尽管深入的强化学习（DRL）在包括机器人技术在内的许多学科中都很流行，但最先进的DRL算法仍然难以学习长途，多步骤和稀疏奖励任务，例如仅在只有一项任务的情况下堆叠几个块 - 集合奖励信号。为了提高此类任务的学习效率，本文提出了一种称为A^2的DRL探索技术，该技术集成了受人类经验启发的两个组成部分：抽象演示和适应性探索。 A^2首先将复杂的任务分解为子任务，然后提供正确的子任务订单以学习。在训练过程中，该代理商会自适应地探索环境，对良好的子任务的行为更确定性，并且更随机地对不良的子任务子任务。消融和比较实验是对几个网格世界任务和三个机器人操纵任务进行的。我们证明A^2可以帮助流行的DRL算法（DQN，DDPG和SAC）在这些环境中更有效，稳定地学习。

尽管对生成对抗网络（GAN）进行了广泛的研究，但如何可靠地从其潜在空间中可靠地采样高质量的图像仍然是一个不足的主题。在本文中，我们通过探索和利用GAN潜伏分布的中心先验来提出一种新型的GAN潜伏方法。我们的关键见解是，GAN潜在空间的高维度不可避免地会导致集线器潜伏期的出现通常比潜在空间中的其他潜在潜在潜伏期更大。结果，这些枢纽潜伏期得到了更好的训练，因此有助于高质量图像的合成。与A后“樱桃挑剔”不同，我们的方法高效，因为它是一种先验方法，可以在合成图像之前识别高质量的潜在。此外，我们表明，众所周知但纯粹的经验截断技巧是对集线器潜伏期的中心聚类效应的幼稚近似，这不仅揭示了截断技巧的基本原理，而且还表明了我们方法的优越性和基础性。广泛的实验结果证明了该方法的有效性。

漫画是一种人类面孔的艺术风格，吸引了娱乐业的相当大的关注。到目前为止，存在少数3D漫画生成方法，所有这些都需要一些漫画信息（例如，漫画素描或2D漫画）作为输入。然而，这种输入难以由非专业用户提供。在本文中，我们提出了一个端到端的深度神经网络模型，可直接从正常的2D脸照片产生高质量的3D漫画。我们系统最具挑战性的问题是面部照片的源域（以正常的2D面为特征）与3D漫画的目标域有很大差异（以3D夸大的面形状和纹理为特征）。为了解决这一挑战，我们：（1）建立一个大型数据集5,343个3D漫画网格，并使用它来建立3D漫画形状空间中的PCA模型; （2）从输入面照片重建正常的全3D头，并在3D漫画形状空间中使用其PCA表示来建立输入照片和3D漫画形状之间的对应关系; （3）提出了一种基于以前对讽刺的心理研究的新颖性状损失和新颖的漫画损失。实验包括新型两级用户学习，表明我们的系统可以直接从正常面部照片产生高质量的3D漫画。

鉴于输入面部照片，漫画生成的目标是生产风格化，夸张的漫画，与照片共享与相同的身份。它需要同时传输和形状夸张，具有丰富的多样性，同时保留输入的身份。为了解决这一具有挑战性的问题，我们提出了一种名为Multi-Warping GaN（MW-GAN）的新型框架，包括风格网络和几何网络，旨在分别进行样式传输和几何夸张。我们通过双向设计弥合图像的风格和地标之间的差距，并通过双向设计来生成具有任意样式和几何夸张的漫画，可以通过潜在代码或给定的随机采样来指定漫画样本。此外，我们对图像空间和地标空间施加身份保持损失，导致产生漫画的质量的巨大改善。实验表明，由MW-GaN产生的漫画具有比现有方法更好的质量。

With the fast development of big data, it has been easier than before to learn the optimal decision rule by updating the decision rule recursively and making online decisions. We study the online statistical inference of model parameters in a contextual bandit framework of sequential decision-making. We propose a general framework for online and adaptive data collection environment that can update decision rules via weighted stochastic gradient descent. We allow different weighting schemes of the stochastic gradient and establish the asymptotic normality of the parameter estimator. Our proposed estimator significantly improves the asymptotic efficiency over the previous averaged SGD approach via inverse probability weights. We also conduct an optimality analysis on the weights in a linear regression setting. We provide a Bahadur representation of the proposed estimator and show that the remainder term in the Bahadur representation entails a slower convergence rate compared to classical SGD due to the adaptive data collection.

