pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Meta-Reinforcement Learning with Self-Modifying Networks
Authors: Mathieu Chalvidal, Thomas Serre, Rufin VanRullen
Date: 2022-02-04 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Reinforcement Learning, Meta Reinforcement Learning, One-Shot Learning, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

Deep Reinforcement Learning has demonstrated the potential of neural networks tuned with gradient descent for solving complex tasks in well-delimited environments. However, these neural systems are slow learners producing specialized agents with no mechanism to continue learning beyond their training curriculum. On the contrary, biological synaptic plasticity is persistent and manifold, and has been hypothesized to play a key role in executive functions such as working memory and cognitive flexibility, potentially supporting more efficient and generic learning abilities. Inspired by this, we propose to build networks with dynamic weights, able to continually perform self-reflexive modification as a function of their current synaptic state and action-reward feedback, rather than a fixed network configuration. The resulting model, MetODS (for Meta-Optimized Dynamical Synapses) is a broadly applicable meta-reinforcement learning system able to learn efficient and powerful control rules in the agent policy space. A single layer with dynamic synapses can perform one-shot learning, generalizes navigation principles to unseen environments and manifests a strong ability to learn adaptive motor policies.
Towards Training Reproducible Deep Learning Models
Authors: Boyuan Chen, Mingzhi Wen, Yong Shi, Dayi Lin, Gopi Krishnan Rajbahadur, Zhen Ming, Jiang
Date: 2022-02-04 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Learning, GPU

Reproducibility is an increasing concern in Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly in the area of Deep Learning (DL). Being able to reproduce DL models is crucial for AI-based systems, as it is closely tied to various tasks like training, testing, debugging, and auditing. However, DL models are challenging to be reproduced due to issues like randomness in the software (e.g., DL algorithms) and non-determinism in the hardware (e.g., GPU). There are various practices to mitigate some of the aforementioned issues. However, many of them are either too intrusive or can only work for a specific usage context. In this paper, we propose a systematic approach to training reproducible DL models. Our approach includes three main parts: (1) a set of general criteria to thoroughly evaluate the reproducibility of DL models for two different domains, (2) a unified framework which leverages a record-and-replay technique to mitigate software-related randomness and a profile-and-patch technique to control hardware-related non-determinism, and (3) a reproducibility guideline which explains the rationales and the mitigation strategies on conducting a reproducible training process for DL models. Case study results show our approach can successfully reproduce six open source and one commercial DL models.
The 6-Ds of Creating AI-Enabled Systems
Authors: John Piorkowski
Date: 2022-02-04 00:00:00
Tasks: Navigate, Problem Decomposition

We are entering our tenth year of the current Artificial Intelligence (AI) spring, and, as with previous AI hype cycles, the threat of an AI winter looms. AI winters occurred because of ineffective approaches towards navigating the technology valley of death. The 6-D framework provides an end-to-end framework to successfully navigate this challenge. The 6-D framework starts with problem decomposition to identify potential AI solutions, and ends with considerations for deployment of AI-enabled systems. Each component of the 6-D framework and a precision medicine use case is described in this paper.
Knowledge-Integrated Informed AI for National Security
Authors: Anu K. Myne, Kevin J. Leahy, Ryan J. Soklaski
Date: 2022-02-04 00:00:00

