Machine Learning is the study of methods for programming computers to learn. Computers are applied to a wide range of tasks, and for most of these it is relatively easy for programmers to design and implement the necessary software. However, there are many tasks for which this is difficult or impossible. These can be divided into four general categories. First, there are problems for which there exist no human experts. For example, in modern automated manufacturing facilities, there is a need to predict machine failures before they occur by analyzing sensor readings. Because the machines are new, there are no human experts who can be interviewed by a programmer to provide the knowledge necessary to build a computer system. A machine learning system can study recorded data and subsequent machine failures and learn prediction rules. Second, there are problems where human experts exist, but where they are unable to explain their expertise. This is the case in many perceptual tasks, such as speech recognition, hand-writing recognition, and natural language understanding. Virtually all humans exhibit expert-level abilities on these tasks, but none of them can describe the detailed steps that they follow as they perform them. Fortunately, humans can provide machines with examples of the inputs and correct outputs for these tasks, so machine learning algorithms can learn to map the inputs to the outputs. Third, there are problems where phenomena are changing rapidly. In finance, for example, people would like to predict the future behavior of the stock market, of consumer purchases, or of exchange rates. These behaviors change frequently, so that even if a programmer could construct a good predictive computer program, it would need to be rewritten frequently. A learning program can relieve the programmer of this burden by constantly modifying and tuning a set of learned prediction rules. Fourth, there are applications that need to be customized for each computer user separately. Consider, for example, a program to filter unwanted electronic mail messages. Different users will need different filters. It is unreasonable to expect each user to program his or her own rules, and it is infeasible to provide every user with a software engineer to keep the rules up-to-date. A machine learning system can learn which mail messages the user rejects and maintain the filtering rules automatically. Machine learning addresses many of the same research questions as the fields of statistics, data mining, and psychology, but with differences of emphasis. Statistics focuses on understanding the phenomena that have generated the data, often with the goal of testing different hypotheses about those phenomena. Data mining seeks to find patterns in the data that are understandable by people. Psychological studies of human learning aspire to understand the mechanisms underlying the various learning behaviors exhibited by people (concept learning, skill acquisition, strategy change, etc.).

Machine learning

Probability Distributions.- Linear Models for Regression.- Linear Models for Classification.- Neural Networks.- Kernel Methods.- Sparse Kernel Machines.- Graphical Models.- Mixture Models and EM.- Approximate Inference.- Sampling Methods.- Continuous Latent Variables.- Sequential Data.- Combining Models.

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

How to Do Things With Words

In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

The measurement of meaning

The aim of this paper is to analyse and formalise the dynamics of trust in the light of experiences. A formal framework is introduced for the analysis and specification of models for trust evolution and trust update. Different properties of these models are formally defined.

/pdf/formal-analysis-of-models-for-the-dynamics-of-trust-based-on-4ehbwa7zrw.pdf

Formal Analysis of Models for the Dynamics of Trust Based on Experiences

This article presents the language and software environment LEADSTO that has been developed to model and simulate dynamic processes in terms of both qualitative and quantitative concepts. The LEADSTO language is a declarative order-sorted temporal language, extended with quantitative notions like integer and real. Dynamic processes can be modelled in LEADSTO by specifying the direct temporal dependencies between state properties in successive states. Based on the LEADSTO language, a software environment was developed that performs simulations of LEADSTO specifications, generates data-files containing traces of simulation for further analysis, and constructs visual representations of traces. The approach proved its worth in a number of research projects in different domains.

https://www.cs.vu.nl/~wai/Papers/IJAIT07leadsto.pdf

A Language and Environment for Analysis of Dynamics by SimulaTiOn

Deliberate Normative Agents: Principles and Architecture

The design of automated negotiators has been the focus of abundant research in recent years. However, due to difficulties involved in creating generalized agents that can negotiate in several domains and against human counterparts, many automated negotiators are domain specific and their behavior cannot be generalized for other domains. Some of these difficulties arise from the differences inherent within the domains, the need to understand and learn negotiators' diverse preferences concerning issues of the domain, and the different strategies negotiators can undertake. In this paper we present a system that enables alleviation of the difficulties in the design process of general automated negotiators termed Genius, a General Environment for Negotiation with Intelligent multi-purpose Usage Simulation. With the constant introduction of new domains, e-commerce and other applications, which require automated negotiations, generic automated negotiators encompass many benefits and advantages over agents that are designed for a specific domain. Based on experiments conducted with automated agents designed by human subjects using Genius we provide both quantitative and qualitative results to illustrate its efficacy. Finally, we also analyze a recent automated bilateral negotiators competition that was based on Genius. Our results show the advantages and underlying benefits of using Genius and how it can facilitate the design of general automated negotiators.

/pdf/genius-an-integrated-environment-for-supporting-the-design-2xjt27ubs0.pdf

Genius: an integrated environment for supporting the design of generic automated negotiators

Coactive Design is a new approach to address the increasingly sophisticated roles that people and robots play as the use of robots expands into new, complex domains. The approach is motivated by the desire for robots to perform less like teleoperated tools or independent automatons and more like interdependent teammates. In this article, we describe what it means to be interdependent, why this is important, and the design implications that follow from this perspective. We argue for a human-robot system model that supports interdependence through careful attention to requirements for observability, predictability, and directability. We present a Coactive Design method and show how it can be a useful approach for developers trying to understand how to translate high-level teamwork concepts into reusable control algorithms, interface elements, and behaviors that enable robots to fulfill their envisioned role as teammates. As an example of the coactive design approach, we present our results from the DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge, a competition designed to spur development of advanced robots that can assist humans in recovering from natural and man-made disasters. Twenty-six teams from eight countries competed in three different tasks providing an excellent evaluation of the relative effectiveness of different approaches to human-machine system design.

/pdf/coactive-design-designing-support-for-interdependence-in-26tdddeo0o.pdf

Catholijn M. Jonker

Papers

Formal Analysis of Models for the Dynamics of Trust Based on Experiences

A Language and Environment for Analysis of Dynamics by SimulaTiOn

Deliberate Normative Agents: Principles and Architecture

Genius: an integrated environment for supporting the design of generic automated negotiators

Coactive design: designing support for interdependence in joint activity