Model counting is a fundamental problem which has been influential in many applications, from artificial intelligence to formal verification. Due to the intrinsic hardness of model counting, approximate techniques have been developed to solve real-world instances of model counting. This paper designs a new anytime approach called PartialKC for approximate model counting. The idea is a form of partial knowledge compilation to provide an unbiased estimate of the model count which can converge to the exact count. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that PartialKC achieves significant scalability and accuracy over prior state-of-the-art approximate counters, including satss and STS. Interestingly, the empirical results show that PartialKC reaches convergence for many instances and therefore provides exact model counting performance comparable to state-of-the-art exact counters.

Robots are traditionally bounded by a fixed embodiment during their operational lifetime, which limits their ability to adapt to their surroundings. Co-optimizing control and morphology of a robot, however, is often inefficient due to the complex interplay between the controller and morphology. In this paper, we propose a learning-based control method that can inherently take morphology into consideration such that once the control policy is trained in the simulator, it can be easily deployed to robots with different embodiments in the real world. In particular, we present the Embodiment-aware Transformer (EAT), an architecture that casts this control problem as conditional sequence modeling. EAT outputs the optimal actions by leveraging a causally masked Transformer. By conditioning an autoregressive model on the desired robot embodiment, past states, and actions, our EAT model can generate future actions that best fit the current robot embodiment. Experimental results show that EAT can outperform all other alternatives in embodiment-varying tasks, and succeed in an example of real-world evolution tasks: stepping down a stair through updating the morphology alone. We hope that EAT will inspire a new push toward real-world evolution across many domains, where algorithms like EAT can blaze a trail by bridging the field of evolutionary robotics and big data sequence modeling.

Persuasion modeling is a key building block for conversational agents. Existing works in this direction are limited to analyzing textual dialogue corpus. We argue that visual signals also play an important role in understanding human persuasive behaviors. In this paper, we introduce the first multimodal dataset for modeling persuasion behaviors. Our dataset includes 199 dialogue transcriptions and videos captured in a multi-player social deduction game setting, 26,647 utterance level annotations of persuasion strategy, and game level annotations of deduction game outcomes. We provide extensive experiments to show how dialogue context and visual signals benefit persuasion strategy prediction. We also explore the generalization ability of language models for persuasion modeling and the role of persuasion strategies in predicting social deduction game outcomes. Our dataset, code, and models can be found at https://persuasion-deductiongame.socialai-data.org.

Deep reinforcement learning has recently emerged as an appealing alternative for legged locomotion over multiple terrains by training a policy in physical simulation and then transferring it to the real world (i.e., sim-to-real transfer). Despite considerable progress, the capacity and scalability of traditional neural networks are still limited, which may hinder their applications in more complex environments. In contrast, the Transformer architecture has shown its superiority in a wide range of large-scale sequence modeling tasks, including natural language processing and decision-making problems. In this paper, we propose Terrain Transformer (TERT), a high-capacity Transformer model for quadrupedal locomotion control on various terrains. Furthermore, to better leverage Transformer in sim-to-real scenarios, we present a novel two-stage training framework consisting of an offline pretraining stage and an online correction stage, which can naturally integrate Transformer with privileged training. Extensive experiments in simulation demonstrate that TERT outperforms state-of-the-art baselines on different terrains in terms of return, energy consumption and control smoothness. In further real-world validation, TERT successfully traverses nine challenging terrains, including sand pit and stair down, which can not be accomplished by strong baselines.

Graphene quantum dots provide a platform for manipulating electron behaviors in two-dimensional (2D) Dirac materials. Most previous works were of the "forward" type in that the objective was to solve various confinement, transport and scattering problems with given structures that can be generated by, e.g., applying an external electrical field. There are applications such as cloaking or superscattering where the challenging problem of inverse design needs to be solved: finding a quantum-dot structure according to certain desired functional characteristics. A brute-force search of the system configuration based directly on the solutions of the Dirac equation is computational infeasible. We articulate a machine-learning approach to addressing the inverse-design problem where artificial neural networks subject to physical constraints are exploited to replace the rigorous Dirac equation solver. In particular, we focus on the problem of designing a quantum dot structure to generate both cloaking and superscattering in terms of the scattering efficiency as a function of the energy. We construct a physical loss function that enables accurate prediction of the scattering characteristics. We demonstrate that, in the regime of Klein tunneling, the scattering efficiency can be designed to vary over two orders of magnitudes, allowing any scattering curve to be generated from a proper combination of the gate potentials. Our physics-based machine-learning approach can be a powerful design tool for 2D Dirac material-based electronics.