To date, there have been massive Semi-Structured Documents (SSDs) during the evolution of the Internet. These SSDs contain both unstructured features (e.g., plain text) and metadata (e.g., tags). Most previous works focused on modeling the unstructured text, and recently, some other methods have been proposed to model the unstructured text with specific tags. To build a general model for SSDs remains an important problem in terms of both model fitness and efficiency. We propose a novel method to model the SSDs by a so-called Tag-Weighted Topic Model (TWTM). TWTM is a framework that leverages both the tags and words information, not only to learn the document-topic and topic-word distributions, but also to infer the tag-topic distributions for text mining tasks. We present an efficient variational inference method with an EM algorithm for estimating the model parameters. Meanwhile, we propose three large-scale solutions for our model under the MapReduce distributed computing platform for modeling large-scale SSDs. The experimental results show the effectiveness, efficiency and the robustness by comparing our model with the state-of-the-art methods in document modeling, tags prediction and text classification. We also show the performance of the three distributed solutions in terms of time and accuracy on document modeling.

This work introduces algorithms able to exploit contextual information in order to improve maximum-likelihood (ML) parameter estimation in finite mixture models (FMM), demonstrating their benefits and properties in several scenarios. The proposed algorithms are derived in a probabilistic framework with regard to situations where the regular FMM graphs can be extended with context-related variables, respecting the standard expectation-maximization (EM) methodology and, thus, rendering explicit supervision completely redundant. We show that, by direct application of the missing information principle, the compared algorithms' learning behaviour operates between the extremities of supervised and unsupervised learning, proportionally to the information content of contextual assistance. Our simulation results demonstrate the superiority of context-aware FMM training as compared to conventional unsupervised training in terms of estimation precision, standard errors, convergence rates and classification accuracy or regression fitness in various scenarios, while also highlighting important differences among the outlined situations. Finally, the improved classification outcome of contextually enhanced FMMs is showcased in a brain-computer interface application scenario.

Most of machine learning deals with vector parameters. Ideally we would like to take higher order information into account and make use of matrix or even tensor parameters. However the resulting algorithms are usually inefficient. Here we address on-line learning with matrix parameters. It is often easy to obtain online algorithm with good generalization performance if you eigendecompose the current parameter matrix in each trial (at a cost of $O(n^3)$ per trial). Ideally we want to avoid the decompositions and spend $O(n^2)$ per trial, i.e. linear time in the size of the matrix data. There is a core trade-off between the running time and the generalization performance, here measured by the regret of the on-line algorithm (total gain of the best off-line predictor minus the total gain of the on-line algorithm). We focus on the key matrix problem of rank $k$ Principal Component Analysis in $\mathbb{R}^n$ where $k \ll n$. There are $O(n^3)$ algorithms that achieve the optimum regret but require eigendecompositions. We develop a simple algorithm that needs $O(kn^2)$ per trial whose regret is off by a small factor of $O(n^{1/4})$. The algorithm is based on the Follow the Perturbed Leader paradigm. It replaces full eigendecompositions at each trial by the problem finding $k$ principal components of the current covariance matrix that is perturbed by Gaussian noise.

One of the limiting factors of using support vector machines (SVMs) in large scale applications are their super-linear computational requirements in terms of the number of training samples. To address this issue, several approaches that train SVMs on many small chunks of large data sets separately have been proposed in the literature. So far, however, almost all these approaches have only been empirically investigated. In addition, their motivation was always based on computational requirements. In this work, we consider a localized SVM approach based upon a partition of the input space. For this local SVM, we derive a general oracle inequality. Then we apply this oracle inequality to least squares regression using Gaussian kernels and deduce local learning rates that are essentially minimax optimal under some standard smoothness assumptions on the regression function. This gives the first motivation for using local SVMs that is not based on computational requirements but on theoretical predictions on the generalization performance. We further introduce a data-dependent parameter selection method for our local SVM approach and show that this method achieves the same learning rates as before. Finally, we present some larger scale experiments for our localized SVM showing that it achieves essentially the same test performance as a global SVM for a fraction of the computational requirements. In addition, it turns out that the computational requirements for the local SVMs are similar to those of a vanilla random chunk approach, while the achieved test errors are significantly better.

Hidden Markov models have successfully been applied as models of discrete time series in many fields. Often, when applied in practice, the parameters of these models have to be estimated. The currently predominating identification methods, such as maximum-likelihood estimation and especially expectation-maximization, are iterative and prone to have problems with local minima. A non-iterative method employing a spectral subspace-like approach has recently been proposed in the machine learning literature. This paper evaluates the performance of this algorithm, and compares it to the performance of the expectation-maximization algorithm, on a number of numerical examples. We find that the performance is mixed; it successfully identifies some systems with relatively few available observations, but fails completely for some systems even when a large amount of observations is available. An open question is how this discrepancy can be explained. We provide some indications that it could be related to how well-conditioned some system parameters are.

This article presents techniques for recognizing students activities in ELEs and visualizing these activities to students. It describes a new plan recognition algorithm that takes into account repetition and interleaving of activities. It was able to outperform the state-of-the-art plan recognition algorithms when compared to a gold-standard that was obtained by a domain-expert. We also show that visualizing students' plans improves their performance on new problems when compared to an alternative visualization that consists of a step-by-step list of actions.

Although Switzerland is a small country, it is home to many internationally renowned universities and scientific institutions. The research landscape in Switzerland is rich, and AI-related themes are investigated by many teams under diverse umbrellas. This column sheds some light on selected developments and trends on AI in Switzerland as perceived by members of the Special Interest group on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (SGAICO) organizational team, which has brought together researchers from Switzerland interested in AI and cognitive science for over 30 years.

AAAI's 2015 Workshop Program was held Sunday and Monday, January 25–26, 2015 at the Hyatt Regency Austin Hotel in Austion, Texas, USA. The AAAI-15 workshop program included 15 workshops covering a wide range of topics in artificial intelligence. Most workshops were held on a single day. The titles of the workshops included AI and Ethics, AI for Cities, AI for Transportation: Advice, Interactivity and Actor Modeling, Algorithm Configuration, Artificial Intelligence Applied to Assistive Technologies and Smart Environments, Beyond the Turing Test, Computational Sustainability, Computer Poker and Imperfect Information, Incentive and Trust in E-Communities, Multiagent Interaction without Prior Coordination, Planning, Search, and Optimization, Scholarly Big Data: AI Perspectives, Challenges, and Ideas, Trajectory-Based Behaviour Analytics, World Wide Web and Public Health Intelligence, Knowledge, Skill, and Behavior Transfer in Autonomous Robots, and Learning for General Competency in Video Games.

This article presents new algorithms for inferring users' activities in a class We also show that visualizing students' plans improves their performance on new problems when compared to an alternative visualization that consists of a step-by-step list of actions. Such tools can plan visualization outperformed those students who provide support for teachers and education were presented with the list of activities for all of researchers in analyzing and assessing students' use these measures. These contributions demonstrate the benefit of Students' interactions with ELEs are complex, as applying novel plan-recognition technologies toward we illustrate using concepts from an ELE for teaching intelligent analysis of students' interactions in openended the basics of chemistry. Students can engage in and flexible software. Such technologies can exploratory activities involving trial and error, such potentially support teachers in their understanding as searching for the right pair of chemicals to combine of student behavior as well as students in their problem in order to achieve a desired reaction. They can solving and lead to advances in automatic recognition repeat activities indefinitely in pursuit of a goal or in other exploratory domains.

AAAI-16 will also feature the following programs (preliminary list). The deadline for nominations is September Please make a note of the upcoming deadlines (subject to change): 30, 2015.