527 research outputs found
Classical and quantum algorithms for scaling problems
This thesis is concerned with scaling problems, which have a plethora of connections to different areas of mathematics, physics and computer science. Although many structural aspects of these problems are understood by now, we only know how to solve them efficiently in special cases.We give new algorithms for non-commutative scaling problems with complexity guarantees that match the prior state of the art. To this end, we extend the well-known (self-concordance based) interior-point method (IPM) framework to Riemannian manifolds, motivated by its success in the commutative setting. Moreover, the IPM framework does not obviously suffer from the same obstructions to efficiency as previous methods. It also yields the first high-precision algorithms for other natural geometric problems in non-positive curvature.For the (commutative) problems of matrix scaling and balancing, we show that quantum algorithms can outperform the (already very efficient) state-of-the-art classical algorithms. Their time complexity can be sublinear in the input size; in certain parameter regimes they are also optimal, whereas in others we show no quantum speedup over the classical methods is possible. Along the way, we provide improvements over the long-standing state of the art for searching for all marked elements in a list, and computing the sum of a list of numbers.We identify a new application in the context of tensor networks for quantum many-body physics. We define a computable canonical form for uniform projected entangled pair states (as the solution to a scaling problem), circumventing previously known undecidability results. We also show, by characterizing the invariant polynomials, that the canonical form is determined by evaluating the tensor network contractions on networks of bounded size
Automatic Generation of Personalized Recommendations in eCoaching
Denne avhandlingen omhandler eCoaching for personlig livsstilsstøtte i sanntid ved bruk av informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi. Utfordringen er å designe, utvikle og teknisk evaluere en prototyp av en intelligent eCoach som automatisk genererer personlige og evidensbaserte anbefalinger til en bedre livsstil. Den utviklede løsningen er fokusert på forbedring av fysisk aktivitet. Prototypen bruker bærbare medisinske aktivitetssensorer. De innsamlede data blir semantisk representert og kunstig intelligente algoritmer genererer automatisk meningsfulle, personlige og kontekstbaserte anbefalinger for mindre stillesittende tid. Oppgaven bruker den veletablerte designvitenskapelige forskningsmetodikken for å utvikle teoretiske grunnlag og praktiske implementeringer. Samlet sett fokuserer denne forskningen på teknologisk verifisering snarere enn klinisk evaluering.publishedVersio
JAX-DIPS: Neural bootstrapping of finite discretization methods and application to elliptic problems with discontinuities
We present a scalable strategy for development of mesh-free hybrid
neuro-symbolic partial differential equation solvers based on existing
mesh-based numerical discretization methods. Particularly, this strategy can be
used to efficiently train neural network surrogate models of partial
differential equations by (i) leveraging the accuracy and convergence
properties of advanced numerical methods, solvers, and preconditioners, as well
as (ii) better scalability to higher order PDEs by strictly limiting
optimization to first order automatic differentiation. The presented neural
bootstrapping method (hereby dubbed NBM) is based on evaluation of the finite
discretization residuals of the PDE system obtained on implicit Cartesian cells
centered on a set of random collocation points with respect to trainable
parameters of the neural network. Importantly, the conservation laws and
symmetries present in the bootstrapped finite discretization equations inform
the neural network about solution regularities within local neighborhoods of
training points. We apply NBM to the important class of elliptic problems with
jump conditions across irregular interfaces in three spatial dimensions. We
show the method is convergent such that model accuracy improves by increasing
number of collocation points in the domain and predonditioning the residuals.
We show NBM is competitive in terms of memory and training speed with other
PINN-type frameworks. The algorithms presented here are implemented using
\texttt{JAX} in a software package named \texttt{JAX-DIPS}
(https://github.com/JAX-DIPS/JAX-DIPS), standing for differentiable interfacial
PDE solver. We open sourced \texttt{JAX-DIPS} to facilitate research into use
of differentiable algorithms for developing hybrid PDE solvers
(b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!)
(b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!
