On the use of local search heuristics to improve GES-based Bayesian network learning

Bayesian networks learning is computationally expensive even in the case of sacrificing the optimality of the result. Many methods aim at obtaining quality solutions in affordable times. Most of them are based on local search algorithms, as they allow evaluating candidate networks in a very efficient way, and can be further improved by us ing local search-based metaheuristics to avoid getting stuck in local optima. This approach has been successfully applied in searching for network structures in the space of directed acyclic graphs. Other algorithms search for the networks in the space of equiva lence classes. The most important of these is GES (Greedy Equiv alence Search). It guarantees obtaining the optimal network under certain conditions. However, it can also get stuck in local optima when learning from datasets with limited size. This article proposes the use of local search-based metaheuristics as a way to improve the behaviour of GES in such circumstances. These methods also guar antee asymptotical optimality, and the experiments show that they improve upon the score of the networks obtained with GES

Décomposition des problèmes de planification de tâches basée sur les landmarks

The algorithms allowing on-the-fly computation of efficient strategies solving a heterogeneous set of problems has always been one of the greatest challenges faced by research in Artificial Intelligence. To this end, classical planning provides to a system reasoning capacities, in order to help it to interact with its environment autonomously. Given a description of the world current state, the actions the system is able to perform, and the goal it is supposed to reach, a planner can compute an action sequence yielding a state satisfying the predefined goal. The planning problem is usually intractable (PSPACE-hard), however some properties of the problems can be automatically extracted allowing the design of efficient solvers.Firstly, we have developed the Landmark-based Meta Best-First Search (LMBFS) algorithm. Unlike state-of-the-art planners, usually based on state-space heuristic search, LMBFS reenacts landmark-based planning problem decomposition. A landmark is a fluent appearing in each and every solution plan. The LMBFS algorithm splits the global problem in a set of subproblems and tries to find a global solution using the solutions found for these subproblems. Secondly, we have adapted classical planning techniques to enhance the performance of our base algorithm, making LMBFS a competitive planner. Finally, we have tested and compared these methods.Les algorithmes permettant la création de stratégies efficaces pour la résolution d’ensemble de problèmes hétéroclites ont toujours été un des piliers de la recherche en Intelligence Artificielle. Dans cette optique, la planification de tâches a pour objectif de fournir à un système la capacité de raisonner pour interagir avec son environnement de façon autonome afin d’atteindre les buts qui lui ont été assignés. À partir d’une description de l’état initial du monde, des actions que le système peut exécuter, et des buts qu’il doit atteindre, un planificateur calcule une séquence d’actions dont l’exécution permet de faire passer l’état du monde dans lequel évolue le système vers un état qui satisfait les buts qu’on lui a fixés. Le problème de planification est en général difficile à résoudre (PSPACE-difficile), cependant certaines propriétés des problèmes peuvent être automatiquement extraites permettant ainsi une résolution efficace.Dans un premier temps, nous avons développé l’algorithme LMBFS (Landmarkbased Meta Best-First Search). À contre-courant des planificateurs state-of-the-art, basés sur la recherche heuristique dans l’espace d’états, LMBFS est un algorithme qui réactualise la technique de décomposition des problèmes de planification basés sur les landmarks. Un landmark est un fluent qui doit être vrai à un certain moment durant l’exécution de n’importe quel plan solution. L’algorithme LMBFS découpe le problème principal en un ensemble de sous-problèmes et essaie de trouver une solution globale grâce aux solutions trouvées pour ces sous-problèmes. Dans un second temps, nous avons adapté un ensemble de techniques pour améliorer les performances de l’algorithme. Enfin, nous avons testé et comparé chacune de ces méthodes permettant ainsi la création d’un planificateur efficace

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC

Proceedings of The Multi-Agent Logics, Languages, and Organisations Federated Workshops (MALLOW 2010)

http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-627/allproceedings.pdfInternational audienceMALLOW-2010 is a third edition of a series initiated in 2007 in Durham, and pursued in 2009 in Turin. The objective, as initially stated, is to "provide a venue where: the cost of participation was minimum; participants were able to attend various workshops, so fostering collaboration and cross-fertilization; there was a friendly atmosphere and plenty of time for networking, by maximizing the time participants spent together"