TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you are given a part of an article. Your task is to generate headline (title) for this text. Preferred headlines are under fifteen words.
PROBLEM: In this paper we study lifted inference for the Weighted First-Order Model Counting problem (WFOMC), which counts the assignments that satisfy a given sentence in firstorder logic (FOL); it has applications in Statistical Relational Learning (SRL) and Probabilistic Databases (PDB). We present several results. First, we describe a lifted inference algorithm that generalizes prior approaches in SRL and PDB. Second, we provide a novel dichotomy result for a non-trivial fragment of FO CNF sentences, showing that for each sentence the WFOMC problem is either in PTIME or #P-hard in the size of the input domain; we prove that, in the first case our algorithm solves the WFOMC problem in PTIME, and in the second case it fails. Third, we present several properties of the algorithm. Finally, we discuss limitations of lifted inference for symmetric probabilistic databases (where the weights of ground literals depend only on the relation name, and not on the constants of the domain), and prove the impossibility of a dichotomy result for the complexity of probabilistic inference for the entire language FOL.

SOLUTION: Understanding the Complexity of Lifted Inference and Asymmetric Weighted Model Counting

PROBLEM: Topic models provide a useful method for dimensionality reduction and exploratory data<lb>analysis in large text corpora. Most approaches to topic model inference have been based on<lb>a maximum likelihood objective. Efficient algorithms exist that approximate this objective,<lb>but they have no provable guarantees. Recently, algorithms have been introduced that provide<lb>provable bounds, but these algorithms are not practical because they are inefficient and not ro-<lb>bust to violations of model assumptions. In this paper we present an algorithm for topic model<lb>inference that is both provable and practical. The algorithm produces results comparable to the<lb>best MCMC implementations while running orders of magnitude faster.

SOLUTION: A Practical Algorithm for Topic Modeling with Provable Guarantees

PROBLEM: The current trends in next-generation exascale systems go towards integrating a wide range of specialized (co-)processors into traditional supercomputers. Due to the efficiency of heterogeneous systems in terms of Watts and FLOPS per surface unit, opening the access of heterogeneous platforms to a wider range of users is an important problem to be tackled. However, heterogeneous platforms limit the portability of the applications and increase development complexity due to the programming skills required. Program transformation can help make programming heterogeneous systems easier by defining a step-wise transformation process that translates a given initial code into a semantically equivalent final code, but adapted to a specific platform. Program transformation systems require the definition of efficient transformation strategies to tackle the combinatorial problem that emerges due to the large set of transformations applicable at each step of the process. In this paper we propose a machine learning-based approach to learn heuristics to define program transformation strategies. Our approach proposes a novel combination of reinforcement learning and classification methods to efficiently tackle the problems inherent to this type of systems. Preliminary results demonstrate the suitability of this approach.

SOLUTION:
Towards Automatic Learning of Heuristics for Mechanical Transformations of Procedural Code∗