549 research outputs found

    Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion. Collected Works, Volume 5

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    This ïŹfth volume on Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different ïŹelds of applications and in mathematics, and is available in open-access. The collected contributions of this volume have either been published or presented after disseminating the fourth volume in 2015 in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals, or they are new. The contributions of each part of this volume are chronologically ordered. First Part of this book presents some theoretical advances on DSmT, dealing mainly with modiïŹed Proportional ConïŹ‚ict Redistribution Rules (PCR) of combination with degree of intersection, coarsening techniques, interval calculus for PCR thanks to set inversion via interval analysis (SIVIA), rough set classiïŹers, canonical decomposition of dichotomous belief functions, fast PCR fusion, fast inter-criteria analysis with PCR, and improved PCR5 and PCR6 rules preserving the (quasi-)neutrality of (quasi-)vacuous belief assignment in the fusion of sources of evidence with their Matlab codes. Because more applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the fourth book of DSmT in 2015, the second part of this volume is about selected applications of DSmT mainly in building change detection, object recognition, quality of data association in tracking, perception in robotics, risk assessment for torrent protection and multi-criteria decision-making, multi-modal image fusion, coarsening techniques, recommender system, levee characterization and assessment, human heading perception, trust assessment, robotics, biometrics, failure detection, GPS systems, inter-criteria analysis, group decision, human activity recognition, storm prediction, data association for autonomous vehicles, identiïŹcation of maritime vessels, fusion of support vector machines (SVM), Silx-Furtif RUST code library for information fusion including PCR rules, and network for ship classiïŹcation. Finally, the third part presents interesting contributions related to belief functions in general published or presented along the years since 2015. These contributions are related with decision-making under uncertainty, belief approximations, probability transformations, new distances between belief functions, non-classical multi-criteria decision-making problems with belief functions, generalization of Bayes theorem, image processing, data association, entropy and cross-entropy measures, fuzzy evidence numbers, negator of belief mass, human activity recognition, information fusion for breast cancer therapy, imbalanced data classiïŹcation, and hybrid techniques mixing deep learning with belief functions as well

    Discovering Causal Relations and Equations from Data

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    Physics is a field of science that has traditionally used the scientific method to answer questions about why natural phenomena occur and to make testable models that explain the phenomena. Discovering equations, laws and principles that are invariant, robust and causal explanations of the world has been fundamental in physical sciences throughout the centuries. Discoveries emerge from observing the world and, when possible, performing interventional studies in the system under study. With the advent of big data and the use of data-driven methods, causal and equation discovery fields have grown and made progress in computer science, physics, statistics, philosophy, and many applied fields. All these domains are intertwined and can be used to discover causal relations, physical laws, and equations from observational data. This paper reviews the concepts, methods, and relevant works on causal and equation discovery in the broad field of Physics and outlines the most important challenges and promising future lines of research. We also provide a taxonomy for observational causal and equation discovery, point out connections, and showcase a complete set of case studies in Earth and climate sciences, fluid dynamics and mechanics, and the neurosciences. This review demonstrates that discovering fundamental laws and causal relations by observing natural phenomena is being revolutionised with the efficient exploitation of observational data, modern machine learning algorithms and the interaction with domain knowledge. Exciting times are ahead with many challenges and opportunities to improve our understanding of complex systems.Comment: 137 page

    If interpretability is the answer, what is the question?

