In this paper, we proposed a novel hierarchical dirichlet process-based classification framework for open set recognition (HDP-OSR) where new categories' samples unseen in training appear during testing. Unlike the existing methods which deal with this problem from the perspective of discriminative model, we reconsider this problem from the perspective of generative model. We model each known class data in training set as a group in hierarchical dirichlet process (HDP) while the testing set as a whole is treated in the same way, then co-clustering all the groups under the HDP framework. Based on the properties of HDP, our HDP-OSR does not overly depend on training samples and can achieve adaptive change as the data changes. More precisely, HDP-OSR can automatically reserve space for unknown categories while it can also discover new categories, meaning it naturally adapts to the open set recognition scenario. Furthermore, treating the testing set as a whole makes our framework take the correlations among the testing samples into account whereas the existing methods obviously ignore this information. Experimental results on a set of benchmark data sets indicate the validity of our learning framework.

We use customer demand data for fashion articles on Myntra, and derive a fashionability or style quotient, which represents customer demand for the stylistic content of a fashion article, decoupled with its commercials (price, offers, etc.). We demonstrate learning for assortment planning in fashion that would aim to keep a healthy mix of breadth and depth across various styles, and we show the relationship between a customer's perception of a style vs a merchandiser's catalogue of styles. We also backtest our method to calculate prediction errors in our style quotient and customer demand, and discuss various implications and findings.

Business analytics refers to methods and practices that create value through data for individuals, firms, and organizations. This field is currently experiencing a radical shift due to the advent of deep learning: deep neural networks promise improvements in prediction performance as compared to models from traditional machine learning. However, our research into the existing body of literature reveals a scarcity of research works utilizing deep learning in our discipline. Accordingly, the objectives of this work are as follows: (1) we motivate why researchers and practitioners from business analytics should utilize deep neural networks and review potential use cases, necessary requirements, and benefits. (2) We investigate the added value to operations research in different case studies with real data from entrepreneurial undertakings. All such cases demonstrate a higher prediction performance in comparison to traditional machine learning and thus direct value gains. (3) We provide guidelines and implications for researchers, managers and practitioners in operations research who want to advance their capabilities for business analytics with regard to deep learning. (4) We finally discuss directions for future research in the field of business analytics.

We focus on achieving very high accuracy for Problem (1), although for practical optimization tasks, such as supervised learning, low empirical risk may result in high generalization error. In this paper, we treat Problem (1) as a pure optimization problem. When F(·) in Problem (1) is strongly convex, traditional analysis shows that gradient descent (GD) yields a fast linear convergence rate but with a high per-iteration cost, and thus may not be suitable for problems with a very large n. As an alternative for large problems, SGD [Robbins and Monro, 1951] uses only one or a mini-batch of gradients in each iteration, and thus enjoys significantly lower per-iteration complexity than GD. However, due to the variance of gradient estimator, vanilla SGD is shown to yield only a sub-linear convergence rate. Recently, stochastic variance reduced methods (e.g., SAG [Roux et al., 2012], SVRG [Johnson and Zhang, 2013], SAGA [Defazio et al., 2014], and their proximal variants, such as [Schmidt et al., 2017], [Xiao and Zhang, 2014] and [Konečný et al., 2016]) were proposed to solve Problem (1). All these methods are equipped with various variance reduction techniques, which help them achieve low per-iteration complexities comparable with SGD and at the same time maintain the fast linear convergence rate of GD.

