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Inspiring the development of artificial intelligence for the benefit of all 

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Located in the heart of Quebec’s AI ecosystem, Mila is a community of more than 1,200 researchers specializing in machine learning and dedicated to scientific excellence and innovation.

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Faculty 

Founded in 1993 by Professor Yoshua Bengio, Mila today brings together over 140 professors affiliated with Université de Montréal, McGill University, Polytechnique Montréal and HEC Montréal. Mila also welcomes professors from Université Laval, Université de Sherbrooke, École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) and Concordia University. 

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Latest Publications

Adaptation, Comparison and Practical Implementation of Fairness Schemes in Kidney Exchange Programs
In Kidney Exchange Programs (KEPs), each participating patient is registered together with an incompatible donor. Donors without an incompat… (see more)ible patient can also register. Then, KEPs typically maximize overall patient benefit through donor exchanges. This aggregation of benefits calls into question potential individual patient disparities in terms of access to transplantation in KEPs. Considering solely this utilitarian objective may become an issue in the case where multiple exchange plans are optimal or near-optimal. In fact, current KEP policies are all-or-nothing, meaning that only one exchange plan is determined. Each patient is either selected or not as part of that unique solution. In this work, we seek instead to find a policy that contemplates the probability of patients of being in a solution. To guide the determination of our policy, we adapt popular fairness schemes to KEPs to balance the usual approach of maximizing the utilitarian objective. Different combinations of fairness and utilitarian objectives are modelled as conic programs with an exponential number of variables. We propose a column generation approach to solve them effectively in practice. Finally, we make an extensive comparison of the different schemes in terms of the balance of utility and fairness score, and validate the scalability of our methodology for benchmark instances from the literature.
Efficient Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Supplementary Damping Control With a Coordinated RMS Training and EMT Testing Scheme
Tao Xue
Mingxuan Zhao
Ilhan Kocar
Mohsen Ghafouri
Siqi Bu
Ziqing Zhu
Inverter-based resources (IBRs) can cause instability in weak AC grids. While supplementary damping controllers (SDCs) effectively mitigate … (see more)this instability, they are typically designed for specific resonance frequencies but struggle with large shifts caused by changing grid conditions. This paper proposes a deep reinforcement learning-based agent (DRL Agent) as an adaptive SDC to handle shifted resonance frequencies. To address the time-consuming nature of training DRL Agents in electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulations, we coordinate fast root mean square (RMS) and EMT simulations. Resonance frequencies of the weak grid instability are accurately reproduced by RMS simulations to support the training process. The DRL Agent’s efficacy is tested in unseen scenarios outside the training dataset. We then iteratively improve the DRL Agent’s performance by modifying the reward function and hyper-parameters.
Sparsity regularization via tree-structured environments for disentangled representations
Many causal systems such as biological processes in cells can only be observed indirectly via measurements, such as gene expression. Causal … (see more)representation learning---the task of correctly mapping low-level observations to latent causal variables---could advance scientific understanding by enabling inference of latent variables such as pathway activation. In this paper, we develop methods for inferring latent variables from multiple related datasets (environments) and tasks. As a running example, we consider the task of predicting a phenotype from gene expression, where we often collect data from multiple cell types or organisms that are related in known ways. The key insight is that the mapping from latent variables driven by gene expression to the phenotype of interest changes sparsely across closely related environments. To model sparse changes, we introduce Tree-Based Regularization (TBR), an objective that minimizes both prediction error and regularizes closely related environments to learn similar predictors. We prove that under assumptions about the degree of sparse changes, TBR identifies the true latent variables up to some simple transformations. We evaluate the theory empirically with both simulations and ground-truth gene expression data. We find that TBR recovers the latent causal variables better than related methods across these settings, even under settings that violate some assumptions of the theory.
Comparative genomics of Pseudomonas paraeruginosa.
Maxime Déraspe
Lori L. Burrows
R. Voulhoux
D. Centrón
Paul H Roy
The PA7-clade (or group 3) of Pseudomonas aeruginosa is now recognized as a distinct species, Pseudomonas paraeruginosa. We report here the … (see more)genomic sequences of six new strains of P. paraeruginosa: Zw26 (the first complete genome of a cystic fibrosis isolate of P. paraeruginosa), draft genomes of four burn and wound strains from Argentina very closely related to PA7, and of Pa5196, the strain in which arabinosylation of type IV pili was documented. We compared the genomes of 82 strains of P. paraeruginosa and confirmed that the species is divided into two sub-clades. Core genomes are very similar, while most differences are found in "regions of genomic plasticity" (RGPs). Several genomic deletions were identified, and most are common to the CR1 sub-clade that includes Zw26 and Pa5196. All strains lack the type 3 secretion system (T3SS) and instead use an alternative virulence strategy involving an exolysin, a characteristic shared with group 5 P. aeruginosa. All strains tend to be multiresistant like PA7, with a significant proportion of carbapenem-resistant strains, either oprD mutants or carrying carbapenemase genes. Although P. paraeruginosa is still relatively rare, it has a worldwide distribution. Its multiresistance and its alternative virulence strategy need to be considered in future therapeutic development.IMPORTANCEPseudomonas aeruginosa is an important opportunistic pathogen causing respiratory infections, notably in cystic fibrosis, and burn and wound infections. Our study reports six new genomes of Pseudomonas paraeruginosa, a new species recently reported as distinct from P. aeruginosa. The number of sequenced genomes of P. paraeruginosa is only about 1% that of P. aeruginosa. We compare the genomic content of nearly all strains of P. paraeruginosa in GenBank, highlighting the differences in core and accessory genomes, antimicrobial resistance genes, and virulence factors. This novel species is very similar in environmental spectrum to P. aeruginosa but is notably resistant to last-line antibiotics and uses an alternative virulence strategy based on exolysin-this strategy being shared with some P. aeruginosa outliers.

AI for Humanity

Socially responsible and beneficial development of AI is a fundamental component of Mila’s mission. As a leader in the field, we wish to contribute to social dialogue and the development of applications that will benefit society.

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