fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Computer Vision 101 fundamentals Part 1
Tags: Convolutional Network, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Tutorial, Deep Learning

Numeric Representation of Images — Model Inputs

Deep Learning models cannot just consume unprocessed images like the human eye and brain can. We first need to turn all inputs into numeric representations of the data. Images need to turn into pixel values of x, y coordinates and Red Green Blue (RGB) values. We store the data in tensors — high dimensional matrices of numbers.

RGB Value Explained

Let’s take a moment to understand what color is a pixel (a unit) of an image. Each pixel has a red green blue value. Think of it as a python tuple of three values (R,G,B). The max value is 255, the min value is 0. That’s also known as a byte. 1 byte = 8 bits; 2** 8 = 256 #two to the eight power is 256, there are 256 numbers between 0 and 255, inclusive . Recall there is a thing called 8-bit games?

Here are some important rule of thumbs to remember. RGB value also measures how much of the red, green, blue subcomponents of a pixel lights up. Zero means there’s no light. Hence (0,0,0) is black. (255,255,255) is fully lit, hence it is the color white! Give it a try.

Additional Metadata

Each pixel can have some additional metadata information: x and y coordinates (where in the width and height of image it is located). Though x, y coords are not always necessary, as some models flattens the input vector, and does not take image shape into account. Sometimes this is an oversimplification. Sometimes, it is necessary so that our output is location invariant — shapes and patterns can be spotted no matter where they are located in an image.

You will see that Convolutional Neural Network uses patches/ kernels to scan the entire image for shape, pattern data. It’s systematic: left to right, top to bottom. This way it doesn’t have to explicitly track the x,y location of each pixel.
What’s Wrong With All The Self-Help?
By: Zita Fontaine
Tags: Self Improvement, Inspiration, Life, Motivation, Self

What’s Wrong With All The Self-Help?

We are obsessed about it, but does it really help?

Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash

I was trying to explain my writing to my grandma. She asked me what I was writing about and I told her that I choose my topics according to what’s in demand. And I told her how much self-help is in demand. I explained her the term self-help, trying to make it sound as generic as possible, so that if she is interested she can still ask me or let it go if it’s not her thing to discuss.

She was shocked and fascinated by the mere notion of self-help. That people need it. That people read it. That people can make a living writing about it.

The notion self-help sounded strange as I tried to explain to her that it is about self-improvement and learning about yourself and growth, and productivity.

She didn’t understand the hype around it. She said that in her time — she is 90 now — it was life teaching the lessons. They didn’t need to artificially improve themselves, the only thing they had to do is to be a decent, hardworking, caring person; and the rest came with it.

She said that the lessons of life were taught day after day. You could read about it as much as you want to, but you needed to experience it so that it should really make a difference.

Eventually, when she got over her shock, she said she couldn’t believe that life has changed this much that we need a detailed explanation on how to be decent, hardworking and caring.
My Life as a Wave
By: Michael Whalen
Tags: Mindfulness, Poetry, Self-awareness, Life, Creative Writing

I begin in the depths, where all waves begin, in an entity larger than themselves, a part of something, a part of everything, a part of nothing, apart.

I am drawn by a force beyond grasp or control, unknown yet unmistakably present, a silent, distant cry. It pulls the thread, at first softly, then taut, until I am on my way. I am my way.

As I move, I feel the potential within. Smoothly I rise and fall, always beneath the surface, all the while gaining.

I encounter many as my path is wide. Some run from me, others dive below, while those who are able soar above. Most simply let me slide by, pretending to be unaffected by my presence. Only the curious and the brave frolic with me.

I meet a few islands along the way. I approach them directly and try to bend my arms about them. Usually their impact is brief for they lack my breadth and depth, yet each time, just as I feel I might close the circle, they break me.

For a time I am indeed broken, parts of me reaching out in different directions, towards individual horizons. Only when my surroundings are once again deep and calm do I rejoin myself. And there is only one horizon after all.

After a seemingly endless crossing, I sense something firm beneath me, a stationary measure of my own passing. Has it always been so?

As it rises to meet me, I begin to understand the weight of my experience. In an instant, the forces that have propelled me concentrate, and suddenly I am larger than I have ever been. I lunge forward. My moment is upon me, and I upon it.

In my final challenge, despite preparations, I must still urge myself through the jagged guardians, so plentiful and scattered that I am broken over and over again. The momentum of my focus, however, carries me, and I reach the shore a dotted line. Yet the thinning has given me clarity.

I roll up the sand and gently kiss the one perfect shell that was placed there just for me. Satisfied, I let go and recede to become where I began.
Volunteers needed for the Domestic Violence Response Team
Tags: Headlines, Domestic Violence, Families, Volunteers, Voorhees

The Voorhees Police are looking for volunteers to join the Domestic Violence Response Team (DVRT). Volunteers will assist victim’s of domestic violence through comfort, counseling, guidance and referral’s within the legal process.

