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2501.15539
Studying Behavioral Addiction by Combining Surveys and Digital Traces: A Case Study of TikTok
cs.SI cs.CY
Opaque algorithms disseminate and mediate the content that users consume on online social media platforms. This algorithmic mediation serves users with contents of their liking, on the other hand, it may cause several inadvertent risks to society at scale. While some of these risks, e.g., filter bubbles or dissemination of hateful content, are well studied in the community, behavioral addiction, designated by the Digital Services Act (DSA) as a potential systemic risk, has been understudied. In this work, we aim to study if one can effectively diagnose behavioral addiction using digital data traces from social media platforms. Focusing on the TikTok short-format video platform as a case study, we employ a novel mixed methodology of combining survey responses with data donations of behavioral traces. We survey 1590 TikTok users and stratify them into three addiction groups (i.e., less/moderately/highly likely addicted). Then, we obtain data donations from 107 surveyed participants. By analyzing users' data we find that, among others, highly likely addicted users spend more time watching TikTok videos and keep coming back to TikTok throughout the day, indicating a compulsion to use the platform. Finally, by using basic user engagement features, we train classifier models to identify highly likely addicted users with $F_1 \geq 0.55$. The performance of the classifier models suggests predicting addictive users solely based on their usage is rather difficult.
2501.15542
Estimating the Optimal Number of Clusters in Categorical Data Clustering by Silhouette Coefficient
cs.LG
The problem of estimating the number of clusters (say k) is one of the major challenges for the partitional clustering. This paper proposes an algorithm named k-SCC to estimate the optimal k in categorical data clustering. For the clustering step, the algorithm uses the kernel density estimation approach to define cluster centers. In addition, it uses an information-theoretic based dissimilarity to measure the distance between centers and objects in each cluster. The silhouette analysis based approach is then used to evaluate the quality of different clustering obtained in the former step to choose the best k. Comparative experiments were conducted on both synthetic and real datasets to compare the performance of k-SCC with three other algorithms. Experimental results show that k-SCC outperforms the compared algorithms in determining the number of clusters for each dataset.
2501.15544
Advancing Generative Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models for Demand Side Management with Internet of Electric Vehicles
cs.LG cs.AI
Generative artificial intelligence, particularly through large language models (LLMs), is poised to transform energy optimization and demand side management (DSM) within microgrids. This paper explores the integration of LLMs into energy management, emphasizing their roles in automating the optimization of DSM strategies with Internet of electric vehicles. We investigate challenges and solutions associated with DSM and explore the new opportunities presented by leveraging LLMs. Then, we propose an innovative solution that enhances LLMs with retrieval-augmented generation for automatic problem formulation, code generation, and customizing optimization. We present a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed solution in charging scheduling and optimization for electric vehicles, highlighting our solution's significant advancements in energy efficiency and user adaptability. This work underscores the potential of LLMs for energy optimization and fosters a new era of intelligent DSM solutions.
2501.15547
Building Efficient Lightweight CNN Models
cs.CV cs.AI cs.LG
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are pivotal in image classification tasks due to their robust feature extraction capabilities. However, their high computational and memory requirements pose challenges for deployment in resource-constrained environments. This paper introduces a methodology to construct lightweight CNNs while maintaining competitive accuracy. The approach integrates two stages of training; dual-input-output model and transfer learning with progressive unfreezing. The dual-input-output model train on original and augmented datasets, enhancing robustness. Progressive unfreezing is applied to the unified model to optimize pre-learned features during fine-tuning, enabling faster convergence and improved model accuracy. The methodology was evaluated on three benchmark datasets; handwritten digit MNIST, fashion MNIST, and CIFAR-10. The proposed model achieved a state-of-the-art accuracy of 99% on the handwritten digit MNIST and 89% on fashion MNIST, with only 14,862 parameters and a model size of 0.17 MB. While performance on CIFAR-10 was comparatively lower (65% with less than 20,00 parameters), the results highlight the scalability of this method. The final model demonstrated fast inference times and low latency, making it suitable for real-time applications. Future directions include exploring advanced augmentation techniques, improving architectural scalability for complex datasets, and extending the methodology to tasks beyond classification. This research underscores the potential for creating efficient, scalable, and task-specific CNNs for diverse applications.
