5,748 research outputs found
Learning scalable and transferable multi-robot/machine sequential assignment planning via graph embedding
Can the success of reinforcement learning methods for simple combinatorial
optimization problems be extended to multi-robot sequential assignment
planning? In addition to the challenge of achieving near-optimal performance in
large problems, transferability to an unseen number of robots and tasks is
another key challenge for real-world applications. In this paper, we suggest a
method that achieves the first success in both challenges for robot/machine
scheduling problems.
Our method comprises of three components. First, we show a robot scheduling
problem can be expressed as a random probabilistic graphical model (PGM). We
develop a mean-field inference method for random PGM and use it for Q-function
inference. Second, we show that transferability can be achieved by carefully
designing two-step sequential encoding of problem state. Third, we resolve the
computational scalability issue of fitted Q-iteration by suggesting a heuristic
auction-based Q-iteration fitting method enabled by transferability we
achieved.
We apply our method to discrete-time, discrete space problems (Multi-Robot
Reward Collection (MRRC)) and scalably achieve 97% optimality with
transferability. This optimality is maintained under stochastic contexts. By
extending our method to continuous time, continuous space formulation, we claim
to be the first learning-based method with scalable performance among
multi-machine scheduling problems; our method scalability achieves comparable
performance to popular metaheuristics in Identical parallel machine scheduling
(IPMS) problems
Learning Generative Models with Visual Attention
Attention has long been proposed by psychologists as important for
effectively dealing with the enormous sensory stimulus available in the
neocortex. Inspired by the visual attention models in computational
neuroscience and the need of object-centric data for generative models, we
describe for generative learning framework using attentional mechanisms.
Attentional mechanisms can propagate signals from region of interest in a scene
to an aligned canonical representation, where generative modeling takes place.
By ignoring background clutter, generative models can concentrate their
resources on the object of interest. Our model is a proper graphical model
where the 2D Similarity transformation is a part of the top-down process. A
ConvNet is employed to provide good initializations during posterior inference
which is based on Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. Upon learning images of faces, our
model can robustly attend to face regions of novel test subjects. More
importantly, our model can learn generative models of new faces from a novel
dataset of large images where the face locations are not known.Comment: In the proceedings of Neural Information Processing Systems, 201
Gossip Algorithms for Distributed Signal Processing
Gossip algorithms are attractive for in-network processing in sensor networks
because they do not require any specialized routing, there is no bottleneck or
single point of failure, and they are robust to unreliable wireless network
conditions. Recently, there has been a surge of activity in the computer
science, control, signal processing, and information theory communities,
developing faster and more robust gossip algorithms and deriving theoretical
performance guarantees. This article presents an overview of recent work in the
area. We describe convergence rate results, which are related to the number of
transmitted messages and thus the amount of energy consumed in the network for
gossiping. We discuss issues related to gossiping over wireless links,
including the effects of quantization and noise, and we illustrate the use of
gossip algorithms for canonical signal processing tasks including distributed
estimation, source localization, and compression.Comment: Submitted to Proceedings of the IEEE, 29 page
Thirty Years of Machine Learning: The Road to Pareto-Optimal Wireless Networks
Future wireless networks have a substantial potential in terms of supporting
a broad range of complex compelling applications both in military and civilian
fields, where the users are able to enjoy high-rate, low-latency, low-cost and
reliable information services. Achieving this ambitious goal requires new radio
techniques for adaptive learning and intelligent decision making because of the
complex heterogeneous nature of the network structures and wireless services.
Machine learning (ML) algorithms have great success in supporting big data
analytics, efficient parameter estimation and interactive decision making.
Hence, in this article, we review the thirty-year history of ML by elaborating
on supervised learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning and deep
learning. Furthermore, we investigate their employment in the compelling
applications of wireless networks, including heterogeneous networks (HetNets),
cognitive radios (CR), Internet of things (IoT), machine to machine networks
(M2M), and so on. This article aims for assisting the readers in clarifying the
motivation and methodology of the various ML algorithms, so as to invoke them
for hitherto unexplored services as well as scenarios of future wireless
networks.Comment: 46 pages, 22 fig
Operational Research in Education
Operational Research (OR) techniques have been applied, from the early stages of the discipline, to a wide variety of issues in education. At the government level, these include questions of what resources should be allocated to education as a whole and how these should be divided amongst the individual sectors of education and the institutions within the sectors. Another pertinent issue concerns the efficient operation of institutions, how to measure it, and whether resource allocation can be used to incentivise efficiency savings. Local governments, as well as being concerned with issues of resource allocation, may also need to make decisions regarding, for example, the creation and location of new institutions or closure of existing ones, as well as the day-to-day logistics of getting pupils to schools. Issues of concern for managers within schools and colleges include allocating the budgets, scheduling lessons and the assignment of students to courses. This survey provides an overview of the diverse problems faced by government, managers and consumers of education, and the OR techniques which have typically been applied in an effort to improve operations and provide solutions
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