Stochastic Reinforcement Learning

In reinforcement learning episodes, the rewards and punishments are often non-deterministic, and there are invariably stochastic elements governing the underlying situation. Such stochastic elements are often numerous and cannot be known in advance, and they have a tendency to obscure the underlying rewards and punishments patterns. Indeed, if stochastic elements were absent, the same outcome would occur every time and the learning problems involved could be greatly simplified. In addition, in most practical situations, the cost of an observation to receive either a reward or punishment can be significant, and one would wish to arrive at the correct learning conclusion by incurring minimum cost. In this paper, we present a stochastic approach to reinforcement learning which explicitly models the variability present in the learning environment and the cost of observation. Criteria and rules for learning success are quantitatively analyzed, and probabilities of exceeding the observation cost bounds are also obtained.Comment: AIKE 201

The magnetic dipole transitions in the (cbˉ)(c\bar{b}) binding system

The magnetic dipole transitions between the vector mesons $B_c^*$ and their relevant pseudoscalar mesons $B_c$ ($B_c$, $B_c^*$, $B_c(2S)$, $B_c^*(2S)$, $B_c(3S)$ and $B_c^*(3S)$ etc, the binding states of $(c\bar{b})$ system) of the $B_c$ family are interesting. To see the `hyperfine' splitting due to spin-spin interaction is an important topic for understanding the spin-spin interaction and the spectrum of the the $(c\bar{b})$ binding system. The knowledge about the magnetic dipole transitions is also very useful for identifying the vector boson $B_c^*$ mesons experimentally, whose masses are just slightly above the masses of their relevant pseudoscalar mesons $B_c$ accordingly. Considering the possibility to observe the vector mesons via the transitions at $Z^0$ factory and the potentially usages of the theoretical estimate on the transitions, we fucus our efforts on calculating the magnetic dipole transitions, i.e. precisely to calculate the rates for the transitions such as decays $B_c^*\to B_c\gamma$ and $B_c^*\to B_c e^+e^-$, and particularly work in the Behte-Salpeter framework. In the estimate, as a typical example, we carefully investigate the dependance of the rate $\Gamma(B_c^*\to B_c\gamma)$ on the mass difference $\Delta M=M_{B_c^*}-M_{B_c}$ as well.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

Search for Bc(ns)B_c(ns) via the Bc(ns)→Bc(ms)π+π−B_c(ns)\to B_c(ms)\pi^+\pi^- transition at LHCb and Z0Z_0 factory

It is interesting to study the characteristics of the whole family of $B_c$ which contains two different heavy flavors. LHC and the proposed $Z^0$ factory provide an opportunity because a large database on the $B_c$ family will be achieved. $B_c$ and its excited states can be identified via their decay modes. As suggested by experimentalists, $B_c^*(ns)\to B_c+\gamma$ is not easy to be clearly measured, instead, the trajectories of $\pi^+$ and $\pi^-$ occurring in the decay of $B_c(ns)\to B_c(ms)+\pi^+\pi^-$ ($n>m$) can be unambiguously identified, thus the measurement seems easier and more reliable, therefore this mode is more favorable at early running stage of LHCb and the proposed $Z^0$ factory. In this work, we calculate the rate of $B_c(ns)\to B_c(ms)+\pi^+\pi^-$ in terms of the QCD multipole-expansion and the numerical results indicate that the experimental measurements with the luminosity of LHC and $Z^0$ factory are feasible.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figures and 4 tables, acceptted by SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy (Science in China Series G

Variational data assimilation for the initial-value dynamo problem

The secular variation of the geomagnetic field as observed at the Earth's surface results from the complex magnetohydrodynamics taking place in the fluid core of the Earth. One way to analyze this system is to use the data in concert with an underlying dynamical model of the system through the technique of variational data assimilation, in much the same way as is employed in meteorology and oceanography. The aim is to discover an optimal initial condition that leads to a trajectory of the system in agreement with observations. Taking the Earth's core to be an electrically conducting fluid sphere in which convection takes place, we develop the continuous adjoint forms of the magnetohydrodynamic equations that govern the dynamical system together with the corresponding numerical algorithms appropriate for a fully spectral method. These adjoint equations enable a computationally fast iterative improvement of the initial condition that determines the system evolution. The initial condition depends on the three dimensional form of quantities such as the magnetic field in the entire sphere. For the magnetic field, conservation of the divergence-free condition for the adjoint magnetic field requires the introduction of an adjoint pressure term satisfying a zero boundary condition. We thus find that solving the forward and adjoint dynamo system requires different numerical algorithms. In this paper, an efficient algorithm for numerically solving this problem is developed and tested for two illustrative problems in a whole sphere: one is a kinematic problem with prescribed velocity field, and the second is associated with the Hall-effect dynamo, exhibiting considerable nonlinearity. The algorithm exhibits reliable numerical accuracy and stability. Using both the analytical and the numerical techniques of this paper, the adjoint dynamo system can be solved directly with the same order of computational complexity as that required to solve the forward problem. These numerical techniques form a foundation for ultimate application to observations of the geomagnetic field over the time scale of centuries

Azimuth sidelobes suppression using multi-azimuth angle synthetic aperture radar images