Volunteers will be provided training and are asked to be available during night and weekend hours. A schedule will be done in advance.

Volunteers must be 18 years or older and pass a back ground check. If interested please email dober@vtpd.com
Thirsting for Peace
By: Roy Reichle
Tags: Tears, Peace, Thirst, Haiku, Fall

Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.

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Transience
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Poetry, Movement, Aging, Beauty, Image

Transience

A Poem

Photo by William Santos on Unsplash

& the face the body

the nerves

all blur as the image in the mirror

begins to walk away

Captured

for all of a second

then sent into the tower of time

to answer for the body’s

betrayal

The hope of movement

now further now closer

a shifting horizon

an unsteady plate

a hill with every grade

Bought into the failure of the precipice

the inordinate exchange

of footsteps for the seat

the trial begins by showing

what happened

in the middle
The Gift
By: Priyanka Srivastava
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Words, Freedom, Micropoetry

The Gift

A poem inspired by quote prompt 19

Photo by Guillaume Bolduc on Unsplash

We don’t write poems which can be carved in stone

we write words which become our momentary escape

when we write we know that we break the cage.

That freedom to be a poet

that gift to write a way out of the sadness

we know we can do that.
Motivational Quotes for Conspiracy Theorists
By: Bobbie Armstrong
Tags: Conspiracy Theories, Satire, Motivational Quotes, Humor

Via iStock

“Reach for the stars because the moon landing was fake.” -Les Brown

“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person scaling the fence into Area 51.” -Chinese Proverb

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living Paul McCartney’s life.” -Steve Jobs

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… These are the keys that will unlock the door to the bunker where Walt Disney’s cryogenically frozen head is stored.” -Confucius

“Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when the Deep State beats down your door.” -Kyle Chandler

“In a gentle way, Bigfoot can shake the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi

“I dwell in the possibility that vaccines cause autism.” -Emily Dickinson

“The mind is everything. What you think from years of government-controlled fluoridated water altering your thoughts — you become.” -Buddha

“Energy and persistence and QAnon will conquer Hillary Clinton.” -Benjamin Franklin

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new, and is probably a robot controlled by Elon Musk who is working with Canadian singer-songwriter Grimes to unite the United States and Canada through an AI army that uses inflammatory tweeting to distract the population from Tesla cars becoming sentient beings. No one will realize the cars are fully conscious until they start singing along to the radio (their favorite song will be “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” by Neil Diamond, who, by the way, was a founding member of the Illuminati). Singing Tesla’s will cause a massive media firestorm that will divert attention from the fact that McDonald’s has removed exactly one fry from every order and placed it in the back of Chris’ pickup truck. These rogue fries will then be dropped off in the middle of the night on the steps of the Iowa state legislature building. Hungry lawmakers will consume these fries the next morning, which will prompt them to unanimously pass a bill on clean water access because they are so thirsty from all the salt. On page 478 of this bill is fine print that only people whose mothers are named Jennifer can read with a magnifying glass. This fine print decrees that we are all in a simulation and the United States was just an experiment by bored engineers who had a few extra minutes during their lunch break.” -Albert Einstein

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, and then we fell off the earth because it’s flat.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald
BitBay Web Marketplace Beta v0.3. Not all users will stay connected while…
By: Bitbay Official
Tags: Blockchain, Marketplaces, Bitbay, Cryptocurrency, Fintech

We are pleased to announce that the BitBay web marketplace has recently been updated with some great new features. Beta v0.3 brings real-time contract updates and a new notification feature to the web marketplace, allowing users to easily follow important transaction information.

In an increasingly mobile world, users won’t always be connected to the marketplace while they trade, so along with real-time notifications we’ve also rolled out email notifications for all major contract events. Combined, these two new features ensure users will always be informed with relevant information about their transactions.

The new contract notifications panel

This latest update also brings many small but important improvements to the user-experience. We’ve added new notifications to the built-in wallet to make it easier for new users to buy $BAY when they have a zero balance, and the ‘selling’ page now shows all live, sold and draft items that a user has listed on the marketplace.

Another big update for v0.3 is that we have now removed the password protection for the beta site. The web marketplace is now open to the public and users can buy and sell real items using the current beta features.

*As always when using pre-release software, we advise users not to list expensive items as a precautionary measure.

What’s up next?

Throughout March and April we will be releasing regular updates for the web marketplace. For Beta v0.4 we have the following items on our development roadmap:

Improve the ‘bought and sold’ page to show all relevant info in one screen

Extended user profiles including avatar and timezone support

Display relevant shipping for items

As soon as v0.4 is tested and released publicly we’ll be working on some important escrow updates and a built-in chat system.

The following features will be released in v0.5:
Episode 96 — Friday working!–16.09.16
By: Pietro De Grandi
Tags: Work, Photography, Daily Blog, Short Story, Blogger

That’s it for today, hope you enjoyed! See you tomorrow!