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    Due to the ability to model even complex dependencies, machine learning (ML) can be used to tackle a broad range of (high-stakes) prediction problems. The complexity of the resulting models comes at the cost of transparency, meaning that it is difficult to understand the model by inspecting its parameters. This opacity is considered problematic since it hampers the transfer of knowledge from the model, undermines the agency of individuals affected by algorithmic decisions, and makes it more challenging to expose non-robust or unethical behaviour. To tackle the opacity of ML models, the field of interpretable machine learning (IML) has emerged. The field is motivated by the idea that if we could understand the model's behaviour -- either by making the model itself interpretable or by inspecting post-hoc explanations -- we could also expose unethical and non-robust behaviour, learn about the data generating process, and restore the agency of affected individuals. IML is not only a highly active area of research, but the developed techniques are also widely applied in both industry and the sciences. Despite the popularity of IML, the field faces fundamental criticism, questioning whether IML actually helps in tackling the aforementioned problems of ML and even whether it should be a field of research in the first place: First and foremost, IML is criticised for lacking a clear goal and, thus, a clear definition of what it means for a model to be interpretable. On a similar note, the meaning of existing methods is often unclear, and thus they may be misunderstood or even misused to hide unethical behaviour. Moreover, estimating conditional-sampling-based techniques poses a significant computational challenge. With the contributions included in this thesis, we tackle these three challenges for IML. We join a range of work by arguing that the field struggles to define and evaluate "interpretability" because incoherent interpretation goals are conflated. However, the different goals can be disentangled such that coherent requirements can inform the derivation of the respective target estimands. We demonstrate this with the examples of two interpretation contexts: recourse and scientific inference. To tackle the misinterpretation of IML methods, we suggest deriving formal interpretation rules that link explanations to aspects of the model and data. In our work, we specifically focus on interpreting feature importance. Furthermore, we collect interpretation pitfalls and communicate them to a broader audience. To efficiently estimate conditional-sampling-based interpretation techniques, we propose two methods that leverage the dependence structure in the data to simplify the estimation problems for Conditional Feature Importance (CFI) and SAGE. A causal perspective proved to be vital in tackling the challenges: First, since IML problems such as algorithmic recourse are inherently causal; Second, since causality helps to disentangle the different aspects of model and data and, therefore, to distinguish the insights that different methods provide; And third, algorithms developed for causal structure learning can be leveraged for the efficient estimation of conditional-sampling based IML methods.Aufgrund der FĂ€higkeit, selbst komplexe AbhĂ€ngigkeiten zu modellieren, kann maschinelles Lernen (ML) zur Lösung eines breiten Spektrums von anspruchsvollen Vorhersageproblemen eingesetzt werden. Die KomplexitĂ€t der resultierenden Modelle geht auf Kosten der Interpretierbarkeit, d. h. es ist schwierig, das Modell durch die Untersuchung seiner Parameter zu verstehen. Diese Undurchsichtigkeit wird als problematisch angesehen, da sie den Wissenstransfer aus dem Modell behindert, sie die HandlungsfĂ€higkeit von Personen, die von algorithmischen Entscheidungen betroffen sind, untergrĂ€bt und sie es schwieriger macht, nicht robustes oder unethisches Verhalten aufzudecken. Um die Undurchsichtigkeit von ML-Modellen anzugehen, hat sich das Feld des interpretierbaren maschinellen Lernens (IML) entwickelt. Dieses Feld ist von der Idee motiviert, dass wir, wenn wir das Verhalten des Modells verstehen könnten - entweder indem wir das Modell selbst interpretierbar machen oder anhand von post-hoc ErklĂ€rungen - auch unethisches und nicht robustes Verhalten aufdecken, ĂŒber den datengenerierenden Prozess lernen und die HandlungsfĂ€higkeit betroffener Personen wiederherstellen könnten. IML ist nicht nur ein sehr aktiver Forschungsbereich, sondern die entwickelten Techniken werden auch weitgehend in der Industrie und den Wissenschaften angewendet. Trotz der PopularitĂ€t von IML ist das Feld mit fundamentaler Kritik konfrontiert, die in Frage stellt, ob IML tatsĂ€chlich dabei hilft, die oben genannten Probleme von ML anzugehen, und ob es ĂŒberhaupt ein Forschungsgebiet sein sollte: In erster Linie wird an IML kritisiert, dass es an einem klaren Ziel und damit an einer klaren Definition dessen fehlt, was es fĂŒr ein Modell bedeutet, interpretierbar zu sein. Weiterhin ist die Bedeutung bestehender Methoden oft unklar, so dass sie missverstanden oder sogar missbraucht werden können, um unethisches Verhalten zu verbergen. Letztlich stellt die SchĂ€tzung von auf bedingten Stichproben basierenden Verfahren eine erhebliche rechnerische Herausforderung dar. In dieser Arbeit befassen wir uns mit diesen drei grundlegenden Herausforderungen von IML. Wir schließen uns der Argumentation an, dass es schwierig ist, "Interpretierbarkeit" zu definieren und zu bewerten, weil inkohĂ€rente Interpretationsziele miteinander vermengt werden. Die verschiedenen Ziele lassen sich jedoch entflechten, sodass kohĂ€rente Anforderungen die Ableitung der jeweiligen ZielgrĂ¶ĂŸen informieren. Wir demonstrieren dies am Beispiel von zwei Interpretationskontexten: algorithmischer Regress und wissenschaftliche Inferenz. Um der Fehlinterpretation von IML-Methoden zu begegnen, schlagen wir vor, formale Interpretationsregeln abzuleiten, die ErklĂ€rungen mit Aspekten des Modells und der Daten verknĂŒpfen. In unserer Arbeit konzentrieren wir uns speziell auf die Interpretation von sogenannten Feature Importance Methoden. DarĂŒber hinaus tragen wir wichtige Interpretationsfallen zusammen und kommunizieren sie an ein breiteres Publikum. Zur effizienten SchĂ€tzung auf bedingten Stichproben basierender Interpretationstechniken schlagen wir zwei Methoden vor, die die AbhĂ€ngigkeitsstruktur in den Daten nutzen, um die SchĂ€tzprobleme fĂŒr Conditional Feature Importance (CFI) und SAGE zu vereinfachen. Eine kausale Perspektive erwies sich als entscheidend fĂŒr die BewĂ€ltigung der Herausforderungen: Erstens, weil IML-Probleme wie der algorithmische Regress inhĂ€rent kausal sind; zweitens, weil KausalitĂ€t hilft, die verschiedenen Aspekte von Modell und Daten zu entflechten und somit die Erkenntnisse, die verschiedene Methoden liefern, zu unterscheiden; und drittens können wir Algorithmen, die fĂŒr das Lernen kausaler Struktur entwickelt wurden, fĂŒr die effiziente SchĂ€tzung von auf bindingten Verteilungen basierenden IML-Methoden verwenden

