Tumor segmentation in oncological PET images is challenging, a major reason being the partial-volume effects that arise from low system resolution and a finite pixel size. The latter results in pixels containing more than one region, also referred to as tissue-fraction effects. Conventional classification-based segmentation approaches are inherently limited in accounting for the tissue-fraction effects. To address this limitation, we pose the segmentation task as an estimation problem. We propose a Bayesian method that estimates the posterior mean of the tumorfraction area within each pixel and uses these estimates to define the segmented tumor boundary. The method was implemented using an autoencoder. Quantitative evaluation of the method was performed using realistic simulation studies conducted in the context of segmenting the primary tumor in PET images of patients with lung cancer. For these studies, a framework was developed to generate clinically realistic simulated PET images. Realism of these images was quantitatively confirmed using a two-alternative-forced-choice study by six trained readers with expertise in reading PET scans. The evaluation studies demonstrated that the proposed segmentation method was accurate, significantly outperformed widely used conventional methods on the tasks of tumor segmentation and estimation of tumor-fraction areas, was relatively insensitive to partial-volume effects, and reliably estimated the ground-truth tumor boundaries. Further, these results were obtained across different clinical-scanner configurations. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates the efficacy of an estimation-based approach to PET segmentation.

In this work, we propose a hybrid approach to synchronize large scale networks. In particular, we draw on Kalman Filtering (KF) along with time-stamps generated by the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) for pairwise node synchronization. Furthermore, we investigate the merit of Factor Graphs (FGs) along with Belief Propagation (BP) algorithm in achieving high precision end-to-end network synchronization. Finally, we present the idea of dividing the large-scale network into local synchronization domains, for each of which a suitable sync algorithm is utilized. The simulation results indicate that, despite the simplifications in the hybrid approach, the error in the offset estimation remains below 5 ns.

No comprehensive review of Bayesian networks (BNs) in healthcare has been published in the past, making it difficult to organize the research contributions in the present and identify challenges and neglected areas that need to be addressed in the future. This unique and novel scoping review of BNs in healthcare provides an analytical framework for comprehensively characterizing the domain and its current state. The review shows that: (1) BNs in healthcare are not used to their full potential; (2) a generic BN development process is lacking; (3) limitations exists in the way BNs in healthcare are presented in the literature, which impacts understanding, consensus towards systematic methodologies, practice and adoption of BNs; and (4) a gap exists between having an accurate BN and a useful BN that impacts clinical practice. This review empowers researchers and clinicians with an analytical framework and findings that will enable understanding of the need to address the problems of restricted aims of BNs, ad hoc BN development methods, and the lack of BN adoption in practice. To map the way forward, the paper proposes future research directions and makes recommendations regarding BN development methods and adoption in practice.

Reinforcement learning (RL) methods often rely on massive exploration data to search optimal policies, and suffer from poor sampling efficiency. This paper presents a mixed reinforcement learning (mixed RL) algorithm by simultaneously using dual representations of environmental dynamics to search the optimal policy with the purpose of improving both learning accuracy and training speed. The dual representations indicate the environmental model and the state-action data: the former can accelerate the learning process of RL, while its inherent model uncertainty generally leads to worse policy accuracy than the latter, which comes from direct measurements of states and actions. In the framework design of the mixed RL, the compensation of the additive stochastic model uncertainty is embedded inside the policy iteration RL framework by using explored state-action data via iterative Bayesian estimator (IBE). The optimal policy is then computed in an iterative way by alternating between policy evaluation (PEV) and policy improvement (PIM). The convergence of the mixed RL is proved using the Bellman's principle of optimality, and the recursive stability of the generated policy is proved via the Lyapunov's direct method. The effectiveness of the mixed RL is demonstrated by a typical optimal control problem of stochastic non-affine nonlinear systems (i.e., double lane change task with an automated vehicle).

A decision-maker must consider cofounding bias when attempting to apply machine learning prediction, and, while feature selection is widely recognized as important process in data-analysis, it could cause cofounding bias. A causal Bayesian network is a standard tool for describing causal relationships, and if relationships are known, then adjustment criteria can determine with which features cofounding bias disappears. A standard modification would thus utilize causal discovery algorithms for preventing cofounding bias in feature selection. Causal discovery algorithms, however, essentially rely on the faithfulness assumption, which turn out to be easily violated in practical feature selection settings. In this paper, we propose a meta-algorithm that can remedy existing feature selection algorithms in terms of cofounding bias. Our algorithm is induced from a novel adjustment criterion that requires rather than faithfulness, an assumption which can be induced from another well-known assumption of the causal sufficiency. We further prove that the features added through our modification convert cofounding bias into prediction variance. With the aid of existing robust optimization technologies that regularize risky strategies with high variance, then, we are able to successfully improve the throughput performance of decision-making optimization, as is shown in our experimental results.

