1845237
Empirical comparison of various reinforcement learning strategies for sequential targeted marketing
We empirically evaluate the performance of various reinforcement learning methods in applications to sequential targeted marketing. In particular we propose and evaluate a progression of reinforcement learning methods, ranging from the "direct" or "batch" methods to "indirect" or "simulation based" methods, and those that we call "semidirect" methods that fall between them. We conduct a number of controlled experiments to evaluate the performance of these competing methods. Our results indicate that while the indirect methods can perform better in a situation in which nearly perfect modeling is possible, under the more realistic situations in which the system's modeling parameters have restricted attention, the indirect methods' performance tend to degrade. We also show that semi-direct methods are effective in reducing the amount of computation necessary to attain a given level of performance, and often result in more profitable policies.
5368193
Progressive modeling
Presently, inductive learning is still performed in a frustrating batch process. The user has little interaction with the system and no control over the final accuracy and training time. If the accuracy of the produced model is too low, all the computing resources are misspent. In this paper we propose a progressive modeling framework. In progressive modeling, the learning algorithm estimates online both the accuracy of the final model and remaining training time. If the estimated accuracy is far below expectation, the user can terminate training prior to completion without wasting further resources. If the user chooses to complete the learning process, progressive modeling will compute a model with expected accuracy in expected time. We describe one implementation of progressive modeling using ensemble of classifiers.
14876394
User Defined Aggregates for Logical Data Languages
A new wave of data-intensive and knowledge-based applications|such as data mining and decision support|require the introduction of complex application-speciic aggregate functions. In this paper, we propose extensions for deductive database systems to support these new applications. We develop constructs, formal semantics, and implementation techniques for user-deened aggregates, and describe their realization in an extended LDL++ system recently built at UCLA. With these extensions, the system can support on-line aggregation, roll-ups for data cubing, temporal aggregates for time-series, iceberg queries, and other recently proposed operators used in decision support and data mining procedures. We then discuss the application of this technology to other DBMSs, and in particular to the SQL3 speciications that support the notion of user-deened aggregates. We show that SQL3 suuers from limitations that severely restrict its use in new applications; thus we propose simple extensions similar to those used for LDL++ to overcome such limitations.
2129781
ATLaS: A Native Extension of SQL for Data Mining
A lack of power and extensibility in their query languages has seriously limited the generality of DBMSs and hampered their ability to support new application domains. Considerable efforts by database researchers and commercial DBMS vendors have led to major extensions; yet there remain important applications—particularly data mining—that are not supported well in SQL-3. Thus, there is a pressing need for more general mechanisms for extending SQL and dealing with new application areas, particularly database-centric data mining. To satisfy this need, we allow database users to add new table functions and stream-oriented aggregate functions by defining them in SQL—rather than in external procedural languages as O-R DBMSs currently do. This simple extension turns SQL into a powerful database language, which can express a wide range of applications, including recursive queries, ROLAP aggregates, time-series queries, stream-oriented processing, and data mining functions. In addition to adding great power and flexibility to SQL, these extensions are conducive to performance and data independence. The paper also discusses the system we have developed to support these SQL extensions, and the architecture and techniques used in its realization.
5103963
Adaptive Load Diffusion for Multiway Windowed Stream Joins
In this paper, we present an adaptive load diffusion operator to enable scalable processing of multiway windowed stream joins (MWSJs) using a cluster system. The load diffusion is achieved by a set of novel semantics-pre serving tuple routing algorithms. Different from previous work, the load diffusion operator can (1) preserve the MWSJ semantics while spreading tuples to different hosts for parallel join processing; (2) achieve fine-grained load balancing among distributed hosts; and (3) perform semantics-preserving online adaptations to maintain optimal performance in dynamic stream environments. We have implemented a prototype of the distributed MWSJ framework on top of the System S distributed stream processing system. Our experiment results based on both real data streams and synthetic workloads show that the load diffusion algorithms can efficiently scale-up the performance of MWSJ processing with low overhead.
1498767
Clustering by pattern similarity in large data sets
Clustering is the process of grouping a set of objects into classes of similar objects. Although definitions of similarity vary from one clustering model to another, in most of these models the concept of similarity is based on distances, e.g., Euclidean distance or cosine distance. In other words, similar objects are required to have close values on at least a set of dimensions. In this paper, we explore a more general type of similarity. Under the pCluster model we proposed, two objects are similar if they exhibit a coherent pattern on a subset of dimensions. For instance, in DNA microarray analysis, the expression levels of two genes may rise and fall synchronously in response to a set of environmental stimuli. Although the magnitude of their expression levels may not be close, the patterns they exhibit can be very much alike. Discovery of such clusters of genes is essential in revealing significant connections in gene regulatory networks. E-commerce applications, such as collaborative filtering, can also benefit from the new model, which captures not only the closeness of values of certain leading indicators but also the closeness of (purchasing, browsing, etc.) patterns exhibited by the customers. Our paper introduces an effective algorithm to detect such clusters, and we perform tests on several real and synthetic data sets to show its effectiveness.
16354227
Using symmetry in robust model fitting
The pattern recognition and computer vision communities often employ robust methods for model fitting. In particular, high breakdown-point methods such as least median of squares (LMedS) and least trimmed squares (LTS) have often been used in situations where the data are contaminated with outliers. However, though the breakdown point of these methods can be as high as 50% (they can be robust to up to 50% contamination), they can break down at unexpectedly lower percentages when the outliers are clustered. In this paper, we demonstrate the fragility of LMedS and LTS and analyze the reasons that cause the fragility of these methods in the situation when a large percentage of clustered outliers exist in the data. We adapt the concept of "symmetry distance" to formulate an improved regression method, called the least trimmed symmetry distance (LTSD). Experimental results are presented to show that the LTSD performs better than LMedS and LTS under a large percentage of clustered outliers and large standard variance of inliers.
17118926
Background Subtraction Based on a Robust Consensus Method
Statistical background modeling is a fundamental and important part of many visual tracking systems and of other computer vision applications. In this paper, we presents an effective and adaptive background modeling method for detecting foreground objects in both static and dynamic scenes. The proposed method computes SAmple CONsensus (SACON) of the background samples and estimates a statistical model per pixel. Numerous experiments on both indoor and outdoor video sequences show that the proposed method, compared with several state-of-the-art methods, can achieve very promising performance
26896458
The Axiomatization of Arithmetic
29758508
Corner Detection Based on Finding Edge Points Locally
206633932
Business-Object Semantics Communication Model in Distributed Environment
Object communication usually uses message passing to transfer the request and the reply. However, in business applications many of the object requests are in fact events which trigger other business objects, and they usually form sequences. Therefore, in business applications, many types of object communication will be easier to be presented by the event model than message expression. Following Steven Cook’s argument [1], message sending is an over-specification for the purpose of specifying stimulus-response behaviors. Therefore, communication with events will be a better choice when the broadcast happens very frequently.[2] On the other hand, in dynamic invocation, the major source of the target object interface requesting is coming from an interface repository that contains the object interface syntax information only. [3] Retrieving the information needs to go through a naming or trading service to find the object reference. Actually, such information is not enough for the dynamic call when the object does not have knowledge about the target objects since the major location for the logical search is the trader service. In CORBA’s Trader, there is no standard location or format for these data. [3] Therefore, more invocation information will be needed when the object is using the dynamic call.