An Empirical Evaluation of Current Convolutional Architectures' Ability to Manage Nuisance Location and Scale Variability

We conduct an empirical study to test the ability of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to reduce the effects of nuisance transformations of the input data, such as location, scale and aspect ratio. We isolate factors by adopting a common convolutional architecture either deployed globally on the image to compute class posterior distributions, or restricted locally to compute class conditional distributions given location, scale and aspect ratios of bounding boxes determined by proposal heuristics. In theory, averaging the latter should yield inferior performance compared to proper marginalization. Yet empirical evidence suggests the converse, leading us to conclude that - at the current level of complexity of convolutional architectures and scale of the data sets used to train them - CNNs are not very effective at marginalizing nuisance variability. We also quantify the effects of context on the overall classification task and its impact on the performance of CNNs, and propose improved sampling techniques for heuristic proposal schemes that improve end-to-end performance to state-of-the-art levels. We test our hypothesis on a classification task using the ImageNet Challenge benchmark and on a wide-baseline matching task using the Oxford and Fischer's datasets.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables -- CVPR 2016, camera-ready versio

Leveraging deep reinforcement learning in the smart grid environment

L’apprentissage statistique moderne démontre des résultats impressionnants, où les or- dinateurs viennent à atteindre ou même à excéder les standards humains dans certaines applications telles que la vision par ordinateur ou les jeux de stratégie. Pourtant, malgré ces avancées, force est de constater que les applications fiables en déploiement en sont encore à leur état embryonnaire en comparaison aux opportunités qu’elles pourraient apporter. C’est dans cette perspective, avec une emphase mise sur la théorie de décision séquentielle et sur les recherches récentes en apprentissage automatique, que nous démontrons l’applica- tion efficace de ces méthodes sur des cas liés au réseau électrique et à l’optimisation de ses acteurs. Nous considérons ainsi des instances impliquant des unités d’emmagasinement éner- gétique ou des voitures électriques, jusqu’aux contrôles thermiques des bâtiments intelligents. Nous concluons finalement en introduisant une nouvelle approche hybride qui combine les performances modernes de l’apprentissage profond et de l’apprentissage par renforcement au cadre d’application éprouvé de la recherche opérationnelle classique, dans le but de faciliter l’intégration de nouvelles méthodes d’apprentissage statistique sur différentes applications concrètes.While modern statistical learning is achieving impressive results, as computers start exceeding human baselines in some applications like computer vision, or even beating pro- fessional human players at strategy games without any prior knowledge, reliable deployed applications are still in their infancy compared to what these new opportunities could fathom. In this perspective, with a keen focus on sequential decision theory and recent statistical learning research, we demonstrate efficient application of such methods on instances involving the energy grid and the optimization of its actors, from energy storage and electric cars to smart buildings and thermal controls. We conclude by introducing a new hybrid approach combining the modern performance of deep learning and reinforcement learning with the proven application framework of operations research, in the objective of facilitating seamlessly the integration of new statistical learning-oriented methodologies in concrete applications

The Effect Of Hyperparameters In The Activation Layers Of Deep Neural Networks

Deep neural networks (DNNs), and artificial neural networks (ANNs) in general, have recently received a great amount of attention from both the media and the machine learning community at large. DNNs have been used to produce world-class results in a variety of domains, including image recognition, speech recognition, sequence modeling, and natural language processing. Many of most exciting recent deep neural network studies have made improvements by hardcoding less about the network and giving the neural network more control over its own parameters, allowing flexibility and control within the network. Although much research has been done to introduce trainable hyperparameters into transformation layers (GRU [7], LSTM [13], etc), the introduction of hyperparameters into the activation layers have been largely ignored. This paper serves several purposes: to (1) equip the reader with the background knowledge, including theory and best practices for DNNs, which help contextualize the contributions of this paper, (2) to describe and verify the effectiveness of current techniques in the literature that utilize hyperparameters in the activation layer, and (3) to introduce some new activation layers that introduce hyperparameters into the model, including activation pools (APs) and parametric activation pools (PAPs), and study the effectiveness of these new constructs on popular image recognition datasets

Applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Petroleum Engineering Problems

For the last few decades multiple business sectors have been influenced by the advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Though the oil and gas sector began to utilize the potential of AI comparatively latter than many other sectors, the appreciable amount of work has been done by researchers to equip the industry with AI tools. This work aims to explore various horizons of petroleum engineering by using different AI tools.;For providing better decision making in reservoir fluid characterization problem, fuzzy logic has been applied, which is an AI method to drive decisions when data is incomplete or unreliable. The second part of the work is the combination of supervised and unsupervised machine learning has provided an automated version of well log analysis, where the generated algorithm is able to distinguish between different lithological zones on the basis of well log parameters.;The majority of the problems such as drilling process optimization, production forecasting, comes under the umbrella of statistical regression. The supervised learning regression algorithm was generated to predict the drilling performance in terms of rate of penetration. The similar model was used for producing regression analysis of reservoir that has been treated by steam assisted gas drainage. The accuracy of both cases were investigated by comparing the prediction with available real time data.;The work has been concluded by providing conclusion gathered from comparing different methods and limitations of methodologies derived from Artificial Intelligent (AI) tools

