监测原位浮游生物的种群对于保留水生生态系统至关重要。浮游生物微生物实际上易受较小的环境扰动的影响，可以反映出随之而来的形态学和动力学修饰。如今，高级自动或半自动采集系统的可用性已允许生产越来越多的浮游生物图像数据。由于大量获得的数据和浮游生物的数字，因此，采用机器学习算法来对此类数据进行分类。为了应对这些挑战，我们提出了有效的无监督学习管道，以提供浮游生物微生物的准确分类。我们构建一组图像描述符，利用两步过程。首先，对预先训练的神经网络提取的功能进行了跨自动编码器（VAE）的培训。然后，我们将学习的潜在空间用作聚类的图像描述符。我们将方法与最新的无监督方法进行了比较，其中一组预定义的手工特征用于浮游生物图像的聚类。所提出的管道优于我们分析中包含的所有浮游生物数据集的基准算法，提供了更好的图像嵌入属性。

我们介绍和分析结构化的随机零订单下降（S-SZD），这是一种有限的差异方法，该方法在一组$ l \ leq d $正交方向上近似于随机梯度，其中$ d $是环境空间的维度。这些方向是随机选择的，并且可能在每个步骤中发生变化。对于平滑的凸功能，我们几乎可以确保迭代的收敛性和对$ o（d/l k^{ - c}）$的功能值的收敛速率，每$ c <1/2 $，这是任意关闭的就迭代次数而言，是随机梯度下降（SGD）。我们的界限还显示了使用$ l $多个方向而不是一个方向的好处。对于满足polyak-{\ l} ojasiewicz条件的非convex函数，我们在这种假设下建立了随机Zeroth Order Order Order算法的第一个收敛速率。我们在数值模拟中证实了我们的理论发现，在数值模拟中，满足假设以及对超参数优化的现实世界问题，观察到S-SZD具有很好的实践性能。

高斯流程优化是一类成功的算法（例如GP-UCB），以通过顺序评估优化黑盒功能。然而，对于具有连续域的功能，高斯过程优化必须依赖于空间的固定离散化，或者在每个评估中解决非凸优化子问题的解决方案。第一种方法可能会对性能产生负面影响，而第二种方法则需要沉重的计算负担。第三种选项最近理论上学习，是自适应地离散功能域。尽管这种方法避免了额外的非凸优化成本，但整体计算复杂性仍然令人望而却步。诸如GP-UCB的算法具有$ O（t ^ 4）$的运行时间，其中$ t $是迭代的数量。在本文中，我们介绍了ADA-BKB（自适应预算的核化强盗），是一种无遗憾的高斯过程优化算法，用于连续域上的功能，可在$ O（t ^ 2 d_ \ text {eff} ^ 2）$ ，$ d_ \ text {eff} $是探索空间的有效维度，其通常小于$ t $。我们将我们的理论调查结果与合成非凸函数的实验以及超参数优化的真实问题进行了证实，确认了所提出的方法的良好实际表现。

Computational units in artificial neural networks follow a simplified model of biological neurons. In the biological model, the output signal of a neuron runs down the axon, splits following the many branches at its end, and passes identically to all the downward neurons of the network. Each of the downward neurons will use their copy of this signal as one of many inputs dendrites, integrate them all and fire an output, if above some threshold. In the artificial neural network, this translates to the fact that the nonlinear filtering of the signal is performed in the upward neuron, meaning that in practice the same activation is shared between all the downward neurons that use that signal as their input. Dendrites thus play a passive role. We propose a slightly more complex model for the biological neuron, where dendrites play an active role: the activation in the output of the upward neuron becomes optional, and instead the signals going through each dendrite undergo independent nonlinear filterings, before the linear combination. We implement this new model into a ReLU computational unit and discuss its biological plausibility. We compare this new computational unit with the standard one and describe it from a geometrical point of view. We provide a Keras implementation of this unit into fully connected and convolutional layers and estimate their FLOPs and weights change. We then use these layers in ResNet architectures on CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, Imagenette, and Imagewoof, obtaining performance improvements over standard ResNets up to 1.73%. Finally, we prove a universal representation theorem for continuous functions on compact sets and show that this new unit has more representational power than its standard counterpart.

The open-radio access network (O-RAN) embraces cloudification and network function virtualization for base-band function processing by dis-aggregated radio units (RUs), distributed units (DUs), and centralized units (CUs). These enable the cloud-RAN vision in full, where multiple mobile network operators (MNOs) can install their proprietary or open RUs, but lease on-demand computational resources for DU-CU functions from commonly available open-clouds via open x-haul interfaces. In this paper, we propose and compare the performances of min-max fairness and Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) auction-based x-haul and DU-CU resource allocation mechanisms to create a multi-tenant O-RAN ecosystem that is sustainable for small, medium, and large MNOs. The min-max fair approach minimizes the maximum OPEX of RUs through cost-sharing proportional to their demands, whereas the VCG auction-based approach minimizes the total OPEX for all resources utilized while extracting truthful demands from RUs. We consider time-wavelength division multiplexed (TWDM) passive optical network (PON)-based x-haul interfaces where PON virtualization technique is used to flexibly provide optical connections among RUs and edge-clouds at macro-cell RU locations as well as open-clouds at the central office locations. Moreover, we design efficient heuristics that yield significantly better economic efficiency and network resource utilization than conventional greedy resource allocation algorithms and reinforcement learning-based algorithms.

