests that PIM systems design should allow all information items related to a project be classified under the same category regardless of whether they are files, emails, Web Favorites or of any other format. This stands in sharp contrast with the present PIM system design where there are distinct folder hierarchies for each of these formats. The current design forces the user to store information related to a single project in separate locations depending on their format causing the project fragmentation problem. === The subjective importance principle === The subjective importance principle suggests that the subjective importance of information should affect its degree of visual salience and accessibility: important information items should be highly visible and accessible as they are more likely to be retrieved (the promotion principle) and those of lower importance should be demoted (i.e. making them less visible) so as not to distract the user (the demotion principle). While the promotion principle is not new and has been widely applied in PIM system design, the demotion principle is novel and has been applied only sporadically in these systems. Currently these systems allow only two options: keeping information (where unneeded information items could clutter folders and obscure the target item) and deleting it (where there is a risk that the item will not be there when needed). Demotion suggests a third option where the item is less visible so it doesn’t distract the user but is kept within its original context in case the user would need it after all. === The subjective context principle === The subjective context principle suggests that PIM systems should allow users retrieve their information items in the same context that they had previously used in order to bridge the time gap between these two events. By "context" the approach refers to other information items that were used at the time of interaction with the item, thoughts that the users may have regarding the item, the phase the user got to in the interaction with the item and other people the user collaborates with regarding the information item. == Evidence and implementations == === Evidence === The user-subjective approach was evaluated in a multioperational designed study which used questionnaires, screen shots and in-depth interviews (N = 84). The research tested the use of subjective attributes in current PIM systems and its dependency on design. Results show that participants used subjective attributes whenever design allowed them to. When it didn't, they either used their own alternative ways to use these attributes or avoided using subjective attributes at all. Regarding the subjective project classification principle – many of the participants' recent files, emails and web pages related to the same projects (indicating that they were working on the same project using different formats), and they had saved files of different format in the same project folders. However, as design does not suggest storing emails and web favorites with files, users avoid doing so. Regarding the subjective importance principle – users tended to retrieve their important information from highly visible and accessible locations offered by current design (e.g. by using the desktop), however since current systems offers no way to demote files of low subjective importance participants tended to use their own walk around ways for doing so (e.g. by moving them to a folder called "old" inside their original folder). Regarding the subjective context principle – participants tended to talk spontaneously about the context of their information items during the interview. These evidence imply that current PIM systems could possibly be improved if it would allow users to make more use of subjective attributes of their personal information. === Implementations === Each of the user-subjective design principles can be implemented in various ways. Moreover, as the approach is generative it offers PIM designers to use these principles in order to create their own user subjective designs. Below are design schemes that demonstrate an implementation of each of the principles. A more complete set of implementation examples can be found in the user-subjective website Archived 2011-02-01 at the Wayback Machine. The single hierarchy solution – addresses the project fragmentation problem (the current situation where the users stores and retrieve their project-related files, emails and web favorites at different hierarchies) and implements the subjective classification principle by offering the user a single folder hierarchy for all information items. At the operation system level the users would navigate to a folder and find there all project related files, emails, web favorites, tasks, contacts and notes. This would allow them to retrieve all their project-related information items from a single location regardless of their formats. When looking at these folders at their mail box the users would see only their emails and only web favorites through their browser. The single hierarchy design scheme has not been evaluated yet. GrayArea – implements the demotion principle by allowing users to move subjectively unimportant files to a gray area at the bottom end of their folders. This clears the upper part of the folder from file that are unlikely to be retrieved while allowing the users to retrieve these