In this work we aim to solve a large collection of tasks using a single reinforcement learning agent with a single set of parameters. A key challenge is to handle the increased amount of data and extended training time. We have developed a new distributed agent IMPALA (Importance Weighted Actor-Learner Architecture) that not only uses resources more efficiently in singlemachine training but also scales to thousands of machines without sacrificing data efficiency or resource utilisation. We achieve stable learning at high throughput by combining decoupled acting and learning with a novel off-policy correction method called V-trace. We demonstrate the effectiveness of IMPALA for multi-task reinforcement learning on DMLab-30 (a set of 30 tasks from the DeepMind Lab environment (Beattie et al., 2016)) and Atari-57 (all available Atari games in Arcade Learning Environment (Bellemare et al., 2013a)). Our results show that IMPALA is able to achieve better performance than previous agents with less data, and crucially exhibits positive transfer between tasks as a result of its multi-task approach. The source code is publicly available at github.com/deepmind/scalable

Transfer learning can greatly speed up reinforcement learning for a new task by leveraging policies of relevant tasks. Existing works of policy reuse either focus on only selecting a single best source policy for transfer without considering contexts, or cannot guarantee to learn an optimal policy for a target task. To improve transfer efficiency and guarantee optimality, we develop a novel policy reuse method, called Context-Aware Policy reuSe (CAPS), that enables multi-policy transfer. Our method learns when and which source policy is best for reuse, as well as when to terminate its reuse. CAPS provides theoretical guarantees in convergence and optimality for both source policy selection and target task learning. Empirical results on a grid-based navigation domain and the Pygame Learning Environment demonstrate that CAPS significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art policy reuse methods.

Epistemic logics are a primary formalism for multi-agent systems but major reasoning tasks in such epistemic logics are intractable, which impedes applications of multi-agent epistemic logics in automatic planning. Knowledge compilation provides a promising way of resolving the intractability by identifying expressive fragments of epistemic logics that are tractable for important reasoning tasks such as satisfiability and forgetting. The property of logical separability allows to decompose a formula into some of its subformulas and thus modular algorithms for various reasoning tasks can be developed. In this paper, by employing logical separability, we propose an approach to knowledge compilation for the logic Kn by defining a normal form SDNF. Among several novel results, we show that every epistemic formula can be equivalently compiled into a formula in SDNF, major reasoning tasks in SDNF are tractable, and formulas in SDNF enjoy the logical separability. Our results shed some lights on modular approaches to knowledge compilation. Furthermore, we apply our results in the multi-agent epistemic planning. Finally, we extend the above result to the logic K45n that is Kn extended by introspection axioms 4 and 5.

One of the key challenges in applying reinforcement learning to real-life problems is that the amount of train-and-error required to learn a good policy increases drastically as the task becomes complex. One potential solution to this problem is to combine reinforcement learning with automated symbol planning and utilize prior knowledge on the domain. However, existing methods have limitations in their applicability and expressiveness. In this paper we propose a hierarchical reinforcement learning method based on abductive symbolic planning. The planner can deal with user-defined evaluation functions and is not based on the Herbrand theorem. Therefore it can utilize prior knowledge of the rewards and can work in a domain where the state space is unknown. We demonstrate empirically that our architecture significantly improves learning efficiency with respect to the amount of training examples on the evaluation domain, in which the state space is unknown and there exist multiple goals.

This type of therapy works best, however, if the robot can smoothly interpret the child's own behavior -- whether he or she is interested and excited or paying attention -- during the therapy. Researchers at the MIT Media Lab have now developed a type of personalized machine learning that helps robots estimate the engagement and interest of each child during these interactions, using data that are unique to that child. Armed with this personalized "deep learning" network, the robots' perception of the children's responses agreed with assessments by human experts, with a correlation score of 60 percent, the scientists report June 27 in Science Robotics. It can be challenging for human observers to reach high levels of agreement about a child's engagement and behavior. Their correlation scores are usually between 50 and 55 percent.

It's no secret that exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are among the most popular and fastest-growing investment vehicles today. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) has captured a larger and larger share of the attention of tech-focused startups and similar companies. It follows, then, that it was only a matter of time before these two trendy touchstones would intersect. AI is a branch of computer science that aims to create intelligent, learning machines that are capable of many of the same processes as human beings. ETFs focused in this area of technology could benefit from the continued development and utilization of AI in many sectors, including those incorporating robotics, 3D printing, language processing, social media, self-driving cars and more.