9,117 research outputs found
The invisible power of fairness. How machine learning shapes democracy
Many machine learning systems make extensive use of large amounts of data
regarding human behaviors. Several researchers have found various
discriminatory practices related to the use of human-related machine learning
systems, for example in the field of criminal justice, credit scoring and
advertising. Fair machine learning is therefore emerging as a new field of
study to mitigate biases that are inadvertently incorporated into algorithms.
Data scientists and computer engineers are making various efforts to provide
definitions of fairness. In this paper, we provide an overview of the most
widespread definitions of fairness in the field of machine learning, arguing
that the ideas highlighting each formalization are closely related to different
ideas of justice and to different interpretations of democracy embedded in our
culture. This work intends to analyze the definitions of fairness that have
been proposed to date to interpret the underlying criteria and to relate them
to different ideas of democracy.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, preprint version, submitted to The 32nd Canadian
Conference on Artificial Intelligence that will take place in Kingston,
Ontario, May 28 to May 31, 201
Three-dimensional carrier-dynamics simulation of terahertz emission from photoconductive switches
A semi-classical Monte Carlo model for studying three-dimensional carrier
dynamics in photoconductive switches is presented. The model was used to
simulate the process of photoexcitation in GaAs-based photoconductive antennas
illuminated with pulses typical of mode-locked Ti:Sapphire lasers. We analyzed
the power and frequency bandwidth of THz radiation emitted from these devices
as a function of bias voltage, pump pulse duration and pump pulse location. We
show that the mechanisms limiting the THz power emitted from photoconductive
switches fall into two regimes: when illuminated with short duration (<40 fs)
laser pulses the energy distribution of the Gaussian pulses constrains the
emitted power, while for long (>40 fs) pulses, screening is the primary
power-limiting mechanism. A discussion of the dynamics of bias field screening
in the gap region is presented. The emitted terahertz power was found to be
enhanced when the exciting laser pulse was in close proximity to the anode of
the photoconductive emitter, in agreement with experimental results. We show
that this enhancement arises from the electric field distribution within the
emitter combined with a difference in the mobilities of electrons and holes.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
On the Number of Iterations for Dantzig-Wolfe Optimization and Packing-Covering Approximation Algorithms
We give a lower bound on the iteration complexity of a natural class of
Lagrangean-relaxation algorithms for approximately solving packing/covering
linear programs. We show that, given an input with random 0/1-constraints
on variables, with high probability, any such algorithm requires
iterations to compute a
-approximate solution, where is the width of the input.
The bound is tight for a range of the parameters .
The algorithms in the class include Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition, Benders'
decomposition, Lagrangean relaxation as developed by Held and Karp [1971] for
lower-bounding TSP, and many others (e.g. by Plotkin, Shmoys, and Tardos [1988]
and Grigoriadis and Khachiyan [1996]). To prove the bound, we use a discrepancy
argument to show an analogous lower bound on the support size of
-approximate mixed strategies for random two-player zero-sum
0/1-matrix games
The elusive old population of the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo I
We report the discovery of a significant old population in the dwarf
spheroidal (dSph) galaxy Leo I as a result of a wide-area search with the ESO
New Technology Telescope. Studies of the stellar content of Local Group dwarf
galaxies have shown the presence of an old stellar population in almost all of
the dwarf spheroidals. The only exception was Leo I, which alone appeared to
have delayed its initial star formation episode until just a few Gyr ago. The
color-magnitude diagram of Leo I now reveals an extended horizontal branch,
unambiguously indicating the presence of an old, metal-poor population in the
outer regions of this galaxy. Yet we find little evidence for a stellar
population gradient, at least outside R > 2' (0.16 kpc), since the old
horizontal branch stars of Leo I are radially distributed as their more
numerous intermediate-age helium-burning counterparts. The discovery of a
definitely old population in the predominantly young dwarf spheroidal galaxy
Leo I points to a sharply defined first epoch of star formation common to all
of the Local Group dSph's as well as to the halo of the Milky Way.Comment: 4 pages, 3 postscript figures, uses apjfonts.sty, emulateapj.sty.
Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
NiO: Correlated Bandstructure of a Charge-Transfer Insulator
The bandstructure of the prototypical charge-transfer insulator NiO is
computed by using a combination of an {\it ab initio} bandstructure method and
the dynamical mean-field theory with a quantum Monte-Carlo impurity solver.
