深度神经网络在关键视觉挑战（例如对象识别）中超过了人类的表现，但需要大量的能量，计算和记忆。相反，尖峰神经网络（SNN）具有提高对象识别系统的效率和生物学合理性的潜力。在这里，我们提出了一种SNN模型，该模型使用Spike-Latency编码和赢家全部抑制（WTA-I）有效地表示时尚MNIST数据集的视觉刺激。将刺激用中心旋转的接受场进行预处理，然后喂入一层尖刺神经元，其突触权重使用Spike-Timing依赖性塑性（STDP）进行更新。我们研究了代表对象的质量如何在不同的WTA-I方案下变化，并证明150个尖峰神经元的网络可以有效地表示40个尖峰的对象。研究如何使用SNN中的生物学上合理的学习规则来研究核心对象识别，这不仅可能进一步我们对大脑的理解，而且还会导致新颖而有效的人工视觉系统。

深度估计是一个重要的计算机视觉任务，特别是用于自主车辆中的导航，或者在机器人中的对象操纵。在这里，我们使用端到端的神经形态方法解决了它，将两个事件的相机和尖峰神经网络（SNN）与略微修改的U-Net的编码器 - 解码器架构结合起来，我们命名为Sterepike。更具体地说，我们使用了多车辆立体声事件相机数据集（MVSEC）。它提供了深度地面真理，用于使用替代梯度下降以监督方式训练立体摩托车。我们提出了一种新颖的读数范式来获得密集的模拟预测 - 从解码器的尖峰中获得每个像素的深度。我们证明，这种体系结构概括得非常好，甚至比其非尖峰对应物更好，导致最先进的测试精度。据我们所知，这是第一次通过完全尖峰网络解决了这样一个大规模的回归问题。最后，我们表明，可以通过规范化获得低发射速率（<10％），精度最低的成本。这意味着可以在神经芯片上有效地实现Sterepositike，用于为低功率和实时嵌入式系统开门。

在过去的十年中，我们看到了工业数据，计算能力的巨大改善以及机器学习的重大理论进步。这为在大规模非线性监控和控制问题上使用现代机器学习工具提供了机会。本文对过程行业的应用进行了对最新结果的调查。

在过去的几十年中，人工智能领域大大进展，灵感来自生物学和神经科学领域的发现。这项工作的想法是由来自传入和横向/内部联系的人脑中皮质区域的自组织过程的过程启发。在这项工作中，我们开发了一个原始的脑激发神经模型，将自组织地图（SOM）和Hebbian学习在重新参与索马里（RESOM）模型中。该框架应用于多模式分类问题。与基于未经监督的学习的现有方法相比，该模型增强了最先进的结果。这项工作还通过在名为SPARP（自配置3D蜂窝自适应平台）的专用FPGA的平台上的模拟结果和硬件执行，演示了模型的分布式和可扩展性。头皮板可以以模块化方式互连，以支持神经模型的结构。这种统一的软件和硬件方法使得能够缩放处理并允许来自多个模态的信息进行动态合并。硬件板上的部署提供了在多个设备上并行执行的性能结果，通过专用串行链路在每个板之间的通信。由于多模式关联，所提出的统一架构，由RESOM模型和头皮硬件平台组成的精度显着提高，与集中式GPU实现相比，延迟和功耗之间的良好折衷。

The recent increase in public and academic interest in preserving biodiversity has led to the growth of the field of conservation technology. This field involves designing and constructing tools that utilize technology to aid in the conservation of wildlife. In this article, we will use case studies to demonstrate the importance of designing conservation tools with human-wildlife interaction in mind and provide a framework for creating successful tools. These case studies include a range of complexities, from simple cat collars to machine learning and game theory methodologies. Our goal is to introduce and inform current and future researchers in the field of conservation technology and provide references for educating the next generation of conservation technologists. Conservation technology not only has the potential to benefit biodiversity but also has broader impacts on fields such as sustainability and environmental protection. By using innovative technologies to address conservation challenges, we can find more effective and efficient solutions to protect and preserve our planet's resources.

