One of the emerging research opportunities in machine learning is to develop computing systems that learn many tasks continuously and improve the performance of learned tasks incrementally over time. In real world, learners have to adapt to labeled and unlabeled samples from various tasks which arrive randomly. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm called Efficient Perpetual Learning Algorithm (EPLA) which is suitable for learning multiple tasks in both offline and online settings. The algorithm, which is an extension of ELLA,4 is part of what we call perpetual learning that can learn new tasks or refine knowledge of learned tasks for improved performance with newly arrived labeled samples in an incremental fashion. Several salient features exist for EPLA. The learning episodes are triggered via either extrinsic or intrinsic stimuli. Agent systems based on the proposed algorithm can be engaged in an open-ended and alternating sequence of learning episodes and working episodes. Unlabeled samples can be used to self-train the learner in small data setting. Compared with ELLA, EPLA shows almost equivalent performance without memorizing any labeled samples learned previously.
Currently, most machine learning applications follow a one-off learning process: given a static dataset and a learning algorithm, generate a model for a task. These applications can neither adapt to a dynamic and changing environment, nor accomplish incremental task performance improvement continuously. STEP perpetual learning, by continuous knowledge refinement through sequential learning episodes, emphasizes the accomplishment of incremental task performance improvement. In this paper, we describe how a personalized temporal event scheduling system SmartCalendar, can benefit from STEP perpetual learning. We adopt the interval temporal logic to represent events’ temporal relationships and determine if events are temporally inconsistent. To provide strategies that approach user preferences for handling temporal inconsistencies, we propose SmartCalendar to recognize, resolve and learn from temporal inconsistencies based on STEP perpetual learning. SmartCalendar has several cornerstones: similarity measures for temporal inconsistency; a sparse decomposition method to utilize historical data; and a loss function based on cross-entropy to optimize performance. The experimental results on the collected dataset show that SmartCalendar incrementally improves its scheduling performance and substantially outperforms comparison methods.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.