The state of artificial intelligence technology has a rich history that dates back decades and includes two fall-outs before the explosive resurgence of today, which is credited largely to data-driven techniques. While AI technology has and continues to become increasingly mainstream with impact across domains and industries, it's not without several drawbacks, weaknesses, and potential to cause undesired effects. AI techniques are numerous with many approaches and variants, but they can be classified simply based on the degree of knowledge they capture and how much data they require; two broad categories emerge as prominent across AI to date: (1) techniques that are primarily, and often solely, data-driven while leveraging little to no knowledge and (2) techniques that primarily leverage knowledge and depend less on data. Now, a third category is starting to emerge that leverages both data and knowledge, that some refer to as "informed AI." This third category can be a game changer within the national security domain where there is ample scientific and domain-specific knowledge that stands ready to be leveraged, and where purely data-driven AI can lead to serious unwanted consequences. This report shares findings from a thorough exploration of AI approaches that exploit data as well as principled and/or practical knowledge, which we refer to as "knowledge-integrated informed AI." Specifically, we review illuminating examples of knowledge integrated in deep learning and reinforcement learning pipelines, taking note of the performance gains they provide. We also discuss an apparent trade space across variants of knowledge-integrated informed AI, along with observed and prominent issues that suggest worthwhile future research directions. Most importantly, this report suggests how the advantages of knowledge-integrated informed AI stand to benefit the national security domain.
A Conditional Perspective on the Logic of Iterated Belief Contraction
Authors: Kai Sauerwald, Gabriele Kern-Isberner, Christoph Beierle
Date: 2022-02-04 00:00:00

In this article, we consider iteration principles for contraction, with the goal of identifying properties for contractions that respect conditional beliefs. Therefore, we investigate and evaluate four groups of iteration principles for contraction which consider the dynamics of conditional beliefs. For all these principles, we provide semantic characterization theorems and provide formulations by postulates which highlight how the change of beliefs and of conditional beliefs is constrained, whenever that is possible. The first group is similar to the syntactic Darwiche-Pearl postulates. As a second group, we consider semantic postulates for iteration of contraction by Chopra, Ghose, Meyer and Wong, and by Konieczny and Pino P\'erez, respectively, and we provide novel syntactic counterparts. Third, we propose a contraction analogue of the independence condition by Jin and Thielscher. For the fourth group, we consider natural and moderate contraction by Nayak. Methodically, we make use of conditionals for contractions, so-called contractionals and furthermore, we propose and employ the novel notion of $ \alpha $-equivalence for formulating some of the new postulates.
TransFollower: Long-Sequence Car-Following Trajectory Prediction through Transformer
Authors: Meixin Zhu, Simon S. Du, Xuesong Wang, Hao, Yang, Ziyuan Pu, Yinhai Wang
Date: 2022-02-04 00:00:00
Tasks: Decoder, Prediction, Trajectory Prediction

Car-following refers to a control process in which the following vehicle (FV) tries to keep a safe distance between itself and the lead vehicle (LV) by adjusting its acceleration in response to the actions of the vehicle ahead. The corresponding car-following models, which describe how one vehicle follows another vehicle in the traffic flow, form the cornerstone for microscopic traffic simulation and intelligent vehicle development. One major motivation of car-following models is to replicate human drivers' longitudinal driving trajectories. To model the long-term dependency of future actions on historical driving situations, we developed a long-sequence car-following trajectory prediction model based on the attention-based Transformer model. The model follows a general format of encoder-decoder architecture. The encoder takes historical speed and spacing data as inputs and forms a mixed representation of historical driving context using multi-head self-attention. The decoder takes the future LV speed profile as input and outputs the predicted future FV speed profile in a generative way (instead of an auto-regressive way, avoiding compounding errors). Through cross-attention between encoder and decoder, the decoder learns to build a connection between historical driving and future LV speed, based on which a prediction of future FV speed can be obtained. We train and test our model with 112,597 real-world car-following events extracted from the Shanghai Naturalistic Driving Study (SH-NDS). Results show that the model outperforms the traditional intelligent driver model (IDM), a fully connected neural network model, and a long short-term memory (LSTM) based model in terms of long-sequence trajectory prediction accuracy. We also visualized the self-attention and cross-attention heatmaps to explain how the model derives its predictions.
Reward is not enough: can we liberate AI from the reinforcement learning paradigm?
Authors: Vacslav Glukhov
Date: 2022-02-03 00:00:00
Tasks: reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

