Generalisation to unseen contexts remains a challenge for embodied navigation agents. In the context of semantic audio-visual navigation (SAVi) tasks, the notion of generalisation should include both generalising to unseen indoor visual scenes as well as generalising to unheard sounding objects. However, previous SAVi task definitions do not include evaluation conditions on truly novel sounding objects, resorting instead to evaluating agents on unheard sound clips of known objects; meanwhile, previous SAVi methods do not include explicit mechanisms for incorporating domain knowledge about object and region semantics. These weaknesses limit the development and assessment of models' abilities to generalise their learned experience. In this work, we introduce the use of knowledge-driven scene priors in the semantic audio-visual embodied navigation task: we combine semantic information from our novel knowledge graph that encodes object-region relations, spatial knowledge from dual Graph Encoder Networks, and background knowledge from a series of pre-training tasks -- all within a reinforcement learning framework for audio-visual navigation. We also define a new audio-visual navigation sub-task, where agents are evaluated on novel sounding objects, as opposed to unheard clips of known objects. We show improvements over strong baselines in generalisation to unseen regions and novel sounding objects, within the Habitat-Matterport3D simulation environment, under the SoundSpaces task.

The feasibility of collecting a large amount of expert demonstrations has inspired growing research interests in learning-to-drive settings, where models learn by imitating the driving behaviour from experts. However, exclusively relying on imitation can limit agents' generalisability to novel scenarios that are outside the support of the training data. In this paper, we address this challenge by factorising the driving task, based on the intuition that modular architectures are more generalisable and more robust to changes in the environment compared to monolithic, end-to-end frameworks. Specifically, we draw inspiration from the trajectory forecasting community and reformulate the learning-to-drive task as obstacle-aware perception and grounding, distribution-aware goal prediction, and model-based planning. Firstly, we train the obstacle-aware perception module to extract salient representation of the visual context. Then, we learn a multi-modal goal distribution by performing conditional density-estimation using normalising flow. Finally, we ground candidate trajectory predictions road geometry, and plan the actions based on on vehicle dynamics. Under the CARLA simulator, we report state-of-the-art results on the CARNOVEL benchmark.

程序文本理解是一项具有挑战性的语言推理任务，需要模型在整个叙事的发展中跟踪实体状态。完整的程序理解解决方案应结合三个核心方面：输入的本地和全局视图，以及对输出的全局视图。先前的方法考虑了这些方面的一个子集，导致精度低或低召回率。在本文中，我们提出了合并的全球和本地信息（CGLI），该新模型构建了实体和时间段意识到的输入表示（本地输入），考虑了整个上下文（全球输入），我们将实体与实体共同模拟实体状态。结构化预测目标（全局输出）。因此，CGLI同时优化了精度和回忆。我们使用其他输出层扩展了CGLI，并将其集成到故事推理框架中。关于流行的程序文本理解数据集的广泛实验表明，我们的模型可以实现最新的结果；故事推理基准的实验显示了我们模型对下游推理的积极影响。

我们对13个最近的模型进行了全面评估，用于使用两个流行的收藏（MS MARCO文档和Robust04）排名长期文档。我们的模型动物园包括两个专门的变压器模型（例如longformer），它们可以处理长文档而无需分配它们。一路上，我们记录了有关培训和比较此类模型的几个困难。有些令人惊讶的是，我们发现简单的第一个基线（满足典型变压器模型的输入序列约束的截断文档）非常有效。我们分析相关段落的分布（内部文档），以解释这种现象。我们进一步认为，尽管它们广泛使用，但Robust04和MS Marco文档对于基准长期模型并不是特别有用。

当任何安全违规可能导致灾难性失败时，赛车要求每个车辆都能在其物质范围内驾驶。在这项工作中，我们研究了自主赛车的安全强化学习（RL）的问题，使用车辆的自我摄像机视图和速度作为输入。鉴于任务的性质，自主代理需要能够1）识别并避免复杂的车辆动态下的不安全场景，而2）在快速变化的环境中使子第二决定。为了满足这些标准，我们建议纳入汉密尔顿 - 雅各（HJ）可达性理论，是一般非线性系统的安全验证方法，进入受约束的马尔可夫决策过程（CMDP）框架。 HJ可达性不仅提供了一种了解安全的控制理论方法，还可以实现低延迟安全验证。尽管HJ可达性传统上不可扩展到高维系统，但我们证明了具有神经逼近的，可以直接在视觉上下文中学习HJ安全值 - 迄今为止通过该方法研究的最高尺寸问题。我们在最近发布的高保真自主赛车环境中评估了我们在几个基准任务中的方法，包括安全健身房和学习（L2R）。与安全健身房的其他受约束的RL基线相比，我们的方法非常少的限制性违规，并在L2R基准任务上实现了新的最先进结果。我们在以下匿名纸质网站提供额外可视化代理行为：https://sites.google.com/view/safeautomouracing/home