2501.15549
Optimal Transport on Categorical Data for Counterfactuals using Compositional Data and Dirichlet Transport
cs.LG stat.ME
Recently, optimal transport-based approaches have gained attention for deriving counterfactuals, e.g., to quantify algorithmic discrimination. However, in the general multivariate setting, these methods are often opaque and difficult to interpret. To address this, alternative methodologies have been proposed, using causal graphs combined with iterative quantile regressions (Ple\v{c}ko and Meinshausen (2020)) or sequential transport (Fernandes Machado et al. (2025)) to examine fairness at the individual level, often referred to as ``counterfactual fairness.'' Despite these advancements, transporting categorical variables remains a significant challenge in practical applications with real datasets. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to address this issue. Our method involves (1) converting categorical variables into compositional data and (2) transporting these compositions within the probabilistic simplex of $\mathbb{R}^d$. We demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of this approach through an illustration on real-world data, and discuss limitations.
2501.15552
Community-centric modeling of citation dynamics explains collective citation patterns in science, law, and patents
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Many human knowledge systems, such as science, law, and invention, are built on documents and the citations that link them. Citations, while serving multiple purposes, primarily function as a way to explicitly document the use of prior work and thus have become central to the study of knowledge systems. Analyzing citation dynamics has revealed statistical patterns that shed light on knowledge production, recognition, and formalization, and has helped identify key mechanisms driving these patterns. However, most quantitative findings are confined to scientific citations, raising the question of universality of these findings. Moreover, existing models of individual citation trajectories fail to explain phenomena such as delayed recognition, calling for a unifying framework. Here, we analyze a newly available corpus of U.S. case law, in addition to scientific and patent citation networks, to show that they share remarkably similar citation patterns, including a heavy-tailed distribution of sleeping beauties. We propose a holistic model that captures the three core mechanisms driving collective dynamics and replicates the elusive phenomenon of delayed recognition. We demonstrate that the model not only replicates observed citation patterns, but also better predicts future successes by considering the whole system. Our work offers insights into key mechanisms that govern large-scale patterns of collective human knowledge systems and may provide generalizable perspectives on discovery and innovation across domains.
2501.15554
BoTier: Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimization with Tiered Composite Objectives
cs.LG math.OC stat.ME stat.ML
Scientific optimization problems are usually concerned with balancing multiple competing objectives, which come as preferences over both the outcomes of an experiment (e.g. maximize the reaction yield) and the corresponding input parameters (e.g. minimize the use of an expensive reagent). Typically, practical and economic considerations define a hierarchy over these objectives, which must be reflected in algorithms for sample-efficient experiment planning. Herein, we introduce BoTier, a composite objective that can flexibly represent a hierarchy of preferences over both experiment outcomes and input parameters. We provide systematic benchmarks on synthetic and real-life surfaces, demonstrating the robust applicability of BoTier across a number of use cases. Importantly, BoTier is implemented in an auto-differentiable fashion, enabling seamless integration with the BoTorch library, thereby facilitating adoption by the scientific community.
2501.15555
Distributionally Robust Graph Out-of-Distribution Recommendation via Diffusion Model
cs.LG cs.AI cs.GR stat.ML
The distributionally robust optimization (DRO)-based graph neural network methods improve recommendation systems' out-of-distribution (OOD) generalization by optimizing the model's worst-case performance. However, these studies fail to consider the impact of noisy samples in the training data, which results in diminished generalization capabilities and lower accuracy. Through experimental and theoretical analysis, this paper reveals that current DRO-based graph recommendation methods assign greater weight to noise distribution, leading to model parameter learning being dominated by it. When the model overly focuses on fitting noise samples in the training data, it may learn irrelevant or meaningless features that cannot be generalized to OOD data. To address this challenge, we design a Distributionally Robust Graph model for OOD recommendation (DRGO). Specifically, our method first employs a simple and effective diffusion paradigm to alleviate the noisy effect in the latent space. Additionally, an entropy regularization term is introduced in the DRO objective function to avoid extreme sample weights in the worst-case distribution. Finally, we provide a theoretical proof of the generalization error bound of DRGO as well as a theoretical analysis of how our approach mitigates noisy sample effects, which helps to better understand the proposed framework from a theoretical perspective. We conduct extensive experiments on four datasets to evaluate the effectiveness of our framework against three typical distribution shifts, and the results demonstrate its superiority in both independently and identically distributed distributions (IID) and OOD.
2501.15556
Commute Your Domains: Trajectory Optimality Criterion for Multi-Domain Learning
cs.LG cs.CL
In multi-domain learning, a single model is trained on diverse data domains to leverage shared knowledge and improve generalization. The order in which the data from these domains is used for training can significantly affect the model's performance on each domain. However, this dependence is under-studied. In this paper, we investigate the influence of training order (or data mixing) in multi-domain learning using the concept of Lie bracket of gradient vector fields. By analyzing the infinitesimal effects of changing the training order, we identify regions in the parameter space where altering the order between two training domains can benefit the target loss. We validate the predictions of our theoretical framework on the influence of training order (or data mixing) both on a toy example and bilingual LLM pre-training.