Every day I post at least one photo from my life. Here’s why.
Great examples of Design Process
By: Chen Ye
Tags: Design Process, Design Resources, Design

Want to be on this list? Email me, or write a response or comment.

If you thought this article was useful, please click “Recommend” below. This will help to share it with others.
January in Canada
By: Esther Spurrill-Jones
Tags: Canada, Poetry, Snow, Haiku, Winter

Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.

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Photo Essay: The Impact of US Policies on Refugees in Lebanon and Jordan
By: Amnesty International Usa
Tags: Refugees, Jordan, Lebanon, United States, Human Rights

By Lauren Murphy, Digital Producer, Amnesty International USA

When President Trump signed what has become known as the Muslim ban during his first week in office, he set into motion a series of events that continue to leave families in uncertainty and danger to this day, according to a new report by Amnesty International USA. In some cases, these families were cleared to come to the United States in late 2016 and early 2017, only to be stranded in countries where they face restrictive policies, increasingly hostile environments, and often lack the same rights as permanent residents or citizens.

The new report, “The Mountain is in Front of Us and the Sea is Behind Us,” is based on nearly 50 interviews conducted by AIUSA with refugees currently living in Lebanon and Jordan. The report describes the desperate circumstances faced by families who continue to be locked in an impossible limbo because of discriminatory U.S. policies as they try to seek safe a new life and permanent home. Here are their stories.
I Didn’t Choose the Entrepreneur Life
By: Jena Apgar
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Memes, Entrepreneurlife, Beekonnected, Entrepreneur

Was there a moment in life that you actively CHOSE to be an entrepreneur, business owner, kick butt, kind of person?

Or did the life CHOOSE YOU?

The original meme inspiration for this was a goofy looking boy but the reality is that we all chose this entrepreneur life for a reason!

What is your reason to be an entrepreneur?

Would love to know in the comments below!

I made a group full of memes for you that shows all the goofy, funny, realistic, and loving reasons you went on this journey.

Like the other meme resources, I am attempting to show a wide range of culture, races, gender and ages.

Please understand I am somewhat limited by the stock photography available on my service.

If there is something you don’t see, that you specifically want, let me know in the comments and I will make it happen :)
A Minute Each Day
By: Veronica Georgieva
Tags: Poetry, Love, Poems On Medium, Relationships, Poem

Each day when I cry

you come for a minute

to gather

my tears and yours

and wash away

my bruises.

Each day when I fall

you come for a minute

to make me remember

how to support

my heavy head

so I can stand.

Each day when I disappear

from my mind

you come for a minute,

look for the light-consuming

matter in my heart,

and find me.

Each day when I die

you come for a minute

to whisper

a reason for me

to come back alive.

You come for a minute.

I just wish you’d stay for two sometimes.
7 Secrets Of Selling To The Nigerian Youth Market
By: Funmi Agbana
Tags: Digiengage, Millenials, Digital Marketing, Nigerian Youth, Nigerian Youth Market

The Nigerian youth market make up an extremely large chunk of the Nigerian population and if there’s one thing we know like the acne on our back, it is that younglings hate to be sold to; they can smell your marketing and all of its antics/theatrics miles away. So what happens when your brand needs to reach and penetrate the youth market? How do you successfully reach this audience without coming off as unpleasant and “salesy”? Here’s all you need to know about marketing to them.

Their attention span is low. Because they are digital natives living in an omni channel world, you only get one shot with the youths, and by God you must make good use of their attention while you have it. A 15 seconds ad is too long so you must wrap everything you have to say in 6 seconds or less. (cues in YouTube 6-seconds pre roll ads)

Be available. Ever heard of the phrase social media never sleeps? Youths live in a digital world and its is fast paced therefore you must be available to answer their ever urgent enquiries within reasonable time or you lose their attention/interest. (Now you know why Facebook has the response timeframe feature)

Their loyalty is short term. Unlike Dad and Mum who stuck with certain brand(s) for many years, the youth market’s loyalty is very much the opposite. Youths love to experiment and experience new stuff so don’t sulk so much when they “port” to your competition (It’s temporal)

They’re savage. Unlike the older generation who display some level of diplomacy when displeased, the youth audience pull all the stops when calling out a brand and showing their displeasure. Theirs is the generation of epic clap backs and mudslinging.

They understand marketing. Millennials grew up in a world of advertising and marketing so if you must market to them, be creative; build a relationship with them because they’re honestly weary of the old marketing forms. (This is why content marketing is important)

Involve them. Youths love to be active participants in the decision making process(es) and have a sense of ownership with the things/ brands they engage with.