Non-linear state-space models, also known as general hidden Markov models, are ubiquitous in statistical machine learning, being the most classical generative models for serial data and sequences in general. The particle-based, rapid incremental smoother PaRIS is a sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) technique allowing for efficient online approximation of expectations of additive functionals under the smoothing distribution in these models. Such expectations appear naturally in several learning contexts, such as likelihood estimation (MLE) and Markov score climbing (MSC). PARIS has linear computational complexity, limited memory requirements and comes with non-asymptotic bounds, convergence results and stability guarantees. Still, being based on self-normalised importance sampling, the PaRIS estimator is biased. Our first contribution is to design a novel additive smoothing algorithm, the Parisian particle Gibbs PPG sampler, which can be viewed as a PaRIS algorithm driven by conditional SMC moves, resulting in bias-reduced estimates of the targeted quantities. We substantiate the PPG algorithm with theoretical results, including new bounds on bias and variance as well as deviation inequalities. Our second contribution is to apply PPG in a learning framework, covering MLE and MSC as special examples. In this context, we establish, under standard assumptions, non-asymptotic bounds highlighting the value of bias reduction and the implicit Rao--Blackwellization of PPG. These are the first non-asymptotic results of this kind in this setting. We illustrate our theoretical results with numerical experiments supporting our claims.

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 paper introduces a novel algorithm, the Perturbed Proximal Preconditioned SPIDER algorithm (3P-SPIDER), designed to solve finite sum non-convex composite optimization. It is a stochastic Variable Metric Forward-Backward algorithm, which allows approximate preconditioned forward operator and uses a variable metric proximity operator as the backward operator; it also proposes a mini-batch strategy with variance reduction to address the finite sum setting. We show that 3P-SPIDER extends some Stochastic preconditioned Gradient Descent-based algorithms and some Incremental Expectation Maximization algorithms to composite optimization and to the case the forward operator can not be computed in closed form. We also provide an explicit control of convergence in expectation of 3P-SPIDER, and study its complexity in order to satisfy the epsilon-approximate stationary condition. Our results are the first to combine the composite non-convex optimization setting, a variance reduction technique to tackle the finite sum setting by using a minibatch strategy and, to allow deterministic or random approximations of the preconditioned forward operator. Finally, through an application to inference in a logistic regression model with random effects, we numerically compare 3P-SPIDER to other stochastic forward-backward algorithms and discuss the role of some design parameters of 3P-SPIDER.

Landing an unmanned aerial vehicle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on top of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) in harsh open waters is a challenging problem, owing to forces that can damage the UAV due to a severe roll and/or pitch angle of the USV during touchdown. To tackle this, we propose a novel model predictive control (MPC) approach enabling a UAV to land autonomously on a USV in these harsh conditions. The MPC employs a novel objective function and an online decomposition of the oscillatory motion of the vessel to predict, attempt, and accomplish the landing during near-zero tilt of the landing platform. The nonlinear prediction of the motion of the vessel is performed using visual data from an onboard camera. Therefore, the system does not require any communication with the USV or a control station. The proposed method was analyzed in numerous robotics simulations in harsh and extreme conditions and further validated in various real-world scenarios.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become commonplace to solve routine everyday tasks. Because of the exponential growth in medical imaging data volume and complexity, the workload on radiologists is steadily increasing. We project that the gap between the number of imaging exams and the number of expert radiologist readers required to cover this increase will continue to expand, consequently introducing a demand for AI-based tools that improve the efficiency with which radiologists can comfortably interpret these exams. AI has been shown to improve efficiency in medical-image generation, processing, and interpretation, and a variety of such AI models have been developed across research labs worldwide. However, very few of these, if any, find their way into routine clinical use, a discrepancy that reflects the divide between AI research and successful AI translation. To address the barrier to clinical deployment, we have formed MONAI Consortium, an open-source community which is building standards for AI deployment in healthcare institutions, and developing tools and infrastructure to facilitate their implementation. This report represents several years of weekly discussions and hands-on problem solving experience by groups of industry experts and clinicians in the MONAI Consortium. We identify barriers between AI-model development in research labs and subsequent clinical deployment and propose solutions. Our report provides guidance on processes which take an imaging AI model from development to clinical implementation in a healthcare institution. We discuss various AI integration points in a clinical Radiology workflow. We also present a taxonomy of Radiology AI use-cases. Through this report, we intend to educate the stakeholders in healthcare and AI (AI researchers, radiologists, imaging informaticists, and regulators) about cross-disciplinary challenges and possible solutions.