unimportant file in their original context in case they are needed after all. GrayArea design scheme was positively evaluated (see next section). ItemHistory – is an implementation of the subjective context principle. It allows users to reach all information items that were previously retrieved while that information item was open. This design scheme has not been evaluated to date. == Specific design evaluation == The evaluation of specific designs is the third and final step of the approach development. It had begun with the assessment of GrayArea. === GrayArea evaluation === GrayArea was evaluated by using a prototype that simulated the participants' folders but included a gray area where they could drag & drop their subjectively unimportant files. In the study 96 participants were asked to clean up their folders from unimportant files once with GrayArea and once without it. Results show that the use of GrayArea reduced the clutter in folders, that it was easier for participants to demote files than to delete them and that they would use it if provided in their next operating system. These results encourage commercial implementation of GrayArea and the development and testing of other user-subjective designs. == Chronological development == The user-subjective approach was developed by
Roadie (app)
Roadie Inc. is an American package delivery company for business and private same-day, urgent and scheduled delivery in the United States. The company was founded in 2014 and launched its web and mobile apps in January 2015. As of September 2021, it reported having over 200,000 drivers covering more than 20,000 zip codes. Roadie states it matches gig drivers with deliveries that are directed along the routes they plan to travel. Major customers include The Home Depot, Walmart, Tractor Supply Company, Best Buy and Delta Air Lines. In September 2021, UPS entered into an agreement to acquire Roadie for an undisclosed amount with the transaction expected to be closed in the fourth quarter. == History == Roadie was founded by Marc Gorlin, a co-founder of Kabbage and founder of VerticalOne and Pretty Good Privacy, as a same-day and urgent delivery company in 2014. In January 2015, Roadie launched the first consumer to consumer (C2C) version of its app with a Series A funding round of $10 million. In February, Roadie announced a partnership with Waffle House to designate its restaurants "Roadie Roadhouses", offering a neutral meeting place for drivers and senders. Drivers receive free food and drink through the partnership. In May, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel discussed the Roadie-Waffle House relationship in an opening monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Roadie's driver network expanded significantly as a result. Roadie closed a Series B round of funding in June, raising $15 million, and its first business to business (B2B) app version launched that November. In 2015, Delta Air Lines signed an agreement with Roadie to deliver mishandled luggage, becoming Roadie’s first enterprise customer. Roadie launched a pilot program with Delta at Daytona Beach International Airport. Since then, the relationship has expanded to include over 70 airports around the United States and a first mile/last mile line haul relationship with Delta Cargo. In 2017, the company signed a deal with The Home Depot, also based in Atlanta, and in February 2019, closed a Series C round of funding. In October 2019, Roadie and Delta Cargo announced a partnership to create a same-day cross-country delivery offering, DASH Door-to-Door, the first of its kind from a U.S. passenger airline. Tractor Supply Company became the first general merchandise retailer to offer same-day delivery from every store in April 2020 through Roadie. In September 2021, UPS entered an agreement to acquire Roadie for an undisclosed amount. The transaction was expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021. Roadies, which at the time reported having 200,000 operators serving over 20,000 ZIP Codes, was expected to continue operations under its name as a separate company with no transfer of packages between the UPS and Roadies networks. The relationship between the companies goes back several years with UPS being an early investor. Earlier in 2021, UPS had begun a pilot program testing same-day deliveries via Roadies. == Operations == === On-the-way model === Roadie’s app works by connecting drivers with senders, businesses or consumers who have items that need to be delivered. Deliveries within the app are referred to as "Gigs", which Gorlin said was inspired by live music road crews, also known as roadies. A sender creates a Gig on Roadie's web app or via its API. Drivers then review deliveries in their area on their mobile app and may choose to offer to take on individual or groups of deliveries along the same route. Gigs are then assigned to drivers by Roadie's algorithm. According to the company, this model encourages drivers to choose Gigs that align with their planned schedules and routes. Roadie calls this its "on-the-way" delivery model. The go-to-market approach taken by Roadie also differs from its competitors. Rather than launching in major cities and sequentially adding new markets city-by-city, Roadie launched nationwide from its inception. The company relies on retail and airline partners to drive volume of deliveries in individual