For performing robotic manipulation tasks, the core problem is determining suitable trajectories that fulfill the task requirements. Various approaches to compute such trajectories exist, being learning and optimization the main driving techniques. Our work builds on the learning-from-demonstration (LfD) paradigm, where an expert demonstrates motions, and the robot learns to imitate them. However, expert demonstrations are not sufficient to capture all sorts of task specifications, such as the timing to grasp an object. In this paper, we propose a new method that considers formal task specifications within LfD skills. Precisely, we leverage Signal Temporal Logic (STL), an expressive form of temporal properties of systems, to formulate task specifications and use black-box optimization (BBO) to adapt an LfD skill accordingly. We demonstrate our approach in simulation and on a real industrial setting using several tasks that showcase how our approach addresses the LfD limitations using STL and BBO.

In the problem of quantum channel discrimination, one distinguishes between a given number of quantum channels, which is done by sending an input state through a channel and measuring the output state. This work studies applications of variational quantum circuits and machine learning techniques for discriminating such channels. In particular, we explore (i) the practical implementation of embedding this task into the framework of variational quantum computing, (ii) training a quantum classifier based on variational quantum circuits, and (iii) applying the quantum kernel estimation technique. For testing these three channel discrimination approaches, we considered a pair of entanglement-breaking channels and the depolarizing channel with two different depolarization factors. For the approach (i), we address solving the quantum channel discrimination problem using widely discussed parallel and sequential strategies. We show the advantage of the latter in terms of better convergence with less quantum resources. Quantum channel discrimination with a variational quantum classifier (ii) allows one to operate even with random and mixed input states and simple variational circuits. The kernel-based classification approach (iii) is also found effective as it allows one to discriminate depolarizing channels associated not with just fixed values of the depolarization factor, but with ranges of it. Additionally, we discovered that a simple modification of one of the commonly used kernels significantly increases the efficiency of this approach. Finally, our numerical findings reveal that the performance of variational methods of channel discrimination depends on the trace of the product of the output states. These findings demonstrate that quantum machine learning can be used to discriminate channels, such as those representing physical noise processes.

We describe a light-weight yet performant system for hyper-parameter optimization that approximately minimizes an overall scalar cost function that is obtained by combining multiple performance objectives using a target-priority-limit scalarizer. It also supports a trade-off mode, where the goal is to find an appropriate trade-off among objectives by interacting with the user. We focus on the common scenario where there are on the order of tens of hyper-parameters, each with various attributes such as a range of continuous values, or a finite list of values, and whether it should be treated on a linear or logarithmic scale. The system supports multiple asynchronous simulations and is robust to simulation stragglers and failures. While the algorithm we describe will work in principle for any value of n, our focus is on the case where n is modest (e.g., < 10). Each of these objectives has a sense, which means that we either want the objective to be large (i.e., to maximize it) or small (i.e., to minimize it).

Cohort Intelligence or CI is one of its kind of novel optimization algorithm. Since its inception, in a very short span it is applied successfully in various domains and its results are observed to be effectual in contrast to algorithm of its kind. Till date, there is no such type of bibliometric analysis carried out on CI and its related applications. So, this research paper in a way will be an ice breaker for those who want to take up CI to a new level. In this research papers, CI publications available in Scopus are analyzed through graphs, networked diagrams about authors, source titles, keywords over the years, journals over the time. In a way this bibliometric paper showcase CI, its applications and detail outs systematic review in terms its bibliometric details.

Neural networks (NNs) and decision trees (DTs) are both popular models of machine learning, yet coming with mutually exclusive advantages and limitations. To bring the best of the two worlds, a variety of approaches are proposed to integrate NNs and DTs explicitly or implicitly. In this survey, these approaches are organized in a school which we term as neural trees (NTs). This survey aims to present a comprehensive review of NTs and attempts to identify how they enhance the model interpretability. We first propose a thorough taxonomy of NTs that expresses the gradual integration and co-evolution of NNs and DTs. Afterward, we analyze NTs in terms of their interpretability and performance, and suggest possible solutions to the remaining challenges. Finally, this survey concludes with a discussion about other considerations like conditional computation and promising directions towards this field. A list of papers reviewed in this survey, along with their corresponding codes, is available at: https://github.com/zju-vipa/awesome-neural-trees

Abstract: A common way to train neural networks is the Backpropagation. This algorithm includes a gradient descent method, which needs an adaptive step size. In the area of neural networks, the ADAM-Optimizer is one of the most popular adaptive step size methods. The 5865 citations in only three years shows additionally the importance of the given paper. We discovered that the given convergence proof of the optimizer contains some mistakes, so that the proof will be wrong.