2501.15558
Ocean-OCR: Towards General OCR Application via a Vision-Language Model
cs.CV
Multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have shown impressive capabilities across various domains, excelling in processing and understanding information from multiple modalities. Despite the rapid progress made previously, insufficient OCR ability hinders MLLMs from excelling in text-related tasks. In this paper, we present \textbf{Ocean-OCR}, a 3B MLLM with state-of-the-art performance on various OCR scenarios and comparable understanding ability on general tasks. We employ Native Resolution ViT to enable variable resolution input and utilize a substantial collection of high-quality OCR datasets to enhance the model performance. We demonstrate the superiority of Ocean-OCR through comprehensive experiments on open-source OCR benchmarks and across various OCR scenarios. These scenarios encompass document understanding, scene text recognition, and handwritten recognition, highlighting the robust OCR capabilities of Ocean-OCR. Note that Ocean-OCR is the first MLLM to outperform professional OCR models such as TextIn and PaddleOCR.
2501.15559
Towards Sharper Information-theoretic Generalization Bounds for Meta-Learning
stat.ML cs.LG
In recent years, information-theoretic generalization bounds have emerged as a promising approach for analyzing the generalization capabilities of meta-learning algorithms. However, existing results are confined to two-step bounds, failing to provide a sharper characterization of the meta-generalization gap that simultaneously accounts for environment-level and task-level dependencies. This paper addresses this fundamental limitation by establishing novel single-step information-theoretic bounds for meta-learning. Our bounds exhibit substantial advantages over prior MI- and CMI-based bounds, especially in terms of tightness, scaling behavior associated with sampled tasks and samples per task, and computational tractability. Furthermore, we provide novel theoretical insights into the generalization behavior of two classes of noise and iterative meta-learning algorithms via gradient covariance analysis, where the meta-learner uses either the entire meta-training data (e.g., Reptile), or separate training and test data within the task (e.g., model agnostic meta-learning (MAML)). Numerical results validate the effectiveness of the derived bounds in capturing the generalization dynamics of meta-learning.
2501.15562
CE-SDWV: Effective and Efficient Concept Erasure for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models via a Semantic-Driven Word Vocabulary
cs.CV cs.AI
Large-scale text-to-image (T2I) diffusion models have achieved remarkable generative performance about various concepts. With the limitation of privacy and safety in practice, the generative capability concerning NSFW (Not Safe For Work) concepts is undesirable, e.g., producing sexually explicit photos, and licensed images. The concept erasure task for T2I diffusion models has attracted considerable attention and requires an effective and efficient method. To achieve this goal, we propose a CE-SDWV framework, which removes the target concepts (e.g., NSFW concepts) of T2I diffusion models in the text semantic space by only adjusting the text condition tokens and does not need to re-train the original T2I diffusion model's weights. Specifically, our framework first builds a target concept-related word vocabulary to enhance the representation of the target concepts within the text semantic space, and then utilizes an adaptive semantic component suppression strategy to ablate the target concept-related semantic information in the text condition tokens. To further adapt the above text condition tokens to the original image semantic space, we propose an end-to-end gradient-orthogonal token optimization strategy. Extensive experiments on I2P and UnlearnCanvas benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our method.
2501.15563
PCAP-Backdoor: Backdoor Poisoning Generator for Network Traffic in CPS/IoT Environments
cs.LG cs.CR cs.NI
The rapid expansion of connected devices has made them prime targets for cyberattacks. To address these threats, deep learning-based, data-driven intrusion detection systems (IDS) have emerged as powerful tools for detecting and mitigating such attacks. These IDSs analyze network traffic to identify unusual patterns and anomalies that may indicate potential security breaches. However, prior research has shown that deep learning models are vulnerable to backdoor attacks, where attackers inject triggers into the model to manipulate its behavior and cause misclassifications of network traffic. In this paper, we explore the susceptibility of deep learning-based IDS systems to backdoor attacks in the context of network traffic analysis. We introduce \texttt{PCAP-Backdoor}, a novel technique that facilitates backdoor poisoning attacks on PCAP datasets. Our experiments on real-world Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Internet of Things (IoT) network traffic datasets demonstrate that attackers can effectively backdoor a model by poisoning as little as 1\% or less of the entire training dataset. Moreover, we show that an attacker can introduce a trigger into benign traffic during model training yet cause the backdoored model to misclassify malicious traffic when the trigger is present. Finally, we highlight the difficulty of detecting this trigger-based backdoor, even when using existing backdoor defense techniques.