markets, which in turn builds up a network of drivers in those areas, making it easier for small businesses and consumers to send deliveries as well. This strategy allows Roadie to reach smaller cities and towns in rural or exurban communities, traditionally difficult markets for delivery providers to serve. === Service lines === Roadie’s platform is most popular for same-day, on-demand or scheduled first mile/last mile delivery, especially delivery from stores and warehouses. Some retailers also use it for returns and reverse logistics, moving inventory, and hot shot shipping. Roadie operates 1-hour grocery delivery for Walmart, and delivers perishable food items for others including small, independent retailers. The on-the-way model complements the grocery industry’s just in time model, making last-mile deliveries that do not break the cold chain. === Cross-country same-day delivery === In October 2019, Roadie and Delta Cargo launched DASH Door-to-Door, a 24/7 door-to-door pick-up and delivery service. Roadie handles the first and last mile and Delta manages the line haul via passenger flights. The service launched originally from Atlanta to 55 cities and is an industry-first for a US commercial airline. === Promotion, awards and corporate citizenship === In September 2015, Roadie announced a partnership with Atlanta-based musician Ludacris, to promote the app. Following the devastation caused by flooding in Baton Rouge in 2016, Roadie offered free pickup and delivery for all deliveries traveling to and from the Baton Rouge area. In December 2020, Walmart named Roadie its top delivery partner for "Highest Driver Customer Satisfaction" and "Highest Net Promoter Score", after expanding into general merchandise deliveries as well as grocery that same year.
NCSA Brown Dog
NCSA Brown Dog is a research project to develop a method for easily accessing historic research data stored in order to maintain the long-term viability of large bodies of scientific research. It is supported by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) that is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). == History == Brown Dog is part of the DataNet partners program funded by NSF in 2008. DataNet was conceived to address the increasingly digital and data-intensive nature of science, engineering and education. Brown Dog is part of a follow-on effort called Data Infrastructure Building Blocks (DIBBs), focused on building software to support DataNet. The project was proposed by researchers at NCSA and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as well as researchers from Boston University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. == Unstructured, uncurated, long tail data == Much scientific data is smaller, unstructured and uncurated and thus not easily shared. Such data is sometimes referred to as "long tail" data. This borrows a term from statistics and refers to the tail of the distribution of project sizes. The majority of smaller projects lack the resources to properly steward the data they produce. This so-called "long tail" data, both past and present, has the potential to inform future research in many study areas. Much of this data has become inaccessible due to obsolete software and file formats. The resulting impossibility of reviewing data from older research disrupts the overall scientific research project. == Approach == Brown Dog describes itself as the "super mutt" of software (thus the name "Brown Dog"), serving as a low-level data infrastructure to interface digital data content across the internet. Its approach is to use every possible source of automated help (i.e., software) in existence in a robust and provenance-preserving manner to create a service that can deal with as much of this data as possible. The project sees the broader impact of its work in its potential to serve the general public as a sort of "DNS for data", with the goal of making all data and all file formats as accessible as webpages are today. == Technology == Brown Dog seeks to address problems involving the use of uncurated and unstructured data collections through the development of two services: the Data Access Proxy (DAP) to aid in the conversion of file formats and the Data Tilling Services (DTS) for the automatic extraction of metadata from file contents. Once developed, researchers and general public users will be able to download browser plugins and other tools from the Brown Dog tool catalog. === Data Tilling Service === Data Tilling Service (DTS) will allow users to search data collections using an existing file to discover other similar files in a collection. A DTS search field will be appended to configured browsers where example files can be dropped. This tells DTS to search all the files under a given URL for files similar to the dropped file. For example, while browsing an online image collection, a user could drop an image of three people into the search field, and the DTS would return all images in the collection that also contain three people. If DTS encounters a foreign file format, it will utilize DAP to make the file accessible. DTS also indexes the data and extract and appends metadata to files and collections enabling users to gain some sense of the type of data they are encountering. This service runs on port 9443. === Data Access Proxy === Data Access Proxy (DAP) allows users to access data files that would