I present arguments against the hypothesis put forward by Silver, Singh, Precup, and Sutton ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370221000862 ) : reward maximization is not enough to explain many activities associated with natural and artificial intelligence including knowledge, learning, perception, social intelligence, evolution, language, generalisation and imitation. I show such reductio ad lucrum has its intellectual origins in the political economy of Homo economicus and substantially overlaps with the radical version of behaviourism. I show why the reinforcement learning paradigm, despite its demonstrable usefulness in some practical application, is an incomplete framework for intelligence -- natural and artificial. Complexities of intelligent behaviour are not simply second-order complications on top of reward maximisation. This fact has profound implications for the development of practically usable, smart, safe and robust artificially intelligent agents.
Efficient Autoprecoder-based deep learning for massive MU-MIMO Downlink under PA Non-Linearities
Authors: Xinying Cheng, Rafik Zayani, Marin Ferecatu, Nicolas Audebert
Date: 2022-02-03 00:00:00
Tasks: Decoder

This paper introduces a new efficient autoprecoder (AP) based deep learning approach for massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) downlink systems in which the base station is equipped with a large number of antennas with energy-efficient power amplifiers (PAs) and serves multiple user terminals. We present AP-mMIMO, a new method that jointly eliminates the multiuser interference and compensates the severe nonlinear (NL) PA distortions. Unlike previous works, AP-mMIMO has a low computational complexity, making it suitable for a global energy-efficient system. Specifically, we aim to design the PA-aware precoder and the receive decoder by leveraging the concept of autoprecoder, whereas the end-to-end massive multiuser (MU)-MIMO downlink is designed using a deep neural network (NN). Most importantly, the proposed AP-mMIMO is suited for the varying block fading channel scenario. To deal with such scenarios, we consider a two-stage precoding scheme: 1) a NN-precoder is used to address the PA non-linearities and 2) a linear precoder is used to suppress the multiuser interference. The NN-precoder and the receive decoder are trained off-line and when the channel varies, only the linear precoder changes on-line. This latter is designed by using the widely used zero-forcing precoding scheme or its lowcomplexity version based on matrix polynomials. Numerical simulations show that the proposed AP-mMIMO approach achieves competitive performance with a significantly lower complexity compared to existing literature. Index Terms-multiuser (MU) precoding, massive multipleinput multiple-output (MIMO), energy-efficiency, hardware impairment, power amplifier (PA) nonlinearities, autoprecoder, deep learning, neural network (NN)
Security-Aware Virtual Network Embedding Algorithm based on Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Peiying Zhang, Chao Wang, Chunxiao Jiang, Abderrahim Benslimane
Date: 2022-02-03 00:00:00
Tasks: Network Embedding, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

Virtual network embedding (VNE) algorithm is always the key problem in network virtualization (NV) technology. At present, the research in this field still has the following problems. The traditional way to solve VNE problem is to use heuristic algorithm. However, this method relies on manual embedding rules, which does not accord with the actual situation of VNE. In addition, as the use of intelligent learning algorithm to solve the problem of VNE has become a trend, this method is gradually outdated. At the same time, there are some security problems in VNE. However, there is no intelligent algorithm to solve the security problem of VNE. For this reason, this paper proposes a security-aware VNE algorithm based on reinforcement learning (RL). In the training phase, we use a policy network as a learning agent and take the extracted attributes of the substrate nodes to form a feature matrix as input. The learning agent is trained in this environment to get the mapping probability of each substrate node. In the test phase, we map nodes according to the mapping probability and use the breadth-first strategy (BFS) to map links. For the security problem, we add security requirements level constraint for each virtual node and security level constraint for each substrate node. Virtual nodes can only be embedded on substrate nodes that are not lower than the level of security requirements. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to other typical algorithms in terms of long-term average return, long-term revenue consumption ratio and virtual network request (VNR) acceptance rate.
Space-Air-Ground Integrated Multi-domain Network Resource Orchestration based on Virtual Network Architecture: a DRL Method
Authors: Peiying Zhang, Chao Wang, Neeraj Kumar, Lei Liu
Date: 2022-02-03 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Reinforcement Learning, Network Embedding

