Estimating the reliability of MDP policies: A confidence interval approach

Past approaches for using reinforcement learning to derive dialog control policies have assumed that there was enough collected data to derive a reliable policy. In this paper we present a methodology for numerically constructing confidence intervals for the expected cumulative reward for a learned policy. These intervals are used to (1) better assess the reliability of the expected cumulative reward, and (2) perform a refined comparison between policies derived from different Markov Decision Processes (MDP) models. We applied this methodology to a prior experiment where the goal was to select the best features to include in the MDP statespace. Our results show that while some of the policies developed in the prior work exhibited very large confidence intervals, the policy developed from the best feature set had a much smaller confidence interval and thus showed very high reliability. © 2007 Association for Computational Linguistics

Boron Studies in Interdisciplinary Fields Employing Nuclear Track Detectors (NTDs)

Pollution & threats to the environmen

Target and PADC Track Detectors for Rare Isotope Studies

A higher yield of rare isotope production methods, for example, isotope separation on-line (ISOL), is expected to be developed for the EURISOL facility. In this paper as a part of the ongoing project, high power-target assembly and passive detector inclusion are given. Theoretical calculations of several configurations were done using Monte Carlo code FLUKA aimed to produce 1015 fiss/s on LEU-Cx target. The proposed radioactive ion beam (RIB) production relies on a high-power (4 MW) multibody target; a complete target design is given. Additionally we explore the possibility to employ PADC passive detector as a complementary system for RIB characterization, since these already demonstrated their importance in nuclear interactions phenomenology. In fact, information and recording rare and complex reaction product or short-lived isotope detection is obtained in an integral form through latent track formation. Some technical details on track formation and PADC detector etching conditions complete this study

Do (and say) as I say: Linguistic adaptation in human-computer dialogs

© Theodora Koulouri, Stanislao Lauria, and Robert D. Macredie. This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.There is strong research evidence showing that people naturally align to each other’s vocabulary, sentence structure, and acoustic features in dialog, yet little is known about how the alignment mechanism operates in the interaction between users and computer systems let alone how it may be exploited to improve the efficiency of the interaction. This article provides an account of lexical alignment in human–computer dialogs, based on empirical data collected in a simulated human–computer interaction scenario. The results indicate that alignment is present, resulting in the gradual reduction and stabilization of the vocabulary-in-use, and that it is also reciprocal. Further, the results suggest that when system and user errors occur, the development of alignment is temporarily disrupted and users tend to introduce novel words to the dialog. The results also indicate that alignment in human–computer interaction may have a strong strategic component and is used as a resource to compensate for less optimal (visually impoverished) interaction conditions. Moreover, lower alignment is associated with less successful interaction, as measured by user perceptions. The article distills the results of the study into design recommendations for human–computer dialog systems and uses them to outline a model of dialog management that supports and exploits alignment through mechanisms for in-use adaptation of the system’s grammar and lexicon

Self-esteem instability and affective instability in everyday life after remission from borderline personality disorder

Background: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is defined by a pervasive pattern of instability. According to prior findings and clinical theories, self-esteem instability and affective instability are key features of BPD. Previous e-diary studies showed that instability in self-esteem is heightened and that it is highly intertwined with affective instability in BPD in comparison to healthy controls (HC). The present study sought to extend these findings by adding symptomatologically remitted BPD patients (BPD-REM), i.e. former patients with BPD who met four or fewer BPD criteria within the past year, as a comparison group. Methods: To examine differences regarding self-esteem instability and affective instability, we used e-diaries for repeatedly collecting data on self-esteem, valence, and tense arousal 12 times a day for four consecutive days while participants underwent their daily life activities. Determining three different state-of-the-art instability indices and applying multilevel analyses, we compared 35 BPD-REM participants with previously reported 60 acute BPD patients (BPD-ACU) and 60 HC. Results: Our results revealed that self-esteem instability was significantly lower in the BPD-REM compared to the BPD-ACU group, irrespective of the instability index. In contrast, there were no significant differences regarding affective instability between the BPD-REM participants and those in the BPD-ACU group. The comparison between the BPD-REM with the HC indicated both a significantly higher instability in self-esteem as well as significantly heightened affective instability in the BPD-REM participants. Moreover, even though the associations were not significant, we found tentative support for the assumption that affective changes that are accompanied by changes in self-esteem are experienced as more burdensome and negatively impact the quality of life of remitted BPD participants. Conclusions: This study builds on growing evidence for the importance of self-esteem instability in BPD. Whereas affective instability has been reported in various psychiatric disorders and might indeed constitute a transdiagnostic marker of affective dysregulation, our results indicate that self-esteem instability might be a specific symptom that construes the unique pathology in BPD

