44 research outputs found
Off-Policy Actor-Critic with Emphatic Weightings
A variety of theoretically-sound policy gradient algorithms exist for the
on-policy setting due to the policy gradient theorem, which provides a
simplified form for the gradient. The off-policy setting, however, has been
less clear due to the existence of multiple objectives and the lack of an
explicit off-policy policy gradient theorem. In this work, we unify these
objectives into one off-policy objective, and provide a policy gradient theorem
for this unified objective. The derivation involves emphatic weightings and
interest functions. We show multiple strategies to approximate the gradients,
in an algorithm called Actor Critic with Emphatic weightings (ACE). We prove in
a counterexample that previous (semi-gradient) off-policy actor-critic
methods--particularly Off-Policy Actor-Critic (OffPAC) and Deterministic Policy
Gradient (DPG)--converge to the wrong solution whereas ACE finds the optimal
solution. We also highlight why these semi-gradient approaches can still
perform well in practice, suggesting strategies for variance reduction in ACE.
We empirically study several variants of ACE on two classic control
environments and an image-based environment designed to illustrate the
tradeoffs made by each gradient approximation. We find that by approximating
the emphatic weightings directly, ACE performs as well as or better than OffPAC
in all settings tested.Comment: 63 page
Label Alignment Regularization for Distribution Shift
Recent work reported the label alignment property in a supervised learning
setting: the vector of all labels in the dataset is mostly in the span of the
top few singular vectors of the data matrix. Inspired by this observation, we
derive a regularization method for unsupervised domain adaptation. Instead of
regularizing representation learning as done by popular domain adaptation
methods, we regularize the classifier so that the target domain predictions can
to some extent ``align" with the top singular vectors of the unsupervised data
matrix from the target domain. In a linear regression setting, we theoretically
justify the label alignment property and characterize the optimality of the
solution of our regularization by bounding its distance to the optimal
solution. We conduct experiments to show that our method can work well on the
label shift problems, where classic domain adaptation methods are known to
fail. We also report mild improvement over domain adaptation baselines on a set
of commonly seen MNIST-USPS domain adaptation tasks and on cross-lingual
sentiment analysis tasks
The Tunnel Effect: Building Data Representations in Deep Neural Networks
Deep neural networks are widely known for their remarkable effectiveness
across various tasks, with the consensus that deeper networks implicitly learn
more complex data representations. This paper shows that sufficiently deep
networks trained for supervised image classification split into two distinct
parts that contribute to the resulting data representations differently. The
initial layers create linearly-separable representations, while the subsequent
layers, which we refer to as \textit{the tunnel}, compress these
representations and have a minimal impact on the overall performance. We
explore the tunnel's behavior through comprehensive empirical studies,
highlighting that it emerges early in the training process. Its depth depends
on the relation between the network's capacity and task complexity.
Furthermore, we show that the tunnel degrades out-of-distribution
generalization and discuss its implications for continual learning.Comment: NeurIPS 202
Sonographic and functional characteristics of thyroid nodules in a population of adult people in Isfahan
Wst臋p: Celem badania by艂a ocena cech sonograficznych zmian ogniskowych tarczycy u mieszka艅c贸w Isfahanu, obszaru w cenralnym
Iranie, kt贸ry wcze艣niej charakteryzowa艂 si臋 niedoborem jodu.
Materia艂 i metody: W przekrojowym badaniu przeprowadzonym w 2006 roku wybrano pr贸b臋 licz膮c膮 2523 doros艂ych os贸b (wiek > 20 lat)
metod膮 wielostopniowego losowania grupowego. Spo艣r贸d tej grupy, 263 ochotnik贸w poddano badaniom sonograficznym. Badanie tarczycy
przeprowadzili do艣wiadczeni specjali艣ci w zakresie ultrasonografii. Ponadto oznaczono st臋偶enia T3, T4, T3RU, TSH, TPO Ab
i Tg Ab w surowicy oraz wydalanie jodu z moczem.
