We develop, discuss, and compare several inference techniques to constrain theory parameters in collider experiments. By harnessing the latent-space structure of particle physics processes, we extract extra information from the simulator. This augmented data can be used to train neural networks that precisely estimate the likelihood ratio. The new methods scale well to many observables and high-dimensional parameter spaces, do not require any approximations of the parton shower and detector response, and can be evaluated in microseconds. Using weak-boson-fusion Higgs production as an example process, we compare the performance of several techniques. The best results are found for likelihood ratio estimators trained with extra information about the score, the gradient of the log likelihood function with respect to the theory parameters. The score also provides sufficient statistics that contain all the information needed for inference in the neighborhood of the Standard Model. These methods enable us to put significantly stronger bounds on effective dimension-six operators than the traditional approach based on histograms. They also outperform generic machine learning methods that do not make use of the particle physics structure, demonstrating their potential to substantially improve the new physics reach of the LHC legacy results.

Given the increasing number of devices that is going to get connected to wireless networks with the advent of Internet of Things, spectrum scarcity will present a major challenge. Application of opportunistic spectrum access mechanisms to IoT networks will become increasingly important to solve this. In this paper, we present a cognitive radio network architecture which uses multi-stage online learning techniques for spectrum assignment to devices, with the aim of improving the throughput and energy efficiency of the IoT devices. In the first stage, we use an AI technique to learn the quality of a user-channel pairing. The next stage utilizes a non-parametric Bayesian learning algorithm to estimate the Primary User OFF time in each channel. The third stage augments the Bayesian learner with implicit exploration to accelerate the learning procedure. The proposed method leads to significant improvement in throughput and energy efficiency of the IoT devices while keeping the interference to the primary users minimal. We provide comprehensive empirical validation of the method with other learning based approaches.

Autonomously training interpretable control strategies, called policies, using pre-existing plant trajectory data is of great interest in industrial applications. Fuzzy controllers have been used in industry for decades as interpretable and efficient system controllers. In this study, we introduce a fuzzy genetic programming (GP) approach called fuzzy GP reinforcement learning (FGPRL) that can select the relevant state features, determine the size of the required fuzzy rule set, and automatically adjust all the controller parameters simultaneously. Each GP individual's fitness is computed using model-based batch reinforcement learning (RL), which first trains a model using available system samples and subsequently performs Monte Carlo rollouts to predict each policy candidate's performance. We compare FGPRL to an extended version of a related method called fuzzy particle swarm reinforcement learning (FPSRL), which uses swarm intelligence to tune the fuzzy policy parameters. Experiments using an industrial benchmark show that FGPRL is able to autonomously learn interpretable fuzzy policies with high control performance.

Most real world phenomena such as sunlight distribution under a forest canopy, minerals concentration, stock valuation, exhibit nonstationary dynamics i.e. phenomenon variation changes depending on the locality. Nonstationary dynamics pose both theoretical and practical challenges to statistical machine learning algorithms that aim to accurately capture the complexities governing the evolution of such processes. Typically the nonstationary dynamics are modeled using nonstationary Gaussian Process models (NGPS) that employ local latent dynamics parameterization to correspondingly model the nonstationary real observable dynamics. Recently, an approach based on most likely induced latent dynamics representation attracted research community's attention for a while. The approach could not be employed for large scale real world applications because learning a most likely latent dynamics representation involves maximization of marginal likelihood of the observed real dynamics that becomes intractable as the number of induced latent points grows with problem size. We have established a direct relationship between informativeness of the induced latent dynamics and the marginal likelihood of the observed real dynamics. This opens up the possibility of maximizing marginal likelihood of observed real dynamics indirectly by near optimally maximizing entropy or mutual information gain on the induced latent dynamics using greedy algorithms. Therefore, for an efficient yet accurate inference, we propose to build an induced latent dynamics representation using a novel algorithm LISAL that adaptively maximizes entropy or mutual information on the induced latent dynamics and marginal likelihood of observed real dynamics in an iterative manner. The relevance of LISAL is validated using real world datasets.

Dempster-Shafer evidence theory has been widely used in various fields of applications, because of the flexibility and effectiveness in modeling uncertainties without prior information. Besides, it has been proven that the quantum theory has powerful capabilities of solving the decision making problems, especially for modelling human decision and cognition. However, the classical Dempster-Shafer evidence theory modelled by real numbers cannot be integrated directly with the quantum theory modelled by complex numbers. So, how can we establish a bridge of communications between the classical Dempster-Shafer evidence theory and the quantum theory? To answer this question, a generalized Dempster-Shafer evidence theory is proposed in this paper. The main contribution in this study is that, unlike the existing evidence theory, a mass function in the generalized Dempster-Shafer evidence theory is modelled by a complex number, called as a complex mass function. In addition, compared with the classical Dempster's combination rule, the condition in terms of the conflict coefficient between two evidences K < 1 is released in the generalized Dempster's combination rule so that it is more general and applicable than the classical Dempster's combination rule. When the complex mass function is degenerated from complex numbers to real numbers, the generalized Dempster's combination rule degenerates to the classical evidence theory under the condition that the conflict coefficient between the evidences K is less than 1. Numerical examples are illustrated to show the efficiency of the generalized Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. Finally, an application of an evidential quantum dynamical model is implemented by integrating the generalized Dempster-Shafer evidence theory with the quantum dynamical model. From the experimental results, it validates the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this work, we study the credit assignment problem in reward augmented maximum likelihood (RAML) learning, and establish a theoretical equivalence between the token-level counterpart of RAML and the entropy regularized reinforcement learning. Inspired by the connection, we propose two sequence prediction algorithms, one extending RAML with fine-grained credit assignment and the other improving Actor-Critic with a systematic entropy regularization. On two benchmark datasets, we show the proposed algorithms outperform RAML and Actor-Critic respectively, providing new alternatives to sequence prediction.

