本文提出了一种新的加速马尔可夫链蒙特卡洛（MCMC）方法，以在成像逆问题中有效地执行贝叶斯计算。所提出的方法源自兰格文扩散过程，并源于紧密整合两个最先进的近端Langevin MCMC采样器，SK-ROCK和SPLIST GIBBS采样（SGS），它们采用明显不同的策略来提高收敛速度。更确切地说，我们在Langevin扩散过程的水平上展示了如何集成基于随机的Runge-Kutta-chebyshev扩散的近端SK-ROCK采样器，该采样器具有模型增强和放松策略，可用于扩散以牺牲渐近偏差为代价加快贝叶斯计算的速度。这导致了一种新的，更快的近端SK-ROCK采样器，将原始SK-Rock采样器的加速质量与增强和放松的计算益处相结合。此外，我们建议将增强和放松的模型视为目标模型的近似值，而是将放松定位在偏见 - 差异权衡中，而是建议将增强和放松的模型视为目标模型的概括。然后，这使我们能够仔细校准放松量，以同时提高模型的准确性（通过模型证据衡量）和采样器的收敛速度。为了实现这一目标，我们得出了一种经验性的贝叶斯方法，可以通过最大的边际似然估计自动估计最佳的松弛量。通过与图像脱毛和内化相关的一系列数值实验，以及与艺术状态的替代方法进行比较，证明了所提出的方法。

Ithaca is a Fuzzy Logic (FL) plugin for developing artificial intelligence systems within the Unity game engine. Its goal is to provide an intuitive and natural way to build advanced artificial intelligence systems, making the implementation of such a system faster and more affordable. The software is made up by a C\# framework and an Application Programming Interface (API) for writing inference systems, as well as a set of tools for graphic development and debugging. Additionally, a Fuzzy Control Language (FCL) parser is provided in order to import systems previously defined using this standard.

Data deprivation, or the lack of easily available and actionable information on the well-being of individuals, is a significant challenge for the developing world and an impediment to the design and operationalization of policies intended to alleviate poverty. In this paper we explore the suitability of data derived from OpenStreetMap to proxy for the location of two crucial public services: schools and health clinics. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of digital humanitarians, online mapping repositories such as OpenStreetMap contain millions of records on buildings and other structures, delineating both their location and often their use. Unfortunately much of this data is locked in complex, unstructured text rendering it seemingly unsuitable for classifying schools or clinics. We apply a scalable, unsupervised learning method to unlabeled OpenStreetMap building data to extract the location of schools and health clinics in ten countries in Africa. We find the topic modeling approach greatly improves performance versus reliance on structured keys alone. We validate our results by comparing schools and clinics identified by our OSM method versus those identified by the WHO, and describe OSM coverage gaps more broadly.

Algorithms that involve both forecasting and optimization are at the core of solutions to many difficult real-world problems, such as in supply chains (inventory optimization), traffic, and in the transition towards carbon-free energy generation in battery/load/production scheduling in sustainable energy systems. Typically, in these scenarios we want to solve an optimization problem that depends on unknown future values, which therefore need to be forecast. As both forecasting and optimization are difficult problems in their own right, relatively few research has been done in this area. This paper presents the findings of the ``IEEE-CIS Technical Challenge on Predict+Optimize for Renewable Energy Scheduling," held in 2021. We present a comparison and evaluation of the seven highest-ranked solutions in the competition, to provide researchers with a benchmark problem and to establish the state of the art for this benchmark, with the aim to foster and facilitate research in this area. The competition used data from the Monash Microgrid, as well as weather data and energy market data. It then focused on two main challenges: forecasting renewable energy production and demand, and obtaining an optimal schedule for the activities (lectures) and on-site batteries that lead to the lowest cost of energy. The most accurate forecasts were obtained by gradient-boosted tree and random forest models, and optimization was mostly performed using mixed integer linear and quadratic programming. The winning method predicted different scenarios and optimized over all scenarios jointly using a sample average approximation method.

The study aims the development of a wearable device to combat the onslaught of covid-19. Likewise, to enhance the regular face shield available in the market. Furthermore, to raise awareness of the health and safety protocols initiated by the government and its affiliates in the enforcement of social distancing with the integration of computer vision algorithms. The wearable device was composed of various hardware and software components such as a transparent polycarbonate face shield, microprocessor, sensors, camera, thin-film transistor on-screen display, jumper wires, power bank, and python programming language. The algorithm incorporated in the study was object detection under computer vision machine learning. The front camera with OpenCV technology determines the distance of a person in front of the user. Utilizing TensorFlow, the target object identifies and detects the image or live feed to get its bounding boxes. The focal length lens requires the determination of the distance from the camera to the target object. To get the focal length, multiply the pixel width by the known distance and divide it by the known width (Rosebrock, 2020). The deployment of unit testing ensures that the parameters are valid in terms of design and specifications.

