Temporally extended actions have proven useful for reinforcement learning, but their duration also makes them valuable for efficient planning. The options framework provides a concrete way to implement and reason about temporally extended actions. Existing literature has demonstrated the value of planning with options empirically, but there is a lack of theoretical analysis formalizing when pla...

BACKGROUND To evaluate initial multicenter results with minimally invasive transapical aortic valve implantation (TAP-AVI) for high risk patients with aortic stenosis. METHODS AND RESULTS TAP-AVI was performed via a small anterolateral minithoracotomy with or without femoro-femoral extracorporeal circulation (ECC) on the beating heart. A pericardial xenograft fixed within a stainless steel, b...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the feasibility of minimally invasive transapical beating heart aortic valve implantation (TAP-AVI) for high-risk patients with aortic stenosis. METHODS TAP-AVI was performed via a small anterolateral minithoracotomy with or without femoral extracorporeal circulation (ECC) on the beating heart. A pericardial xenograft fixed within a stainless steel, balloon expandable st...

BACKGROUND Multiple sclerosis (MS), a common neurodegenerative disease, has well-described associations with quality of life (QoL) impairment. QoL changes found in longitudinal studies are difficult to interpret due to the potential response shift (RS) corresponding to respondents' changing standards, values, and conceptualization of QoL. This study proposes to test the capacity of Random Fores...

Automated visual inspection (AVI) is becoming an integral part of modern surface mount technology (SMT) assembly process. This high technology assembly, produces printed circuit boards (PCB) with tiny and delicate electronic components. With the increase in demand for such PCBs, high-volume production has to cater for both the quantity and zero defect quality assurance. The ever changing techno...

برای دستیابی به مزیت رقابتی در شرایط عدم‌­اطمینان که آن تغییر ضروری است، یکی از چالش‌های بزرگ سازمان‌ها کاهش ریسک طریق ایجاد زنجیره‌های تأمین تاب‌آور است. تاب‌آوری زنجیره ‌تأمین توانایی مقابله با اختلال اشاره دارد یک رویداد غیرقابل‌پیش‌بینی بوده و دارای منابع داخلی خارجی مختلفی ازجمله بلایای طبیعی ریسک‌های عملیاتی پژوهش حاضر شبیه‌سازی توسط نرم‌افزار ارنا زنجیره‌ سنگ ساختمانی «کارخانه سنگبری آسم...

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are used to model stochastic systems in many applications, but computing good policies becomes hard when the effective horizon become very large. In “A First-Order Approach Accelerated Value Iteration,” Goyal and Grand-Clément present a connection between value iteration (VI) algorithms gradient descent methods from convex optimization use acceleration momentum ...

Multimedia is not a dream anymore. Nowadays we use images (e.g., GIF, JPEG, and BMP), videos (e.g., MPEG, AVI, and QuickTime), and sounds (e.g., MIDI and WAV) as well as alphanumerical information even on a