Kernel

Kernel may refer to:

Business

• Kernel Holding, an agri-business company

Computer science

• Kernel (computing), the central component of most operating systems
  • The Linux kernel, used on many Linux-based operating systems
  • The Windows 9x kernel, used in Windows 95, 98 and ME
  • The Windows NT kernel, used in all Windows NT systems including Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7
  • XNU, from the Mac OS X operating systems
• Kernel (programming language), a Scheme-like language
• Kernel trick, in machine learning and statistics
• Kernel, a function that executes on OpenCL devices
• Kernel in GPGPU
• Kernel (image processing), a square matrix used for image convolution
• Kernel methods

Finance

• Pricing kernel, another name for the stochastic discount factor used in asset pricing

Literature

• Kernel (Lilo & Stitch), experiment 014 from the Lilo & Stitch cartoon series
• Kernel Fleck, a character in the Demonata series of books

Mathematics

In mathematics the term may refer to sets that measure how a mapping fails to be injective, like:

• Kernel of a linear map, the set of all vectors which map to the zero vector
• Kernel of a homomorphism
• Kernel of a morphism
• Set-theoretical kernel, the set of all pairs of elements that map to the same value
• Difference kernel, the set of all elements where the values of two functions coincide

It can also refer to a function that serves as a parameter for some class of functional mappings like the integral transforms:

• Integral kernel, a function of two variables that defines an integral transform
• Heat kernel
• Convolution kernel

The term may also refer to:

• Kernel in statistics, a weighting function used in kernel density estimation to estimate the probability density function of a random variable
• Stochastic kernel, the transition function of a stochastic process
• Positive-definite kernel, a generalization of a positive-definite matrix.
• Kernel trick
• Reproducing kernel Hilbert space

Science

• Atomic nucleus
• The seed inside the nut of most plants
• Corn kernel
• Palm kernel

See also

• KERNAL, Commodore's 8-bit OS software
• Colonel (disambiguation)