Traditional ground wireless communication networks cannot provide high-quality services for artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as intelligent transportation systems (ITS) due to deployment, coverage and capacity issues. The space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN) has become a research focus in the industry. Compared with traditional wireless communication networks, SAGIN is more flexible and reliable, and it has wider coverage and higher quality of seamless connection. However, due to its inherent heterogeneity, time-varying and self-organizing characteristics, the deployment and use of SAGIN still faces huge challenges, among which the orchestration of heterogeneous resources is a key issue. Based on virtual network architecture and deep reinforcement learning (DRL), we model SAGIN's heterogeneous resource orchestration as a multi-domain virtual network embedding (VNE) problem, and propose a SAGIN cross-domain VNE algorithm. We model the different network segments of SAGIN, and set the network attributes according to the actual situation of SAGIN and user needs. In DRL, the agent is acted by a five-layer policy network. We build a feature matrix based on network attributes extracted from SAGIN and use it as the agent training environment. Through training, the probability of each underlying node being embedded can be derived. In test phase, we complete the embedding process of virtual nodes and links in turn based on this probability. Finally, we verify the effectiveness of the algorithm from both training and testing.
AI Research Associate for Early-Stage Scientific Discovery
Authors: Morad Behandish, John Maxwell III, Johan de Kleer
Date: 2022-02-02 00:00:00
Tasks: scientific discovery

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasingly applied in scientific activities for decades; however, it is still far from an insightful and trustworthy collaborator in the scientific process. Most existing AI methods are either too simplistic to be useful in real problems faced by scientists or too domain-specialized (even dogmatized), stifling transformative discoveries or paradigm shifts. We present an AI research associate for early-stage scientific discovery based on (a) a novel minimally-biased ontology for physics-based modeling that is context-aware, interpretable, and generalizable across classical and relativistic physics; (b) automatic search for viable and parsimonious hypotheses, represented at a high-level (via domain-agnostic constructs) with built-in invariants, e.g., postulated forms of conservation principles implied by a presupposed spacetime topology; and (c) automatic compilation of the enumerated hypotheses to domain-specific, interpretable, and trainable/testable tensor-based computation graphs to learn phenomenological relations, e.g., constitutive or material laws, from sparse (and possibly noisy) data sets.
Cyber-resilience for marine navigation by information fusion and change detection
Authors: Dimitrios Dagdilelis, Mogens Blanke, Rasmus Hjorth Andersen, Roberto Galeazzi
Date: 2022-02-01 00:00:00
Tasks: Autonomous Navigation, Change Detection, Density Estimation

Cyber-resilience is an increasing concern in developing autonomous navigation solutions for marine vessels. This paper scrutinizes cyber-resilience properties of marine navigation through a prism with three edges: multiple sensor information fusion, diagnosis of not-normal behaviours, and change detection. It proposes a two-stage estimator for diagnosis and mitigation of sensor signals used for coastal navigation. Developing a Likelihood Field approach, a first stage extracts shoreline features from radar and matches them to the electronic navigation chart. A second stage associates buoy and beacon features from the radar with chart information. Using real data logged at sea tests combined with simulated spoofing, the paper verifies the ability to timely diagnose and isolate an attempt to compromise position measurements. A new approach is suggested for high level processing of received data to evaluate their consistency, that is agnostic to the underlying technology of the individual sensory input. A combined parametric Gaussian modelling and Kernel Density Estimation is suggested and compared with a generalized likelihood ratio change detector that uses sliding windows. The paper shows how deviations from nominal behaviour and isolation of the components is possible when under attack or when defects in sensors occur.
Team Cogitat at NeurIPS 2021: Benchmarks for EEG Transfer Learning Competition
Authors: Stylianos Bakas, Siegfried Ludwig, Konstantinos Barmpas, Mehdi Bahri, Yannis Panagakis, Nikolaos Laskaris, Dimitrios A. Adamos, Stefanos Zafeiriou
Date: 2022-02-01 00:00:00
Tasks: EEG, Eeg Decoding, Electroencephalogram (EEG), Motor Imagery, Transfer Learning

