40,642 research outputs found
Human-Machine Collaborative Optimization via Apprenticeship Scheduling
Coordinating agents to complete a set of tasks with intercoupled temporal and
resource constraints is computationally challenging, yet human domain experts
can solve these difficult scheduling problems using paradigms learned through
years of apprenticeship. A process for manually codifying this domain knowledge
within a computational framework is necessary to scale beyond the
``single-expert, single-trainee" apprenticeship model. However, human domain
experts often have difficulty describing their decision-making processes,
causing the codification of this knowledge to become laborious. We propose a
new approach for capturing domain-expert heuristics through a pairwise ranking
formulation. Our approach is model-free and does not require enumerating or
iterating through a large state space. We empirically demonstrate that this
approach accurately learns multifaceted heuristics on a synthetic data set
incorporating job-shop scheduling and vehicle routing problems, as well as on
two real-world data sets consisting of demonstrations of experts solving a
weapon-to-target assignment problem and a hospital resource allocation problem.
We also demonstrate that policies learned from human scheduling demonstration
via apprenticeship learning can substantially improve the efficiency of a
branch-and-bound search for an optimal schedule. We employ this human-machine
collaborative optimization technique on a variant of the weapon-to-target
assignment problem. We demonstrate that this technique generates solutions
substantially superior to those produced by human domain experts at a rate up
to 9.5 times faster than an optimization approach and can be applied to
optimally solve problems twice as complex as those solved by a human
demonstrator.Comment: Portions of this paper were published in the Proceedings of the
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in 2016 and
in the Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) in 2016. The paper
consists of 50 pages with 11 figures and 4 table
A Dynamic Embedding Model of the Media Landscape
Information about world events is disseminated through a wide variety of news
channels, each with specific considerations in the choice of their reporting.
Although the multiplicity of these outlets should ensure a variety of
viewpoints, recent reports suggest that the rising concentration of media
ownership may void this assumption. This observation motivates the study of the
impact of ownership on the global media landscape and its influence on the
coverage the actual viewer receives. To this end, the selection of reported
events has been shown to be informative about the high-level structure of the
news ecosystem. However, existing methods only provide a static view into an
inherently dynamic system, providing underperforming statistical models and
hindering our understanding of the media landscape as a whole.
In this work, we present a dynamic embedding method that learns to capture
the decision process of individual news sources in their selection of reported
events while also enabling the systematic detection of large-scale
transformations in the media landscape over prolonged periods of time. In an
experiment covering over 580M real-world event mentions, we show our approach
to outperform static embedding methods in predictive terms. We demonstrate the
potential of the method for news monitoring applications and investigative
journalism by shedding light on important changes in programming induced by
mergers and acquisitions, policy changes, or network-wide content diffusion.
These findings offer evidence of strong content convergence trends inside large
broadcasting groups, influencing the news ecosystem in a time of increasing
media ownership concentration
Gradient-free activation maximization for identifying effective stimuli
A fundamental question for understanding brain function is what types of
stimuli drive neurons to fire. In visual neuroscience, this question has also
been posted as characterizing the receptive field of a neuron. The search for
effective stimuli has traditionally been based on a combination of insights
from previous studies, intuition, and luck. Recently, the same question has
emerged in the study of units in convolutional neural networks (ConvNets), and
together with this question a family of solutions were developed that are
generally referred to as "feature visualization by activation maximization."
We sought to bring in tools and techniques developed for studying ConvNets to
the study of biological neural networks. However, one key difference that
impedes direct translation of tools is that gradients can be obtained from
ConvNets using backpropagation, but such gradients are not available from the
brain. To circumvent this problem, we developed a method for gradient-free
activation maximization by combining a generative neural network with a genetic
algorithm. We termed this method XDream (EXtending DeepDream with real-time
evolution for activation maximization), and we have shown that this method can
reliably create strong stimuli for neurons in the macaque visual cortex (Ponce
et al., 2019). In this paper, we describe extensive experiments characterizing
the XDream method by using ConvNet units as in silico models of neurons. We
show that XDream is applicable across network layers, architectures, and
training sets; examine design choices in the algorithm; and provide practical
guides for choosing hyperparameters in the algorithm. XDream is an efficient
algorithm for uncovering neuronal tuning preferences in black-box networks
using a vast and diverse stimulus space.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, 3 table
Integration of biophysical connectivity in the spatial optimization of coastal ecosystem services
Ecological connectivity in coastal oceanic waters is mediated by dispersion
of the early life stages of marine organisms and conditions the structure of
biological communities and the provision of ecosystem services. Integrated
management strategies aimed at ensuring long-term service provision to society
do not currently consider the importance of dispersal and larval connectivity.
A spatial optimization model is introduced to maximise the potential provision
of ecosystem services in coastal areas by accounting for the role of dispersal
and larval connectivity. The approach combines a validated coastal circulation
model that reproduces realistic patterns of larval transport along the coast,
which ultimately conditions the biological connectivity and productivity of an
area, with additional spatial layers describing potential ecosystem services.
The spatial optimization exercise was tested along the coast of Central Chile,
a highly productive area dominated by the Humboldt Current. Results show it is
unnecessary to relocate existing management areas, as increasing no-take areas
by 10% could maximise ecosystem service provision, while improving the spatial
representativeness of protected areas and minimizing social conflicts. The
location of protected areas was underrepresented in some sections of the study
domain, principally due to the restriction of the model to rocky subtidal
habitats. Future model developments should encompass the diversity of coastal
ecosystems and human activities to inform integrative spatial management.
Nevertheless, the spatial optimization model is innovative not only for its
integrated ecosystem perspective, but also because it demonstrates that it is
possible to incorporate time-varying biophysical connectivity within the
optimization problem, thereby linking the dynamics of exploited populations
produced by the spatial management regime.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables; 1 graphical abstract. In this version:
numbering of figures corrected, updated figure 2, typos corrected and
references fixe
LTLf satisfiability checking
We consider here Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) formulas interpreted over
\emph{finite} traces. We denote this logic by LTLf. The existing approach for
LTLf satisfiability checking is based on a reduction to standard LTL
satisfiability checking. We describe here a novel direct approach to LTLf
satisfiability checking, where we take advantage of the difference in the
semantics between LTL and LTLf. While LTL satisfiability checking requires
finding a \emph{fair cycle} in an appropriate transition system, here we need
to search only for a finite trace. This enables us to introduce specialized
heuristics, where we also exploit recent progress in Boolean SAT solving. We
have implemented our approach in a prototype tool and experiments show that our
approach outperforms existing approaches
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