otherwise be unreadable. Similar to an internet gateway or Domain Name Service, the DAP configuration would be entered into a user's machine and browser settings. Data requests over HTTP would first be examined by DAP to determine if the native file format is readable on the client device. If not, DAP converts the file into the best available format readable by the client machine. Alternatively, the user could specify the desired format themselves. This service runs on port 8184. == Use cases == Brown Dog targets three use cases proposed by groups within the EarthCube research communities. Developers and researchers from these communities will work together on use cases that span geoscience, engineering, biology and social science. === Long tail vegetation data in ecology and global change biology === This use case is led by Michael Dietze, Boston University Data on the abundance, species composition, and size structure of vegetation is critically important for a wide array of sub-disciplines in ecology, conservation, natural resource management, and global change biology. However, addressing many of the pressing questions in these disciplines will require that terrestrial biosphere and hydrologic models are able to assimilate the large amount of long-tail data that exists but is largely inaccessible. The Brown Dog team in cooperation with researches from Dietze's lab will facilitate the capture of a huge body of smaller research-oriented vegetation data sets collected over many decades and historical vegetation data embedded in Public Land Survey data dating back to 1785. This data will be used as initial conditions for models, to make sense of other large data sets and for model calibration and validation. === Designing green infrastructure considering storm water and human requirements === This use case is led by Barbara Minsker], University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign]; William Sullivan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Arthur Schmidt, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This case study involves developing novel green infrastructure design criteria and models that integrate requirements for storm water management and ecosystem and human health and well being. To address the scientific and social problems associated with the design of green spaces, data accessibility and availability is a major challenge. This study will focus on identified areas of the Green Healthy Neighborhood Planning region within the City of Chicago where existing local sewer performance is most deficient and where changes in impervious area through green infrastructure would be beneficial to under served neighborhoods. Brown Dog will be used to extract long-tail experimental data on human landscape preferences and health impacts. This data will be used to develop a human health impacts model that will then be linked together with a terrestrial biosphere model and a storm water model using Brown Dog technology. === Development and application for critical zone studies === This use case is led by Praveen Kumar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Critical Zone (CZ) is the "skin" of the earth that extends from the treetops to the bedrock that is created by life processes working at scales from microbes to biomes. The Critical Zone supports all terrestrial living systems. Its upper part is the bio-mantle. This is where terrestrial biota live, reproduce, use and expend energy, and where their wastes and remains accumulate and decompose. It encompasses the soil, which acts as a geomembrane through which water and solutes, energy, gases, solids, and organisms interact with the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere. A variety of drivers affect this bio-dynamic zone, ranging from climate and deforestation to agriculture, grazing and human development. Understanding and predicting these effects is central to managing and sustaining vital ecosystem services such as soil fertility, water purification, and production of food resources, and, at larger scales, global carbon cycling and carbon sequestration. The CZ provides a unifying framework for integrating terrestrial surface and near-surface environments, and reflects an intricate web of biological and chemical processes and human impacts occurring at vastly different temporal and spatial scales. The nature of these data create significant challenges for inter-disciplinary studies of the CZ because integration of the variety and number of data products and models has been a barrier. On the other hand, CZ data provides an excellent opportunity for defining, testing and implementing Brown Dog technologies. In this context "unstructured" data is viewed broadly as consisting of a collection of heterogeneous data with formats that reflect temporal and disciplinary legacies, data from emerging low cost open hardware based sensors and embedded sensor networks that lack well defined metadata and sensor characteristics, as well as data that are available as maps, images and text. == NSF Award == CIF21 DIBBs: Brown Dog was awarded in the winter of 2013 with a start date of October 1, 2013. Estimated expiration date is September 30, 2018. The award amount was $10,519,716.00, the largest DIBB award. The principal investigator is Kenton McHenry of NCSA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Coleaders are Jong Lee NCSA/UIU