Employing a Hamiltonian which includes both Ni-d and O-p orbitals we find
excellent agreement with the energy bands determined from angle-resolved
photoemission spectroscopy. This solves a long-standing problem in solid state
theory. Most notably we obtain the low-energy Zhang-Rice bands with strongly
k-dependent orbital character discussed previously in the context of low-energy
model theories.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figur
Using state space differential geometry for nonlinear blind source separation
Given a time series of multicomponent measurements of an evolving stimulus,
nonlinear blind source separation (BSS) seeks to find a "source" time series,
comprised of statistically independent combinations of the measured components.
In this paper, we seek a source time series with local velocity cross
correlations that vanish everywhere in stimulus state space. However, in an
earlier paper the local velocity correlation matrix was shown to constitute a
metric on state space. Therefore, nonlinear BSS maps onto a problem of
differential geometry: given the metric observed in the measurement coordinate
system, find another coordinate system in which the metric is diagonal
everywhere. We show how to determine if the observed data are separable in this
way, and, if they are, we show how to construct the required transformation to
the source coordinate system, which is essentially unique except for an unknown
rotation that can be found by applying the methods of linear BSS. Thus, the
proposed technique solves nonlinear BSS in many situations or, at least,
reduces it to linear BSS, without the use of probabilistic, parametric, or
iterative procedures. This paper also describes a generalization of this
methodology that performs nonlinear independent subspace separation. In every
case, the resulting decomposition of the observed data is an intrinsic property
of the stimulus' evolution in the sense that it does not depend on the way the
observer chooses to view it (e.g., the choice of the observing machine's
sensors). In other words, the decomposition is a property of the evolution of
the "real" stimulus that is "out there" broadcasting energy to the observer.
The technique is illustrated with analytic and numerical examples.Comment: Contains 14 pages and 3 figures. For related papers, see
http://www.geocities.com/dlevin2001/ . New version is identical to original
version except for URL in the bylin
Normalized power priors always discount historical data
Power priors are used for incorporating historical data in Bayesian analyses by taking the likelihood of the historical data raised to the power α as the prior distribution for the model parameters. The power parameter α is typically unknown and assigned a prior distribution, most commonly a beta distribution. Here, we give a novel theoretical result on the resulting marginal posterior distribution of α in case of the normal and binomial model. Counterintuitively, when the current data perfectly mirror the historical data and the sample sizes from both data sets become arbitrarily large, the marginal posterior of α does not converge to a point mass at α=1 but approaches a distribution that hardly differs from the prior. The result implies that a complete pooling of historical and current data is impossible if a power prior with beta prior for α is used
Atomic and itinerant effects at the transition metal x-ray absorption K-pre-edge exemplified in the case of VO
X-ray absorption spectroscopy is a well established tool for obtaining
information about orbital and spin degrees of freedom in transition metal- and
rare earth-compounds. For this purpose usually the dipole transitions of the L-
(2p to 3d) and M- (3d to 4f) edges are employed, whereas higher order
transitions such as quadrupolar 1s to 3d in the K-edge are rarely studied in
that respect. This is due to the fact that usually such quadrupolar transitions
are overshadowed by dipole allowed 1s to 4p transitions and, hence, are visible
only as minor features in the pre-edge region. Nonetheless, these features
carry a lot of valuable information, similar to the dipole L-edge transition,
which is not accessible in experiments under pressure due to the absorption of
the diamond anvil pressurecell. We recently performed a theoretical and
experimental analysis of such a situation for the metal insulator transition of
(V(1-x)Crx)2O3. Since the importance of the orbital degrees of freedom in this
transition is widely accepted, a thorough understanding of quadrupole
transitions of the vanadium K-pre-edge provides crucial information about the
underlying physics. Moreover, the lack of inversion symetry at the vanadium
site leads to onsite mixing of vanadium 3d- and 4p- states and related quantum
mechanical interferences between dipole and quadrupole transitions. Here we
present a theoretical analysis of experimental high resolution x-ray absorption
spectroscopy at the V pre-K edge measured in partial fluorescence yield mode
for single crystals. We carried out density functional as well as configuration
interaction calculations in order to capture effects coming from both,
itinerant and atomic limits
First principles investigations of the electronic, magnetic and chemical bonding properties of CeTSn (T=Rh,Ru)
The electronic structures of CeRhSn and CeRuSn are self-consistently
calculated within density functional theory using the local spin density
approximation for exchange and correlation. In agreement with experimental
findings, the analyses of the electronic structures and of the chemical bonding
properties point to the absence of magnetization within the mixed valent Rh
based system while a finite magnetic moment is observed for trivalent cerium
within the Ru-based stannide, which contains both trivalent and intermediate
valent Ce.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, for more information see
http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/~eyert
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