Cognitive assistive technologies that aid people with dementia (such as Alzheimer’s disease) hold the promise to provide such people with an increased level of independence. However, to realize this promise, such systems must account for the specific needs and preferences of individuals. We argue that this form of customization requires a sequential, decision-theoretic model of interaction. We ...

We consider partially observable Markov decision processes with finite or countably infinite (core) state and observation spaces and finite action set. Following a standard approach, an equivalent completely observed problem is formulated, with the same finite action set but with an uncountable state space, namely the space of probability distributions on the original core state space. By devel...

Bayesian learning methods have recently been shown to provide an elegant solution to the exploration-exploitation trade-off in reinforcement learning. However most investigations of Bayesian reinforcement learning to date focus on the standard Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). The primary focus of this paper is to extend these ideas to the case of partially observable domains, by introducing th...

Traditional Reinforcement Learning methods are insufficient for AGIs who must be able to learn to deal with Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes. We investigate a novel method for dealing with this problem: standard RL techniques using as input the hidden layer output of a Sequential Constant-Size Compressor (SCSC). The SCSC takes the form of a sequential Recurrent Auto-Associative Me...

Adaptive sensing involves actively managing sensor resources to achieve a sensing task, such as object detection, classification, and tracking, and represents a promising direction for new applications of discrete event system methods. We describe an approach to adaptive sensing based on approximately solving a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) formulation of the problem. Suc...

In multi-agent systems it is often desirable for agents to adhere to standards of behaviour that minimise clashes and wasting of (limited) resources. In situations where it is not possible or desirable to dictate these standards globally or via centralised control, convention emergence offers a lightweight and rapid alternative. Placing fixed strategy agents within a population, whose interacti...

Prostate cancer is the most common solid tumor in American men and is screened for using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests. We report on a non-stationary partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) for prostate biopsy referral decisions. The core states are the patients’ prostate cancer related health states, and PSA test results are the observations. Transition probabilities and r...

This is a demonstration of a voice dialer, implemented as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP). A realtime graphical display shows the POMDP’s probability distribution over different possible dialog states, and shows how system output is generated and selected. The system demonstrated here includes several recent advances, including an action selection mechanism which unifies ...

Acidic fibroblast growth factor from newt (Notopthalmus viridescens) is a approximately 15-kDa, all beta-sheet protein devoid of disulfide bonds. In the present study, we investigate the effects of 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol (TFE) on the structure of newt acidic fibroblast growth factor (nFGF-1). The protein aggregates maximally in 10% (v/v) TFE. Congo red and thioflavin T binding experiments sugge...

Massive spin s ≥ 3/2 fields can become partially massless in cosmo-logical backgrounds. In the plane spanned by m 2 and Λ, there are lines where new gauge invariances permit intermediate sets of higher helicities, rather than the usual flat space extremes of all 2s + 1 massive or just 2 massless helicities. These gauge lines divide the (m 2 , Λ) plane into unitarily allowed or forbidden interme...