98,046 research outputs found
Knowledge transmission channels: a comparative study of clusters in Brazil and in China
The aim of this paper is to identify and analyze the knowledge transmission channels in two textile clusters located in two emerging economies: one in Vale do ItajaĂ, in Brazil, and the other in Haining, in China, highlighting the existing similarities and discrepancies. Information in the textile cluster in Brazil was collected through: studies on secondary sources and fieldwork. The characterization and identification of knowledge transmission channels most used in cluster in Chinese cluster were based on survey data collected from secondary sources, namely research published by international organizations. In both clusters, opportunities of direct learning are found with other companies operating in the same market can be restricted due to the similarity between the goods and a limited competitiveness. The results show that the relations with competitors, suppliers and customers are important knowledge transmission channels in textile clusters. This research can be used by managers to enable the understanding of the mechanisms and determinants of knowledge transmission channels and can also influence the knowledge diffusion more effectively
Proximal Multitask Learning over Networks with Sparsity-inducing Coregularization
In this work, we consider multitask learning problems where clusters of nodes
are interested in estimating their own parameter vector. Cooperation among
clusters is beneficial when the optimal models of adjacent clusters have a good
number of similar entries. We propose a fully distributed algorithm for solving
this problem. The approach relies on minimizing a global mean-square error
criterion regularized by non-differentiable terms to promote cooperation among
neighboring clusters. A general diffusion forward-backward splitting strategy
is introduced. Then, it is specialized to the case of sparsity promoting
regularizers. A closed-form expression for the proximal operator of a weighted
sum of -norms is derived to achieve higher efficiency. We also provide
conditions on the step-sizes that ensure convergence of the algorithm in the
mean and mean-square error sense. Simulations are conducted to illustrate the
effectiveness of the strategy
Diffusion map for clustering fMRI spatial maps extracted by independent component analysis
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) produces data about activity
inside the brain, from which spatial maps can be extracted by independent
component analysis (ICA). In datasets, there are n spatial maps that contain p
voxels. The number of voxels is very high compared to the number of analyzed
spatial maps. Clustering of the spatial maps is usually based on correlation
matrices. This usually works well, although such a similarity matrix inherently
can explain only a certain amount of the total variance contained in the
high-dimensional data where n is relatively small but p is large. For
high-dimensional space, it is reasonable to perform dimensionality reduction
before clustering. In this research, we used the recently developed diffusion
map for dimensionality reduction in conjunction with spectral clustering. This
research revealed that the diffusion map based clustering worked as well as the
more traditional methods, and produced more compact clusters when needed.Comment: 6 pages. 8 figures. Copyright (c) 2013 IEEE. Published at 2013 IEEE
International Workshop on Machine Learning for Signal Processin
Multiscale Markov Decision Problems: Compression, Solution, and Transfer Learning
Many problems in sequential decision making and stochastic control often have
natural multiscale structure: sub-tasks are assembled together to accomplish
complex goals. Systematically inferring and leveraging hierarchical structure,
particularly beyond a single level of abstraction, has remained a longstanding
challenge. We describe a fast multiscale procedure for repeatedly compressing,
or homogenizing, Markov decision processes (MDPs), wherein a hierarchy of
sub-problems at different scales is automatically determined. Coarsened MDPs
are themselves independent, deterministic MDPs, and may be solved using
existing algorithms. The multiscale representation delivered by this procedure
decouples sub-tasks from each other and can lead to substantial improvements in
convergence rates both locally within sub-problems and globally across
sub-problems, yielding significant computational savings. A second fundamental
aspect of this work is that these multiscale decompositions yield new transfer
opportunities across different problems, where solutions of sub-tasks at
different levels of the hierarchy may be amenable to transfer to new problems.
Localized transfer of policies and potential operators at arbitrary scales is
emphasized. Finally, we demonstrate compression and transfer in a collection of
illustrative domains, including examples involving discrete and continuous
statespaces.Comment: 86 pages, 15 figure
Distributed Clustering and Learning Over Networks
Distributed processing over networks relies on in-network processing and
cooperation among neighboring agents. Cooperation is beneficial when agents
share a common objective. However, in many applications agents may belong to
different clusters that pursue different objectives. Then, indiscriminate
cooperation will lead to undesired results. In this work, we propose an
adaptive clustering and learning scheme that allows agents to learn which
neighbors they should cooperate with and which other neighbors they should
ignore. In doing so, the resulting algorithm enables the agents to identify
their clusters and to attain improved learning and estimation accuracy over
networks. We carry out a detailed mean-square analysis and assess the error
probabilities of Types I and II, i.e., false alarm and mis-detection, for the
clustering mechanism. Among other results, we establish that these
probabilities decay exponentially with the step-sizes so that the probability
of correct clustering can be made arbitrarily close to one.Comment: 47 pages, 6 figure
Mapping Topographic Structure in White Matter Pathways with Level Set Trees
Fiber tractography on diffusion imaging data offers rich potential for
describing white matter pathways in the human brain, but characterizing the
spatial organization in these large and complex data sets remains a challenge.
We show that level set trees---which provide a concise representation of the
hierarchical mode structure of probability density functions---offer a
statistically-principled framework for visualizing and analyzing topography in
fiber streamlines. Using diffusion spectrum imaging data collected on
neurologically healthy controls (N=30), we mapped white matter pathways from
the cortex into the striatum using a deterministic tractography algorithm that
estimates fiber bundles as dimensionless streamlines. Level set trees were used
for interactive exploration of patterns in the endpoint distributions of the
mapped fiber tracks and an efficient segmentation of the tracks that has
empirical accuracy comparable to standard nonparametric clustering methods. We
show that level set trees can also be generalized to model pseudo-density
functions in order to analyze a broader array of data types, including entire
fiber streamlines. Finally, resampling methods show the reliability of the
level set tree as a descriptive measure of topographic structure, illustrating
its potential as a statistical descriptor in brain imaging analysis. These
results highlight the broad applicability of level set trees for visualizing
and analyzing high-dimensional data like fiber tractography output
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