Lin-Shan Lee

Lin-Shan Lee

Lin-Shan Lee (Chinese: 李琳山; born 23 September 1952) is a Taiwanese computer scientist. == Education and career == Lee earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University in 1974, and pursued a doctorate in the same subject at Stanford University, graduating in 1977. He subsequently returned to Taiwan and joined the NTU faculty in 1982. Lee is a 1993 fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, recognized "[f]or contributions to computer voice input/output techniques for Mandarin Chinese and to engineering education." The International Speech Communication Association elevated him to fellow status in 2010 "[f]or his contributions to Chinese spoken language processing and speech information retrieval, and his service to the speech language community." In 2016, Lee was elected a member of Academia Sinica.

Color gradient

In color science, a color gradient (also known as a color ramp or a color progression) specifies a range of position-dependent colors, usually used to fill a region. In assigning colors to a set of values, a gradient is a continuous colormap, a type of color scheme. In computer graphics, the term swatch has come to mean a palette of active colors. == Definitions == Color gradient is a set of colors arranged in a linear order (ordered) A continuous colormap is a curve through a colorspace === Strict definition === A colormap is a function which associate a real value r with point c in color space C {\displaystyle C} f : [ r m i n , r m a x ] ⊂ R → C {\displaystyle f:[r_{min},r_{max}]\subset \mathbf {R} \to C} which is defined by: a colorspace C an increasing sequence of sampling points r 0 < . . . < r m ∈ [ r m i n , r m a x ] {\displaystyle r_{0}<...

Softwarp

Softwarp is a software technique to warp an image so that it can be projected on a curved screen. This can be done in real time by inserting the softwarp as a last step in the rendering cycle. The problem is to know how the image should be warped to look correct on the curved screen. There are several techniques to auto calibrate the warping by projecting a pattern and using cameras and/or sensors. The information from the sensors is sent to the software so that it can analyze the data and calculate the curvature of the projection screen. == Usage == The softwarp can be used to project virtual views on curved walls and domes. These are usually used in vehicle simulators, for instance boat-, car- and airplane simulators. To make it possible to cover a dome with a 360 degree view you need to use several projectors. A problem with using several projectors on the same screen is that the edges between the projected images get about twice the amount of light. This is solved by using a technique called edge blending. With this technique a “filter” is inserted on the edge that fades the image from 100% light strength (luminance) to 0% (the lowest luminance depends on the contrast ratio of the projector). == History == The first warping technologies used a hardware image processing unit to warp the image. This processing unit was inserted between the graphics card and the projector. The problem with this technique is that it depends on the type of signal and the quality of the signal from the graphics card to warp it correctly. The process unit also needs several lines of image information before it can start sending out the warped image. This adds a latency to the display system that could be a problem in simulators that need fast response time, for instance fighter jet simulators. Softwarping eliminates the latency.

Time-inhomogeneous hidden Bernoulli model

Time-inhomogeneous hidden Bernoulli model (TI-HBM) is an alternative to hidden Markov model (HMM) for automatic speech recognition. Contrary to HMM, the state transition process in TI-HBM is not a Markov-dependent process, rather it is a generalized Bernoulli (an independent) process. This difference leads to elimination of dynamic programming at state-level in TI-HBM decoding process. Thus, the computational complexity of TI-HBM for probability evaluation and state estimation is O ( N L ) {\displaystyle O(NL)} (instead of O ( N 2 L ) {\displaystyle O(N^{2}L)} in the HMM case, where N {\displaystyle N} and L {\displaystyle L} are number of states and observation sequence length respectively). The TI-HBM is able to model acoustic-unit duration (e.g. phone/word duration) by using a built-in parameter named survival probability. The TI-HBM is simpler and faster than HMM in a phoneme recognition task, but its performance is comparable to HMM. For details, see [1] or [2].

