Markov Models
Malware Classification with GMM-HMM Models
Zhao, Jing, Basole, Samanvitha, Stamp, Mark
Discrete hidden Markov models (HMM) are often applied to malware detection and classification problems. However, the continuous analog of discrete HMMs, that is, Gaussian mixture model-HMMs (GMM-HMM), are rarely considered in the field of cybersecurity. In this paper, we use GMM-HMMs for malware classification and we compare our results to those obtained using discrete HMMs. As features, we consider opcode sequences and entropy-based sequences. For our opcode features, GMM-HMMs produce results that are comparable to those obtained using discrete HMMs, whereas for our entropy-based features, GMM-HMMs generally improve significantly on the classification results that we have achieved with discrete HMMs.
Efficient UAV Trajectory-Planning using Economic Reinforcement Learning
Khalil, Alvi Ataur, Byrne, Alexander J, Rahman, Mohammad Ashiqur, Manshaei, Mohammad Hossein
Advances in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) design have opened up applications as varied as surveillance, firefighting, cellular networks, and delivery applications. Additionally, due to decreases in cost, systems employing fleets of UAVs have become popular. The uniqueness of UAVs in systems creates a novel set of trajectory or path planning and coordination problems. Environments include many more points of interest (POIs) than UAVs, with obstacles and no-fly zones. This system revolves around an economic theory, in particular an auction mechanism where UAVs trade assigned POIs. We formulate the path planning problem as a multi-agent economic game, where agents can cooperate and compete for resources. We then translate the problem into a Partially Observable Markov decision process (POMDP), which is solved using a reinforcement learning (RL) model deployed on each agent. As the system computes task distributions via UAV cooperation, it is highly resilient to any change in the swarm size. Our proposed network and economic game architecture can effectively coordinate the swarm as an emergent phenomenon while maintaining the swarm's operation. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are applicable to a wide-ranging set of problems such as fire fighting, security monitoring, agriculture, edge computing, 3D mapping, and network support [1]. Fire fighting problems center around tracking and finding fires, whereas security applications focus on monitoring and finding targets. On the other hand, agricultural problems center around field monitoring and data harvesting, while edge computing and network support are focused on data harvesting and load reaction. All of these problems can be abstracted to a set of partially observed points and must be traveled to in the shortest amount of time possible, and then some task must be carried out in the vicinity of this point. Swarm surveillance missions are essential in both civilian and military contexts, where solutions must be secure, reliable, and efficient.
An Attention Based Neural Network for Code Switching Detection: English & Roman Urdu
Hussain, Aizaz, Arshad, Muhammad Umair
Code-switching is a common phenomenon among people with diverse lingual background and is widely used on the internet for communication purposes. In this paper, we present a Recurrent Neural Network combined with the Attention Model for Language Identification in Code-Switched Data in English and low resource Roman Urdu. The attention model enables the architecture to learn the important features of the languages hence classifying the code switched data. We demonstrated our approach by comparing the results with state of the art models i.e. Hidden Markov Models, Conditional Random Field and Bidirectional LSTM. The models evaluation, using confusion matrix metrics, showed that the attention mechanism provides improved the precision and accuracy as compared to the other models.
UCB Momentum Q-learning: Correcting the bias without forgetting
Menard, Pierre, Domingues, Omar Darwiche, Shang, Xuedong, Valko, Michal
We propose UCBMQ, Upper Confidence Bound Momentum Q-learning, a new algorithm for reinforcement learning in tabular and possibly stage-dependent, episodic Markov decision process. UCBMQ is based on Q-learning where we add a momentum term and rely on the principle of optimism in face of uncertainty to deal with exploration. Our new technical ingredient of UCBMQ is the use of momentum to correct the bias that Q-learning suffers while, at the same time, limiting the impact it has on the second-order term of the regret. For UCBMQ , we are able to guarantee a regret of at most $O(\sqrt{H^3SAT}+ H^4 S A )$ where $H$ is the length of an episode, $S$ the number of states, $A$ the number of actions, $T$ the number of episodes and ignoring terms in poly$log(SAHT)$. Notably, UCBMQ is the first algorithm that simultaneously matches the lower bound of $\Omega(\sqrt{H^3SAT})$ for large enough $T$ and has a second-order term (with respect to the horizon $T$) that scales only linearly with the number of states $S$.
Generating Probabilistic Safety Guarantees for Neural Network Controllers
Katz, Sydney M., Julian, Kyle D., Strong, Christopher A., Kochenderfer, Mykel J.
