流程数据可用性的兴起最近导致了数据驱动的学习方法的发展。但是，这些方法中的大多数限制了学习模型的使用来预测正在进行的过程执行的未来。本文的目的是向向前迈出一步，并利用可用的数据来学习采取行动，通过支持用户的最佳策略（绩效衡量）的建议。我们采用一个过程参与者的优化视角，我们建议下一步执行的最佳活动，以响应在复杂的外部环境中发生的事情，而外源性因素没有控制。为此，我们研究了一种通过强化学习来学习的方法，从观察过去的执行中学习的最佳政策，并建议开展最佳活动，以进行优化关键的兴趣指标。该方法的有效性在从现实生活数据中获取的两种情况下得到了证明。

医疗AI通过支持基于证据的医学实践，个性化患者治疗，降低成本以及改善提供者和患者体验，推进医疗保健的巨大潜力。我们认为解锁此潜力需要一种系统的方法来衡量在大规模异构数据上的医疗AI模型的性能。为了满足这种需求，我们正在建立Medperf，这是一个开放的框架，用于在医疗领域的基准测试机器学习。 Medperf将使联合评估能够将模型安全地分配给不同的评估设施，从而赋予医疗组织在高效和人类监督过程中评估和验证AI模型的性能，同时优先考虑隐私。我们描述了当前的挑战医疗保健和AI社区面临，需要开放平台，Medperf的设计理念，其目前的实施状态和我们的路线图。我们呼吁研究人员和组织加入我们创建Medperf开放基准平台。

鉴于部署更可靠的机器学习系统的重要性，研究界内的机器学习模型的解释性得到了相当大的关注。在计算机视觉应用中，生成反事实方法表示如何扰乱模型的输入来改变其预测，提供有关模型决策的详细信息。目前的方法倾向于产生关于模型决策的琐碎的反事实，因为它们通常建议夸大或消除所分类的属性的存在。对于机器学习从业者，这些类型的反事件提供了很少的价值，因为它们没有提供有关不期望的模型或数据偏差的新信息。在这项工作中，我们确定了琐碎的反事实生成问题，我们建议潜水以缓解它。潜水在使用多样性强制损失限制的解除印章潜在空间中学习扰动，以发现关于模型预测的多个有价值的解释。此外，我们介绍一种机制，以防止模型产生微不足道的解释。 Celeba和Synbols的实验表明，与先前的最先进的方法相比，我们的模型提高了生产高质量有价值解释的成功率。代码可在https://github.com/elementai/beyond- trial-explanations获得。

In this paper, we propose a novel technique, namely INVALIDATOR, to automatically assess the correctness of APR-generated patches via semantic and syntactic reasoning. INVALIDATOR reasons about program semantic via program invariants while it also captures program syntax via language semantic learned from large code corpus using the pre-trained language model. Given a buggy program and the developer-patched program, INVALIDATOR infers likely invariants on both programs. Then, INVALIDATOR determines that a APR-generated patch overfits if: (1) it violates correct specifications or (2) maintains errors behaviors of the original buggy program. In case our approach fails to determine an overfitting patch based on invariants, INVALIDATOR utilizes a trained model from labeled patches to assess patch correctness based on program syntax. The benefit of INVALIDATOR is three-fold. First, INVALIDATOR is able to leverage both semantic and syntactic reasoning to enhance its discriminant capability. Second, INVALIDATOR does not require new test cases to be generated but instead only relies on the current test suite and uses invariant inference to generalize the behaviors of a program. Third, INVALIDATOR is fully automated. We have conducted our experiments on a dataset of 885 patches generated on real-world programs in Defects4J. Experiment results show that INVALIDATOR correctly classified 79% overfitting patches, accounting for 23% more overfitting patches being detected by the best baseline. INVALIDATOR also substantially outperforms the best baselines by 14% and 19% in terms of Accuracy and F-Measure, respectively.

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.

Variational autoencoders model high-dimensional data by positing low-dimensional latent variables that are mapped through a flexible distribution parametrized by a neural network. Unfortunately, variational autoencoders often suffer from posterior collapse: the posterior of the latent variables is equal to its prior, rendering the variational autoencoder useless as a means to produce meaningful representations. Existing approaches to posterior collapse often attribute it to the use of neural networks or optimization issues due to variational approximation. In this paper, we consider posterior collapse as a problem of latent variable non-identifiability. We prove that the posterior collapses if and only if the latent variables are non-identifiable in the generative model. This fact implies that posterior collapse is not a phenomenon specific to the use of flexible distributions or approximate inference. Rather, it can occur in classical probabilistic models even with exact inference, which we also demonstrate. Based on these results, we propose a class of latent-identifiable variational autoencoders, deep generative models which enforce identifiability without sacrificing flexibility. This model class resolves the problem of latent variable non-identifiability by leveraging bijective Brenier maps and parameterizing them with input convex neural networks, without special variational inference objectives or optimization tricks. Across synthetic and real datasets, latent-identifiable variational autoencoders outperform existing methods in mitigating posterior collapse and providing meaningful representations of the data.

