Recognizing Teamwork Activity In Observations Of Embodied Agents

This thesis presents contributions to the theory and practice of team activity recognition. A particular focus of our work was to improve our ability to collect and label representative samples, thus making the team activity recognition more efficient. A second focus of our work is improving the robustness of the recognition process in the presence of noisy and distorted data. The main contributions of this thesis are as follows: We developed a software tool, the Teamwork Scenario Editor (TSE), for the acquisition, segmentation and labeling of teamwork data. Using the TSE we acquired a corpus of labeled team actions both from synthetic and real world sources. We developed an approach through which representations of idealized team actions can be acquired in form of Hidden Markov Models which are trained using a small set of representative examples segmented and labeled with the TSE. We developed set of team-oriented feature functions, which extract discrete features from the high-dimensional continuous data. The features were chosen such that they mimic the features used by humans when recognizing teamwork actions. We developed a technique to recognize the likely roles played by agents in teams even before the team action was recognized. Through experimental studies we show that the feature functions and role recognition module significantly increase the recognition accuracy, while allowing arbitrary shuffled inputs and noisy data

COIN@AAMAS2015

COIN@AAMAS2015 is the nineteenth edition of the series and the fourteen papers included in these proceedings demonstrate the vitality of the community and will provide the grounds for a solid workshop program and what we expect will be a most enjoyable and enriching debate.Peer reviewe

Special Topics in Information Technology

This open access book presents thirteen outstanding doctoral dissertations in Information Technology from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Information Technology has always been highly interdisciplinary, as many aspects have to be considered in IT systems. The doctoral studies program in IT at Politecnico di Milano emphasizes this interdisciplinary nature, which is becoming more and more important in recent technological advances, in collaborative projects, and in the education of young researchers. Accordingly, the focus of advanced research is on pursuing a rigorous approach to specific research topics starting from a broad background in various areas of Information Technology, especially Computer Science and Engineering, Electronics, Systems and Control, and Telecommunications. Each year, more than 50 PhDs graduate from the program. This book gathers the outcomes of the thirteen best theses defended in 2019-20 and selected for the IT PhD Award. Each of the authors provides a chapter summarizing his/her findings, including an introduction, description of methods, main achievements and future work on the topic. Hence, the book provides a cutting-edge overview of the latest research trends in Information Technology at Politecnico di Milano, presented in an easy-to-read format that will also appeal to non-specialists

Learning for Cross-layer Resource Allocation in the Framework of Cognitive Wireless Networks

The framework of cognitive wireless networks is expected to endow wireless devices with a cognition-intelligence ability with which they can efficiently learn and respond to the dynamic wireless environment. In this dissertation, we focus on the problem of developing cognitive network control mechanisms without knowing in advance an accurate network model. We study a series of cross-layer resource allocation problems in cognitive wireless networks. Based on model-free learning, optimization and game theory, we propose a framework of self-organized, adaptive strategy learning for wireless devices to (implicitly) build the understanding of the network dynamics through trial-and-error. The work of this dissertation is divided into three parts. In the first part, we investigate a distributed, single-agent decision-making problem for real-time video streaming over a time-varying wireless channel between a single pair of transmitter and receiver. By modeling the joint source-channel resource allocation process for video streaming as a constrained Markov decision process, we propose a reinforcement learning scheme to search for the optimal transmission policy without the need to know in advance the details of network dynamics. In the second part of this work, we extend our study from the single-agent to a multi-agent decision-making scenario, and study the energy-efficient power allocation problems in a two-tier, underlay heterogeneous network and in a self-sustainable green network. For the heterogeneous network, we propose a stochastic learning algorithm based on repeated games to allow individual macro- or femto-users to find a Stackelberg equilibrium without flooding the network with local action information. For the self-sustainable green network, we propose a combinatorial auction mechanism that allows mobile stations to adaptively choose the optimal base station and sub-carrier group for transmission only from local payoff and transmission strategy information. In the third part of this work, we study a cross-layer routing problem in an interweaved Cognitive Radio Network (CRN), where an accurate network model is not available and the secondary users that are distributed within the CRN only have access to local action/utility information. In order to develop a spectrum-aware routing mechanism that is robust against potential insider attackers, we model the uncoordinated interaction between CRN nodes in the dynamic wireless environment as a stochastic game. Through decomposition of the stochastic routing game, we propose two stochastic learning algorithm based on a group of repeated stage games for the secondary users to learn the best-response strategies without the need of information flooding

Pervasive AI for IoT applications: A Survey on Resource-efficient Distributed Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) has witnessed a substantial breakthrough in a variety of Internet of Things (IoT) applications and services, spanning from recommendation systems and speech processing applications to robotics control and military surveillance. This is driven by the easier access to sensory data and the enormous scale of pervasive/ubiquitous devices that generate zettabytes of real-time data streams. Designing accurate models using such data streams, to revolutionize the decision-taking process, inaugurates pervasive computing as a worthy paradigm for a better quality-of-life (e.g., smart homes and self-driving cars.). The confluence of pervasive computing and artificial intelligence, namely Pervasive AI, expanded the role of ubiquitous IoT systems from mainly data collection to executing distributed computations with a promising alternative to centralized learning, presenting various challenges, including privacy and latency requirements. In this context, an intelligent resource scheduling should be envisaged among IoT devices (e.g., smartphones, smart vehicles) and infrastructure (e.g., edge nodes and base stations) to avoid communication and computation overheads and ensure maximum performance. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive survey of the recent techniques and strategies developed to overcome these resource challenges in pervasive AI systems. Specifically, we first present an overview of the pervasive computing, its architecture, and its intersection with artificial intelligence. We then review the background, applications and performance metrics of AI, particularly Deep Learning (DL) and reinforcement learning, running in a ubiquitous system. Next, we provide a deep literature review of communication-efficient techniques, from both algorithmic and system perspectives, of distributed training and inference across the combination of IoT devices, edge devices and cloud servers. Finally, we discuss our future vision and research challenges

Machine Learning

Machine Learning can be defined in various ways related to a scientific domain concerned with the design and development of theoretical and implementation tools that allow building systems with some Human Like intelligent behavior. Machine learning addresses more specifically the ability to improve automatically through experience

Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology

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