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Lifelong learning with weighted majority votes
Get PDFBetter understanding of the potential benefits of information transfer and representation learning is an important step towards the goal of building intelligent systems that are able to persist in the world and learn over time. In this work, we consider a setting where the learner encounters a stream of tasks but is able to retain only limited information from each encountered task, such as a learned predictor. In contrast to most previous works analyzing this scenario, we do not make any distributional assumptions on the task generating process. Instead, we formulate a complexity measure that captures the diversity of the observed tasks. We provide a lifelong learning algorithm with error guarantees for every observed task (rather than on average). We show sample complexity reductions in comparison to solving every task in isolation in terms of our task complexity measure. Further, our algorithmic framework can naturally be viewed as learning a representation from encountered tasks with a neural network
On the skolem problem for continuous linear dynamical systems
Get PDFThe Continuous Skolem Problem asks whether a real-valued function satisfying a linear differen-
tial equation has a zero in a given interval of real numbers. This is a fundamental reachability
problem for continuous linear dynamical systems, such as linear hybrid automata and continuous-
time Markov chains. Decidability of the problem is currently open – indeed decidability is open
even for the sub-problem in which a zero is sought in a bounded interval. In this paper we show
decidability of the bounded problem subject to Schanuel’s Conjecture, a unifying conjecture in
transcendental number theory. We furthermore analyse the unbounded problem in terms of the
frequencies of the differential equation, that is, the imaginary parts of the characteristic roots.
We show that the unbounded problem can be reduced to the bounded problem if there is at most
one rationally linearly independent frequency, or if there are two rationally linearly independent
frequencies and all characteristic roots are simple. We complete the picture by showing that de-
cidability of the unbounded problem in the case of two (or more) rationally linearly independent
frequencies would entail a major new effectiveness result in Diophantine approximation, namely
computability of the Diophantine-approximation types of all real algebraic numbers
Computation tree logic for synchronization properties
Get PDFWe present a logic that extends CTL (Computation Tree Logic) with operators that express synchronization properties. A property is synchronized in a system if it holds in all paths of a certain length. The new logic is obtained by using the same path quantifiers and temporal operators as in CTL, but allowing a different order of the quantifiers. This small syntactic variation induces a logic that can express non-regular properties for which known extensions of MSO with equality of path length are undecidable. We show that our variant of CTL is decidable and that the model-checking problem is in Delta_3^P = P^{NP^NP}, and is DP-hard. We analogously consider quantifier exchange in extensions of CTL, and we present operators defined using basic operators of CTL* that express the occurrence of infinitely many synchronization points. We show that the model-checking problem remains in Delta_3^P. The distinguishing power of CTL and of our new logic coincide if the Next operator is allowed in the logics, thus the classical bisimulation quotient can be used for state-space reduction before model checking
A new method and a new scaling for deriving fermionic mean-field dynamics
No full textWe introduce a new method for deriving the time-dependent Hartree or Hartree-Fock equations as an effective mean-field dynamics from the microscopic Schrödinger equation for fermionic many-particle systems in quantum mechanics. The method is an adaption of the method used in Pickl (Lett. Math. Phys. 97 (2) 151–164 20111) for bosonic systems to fermionic systems. It is based on a Gronwall type estimate for a suitable measure of distance between the microscopic solution and an antisymmetrized product state. We use this method to treat a new mean-field limit for fermions with long-range interactions in a large volume. Some of our results hold for singular attractive or repulsive interactions. We can also treat Coulomb interaction assuming either a mild singularity cutoff or certain regularity conditions on the solutions to the Hartree(-Fock) equations. In the considered limit, the kinetic and interaction energy are of the same order, while the average force is subleading. For some interactions, we prove that the Hartree(-Fock) dynamics is a more accurate approximation than a simpler dynamics that one would expect from the subleading force. With our method we also treat the mean-field limit coupled to a semiclassical limit, which was discussed in the literature before, and we recover some of the previous results. All results hold for initial data close (but not necessarily equal) to antisymmetrized product states and we always provide explicit rates of convergence
The role of pollinator-mediated selection in the maintenance of a flower color polymorphism in an Antirrhinum majus hybrid zone