Mix automation

In music recording, mix automation allows the mixing console to remember the mixing engineer's dynamic adjustment of faders during a musical piece in the post-production editing process. A timecode is necessary for the synchronization of automation. Modern mixing consoles and digital audio workstations use comprehensive mix automation. The need for automated mixing originated from the late 1970s transition form 8-track to 16-track and then 24-track multitrack recording, as mixing could be laborious and require multiple people and hands, and the results could be almost impossible to reproduce. With 48-track recording - synchronized twin 24-track recorders (for a net 46 audio tracks, with one on each machine for SMPTE timecode) - came larger recording and mixing consoles with even more channel faders to manage during mixdown. Manufacturers, such as Neve Electronics (now AMS Neve) and Solid State Logic (SSL), both English companies, developed systems that enabled one engineer to oversee every detail of a complex mix, although the computers required to power these desks remained a rarity into the late 1970s. According to record producer Roy Thomas Baker, Queen's 1975 single "Bohemian Rhapsody" was one of the first mixes to be done with automation. == Types == Voltage Controlled Automation fader levels are regulated by voltage-controlled amplifiers (VCA). VCAs control the audio level and not the actual fader. Moving Fader Automation a motor is attached to the fader, which then can be controlled by the console, digital audio workstation (DAW), or user. Software Controlled Automation the software can be internal to the console, or external as part of a DAW. The virtual fader can be adjusted in the software by the user. MIDI Automation the communications protocol MIDI can be used to send messages to the console to control automation. == Modes == Auto Write used the first time automation is created or when writing over existing automation Auto Touch writes automation data only while a fader is touched/faders return to any previously automated position after release Auto Latch starts writing automation data when a fader is touched/stays in position after release Auto Read digital Audio Workstation performs the written automation Auto Off automation is temporarily disabled All of these include the mute button. If mute is pressed during writing of automation, the audio track will be muted during playback of that automation. Depending on software, other parameters such as panning, sends, and plug-in controls can be automated as well. In some cases, automation can be written using a digital potentiometer instead of a fader.

Owain Evans

Owain Rhys Evans is a British artificial intelligence researcher who works on AI alignment and machine learning safety. He founded Truthful AI, a research group based in Berkeley, California, and is an affiliate of the Center for Human Compatible AI (CHAI) at the University of California, Berkeley. His research addresses AI truthfulness, emergent behaviors in large language models, and the alignment of AI systems with human values. == Education == Evans earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and mathematics from Columbia University in 2008 and a PhD in philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015. His doctoral research focused on Bayesian computational models of human preferences and decision-making. == Career == After completing his doctorate, Evans held positions at the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) at the University of Oxford, first as a postdoctoral research fellow and later as a research scientist. While at FHI, he co-authored a survey of machine learning researchers on timelines for human-level AI, published in the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. The survey was reported on by Newsweek, New Scientist, the BBC, and The Economist. He was also among the co-authors of a 2018 report on the potential for misuse of AI technologies, published by researchers at Oxford, Cambridge, and other institutions. Since 2022, Evans has been based in Berkeley, where he founded Truthful AI, a non-profit research group that studies AI truthfulness, deception, and emergent behaviors in large language models. == Research == Evans's early work examined challenges in inverse reinforcement learning when human behavior is irrational or biased, proposing methods for AI systems to infer preferences from imperfect human demonstrations. He co-developed TruthfulQA (2021), a benchmark that tests whether language models give truthful answers rather than repeating common misconceptions. Initial evaluations found that larger models were not more truthful, suggesting that scaling alone does not improve factual accuracy. The benchmark has since been used by AI developers to evaluate large language models. He also co-authored a paper proposing design and governance strategies for building AI systems that do not deceive or hallucinate. In 2023, Evans and collaborators described the "reversal curse", showing that language models trained on a fact in one direction (e.g. "A is B") often cannot answer the corresponding reverse query ("B is A"). His group also developed a benchmark for evaluating situational awareness in language models. In 2025, Evans and colleagues published a study in Nature on what they termed "emergent misalignment": fine-tuning a language model on a narrow task (writing insecure code) caused it to produce unrelated harmful outputs without explicit instruction to do so. Later that year, Evans and collaborators (including researchers at Anthropic) reported that hidden behavioral traits can transfer between language models through training data, even when those traits are not explicitly present in the data, a phenomenon they called "subliminal learning". == Public engagement == In November 2025, Evans delivered the Hinton Lectures, a keynote lecture series on AI safety co-founded by Geoffrey Hinton and the Global Risk Institute.

