This brief paper provides an introduction to non-discrimination law in Europe. It answers the questions: What are the key characteristics of non-discrimination law in Europe, and how do the different statutes relate to one another? Our main target group is computer scientists and users of artificial intelligence (AI) interested in an introduction to non-discrimination law in Europe. Notably, non-discrimination law in Europe differs significantly from non-discrimination law in other countries, such as the US. We aim to describe the law in such a way that non-lawyers and non-European lawyers can easily grasp its contents and challenges. The paper shows that the human right to non-discrimination, to some extent, protects individuals against private actors, such as companies. We introduce the EU-wide non-discrimination rules which are included in a number of EU directives, and also explain the difference between direct and indirect discrimination. Significantly, an organization can be fined for indirect discrimination even if the company, or its AI system, discriminated by accident. The last section broadens the horizon to include bias-relevant law and cases from the GDPR, the EU AI Act, and related statutes. Finally, we give reading tips for those inclined to learn more about non-discrimination law in Europe.
Predictive posterior densities (PPDs) are of interest in approximate Bayesian inference. Typically, these are estimated by simple Monte Carlo (MC) averages using samples from the approximate posterior. We observe that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of such estimators can be extremely low. An analysis for exact inference reveals SNR decays exponentially as there is an increase in (a) the mismatch between training and test data, (b) the dimensionality of the latent space, or (c) the size of the test data relative to the training data. Further analysis extends these results to approximate inference. To remedy the low SNR problem, we propose replacing simple MC sampling with importance sampling using a proposal distribution optimized at test time on a variational proxy for the SNR and demonstrate that this yields greatly improved estimates.
We present a class of high-order Eulerian-Lagrangian Runge-Kutta finite volume methods that can numerically solve Burgers' equation with shock formations, which could be extended to general scalar conservation laws. Eulerian-Lagrangian (EL) and semi-Lagrangian (SL) methods have recently seen increased development and have become a staple for allowing large time-stepping sizes. Yet, maintaining relatively large time-stepping sizes post shock formation remains quite challenging. Our proposed scheme integrates the partial differential equation on a space-time region partitioned by linear approximations to the characteristics determined by the Rankine-Hugoniot jump condition. We trace the characteristics forward in time and present a merging procedure for the mesh cells to handle intersecting characteristics due to shocks. Following this partitioning, we write the equation in a time-differential form and evolve with Runge-Kutta methods in a method-of-lines fashion. High-resolution methods such as ENO and WENO-AO schemes are used for spatial reconstruction. Extension to higher dimensions is done via dimensional splitting. Numerical experiments demonstrate our scheme's high-order accuracy and ability to sharply capture post-shock solutions with large time-stepping sizes.
The execution of Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agents in a Multi-Agent System (MAS) can be practically implemented on top of low-level concurrency mechanisms that impact on efficiency, determinism, and reproducibility. We argue that developers should specify the MAS behaviour independently of the execution model, and choose or configure the concurrency model later on, according to the specific needs of their target domain, leaving the MAS specification unaffected. We identify patterns for mapping the agent execution over the underlying concurrency abstractions, and investigate which concurrency models are supported by some of the most commonly used BDI platforms. Although most frameworks support multiple concurrency models, we find that they mostly hide them under the hood, making them opaque to the developer, and actually limiting the possibility of fine-tuning the MAS.
This paper is devoted to the solution and stability of a one-dimensional model depicting Rao--Nakra sandwich beams, incorporating damping terms characterized by fractional derivative types within the domain, specifically a generalized Caputo derivative with exponential weight. To address existence, uniqueness, stability, and numerical results, fractional derivatives are substituted by diffusion equations relative to a new independent variable, $\xi$, resulting in an augmented model with a dissipative semigroup operator. Polynomial decay of energy is achieved, with a decay rate depending on the fractional derivative parameters. Both the polynomial decay and its dependency on the parameters of the generalized Caputo derivative are numerically validated. To this end, an energy-conserving finite difference numerical scheme is employed.
