This paper addresses the issue of policy evaluation in Markov Decision Processes, using linear function approximation. It provides a unified view of algorithms such as TD(lambda), LSTD(lambda), iLSTD, residual-gradient TD. It is asserted that they all consist in minimizing a gradient function and differ by the form of this function and their means of minimizing it. Two new schemes are introduced in that framework: Full-gradient TD which uses a generalization of the principle introduced in iLSTD, and EGD TD, which reduces the gradient by successive equi-gradient descents. These three algorithms form a new intermediate family with the interesting property of making much better use of the samples than TD while keeping a gradient descent scheme, which is useful for complexity issues and optimistic policy iteration.

Outsourcing of complex IT infrastructure to IT service providers has increased substantially during the past years. IT service providers must be able to fulfil their service-quality commitments based upon predefined Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with the service customer. They need to manage, execute and maintain thousands of SLAs for different customers and different types of services, which needs new levels of flexibility and automation not available with the current technology. The complexity of contractual logic in SLAs requires new forms of knowledge representation to automatically draw inferences and execute contractual agreements. A logic-based approach provides several advantages including automated rule chaining allowing for compact knowledge representation as well as flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing business requirements. We suggest adequate logical formalisms for representation and enforcement of SLA rules and describe a proof-of-concept implementation. The article describes selected formalisms of the ContractLog KR and their adequacy for automated SLA management and presents results of experiments to demonstrate flexibility and scalability of the approach.

We present tableau calculi for some logics of nonmonotonic reasoning, as defined by Kraus, Lehmann and Magidor. We give a tableau proof procedure for all KLM logics, namely preferential, loop-cumulative, cumulative and rational logics. Our calculi are obtained by introducing suitable modalities to interpret conditional assertions. We provide a decision procedure for the logics considered, and we study their complexity.

It is suggested that a new area of CSCR (Computer Supported Collaborative Research) is distinguished from CSCW and CSCL and that the demarcation between the three areas could do with greater clarification and prescription. Keywords: HCI, CSCW, CSCL, CSCR 1. Introduction The twin fields of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) and Computer supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) have been the subject of intense interest in the HCI research community during the past seven years. The split between CSCW and CSCL has grown wider in response to the recognition that the learning process is more distinct from the working pattern and is more intensively understood through new theories of pedagogy and education. It has become apparent that CSCL requires all of the facets of CSCW but in addition is constraint by these pedagogical theories and as such it is argued here that CSCL is a subset of CSCW (see figure1) The process of research is also a learning process but one which is more highly refined and involves learning in a particular way using special techniques and tools. As such it is argued further that research which is supported by computer collaboration is a subset of CSCL (fig.1) Figure 1 2. Differences between CSCW and CSCL Diaper (2005) maintains that the History of HCI shows a lack of coherent development.

The few available French resources for evaluating linguistic models or algorithms on other linguistic levels than morpho-syntax are either insufficient from quantitative as well as qualitative point of view or not freely accessible. Based on this fact, the FREEBANK project intends to create French corpora constructed using manually revised output from a hybrid Constraint Grammar parser and annotated on several linguistic levels (structure, morpho-syntax, syntax, coreference), with the objective to make them available on-line for research purposes. Therefore, we will focus on using standard annotation schemes, integration of existing resources and maintenance allowing for continuous enrichment of the annotations. Prior to the actual presentation of the prototype that has been implemented, this paper describes a generic model for the organization and deployment of a linguistic resource archive, in compliance with the various works currently conducted within international standardization initiatives (TEI and ISO/TC 37/SC 4).