2501.15564
Diffusion-Based Planning for Autonomous Driving with Flexible Guidance
cs.RO cs.AI cs.LG
Achieving human-like driving behaviors in complex open-world environments is a critical challenge in autonomous driving. Contemporary learning-based planning approaches such as imitation learning methods often struggle to balance competing objectives and lack of safety assurance,due to limited adaptability and inadequacy in learning complex multi-modal behaviors commonly exhibited in human planning, not to mention their strong reliance on the fallback strategy with predefined rules. We propose a novel transformer-based Diffusion Planner for closed-loop planning, which can effectively model multi-modal driving behavior and ensure trajectory quality without any rule-based refinement. Our model supports joint modeling of both prediction and planning tasks under the same architecture, enabling cooperative behaviors between vehicles. Moreover, by learning the gradient of the trajectory score function and employing a flexible classifier guidance mechanism, Diffusion Planner effectively achieves safe and adaptable planning behaviors. Evaluations on the large-scale real-world autonomous planning benchmark nuPlan and our newly collected 200-hour delivery-vehicle driving dataset demonstrate that Diffusion Planner achieves state-of-the-art closed-loop performance with robust transferability in diverse driving styles.
2501.15570
ARWKV: Pretrain is not what we need, an RNN-Attention-Based Language Model Born from Transformer
cs.CL
As is known, hybrid quadratic and subquadratic attention models in multi-head architectures have surpassed both Transformer and Linear RNN models , with these works primarily focusing on reducing KV complexity and improving efficiency. For further research on expressiveness, we introduce our series of models distilled from Qwen 2.5, based on pure native RWKV-7 attention, which aims to make RNN more expressive and demonstrates state tracking ability beyond transformers. We work with QRWK 32B based on RWKV-6 architecture, another approach that reduces the entire knowledge processing time to just 8 hours using 16 AMD MI300X GPUs while maintaining Qwen 2.5's performance. In fact, the distillation process can utilize any LLM, not just Qwen, and enables knowledge transfer from larger LLMs to smaller ones with more fewer tokens. We will explain the detailed process and share our insights on building more powerful foundation models. Please note that this is an ongoing work that will be updated continuously. The model checkpoints and source code are available at \href{https://github.com/yynil/RWKVInside}{https://github.com/yynil/RWKVInside}, \href{https://huggingface.co/RWKV-Red-Team/ARWKV-7B-Preview-0.1}{https://huggingface.co/RWKV-Red-Team/ARWKV-7B-Preview-0.1}.
2501.15571
Cross-Cultural Fashion Design via Interactive Large Language Models and Diffusion Models
cs.CL
Fashion content generation is an emerging area at the intersection of artificial intelligence and creative design, with applications ranging from virtual try-on to culturally diverse design prototyping. Existing methods often struggle with cultural bias, limited scalability, and alignment between textual prompts and generated visuals, particularly under weak supervision. In this work, we propose a novel framework that integrates Large Language Models (LLMs) with Latent Diffusion Models (LDMs) to address these challenges. Our method leverages LLMs for semantic refinement of textual prompts and introduces a weak supervision filtering module to effectively utilize noisy or weakly labeled data. By fine-tuning the LDM on an enhanced DeepFashion+ dataset enriched with global fashion styles, the proposed approach achieves state-of-the-art performance. Experimental results demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms baselines, achieving lower Frechet Inception Distance (FID) and higher Inception Scores (IS), while human evaluations confirm its ability to generate culturally diverse and semantically relevant fashion content. These results highlight the potential of LLM-guided diffusion models in driving scalable and inclusive AI-driven fashion innovation.
2501.15572
Comparative clinical evaluation of "memory-efficient" synthetic 3d generative adversarial networks (gan) head-to-head to state of art: results on computed tomography of the chest
eess.IV cs.AI cs.CV
Introduction: Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are increasingly used to generate synthetic medical images, addressing the critical shortage of annotated data for training Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. This study introduces a novel memory-efficient GAN architecture, incorporating Conditional Random Fields (CRFs) to generate high-resolution 3D medical images and evaluates its performance against the state-of-the-art hierarchical (HA)-GAN model. Materials and Methods: The CRF-GAN was trained using the open-source lung CT LUNA16 dataset. The architecture was compared to HA-GAN through a quantitative evaluation, using Frechet Inception Distance (FID) and Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) metrics, and a qualitative evaluation, through a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) test completed by a pool of 12 resident radiologists, in order to assess the realism of the generated images. Results: CRF-GAN outperformed HA-GAN with lower FID (0.047 vs. 0.061) and MMD (0.084 vs. 0.086) scores, indicating better image fidelity. The 2AFC test showed a significant preference for images generated by CRF-Gan over those generated by HA-GAN with a p-value of 1.93e-05. Additionally, CRF-GAN demonstrated 9.34% lower memory usage at 256 resolution and achieved up to 14.6% faster training speeds, offering substantial computational savings. Discussion: CRF-GAN model successfully generates high-resolution 3D medical images with non-inferior quality to conventional models, while being more memory-efficient and faster. Computational power and time saved can be used to improve the spatial resolution and anatomical accuracy of generated images, which is still a critical factor limiting their direct clinical applicability.
