Learning on a Budget via Teacher Imitation

Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques can benefit greatly from leveraging prior experience, which can be either self-generated or acquired from other entities. Action advising is a framework that provides a flexible way to transfer such knowledge in the form of actions between teacher-student peers. However, due to the realistic concerns, the number of these interactions is limited with a budget; therefore, it is crucial to perform these in the most appropriate moments. There have been several promising studies recently that address this problem setting especially from the student's perspective. Despite their success, they have some shortcomings when it comes to the practical applicability and integrity as an overall solution to the learning from advice challenge. In this paper, we extend the idea of advice reusing via teacher imitation to construct a unified approach that addresses both advice collection and advice utilisation problems. We also propose a method to automatically tune the relevant hyperparameters of these components on-the-fly to make it able to adapt to any task with minimal human intervention. The experiments we performed in 5 different Atari games verify that our algorithm either surpasses or performs on-par with its top competitors while being far simpler to be employed. Furthermore, its individual components are also found to be providing significant advantages alone

Cloning and expression of feline colony stimulating factor receptor (CSF-1R) and analysis of the species specificity of stimulation by colony stimulating factor-1 (CSF-1) and interleukin-34 (IL-34).

AbstractColony stimulating factor (CSF-1) and its receptor, CSF-1R, have been previously well studied in humans and rodents to dissect the role they play in development of cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system. A second ligand for the CSF-1R, IL-34 has been described in several species. In this study, we have cloned and expressed the feline CSF-1R and examined the responsiveness to CSF-1 and IL-34 from a range of species. The results indicate that pig and human CSF-1 and human IL-34 are equally effective in cats, where both mouse CSF-1 and IL-34 are significantly less active. Recombinant human CSF-1 can be used to generate populations of feline bone marrow and monocyte derived macrophages that can be used to further dissect macrophage-specific gene expression in this species, and to compare it to data derived from mouse, human and pig. These results set the scene for therapeutic use of CSF-1 and IL-34 in cats

Why Do Pro Forma and Street Earnings not Reflect Changes in GAAP? Evidence From SFAS 123R

This study examines how key market participants—managers and analysts—responded to SFAS 123R’s controversial requirement that firms recognize stock-based compensation expense. Despite mandated recognition of the expense, some firms’ managers exclude it from pro forma earnings and some firms’ analysts exclude it from Street earnings. We find evidence consistent with managers opportunistically excluding the expense to increase earnings, smooth earnings, and meet earnings benchmarks but no evidence that these exclusions result in an earnings measure that better predicts future firm performance. In contrast, we find that analysts exclude the expense from earnings forecasts when exclusion increases earnings’ predictive ability for future performance and that opportunism generally does not explain exclusion by analysts incremental to exclusion by managers. Thus our findings indicate that opportunism is the primary explanation for exclusion of the expense from pro forma earnings and predictive ability is the primary explanation for exclusion from Street earnings. Our findings suggest the controversy surrounding the recognition of stock-based compensation expense may be attributable to cross-sectional variation in the relevance of the expense for equity valuation, as well as to differing incentives of market participants

Proton irradiation of a swept charge device at cryogenic temperature and the subsequent annealing

A number of studies have demonstrated that a room temperature proton irradiation may not be sufficient to provide an accurate estimation of the impact of the space radiation environment on detector performance. This is a result of the relationship between defect mobility and temperature, causing the performance to vary subject to the temperature history of the device from the point at which it was irradiated. Results measured using Charge Coupled Devices (CCD) irradiated at room temperature therefore tend to differ from those taken when the device was irradiated at a cryogenic temperature, more appropriate considering the operating conditions in space, impacting the prediction of in-flight performance. This paper describes the cryogenic irradiation, and subsequent annealing of an e2v technologies Swept Charge Device (SCD) CCD236 irradiated at −35.4°C with a 10 MeV equivalent proton fluence of 5.0 × 108 protons centerdot cm−2. The CCD236 is a large area (4.4 cm2) X-ray detector that will be flown on-board the Chandrayaan-2 and Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope spacecraft, in the Chandrayaan-2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer and the Soft X-ray Detector respectively. The SCD is readout continually in order to benefit from intrinsic dither mode clocking, leading to suppression of the surface component of the dark current and allowing the detector to be operated at warmer temperatures than a conventional CCD. The SCD is therefore an excellent choice to test and demonstrate the variation in the impact of irradiation at cryogenic temperatures in comparison to a more typical room temperature irradiation

Evidence for salt glands in the Triassic reptile Diademodon (Therapsida; Cynodontia)

Main articleFossilised skulls of Diademodon exhibit rostral depressions which may have housed salt glands. The possible functions of salt glands in this advanced cynodont are examined. Diademodon appears to have been more reptilian than mammalian in its general physiological organisation.the Chairman's Fund of the Anglo American Corporation, the S. L. Sive Memorial Travelling Fellowship, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, the Medical Referees Fund of the Department of Anatom,. Medical School, and the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, University of the Witwatersran

The effects of charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) on galaxy shape measurements

(Abridged) We examine the effects of charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) during CCD readout on galaxy shape measurements required by studies of weak gravitational lensing. We simulate a CCD readout with CTI such as that caused by charged particle radiation damage. We verify our simulations on data from laboratory-irradiated CCDs. Only charge traps with time constants of the same order as the time between row transfers during readout affect galaxy shape measurements. We characterize the effects of CTI on various galaxy populations. We baseline our study around p-channel CCDs that have been shown to have charge transfer efficiency up to an order of magnitude better than several models of n-channel CCDs designed for space applications. We predict that for galaxies furthest from the readout registers, bias in the measurement of galaxy shapes, Delta(e), will increase at a rate of 2.65 +/- 0.02 x 10^(-4) per year at L2 for accumulated radiation exposure averaged over the solar cycle. If uncorrected, this will consume the entire shape measurement error budget of a dark energy mission within about 4 years. Software mitigation techniques demonstrated elsewhere can reduce this by a factor of ~10, bringing the effect well below mission requirements. CCDs with higher CTI than the ones we studeied may not meet the requirements of future dark energy missions. We discuss ways in which hardware could be designed to further minimize the impact of CTI.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, and 2 tables. Accepted for publication in PAS

Accumulation at South Pole: Comparison of two 900-year records

This is the published version, also available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/1999JD900501.Two 900-year records of annual accumulation at South Pole are compared to evaluate the origin and significance of observed variations. Despite difficulties establishing absolute timescales, due to problems identifying annual layer markers, the two records can be correlated with confidence after moderate smoothing. This correlation shows that over the time period considered (1050–1956 A.D.) no climatically significant changes in accumulation occurred. Instead, fluctuations preserved in the two cores reflect spatial variations in snow accumulation, associated with nonuniform deposition induced by surface relief on the scale of several kilometers

Role of Chronotype on Vascular Insulin Sensitivity in Adults with Obesity

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Representing aggregate works in the digital library

This paper studies the challenge of representing aggregate works such as encyclopedias, collected poems and journals in heterogenous digital library collections. Reflecting on the materials used by humanities academics, we demonstrate the varied range of aggregate types and the problems of faithfully representing this in the DL interface. Aggregates are complex and pervasive, challenge common assumptions and confuse boundaries within organisational structures. Existing DL systems can only provide imperfect representation of aggregates, and alterations to document encoding are insufficient to create a faithful reproduction of the physical library. The challenge is amplified through concrete examples, and solutions are demonstrated in a well-known DL system and related to standard DL architecture