Wyniki: Kobiety stanowi艂y 46% grupy poddanej badaniom sonograficznym (n = 263). 艢rednia wieku wynosi艂a 35,5 lat (zakres 20-64 lat).
Mediana st臋偶enia jodu w moczu wynosi艂a 19.4 μg/dl. Obecno艣膰 zmian ogniskowych tarczycy wykazano w badaniu sonograficznym
u 22,4% os贸b z badanej grupy; u 30% kobiet i 16,3% m臋偶czyzn (OR = 2,2; p = 0,01). Cz臋sto艣膰 wyst臋powania zmian ogniskowych tarczycy
zwi臋ksza艂a si臋 z wiekiem (p = 0,006). Zmiany ogniskowe tarczycy wyst臋powa艂y cz臋艣ciej u os贸b z niedoczynno艣ci膮 tarczycy ni偶 w grupie
z eutyreoz膮 (35,1% v. 20,5%, OR = 2,1; p = 0,04). Nie stwierdzono korelacji mi臋dzy st臋偶eniem jodu w moczu ani st臋偶eniem autoprzeciwcia艂
a wyst臋powaniem zmian ogniskowych tarczycy w badaniu sonograficznym.
Wnioski: Cz臋sto艣膰 wyst臋powania zmian ogniskowych tarczycy oceniana na podstawie wynik贸w badania sonograficznego jest nadal
du偶a w badanej populacji, mimo prawid艂owego st臋偶enia jodu w moczu. (Endokrynol Pol 2010; 61 (2): 188-191)Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate the current status of sonographic characteristics of thyroid nodules in Isfahan,
a previously iodine deficient area in central Iran.
Material and methods: In a cross-sectional study conducted in 2006, 2523 adult people (age > 20 years) were selected by a multistage
clustering sampling method. Of these people, 263 volunteered persons were underwent sonographic evaluation. Thyroid examination
was done by two expert sonographers. Serum T3, T3, T3RU, TSH, TPO Ab and Tg Ab, and urinary iodine were measured.
Results: Forty-six per cent of the 263 people were women. Their mean age was 35.5 years with a range of 20-64 years. Median urinary
iodine was 19.4 μg/dL. The prevalence of thyroid nodules on sonography was 22.4% in the whole group; 30% in women and 16.3% in men
(OR = 2.2, P = 0.01). The prevalence of thyroid nodules increased with age (P = 0.006). The prevalence of thyroid nodules was higher in
hypothyroid people than in euthyroid people (35.1% v. 20.5%, OR = 2.1, P = 0.04). Neither urinary iodine nor autoantibody concentrations
correlated with the prevalence of thyroid nodules in sonography.
Conclusions: The prevalence of thyroid nodule by sonography is still high despite relatively normal urinary iodine in this population.
(Pol J Endocrinol 2010; 61 (2): 188-191
Does increased Nitric Oxide production and oxidative stress due to high fat diet affect cardiac function after myocardial infarction?
Background &Objectives: High fat (HF) diet by affecting the oxidative stress and nitric oxide (NO) production may lead to different effects on function of the heart after myocardial infarction (MI). In the present study we aimed to address the hypothesis that high release of NO by activated macrophages affects LV function after MI.Methods: The animals were randomly divided into four groups comprising each of 10 rats: 1) Sham; 2) MI; 3) Sham+ HF diet; 4) MI+ HF diet. Animals fed with HF diet 30 days before sham and MI surgery. MI was induced by permanent ligation of left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD). Nitric oxide (NO) production of peritoneal macrophages, the concentrations of MDA in the heart and the infarct size were measured.Results: Our study indicated that HF has adverse effects on myocardium and it may increase NO production as well as oxidative stress, resulting in augmentation of infarct size.Conclusion: Our results add to our knowledge that HF diet was associated with overproduction of NO by peritoneal macrophages and ROS that lead to development of infarct size and adverse remodeling