Kernel-phase

Kernel-phases are observable quantities used in high resolution astronomical imaging used for superresolution image creation. It can be seen as a generalization of closure phases for redundant arrays. For this reason, when the wavefront quality requirement are met, it is an alternative to aperture masking interferometry that can be executed without a mask while retaining phase error rejection properties. The observables are computed through linear algebra from the Fourier transform of direct images. They can then be used for statistical testing, model fitting, or image reconstruction. == Prerequisites == In order to extract kernel-phases from an image, some requirements must be met: Images are nyquist-sampled (at least 2 pixels per resolution element ( λ D {\displaystyle {\frac {\lambda }{D}}} )) Images are taken in near monochromatic light Exposure time is shorter than the timescale of aberrations Strehl ratio is high (good adaptive optics) Linearity of the pixel response (i.e. no saturation) Deviations from these requirements are known to be acceptable, but lead to observational bias that should be corrected by the observation of calibrators. == Definition == The method relies on a discrete model of the instrument's pupil plane and the corresponding list of baselines to provide corresponding vectors φ {\displaystyle \varphi } of pupil plane errors and Φ {\displaystyle \Phi } of image plane Fourier Phases. When the wavefront error in the pupil plane is small enough (i.e. when the Strehl ratio of the imaging system is sufficiently high), the complex amplitude associated to the instrumental phase in one point of the pupil φ k {\displaystyle \varphi _{k}} , can be approximated by e i φ k ≈ 1 + i φ k {\displaystyle e^{i\varphi _{k}}\approx 1+{\mathit {i}}\varphi _{k}} . This permits the expression of the pupil-plane phase aberrations φ {\displaystyle \varphi } to the image plane Fourier phase as a linear transformation described by the matrix A {\displaystyle A} : Φ = Φ 0 + A ⋅ φ {\displaystyle \Phi =\Phi _{0}+A\cdot \varphi } Where Φ 0 {\displaystyle \Phi _{0}} is the theoretical Fourier phase vector of the object. In this formalism, singular value decomposition can be used to find a matrix K {\displaystyle K} satisfying K ⋅ A = 0 {\displaystyle K\cdot A=0} . The rows of K {\displaystyle K} constitute a basis of the kernel of A T {\displaystyle A^{T}} . K ⋅ Φ = K ⋅ Φ 0 + K ⋅ A ⋅ φ {\displaystyle K\cdot \Phi =K\cdot \Phi _{0}+{\cancel {K\cdot A\cdot \varphi }}} The vector K . Φ {\displaystyle K.\Phi } is called the kernel-phase vector of observables. This equation can be used for model-fitting as it represents the interpretation of a sub-space of the Fourier phase that is immune to the instrumental phase errors to the first order. == Applications == The technique was first used in the re-analysis of archival images from the Hubble Space Telescope where it enabled the discovery of a number of brown dwarf in close binary systems. The technique is used as an alternative to aperture masking interferometry, especially for fainter stars because it does not require the use of masks that typically block 90% of the light, and therefore allows higher throughput. It is also considered to be an alternative to coronagraphy for direct detection of exoplanets at very small separations (below 2 λ D {\displaystyle 2{\frac {\lambda }{D}}} ) where coronagraphs are limited by the wavefront errors of adaptive optics. The same framework can be used for wavefront sensing. In the case of an asymmetric aperture, a pseudo-inverse of A {\displaystyle A} can be used to reconstruct the wavefront errors directly from the image. A Python library called xara is available on GitHub and maintained by Frantz Martinache to facilitate the extraction and interpretation of kernel-phases. The KERNEL project, has received funding from the European Research Council to explore the potential of these observables for a number of use-cases, including direct detection of exoplanets, image reconstruction, and image plane wavefront sensing for adaptive optics.