Meta-learning, the notion of learning to learn, enables learning systems to quickly and flexibly solve new tasks. This usually involves defining a set of outer-loop meta-parameters that are then used to update a set of inner-loop parameters. Most meta-learning approaches use complicated and computationally expensive bi-level optimisation schemes to update these meta-parameters. Ideally, systems should perform multiple orders of meta-learning, i.e. to learn to learn to learn and so on, to accelerate their own learning. Unfortunately, standard meta-learning techniques are often inappropriate for these higher-order meta-parameters because the meta-optimisation procedure becomes too complicated or unstable. Inspired by the higher-order meta-learning we observe in real-world evolution, we show that using simple population-based evolution implicitly optimises for arbitrarily-high order meta-parameters. First, we theoretically prove and empirically show that population-based evolution implicitly optimises meta-parameters of arbitrarily-high order in a simple setting. We then introduce a minimal self-referential parameterisation, which in principle enables arbitrary-order meta-learning. Finally, we show that higher-order meta-learning improves performance on time series forecasting tasks.

This work proposes a model for continual learning on tasks involving temporal sequences, specifically, human motions. It improves on a recently proposed brain-inspired replay model (BI-R) by building a biologically-inspired conditional temporal variational autoencoder (BI-CTVAE), which instantiates a latent mixture-of-Gaussians for class representation. We investigate a novel continual-learning-to-generate (CL2Gen) scenario where the model generates motion sequences of different classes. The generative accuracy of the model is tested over a set of tasks. The final classification accuracy of BI-CTVAE on a human motion dataset after sequentially learning all action classes is 78%, which is 63% higher than using no-replay, and only 5.4% lower than a state-of-the-art offline trained GRU model.

In this paper, we approach the problem of optimizing blackbox functions over large hybrid search spaces consisting of both combinatorial and continuous parameters. We demonstrate that previous evolutionary algorithms which rely on mutation-based approaches, while flexible over combinatorial spaces, suffer from a curse of dimensionality in high dimensional continuous spaces both theoretically and empirically, which thus limits their scope over hybrid search spaces as well. In order to combat this curse, we propose ES-ENAS, a simple and modular joint optimization procedure combining the class of sample-efficient smoothed gradient techniques, commonly known as Evolutionary Strategies (ES), with combinatorial optimizers in a highly scalable and intuitive way, inspired by the one-shot or supernet paradigm introduced in Efficient Neural Architecture Search (ENAS). By doing so, we achieve significantly more sample efficiency, which we empirically demonstrate over synthetic benchmarks, and are further able to apply ES-ENAS for architecture search over popular RL benchmarks.

Automatic underwater vehicle hull Design optimization is a complex engineering process for generating a UUV hull with optimized properties on a given requirement. First, it involves the integration of involved computationally complex engineering simulation tools. Second, it needs integration of a sample efficient optimization framework with the integrated toolchain. To this end, we integrated the CAD tool called FreeCAD with CFD tool openFoam for automatic design evaluation. For optimization, we chose Bayesian optimization (BO), which is a well-known technique developed for optimizing time-consuming expensive engineering simulations and has proven to be very sample efficient in a variety of problems, including hyper-parameter tuning and experimental design. During the optimization process, we can handle infeasible design as constraints integrated into the optimization process. By integrating domain-specific toolchain with AI-based optimization, we executed the automatic design optimization of underwater vehicle hull design. For empirical evaluation, we took two different use cases of real-world underwater vehicle design to validate the execution of our tool.

Genetic algorithms are a well-known example of bio-inspired heuristic methods. They mimic natural selection by modeling several operators such as mutation, crossover, and selection. Recent discoveries about Epigenetics regulation processes that occur "on top of" or "in addition to" the genetic basis for inheritance involve changes that affect and improve gene expression. They raise the question of improving genetic algorithms (GAs) by modeling epigenetics operators. This paper proposes a new epigenetics algorithm that mimics the epigenetics phenomenon known as DNA methylation. The novelty of our epigenetics algorithms lies primarily in taking advantage of attention mechanisms and deep learning, which fits well with the genes enhancing/silencing concept. The paper develops theoretical arguments and presents empirical studies to exhibit the capability of the proposed epigenetics algorithms to solve more complex problems efficiently than has been possible with simple GAs; for example, facing two Non-convex (multi-peaks) optimization problems as presented in this paper, the proposed epigenetics algorithm provides good performances and shows an excellent ability to overcome the lack of local optimum and thus find the global optimum.

