0000000000305582

AUTHOR

Sondre Glimsdal

The Convolutional Tsetlin Machine

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have obtained astounding successes for important pattern recognition tasks, but they suffer from high computational complexity and the lack of interpretability. The recent Tsetlin Machine (TM) attempts to address this lack by using easy-to-interpret conjunctive clauses in propositional logic to solve complex pattern recognition problems. The TM provides competitive accuracy in several benchmarks, while keeping the important property of interpretability. It further facilitates hardware-near implementation since inputs, patterns, and outputs are expressed as bits, while recognition and learning rely on straightforward bit manipulation. In this paper, we ex…

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Increasing the Inference and Learning Speed of Tsetlin Machines with Clause Indexing

The Tsetlin Machine (TM) is a machine learning algorithm founded on the classical Tsetlin Automaton (TA) and game theory. It further leverages frequent pattern mining and resource allocation principles to extract common patterns in the data, rather than relying on minimizing output error, which is prone to overfitting. Unlike the intertwined nature of pattern representation in neural networks, a TM decomposes problems into self-contained patterns, represented as conjunctive clauses. The clause outputs, in turn, are combined into a classification decision through summation and thresholding, akin to a logistic regression function, however, with binary weights and a unit step output function. …

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A Novel Bayesian Network Based Scheme for Finding the Optimal Solution to Stochastic Online Equi-partitioning Problems

A number of intriguing decision scenarios, such as order picking, revolve around partitioning a collection of objects so as to optimize some application specific objective function. In its general form, this problem is referred to as the Object Partitioning Problem (OOP), known to be NP-hard. We here consider a variant of OPP, namely the Stochastic Online Equi-Partitioning Problem (SO-EPP). In SO-EPP, objects arrive sequentially, in pairs. The relationship between the arriving object pairs is stochastic: They belong to the same partition with probability p. From a history of object arrivals, the goal is to predict which objects will appear together in future arrivals. As an additional compl…

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A Spatio-temporal Probabilistic Model of Hazard and Crowd Dynamics in Disasters for Evacuation Planning

Published version of a chapter in the book: Recent Trends in Applied Artificial Intelligence. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38577-3_7 Managing the uncertainties that arise in disasters – such as ship fire – can be extremely challenging. Previous work has typically focused either on modeling crowd behavior or hazard dynamics, targeting fully known environments. However, when a disaster strikes, uncertainty about the nature, extent and further development of the hazard is the rule rather than the exception. Additionally, crowd and hazard dynamics are both intertwined and uncertain, making evacuation planning extremely difficult. To address this chal…

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Efficient gaussian process based optimistic knapsack sampling with applications to stochastic resource allocation

Masteroppgave i informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi IKT590 2013 – Universitetet i Agder, Grimstad The stochastic non-linear fractional knapsack problem is a challeng- ing optimization problem with numerous applications, including resource allocation. The goal is to nd the most valuable mix of materials that ts within a knapsack of xed capacity. When the value functions of the involved materials are fully known and di erentiable, the most valuable mixture can be found by direct application of Lagrange multipliers. How- ever, in many real-world applications, such as web polling, information about material value is uncertain, and in many cases missing altogether. Surprisingly, without pri…

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Thompson Sampling Guided Stochastic Searching on the Line for Deceptive Environments with Applications to Root-Finding Problems

The multi-armed bandit problem forms the foundation for solving a wide range of on-line stochastic optimization problems through a simple, yet effective mechanism. One simply casts the problem as a gambler that repeatedly pulls one out of N slot machine arms, eliciting random rewards. Learning of reward probabilities is then combined with reward maximization, by carefully balancing reward exploration against reward exploitation. In this paper, we address a particularly intriguing variant of the multi-armed bandit problem, referred to as the {\it Stochastic Point Location (SPL) Problem}. The gambler is here only told whether the optimal arm (point) lies to the "left" or to the "right" of the…

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Thompson Sampling Guided Stochastic Searching on the Line for Adversarial Learning

The multi-armed bandit problem has been studied for decades. In brief, a gambler repeatedly pulls one out of N slot machine arms, randomly receiving a reward or a penalty from each pull. The aim of the gambler is to maximize the expected number of rewards received, when the probabilities of receiving rewards are unknown. Thus, the gambler must, as quickly as possible, identify the arm with the largest probability of producing rewards, compactly capturing the exploration-exploitation dilemma in reinforcement learning. In this paper we introduce a particular challenging variant of the multi-armed bandit problem, inspired by the so-called N-Door Puzzle. In this variant, the gambler is only tol…

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A two-armed bandit based scheme for accelerated decentralized learning

Published version of a chapter from the book: Modern Approaches in Applied Intelligence. Also available at SpringerLink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21827-9_54 The two-armed bandit problem is a classical optimization problem where a decision maker sequentially pulls one of two arms attached to a gambling machine, with each pull resulting in a random reward. The reward distributions are unknown, and thus, one must balance between exploiting existing knowledge about the arms, and obtaining new information. Bandit problems are particularly fascinating because a large class of real world problems, including routing, QoS control, game playing, and resource allocation, can be solved in a …

