There has been remarkable recent work in unpaired image-to-image translation. However, they're restricted to translation on single pairs of distributions, with some exceptions. In this study, we extend one of these works to a scalable multi-distribution translation mechanism. Our translation models not only converts from one distribution to another but can be stacked to create composite translation functions. We show that this composite property makes it possible to generate images with characteristics not seen in the training set. We also propose a decoupled training mechanism to train multiple distributions separately, which we show, generates better samples than isolated joint training. Further, we do a qualitative and quantitative analysis to assess the plausibility of the samples.

This paper considers parametric Markov decision processes (pMDPs) whose transitions are equipped with affine functions over a finite set of parameters. The synthesis problem is to find a parameter valuation such that the instantiated pMDP satisfies a specification under all strategies. We show that this problem can be formulated as a quadratically-constrained quadratic program (QCQP) and is non-convex in general. To deal with the NP-hardness of such problems, we exploit a convex-concave procedure (CCP) to iteratively obtain local optima. An appropriate interplay between CCP solvers and probabilistic model checkers creates a procedure --- realized in the open-source tool PROPhESY --- that solves the synthesis problem for models with thousands of parameters.

Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will inevitably be integrated into future cellular networks as new aerial mobile users. Providing cellular connectivity to UAVs will enable a myriad of applications ranging from online video streaming to medical delivery. However, to enable a reliable wireless connectivity for the UAVs as well as a secure operation, various challenges need to be addressed such as interference management, mobility management and handover, cyber-physical attacks, and authentication. In this paper, the goal is to expose the wireless and security challenges that arise in the context of UAV-based delivery systems, UAV-based real-time multimedia streaming, and UAV-enabled intelligent transportation systems. To address such challenges, artificial neural network (ANN) based solution schemes are introduced. The introduced approaches enable the UAVs to adaptively exploit the wireless system resources while guaranteeing a secure operation, in real-time. Preliminary simulation results show the benefits of the introduced solutions for each of the aforementioned cellular-connected UAV application use case.

I'm about to chat with a dead person. Just last week I saw a particularly disturbing episode of "Black Mirror" in which a devastated widow uploads all of the chats, texts and emails left behind by her husband to a cloud so that she can enjoy his virtual company 24/7. I didn't think my life would catch up with science fiction so soon. I am in bed in my Midtown Manhattan apartment, ambulance sirens blaring on Third Avenue, an iPhone screen glaring in my hand. I pull up the App Store and find Luka, a chat bot program developed and designed by Eugenia Kuyda, whom I used to work with some time ago in Moscow.

It has been estimated that by 2020, humans will lose roughly 5 million jobs to robots. Is yours one of them? If your job involves negotiating, helping and assisting others and generating original and creative ideas, then you are seen to be safe from new artificial intelligence takeovers. The jobs seen to be at risk include certain sales jobs, as well as telemarketers and bank clerks. Those jobs are seen to involve less social interaction with the public, compared to roles such as nurses, therapists and social workers, which also require a certain degree of empathy and care.

How are advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning changing credit risk assessment? That's a topic I'll be exploring in three presentations at FICO World 2018, April 16-19 in Miami Beach. These three presentations have a common thread: How FICO applies artificial intelligence and machine learning not as a "silver bullet" but carefully balanced with human domain expertise in the formulation of problems and models. FICO Scores are among the most scrutinized models in the world, so would you expect modern machine learning -- with its challenges around explainability -- to bring great benefits to FICO Score R&D and production? On Tuesday, April 17, 1:30-2:30, my colleague Ethan Dornhelm and I will show that machine learning offers tremendous efficiencies for research "in the lab". But in order to bring these efficiencies to the field in the form of a new international FICO Score, we benefitted from blending the latest machine learning algorithms with FICO's own explainable and palatable Scorecard development technology.

The UAE's smart monitoring, alert and control systems are being showcased at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo in Dubai. "This symposium is an extremely insightful key event in the UAE and the region. Tayara takes care of all commercial ICT engagements. "We are building solutions or POCs (Proof of Concept) for our partners. We are showcasing the Smart Dubai platform, the Dubai Pulse, which is an end-to-end integrated platform that supports infrastructure services, computing, data hosting and storage for the government all the way up to blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI). Real utilisation of data sets is available in the city to empower senior management to take insightful rather than legacy decisions."

THE PLANNED boycott of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) over its research into military robots has been cancelled after the lab agreed to step back from the brink of madness. The state-run lab known as Research Centre for the Convergence of National Defence and Artificial Intelligence (RCCNDAI, presumably) was working in partnership with defence company Hanwa, a company which develops so-called'cluster munitions' which are banned in over 100 countries and a completely autonomous sentry robot called SGR-A1 - echoes of ED-209 anyone? Toby Walsh, Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who initiated the action, praised KAIST for the rapid response. "I was very pleased that the president of KAIST has agreed not to develop lethal autonomous weapons, and to follow international norms by ensuring meaningful human control of any AI-based weapon that will be developed," he said. "I applaud KAIST for doing the right thing, and I'll be happy to work with KAIST in the future. "It goes to show the power of the scientific community when we choose to speak out - our action was an overnight success," he added. "We initially sought assurances in private from the university more than month ago about the goals of their new lab.

Mark Carney knows how to illustrate economic trends through the use of creative language. And when he talks, people tend to listen. "The massacre of the Dilberts" was how the governor of the Bank of England encapsulated the fear that middle-management jobs would be wiped out by automation – for people unfamiliar with American cartoon strips, Dilbert is a white collar office worker and the strip mocks the absurdities of office life. In his native Canada this week, Carney made a number of points in a speech on automation. Most obviously, many office jobs done by people would be done by computers, a process that was already well advanced. "When I look back 30 years ago, what I used to do in the City of London when I worked at an investment bank, probably about three-quarters of what I did is now done by machine," he said.

It was the week of Zuck. As Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg slogged through more than 10 hours of testimony in front of two different Congressional committees, privacy and security advocates were listening for anything they could glean about how Facebook manages data, implements privacy protections, and helps users make informed choices--or doesn't. Neither session delved as deeply as it could have into specific information about Russian goals and strategies in conducting information operations on Facebook during the 2016 US elections. And Facebook admitted this week that the data consulting firm Cambridge Analytica could have accessed private Facebook messages, on top of everything else, for the 87 million users that were in its reach. Here's how to check if you were one of the users caught in Cambridge Analytica's dragnet.