A Digital Twin (DT) is a simulation of a physical system that provides information to make decisions that add economic, social or commercial value. The behaviour of a physical system changes over time, a DT must therefore be continually updated with data from the physical systems to reflect its changing behaviour. For resource-constrained systems, updating a DT is non-trivial because of challenges such as on-board learning and the off-board data transfer. This paper presents a framework for updating data-driven DTs of resource-constrained systems geared towards system health monitoring. The proposed solution consists of: (1) an on-board system running a light-weight DT allowing the prioritisation and parsimonious transfer of data generated by the physical system; and (2) off-board robust updating of the DT and detection of anomalous behaviours. Two case studies are considered using a production gas turbine engine system to demonstrate the digital representation accuracy for real-world, time-varying physical systems.

We consider infinite horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with fast-slow structure, meaning that certain parts of the state space move "fast" (and in a sense, are more influential) while other parts transition more "slowly." Such structure is common in real-world problems where sequential decisions need to be made at high frequencies, yet information that varies at a slower timescale also influences the optimal policy. Examples include: (1) service allocation for a multi-class queue with (slowly varying) stochastic costs, (2) a restless multi-armed bandit with an environmental state, and (3) energy demand response, where both day-ahead and real-time prices play a role in the firm's revenue. Models that fully capture these problems often result in MDPs with large state spaces and large effective time horizons (due to frequent decisions), rendering them computationally intractable. We propose an approximate dynamic programming algorithmic framework based on the idea of "freezing" the slow states, solving a set of simpler finite-horizon MDPs (the lower-level MDPs), and applying value iteration (VI) to an auxiliary MDP that transitions on a slower timescale (the upper-level MDP). We also extend the technique to a function approximation setting, where a feature-based linear architecture is used. On the theoretical side, we analyze the regret incurred by each variant of our frozen-state approach. Finally, we give empirical evidence that the frozen-state approach generates effective policies using just a fraction of the computational cost, while illustrating that simply omitting slow states from the decision modeling is often not a viable heuristic.

While the capabilities of autonomous systems have been steadily improving in recent years, these systems still struggle to rapidly explore previously unknown environments without the aid of GPS-assisted navigation. The DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge aimed to fast track the development of autonomous exploration systems by evaluating their performance in real-world underground search-and-rescue scenarios. Subterranean environments present a plethora of challenges for robotic systems, such as limited communications, complex topology, visually-degraded sensing, and harsh terrain. The presented solution enables long-term autonomy with minimal human supervision by combining a powerful and independent single-agent autonomy stack, with higher level mission management operating over a flexible mesh network. The autonomy suite deployed on quadruped and wheeled robots was fully independent, freeing the human supervision to loosely supervise the mission and make high-impact strategic decisions. We also discuss lessons learned from fielding our system at the SubT Final Event, relating to vehicle versatility, system adaptability, and re-configurable communications.

This work focuses on unsupervised representation learning in person re-identification (ReID). Recent self-supervised contrastive learning methods learn invariance by maximizing the representation similarity between two augmented views of a same image. However, traditional data augmentation may bring to the fore undesirable distortions on identity features, which is not always favorable in id-sensitive ReID tasks. In this paper, we propose to replace traditional data augmentation with a generative adversarial network (GAN) that is targeted to generate augmented views for contrastive learning. A 3D mesh guided person image generator is proposed to disentangle a person image into id-related and id-unrelated features. Deviating from previous GAN-based ReID methods that only work in id-unrelated space (pose and camera style), we conduct GAN-based augmentation on both id-unrelated and id-related features. We further propose specific contrastive losses to help our network learn invariance from id-unrelated and id-related augmentations. By jointly training the generative and the contrastive modules, our method achieves new state-of-the-art unsupervised person ReID performance on mainstream large-scale benchmarks.

Machine learning is the dominant approach to artificial intelligence, through which computers learn from data and experience. In the framework of supervised learning, for a computer to learn from data accurately and efficiently, some auxiliary information about the data distribution and target function should be provided to it through the learning model. This notion of auxiliary information relates to the concept of regularization in statistical learning theory. A common feature among real-world datasets is that data domains are multiscale and target functions are well-behaved and smooth. In this paper, we propose a learning model that exploits this multiscale data structure and discuss its statistical and computational benefits. The hierarchical learning model is inspired by the logical and progressive easy-to-hard learning mechanism of human beings and has interpretable levels. The model apportions computational resources according to the complexity of data instances and target functions. This property can have multiple benefits, including higher inference speed and computational savings in training a model for many users or when training is interrupted. We provide a statistical analysis of the learning mechanism using multiscale entropies and show that it can yield significantly stronger guarantees than uniform convergence bounds.