A Parameterisation of Algorithms for Distributed Constraint Optimisation via Potential Games

This paper introduces a parameterisation of learning algorithms for distributed constraint optimisation problems (DCOPs). This parameterisation encompasses many algorithms developed in both the computer science and game theory literatures. It is built on our insight that when formulated as noncooperative games, DCOPs form a subset of the class of potential games. This result allows us to prove convergence properties of algorithms developed in the computer science literature using game theoretic methods. Furthermore, our parameterisation can assist system designers by making the pros and cons of, and the synergies between, the various DCOP algorithm components clear

Structural graph matching using the EM algorithm and singular value decomposition

This paper describes an efficient algorithm for inexact graph matching. The method is purely structural, that is, it uses only the edge or connectivity structure of the graph and does not draw on node or edge attributes. We make two contributions: 1) commencing from a probability distribution for matching errors, we show how the problem of graph matching can be posed as maximum-likelihood estimation using the apparatus of the EM algorithm; and 2) we cast the recovery of correspondence matches between the graph nodes in a matrix framework. This allows one to efficiently recover correspondence matches using the singular value decomposition. We experiment with the method on both real-world and synthetic data. Here, we demonstrate that the method offers comparable performance to more computationally demanding method

Resource Allocation for Next Generation Radio Access Networks

Driven by data hungry applications, the architecture of mobile networks is moving towards that of densely deployed cells where each cell may use a different access technology as well as a different frequency band. Next generation networks (NGNs) are essentially identified by their dramatically increased data rates and their sustainable deployment. Motivated by these requirements, in this thesis we focus on (i) capacity maximisation, (ii) energy efficient configuration of different classes of radio access networks (RANs). To fairly allocate the available resources, we consider proportional fair rate allocations. We first consider capacity maximisation in co-channel 4G (LTE) networks, then we proceed to capacity maximisation in mixed LTE (including licensed LTE small cells) and 802.11 (WiFi) networks. And finally we study energy efficient capacity maximisation of dense 3G/4G co-channel small cell networks. In each chapter we provide a network model and a scalable resource allocation approach which may be implemented in a centralised or distributed manner depending on the objective and network constraints

Neural Network Modelling of Constrained Spatial Interaction Flows

Fundamental to regional science is the subject of spatial interaction. GeoComputation - a new research paradigm that represents the convergence of the disciplines of computer science, geographic information science, mathematics and statistics - has brought many scholars back to spatial interaction modeling. Neural spatial interaction modeling represents a clear break with traditional methods used for explicating spatial interaction. Neural spatial interaction models are termed neural in the sense that they are based on neurocomputing. They are clearly related to conventional unconstrained spatial interaction models of the gravity type, and under commonly met conditions they can be understood as a special class of general feedforward neural network models with a single hidden layer and sigmoidal transfer functions (Fischer 1998). These models have been used to model journey-to-work flows and telecommunications traffic (Fischer and Gopal 1994, Openshaw 1993). They appear to provide superior levels of performance when compared with unconstrained conventional models. In many practical situations, however, we have - in addition to the spatial interaction data itself - some information about various accounting constraints on the predicted flows. In principle, there are two ways to incorporate accounting constraints in neural spatial interaction modeling. The required constraint properties can be built into the post-processing stage, or they can be built directly into the model structure. While the first way is relatively straightforward, it suffers from the disadvantage of being inefficient. It will also result in a model which does not inherently respect the constraints. Thus we follow the second way. In this paper we present a novel class of neural spatial interaction models that incorporate origin-specific constraints into the model structure using product units rather than summation units at the hidden layer and softmax output units at the output layer. Product unit neural networks are powerful because of their ability to handle higher order combinations of inputs. But parameter estimation by standard techniques such as the gradient descent technique may be difficult. The performance of this novel class of spatial interaction models will be demonstrated by using the Austrian interregional traffic data and the conventional singly constrained spatial interaction model of the gravity type as benchmark. References Fischer M M (1998) Computational neural networks: A new paradigm for spatial analysis Environment and Planning A 30 (10): 1873-1891 Fischer M M, Gopal S (1994) Artificial neural networks: A new approach to modelling interregional telecommunciation flows, Journal of Regional Science 34(4): 503-527 Openshaw S (1993) Modelling spatial interaction using a neural net. In Fischer MM, Nijkamp P (eds) Geographical information systems, spatial modelling, and policy evaluation, pp. 147-164. Springer, Berlin

New Insights into History Matching via Sequential Monte Carlo

The aim of the history matching method is to locate non-implausible regions of the parameter space of complex deterministic or stochastic models by matching model outputs with data. It does this via a series of waves where at each wave an emulator is fitted to a small number of training samples. An implausibility measure is defined which takes into account the closeness of simulated and observed outputs as well as emulator uncertainty. As the waves progress, the emulator becomes more accurate so that training samples are more concentrated on promising regions of the space and poorer parts of the space are rejected with more confidence. Whilst history matching has proved to be useful, existing implementations are not fully automated and some ad-hoc choices are made during the process, which involves user intervention and is time consuming. This occurs especially when the non-implausible region becomes small and it is difficult to sample this space uniformly to generate new training points. In this article we develop a sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithm for implementation which is semi-automated. Our novel SMC approach reveals that the history matching method yields a non-implausible distribution that can be multi-modal, highly irregular and very difficult to sample uniformly. Our SMC approach offers a much more reliable sampling of the non-implausible space, which requires additional computation compared to other approaches used in the literature

How Many Dissimilarity/Kernel Self Organizing Map Variants Do We Need?

In numerous applicative contexts, data are too rich and too complex to be represented by numerical vectors. A general approach to extend machine learning and data mining techniques to such data is to really on a dissimilarity or on a kernel that measures how different or similar two objects are. This approach has been used to define several variants of the Self Organizing Map (SOM). This paper reviews those variants in using a common set of notations in order to outline differences and similarities between them. It discusses the advantages and drawbacks of the variants, as well as the actual relevance of the dissimilarity/kernel SOM for practical applications

Optimizing Photonic Nanostructures via Multi-fidelity Gaussian Processes

We apply numerical methods in combination with finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) simulations to optimize transmission properties of plasmonic mirror color filters using a multi-objective figure of merit over a five-dimensional parameter space by utilizing novel multi-fidelity Gaussian processes approach. We compare these results with conventional derivative-free global search algorithms, such as (single-fidelity) Gaussian Processes optimization scheme, and Particle Swarm Optimization---a commonly used method in nanophotonics community, which is implemented in Lumerical commercial photonics software. We demonstrate the performance of various numerical optimization approaches on several pre-collected real-world datasets and show that by properly trading off expensive information sources with cheap simulations, one can more effectively optimize the transmission properties with a fixed budget.Comment: NIPS 2018 Workshop on Machine Learning for Molecules and Materials. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1811.0075