Building subject-independent deep learning models for EEG decoding faces the challenge of strong covariate-shift across different datasets, subjects and recording sessions. Our approach to address this difficulty is to explicitly align feature distributions at various layers of the deep learning model, using both simple statistical techniques as well as trainable methods with more representational capacity. This follows in a similar vein as covariance-based alignment methods, often used in a Riemannian manifold context. The methodology proposed herein won first place in the 2021 Benchmarks in EEG Transfer Learning (BEETL) competition, hosted at the NeurIPS conference. The first task of the competition consisted of sleep stage classification, which required the transfer of models trained on younger subjects to perform inference on multiple subjects of older age groups without personalized calibration data, requiring subject-independent models. The second task required to transfer models trained on the subjects of one or more source motor imagery datasets to perform inference on two target datasets, providing a small set of personalized calibration data for multiple test subjects.
Existence and perception as the basis of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)
Authors: Victor V. Senkevich
Date: 2022-01-30 00:00:00
Tasks: Face Recognition

As is known, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), unlike AI, should operate with meanings. And that's what distinguishes it from AI. Any successful AI implementations (playing chess, unmanned driving, face recognition etc.) do not operate with the meanings of the processed objects in any way and do not recognize the meaning. And they don't need to. But for AGI, which emulates human thinking, this ability is crucial. Numerous attempts to define the concept of "meaning" have one very significant drawback - all such definitions are not strict and formalized, so they cannot be programmed. The meaning search procedure should use a formalized description of its existence and possible forms of its perception. For the practical implementation of AGI, it is necessary to develop such "ready-to-code" descriptions in the context of their use for processing the related cognitive concepts of "meaning" and "knowledge". An attempt to formalize the definition of such concepts is made in this article.
Approaches to Artificial General Intelligence: An Analysis
Authors: Soumil Rathi
Date: 2022-01-29 00:00:00

This paper is an analysis of the different methods proposed to achieve AGI, including Human Brain Emulation, AIXI and Integrated Cognitive Architecture. First, the definition of AGI as used in this paper has been defined, and its requirements have been stated. For each proposed method mentioned, the method in question was summarized and its key processes were detailed, showcasing how it functioned. Then, each method listed was analyzed, taking various factors into consideration, such as technological requirements, computational ability, and adequacy to the requirements. It was concluded that while there are various methods to achieve AGI that could work, such as Human Brain Emulation and Integrated Cognitive Architectures, the most promising method to achieve AGI is Integrated Cognitive Architectures. This is because Human Brain Emulation was found to require scanning technologies that will most likely not be available until the 2030s, making it unlikely to be created before then. Moreover, Integrated Cognitive Architectures has reduced computational requirements and a suitable functionality for General Intelligence, making it the most likely way to achieve AGI.
Benchmarking and Analyzing Point Cloud Classification under Corruptions
Authors: Jiawei Ren, Liang Pan, Ziwei Liu
Date: 2022-02-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Benchmarking, Classification, Point Cloud Classification

3D perception, especially point cloud classification, has achieved substantial progress. However, in real-world deployment, point cloud corruptions are inevitable due to the scene complexity, sensor inaccuracy, and processing imprecision. In this work, we aim to rigorously benchmark and analyze point cloud classification under corruptions. To conduct a systematic investigation, we first provide a taxonomy of common 3D corruptions and identify the atomic corruptions. Then, we perform a comprehensive evaluation on a wide range of representative point cloud models to understand their robustness and generalizability. Our benchmark results show that although point cloud classification performance improves over time, the state-of-the-art methods are on the verge of being less robust. Based on the obtained observations, we propose several effective techniques to enhance point cloud classifier robustness. We hope our comprehensive benchmark, in-depth analysis, and proposed techniques could spark future research in robust 3D perception.