Learning to soar: exploration strategies in reinforcement learning for resource-constrained missions

An unpowered aerial glider learning to soar in a wind field presents a new manifestation of the exploration-exploitation trade-off. This thesis proposes a directed, adaptive and nonmyopic exploration strategy in a temporal difference reinforcement learning framework for tackling the resource-constrained exploration-exploitation task of this autonomous soaring problem. The complete learning algorithm is developed in a SARSA() framework, which uses a Gaussian process with a squared exponential covariance function to approximate the value function. The three key contributions of this thesis form the proposed exploration-exploitation strategy. Firstly, a new information measure is derived from the change in the variance volume surrounding the Gaussian process estimate. This measure of information gain is used to define the exploration reward of an observation. Secondly, a nonmyopic information value is presented that captures both the immediate exploration reward due to taking an action as well as future exploration opportunities that result. Finally, this information value is combined with the state-action value of SARSA() through a dynamic weighting factor to produce an exploration-exploitation management scheme for resource-constrained learning systems. The proposed learning strategy encourages either exploratory or exploitative behaviour depending on the requirements of the learning task and the available resources. The performance of the learning algorithms presented in this thesis is compared against other SARSA() methods. Results show that actively directing exploration to regions of the state-action space with high uncertainty improves the rate of learning, while dynamic management of the exploration-exploitation behaviour according to the available resources produces prudent learning behaviour in resource-constrained systems

Learning to soar: exploration strategies in reinforcement learning for resource-constrained missions

An unpowered aerial glider learning to soar in a wind field presents a new manifestation of the exploration-exploitation trade-off. This thesis proposes a directed, adaptive and nonmyopic exploration strategy in a temporal difference reinforcement learning framework for tackling the resource-constrained exploration-exploitation task of this autonomous soaring problem. The complete learning algorithm is developed in a SARSA() framework, which uses a Gaussian process with a squared exponential covariance function to approximate the value function. The three key contributions of this thesis form the proposed exploration-exploitation strategy. Firstly, a new information measure is derived from the change in the variance volume surrounding the Gaussian process estimate. This measure of information gain is used to define the exploration reward of an observation. Secondly, a nonmyopic information value is presented that captures both the immediate exploration reward due to taking an action as well as future exploration opportunities that result. Finally, this information value is combined with the state-action value of SARSA() through a dynamic weighting factor to produce an exploration-exploitation management scheme for resource-constrained learning systems. The proposed learning strategy encourages either exploratory or exploitative behaviour depending on the requirements of the learning task and the available resources. The performance of the learning algorithms presented in this thesis is compared against other SARSA() methods. Results show that actively directing exploration to regions of the state-action space with high uncertainty improves the rate of learning, while dynamic management of the exploration-exploitation behaviour according to the available resources produces prudent learning behaviour in resource-constrained systems

Cooperative Strategies for Management of Power Quality Problems in Voltage-Source Converter-based Microgrids

The development of cooperative control strategies for microgrids has become an area of increasing research interest in recent years, often a result of advances in other areas of control theory such as multi-agent systems and enabled by emerging wireless communications technology, machine learning techniques, and power electronics. While some possible applications of the cooperative control theory to microgrids have been described in the research literature, a comprehensive survey of this approach with respect to its limitations and wide-ranging potential applications has not yet been provided. In this regard, an important area of research into microgrids is developing intelligent cooperative operating strategies within and between microgrids which implement and allocate tasks at the local level, and do not rely on centralized command and control structures. Multi-agent techniques are one focus of this research, but have not been applied to the full range of power quality problems in microgrids. The ability for microgrid control systems to manage harmonics, unbalance, flicker, and black start capability are some examples of applications yet to be fully exploited. During islanded operation, the normal buffer against disturbances and power imbalances provided by the main grid coupling is removed, this together with the reduced inertia of the microgrid (MG), makes power quality (PQ) management a critical control function. This research will investigate new cooperative control techniques for solving power quality problems in voltage source converter (VSC)-based AC microgrids. A set of specific power quality problems have been selected for the application focus, based on a survey of relevant published literature, international standards, and electricity utility regulations. The control problems which will be addressed are voltage regulation, unbalance load sharing, and flicker mitigation. The thesis introduces novel approaches based on multi-agent consensus problems and differential games. It was decided to exclude the management of harmonics, which is a more challenging issue, and is the focus of future research. Rather than using model-based engineering design for optimization of controller parameters, the thesis describes a novel technique for controller synthesis using off-policy reinforcement learning. The thesis also addresses the topic of communication and control system co-design. In this regard, stability of secondary voltage control considering communication time-delays will be addressed, while a performance-oriented approach to rate allocation using a novel solution method is described based on convex optimization

