160,788 research outputs found
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
Reinforcement Learning for Automatic Test Case Prioritization and Selection in Continuous Integration
Testing in Continuous Integration (CI) involves test case prioritization,
selection, and execution at each cycle. Selecting the most promising test cases
to detect bugs is hard if there are uncertainties on the impact of committed
code changes or, if traceability links between code and tests are not
available. This paper introduces Retecs, a new method for automatically
learning test case selection and prioritization in CI with the goal to minimize
the round-trip time between code commits and developer feedback on failed test
cases. The Retecs method uses reinforcement learning to select and prioritize
test cases according to their duration, previous last execution and failure
history. In a constantly changing environment, where new test cases are created
and obsolete test cases are deleted, the Retecs method learns to prioritize
error-prone test cases higher under guidance of a reward function and by
observing previous CI cycles. By applying Retecs on data extracted from three
industrial case studies, we show for the first time that reinforcement learning
enables fruitful automatic adaptive test case selection and prioritization in
CI and regression testing.Comment: Spieker, H., Gotlieb, A., Marijan, D., & Mossige, M. (2017).
Reinforcement Learning for Automatic Test Case Prioritization and Selection
in Continuous Integration. In Proceedings of 26th International Symposium on
Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA'17) (pp. 12--22). AC
Emergent Leadership Detection Across Datasets
Automatic detection of emergent leaders in small groups from nonverbal
behaviour is a growing research topic in social signal processing but existing
methods were evaluated on single datasets -- an unrealistic assumption for
real-world applications in which systems are required to also work in settings
unseen at training time. It therefore remains unclear whether current methods
for emergent leadership detection generalise to similar but new settings and to
which extent. To overcome this limitation, we are the first to study a
cross-dataset evaluation setting for the emergent leadership detection task. We
provide evaluations for within- and cross-dataset prediction using two current
datasets (PAVIS and MPIIGroupInteraction), as well as an investigation on the
robustness of commonly used feature channels (visual focus of attention, body
pose, facial action units, speaking activity) and online prediction in the
cross-dataset setting. Our evaluations show that using pose and eye contact
based features, cross-dataset prediction is possible with an accuracy of 0.68,
as such providing another important piece of the puzzle towards emergent
leadership detection in the real world.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Partial Covering Arrays: Algorithms and Asymptotics
A covering array is an array with entries
in , for which every subarray contains each
-tuple of among its rows. Covering arrays find
application in interaction testing, including software and hardware testing,
advanced materials development, and biological systems. A central question is
to determine or bound , the minimum number of rows of
a . The well known bound
is not too far from being
asymptotically optimal. Sensible relaxations of the covering requirement arise
when (1) the set need only be contained among the rows
of at least of the subarrays and (2) the
rows of every subarray need only contain a (large) subset of . In this paper, using probabilistic methods, significant
improvements on the covering array upper bound are established for both
relaxations, and for the conjunction of the two. In each case, a randomized
algorithm constructs such arrays in expected polynomial time
A tractable method for describing complex couplings between neurons and population rate
Neurons within a population are strongly correlated, but how to simply
capture these correlations is still a matter of debate. Recent studies have
shown that the activity of each cell is influenced by the population rate,
defined as the summed activity of all neurons in the population. However, an
explicit, tractable model for these interactions is still lacking. Here we
build a probabilistic model of population activity that reproduces the firing
rate of each cell, the distribution of the population rate, and the linear
coupling between them. This model is tractable, meaning that its parameters can
be learned in a few seconds on a standard computer even for large population
recordings. We inferred our model for a population of 160 neurons in the
salamander retina. In this population, single-cell firing rates depended in
unexpected ways on the population rate. In particular, some cells had a
preferred population rate at which they were most likely to fire. These complex
dependencies could not be explained by a linear coupling between the cell and
the population rate. We designed a more general, still tractable model that
could fully account for these non-linear dependencies. We thus provide a simple
and computationally tractable way to learn models that reproduce the dependence
of each neuron on the population rate
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