1,835 research outputs found
Bootstrapping Monte Carlo Tree Search with an Imperfect Heuristic
We consider the problem of using a heuristic policy to improve the value
approximation by the Upper Confidence Bound applied in Trees (UCT) algorithm in
non-adversarial settings such as planning with large-state space Markov
Decision Processes. Current improvements to UCT focus on either changing the
action selection formula at the internal nodes or the rollout policy at the
leaf nodes of the search tree. In this work, we propose to add an auxiliary arm
to each of the internal nodes, and always use the heuristic policy to roll out
simulations at the auxiliary arms. The method aims to get fast convergence to
optimal values at states where the heuristic policy is optimal, while retaining
similar approximation as the original UCT in other states. We show that
bootstrapping with the proposed method in the new algorithm, UCT-Aux, performs
better compared to the original UCT algorithm and its variants in two benchmark
experiment settings. We also examine conditions under which UCT-Aux works well.Comment: 16 pages, accepted for presentation at ECML'1
Feature-Guided Black-Box Safety Testing of Deep Neural Networks
Despite the improved accuracy of deep neural networks, the discovery of
adversarial examples has raised serious safety concerns. Most existing
approaches for crafting adversarial examples necessitate some knowledge
(architecture, parameters, etc.) of the network at hand. In this paper, we
focus on image classifiers and propose a feature-guided black-box approach to
test the safety of deep neural networks that requires no such knowledge. Our
algorithm employs object detection techniques such as SIFT (Scale Invariant
Feature Transform) to extract features from an image. These features are
converted into a mutable saliency distribution, where high probability is
assigned to pixels that affect the composition of the image with respect to the
human visual system. We formulate the crafting of adversarial examples as a
two-player turn-based stochastic game, where the first player's objective is to
minimise the distance to an adversarial example by manipulating the features,
and the second player can be cooperative, adversarial, or random. We show that,
theoretically, the two-player game can con- verge to the optimal strategy, and
that the optimal strategy represents a globally minimal adversarial image. For
Lipschitz networks, we also identify conditions that provide safety guarantees
that no adversarial examples exist. Using Monte Carlo tree search we gradually
explore the game state space to search for adversarial examples. Our
experiments show that, despite the black-box setting, manipulations guided by a
perception-based saliency distribution are competitive with state-of-the-art
methods that rely on white-box saliency matrices or sophisticated optimization
procedures. Finally, we show how our method can be used to evaluate robustness
of neural networks in safety-critical applications such as traffic sign
recognition in self-driving cars.Comment: 35 pages, 5 tables, 23 figure
Distortion of Gravitational-Wave Packets Due to their Self-Gravity
When a source emits a gravity-wave (GW) pulse over a short period of time,
the leading edge of the GW signal is redshifted more than the inner boundary of
the pulse. The GW pulse is distorted by the gravitational effect of the
self-energy residing in between these shells. We illustrate this distortion for
GW pulses from the final plunge of black hole (BH) binaries, leading to the
evolution of the GW profile as a function of the radial distance from the
source. The distortion depends on the total GW energy released and the duration
of the emission, scaled by the total binary mass, M. The effect should be
relevant in finite box simulations where the waveforms are extracted within a
radius of <~ 100M. For characteristic emission parameters at the final plunge
between binary BHs of arbitrary spins, this effect could distort the simulated
GW templates for LIGO and LISA by a fraction of 0.001. Accounting for the wave
distortion would significantly decrease the waveform extraction errors in
numerical simulations.Comment: accepted for publication in Physical Review
Hydrodynamical Response of a Circumbinary Gas Disk to Black Hole Recoil and Mass Loss
Finding electromagnetic (EM) counterparts of future gravitational wave (GW)
sources would bring rich scientific benefits. A promising possibility, in the
case of the coalescence of a super-massive black hole binary (SMBHB), is that
prompt emission from merger-induced disturbances in a supersonic circumbinary
disk may be detectable. We follow the post-merger evolution of a thin,
zero-viscosity circumbinary gas disk with two-dimensional simulations, using
the hydrodynamic code FLASH. We analyze perturbations arising from the 530 km/s
recoil of a 10^6 M_sun binary, oriented in the plane of the disk, assuming
either an adiabatic or a pseudo-isothermal equation of state for the gas. We
find that a single-armed spiral shock wave forms and propagates outward,
sweeping up about 20% of the mass of the disk. The morphology and evolution of
the perturbations agrees well with those of caustics predicted to occur in a
collisionless disk. Assuming that the disk radiates nearly instantaneously to
maintain a constant temperature, we estimate the amount of dissipation and
corresponding post-merger light-curve. The luminosity rises steadily on the
time-scale of months, and reaches few times 10^{43} erg/s, corresponding to
about 10% of the Eddington luminosity of the central SMBHB. We also analyze the
case in which gravitational wave emission results in a 5% mass loss in the
merger remnant. The mass-loss reduces the shock overdensities and the overall
luminosity of the disk by 15-20%, without any other major effects on the spiral
shock pattern.Comment: 16 pages with 14 figures, submitted to MNRA
KINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF SURFACE AND UNDERWATER FIN-SWIMMING
The aim of the study was to perform a comparative kinematic analysis of surface and underwater fin-swimming. Results of the experiments were obtained in terms of motion as well as maximum and minimum differences between the technique of surface and underwater fin-swimming
Happiness, environmental protection and market economy
The manufacturing sector is leaving the West for Asiaâs low wages and good working culture. Europe would be better off keeping these manufacturing activities, slowing down wage inflation and what is more, letting a young, cheaper workforce from the East settle down within their borders. This would aid in preserving the diverse economic structure which has been characteristic for Europe.Beside the economic growth there are two more concepts which have turned into the âholy cowsâ of economics during the last fifty years. One is the need to constantly improve labor productivity and the other is increasing competitiveness of nations. The high labor productivity of some countries, induces severe unemployment in the globalized world. In the other hand it is high time we understood that it is not competition, but cooperation that brings more happiness to humanity.Should we still opt for âhappinessâ and âsanityâ, it is quite obvious that we all should, in economistsâ terms, define our individual welfare functions corresponding to our own set of values, staying free from the influence of media, advertisements and fashion. The cornerstone to all this is the intelligent citizen who prefers local goods and services
Giant magneto-optical response in non-magnetic semiconductor BiTeI driven by bulk Rashba spin splitting
We study the magneto-optical (MO) response of polar semiconductor BiTeI with
giant bulk Rashba spin splitting at various carrier densities. Despite being
non-magnetic, the material is found to yield a huge MO activity in the infrared
region under moderate magnetic fields (<3 T). By comparison with
first-principles calculations, we show that such an enhanced MO response is
mainly due to the intraband transitions between the Rashba-split bulk
conduction bands in BiTeI, which give rise to distinct novel features and
systematic doping dependence of the MO spectra. We further predict an even more
pronounced enhancement in the low-energy MO response and dc Hall effect near
the crossing (Dirac) point of the conduction bands
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