Prof. John Oommen

The Theory and Applications of the Stochastic Point Location Problem

In this Keynote talk, we will survey and explain the state-of-the-art concerning the Stochastic Search on the Line (SSL) problem, also known as the Stochastic Point Location (SPL) Problem. The SPL was introduced by Oommen and has been studied and analyzed by numerous researchers since then – during the last two decades. It involves determining an unknown “point” when all that the learning system stochastically knows is whether the current point that it has chosen is to the left or to the right of the unknown point. In this talk we will explain how the SPL is a fundamental problem in machine learning, optimization and control, and demonstrate that it is central to the field of AI. We will then describe how it is all pervasive in a variety of application domains. The talk will survey the various automata-based and hierarchical techniques that have been used to solve it, including learning from a Stochastic Teacher or a Stochastic Compulsive Liar. The talk will finally discuss the SPL’s application domains. The paper to be included in the proceedings will be co-authored by Dr. Anis Yazidi, from the University College of Oslo and Akershus, in Oslo, Norway.