1,688 research outputs found
Algebraic synchronization criterion and computing reset words
We refine a uniform algebraic approach for deriving upper bounds on reset
thresholds of synchronizing automata. We express the condition that an
automaton is synchronizing in terms of linear algebra, and obtain upper bounds
for the reset thresholds of automata with a short word of a small rank. The
results are applied to make several improvements in the area.
We improve the best general upper bound for reset thresholds of finite prefix
codes (Huffman codes): we show that an -state synchronizing decoder has a
reset word of length at most . In addition to that, we prove
that the expected reset threshold of a uniformly random synchronizing binary
-state decoder is at most . We also show that for any non-unary
alphabet there exist decoders whose reset threshold is in .
We prove the \v{C}ern\'{y} conjecture for -state automata with a letter of
rank at most . In another corollary, based on the recent
results of Nicaud, we show that the probability that the \v{C}ern\'y conjecture
does not hold for a random synchronizing binary automaton is exponentially
small in terms of the number of states, and also that the expected value of the
reset threshold of an -state random synchronizing binary automaton is at
most .
Moreover, reset words of lengths within all of our bounds are computable in
polynomial time. We present suitable algorithms for this task for various
classes of automata, such as (quasi-)one-cluster and (quasi-)Eulerian automata,
for which our results can be applied.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure
Truncating Temporal Differences: On the Efficient Implementation of TD(lambda) for Reinforcement Learning
Temporal difference (TD) methods constitute a class of methods for learning
predictions in multi-step prediction problems, parameterized by a recency
factor lambda. Currently the most important application of these methods is to
temporal credit assignment in reinforcement learning. Well known reinforcement
learning algorithms, such as AHC or Q-learning, may be viewed as instances of
TD learning. This paper examines the issues of the efficient and general
implementation of TD(lambda) for arbitrary lambda, for use with reinforcement
learning algorithms optimizing the discounted sum of rewards. The traditional
approach, based on eligibility traces, is argued to suffer from both
inefficiency and lack of generality. The TTD (Truncated Temporal Differences)
procedure is proposed as an alternative, that indeed only approximates
TD(lambda), but requires very little computation per action and can be used
with arbitrary function representation methods. The idea from which it is
derived is fairly simple and not new, but probably unexplored so far.
Encouraging experimental results are presented, suggesting that using lambda
> 0 with the TTD procedure allows one to obtain a significant learning
speedup at essentially the same cost as usual TD(0) learning.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file
Seeding with Costly Network Information
We study the task of selecting nodes in a social network of size , to
seed a diffusion with maximum expected spread size, under the independent
cascade model with cascade probability . Most of the previous work on this
problem (known as influence maximization) focuses on efficient algorithms to
approximate the optimal seed set with provable guarantees, given the knowledge
of the entire network. However, in practice, obtaining full knowledge of the
network is very costly. To address this gap, we first study the achievable
guarantees using influence samples. We provide an approximation
algorithm with a tight (1-1/e){\mbox{OPT}}-\epsilon n guarantee, using
influence samples and show that this dependence on
is asymptotically optimal. We then propose a probing algorithm that queries
edges from the graph and use them to find a seed set with the
same almost tight approximation guarantee. We also provide a matching (up to
logarithmic factors) lower-bound on the required number of edges. To address
the dependence of our probing algorithm on the independent cascade probability
, we show that it is impossible to maintain the same approximation
guarantees by controlling the discrepancy between the probing and seeding
cascade probabilities. Instead, we propose to down-sample the probed edges to
match the seeding cascade probability, provided that it does not exceed that of
probing. Finally, we test our algorithms on real world data to quantify the
trade-off between the cost of obtaining more refined network information and
the benefit of the added information for guiding improved seeding strategies
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