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Towards Thompson Sampling for Complex Bayesian Reasoning

Paper III, IV, and VI are not available as a part of the dissertation due to the copyright. Thompson Sampling (TS) is a state-of-art algorithm for bandit problems set in a Bayesian framework. Both the theoretical foundation and the empirical efficiency of TS is wellexplored for plain bandit problems. However, the Bayesian underpinning of TS means that TS could potentially be applied to other, more complex, problems as well, beyond the bandit problem, if suitable Bayesian structures can be found. The objective of this thesis is the development and analysis of TS-based schemes for more complex optimization problems, founded on Bayesian reasoning. We address several complex optimization proble…

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Hydropower Optimization Using Split-Window, Meta-Heuristic and Genetic Algorithms

In this paper, we try to find the most efficient optimization algorithm that can be used to resolve the hydropower optimization problem. We propose a novel optimization technique is called the Split-window method. The method is relatively simple and reduces the complexity of the optimization problem by split-ting the planning horizon (and datasets) into equal windows and assigning the same values to policies(actions) within each part. After splitting, a meta-heuristic technique is used to optimize the actions, and the dataset is split again until a split contains only one instance (timestep). The unique values to be optimized during each iteration is equal to the number of splits which make…

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Ant colony optimisation for planning safe escape routes

Published version of a chapter from the volume: Recent Trends in Applied Artificial Intelligence. Also available on SpringerLink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38577-3_6 An emergency requiring evacuation is a chaotic event filled with uncertainties both for the people affected and rescuers. The evacuees are often left to themselves for navigation to the escape area. The chaotic situation increases when a predefined escape route is blocked by a hazard, and there is a need to re-think which escape route is safest. This paper addresses automatically finding the safest escape route in emergency situations in large buildings or ships with imperfect knowledge of the hazards. The proposed so…

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Thompson Sampling Based Active Learning in Probabilistic Programs with Application to Travel Time Estimation

The pertinent problem of Traveling Time Estimation (TTE) is to estimate the travel time, given a start location and a destination, solely based on the coordinates of the points under consideration. This is typically solved by fitting a function based on a sequence of observations. However, it can be expensive or slow to obtain labeled data or measurements to calibrate the estimation function. Active Learning tries to alleviate this problem by actively selecting samples that minimize the total number of samples needed to do accurate inference. Probabilistic Programming Languages (PPL) give us the opportunities to apply powerful Bayesian inference to model problems that involve uncertainties.…

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Increasing the Inference and Learning Speed of Tsetlin Machines with Clause Indexing

The Tsetlin Machine (TM) is a machine learning algorithm founded on the classical Tsetlin Automaton (TA) and game theory. It further leverages frequent pattern mining and resource allocation principles to extract common patterns in the data, rather than relying on minimizing output error, which is prone to overfitting. Unlike the intertwined nature of pattern representation in neural networks, a TM decomposes problems into self-contained patterns, represented as conjunctive clauses. The clause outputs, in turn, are combined into a classification decision through summation and thresholding, akin to a logistic regression function, however, with binary weights and a unit step output function. …

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AIs for Dominion Using Monte-Carlo Tree Search

Dominion is a complex game, with hidden information and stochastic elements. This makes creating any artificial intelligence AI challenging. To this date, there is little work in the literature on AI for Dominion, and existing solutions rely upon carefully tuned finite-state solutions. This paper presents two novel AIs for Dominion based on Monte-Carlo Tree Search MCTS methods. This is achieved by employing Upper Confidence Bounds UCB and Upper Confidence Bounds applied to Trees UCT. The proposed solutions are notably better than existing work. The strongest proposal is able to win 67% of games played against a known, good finite-state solution, even when the finite-state solution has the u…

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Thompson Sampling Guided Stochastic Searching on the Line for Non-stationary Adversarial Learning

This paper reports the first known solution to the N-Door puzzle when the environment is both non-stationary and deceptive (adversarial learning). The Multi-Armed-Bandit (MAB) problem is the iconic representation of the exploration versus exploitation dilemma. In brief, a gambler repeatedly selects and play, one out of N possible slot machines or arms and either receives a reward or a penalty. The objective of the gambler is then to locate the most rewarding arm to play, while in the process maximize his winnings. In this paper we investigate a challenging variant of the MAB problem, namely the non-stationary N-Door puzzle. Here, instead of directly observing the reward, the gambler is only…

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Accelerated Bayesian learning for decentralized two-armed bandit based decision making with applications to the Goore Game

Published version of an article in the journal: Applied Intelligence. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10489-012-0346-z The two-armed bandit problem is a classical optimization problem where a decision maker sequentially pulls one of two arms attached to a gambling machine, with each pull resulting in a random reward. The reward distributions are unknown, and thus, one must balance between exploiting existing knowledge about the arms, and obtaining new information. Bandit problems are particularly fascinating because a large class of real world problems, including routing, Quality of Service (QoS) control, game playing, and resource allocation, can be solved …

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