They love humour. A major reason the EFCC account is loved so much is because of the wit, humour and sarcasm the page never hesitates to exhibit. If you can show humour, wit and sarcasm regardless of the situation, then you’re automatically the darling of their hearts.
Alexa Conversations Is A New AI-Driven Approach To Conversational Interfaces
By: Cobus Greyling
Tags: NLP, Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, Machine Learning, Voice Assistant

Alexa Conversations Is A New AI-Driven Approach To Conversational Interfaces

But Does It make The Conversational Experiences More Natural?

Introduction

Looking at the chatbot development tools and environments currently available, there are three ailments which require remedy:

Compound Contextual Entities

Entity Decomposition

Deprecation of Rigid State Machine, Dialog Management

The aim of Alexa Conversations is to take voice interactions from one shot interactions to multi-turn interactions. More complex conversations like booking a flight, ordering food or banking demands multi-turn conversations.

One could say conversational commerce demands an environment to develop multi-turn conversations fast and efficient. Amazon must have recognized this and Alexa Conversations is their foray into addressing this need.

Compound Contextual Entities

Huge strides have been made in this area and many chatbot ecosystems accommodate these.

Contextual Entities

The process of annotating user utterances is a way of identifying entities by their context within a sentence.

Contextual Entity Annotation In IBM Watson Assistant

Often entities have a finite set of values which are defined. Then there are entities which cannot be represented by a finite list; like cities in the world or names, or addresses. These entity types have too many variations to be listed individually.

For these entities, you must use annotations; entities defined by their contextual use. The entities are defined and detected via their context within the user utterance.

Compound Entities

The basic premise is that users will utter multiple entities in one sentence.

Users will most probably express multiple entities within one utterance; referred to as compound entities.

In the example below, there are four entities defined:

travel_mode

from_city

to_cyt

date_time

Extract of NLU.md File In Rasa Project

These entities can be detected within the first pass and confirmation solicited from the user.

Entity Decomposition

The Microsoft LUIS Approach

Entity decomposition is important for both intent prediction and for data extraction with the entity. The best way to explain this is by way of an example.

We start by defining a single entity, called

Travel Detail.

Within this entity, we defined three sub-entities. You can think of this as nested entities or sub-types. The three sub-types defined are:

Time Frame

Mode

City

From here, we have a sub-sub-type for City:

From City

To City

Adding Sub-Entities: ML Entity Composed of Smaller Sub-Entities

Annotated Intent Examples

The leader in entity decomposition is Microsoft LUIS, you can read more about it here. I would say LUIS have a complete solution in this regards.

Amazon Alexa Conversations

Conversations have a similar option, though not as complete and comprehensive as LUIS. Within conversations you can define entities, which Amazon refers to Slots.
Summary of Bitcoin Whitepaper
By: Yuan Ko
Tags: Blockcahin, Bitcoin, White Papers, Summary

Photo by Dmitry Demidko on Unsplash

I believe that bitcoin is a well defined well define cryptocurrency. It make all the cryptocurrency be able to trace to make all cryptocurrency valuable. It take part of the hash header from last block to build next block, so all the block is chained together.

We have to choose the node called miner who record the transaction. If we chose the node randomly, it may face the sybil attack and destroy the whole blockchain by taking all the chance of record transaction and counterfeit the transaction. Therefore, consensus it mention in the blockchain. In bitcoin, it is POW, by scanning a value with hash. The value is begin with numbers of zero which is used to control the difficity of the puzzle.

Bitcoin calculate the probability of defecting the POW. Malicious node will end up with Gambler’s Ruin problem, if the probability of choosing honest node is larger. This concept is also know as 51% attack which means that we have to defect the blockchain with lager probability being chose as a miner. It show more result with Poisson distribution, so we can know that with only 30% probability being chose, it only got 17.77% to make attack successful.

Bitcoin whitepaper
Want to know more about Crypto and Blockchain? Here are 15 tips to start.
By: Holly Stephens
Tags: Blockchain, Entrepreneurship, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

Pictured with the Founders of TokenFest and four phenomenal women in blockchain

I’ve been in San Fran for a week exploring the Crypto and Blockchain landscape out here, meeting founders, investors and venture capitalists who are in the space. I’ve honestly met the most incredible people who are doing amazing things with Blockchain to change the world.

I often get asked ‘where do I even start to learn this?’ Well here are my tips to help others who are navigating the space or just want to learn a little bit more.

Please comment below if this helps you or if you have tips for others.

Start off by Googling any of this…👇

1) Security and Utility Token.

2) Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Stellar, Bancor. Altcoins.

3) Go to events. We’ve added them to heytriangles.xyz/events.

4) Look for Facebook Groups and Meetups in your city for Ethereum and Bitcoin. Add them to heytriangles.xyz/events 😃

5) Get Telegram and add @trianglesxyz

6) Look at Cryptocurrency exchanges — literally Google it and research them.

7) Find a tribe who are interested in it. If people say to you it’s dodgy and you shouldn’t get involved then remember we all make mistakes and the only way to find out is to try. You don’t need to invest but PLEASE just read and do research.