Chatbots are expected to be knowledgeable across multiple domains, e.g. for daily chit-chat, exchange of information, and grounding in emotional situations. To effectively measure the quality of such conversational agents, a model-based automatic dialogue evaluation metric (ADEM) is expected to perform well across multiple domains. Despite significant progress, an ADEM that works well in one domain does not necessarily generalize to another. This calls for a dedicated network architecture for domain generalization. To tackle the multi-domain dialogue evaluation task, we propose a Panel of Experts (PoE), a multitask network that consists of a shared transformer encoder and a collection of lightweight adapters. The shared encoder captures the general knowledge of dialogues across domains, while each adapter specializes in one specific domain and serves as a domain expert. To validate the idea, we construct a high-quality multi-domain dialogue dataset leveraging data augmentation and pseudo-labeling. The PoE network is comprehensively assessed on 16 dialogue evaluation datasets spanning a wide range of dialogue domains. It achieves state-of-the-art performance in terms of mean Spearman correlation over all the evaluation datasets. It exhibits better zero-shot generalization than existing state-of-the-art ADEMs and the ability to easily adapt to new domains with few-shot transfer learning.

The circular coordinates algorithm of de Silva, Morozov, and Vejdemo-Johansson takes as input a dataset together with a cohomology class representing a $1$-dimensional hole in the data; the output is a map from the data into the circle that captures this hole, and that is of minimum energy in a suitable sense. However, when applied to several cohomology classes, the output circle-valued maps can be "geometrically correlated" even if the chosen cohomology classes are linearly independent. It is shown in the original work that less correlated maps can be obtained with suitable integer linear combinations of the cohomology classes, with the linear combinations being chosen by inspection. In this paper, we identify a formal notion of geometric correlation between circle-valued maps which, in the Riemannian manifold case, corresponds to the Dirichlet form, a bilinear form derived from the Dirichlet energy. We describe a systematic procedure for constructing low energy torus-valued maps on data, starting from a set of linearly independent cohomology classes. We showcase our procedure with computational examples. Our main algorithm is based on the Lenstra--Lenstra--Lov\'asz algorithm from computational number theory.

Efficient localization plays a vital role in many modern applications of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) and Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which would contribute to improved control, safety, power economy, etc. The ubiquitous 5G NR (New Radio) cellular network will provide new opportunities for enhancing localization of UAVs and UGVs. In this paper, we review the radio frequency (RF) based approaches for localization. We review the RF features that can be utilized for localization and investigate the current methods suitable for Unmanned vehicles under two general categories: range-based and fingerprinting. The existing state-of-the-art literature on RF-based localization for both UAVs and UGVs is examined, and the envisioned 5G NR for localization enhancement, and the future research direction are explored.

Machine Learning models capable of handling the large datasets collected in the financial world can often become black boxes expensive to run. The quantum computing paradigm suggests new optimization techniques, that combined with classical algorithms, may deliver competitive, faster and more interpretable models. In this work we propose a quantum-enhanced machine learning solution for the prediction of credit rating downgrades, also known as fallen-angels forecasting in the financial risk management field. We implement this solution on a neutral atom Quantum Processing Unit with up to 60 qubits on a real-life dataset. We report competitive performances against the state-of-the-art Random Forest benchmark whilst our model achieves better interpretability and comparable training times. We examine how to improve performance in the near-term validating our ideas with Tensor Networks-based numerical simulations.

The proliferation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) has caused airspace regulation authorities to examine the interoperability of these aircraft with collision avoidance systems initially designed for large transport category aircraft. Limitations in the currently mandated TCAS led the Federal Aviation Administration to commission the development of a new solution, the Airborne Collision Avoidance System X (ACAS X), designed to enable a collision avoidance capability for multiple aircraft platforms, including UAS. While prior research explored using deep reinforcement learning algorithms (DRL) for collision avoidance, DRL did not perform as well as existing solutions. This work explores the benefits of using a DRL collision avoidance system whose parameters are tuned using a surrogate optimizer. We show the use of a surrogate optimizer leads to DRL approach that can increase safety and operational viability and support future capability development for UAS collision avoidance.