Dynamic Switching State Systems for Visual Tracking

This work addresses the problem of how to capture the dynamics of maneuvering objects for visual tracking. Towards this end, the perspective of recursive Bayesian filters and the perspective of deep learning approaches for state estimation are considered and their functional viewpoints are brought together

Dynamic Switching State Systems for Visual Tracking

This work addresses the problem of how to capture the dynamics of maneuvering objects for visual tracking. Towards this end, the perspective of recursive Bayesian filters and the perspective of deep learning approaches for state estimation are considered and their functional viewpoints are brought together

Deep learning-based space-time coding wireless MIMO receiver optimization.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.With the high demand for high data throughput and reliable wireless links to cater for real-time or low latency mobile application services, the wireless research community has developed wireless multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) architectures that cater to these stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements. For the case of wireless link reliability, spatial diversity in wireless MIMO architectures is used to increase the link reliability. Besides increasing link reliability using spatial diversity, space-time block coding schemes may be used to further increase the wireless link reliability by adding time diversity to the wireless link. Our research is centered around the optimization of resources used in decoding space-time block coded wireless signals. There are two categories of space-time block coding schemes namely the orthogonal and non-orthogonal space-time block codes (STBC). In our research, we concentrate on two non-orthogonal STBC schemes namely the uncoded space-time labeling diversity (USTLD) and the Golden code. These two non-orthogonal STBC schemes exhibit some advantages over the orthogonal STBC called Alamouti despite their non-linear optimal detection. Orthogonal STBC schemes have the advantage of simple linear optimal detection relative to the more complex non-linear optimal detection of non-orthogonal STBC schemes. Since our research concentrates on wireless MIMO STBC transmission, for detection to occur optimally at the receiver side of a space-time block coded wireless MIMO link, we need to optimally perform channel estimation and decoding. USTLD has a coding gain advantage over the Alamouti STBC scheme. This implies that the USTLD can deliver higher wireless link reliability relative to the Alamouti STBC for the same spectral efficiency. Despite this advantage of the USTLD, to the best of our knowledge, the literature has concentrated on USTLD wireless transmission under the assumption that the wireless receiver has full knowledge of the wireless channel without estimation errors. We thus perform research of the USTLD wireless MIMO transmission with imperfect channel estimation. The traditional least-squares (LS) and minimum mean squared error (MMSE) used in literature, for imperfect pilot-assisted channel estimation, require the full knowledge of the transmitted pilot symbols and/or wireless channel second order statistics which may not always be fully known. We, therefore, propose blind channel estimation facilitated by a deep learning model that makes it unnecessary to have prior knowledge of the wireless channel second order statistics, transmitted pilot symbols and/or average noise power. We also derive an optimal number of pilot symbols that maybe used for USTLD wireless MIMO channel estimation without compromising the wireless link reliability. It is shown from the Monte Carlo simulations that the error rate performance of the USTLD transmission is not compromised despite using only 20% of the required number of Zadoff-Chu sequence pilot symbols used by the traditional LS and MMSE channel estimators for both 16-QAM and 16-PSK baseband modulation. The Golden code is a STBC scheme with spatial multiplexing gain over the Alamouti scheme. This implies that the Golden code can deliver higher spectral efficiencies for the same link reliability with the Alamouti scheme. The Alamouti scheme has been implemented in the modern wireless standards because it adds time diversity, with low decoding complexity, to wireless MIMO links. The Golden code adds time diversity and improves wireless MIMO spectral efficiency but at the cost of much higher decoding complexity relative to the Alamouti scheme. Because of the high decoding complexity, the Golden code is not widely adopted in the modern wireless standards. We, therefore, propose analytical and deep learning-based sphere-decoding algorithms to lower the number of detection floating-point operations (FLOPS) and decoding latency of the Golden code under low- and high-density M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) baseband transmissions whilst maintaining the near-optimal error rate performance. The proposed sphere-decoding algorithms achieve at most 99% reduction in Golden code detection FLOPS, at low SNR, relative to the sphere-decoder with sorted detection subsets (SD-SDS) whilst maintaining the error rate performance. For the case of high-density M-QAM Golden code transmission, the proposed analytical and deep learning sphere-decoders reduce decoding latency by at most 70%, relative to the SD-SDS decoder, without diminishing the error rate performance