9,374 research outputs found
Monte Carlo Tree Search with Heuristic Evaluations using Implicit Minimax Backups
Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) has improved the performance of game engines
in domains such as Go, Hex, and general game playing. MCTS has been shown to
outperform classic alpha-beta search in games where good heuristic evaluations
are difficult to obtain. In recent years, combining ideas from traditional
minimax search in MCTS has been shown to be advantageous in some domains, such
as Lines of Action, Amazons, and Breakthrough. In this paper, we propose a new
way to use heuristic evaluations to guide the MCTS search by storing the two
sources of information, estimated win rates and heuristic evaluations,
separately. Rather than using the heuristic evaluations to replace the
playouts, our technique backs them up implicitly during the MCTS simulations.
These minimax values are then used to guide future simulations. We show that
using implicit minimax backups leads to stronger play performance in Kalah,
Breakthrough, and Lines of Action.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures, 9 tables, expanded version of paper presented at
IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) 2014 conferenc
Securing library information system: Vulnerabilities and threats
Threats and vulnerabilities in computers and networks are common nowadays since computers are widely used by the
public. The risks of computer threats and vulnerabilities are high since most computers are connected to the internet.
Library Information Systems is also vulnerable to attack since it is a public access institution. Majority of users are naive when it comes to computer and network securities. Some breaches in Library Information System are intentional and some are unintentional. Risks analysis should be done to find the threats and risks in designing the Library Information System. Threats are made possible due to lack of proper procedures, software flaws and policies. The administrators should anticipate all the possible attacks and their mitigation techniques. In this paper, we will try to address various issues arise from this vulnerabilities and threats. We will also describe how we can reduce and overcome this vulnerabilities and threats
Preparing to Preserve: Three Essential Steps to Building Experience with Long-Term Digital Preservation
Many organizations face complex questions of how to implement affordable and sustainable digital preservation practices. One strategic priority at the University Libraries at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, United States, is increased focus toward preservation of unique digital assets, whether digitized from physical originals or born digital. A team comprised of experts from multiple functional library departments (including the special collections/archives area and the technology area) was established to help address this priority, and efforts are beginning to translate into operational practice. This work outlines a three-step approach: Partnership, Policy, Pilot taken by one academic research library to strategically build experience utilizing a collaborative team approach. Our experience included the formation of a team, education of all members, and a foundational attitude that decisions would be undertaken as partners rather than competing departments or units. The team’s work included the development of an initial digital preservation policy, helping to distill the organizational priority and values associated with digital preservation. Several pilot projects were initiated and completed, which provided realistic, first-person experience with digital preservation activities, surfaced questions, and set the stage for developing and refining sustainable workflows. This work will highlight key activities in our journey to date, with the hope that experience gained through this effort could be applicable, in whole or part, to other organizations regardless of their size or capacity
Anytime Point-Based Approximations for Large POMDPs
The Partially Observable Markov Decision Process has long been recognized as
a rich framework for real-world planning and control problems, especially in
robotics. However exact solutions in this framework are typically
computationally intractable for all but the smallest problems. A well-known
technique for speeding up POMDP solving involves performing value backups at
specific belief points, rather than over the entire belief simplex. The
efficiency of this approach, however, depends greatly on the selection of
points. This paper presents a set of novel techniques for selecting informative
belief points which work well in practice. The point selection procedure is
combined with point-based value backups to form an effective anytime POMDP
algorithm called Point-Based Value Iteration (PBVI). The first aim of this
paper is to introduce this algorithm and present a theoretical analysis
justifying the choice of belief selection technique. The second aim of this
paper is to provide a thorough empirical comparison between PBVI and other
state-of-the-art POMDP methods, in particular the Perseus algorithm, in an
effort to highlight their similarities and differences. Evaluation is performed
using both standard POMDP domains and realistic robotic tasks
Middleware-based Database Replication: The Gaps between Theory and Practice
The need for high availability and performance in data management systems has
been fueling a long running interest in database replication from both academia
and industry. However, academic groups often attack replication problems in
isolation, overlooking the need for completeness in their solutions, while
commercial teams take a holistic approach that often misses opportunities for
fundamental innovation. This has created over time a gap between academic
research and industrial practice.
This paper aims to characterize the gap along three axes: performance,
availability, and administration. We build on our own experience developing and
deploying replication systems in commercial and academic settings, as well as
on a large body of prior related work. We sift through representative examples
from the last decade of open-source, academic, and commercial database
replication systems and combine this material with case studies from real
systems deployed at Fortune 500 customers. We propose two agendas, one for
academic research and one for industrial R&D, which we believe can bridge the
gap within 5-10 years. This way, we hope to both motivate and help researchers
in making the theory and practice of middleware-based database replication more
relevant to each other.Comment: 14 pages. Appears in Proc. ACM SIGMOD International Conference on
Management of Data, Vancouver, Canada, June 200
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