Named Entity Resolution in Personal Knowledge Graphs
Entity Resolution (ER) is the problem of determining when two entities refer
to the same underlying entity. The problem has been studied for over 50 years,
and most recently, has taken on new importance in an era of large,
heterogeneous 'knowledge graphs' published on the Web and used widely in
domains as wide ranging as social media, e-commerce and search. This chapter
will discuss the specific problem of named ER in the context of personal
knowledge graphs (PKGs). We begin with a formal definition of the problem, and
the components necessary for doing high-quality and efficient ER. We also
discuss some challenges that are expected to arise for Web-scale data. Next, we
provide a brief literature review, with a special focus on how existing
techniques can potentially apply to PKGs. We conclude the chapter by covering
some applications, as well as promising directions for future research.Comment: To appear as a book chapter by the same name in an upcoming (Oct.
2023) book `Personal Knowledge Graphs (PKGs): Methodology, tools and
applications' edited by Tiwari et a
What does CLIP know about a red circle? Visual prompt engineering for VLMs
Large-scale Vision-Language Models, such as CLIP, learn powerful image-text
representations that have found numerous applications, from zero-shot
classification to text-to-image generation. Despite that, their capabilities
for solving novel discriminative tasks via prompting fall behind those of large
language models, such as GPT-3. Here we explore the idea of visual prompt
engineering for solving computer vision tasks beyond classification by editing
in image space instead of text. In particular, we discover an emergent ability
of CLIP, where, by simply drawing a red circle around an object, we can direct
the model's attention to that region, while also maintaining global
information. We show the power of this simple approach by achieving
state-of-the-art in zero-shot referring expressions comprehension and strong
performance in keypoint localization tasks. Finally, we draw attention to some
potential ethical concerns of large language-vision models
Modern data analytics in the cloud era
Cloud Computing ist die dominante Technologie des letzten Jahrzehnts. Die Benutzerfreundlichkeit der verwalteten Umgebung in Kombination mit einer nahezu unbegrenzten Menge an Ressourcen und einem nutzungsabhängigen Preismodell ermöglicht eine schnelle und kosteneffiziente Projektrealisierung für ein breites Nutzerspektrum. Cloud Computing verändert auch die Art und Weise wie Software entwickelt, bereitgestellt und genutzt wird. Diese Arbeit konzentriert sich auf Datenbanksysteme, die in der Cloud-Umgebung eingesetzt werden. Wir identifizieren drei Hauptinteraktionspunkte der Datenbank-Engine mit der Umgebung, die veränderte Anforderungen im Vergleich zu traditionellen On-Premise-Data-Warehouse-Lösungen aufweisen. Der erste Interaktionspunkt ist die Interaktion mit elastischen Ressourcen. Systeme in der Cloud sollten Elastizität unterstützen, um den Lastanforderungen zu entsprechen und dabei kosteneffizient zu sein. Wir stellen einen elastischen Skalierungsmechanismus für verteilte Datenbank-Engines vor, kombiniert mit einem Partitionsmanager, der einen Lastausgleich bietet und gleichzeitig die Neuzuweisung von Partitionen im Falle einer elastischen Skalierung minimiert. Darüber hinaus führen wir eine Strategie zum initialen Befüllen von Puffern ein, die es ermöglicht, skalierte Ressourcen unmittelbar nach der Skalierung auszunutzen. Cloudbasierte Systeme sind von fast überall aus zugänglich und verfügbar. Daten werden häufig von zahlreichen Endpunkten aus eingespeist, was sich von ETL-Pipelines in einer herkömmlichen Data-Warehouse-Lösung unterscheidet. Viele Benutzer verzichten auf die Definition von strikten Schemaanforderungen, um Transaktionsabbrüche aufgrund von Konflikten zu vermeiden oder um den Ladeprozess von Daten zu beschleunigen. Wir führen das Konzept der PatchIndexe ein, die die Definition von unscharfen Constraints ermöglichen. PatchIndexe verwalten Ausnahmen zu diesen Constraints, machen sie für die Optimierung und Ausführung von Anfragen nutzbar und bieten effiziente Unterstützung bei Datenaktualisierungen. Das Konzept kann auf beliebige Constraints angewendet werden und wir geben Beispiele für unscharfe Eindeutigkeits- und Sortierconstraints. Darüber hinaus zeigen wir, wie PatchIndexe genutzt werden können, um fortgeschrittene Constraints wie eine unscharfe Multi-Key-Partitionierung zu definieren, die eine robuste Anfrageperformance bei Workloads mit unterschiedlichen Partitionsanforderungen bietet. Der dritte Interaktionspunkt ist die Nutzerinteraktion. Datengetriebene Anwendungen haben sich in den letzten Jahren verändert. Neben den traditionellen SQL-Anfragen für Business Intelligence sind heute auch datenwissenschaftliche Anwendungen von großer Bedeutung. In diesen Fällen fungiert das Datenbanksystem oft nur als Datenlieferant, während der