Very recently, the first mathematical runtime analyses for the NSGA-II, the most common multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, have been conducted. Continuing this research direction, we prove that the NSGA-II optimizes the OneJumpZeroJump benchmark asymptotically faster when crossover is employed. Together with a parallel independent work by Dang, Opris, Salehi, and Sudholt, this is the first time such an advantage of crossover is proven for the NSGA-II. Our arguments can be transferred to single-objective optimization. They then prove that crossover can speed up the $(\mu+1)$ genetic algorithm in a different way and more pronounced than known before. Our experiments confirm the added value of crossover and show that the observed advantages are even larger than what our proofs can guarantee.

This study considers the object localization problem and proposes a novel multiparticle Kalman filter to solve it in complex and symmetric environments. Two well-known classes of filtering algorithms to solve the localization problem are Kalman filter-based methods and particle filter-based methods. We consider these classes, demonstrate their complementary properties, and propose a novel filtering algorithm that takes the best from two classes. We evaluate the multiparticle Kalman filter in symmetric and noisy environments. Such environments are especially challenging for both classes of classical methods. We compare the proposed approach with the particle filter since only this method is feasible if the initial state is unknown. In the considered challenging environments, our method outperforms the particle filter in terms of both localization error and runtime.

Operational planning and long-term planning for companies are more complex in recent years. Information changes fast, and the decision making is a hard task. Therefore, optimization algorithms (operations research) are used to find optimal solutions for these problems. Professionals in this field are one of the most valued in the market. The classes use examples that are created step by step, so we will create the algorithms together. Besides this Optimization with Python: Solve Operations Research Problems Course is more focused in mathematical approaches, you will also learn how to solve problems using artificial intelligence (AI), genetic algorithm, and particle swarm.

Other study was realized by [5] that describes a variational quantum algorithm designed to solve unscontrained black box binary optimization problems, where the objective function Quantum Feature Selection (QFS) is a novel approach to is given as a black box. Unlike typical algorithms for optimization Feature Selection (FS) in Machine Learning (ML) that leverages where a classical objetive function is provided as a principles of Quantum Computing (QC) to enhance the Quandratic Uncontrained Binary Optimization problem and efficiency and effectiveness of traditional FS methods. The mapped toa sum of Pauli operators, this algorithm directly most informative features are typically selected in traditional handles the black box objective function. The algorithm s FS methods based on their correlation with the target variable theorical justification is based on convergence guarantees of or their predictive power. However, these methods can struggle quantum imaginary time evolution. The authors demonstrated with high-dimensional datasets, a phenomenon known as that the quantum method produced competitive, and in certain the curse of dimensionality [1]. On the other hand, Evolutionary aspects, even better perfomance compared to traditional FS Algorithms (EAs) are a family of optimization algorithms techniques used in today s industry. This suggests that quantum that are inspired by the process of natural selection and evolution.

Every novel technology adds hidden vulnerabilities ready to be exploited by a growing number of cyber-attacks. Automated software testing can be a promising solution to quickly analyze thousands of lines of code by generating and slightly modifying function-specific testing data to encounter a multitude of vulnerabilities and attack vectors. This process draws similarities to the constrained adversarial examples generated by adversarial learning methods, so there could be significant benefits to the integration of these methods in automated testing tools. Therefore, this systematic review is focused on the current state-of-the-art of constrained data generation methods applied for adversarial learning and software testing, aiming to guide researchers and developers to enhance testing tools with adversarial learning methods and improve the resilience and robustness of their digital systems. The found constrained data generation applications for adversarial machine learning were systematized, and the advantages and limitations of approaches specific for software testing were thoroughly analyzed, identifying research gaps and opportunities to improve testing tools with adversarial attack methods.