tricks in deep learning neural network

In this post, I am going to talk my understanding in tricks in training deep neural network. ResNet [1] Why does ResNet network work? https://www.quora.com/How-does-deep-residual-learning-work Here is my answer: It is hard to know the desired depth of a deep network. If layers are too deep, errors are hard to propagate back correctly. if layers are …

A3C code walkthrough

In this post, I am doing a brief code walkthrough for the code written in https://medium.com/emergent-future/simple-reinforcement-learning-with-tensorflow-part-8-asynchronous-actor-critic-agents-a3c-c88f72a5e9f2 The code implements A3C algorithm (Asynchronous Methods for Deep Reinforcement Learning). It follows the pseudocode given in supplemental part in the paper: The structure of this model is: For LSTM structure detail, refer to http://colah.github.io/posts/2015-08-Understanding-LSTMs/. I am using the same …

Policy Gradient

Reinforcement learning algorithms can be divided into many families. In model-free temporal difference methods like Q-learning/SARSA, we try to learn action value for any state-action pair, either by recording (“memorizing”) exact values in a tabular or learning a function to approximate it. Under -greedy, the action to be selected at a state will therefore be  but there …

Inverse Reinforcement Learning

In my rough understanding, inverse reinforcement learning is a branch of RL research in which people try to perform state-action sequences resembling given tutor sequences. There are two famous works on inverse reinforcement learning. One is Apprenticeship Learning via Inverse Reinforcement Learning [1], and the other is Maximum Margin Planning [2]. Maximum Margin Planning In …

Reinforcement learning overview

Here are some materials I found useful to learn Reinforcement Learning (RL). Let’s first look at Markov Decision Process (MDP), in which you know a transition function $latex T(s,a,s’)$ and a reward function $latex R(s,a,s’)$. In the diagram below, the green state is called “q state”.  Some notations that need to be clarified: Dynamic programming …

Abstract Algebra

I am introducing some basic definitions of abstract algebra, structures like monoid, groups, rings, fields and vector spaces and homomorphism/isomorphism. I find the clear definitions of structures from [1]: Also, the tables below show a clear comparisons between several structures [2,3]:   All these structures are defined with both a set and operation(s). Based on [4], …

When A* algorithm returns optimal solution

Dijkstra algorithm is a well known algorithm for finding exact distance from a source to a destination. In order to improve the path finding speed, A* algorithm combines heuristics and known distances to find the heuristically best path towards a goal. A common A* implementation maintains an open set for discovered yet not evaluated nodes and a closed …