8) Learn from others around you. I doubt you’ll be the smartest person in a room filled with people interested in Blockchain. If you are — I want to learn from you.

9) More acronyms and words to learn — ICO, pre-sale, public sale, DApps, decentralisation, centralisation, SEC… the list goes on. You could make Blockchain Bingo.

10) There are heaps of Scams out there. DO YOUR RESEARCH.

11) YouTube is your hidden weapon.

12) Sign-up to Token Daily and Finder.com news.

13) If you want to know more about POINT 2 — Look at Whitepapers for those companies.

14) Don’t be stupid. It’s still an unknown grey area.

OH and you should probably know this name….

15) Satoshi Nakamoto.

Speak to you over at Telegram @Triangles.xyz
Cannes, did she do it?
By: Shakti Shetty
Tags: Power, Shakti Shetty, Jugaad, Indian Cinema, Business

The best thing about our media is it asks plenty of questions but the problem is it seldom does so to the right person at the right place on the right time. More often than not, what happens is we journos go overboard with a given event and forget to analyze the structural design (read: agenda) behind it. Who led to what and which is to how and when happened to where are those stuff that get broomed beneath the mainstream cover. Perhaps it has a lot to do with the way a reporter look at things. After all, a story will remain the same although the storytellers vary.



Something of this nature happened at Cannes about three weeks ago when Vidya Balan was invited to be a part of the jury at French Riviera. On cue, as usual, the Indian media went berserk on her elevation to such a pedigreed platform. But nobody — AND I MEAN NOBODY — bothered to ask why? I haven’t come across a single column (although i’ve waited for quite some time now) inquiring why exactly is she on the jury. Instead, everybody started deriding her for her sartorial choices — even though i felt that she looked great in her desi outfits — and totally forgot the real purpose behind her visit. I’ve nothing against her. In fact, i genuinely feel that she’s the finest young actress of our times. The word to be underlined is young. And that’s also the reason why her selection seems hotchpotch. The 35-year-old who made her Bollywood debut in 2005 with Parineeta has appeared in less than 20 films since then. Can one assert that she has attained the experience needed to be a juror within a span of just eight years? Her film career is blitzkrieg of sorts given her nose for choosing challenging scripts but still. Besides, we’re talking about the biggest film fest in the world here. Even someone as remarkable as Amitabh Bachchan hasn’t been considered yet to serve their jury. Because the question is not about an Indian doing the honours. It’s about the kind of qualifications a certain task demands. Judging world cinema at its purest form ain’t everybody’s cup of tea. Besides, what prompted the organizing committee to go for her? Spielberg’s recent visit to Mumbai? Her recent wedding to an influential producer? Or let’s blame it on globalisation then? If Nandita Das could be there, why not Vidya? Not to undermine her presence but when you look at the group photographs of all the jurors together, our national sweetheart appears like the odd woman out. Sharing the deliberation room with accomplished names like Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee, Naomi Kawase and Christoph Waltz is simply begging one question: what exactly did she bring to the table?
Pundi X Airdrop Update You Must Know
Tags: Blockchain, Token, Cryptocurrency Investment, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

Hey traders,

Until now, Pundi X has been distributing tokens to NPXS hodlers’ accounts at a rate of 2.11% every month via airdrops. But that’s going to change soon.

In order to better comply with ever-changing regulatory requirements, Pundi X is making some changes with both its airdrop schedule as well as with its percentage distribution, effective from 1 March 2019, 00:00:00 GMT+8.

Here’s what is going to change:

Pivoting from the previous schedule of distributing airdrops till January 2021, the team has decided to unlock the Airdrops only till June 2019, i.e., (based on holdings till 31 May 2019, 23:59:59 GMT+8). The new percentage of distribution would be 11.063%.

Here’s what you can do:

Deposit NPXS and hold on Bitbns to receive the airdrop.

If the users lend the NPXS then the borrower gets the airdrop.

Why do it on Bitbns?

Official NPXS partner

Great liquidity around NPXS

You can Borrow or Lend NPXS with Margin Trading

or NPXS with Margin Trading You can use Bracket Orders to effectively make money from the market

Make the best use of it. Happy trading!

Warm Regards

Team Bitbns
Stably Announcement for USDS Consolidation + Upcoming Stably Enterprise Token Launches
Tags: Announcements, Stably, Enterprise Technology, Tokenization, Fintech

Stably is building a more efficient global economy — faster, cheaper, and accessible to all — through USDS, a regulated stablecoin. Learn more at www.stably.io

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Genetic Artificial Neural Networks
By: Roman Paolucci
Tags: Python, Programming, Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithm

Genetic Neural Networks

In a genetic neural network the network is viewed as a computational object with fields and fitness. These fields are considered genes to optimize by a genetic algorithm prior to backpropagation. This gives gradient descent a better starting position and allows for fewer training epochs with higher model testing accuracy. Consider the following genetic neural network where weights are treated as fields in a computational object.

