Malicious Omissions and Errors in Answers to Membership Queries

We consider two issues in polynomial-time exact learning of concepts using membership and equivalence queries: (1) errors or omissions in answers to membership queries, and (2) learning finite variants of concepts drawn from a learnable class.To study (1), we introduce two new kinds of membership queries: limited membership queries and malicious membership queries. Each is allowed to give incorrect responses on a maliciously chosen set of strings in the domain. Instead of answering correctly about a string, a limited membership query may give a special I don't know answer, while a malicious membership query may give the wrong answer. A new parameter Lis used to bound the length of an encoding of the set of strings that receive such incorrect answers. Equivalence queries are answered correctly, and learning algorithms are allowed time polynomial in the usual parameters and L. Any class of concepts learnable in polynomial time using equivalence and malicious membership queries is learnable in polynomial time using equivalence and limited membership queries; the converse is an open problem. For the classes of monotone monomials and monotone k-term DNF formulas, we present polynomial-time learning algorithms using limited membership queries alone. We present polynomial-time learning algorithms for the class of monotone DNF formulas using equivalence and limited membership queries, and using equivalence and malicious membership queries.To study (2), we consider classes of concepts that are polynomially closed under finite exceptions and a natural operation to add exception tables to a class of concepts. Applying this operation, we obtain the class of monotone DNF formulas with finite exceptions. We give a polynomial-time algorithm to learn the class of monotone DNF formulas with finite exceptions using equivalence and membership queries. We also give a general transformation showing that any class of concepts that is polynomially closed under finite exceptions and is learnable in polynomial time using standard membership and equivalence queries is also polynomial-time learnable using malicious membership and equivalence queries. Corollaries include the polynomial-time learnability of the following classes using malicious membership and equivalence queries: deterministic finite acceptors, boolean decision trees, and monotone DNF formulas with finite exceptions.     

Proximity effects of a layered periodic structure on miniaturization of patch antennas

A miniaturized microstrip antenna on a planar layered periodic structure is proposed, designed and fabricated. The proposed structure miniaturizes patch antennas in the microwave band. With varying the parameters of the proposed structure, the achieved miniaturization factor can be adjusted in the range 2.6–4.2. Numerical and experimental results are presented. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2013.     

Discriminative functional analysis of human movements

This paper investigates the use of statistical dimensionality reduction (DR) techniques for discriminative low dimensional embedding to enable affective movement recognition. Human movements are defined by a collection of sequential observations (time-series features) representing body joint angle or joint Cartesian trajectories. In this work, these sequential observations are modelled as temporal functions using B-spline basis function expansion, and dimensionality reduction techniques are adapted to enable application to the functional observations. The DR techniques adapted here are: Fischer discriminant analysis (FDA), supervised principal component analysis (PCA), and Isomap. These functional DR techniques along with functional PCA are applied on affective human movement datasets and their performance is evaluated using leave-one-out cross validation with a one-nearest neighbour classifier in the corresponding low-dimensional subspaces. The results show that functional supervised PCA outperforms the other DR techniques examined in terms of classification accuracy and time resource requirements.     

Comparison of natural convection flows under VHTR type conditions modeled by both the conservation and incompressible forms of the Navier-Stokes equations

This paper illustrates a comparative study to analyze the physical differences between numerical simulations obtained with both the conservation and incompressible forms of the Navier-Stokes equations for natural convection flows in simple geometries. The purpose of this study is to quantify how the incompressible flow assumption (which is based upon constant density advection, divergence-free flow, and the Boussinesq gravitational body force approximation) differs from the conservation form (which only assumes that the fluid is a continuum) when solving flows driven by gravity acting upon density variations resulting from local temperature gradients. Driving this study is the common use of the incompressible flow assumption in fluid flow simulations for nuclear power applications in natural convection flows subjected to a high heat flux (large temperature differences). A series of simulations were conducted on two-dimensional, differentially heated rectangular geometries and modeled with both hydrodynamic formulations. From these simulations, the selected characterization parameters of maximum Nusselt number, average Nusselt number, and normalized pressure reduction were calculated. Comparisons of these parameters were made with available benchmark solutions for air with the ideal gas assumption at both low and high heat fluxes. Additionally, we generated specific force quantities and velocity and temperature distributions to provide a basis for further analysis. The simulations and analysis were then extended to include helium at the Very High Temperature gas-cooled Reactor (VHTR) normal operating conditions. Our results show that the consequences of incorporating the incompressible flow assumption in high heat flux situations may lead to unrepresentative results. The results question the use of the incompressible flow assumption for simulating fluid flow in an operating nuclear reactor, where large temperature variations are present.     

Learning to Perceive and Act by Trial and Error

This article considers adaptive control architectures that integrate active sensory-motor systems with decision systems based on reinforcement learning. One unavoidable consequence of active perception is that the agent's internal representation often confounds external world states. We call this phoenomenon perceptual aliasingand show that it destabilizes existing reinforcement learning algorithms with respect to the optimal decision policy. We then describe a new decision system that overcomes these difficulties for a restricted class of decision problems. The system incorporates a perceptual subcycle within the overall decision cycle and uses a modified learning algorithm to suppress the effects of perceptual aliasing. The result is a control architecture that learns not only how to solve a task but also where to focus its visual attention in order to collect necessary sensory information.     

Learning From Noisy Examples

Machine Learning - The basic question addressed in this paper is: how can a learning algorithm cope with incorrect training examples? Specifically, how can algorithms that produce an...     

Ways of listening to depressed women in qualitative research: Interview techniques and analyses.

Qualitative research on depression requires methods of interviewing and analysis that allow the researcher to hear how social factors are structured in thought and how such factors affect depressive conflict. This article discusses 6 ways of listening used in the author's qualitative research with depressed women: open listening, focused awareness, and attending to moral language, to inner dialogues, to meta-statements, and to the logic of the narrative. Examples illustrate how listening to processes of thought leads to content analysis that preserves the individuality of subjects, and to theory formation. Silencing the Self theory is summarized as it relates to these ways of listening. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on fracture criteria for interface fracture

Several criteria for interface fracture are examined and compared to test results obtained from glass/epoxy specimens. These include two energy release rate criteria, a critical hoop stress criterion and a critical shear stress criterion. In addition, approximate plastic zone size and shape within the epoxy are determined for these tests.     

Dissociations between procedural and episodic memory: Effects of time and aging.

The issue of multiple memory systems is explored. Young and older adults (mean ages?=?20 and 71, respectively) named pictures and were tested immediately, 1, 7, or 21 days later. Episodic memory (recognition) for pictures was significantly lower in older relative to young adults and declined systematically across all retention intervals in both age groups. In contrast, procedural memory (repetition priming in picture naming) revealed no reliable age differences. In both age groups, priming declined within the first 24 hr, but unlike recognition, there was no further decrement from 1 to 21 days. There were also within-subject dissociations: The magnitude of priming was equivalent for remembered and forgotten items, and the relation between recognition and priming across intervals was nonmonotonic, revealing a reversed association. The findings were interpreted within a multiple-memory-systems framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)