Rechenaufwand in dedizierten Data-Science- oder Machine-Learning-Umgebungen stattfindet. Wir verfolgen das Ziel, fortgeschrittene Analysen in Richtung der Datenbank-Engine zu verlagern und stellen das Grizzly-Framework als DataFrame-zu-SQL-Transpiler vor. Auf dieser Grundlage identifizieren wir benutzerdefinierte Funktionen (UDFs) und maschinelles Lernen (ML) als wichtige Aufgaben, die von einer tieferen Integration in die Datenbank-Engine profitieren würden. Daher untersuchen und bewerten wir Ansätze für die datenbankinterne Ausführung von Python-UDFs und datenbankinterne ML-Inferenz.Cloud computing has been the groundbreaking technology of the last decade. The ease-of-use of the managed environment in combination with nearly infinite amount of resources and a pay-per-use price model enables fast and cost-efficient project realization for a broad range of users. Cloud computing also changes the way software is designed, deployed and used. This thesis focuses on database systems deployed in the cloud environment. We identify three major interaction points of the database engine with the environment that show changed requirements compared to traditional on-premise data warehouse solutions. First, software is deployed on elastic resources. Consequently, systems should support elasticity in order to match workload requirements and be cost-effective. We present an elastic scaling mechanism for distributed database engines, combined with a partition manager that provides load balancing while minimizing partition reassignments in the case of elastic scaling. Furthermore we introduce a buffer pre-heating strategy that allows to mitigate a cold start after scaling and leads to an immediate performance benefit using scaling. Second, cloud based systems are accessible and available from nearly everywhere. Consequently, data is frequently ingested from numerous endpoints, which differs from bulk loads or ETL pipelines in a traditional data warehouse solution. Many users do not define database constraints in order to avoid transaction aborts due to conflicts or to speed up data ingestion. To mitigate this issue we introduce the concept of PatchIndexes, which allow the definition of approximate constraints. PatchIndexes maintain exceptions to constraints, make them usable in query optimization and execution and offer efficient update support. The concept can be applied to arbitrary constraints and we provide examples of approximate uniqueness and approximate sorting constraints. Moreover, we show how PatchIndexes can be exploited to define advanced constraints like an approximate multi-key partitioning, which offers robust query performance over workloads with different partition key requirements. Third, data-centric workloads changed over the last decade. Besides traditional SQL workloads for business intelligence, data science workloads are of significant importance nowadays. For these cases the database system might only act as data delivery, while the computational effort takes place in data science or machine learning (ML) environments. As this workflow has several drawbacks, we follow the goal of pushing advanced analytics towards the database engine and introduce the Grizzly framework as a DataFrame-to-SQL transpiler. Based on this we identify user-defined functions (UDFs) and machine learning inference as important tasks that would benefit from a deeper engine integration and investigate approaches to push these operations towards the database engine
Improving the performance of Learned Controllers in Behavior Trees using Value Function Estimates at Switching Boundaries
Behavior trees represent a modular way to create an overall controller from a
set of sub-controllers solving different sub-problems. These sub-controllers
can be created in different ways, such as classical model based control or
reinforcement learning (RL). If each sub-controller satisfies the preconditions
of the next sub-controller, the overall controller will achieve the overall
goal. However, even if all sub-controllers are locally optimal in achieving the
preconditions of the next, with respect to some performance metric such as
completion time, the overall controller might be far from optimal with respect
to the same performance metric. In this paper we show how the performance of
the overall controller can be improved if we use approximations of value
functions to inform the design of a sub-controller of the needs of the next
one. We also show how, under certain assumptions, this leads to a globally
optimal controller when the process is executed on all sub-controllers.
Finally, this result also holds when some of the sub-controllers are already
given, i.e., if we are constrained to use some existing sub-controllers the
overall controller will be globally optimal given this constraint
Gabriel Vacariu (c2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy
Unbelievable similar ideas to my ideas published long before..
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