When testing conditions differ from those represented in training data, so-called out-of-distribution (OOD) inputs can mar the reliability of black-box learned components in the modern robot autonomy stack. Therefore, coping with OOD data is an important challenge on the path towards trustworthy learning-enabled open-world autonomy. In this paper, we aim to demystify the topic of OOD data and its associated challenges in the context of data-driven robotic systems, drawing connections to emerging paradigms in the ML community that study the effect of OOD data on learned models in isolation. We argue that as roboticists, we should reason about the overall system-level competence of a robot as it performs tasks in OOD conditions. We highlight key research questions around this system-level view of OOD problems to guide future research toward safe and reliable learning-enabled autonomy.

Autoencoders are a popular model in many branches of machine learning and lossy data compression. However, their fundamental limits, the performance of gradient methods and the features learnt during optimization remain poorly understood, even in the two-layer setting. In fact, earlier work has considered either linear autoencoders or specific training regimes (leading to vanishing or diverging compression rates). Our paper addresses this gap by focusing on non-linear two-layer autoencoders trained in the challenging proportional regime in which the input dimension scales linearly with the size of the representation. Our results characterize the minimizers of the population risk, and show that such minimizers are achieved by gradient methods; their structure is also unveiled, thus leading to a concise description of the features obtained via training. For the special case of a sign activation function, our analysis establishes the fundamental limits for the lossy compression of Gaussian sources via (shallow) autoencoders. Finally, while the results are proved for Gaussian data, numerical simulations on standard datasets display the universality of the theoretical predictions.

Profile extrusion is a continuous production process for manufacturing plastic profiles from molten polymer. Especially interesting is the design of the die, through which the melt is pressed to attain the desired shape. However, due to an inhomogeneous velocity distribution at the die exit or residual stresses inside the extrudate, the final shape of the manufactured part often deviates from the desired one. To avoid these deviations, the shape of the die can be computationally optimized, which has already been investigated in the literature using classical optimization approaches. A new approach in the field of shape optimization is the utilization of Reinforcement Learning (RL) as a learning-based optimization algorithm. RL is based on trial-and-error interactions of an agent with an environment. For each action, the agent is rewarded and informed about the subsequent state of the environment. While not necessarily superior to classical, e.g., gradient-based or evolutionary, optimization algorithms for one single problem, RL techniques are expected to perform especially well when similar optimization tasks are repeated since the agent learns a more general strategy for generating optimal shapes instead of concentrating on just one single problem. In this work, we investigate this approach by applying it to two 2D test cases. The flow-channel geometry can be modified by the RL agent using so-called Free-Form Deformation, a method where the computational mesh is embedded into a transformation spline, which is then manipulated based on the control-point positions. In particular, we investigate the impact of utilizing different agents on the training progress and the potential of wall time saving by utilizing multiple environments during training.

The recent emergence of new algorithms for permuting models into functionally equivalent regions of the solution space has shed some light on the complexity of error surfaces, and some promising properties like mode connectivity. However, finding the right permutation is challenging, and current optimization techniques are not differentiable, which makes it difficult to integrate into a gradient-based optimization, and often leads to sub-optimal solutions. In this paper, we propose a Sinkhorn re-basin network with the ability to obtain the transportation plan that better suits a given objective. Unlike the current state-of-art, our method is differentiable and, therefore, easy to adapt to any task within the deep learning domain. Furthermore, we show the advantage of our re-basin method by proposing a new cost function that allows performing incremental learning by exploiting the linear mode connectivity property. The benefit of our method is compared against similar approaches from the literature, under several conditions for both optimal transport finding and linear mode connectivity. The effectiveness of our continual learning method based on re-basin is also shown for several common benchmark datasets, providing experimental results that are competitive with state-of-art results from the literature.

Digital media have enabled the access to unprecedented literary knowledge. Authors, readers, and scholars are now able to discover and share an increasing amount of information about books and their authors. Notwithstanding, digital archives are still unbalanced: writers from non-Western countries are less represented, and such a condition leads to the perpetration of old forms of discrimination. In this paper, we present the Under-Represented Writers Knowledge Graph (URW-KG), a resource designed to explore and possibly amend this lack of representation by gathering and mapping information about works and authors from Wikidata and three other sources: Open Library, Goodreads, and Google Books. The experiments based on KG embeddings showed that the integrated information encoded in the graph allows scholars and users to be more easily exposed to non-Western literary works and authors with respect to Wikidata alone. This opens to the development of fairer and effective tools for author discovery and exploration.