In this paper, we present a Model-Based Reinforcement Learning (MBRL) algorithm named \emph{Monte Carlo Probabilistic Inference for Learning COntrol} (MC-PILCO). The algorithm relies on Gaussian Processes (GPs) to model the system dynamics and on a Monte Carlo approach to estimate the policy gradient. This defines a framework in which we ablate the choice of the following components: (i) the selection of the cost function, (ii) the optimization of policies using dropout, (iii) an improved data efficiency through the use of structured kernels in the GP models. The combination of the aforementioned aspects affects dramatically the performance of MC-PILCO. Numerical comparisons in a simulated cart-pole environment show that MC-PILCO exhibits better data efficiency and control performance w.r.t. state-of-the-art GP-based MBRL algorithms. Finally, we apply MC-PILCO to real systems, considering in particular systems with partially measurable states. We discuss the importance of modeling both the measurement system and the state estimators during policy optimization. The effectiveness of the proposed solutions has been tested in simulation and on two real systems, a Furuta pendulum and a ball-and-plate rig.

In this work, we propose a meta algorithm that can solve a multivariate global optimization problem using univariate global optimizers. Although the univariate global optimization does not receive much attention compared to the multivariate case, which is more emphasized in academia and industry; we show that it is still relevant and can be directly used to solve problems of multivariate optimization. We also provide the corresponding regret bounds in terms of the time horizon $T$ and the average regret of the univariate optimizer, when it is robust against nonnegative noises with robust regret guarantees.

Forward and backward reaching inverse kinematics (FABRIK) is a heuristic inverse kinematics solver that is gradually applied to manipulators with the advantages of fast convergence and generating more realistic configurations. However, under the high error constraint, FABRIK exhibits unstable convergence behavior, which is unsatisfactory for the real-time motion planning of manipulators. In this paper, a novel inverse kinematics algorithm that combines FABRIK and the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm is presented, in which the joint angles deduced by FABRIK will be taken as the initial seed of the SQP algorithm to avoid getting stuck in local minima. The combined algorithm is evaluated with experiments, in which our algorithm can achieve higher success rates and faster solution times than FABRIK under the high error constraint. Furthermore, the combined algorithm can generate continuous trajectories for the UR5 and KUKA LBR IIWA 14 R820 manipulators in path tracking with no pose error and permitted position error of the end-effector.

Vertical federated learning (VFL) has attracted greater and greater interest since it enables multiple parties possessing non-overlapping features to strengthen their machine learning models without disclosing their private data and model parameters. Similar to other machine learning algorithms, VFL faces demands and challenges of fairness, i.e., the learned model may be unfairly discriminatory over some groups with sensitive attributes. To tackle this problem, we propose a fair VFL framework in this work. First, we systematically formulate the problem of training fair models in VFL, where the learning task is modelled as a constrained optimization problem. To solve it in a federated and privacy-preserving manner, we consider the equivalent dual form of the problem and develop an asynchronous gradient coordinate-descent ascent algorithm, where some active data parties perform multiple parallelized local updates per communication round to effectively reduce the number of communication rounds. The messages that the server sends to passive parties are deliberately designed such that the information necessary for local updates is released without intruding on the privacy of data and sensitive attributes. We rigorously study the convergence of the algorithm when applied to general nonconvex-concave min-max problems. We prove that the algorithm finds a $\delta$-stationary point of the dual objective in $\mathcal{O}(\delta^{-4})$ communication rounds under mild conditions. Finally, the extensive experiments on three benchmark datasets demonstrate the superior performance of our method in training fair models.