A novel method is proposed for azimuth sidelobes suppression using multi-pass squinted (MPS) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. For MPS SAR, the radar observes the scene with different squint angles and heights on each pass. The MPS SAR mode acquisition geometry is given first. Then, 2D signals are focused and the images are registered to the master image. Based on the new signal model, elevation processing and incoherent addition are introduced in detail, which are the main parts for azimuth sidelobes suppression. Moreover, parameter design criteria in incoherent addition are derived for the best performance. With the proposed parameter optimization step, the new method has a prominent azimuth sidelobes suppression effect with a slightly better azimuth resolution, as verified by experimental results on both simulated point targets and TerraSAR-X data

Finite dimensional quantizations of the (q,p) plane : new space and momentum inequalities

We present a N-dimensional quantization a la Berezin-Klauder or frame quantization of the complex plane based on overcomplete families of states (coherent states) generated by the N first harmonic oscillator eigenstates. The spectra of position and momentum operators are finite and eigenvalues are equal, up to a factor, to the zeros of Hermite polynomials. From numerical and theoretical studies of the large $N$ behavior of the product $\lambda\_m(N) \lambda\_M(N)$ of non null smallest positive and largest eigenvalues, we infer the inequality $\delta\_N(Q) \Delta\_N(Q) = \sigma\_N \overset{<}{\underset{N \to \infty}{\to}} 2 \pi$ (resp. $\delta\_N(P) \Delta\_N(P) = \sigma\_N \overset{<}{\underset{N \to \infty}{\to}} 2 \pi$) involving, in suitable units, the minimal ($\delta\_N(Q)$) and maximal ($\Delta\_N(Q)$) sizes of regions of space (resp. momentum) which are accessible to exploration within this finite-dimensional quantum framework. Interesting issues on the measurement process and connections with the finite Chern-Simons matrix model for the Quantum Hall effect are discussed

Transactive Memory System, Job Competence and Individual Performance

The purpose of this paper is to understand important variables that impact individual performance within a team. This will enhance knowledge management within a team context and facilitate competence development of individuals. This research proposes and examines a multi-level model which elaborates how transactive memory system and job competence (i.e., technology competence and teamwork competence) affect individual performance. An empirical study was conducted with 19 teams of television news reporters, with 211 valid survey responses. Hierarchical linear modeling was applied to analyze the data. The result indicated that transactive memory system and technology competence helped to improve a reporter’s job performance. Furthermore, the relationships were fully mediated by teamwork competence. Our findings thus suggest teamwork competence is the core. Neither technology competence nor transactive memory system will necessarily translate directly into enhanced individual performance. Therefore, for organizational investment on transactive memory system and digital technologies to take effect, management should help develop the employee’s teamwork competence

Counter Chemotactic Flow in Quasi-One-Dimensional Path

Quasi-one-dimensional bidirectional particle flow including the effect of chemotaxis is investigated through a modification of the John-Schadschneider-Chowdhury-Nishinari model. Specifically, we permit multiple lanes to be shared by both directionally traveling particles. The relation between particle density and flux is studied for several evaporation rates of pheromone, and the following results are obtained: i) in the low-particle-density range, the flux is enlarged by pheromone if the pheromone evaporation rate is sufficiently low, ii) in the high particle-density range, the flux is largest at a reasonably high evaporation rate and, iii) if the evaporation rate is at the level intermediate between the above two cases, the flux is kept small in the entire range of particle densities. The mechanism of these behaviors is investigated by observing the spatial-temporal evolution of particles and the average cluster size in the system.Comment: 4 pages, 9 figure

GenDet: Meta Learning to Generate Detectors From Few Shots

Object detection has made enormous progress and has been widely used in many applications. However, it performs poorly when only limited training data is available for novel classes that the model has never seen before. Most existing approaches solve few-shot detection tasks implicitly without directly modeling the detectors for novel classes. In this article, we propose GenDet, a new meta-learning-based framework that can effectively generate object detectors for novel classes from few shots and, thus, conducts few-shot detection tasks explicitly. The detector generator is trained by numerous few-shot detection tasks sampled from base classes each with sufficient samples, and thus, it is expected to generalize well on novel classes. An adaptive pooling module is further introduced to suppress distracting samples and aggregate the detectors generated from multiple shots. Moreover, we propose to train a reference detector for each base class in the conventional way, with which to guide the training of the detector generator. The reference detectors and the detector generator can be trained simultaneously. Finally, the generated detectors of different classes are encouraged to be orthogonal to each other for better generalization. The proposed approach is extensively evaluated on the ImageNet, VOC, and COCO data sets under various few-shot detection settings, and it achieves new state-of-the-art results

Cancellation of Infrared Divergences in Hadronic Annihilation Decays of Heavy Quarkonia

In the framework of a newly developed factorization formalism which is based on NRQCD, explicit cancellations are shown for the infrared divergences that appeared in the previously calculated hadronic annihilation decay rates of P-wave and D-wave heavy quarkonia. We extend them to a more general case that to leading order in $v^2$ and next-to-leading order in $\alpha_s$, the infrared divergences in the annihilation amplitudes of color-singlet $Q\bar{Q}(^{2S+1}L_J)$ pair can be removed by including the contributions of color-octet operators $Q\bar{Q}(^{2S+1}(L-1)_{J'})$, $Q\bar{Q}(^{2S+1}(L-3)_{J''})$, ... in NRQCD. We also give the decay widths of $^3D_J\rightarrow LH$ at leading order in $\alpha_s$.Comment: 8 pages, LaTex(3 figures included), to be publishe