    What does explainable AI explain?

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    Machine Learning (ML) models are increasingly used in industry, as well as in scientific research and social contexts. Unfortunately, ML models provide only partial solutions to real-world problems, focusing on predictive performance in static environments. Problem aspects beyond prediction, such as robustness in employment, knowledge generation in science, or providing recourse recommendations to end-users, cannot be directly tackled with ML models. Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) aims to solve, or at least highlight, problem aspects beyond predictive performance through explanations. However, the field is still in its infancy, as fundamental questions such as “What are explanations?”, “What constitutes a good explanation?”, or “How relate explanation and understanding?” remain open. In this dissertation, I combine philosophical conceptual analysis and mathematical formalization to clarify a prerequisite of these difficult questions, namely what XAI explains: I point out that XAI explanations are either associative or causal and either aim to explain the ML model or the modeled phenomenon. The thesis is a collection of five individual research papers that all aim to clarify how different problems in XAI are related to these different “whats”. In Paper I, my co-authors and I illustrate how to construct XAI methods for inferring associational phenomenon relationships. Paper II directly relates to the first; we formally show how to quantify uncertainty of such scientific inferences for two XAI methods – partial dependence plots (PDP) and permutation feature importance (PFI). Paper III discusses the relationship between counterfactual explanations and adversarial examples; I argue that adversarial examples can be described as counterfactual explanations that alter the prediction but not the underlying target variable. In Paper IV, my co-authors and I argue that algorithmic recourse recommendations should help data-subjects improve their qualification rather than to game the predictor. In Paper V, we address general problems with model agnostic XAI methods and identify possible solutions
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