2501.15573
Approximate Message Passing for Bayesian Neural Networks
cs.LG cs.CV
Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) offer the potential for reliable uncertainty quantification and interpretability, which are critical for trustworthy AI in high-stakes domains. However, existing methods often struggle with issues such as overconfidence, hyperparameter sensitivity, and posterior collapse, leaving room for alternative approaches. In this work, we advance message passing (MP) for BNNs and present a novel framework that models the predictive posterior as a factor graph. To the best of our knowledge, our framework is the first MP method that handles convolutional neural networks and avoids double-counting training data, a limitation of previous MP methods that causes overconfidence. We evaluate our approach on CIFAR-10 with a convolutional neural network of roughly 890k parameters and find that it can compete with the SOTA baselines AdamW and IVON, even having an edge in terms of calibration. On synthetic data, we validate the uncertainty estimates and observe a strong correlation (0.9) between posterior credible intervals and its probability of covering the true data-generating function outside the training range. While our method scales to an MLP with 5.6 million parameters, further improvements are necessary to match the scale and performance of state-of-the-art variational inference methods.
2501.15574
Instruction Tuning for Story Understanding and Generation with Weak Supervision
cs.CL
Story understanding and generation have long been a challenging task in natural language processing (NLP), especially when dealing with various levels of instruction specificity. In this paper, we propose a novel approach called "Weak to Strong Instruction Tuning" for improving story generation by tuning models with instructions of varying clarity. We explore the potential of large language models (LLMs) to adapt to different types of instructions, weak and strong, and show that our method significantly enhances performance in story comprehension and generation. By leveraging the strength of instruction tuning, we train models to understand the nuances of story plots, characters, and themes while generating coherent and engaging narratives. Through extensive experiments on several benchmark datasets and comparison with state-of-the-art baselines, we demonstrate that our method outperforms existing techniques, yielding substantial improvements in both automatic evaluation metrics and human evaluations. Our work shows that adaptive instruction tuning can be a powerful tool in refining generative models for complex narrative tasks.
2501.15576
First Real-Time Detection of Ambient Backscatters using Uplink Sounding Reference Signals of a Commercial 4G Smartphone
cs.IT math.IT
Recently, cellular Ambient Backscattering has been proposed for 4G/5G/6G networks. An Ambient backscatter tag broadcasts its message by backscattering ambient downlink waves from the closest base station according to a predefined pattern. A tag is detected by smartphones nearby. This paper presents, for the first time, a novel ambient backscatter communication system exploiting uplink ambient waves from smartphones instead of downlink waves. In this novel system, the base station connected to a smartphone monitors the uplink pilot signals and detects tags in proximity. The proposed system is implemented and tested with prototypes of tags, a commercial 4G smartphone and a 4G Software Defined Radio base station. At the base station side, a non-coherent correlator receiver is implemented, and a novel technique based on pre-correlation data processing is proposed to separate useful variations on pilot signals due to tags from variations due to time varying channel effects. To deal with collision between multiple tags, distinct Gold pseudo noise codes with minimum cross correlation are used. Tests are run in different indoor and outdoor environments. A receiver detection probability of 95% has been achieved at 0.5% False-alarm probability when the tag is at 5 meters from the UE. At the refresh rate of 2 seconds, the proposed scheme is suitable for tracking objects at moderate speeds and can therefore be used for many passive IoT-based applications.
2501.15579
ConceptCLIP: Towards Trustworthy Medical AI via Concept-Enhanced Contrastive Langauge-Image Pre-training
cs.CV cs.CL
Trustworthiness is essential for the precise and interpretable application of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical imaging. Traditionally, precision and interpretability have been addressed as separate tasks, namely medical image analysis and explainable AI, each developing its own models independently. In this study, for the first time, we investigate the development of a unified medical vision-language pre-training model that can achieve both accurate analysis and interpretable understanding of medical images across various modalities. To build the model, we construct MedConcept-23M, a large-scale dataset comprising 23 million medical image-text pairs extracted from 6.2 million scientific articles, enriched with concepts from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). Based on MedConcept-23M, we introduce ConceptCLIP, a medical AI model utilizing concept-enhanced contrastive language-image pre-training. The pre-training of ConceptCLIP involves two primary components: image-text alignment learning (IT-Align) and patch-concept alignment learning (PC-Align). This dual alignment strategy enhances the model's capability to associate specific image regions with relevant concepts, thereby improving both the precision of analysis and the interpretability of the AI system. We conducted extensive experiments on 5 diverse types of medical image analysis tasks, spanning 51 subtasks across 10 image modalities, with the broadest range of downstream tasks. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed vision-language pre-training model. Further explainability analysis across 6 modalities reveals that ConceptCLIP achieves superior performance, underscoring its robust ability to advance explainable AI in medical imaging. These findings highlight ConceptCLIP's capability in promoting trustworthy AI in the field of medicine.