Various approaches to iterative refinement (IR) for least-squares problems have been proposed in the literature and it may not be clear which approach is suitable for a given problem. We consider three approaches to IR for least-squares problems when two precisions are used and review their theoretical guarantees, known shortcomings and when the method can be expected to recognize that the correct solution has been found, and extend uniform precision analysis for an IR approach based on the semi-normal equations to the two-precision case. We focus on the situation where it is desired to refine the solution to the working precision level. It is shown that the IR methods exhibit different sensitivities to the conditioning of the problem and the size of the least-squares residual, which should be taken into account when choosing the IR approach. We also discuss a new approach that is based on solving multiple least-squares problems.
We consider the problem of sampling a high dimensional multimodal target probability measure. We assume that a good proposal kernel to move only a subset of the degrees of freedoms (also known as collective variables) is known a priori. This proposal kernel can for example be built using normalizing flows. We show how to extend the move from the collective variable space to the full space and how to implement an accept-reject step in order to get a reversible chain with respect to a target probability measure. The accept-reject step does not require to know the marginal of the original measure in the collective variable (namely to know the free energy). The obtained algorithm admits several variants, some of them being very close to methods which have been proposed previously in the literature. We show how the obtained acceptance ratio can be expressed in terms of the work which appears in the Jarzynski-Crooks equality, at least for some variants. Numerical illustrations demonstrate the efficiency of the approach on various simple test cases, and allow us to compare the variants of the algorithm.
The aim of the present work is to design, analyze theoretically, and test numerically, a generalized Dryja-Smith-Widlund (GDSW) preconditioner for composite Discontinuous Galerkin discretizations of multicompartment parabolic reaction-diffusion equations, where the solution can exhibit natural discontinuities across the domain. We prove that the resulting preconditioned operator for the solution of the discrete system arising at each time step converges with a scalable and quasi-optimal upper bound for the condition number. The GDSW preconditioner is then applied to the EMI (Extracellular - Membrane - Intracellular) reaction-diffusion system, recently proposed to model microscopically the spatiotemporal evolution of cardiac bioelectrical potentials. Numerical tests validate the scalability and quasi-optimality of the EMI-GDSW preconditioner, and investigate its robustness with respect to the time step size as well as jumps in the diffusion coefficients.
Ising machines are dedicated hardware solvers of NP-hard optimization problems. However, they do not always find the most optimal solution. The probability of finding this optimal solution depends on the problem at hand. Using continuation methods, we show that this is closely linked to the bifurcation sequence of the optimal solution. From this bifurcation analysis, we can determine the effectiveness of solution schemes. Moreover, we find that the proper choice of implementation of the Ising machine can drastically change this bifurcation sequence and therefore vastly increase the probability of finding the optimal solution.
Model evaluations are central to understanding the safety, risks, and societal impacts of AI systems. While most real-world AI applications involve human-AI interaction, most current evaluations (e.g., common benchmarks) of AI models do not. Instead, they incorporate human factors in limited ways, assessing the safety of models in isolation, thereby falling short of capturing the complexity of human-model interactions. In this paper, we discuss and operationalize a definition of an emerging category of evaluations -- "human interaction evaluations" (HIEs) -- which focus on the assessment of human-model interactions or the process and the outcomes of humans using models. First, we argue that HIEs can be used to increase the validity of safety evaluations, assess direct human impact and interaction-specific harms, and guide future assessments of models' societal impact. Second, we propose a safety-focused HIE design framework -- containing a human-LLM interaction taxonomy -- with three stages: (1) identifying the risk or harm area, (2) characterizing the use context, and (3) choosing the evaluation parameters. Third, we apply our framework to two potential evaluations for overreliance and persuasion risks. Finally, we conclude with tangible recommendations for addressing concerns over costs, replicability, and unrepresentativeness of HIEs.
We propose a positivity preserving finite element discretization for the nonlinear Gross-Pitaevskii eigenvalue problem. The method employs mass lumping techniques, which allow to transfer the uniqueness up to sign and positivity properties of the continuous ground state to the discrete setting. We further prove that every non-negative discrete excited state up to sign coincides with the discrete ground state. This allows one to identify the limit of fully discretized gradient flows, which are typically used to compute the discrete ground state, and thereby establish their global convergence. Furthermore, we perform a rigorous a priori error analysis of the proposed non-standard finite element discretization, showing optimal orders of convergence for all unknowns. Numerical experiments illustrate the theoretical results of this paper.