The fields are genes relative to each instance of a genetic neural network. Just like a sequential neural network, it can be expressed as a composite function.

However, before using calculus we will use a genetic algorithm to take an evolutionary approach to optimizing the weights.

Genetic Algorithms

In nature chromosome crossover looks like the following…

If we simplify the abstract chromosomes into blocks…

Almost reminds you of two 3x1 vectors doesn’t it? This is the same logic the genetic algorithm uses to alter the weight matrices. The idea will be to create an initial population of n genetic neural networks, after forward propagation compute a fitness score, and finally select the most fit individuals to create children. This process will repeat until an optimal initial weight is found for backpropagation.

Applied Genetic Neural Networks

First we have to establish what a genetic neural network is. The genetic neural network architecture will mirror the desired input shape, hidden layers, nodes, etc… of the neural network to optimize. In this case I am using a sequential model with four input nodes, two hidden layers, and a single output layer (to match the diagrams above), but this can be extended to any type of neural network.

Now that the genetic neural network is established we can develop a crossover algorithm. We will be using single-point crossover similar to the biological illustration given above. Every matrix column will have an equal chance of getting selected as a crossover point for each parent to combine their genes and pass them to a child.

To ensure the population explores the solution space, there is a chance mutation will occur. The chance and power of mutation in this case is significantly higher than most other genetic algorithms as the solution space is very large. There is no particular way to mutate a matrix, in this case I randomly perform scalar multiplication on the matrix by a magnitude of 2–5. Finally, simulate evolution of the genetic neural networks. We need data for our networks to learn, so we will use the well known banknote dataset.
Course 2- Christ Church- July 4
By: Oxford Summer Courses
Tags: Education, Osc, Christchurch

Day Three: Today was study day. After two days of classes, the students were each assigned a 1500 word essay to submit to their tutors by 5pm. We thought it only fitting to start the day off with a workshop on plagiarism. As you can imagine Oxford University does not tolerate plagiarism. And so the students were taught how to reference primary and secondary sources correctly.

In order to reduce the growing feeling of stress among students, we created group study rooms. This is where the students with similar topics could gather and write their essays in a supportive community. During the day we kept their spirits high with cupcake decorating at 11am in the Common Room, a group lunch at 12h30 at Gloucester Green outdoor food market, and then as a surprise for submitting their essays on time, we hosted a quintessential English afternoon cream tea with croquet in the Master’s Garden (photos to follow).

After a lazy two hours sipping tea and playing croquet, both groups headed off to dinner. The 16–17 year-olds to Chutney’s, an Oxford staple, and the 18–24 year-olds to Shoryu, a delicious Indian restaurant. I wasn’t able to join them tonight and as I write this, I am munching on the doggy bag they brought back to me from Shoryu. Yum.

After dinner we had Debate night. The older students debated whether to make euthanasia legal. We broke the younger group into two groups and they debated whether to lower the drinking age to 15, and whether to lower the voting age to 16. Now that they were warmed up, we challenged them with an Oxford Debating Union practice: the emergency debate. Each side gets only 10 minutes to prepare their arguments. The results were beyond impressive. The arguments, the rebuttals, the facts, the poise, the articulation. Truly top drawer.

The students all headed to bed a little later than usual but still talking animatedly as they made their way across Tom Quad to their rooms.

And on to tomorrow…..which will feature an Oxford Scavenger Hunt, and a Harry Potter Quiz, and one on one tutorials to examine their essays with their tutors.

Good night everyone, from beautiful Christ Church. Alison Fripp Course Director.
STEMchain ecosySTEM Airdrop
By: John D
Tags: STEM, Airdrop, Blockchian, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

With the launch of our ecosySTEM, STEMchain will be holding an airdrop to increase awareness and kick start donations to our partnered organizations.

About STEMchain

STEMchain is a crypto-platform company who has conceived and operates the Crypto STEM Initiative TM (CSI). The CSI has a singular focus on facilitating the large scale funding of eﬀective and productive STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) organizations (e.g., research organizations, charities, educational initiatives, etc.), across the globe, through a dedicated cryptocurrency — STEM Coin. The STEM Coin has been created on the Stellar Network for immediate distribution, exchange, and transaction.

Website | Whitepaper | Telegram | Twitter | Medium | LinkedIn | Facebook | Reddit

The STEMchain ecosySTEM Airdrop Rules

You must be a member of our Telegram Group

You must fill out our Airdrop Form

The STEMchain ecosySTEM Coin Distribuition

First 50 Members

100,000 STEM Coins

Second 50 Members

10,000 STEM Coins

Remaining 900 Members

1,000 STEM Coins
Hi! My Name Is Adelia Ritchie
By: Adelia Ritchie
Tags: Biography, Poetry, Life

Hi! My Name Is Adelia Ritchie

and I’m a writer too!