ZnS (Mn) Nanoparticles as Luminescent Centers for Siloxane Based Scintillators

Synthesis of oleic acid stabilized ZnS nanocrystals activated with Mn is pursued. A hydrothermal method where high pressure and temperature are applied to control the nanocrystals growth is adopted. Capping the nanoparticle surface with oleic acid (OA) improved light output. Samples loaded with both the phosphor and the neutron sensitizer have been produced and tested in a preliminary test as alpha particle detectors and secondly as thermal neutron detectors. The results support further development for siloxane-based scintillator detectors employing ZnS (Mn) nanoparticles

Natural Language, Mixed-Initiative Personal Assistant Agents

The increasing popularity and use of personal voice assistant technologies, such as Siri and Google Now, is driving and expanding progress toward the long-term and lofty goal of using artificial intelligence to build human-computer dialog systems capable of understanding natural language. While dialog-based systems such as Siri support utterances communicated through natural language, they are limited in the flexibility they afford to the user in interacting with the system and, thus, support primarily action-requesting and information-seeking tasks. Mixed-initiative interaction, on the other hand, is a flexible interaction technique where the user and the system act as equal participants in an activity, and is often exhibited in human-human conversations. In this paper, we study user support for mixed-initiative interaction with dialog-based systems through natural language using a bag-of-words model and k-nearest-neighbor classifier. We study this problem in the context of a toolkit we developed for automated, mixed-initiative dialog system construction, involving a dialog authoring notation and management engine based on lambda calculus, for specifying and implementing task-based, mixed-initiative dialogs. We use ordering at Subway through natural language, human-computer dialogs as a case study. Our results demonstrate that the dialogs authored with our toolkit support the end user\u27s completion of a natural language, human-computer dialog in a mixed-initiative fashion. The use of natural language in the resulting mixed-initiative dialogs afford the user the ability to experience multiple self-directed paths through the dialog and makes the flexibility in communicating user utterances commensurate with that in dialog completion paths---an aspect missing from commercial assistants like Siri

Within- and Between-Persons Effects of Self-Esteem and Affective State as Antecedents and Consequences of Dysfunctional Behaviors in the Everyday Lives of Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder

Dysfunctional behaviors are conceptualized as maladaptive affective coping attempts in borderline personality disorder (BPD). The recent benefits-and-barriers model extended the affective function assumption by adding self-esteem as a barrier to engaging in dysfunctional behaviors. Patients with BPD (N = 119) carried e-diaries to report their current selfesteem, emotional valence, tense arousal, and whether they engaged in dysfunctional behaviors 12 times a day for 4 days. Dynamic structural equation modeling revealed that on the within-person level, high momentary negative affect predicted dysfunctional behaviors, and on the between-person level, low trait self-esteem predicted dysfunctional behaviors. We also found an association between engaging in dysfunctional behaviors and momentary self-esteem and trait levels of valence and tense arousal. Moreover, our results indicate a deterioration of, rather than relief from, negative affective state after dysfunctional behaviors. These findings highlight the importance of emotion-regulation skills and reestablishing a positive self-view as important treatment targets to reduce dysfunctional behaviors in BPD

The effect of customer perceived value on customer satisfaction: a case study of Malay upscale restaurants

Stiff competition and increasingly high operating costs have driven many international and domestic players to introduce new outlet concepts. Malay fine dining, upscale restaurant segment is gaining popularity among Malaysian, especially in Kuala Lumpur. This study examined the effect of perceived value on customer satisfaction in Malay upscale restaurants in terms of emotional responses, monetary prices, behavioral price and reputation. Primary data were gathered from 170 questionnaires returned by respondents from five Malay upscale restaurants in Kuala Lumpur, and statistically analysed using SPSS version 21. The findings of this study revealed that monetary prices had a high positive relationship with customer satisfaction. In addition, the beta value for emotional responses (β=0.530, p<0.01), behavioral price (β=0.180, p<0.01) and reputation (β=0.168, p<0.01) also indicated the respective contributions made to customer satisfaction