Ordinal regression is an important type of learning, which has properties of both classification and regression. Here we describe a simple and effective approach to adapt a traditional neural network to learn ordinal categories. Our approach is a generalization of the perceptron method for ordinal regression. On several benchmark datasets, our method (NNRank) outperforms a neural network classification method. Compared with the ordinal regression methods using Gaussian processes and support vector machines, NNRank achieves comparable performance. Moreover, NNRank has the advantages of traditional neural networks: learning in both online and batch modes, handling very large training datasets, and making rapid predictions. These features make NNRank a useful and complementary tool for large-scale data processing tasks such as information retrieval, web page ranking, collaborative filtering, and protein ranking in Bioinformatics.

Advances in semiconductor technology are contributing to the increasing complexity in the design of embedded systems. Architectures with novel techniques such as evolvable nature and autonomous behavior have engrossed lot of attention. This paper demonstrates conceptually evolvable embedded systems can be characterized basing on acausal nature. It is noted that in acausal systems, future input needs to be known, here we make a mechanism such that the system predicts the future inputs and exhibits pseudo acausal nature. An embedded system that uses theoretical framework of acausality is proposed. Our method aims at a novel architecture that features the hardware evolability and autonomous behavior alongside pseudo acausality. Various aspects of this architecture are discussed in detail along with the limitations.

Part I describes an intelligent acoustic emission locator, while Part II discusses blind source separation, time delay estimation and location of two continuous acoustic emission sources. Acoustic emission (AE) analysis is used for characterization and location of developing defects in materials. AE sources often generate a mixture of various statistically independent signals. A difficult problem of AE analysis is separation and characterization of signal components when the signals from various sources and the mode of mixing are unknown. Recently, blind source separation (BSS) by independent component analysis (ICA) has been used to solve these problems. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the applicability of ICA to locate two independent simultaneously active acoustic emission sources on an aluminum band specimen. The method is promising for non-destructive testing of aircraft frame structures by acoustic emission analysis.

The intelligent acoustic emission locator is described in Part I, while Part II discusses blind source separation, time delay estimation and location of two simultaneously active continuous acoustic emission sources. The location of acoustic emission on complicated aircraft frame structures is a difficult problem of non-destructive testing. This article describes an intelligent acoustic emission source locator. The intelligent locator comprises a sensor antenna and a general regression neural network, which solves the location problem based on learning from examples. Locator performance was tested on different test specimens. Tests have shown that the accuracy of location depends on sound velocity and attenuation in the specimen, the dimensions of the tested area, and the properties of stored data. The location accuracy achieved by the intelligent locator is comparable to that obtained by the conventional triangulation method, while the applicability of the intelligent locator is more general since analysis of sonic ray paths is avoided. This is a promising method for non-destructive testing of aircraft frame structures by the acoustic emission method.

Many combinatorial optimization problems such as the bin packing and multiple knapsack problems involve assigning a set of discrete objects to multiple containers. These problems can be used to model task and resource allocation problems in multi-agent systems and distributed systms, and can also be found as subproblems of scheduling problems. We propose bin completion, a branch-and-bound strategy for one-dimensional, multicontainer packing problems. Bin completion combines a bin-oriented search space with a powerful dominance criterion that enables us to prune much of the space. The performance of the basic bin completion framework can be enhanced by using a number of extensions, including nogood-based pruning techniques that allow further exploitation of the dominance criterion. Bin completion is applied to four problems: multiple knapsack, bin covering, min-cost covering, and bin packing. We show that our bin completion algorithms yield new, state-of-the-art results for the multiple knapsack, bin covering, and min-cost covering problems, outperforming previous algorithms by several orders of magnitude with respect to runtime on some classes of hard, random problem instances. For the bin packing problem, we demonstrate significant improvements compared to most previous results, but show that bin completion is not competitive with current state-of-the-art cutting-stock based approaches.

In this paper we present a general, flexible framework for learning mappings from images to actions by interacting with the environment. The basic idea is to introduce a feature-based image classifier in front of a reinforcement learning algorithm. The classifier partitions the visual space according to the presence or absence of few highly informative local descriptors that are incrementally selected in a sequence of attempts to remove perceptual aliasing. We also address the problem of fighting overfitting in such a greedy algorithm. Finally, we show how high-level visual features can be generated when the power of local descriptors is insufficient for completely disambiguating the aliased states. This is done by building a hierarchy of composite features that consist of recursive spatial combinations of visual features. We demonstrate the efficacy of our algorithms by solving three visual navigation tasks and a visual version of the classical ``Car on the Hill'' control problem.

It models the structure as an automata and derives its complexity. It also solves the complexity for the L-system. This complexity can resolve the similarity between trees. This complexity serves as a measure of psychological complexity for rhythms.

In the recent years several research efforts have focused on the concept of time granularity and its applications. A first stream of research investigated the mathematical models behind the notion of granularity and the algorithms to manage temporal data based on those models. A second stream of research investigated symbolic formalisms providing a set of algebraic operators to define granularities in a compact and compositional way. However, only very limited manipulation algorithms have been proposed to operate directly on the algebraic representation making it unsuitable to use the symbolic formalisms in applications that need manipulation of granularities. This paper aims at filling the gap between the results from these two streams of research, by providing an efficient conversion from the algebraic representation to the equivalent low-level representation based on the mathematical models. In addition, the conversion returns a minimal representation in terms of period length. Our results have a major practical impact: users can more easily define arbitrary granularities in terms of algebraic operators, and then access granularity reasoning and other services operating efficiently on the equivalent, minimal low-level representation. As an example, we illustrate the application to temporal constraint reasoning with multiple granularities. From a technical point of view, we propose an hybrid algorithm that interleaves the conversion of calendar subexpressions into periodical sets with the minimization of the period length. The algorithm returns set-based granularity representations having minimal period length, which is the most relevant parameter for the performance of the considered reasoning services. Extensive experimental work supports the techniques used in the algorithm, and shows the efficiency and effectiveness of the algorithm.

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in the use of metacognition in intelligent systems. This article is part of a small section meant to give interested researchers an overview and sampling of the kinds of work currently being pursued in this broad area. The current article offers a review of recent research in two main topic areas: the monitoring and control of reasoning (metareasoning) and the monitoring and control of learning (metalearning).

A large part of the credit for this can be attributed squarely to the invention and deployment of powerful reachability heuristics. Most, if not all, modern reachability heuristics are based on a remarkably extensible data structure called the planning graph, which made its debut as a bit player in the success of GraphPlan, but quickly grew in prominence to occupy the center stage. Planning graphs are a cheap means to obtain informative look-ahead heuristics for search and have become ubiquitous in state-of-the-art heuristic search planners. We present the foundations of planning graph heuristics in classical planning and explain how their flexibility lets them adapt to more expressive scenarios that consider action costs, goal utility, numeric resources, time, and uncertainty.