2501.15581
Error Classification of Large Language Models on Math Word Problems: A Dynamically Adaptive Framework
cs.CL
Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities across various domains. Math Word Problems (MWPs) serve as a crucial benchmark for evaluating LLMs' reasoning abilities. While most research primarily focuses on improving accuracy, it often neglects understanding and addressing the underlying patterns of errors. Current error classification methods rely on static and predefined categories, which limit their ability to capture the full spectrum of error patterns in mathematical reasoning. To enable systematic error analysis, we collect error samples from 15 different LLMs of varying sizes across four distinct MWP datasets using multiple sampling strategies. Based on this extensive collection, we introduce MWPES-300K, a comprehensive dataset containing 304,865 error samples that cover diverse error patterns and reasoning paths. To reduce human bias and enable fine-grained analysis of error patterns, we propose a novel framework for automated dynamic error classification in mathematical reasoning. Experimental results demonstrate that dataset characteristics significantly shape error patterns, which evolve from basic to complex manifestations as model capabilities increase. With deeper insights into error patterns, we propose error-aware prompting that incorporates common error patterns as explicit guidance, leading to significant improvements in mathematical reasoning performance.
2501.15585
Twin Transition or Competing Interests? Validation of the Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability Perceptions Inventory (AISPI)
cs.CY cs.AI
As artificial intelligence (AI) and sustainability initiatives increasingly intersect, understanding public perceptions of their relationship becomes crucial for successful implementation. However, no validated instrument exists to measure these specific perceptions. This paper presents the development and validation of the Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability Perceptions Inventory (AISPI), a novel 13-item instrument measuring how individuals view the relationship between AI advancement and environmental sustainability. Through factor analysis (N=105), we identified two distinct dimensions: Twin Transition and Competing Interests. The instrument demonstrated strong reliability (alpha=.89) and construct validity through correlations with established measures of AI and sustainability attitudes. Our findings suggest that individuals can simultaneously recognize both synergies and tensions in the AI-sustainability relationship, offering important implications for researchers and practitioners working at this critical intersection. This work provides a foundational tool for future research on public perceptions of AI's role in sustainable development.
2501.15587
SCP-116K: A High-Quality Problem-Solution Dataset and a Generalized Pipeline for Automated Extraction in the Higher Education Science Domain
cs.CL cs.AI cs.IR
Recent breakthroughs in large language models (LLMs) exemplified by the impressive mathematical and scientific reasoning capabilities of the o1 model have spotlighted the critical importance of high-quality training data in advancing LLM performance across STEM disciplines. While the mathematics community has benefited from a growing body of curated datasets, the scientific domain at the higher education level has long suffered from a scarcity of comparable resources. To address this gap, we present SCP-116K, a new large-scale dataset of 116,756 high-quality problem-solution pairs, automatically extracted from heterogeneous sources using a streamlined and highly generalizable pipeline. Our approach involves stringent filtering to ensure the scientific rigor and educational level of the extracted materials, while maintaining adaptability for future expansions or domain transfers. By openly releasing both the dataset and the extraction pipeline, we seek to foster research on scientific reasoning, enable comprehensive performance evaluations of new LLMs, and lower the barrier to replicating the successes of advanced models like o1 in the broader science community. We believe SCP-116K will serve as a critical resource, catalyzing progress in high-level scientific reasoning tasks and promoting further innovations in LLM development. The dataset and code are publicly available at https://github.com/AQA6666/SCP-116K-open.
