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A variety of theoretically-sound policy gradient algorithms exist for the on-policy setting due to the policy gradient theorem, which provides a simplified form for the gradient. The off-policy setting, however, has been less clear due to the existence of multiple objectives and the lack of an explicit off-policy policy gradient theorem. In this work, we unify these objectives into one off-policy objective, and provide a policy gradient theorem for this unified objective. The derivation involves emphatic weightings and interest functions. We show multiple strategies to approximate the gradients, in an algorithm called Actor Critic with Emphatic weightings (ACE). We prove in a counterexample that previous (semi-gradient) off-policy actor-critic methods--particularly Off-Policy Actor-Critic (OffPAC) and Deterministic Policy Gradient (DPG)--converge to the wrong solution whereas ACE finds the optimal solution. We also highlight why these semi-gradient approaches can still perform well in practice, suggesting strategies for variance reduction in ACE. We empirically study several variants of ACE on two classic control environments and an image-based environment designed to illustrate the tradeoffs made by each gradient approximation. We find that by approximating the emphatic weightings directly, ACE performs as well as or better than OffPAC in all settings tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the secret key-authenticated-capacity region, where information-theoretic authentication is defined by the ability of the decoder to accept and decode messages originating from a valid encoder while rejecting messages from other invalid sources. The model considered here consists of a valid encoder-decoder pairing that can communicate through a channel controlled by an adversary who is also able to eavesdrop on the encoder’s transmissions. Prior to the encoder’s transmission, the adversary decides whether or not to replace the decoder’s observation with an arbitrary one of the adversary’s choosing, with the adversary’s objective being to have the decoder accept and decode their observation to a valid message (different from that of the encoder). To combat the adversary, the encoder and decoder share a secret key. The secret key-authenticated-capacity region is defined as the region of jointly achievable message rate, authentication rate (a to be defined per symbol measure that will generally represent the likelihood that an adversary can fool the decoder), and the key-consumption rate (how many bits of secret key are needed per symbol sent). This is the second of a two-part study, with the parts differing in their measure of the authentication rate. For this second study, the probability of false authentication is considered as a function of the system state, where the system state is defined by the message being transmitted, the value of the secret key, the adversary’s channel observations, and the adversary’s (possibly stochastic) choice for the decoder’s observation. Termed the typical-authentication rate, the authentication measure considered here corresponds to an upper bound on the probability of false authentication for the majority of system states. For this measure, we derive matching inner and outer bounds for the secret key-enabled authenticated capacity region in terms of traditional information-theoretic measures. In doing so, it is shown that the typical-authentication rate and the message rate exhibit a one-to-one trade-off in the capacity region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the secret-key-authenticated-capacity region, where information-theoretic authentication is defined by the ability of the decoder to accept and decode messages originating from a valid encoder while rejecting messages from other invalid sources. The model considered here consists of a valid encoder-decoder pairing that can communicate through a channel controlled by an adversary who is also able to eavesdrop on the encoder’s transmissions. Over multiple rounds of communication, the adversary first decides whether or not to replace the decoder’s observation with an arbitrary one of the adversary’s choosing, with the goal of the adversary being to have the decoder accept and decode their observation as a valid message (different from that of the encoder). To combat the adversary, the encoder and decoder share a secret key. The secret-key-authenticated-capacity region here is then defined as the region of jointly achievable message rate, authentication rate (a to be defined per symbol measure that will generally represent the likelihood that an adversary can fool the decoder), and the key-consumption rate (how many bits of secret key are needed per symbol sent). This is the first of a two-part study, with the parts differing in their measure of the authentication rate. In this first study, the authentication rate is the exponent of blocklength-normalized exponent of the expected probability of false authentication. For this metric, we provide an inner bound which improves on those existing in the literature. This is achieved by adopting and merging different classical techniques in novel ways. Within these classical secret-key-based authentication techniques, one technique derives authentication capability from secure channel coding to send the secret key with the message, and the other technique derives its authentication capability directly from obscuring the source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents a new methodology for obtaining information theoretic necessary conditions directly from general operational requirements. This methodology is based on the construction of a discrete random variable that, when conditioned upon, ensures information stability of quasi-images. The induced information stability allows a more direct way to develop information theoretic necessary conditions from operational requirements beyond using Fano’s inequality. That is, while Fano’s inequality uses the probability of error to establish an upper bound on the entropy of a random variable given its estimator, the proposed new methodology can be applied to arbitrary operational requirements to obtain corresponding conditions on information theoretic quantities. To demonstrate its power, this new methodology is employed, to derive new necessary conditions for keyed authentication over a discrete memoryless channels and to establish the capacity region subject to finite leakage and finite error of the wiretap channel under two different secrecy metrics. These examples establish the usefulness of the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors demonstrate for the first time the injection of electrons across an n-type to p-type silicon junction and their subsequent tunneling from approximately 1 μm tall p-type silicon points into a vacuum gap. The diffusive flow of these minority carriers in the p-type material is controlled by the application of a bias voltage in the form of a base contact metallization contact on the p-type silicon, in analogy with a bipolar junction transistor. Using an array density of 4×106 tips/cm2, the authors measured a maximum average current of 1 nA per tip. Increasing the base contact bias voltage from 0 to ∼1 V changes the emission from a supply limited regime typically observed with p-type silicon emitters, bringing the emitted current back to a linear Fowler-Nordheim characteristic similar to that observed previously by photon generation of carriers in p-type silicon tips. The authors finally note that in our short tips, minority carrier flow should be a nondissipative largely adiabatic diffusive transport process which is followed by extraction into vacuum. A novel heat extraction mechanism for future cooling applications is thus anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]