In this paper, we consider the problem of recovering a graph that represents the statistical data dependency among nodes for a set of data samples generated by nodes, which provides the basic structure to perform an inference task, such as MAP (maximum a posteriori). This problem is referred to as structure learning. When nodes are spatially separated in different locations, running an inference algorithm requires a non-negligible amount of message passing, incurring some communication cost. We inevitably have the trade-off between the accuracy of structure learning and the cost we need to pay to perform a given message-passing based inference task because the learnt edge structures of data dependency and physical connectivity graph are often highly different. In this paper, we formalize this trade-off in an optimization problem which outputs the data dependency graph that jointly considers learning accuracy and message-passing costs. We focus on a distributed MAP as the target inference task, and consider two different implementations, ASYNC-MAP and SYNC-MAP that have different message-passing mechanisms and thus different cost structures. In ASYNC- MAP, we propose a polynomial time learning algorithm that is optimal, motivated by the problem of finding a maximum weight spanning tree. In SYNC-MAP, we first prove that it is NP-hard and propose a greedy heuristic. For both implementations, we then quantify how the probability that the resulting data graphs from those learning algorithms differ from the ideal data graph decays as the number of data samples grows, using the large deviation principle, where the decaying rate is characterized by some topological structures of both original data dependency and physical connectivity graphs as well as the degree of the trade-off. We validate our theoretical findings through extensive simulations, which confirms that it has a good match.

We generalize, by a progressive procedure, the notions of conjunction and disjunction of two conditional events to the case of $n$ conditional events. In our coherence-based approach, conjunctions and disjunctions are suitable conditional random quantities. We define the notion of negation, by verifying De Morgan's Laws. We also show that conjunction and disjunction satisfy the associative and commutative properties, and a monotonicity property. Then, we give some results on coherence of prevision assessments for some families of compounded conditionals; in particular we examine the Fr\'echet-Hoeffding bounds. Moreover, we study the reverse probabilistic inference from the conjunction $\mathcal{C}_{n+1}$ of $n+1$ conditional events to the family $\{\mathcal{C}_{n},E_{n+1}|H_{n+1}\}$. We consider the relation with the notion of quasi-conjunction and we examine in detail the coherence of the prevision assessments related with the conjunction of three conditional events. Based on conjunction, we also give a characterization of p-consistency and of p-entailment, with applications to several inference rules in probabilistic nonmonotonic reasoning. Finally, we examine some non p-valid inference rules; then, we illustrate by an example two methods which allow to suitably modify non p-valid inference rules in order to get inferences which are p-valid.

This chapter offers an accessible introduction to the channel-based approach to Bayesian probability theory. This framework rests on algebraic and logical foundations, inspired by the methodologies of programming language semantics. It offers a uniform, structured and expressive language for describing Bayesian phenomena in terms of familiar programming concepts, like channel, predicate transformation and state transformation. The introduction also covers inference in Bayesian networks, which will be modelled by a suitable calculus of string diagrams.

The sine-cosine algorithm (SCA) is a new population-based meta-heuristic algorithm. In addition to exploiting sine and cosine functions to perform local and global searches (hence the name sine-cosine), the SCA introduces several random and adaptive parameters to facilitate the search process. Although it shows promising results, the search process of the SCA is vulnerable to local minima/maxima due to the adoption of a fixed switch probability and the bounded magnitude of the sine and cosine functions (from -1 to 1). In this paper, we propose a new hybrid Q-learning sine-cosine- based strategy, called the Q-learning sine-cosine algorithm (QLSCA). Within the QLSCA, we eliminate the switching probability. Instead, we rely on the Q-learning algorithm (based on the penalty and reward mechanism) to dynamically identify the best operation during runtime. Additionally, we integrate two new operations (L\'evy flight motion and crossover) into the QLSCA to facilitate jumping out of local minima/maxima and enhance the solution diversity. To assess its performance, we adopt the QLSCA for the combinatorial test suite minimization problem. Experimental results reveal that the QLSCA is statistically superior with regard to test suite size reduction compared to recent state-of-the-art strategies, including the original SCA, the particle swarm test generator (PSTG), adaptive particle swarm optimization (APSO) and the cuckoo search strategy (CS) at the 95% confidence level. However, concerning the comparison with discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO), there is no significant difference in performance at the 95% confidence level. On a positive note, the QLSCA statistically outperforms the DPSO in certain configurations at the 90% confidence level.