2501.15588
Tumor Detection, Segmentation and Classification Challenge on Automated 3D Breast Ultrasound: The TDSC-ABUS Challenge
eess.IV cs.CV
Breast cancer is one of the most common causes of death among women worldwide. Early detection helps in reducing the number of deaths. Automated 3D Breast Ultrasound (ABUS) is a newer approach for breast screening, which has many advantages over handheld mammography such as safety, speed, and higher detection rate of breast cancer. Tumor detection, segmentation, and classification are key components in the analysis of medical images, especially challenging in the context of 3D ABUS due to the significant variability in tumor size and shape, unclear tumor boundaries, and a low signal-to-noise ratio. The lack of publicly accessible, well-labeled ABUS datasets further hinders the advancement of systems for breast tumor analysis. Addressing this gap, we have organized the inaugural Tumor Detection, Segmentation, and Classification Challenge on Automated 3D Breast Ultrasound 2023 (TDSC-ABUS2023). This initiative aims to spearhead research in this field and create a definitive benchmark for tasks associated with 3D ABUS image analysis. In this paper, we summarize the top-performing algorithms from the challenge and provide critical analysis for ABUS image examination. We offer the TDSC-ABUS challenge as an open-access platform at https://tdsc-abus2023.grand-challenge.org/ to benchmark and inspire future developments in algorithmic research.
2501.15590
Assessing and Predicting Air Pollution in Asia: A Regional and Temporal Study (2018-2023)
cs.LG stat.AP
This study analyzes and predicts air pollution in Asia, focusing on PM 2.5 levels from 2018 to 2023 across five regions: Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia. South Asia emerged as the most polluted region, with Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan consistently having the highest PM 2.5 levels and death rates, especially in Nepal, Pakistan, and India. East Asia showed the lowest pollution levels. K-means clustering categorized countries into high, moderate, and low pollution groups. The ARIMA model effectively predicted 2023 PM 2.5 levels (MAE: 3.99, MSE: 33.80, RMSE: 5.81, R: 0.86). The findings emphasize the need for targeted interventions to address severe pollution and health risks in South Asia.
2501.15592
Information Consistent Pruning: How to Efficiently Search for Sparse Networks?
cs.LG cs.IT cs.NE math.IT
Iterative magnitude pruning methods (IMPs), proven to be successful in reducing the number of insignificant nodes in over-parameterized deep neural networks (DNNs), have been getting an enormous amount of attention with the rapid deployment of DNNs into cutting-edge technologies with computation and memory constraints. Despite IMPs popularity in pruning networks, a fundamental limitation of existing IMP algorithms is the significant training time required for each pruning iteration. Our paper introduces a novel \textit{stopping criterion} for IMPs that monitors information and gradient flows between networks layers and minimizes the training time. Information Consistent Pruning (\ourmethod{}) eliminates the need to retrain the network to its original performance during intermediate steps while maintaining overall performance at the end of the pruning process. Through our experiments, we demonstrate that our algorithm is more efficient than current IMPs across multiple dataset-DNN combinations. We also provide theoretical insights into the core idea of our algorithm alongside mathematical explanations of flow-based IMP. Our code is available at \url{https://github.com/Sekeh-Lab/InfCoP}.
2501.15595
SedarEval: Automated Evaluation using Self-Adaptive Rubrics
cs.CV
The evaluation paradigm of LLM-as-judge gains popularity due to its significant reduction in human labor and time costs. This approach utilizes one or more large language models (LLMs) to assess the quality of outputs from other LLMs. However, existing methods rely on generic scoring rubrics that fail to consider the specificities of each question and its problem-solving process, compromising precision and stability in assessments. Inspired by human examination scoring processes, we propose a new evaluation paradigm based on self-adaptive rubrics. Specifically, we create detailed scoring rubrics for each question, capturing the primary and secondary criteria in a structured format of scoring and deduction points that mimic a human evaluator's analytical process. Building on this paradigm, we further develop a novel benchmark called SedarEval, which covers a range of domains including long-tail knowledge, mathematics, coding, and logical reasoning. SedarEval consists of 1,000 meticulously crafted questions, each with its own self-adaptive rubric. To further streamline the evaluation, we train a specialized evaluator language model (evaluator LM) to supplant human graders. Using the same training data, our evaluator LM achieves a higher concordance rate with human grading results than other paradigms, including GPT-4, highlighting the superiority and efficiency of our approach. We release our dataset at https://github.com/wwn1233/sedareval.