Neural networks serve as effective controllers in a variety of complex settings due to their ability to represent expressive policies. The complex nature of neural networks, however, makes their output difficult to verify and predict, which limits their use in safety-critical applications. While simulations provide insight into the performance of neural network controllers, they are not enough to guarantee that the controller will perform safely in all scenarios. To address this problem, recent work has focused on formal methods to verify properties of neural network outputs. For neural network controllers, we can use a dynamics model to determine the output properties that must hold for the controller to operate safely. In this work, we develop a method to use the results from neural network verification tools to provide probabilistic safety guarantees on a neural network controller. We develop an adaptive verification approach to efficiently generate an overapproximation of the neural network policy. Next, we modify the traditional formulation of Markov decision process (MDP) model checking to provide guarantees on the overapproximated policy given a stochastic dynamics model. Finally, we incorporate techniques in state abstraction to reduce overapproximation error during the model checking process. We show that our method is able to generate meaningful probabilistic safety guarantees for aircraft collision avoidance neural networks that are loosely inspired by Airborne Collision Avoidance System X (ACAS X), a family of collision avoidance systems that formulates the problem as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP).
Writer identification for historical handwritten documents using a single feature extraction method
The digitization of historical handwritten document images is important for the preservation of cultural heritage. Moreover, the transcription of text images obtained from digitization is necessary to provide efficient information access to the content of these documents. Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) has become an important research topic in the areas of image and computational language ... [Show full abstract] processing that allows us to obtain transcriptions from text images. State-of-the-art HTR systems are, however, far from perfect. One difficulty is that they have to cope with image noise and handwriting variability.
Advanced AI: Deep Reinforcement Learning in Python
Free Coupon Discount - Advanced AI: Deep Reinforcement Learning in Python The Complete Guide to Mastering Artificial Intelligence using Deep Learning and Neural Networks | Created by Lazy Programmer Team, Lazy Programmer Inc. Students also bought Artificial Intelligence: Reinforcement Learning in Python Data Science: Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Python Unsupervised Machine Learning Hidden Markov Models in Python Cluster Analysis and Unsupervised Machine Learning in Python Complete Python Bootcamp: Go from zero to hero in Python 3 Preview this Udemy Course GET COUPON CODE 100% Off Udemy Coupon . Free Udemy Courses . Online Classes
Hierarchical Hidden Markov Models
In a recent post, famous futurist Ray Kurzweil mentions that -- in his opinion -- brain structures in the neocortex are technically similar to hierarchical hidden Markov models (HHMM). An idea he also explained in more detail in his 2012 book "How to Create a Mind" [1]. Unfortunately though, neither the article nor the book has enough information to understand this machine learning model in detail, let alone implement it. So, let's use this article to try and understand hierarchical hidden Markov models. We'll have a brief, high-level look at most of the concepts it builds on and prepare the stage for an actual implementation (which will follow in another article due to content length).
Parallel Stochastic Mirror Descent for MDPs
Tiapkin, Daniil, Stonyakin, Fedor, Gasnikov, Alexander
We consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs). For this purpose, some variant of Stochastic Mirror Descent is proposed for convex programming problems with Lipschitz-continuous functionals. An important detail is the ability to use inexact values of functional constraints. We analyze this algorithm in a general case and obtain an estimate of the convergence rate that does not accumulate errors during the operation of the method. Using this algorithm, we get the first parallel algorithm for average-reward MDPs with a generative model. One of the main features of the presented method is low communication costs in a distributed centralized setting.
CP-MDP: A CANDECOMP-PARAFAC Decomposition Approach to Solve a Markov Decision Process Multidimensional Problem
Kuinchtner, Daniela, Sales, Afonso, Meneguzzi, Felipe
Markov Decision Process (MDP) is the underlying model for optimal planning for decision-theoretic agents in stochastic environments. Although much research focuses on solving MDP problems both in tabular form or using factored representations, none focused on tensor decomposition methods. Solving MDPs using tensor algebra offers the prospect of leveraging advances in tensor-based computations to further increase solver efficiency. In this paper, we develop an MDP solver for a multidimensional problem using a tensor decomposition method to compress the transition models and optimize the value iteration and policy iteration algorithms. We empirically evaluate our approach against tabular methods and show our approach can compute much larger problems using substantially less memory, opening up new possibilities for tensor-based approaches in stochastic planning