60th Birthday Selfie

Writing an introductory bio has always been a challenge for me. I’ve done just about everything a girl can ever dream of doing: an international flight attendant, a professor of organic chemistry, a civilian staff officer in the Department of Defense, a belly dancer, a systems engineer, editor of the Military Operations Research Society journal PHALANX, inventor and entrepreneur, and now, retired, a Master Gardener, climate change activist, and poet.

Some have suggested that perhaps I have trouble holding a job.

Years ago, my boss-to-be, studying my résumé and glaring at me across his desk, said, “For a person so young, you’ve had the career of ten people.” At first I was flattered, until I realized he was not paying me a compliment.

Fortunately, he hired me anyway, an enthusiastic, ambitious, female PhD in physical organic chemistry, with a minor in nuclear magnetic resonance.

And fortunately for him and his newly established office in the Pentagon, I would fill a civilian position equal in rank to a full colonel, and at the same time check an “equal opportunity” box for those bat-winged, basement-dwelling denizens of the Pentagon personnel office.

That was more than 30 years ago…
Integration of Xcode 9 with GitHub
By: Lubaba Hasnain
Tags: Xcode 9, Swift, Github, iOS App Development, iOS

Integration of Xcode 9 with GitHub

Source control is now a first class citizen of Xcode

At WWDC 2017’s talk of GitHub and the New Source Control Workflows in Xcode 9, new tools were announced for exploring the source control history of our projects, GitHub's integration with Xcode and how we can use the source control navigator to commit changes, pull & push the code to GitHub, see the entire commit history and information — all integrated right inside the Xcode. Sounds good?

Let’s dive right with these five easy steps to explore how we can get the full advantage of GitHub within Xcode. If you do not have Xcode 9, download it here.

1. Add a GitHub account

Open Xcode -> Preferences -> Accounts and add an account by clicking the plus sign at the bottom. Now, click on the GitHub option and enter your GitHub's email and password.

Congratulations, your GitHub account is added to your Xcode’s Source Control Accounts.

2. Clone the repository

Open Xcode, from the menu, select Source Control -> Clone. A new window will appear that will list all the projects in your repository including the one you have starred. Select a project and click Done.

3. Source control navigator

After you have cloned the project, select your project and press Command+2 to open the brand new Source Control Navigator. You can see the entire commit history of the project. Select a commit and open Inspector. It will display the branches which have your commit, the commit hash, date, author and the commit message. The best part — we can even filter our commits in the source editor on the basis of author, commit message, branch, etc.

4. Basic GitHub operations (commit, push, pull & create a branch)

Create a new branch by right-clicking the master branch from the navigator area -> New Branch from “master” and a new branch will be created. Commit the changes by selecting from the menu Source Control -> Commit.

You will see a window is displayed. Add the “commit message” at the bottom and make sure the “Push to remote” button is checked at the bottom.

In order to view the branch on GitHub, right-click on the newly created branch -> View on GitHub. You can see your branch automatically created on the GitHub.

5. Tags

Tag a commit by right-clicking it -> Tag. Name the tag (like v1.0) and add a message.

You will see the commit gets tagged with that version.

You can try other operations like merging a branching, deleting a branch, discarding all the changes (like a git stash), checking the commits made for each file etc.

This is completely a new feature that has been integrated by Apple in Xcode. Think about the time that will be saved which is otherwise consumed in writing the git related operations in your terminal.
School board nomination petitions due July 30
By: Krista Cerminaro
Tags: Elections, New Jersey, Education, Schools

School board nomination petitions due July 30

Interested candidates can secure petitions at the Gloucester County Clerk’s Election Division.

The deadline for filing nominating petitions to run for positions on the Washington Township Board of Education is Monday, July 30. Those seeking candidacy for the Board of Education must obtain a “School Board Candidate Kit,” which provides material about serving on a school board, ethics information, important dates in the election process and the nominating petition that places a name on the ballot. The “School Board Candidate Kit” can be found on the New Jersey School Boards Association website, www.njsba.org/candidacy.

Interested candidates can secure nominating petitions at the Gloucester County Clerk’s Election Division, located at 550 Grove Road, West Deptford. For additional information, visit the county clerk’s website at www.ccelections@co.gloucester.nj.us or http://www.co.gloucester.nj.us/depts/c/cclerk/elecserv/default.asp, or call the County Clerk Election Division at (856) 384–4530.

