We investigate compositional bounding of transition system diameters, with application in bounding the lengths of plans. We establish usefully-tight bounds by exploiting acyclicity in state-spaces. We provide mechanised proofs in HOL4 of the validity of our approach. Evaluating our bounds in a range of benchmarks, we demonstrate exponentially tighter upper bounds compared to existing methods. Treating both solvable and unsolvable benchmark problems, we also demonstrate the utility of our bounds in boosting planner performance. We enhance an existing planning procedure to use our bounds, and demonstrate significant coverage improvements, both compared to the base planner, and also in comparisons with state-of-the-art systems.

The times sure are a-changing. E3's always been known as a console-centric gaming show, and it definitely still is on the surface. Given the infiltration of AMD's APUs into the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and the resurgence of PC gaming, plus Microsoft's ambitious Xbox Play Anywhere program, most of the blockbuster games announced for consoles at E3 actually wind up coming to PCs, too. We've sifted through all the new games at the E3 events from EA, Microsoft, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Sony, and The PC Gaming Show to find all the PC gems hidden among the console rubble. These are the E3 reveals that PC gamers need to know about. Wolfenstein: The New Order is one of the best single-player shooters of the past decade, and now B.J. Blazkowicz is back for more ludicrous-yet-heartfelt Nazi-stomping action.

I haven't said much about Workey for a few months. It has raised another $8 million and is opening up a New York office, focusing on NY as well as on San Francisco. The Israeli company says it worked with Amazon, Dell EMC, Oracle, and Yahoo during its Beta. Among Workey's features is one called social power: "Workey will promote your anonymous profile based on your connections, and suggest which friends can vouch for you for each opportunity." I monkeyed around with Workey a bit, and one interesting feature is that next to job listings, it pops up little notes indicating you're reasonably qualified, like "your proven record on Twitter puts you ahead of the pack for this opportunity."

Southern California has experienced a boost in trade and logistics employment in the last decade, but policy and labor challenges lie ahead, according to a new economic report. Trade-related jobs increased nearly 10% from 2005 to 2015, more than double the overall regional employment increase of 4.2%, the report released Monday by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. found. Warehousing and logistics jobs led the charge, jumping 55.1% over the decade, said the report, titled "Trade & Logistics in Southern California." The growth came at a cost, however. Wages in warehousing dropped 9% during the period, compared with an increase of almost 3% in the industry overall, which includes the highly paid dockworkers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's largest cargo complex.

We consider the problem of approximate Bayesian parameter inference in non-linear state-space models with intractable likelihoods. Sequential Monte Carlo with approximate Bayesian computations (SMC-ABC) is one approach to approximate the likelihood in this type of models. However, such approximations can be noisy and computationally costly which hinders efficient implementations using standard methods based on optimisation and Monte Carlo methods. We propose a computationally efficient novel method based on the combination of Gaussian process optimisation and SMC-ABC to create a Laplace approximation of the intractable posterior. We exemplify the proposed algorithm for inference in stochastic volatility models with both synthetic and real-world data as well as for estimating the Value-at-Risk for two portfolios using a copula model. We document speed-ups of between one and two orders of magnitude compared to state-of-the-art algorithms for posterior inference.

From left, the Xbox One X and Xbox One S are shown at the Xbox E3 2017 Press Conference in Los Angeles. LOS ANGELES -- It was a busy weekend for fans of video games with the Electronic Entertainment Expo unofficially kicking off Saturday. On Sunday, companies including Microsoft and Bethesda Softworks rolled out the red carpets to fans and media, with updates on video games and hardware arriving later this year and beyond. Electronic Arts hosts a EA Play event Monday to reveal its new projects and gave players a chance to check out their latest titles. We're here to help you catch up: Project Scorpio is now Xbox One X.

The cheetah can accelerate from zero to 96.6 kph in under three seconds. These cases show where the Google approach gives inferior answers. If you type the first question into Google, you get a "Popular on the web" snippet with photos of several candidates. Google just reads this, even omitting any kind of pause after "web" and before "cheetah." To top it off, the correct answer isn't even in the list it reads, and appears 10th in the list of animals. In the second question, you also don't get the correct answer from Google.

'That is what the future of gaming is going to look like.' Microsoft is also courting players by working to make more popular games from earlier Xbox console versions playable on its latest hardware. Microsoft also just launched a subscription service for Xbox, letting players pay a monthly fee for access to a videogames library for its console. Sony makes a library of videogames available as part of a subscription service for PlayStation consoles. Attendees wear t-shirts reading'Nerd Must Die, I Witnessed the Most Powerful Console Ever' at E3

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Xbox chief Phil Spencer speaks on stage at the Microsoft Xbox E3 2017 Briefing at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, California. The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which focuses on new products and technologies in electronic gaming systems and interactive entertainment, takes places June 13-15 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. LOS ANGELES -- The show floor doesn't open until Tuesday, but E3 has already kicked off. On Sunday, Microsoft was the first of the three video game console makers to hold their annual media event ahead of the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The highlight was their hardware, but there were some other interesting details unveiled by Microsoft. Prepare to hear this a lot between now and November 7: "the world's most powerful console."