Cashews are grown by over 3 million smallholders in more than 40 countries worldwide as a principal source of income. As the third largest cashew producer in Africa, Benin has nearly 200,000 smallholder cashew growers contributing 15% of the country's national export earnings. However, a lack of information on where and how cashew trees grow across the country hinders decision-making that could support increased cashew production and poverty alleviation. By leveraging 2.4-m Planet Basemaps and 0.5-m aerial imagery, newly developed deep learning algorithms, and large-scale ground truth datasets, we successfully produced the first national map of cashew in Benin and characterized the expansion of cashew plantations between 2015 and 2021. In particular, we developed a SpatioTemporal Classification with Attention (STCA) model to map the distribution of cashew plantations, which can fully capture texture information from discriminative time steps during a growing season. We further developed a Clustering Augmented Self-supervised Temporal Classification (CASTC) model to distinguish high-density versus low-density cashew plantations by automatic feature extraction and optimized clustering. Results show that the STCA model has an overall accuracy of 80% and the CASTC model achieved an overall accuracy of 77.9%. We found that the cashew area in Benin has doubled from 2015 to 2021 with 60% of new plantation development coming from cropland or fallow land, while encroachment of cashew plantations into protected areas has increased by 70%. Only half of cashew plantations were high-density in 2021, suggesting high potential for intensification. Our study illustrates the power of combining high-resolution remote sensing imagery and state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms to better understand tree crops in the heterogeneous smallholder landscape.

Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography (CCTA) provides information on the presence, extent, and severity of obstructive coronary artery disease. Large-scale clinical studies analyzing CCTA-derived metrics typically require ground-truth validation in the form of high-fidelity 3D intravascular imaging. However, manual rigid alignment of intravascular images to corresponding CCTA images is both time consuming and user-dependent. Moreover, intravascular modalities suffer from several non-rigid motion-induced distortions arising from distortions in the imaging catheter path. To address these issues, we here present a semi-automatic segmentation-based framework for both rigid and non-rigid matching of intravascular images to CCTA images. We formulate the problem in terms of finding the optimal \emph{virtual catheter path} that samples the CCTA data to recapitulate the coronary artery morphology found in the intravascular image. We validate our co-registration framework on a cohort of $n=40$ patients using bifurcation landmarks as ground truth for longitudinal and rotational registration. Our results indicate that our non-rigid registration significantly outperforms other co-registration approaches for luminal bifurcation alignment in both longitudinal (mean mismatch: 3.3 frames) and rotational directions (mean mismatch: 28.6 degrees). By providing a differentiable framework for automatic multi-modal intravascular data fusion, our developed co-registration modules significantly reduces the manual effort required to conduct large-scale multi-modal clinical studies while also providing a solid foundation for the development of machine learning-based co-registration approaches.

Springs are efficient in storing and returning elastic potential energy but are unable to hold the energy they store in the absence of an external load. Lockable springs use clutches to hold elastic potential energy in the absence of an external load but have not yet been widely adopted in applications, partly because clutches introduce design complexity, reduce energy efficiency, and typically do not afford high-fidelity control over the energy stored by the spring. Here, we present the design of a novel lockable compression spring that uses a small capstan clutch to passively lock a mechanical spring. The capstan clutch can lock up to 1000 N force at any arbitrary deflection, unlock the spring in less than 10 ms with a control force less than 1 % of the maximal spring force, and provide an 80 % energy storage and return efficiency (comparable to a highly efficient electric motor operated at constant nominal speed). By retaining the form factor of a regular spring while providing high-fidelity locking capability even under large spring forces, the proposed design could facilitate the development of energy-efficient spring-based actuators and robots.

Springs can provide force at zero net energy cost by recycling negative mechanical work to benefit motor-driven robots or spring-augmented humans. However, humans have limited force and range of motion, and motors have a limited ability to produce force. These limits constrain how much energy a conventional spring can store and, consequently, how much assistance a spring can provide. In this paper, we introduce an approach to accumulating negative work in assistive springs over several motion cycles. We show that, by utilizing a novel floating spring mechanism, the weight of a human or robot can be used to iteratively increase spring compression, irrespective of the potential energy stored by the spring. Decoupling the force required to compress a spring from the energy stored by a spring advances prior works, and could enable spring-driven robots and humans to perform physically demanding tasks without the use of large actuators.