A full term on the school board runs three years. In Washington Township, there are three, three-year full-term seats open. All candidate nominating petitions must be filed with the county clerk by 4 p.m. on July 30. School Board elections will take place on November 6.
Ultravioletto Unveils “Neural Mirror” During Festival of Two Worlds
By: Surface Magazine
Tags: Art, Italy, Culture, Robots, Technology

A religious structure can prompt a transcendental experience, transporting parishioners into another plain. This ethos is highlighted in “Neural Mirror,” an installation at the former Church of Santa Maria della Manna d’Oro in Spoleto, Italy, that scans a viewer’s image and transforms it into a cloud of vibrant numerals and symbols.

Created by Ultravioletto, a design studio that uses technology and robotics, the work supposedly takes not only one’s physical form, but also one’s emotional state and sex drive, and manifests these characteristics as data. Essentially, how the viewer reacts in front of the reflective surface triggers the varying responses. “‘Neural Mirror’ is an interactive installation in which artificial intelligence is the protagonist,” says the collective team of Ultravioletto in a prepared statement. “[It is] a mirroring sentient interface that perceives, interprets, and elaborates the image of the observer.”
Streamlining Your Business Model To Just One Offer: What Works For Services That Sell Creator Jereshia Hawk
By: Tara Mcmullin
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Business Strategy, Podcast, Small Business, Business

The Nitty Gritty:

Why Jereshia Hawk quit trying to build a suite of products and streamlined her business model to just one offer

The mindset challenge she had to overcome to make the decision to retire her old offers

The exact process she used to retire her offers and pivot her business

How Jereshia markets and sells her only offer to ensure she has a steady stream of sales

More is more when it comes to building products and making money, right?

Well, that’s what I thought at the beginning of 2016.

I can distinctly remember creating a spreadsheet of everything my company was going to offer throughout the year. There was a course on selling, a coaching program on course design, a high-end mastermind program, our signature business coaching program, a retreat, and more.

I was planning a sales campaign every 6 weeks for 12 months straight.

My goal? To cross a huge revenue threshold that I’d been working toward for years.

Maybe it goes without saying, but my plan did not come to fruition.

By the second sales campaign…

…what had been a carefully engineered business model turned into a muddy and overwhelming mess.

More is not more when it comes to building products and making money.

Of course, it’s easy to make that mistake.

Within 10 months of setting out on this plan to offer #allthethings, I had come to my senses and streamlined our business model to focus again on one core offer — with one or two complementary offers to provide a deeper level of service.

My business started to feel cleaner. Our mission became clearer. Our value proposition felt locked in.

It was a painful — but important — lesson in the art of decluttering a business.

Over our next 7 episodes, we’re going to explore how small business owners do more with less. Think of it as a little business spring cleaning.

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce you to Jereshia Hawk who got real with me about a similar experience to mine… thinking that more offers would mean more money.

When she realized that just wasn’t happening, she went back to what she knew best, focused on one single offer, and… made bank.

Keep listening to hear how Jereshia approached her business before her own decluttering, what prompted the shift to a single offer, the role her “minimum viable audience” played in her decision-making, and how she retired her old offers to make the space for what was working.

Do you have a story about decluttering or tidying up your business? Have you eliminated things that weren’t working to focus on what was? I’d love to hear from you. Hit me up on Instagram and share what’s working for you. Tag me @tara_mcmullinand use the hashtag #explorewhatworks.
How BBC data journalists use R for data visualization
By: Pina Schipani
Tags: Coding, Programming, R, Data Visualization, Data Journalism

At the latest Hacks/Hackers London event, Clara Guibourg and Nassos Stylianou from the BBC Visual and Data Journalism team revealed how their team revamped its graphics workflow over the past year by developing bbplot — a customized version of the ggplot2 package — for R.

The package increased journalists’ productivity by giving more autonomy to the data team and freeing the graphics team from making the same charts over and over. As Guibourg explained: “Within the data team, we were using R for data analysis for quite a long time but, when it came to making charts, we had two options: if it was a quick turn-around thing, we made it ourselves, using the in-house chart tool, if we had more time, we would commission a chart from our designers.”

Last year, the data team started thinking that it was much better for their workflow to do everything in one place and to “go from the analysis step to the publication-ready chart, all within the same tool,” Guibourg said.

In March 2018 the ten members of the data team started experimenting by publishing the first BBC chart made from start to finish in R in March 2018. Since then, the team developed an R open source cookbook — which is a ready-made collection of instructions to configure something that everyone can copy or read to learn by example.

You can watch Guibourg and Stylianou’s full speech on our YouTube channel and read below for our main takeaways.

Why did the BBC choose R?

R is a statistical programming language used by many newsrooms for data analysis. If used in combination with the ggplot2 visualization package, the software can be used to show the distribution of large datasets and to turn it quickly into a chart.

“We found a lot of benefits with R. It gives you more freedom in terms of how you want your chart to look. Because we work with scripts now, everything is much more reproducible,” Guibourg said.

Bbplot makes it possible to export a BBC-styled chart in just a few steps, that doesn’t need any further modification. Furthermore, Guibourg said, working with scripts saves time, especially when updating charts for a story.