Get PDFHybrid zones represent evolutionary laboratories, where recombination brings together alleles in combinations which have not previously been tested by selection. This provides an excellent opportunity to test the effect of mo- lecular variation on fitness, and how this variation is able to spread through populations in a natural context. The snapdragon Antirrhinum majus is polymorphic in the wild for two loci controlling the distribution of yellow and magenta floral pigments. Where the yellow A. m. striatum and the magenta A. m. pseudomajus meet along a valley in the Spanish Pyren- ees they form a stable hybrid zone. Alleles at these loci recombine to give striking transgressive variation for flower colour. The sharp transition in phenotype over ∼1km implies strong selection maintaining the hybrid zone. An indirect assay of pollinator visitation in the field found that pollinators forage in a positive-frequency dependent manner on Antirrhinum, match- ing previous data on fruit set. Experimental arrays and paternity analysis of wild-pollinated seeds demonstrated assortative mating for pigmentation alleles, and that pollinator behaviour alone is sufficient to explain this pat- tern. Selection by pollinators should be sufficiently strong to maintain the hybrid zone, although other mechanisms may be at work. At a broader scale I examined evolutionary transitions between yellow and anthocyanin pigmentation in the tribe Antirrhineae, and found that selection has acted repeatedly to promote the spread of pigment alleles. These results demon- strate that pollinators are a major determinant of reproductive success and mating patterns in wild Antirrhinum
On the uncertainty of interdisciplinarity measurements due to incomplete bibliographic data
No full textThe accuracy of interdisciplinarity measurements is directly related to the quality of the underlying bibliographic data. Existing indicators of interdisciplinarity are not capable of reflecting the inaccuracies introduced by incorrect and incomplete records because correct and complete bibliographic data can rarely be obtained. This is the case for the Rao-Stirling index, which cannot handle references that are not categorized into disciplinary fields. We introduce a method that addresses this problem. It extends the Rao-Stirling index to acknowledge missing data by calculating its interval of uncertainty using computational optimization. The evaluation of our method indicates that the uncertainty interval is not only useful for estimating the inaccuracy of interdisciplinarity measurements, but it also delivers slightly more accurate aggregated interdisciplinarity measurements than the Rao-Stirling index
Superfluidity and BEC in a Model of Interacting Bosons in a Random Potential
No full textWe report on a mathematically rigorous analysis of the superfluid properties of a Bose- Einstein condensate in the many-body ground state of a one-dimensional model of interacting bosons in a random potential
Adaptation to parasites and costs of parasite resistance in mutator and nonmutator bacteria
No full textParasitism creates selection for resistance mechanisms in host populations and is hypothesized to promote increased host evolvability. However, the influence of these traits on host evolution when parasites are no longer present is unclear. We used experimental evolution and whole-genome sequencing of Escherichia coli to determine the effects of past and present exposure to parasitic viruses (phages) on the spread of mutator alleles, resistance, and bacterial competitive fitness. We found that mutator alleles spread rapidly during adaptation to any of four different phage species, and this pattern was even more pronounced with multiple phages present simultaneously. However, hypermutability did not detectably accelerate adaptation in the absence of phages and recovery of fitness costs associated with resistance. Several lineages evolved phage resistance through elevated mucoidy, and during subsequent evolution in phage-free conditions they rapidly reverted to nonmucoid, phage-susceptible phenotypes. Genome sequencing revealed that this phenotypic reversion was achieved by additional genetic changes rather than by genotypic reversion of the initial resistance mutations. Insertion sequence (IS) elements played a key role in both the acquisition of resistance and adaptation in the absence of parasites; unlike single nucleotide polymorphisms, IS insertions were not more frequent in mutator lineages. Our results provide a genetic explanation for rapid reversion of mucoidy, a phenotype observed in other bacterial species including human pathogens. Moreover, this demonstrates that the types of genetic change underlying adaptation to fitness costs, and consequently the impact of evolvability mechanisms such as increased point-mutation rates, depend critically on the mechanism of resistance
Finding non-orientable surfaces in 3-manifolds
No full textWe investigate the complexity of finding an embedded non-orientable surface of Euler genus g in a triangulated 3-manifold. This problem occurs both as a natural question in low-dimensional topology, and as a first non-trivial instance of embeddability of complexes into 3-manifolds. We prove that the problem is NP-hard, thus adding to the relatively few hardness results that are currently known in 3-manifold topology. In addition, we show that the problem lies in NP when the Euler genus g is odd, and we give an explicit algorithm in this case