Uncertainty
Collective Intention Recognition and Elder Care
Han, The Anh (University of Lisbon, Portugal) | Pereira, Luis Moniz (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we present a new method for collective intention recognition based on mainstream philosophical accounts. Second, we extend our previous Elder Care system with collective intention recognition ability for assisting a couple of elderly people. The previous system was just capable of individual intention recognition, and so it has now been enabled to deal with situations where the elders intend to do things together.
Anytime Intention Recognition via Incremental Bayesian Network Reconstruction
Han, The Anh (University of Lisbon) | Pereira, Luis Moniz (University of Lisbon)
This paper presents an anytime algorithm for incremental intention recognition in a changing world. The algorithm is performed by dynamically constructing the intention recognition model on top of a prior domain knowledge base. The model is occasionally reconfigured by situating itself in the changing world and removing newly found out irrelevant intentions. We also discuss some approaches to knowledge base representation for supporting situation-dependent model construction. Reconfigurable Bayesian Networks are employed to produce the intention recognition model.
Cross-Domain Scruffy Inference
Arnold, Kenneth Charles (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) | Lieberman, Henry (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Reasoning about Commonsense knowledge poses many problems that traditional logical inference doesn't handle well. Among these is cross-domain inference: how to draw on multiple independently produced knowledge bases. Since knowledge bases may not have the same vocabulary, level of detail, or accuracy, that inference should be "scruffy." The AnalogySpace technique showed that a factored inference approach is useful for approximate reasoning over noisy knowledge bases like ConceptNet. A straightforward extension of factored inference to multiple datasets, called Blending, has seen productive use for commonsense reasoning. We show that Blending is a kind of Collective Matrix Factorization (CMF): the factorization spreads out the prediction loss between each dataset. We then show that blending additional data causes the singular vectors to rotate between the two domains, which enables cross-domain inference. We show, in a simplified example, that the maximum interaction occurs when the magnitudes (as defined by the largest singular values) of the two matrices are equal, confirming previous empirical conclusions. Finally, we describe and mathematically justify Bridge Blending, which facilitates inference between datasets by specifically adding knowledge that "bridges" between the two, in terms of CMF.
Model Selection by Loss Rank for Classification and Unsupervised Learning
Tran, Minh-Ngoc, Hutter, Marcus
Hutter (2007) recently introduced the loss rank principle (LoRP) as a generalpurpose principle for model selection. The LoRP enjoys many attractive properties and deserves further investigations. The LoRP has been well-studied for regression framework in Hutter and Tran (2010). In this paper, we study the LoRP for classification framework, and develop it further for model selection problems in unsupervised learning where the main interest is to describe the associations between input measurements, like cluster analysis or graphical modelling. Theoretical properties and simulation studies are presented.
Probabilistic Inferences in Bayesian Networks
Bayesian network is a complete model for the variables and their relationships, it can be used to answer probabilistic queries about them. A Bayesian network can thus be considered a mechanism for automatically applying Bayes' theorem to complex problems. In the application of Bayesian networks, most of the work is related to probabilistic inferences. Any variable updating in any node of Bayesian networks might result in the evidence propagation across the Bayesian networks. This paper sums up various inference techniques in Bayesian networks and provide guidance for the algorithm calculation in probabilistic inference in Bayesian networks.
Sparse Inverse Covariance Selection via Alternating Linearization Methods
Scheinberg, Katya, Ma, Shiqian, Goldfarb, Donald
Gaussian graphical models are of great interest in statistical learning. Because the conditional independencies between different nodes correspond to zero entries in the inverse covariance matrix of the Gaussian distribution, one can learn the structure of the graph by estimating a sparse inverse covariance matrix from sample data, by solving a convex maximum likelihood problem with an $\ell_1$-regularization term. In this paper, we propose a first-order method based on an alternating linearization technique that exploits the problem's special structure; in particular, the subproblems solved in each iteration have closed-form solutions. Moreover, our algorithm obtains an $\epsilon$-optimal solution in $O(1/\epsilon)$ iterations. Numerical experiments on both synthetic and real data from gene association networks show that a practical version of this algorithm outperforms other competitive algorithms.
Slice sampling covariance hyperparameters of latent Gaussian models
Murray, Iain, Adams, Ryan Prescott
Computer Science University of Toronto The Gaussian process (GP) is a popular way to specify dependencies between random variables in a probabilistic model. In the Bayesian framework the covariance structure can be specified using unknown hyperparameters. Integrating over these hyperparameters considers different possible explanations for the data when making predictions. This integration is often performed using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. However, with non-Gaussian observations standard hyperparameter sampling approaches require careful tuning and may converge slowly. In this paper we present a slice sampling approach that requires little tuning while mixing well in both strong-and weak-data regimes.
Rumors in a Network: Who's the Culprit?
We provide a systematic study of the problem of finding the source of a rumor in a network. We model rumor spreading in a network with a variant of the popular SIR model and then construct an estimator for the rumor source. This estimator is based upon a novel topological quantity which we term \textbf{rumor centrality}. We establish that this is an ML estimator for a class of graphs. We find the following surprising threshold phenomenon: on trees which grow faster than a line, the estimator always has non-trivial detection probability, whereas on trees that grow like a line, the detection probability will go to 0 as the network grows. Simulations performed on synthetic networks such as the popular small-world and scale-free networks, and on real networks such as an internet AS network and the U.S. electric power grid network, show that the estimator either finds the source exactly or within a few hops of the true source across different network topologies. We compare rumor centrality to another common network centrality notion known as distance centrality. We prove that on trees, the rumor center and distance center are equivalent, but on general networks, they may differ. Indeed, simulations show that rumor centrality outperforms distance centrality in finding rumor sources in networks which are not tree-like.
Mathematical Structure of Quantum Decision Theory
One of the most complex systems is the human brain whose formalized functioning is characterized by decision theory. We present a "Quantum Decision Theory" of decision making, based on the mathematical theory of separable Hilbert spaces. This mathematical structure captures the effect of superposition of composite prospects, including many incorporated intentions, which allows us to explain a variety of interesting fallacies and anomalies that have been reported to particularize the decision making of real human beings. The theory describes entangled decision making, non-commutativity of subsequent decisions, and intention interference of composite prospects. We demonstrate how the violation of the Savage's sure-thing principle (disjunction effect) can be explained as a result of the interference of intentions, when making decisions under uncertainty. The conjunction fallacy is also explained by the presence of the interference terms. We demonstrate that all known anomalies and paradoxes, documented in the context of classical decision theory, are reducible to just a few mathematical archetypes, all of which finding straightforward explanations in the frame of the developed quantum approach.
Learning under Concept Drift: an Overview
Concept drift refers to a non stationary learning problem over time. The training and the application data often mismatch in real life problems. In this report we present a context of concept drift problem 1. We focus on the issues relevant to adaptive training set formation. We present the framework and terminology, and formulate a global picture of concept drift learners design. We start with formalizing the framework for the concept drifting data in Section 1. In Section 2 we discuss the adaptivity mechanisms of the concept drift learners. In Section 3 we overview the principle mechanisms of concept drift learners. In this chapter we give a general picture of the available algorithms and categorize them based on their properties. Section 5 discusses the related research fields and Section 5 groups and presents major concept drift applications. This report is intended to give a bird's view of concept drift research field, provide a context of the research and position it within broad spectrum of research fields and applications.