Weighted model integration (WMI) is a very appealing framework for probabilistic inference: it allows to express the complex dependencies of real-world problems where variables are both continuous and discrete, via the language of Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT), as well as to compute probabilistic queries with complex logical and arithmetic constraints. Yet, existing WMI solvers are not ready to scale to these problems. They either ignore the intrinsic dependency structure of the problem at all, or they are limited to too restrictive structures. To narrow this gap, we derive a factorized formalism of WMI enabling us to devise a scalable WMI solver based on message passing, MP-WMI. Namely, MP-WMI is the first WMI solver which allows to: 1) perform exact inference on the full class of tree-structured WMI problems; 2) compute all marginal densities in linear time; 3) amortize inference inter query. Experimental results show that our solver dramatically outperforms the existing WMI solvers on a large set of benchmarks.

The central tenet of reinforcement learning (RL) is that agents seek to maximize the sum of cumulative rewards. In contrast, active inference, an emerging framework within cognitive and computational neuroscience, proposes that agents act to maximize the evidence for a biased generative model. Here, we illustrate how ideas from active inference can augment traditional RL approaches by (i) furnishing an inherent balance of exploration and exploitation, and (ii) providing a more flexible conceptualization of reward. Inspired by active inference, we develop and implement a novel objective for decision making, which we term the free energy of the expected future. We demonstrate that the resulting algorithm successfully balances exploration and exploitation, simultaneously achieving robust performance on several challenging RL benchmarks with sparse, well-shaped, and no rewards.

Uncertainty estimation is important for ensuring safety and robustness of AI systems, especially for high-risk applications. While much progress has recently been made in this area, most research has focused on un-structured prediction, such as image classification and regression tasks. However, while task-specific forms of confidence score estimation have been investigated by the speech and machine translation communities, limited work has investigated general uncertainty estimation approaches for structured prediction. Thus, this work aims to investigate uncertainty estimation for structured prediction tasks within a single unified and interpretable probabilistic ensemble-based framework. We consider uncertainty estimation for sequence data at the token-level and complete sequence-level, provide interpretations for, and applications of, various measures of uncertainty and discuss the challenges associated with obtaining them. This work also explores the practical challenges associated with obtaining uncertainty estimates for structured predictions tasks and provides baselines for token-level error detection, sequence-level prediction rejection, and sequence-level out-of-domain input detection using ensembles of auto-regressive transformer models trained on the WMT'14 English-French and WMT'17 English-German translation and LibriSpeech speech recognition datasets.

It is aimed at advanced undergraduates or first-year Ph.D. students, as well as researchers and practitioners. No previous knowledge of pattern recognition or machine learning concepts is assumed. Familiarity with multivariate calculus and basic linear algebra is required, and some experience in the use of probabilities would be helpful though not essential as the book includes a self-contained introduction to basic probability theory. The book is suitable for courses on machine learning, statistics, computer science, signal processing, computer vision, data mining, and bioinformatics. Extensive support is provided for course instructors, including more than 400 exercises, graded according to difficulty. Example solutions for a subset of the exercises are available from the book website, while solutions for the remainder can be obtained by instructors from the publisher. The dramatic growth in practical applications for machine learning over the last ten years has been accompanied by many important developments in the underlying algorithms and techniques. For example, Bayesian methods have grown from a specialist niche to become mainstream, while graphical models have emerged as a general framework for describing and applying probabilistic techniques. The practical applicability of Bayesian methods has been greatly enhanced by the development of a range of approximate inference algorithms such as variational Bayes and expectation propagation, while new models based on kernels have had a significant impact on both algorithms and applications.

Fuzzy c-means based clustering algorithms are frequently used for Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) fuzzy classifier antecedent parameter estimation. One rule is initialized from each cluster. However, most of these clustering algorithms are unsupervised, which waste valuable label information in the training data. This paper proposes a supervised enhanced soft subspace clustering (SESSC) algorithm, which considers simultaneously the within-cluster compactness, between-cluster separation, and label information in clustering. It can effectively deal with high-dimensional data, be used as a classifier alone, or be integrated into a TSK fuzzy classifier to further improve its performance. Experiments on nine UCI datasets from various application domains demonstrated that SESSC based initialization outperformed other clustering approaches, especially when the number of rules is small.