INRA Toulouse, France Abstract Weighted Max-SA T is the optimization version of SA T and many important problems can be naturally encoded as such. Solving weighted Max-SA T is an important problem from both a theoretical and a practical point of view. In recent ye ars, there has been considerable interest in finding efficient solving techniques. Most of thi s work focus on the computation of good quality lower bounds to be used within a branch and bou nd DPLL-like algorithm. Most often, these lower bounds are described in a procedural way. Because of that, it is difficult to realize the logic that is behind. In this paper we introduce an original framework for Max-SA T that stresses the parallelism with classical SA T. Then, we extend the two basic SA T s olving techniques: search and inference. We show that many algorithmic tricks used in state-of-the-art Max-SA T solvers are easily expressable in logic terms with our framework in a unified manner. Besides, we introduce an original search algorithm that per forms a restricted amount of weighted resolution at each visited node. We empirically compare our algorithm w ith a variety of solving alternatives on several benchmarks. Our experiments, which constitute to the best of our knowledge the most comprehensive Max-sat eva luation ever reported, show that our algorithm is generally orders of magnitude faster t han any competitor. Preprint submitted to Elsevier Science 11 September 2018 1 Introduction Weighted Max-SA T is the optimization version of the SA T prob lem and many important problems can be naturally expressed as such. In recent years, there has been a considerable effort in finding efficient exact algorithms. A common drawback of all these alg orithms is that albeit the close relationship between SA T and Max-SA T, they cannot be easily described with logic terminology. For instance, the contributions of [11,12,13,14] are good quality lower bounds to be incorporated into a depth-first branch and bound procedure. These lower bounds are mostly defined in a procedural way and it is very difficult to see the logic that is behind the execution of the procedure. This is in contrast with SA T algorithms where the solving process can b e easily decomposed into atomic logical steps. In this paper we introduce an original framework for (weight ed) Max-SA T in which the notions of upper and lower bound are incorporated into the problem definition. Under this framework classical SA T is just a particular case of Max-SA T, and the main SA T solving techniques can be naturally extended. In pa rticular, we extend the basic simplification rules (for example, idempotency, absorption, unit clause reduction, etc) and introduce a new one, hardening, that does not make sense in the SA T context.

This paper presents a coordination algorithm for mobile autonomous robots. Relying upon distributed sensing the robots achieve rendezvous, that is, they move to a common location. Each robot is a point mass moving in a nonconvex environment according to an omnidirectional kinematic model. Each robot is equipped with line-of-sight limited-range sensors, i.e., a robot can measure the relative position of any object (robots or environment boundary) if and only if the object is within a given distance and there are no obstacles in-between. The algorithm is designed using the notions of robust visibility, connectivity-preserving constraint sets, and proximity graphs. Simulations illustrate the theoretical results on the correctness of the proposed algorithm, and its performance in asynchronous setups and with sensor measurement and control errors.

An important problem to be addr essed within Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) is how to correctly and efficiently capture and process the event/action-based logic. This paper endeavors to bridge the gap between the Knowledge Representation (KR) approaches based on durable events/actions and such formalisms as event calculus, on one hand, and event-condition-action (ECA) reaction rules extending the approach of active databases that view events as instantaneous occurrences and/or sequences of events, on the other. We propose formalism based on reaction rules (ECA rules) and a novel interval-based event logic and present concrete RuleML-based syntax, semantics and implementation. We further evaluate this approach theoretically, experimentally and on an example derived from common industry use cases and illustrate its benefits.

In this paper, our aim is to propose a model that helps in the efficient use of an information system by users, within the organization represented by the IS, in order to resolve their decisional problems. In other words we want to aid the user within an organization in obtaining the information that corresponds to his needs (informational needs that result from his decisional problems). This type of information system is what we refer to as economic intelligence system because of its support for economic intelligence processes of the organisation. Our assumption is that every EI process begins with the identification of the decisional problem which is translated into an informational need. This need is then translated into one or many information search problems (ISP). We also assumed that an ISP is expressed in terms of the user's expectations and that these expectations determine the activities or the behaviors of the user, when he/she uses an IS. The model we are proposing is used for the conception of the IS so that the process of retrieving of solution(s) or the responses given by the system to an ISP is based on these behaviours and correspond to the needs of the user.

In case-based reasoning, the adaptation step depends in general on domain-dependent knowledge, which motivates studies on adaptation knowledge acquisition (AKA). CABAMAKA is an AKA system based on principles of knowledge discovery from databases. This system explores the variations within the case base to elicit adaptation knowledge. It has been successfully tested in an application of case-based decision support to breast cancer treatment.