2501.15598
Diffusion Generative Modeling for Spatially Resolved Gene Expression Inference from Histology Images
q-bio.QM cs.AI cs.CV cs.LG stat.ML
Spatial Transcriptomics (ST) allows a high-resolution measurement of RNA sequence abundance by systematically connecting cell morphology depicted in Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) stained histology images to spatially resolved gene expressions. ST is a time-consuming, expensive yet powerful experimental technique that provides new opportunities to understand cancer mechanisms at a fine-grained molecular level, which is critical for uncovering new approaches for disease diagnosis and treatments. Here, we present $\textbf{Stem}$ ($\textbf{S}$pa$\textbf{T}$ially resolved gene $\textbf{E}$xpression inference with diffusion $\textbf{M}$odel), a novel computational tool that leverages a conditional diffusion generative model to enable in silico gene expression inference from H&E stained images. Through better capturing the inherent stochasticity and heterogeneity in ST data, $\textbf{Stem}$ achieves state-of-the-art performance on spatial gene expression prediction and generates biologically meaningful gene profiles for new H&E stained images at test time. We evaluate the proposed algorithm on datasets with various tissue sources and sequencing platforms, where it demonstrates clear improvement over existing approaches. $\textbf{Stem}$ generates high-fidelity gene expression predictions that share similar gene variation levels as ground truth data, suggesting that our method preserves the underlying biological heterogeneity. Our proposed pipeline opens up the possibility of analyzing existing, easily accessible H&E stained histology images from a genomics point of view without physically performing gene expression profiling and empowers potential biological discovery from H&E stained histology images.
2501.15602
Rethinking External Slow-Thinking: From Snowball Errors to Probability of Correct Reasoning
cs.AI cs.CL
Test-time scaling, which is also often referred to as slow-thinking, has been demonstrated to enhance multi-step reasoning in large language models (LLMs). However, despite its widespread utilization, the mechanisms underlying slow-thinking methods remain poorly understood. This paper explores the mechanisms of external slow-thinking from a theoretical standpoint. We begin by examining the snowball error effect within the LLM reasoning process and connect it to the likelihood of correct reasoning using information theory. Building on this, we show that external slow-thinking methods can be interpreted as strategies to mitigate the error probability. We further provide a comparative analysis of popular external slow-thinking approaches, ranging from simple to complex, highlighting their differences and interrelationships. Our findings suggest that the efficacy of these methods is not primarily determined by the specific framework employed, and that expanding the search scope or the model's internal reasoning capacity may yield more sustained improvements in the long term. We open-source our code at https://github.com/ZyGan1999/Snowball-Errors-and-Probability.
2501.15603
Advancing TDFN: Precise Fixation Point Generation Using Reconstruction Differences
cs.CV
Wang and Wang (2025) proposed the Task-Driven Fixation Network (TDFN) based on the fixation mechanism, which leverages low-resolution information along with high-resolution details near fixation points to accomplish specific visual tasks. The model employs reinforcement learning to generate fixation points. However, training reinforcement learning models is challenging, particularly when aiming to generate pixel-level accurate fixation points on high-resolution images. This paper introduces an improved fixation point generation method by leveraging the difference between the reconstructed image and the input image to train the fixation point generator. This approach directs fixation points to areas with significant differences between the reconstructed and input images. Experimental results demonstrate that this method achieves highly accurate fixation points, significantly enhances the network's classification accuracy, and reduces the average number of required fixations to achieve a predefined accuracy level.
2501.15610
Radiologist-in-the-Loop Self-Training for Generalizable CT Metal Artifact Reduction
eess.IV cs.CV
Metal artifacts in computed tomography (CT) images can significantly degrade image quality and impede accurate diagnosis. Supervised metal artifact reduction (MAR) methods, trained using simulated datasets, often struggle to perform well on real clinical CT images due to a substantial domain gap. Although state-of-the-art semi-supervised methods use pseudo ground-truths generated by a prior network to mitigate this issue, their reliance on a fixed prior limits both the quality and quantity of these pseudo ground-truths, introducing confirmation bias and reducing clinical applicability. To address these limitations, we propose a novel Radiologist-In-the-loop SElf-training framework for MAR, termed RISE-MAR, which can integrate radiologists' feedback into the semi-supervised learning process, progressively improving the quality and quantity of pseudo ground-truths for enhanced generalization on real clinical CT images. For quality assurance, we introduce a clinical quality assessor model that emulates radiologist evaluations, effectively selecting high-quality pseudo ground-truths for semi-supervised training. For quantity assurance, our self-training framework iteratively generates additional high-quality pseudo ground-truths, expanding the clinical dataset and further improving model generalization. Extensive experimental results on multiple clinical datasets demonstrate the superior generalization performance of our RISE-MAR over state-of-the-art methods, advancing the development of MAR models for practical application. Code is available at https://github.com/Masaaki-75/rise-mar.
2501.15611
Nuisance-free Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System Design: Merging Exponential-CBF and Adaptive Sliding Manifolds
eess.SY cs.SY
The significance of the automatic ground collision avoidance system (Auto-GCAS) has been proven by considering the fatal crashes that have occurred over decades. Even though extensive efforts have been put forth to address the ground collision avoidance in the literature, the notion of being nuisance-free has not been sufficiently addressed. At this point, in this study, the Auto-GCAS design is formulated by merging exponential control barrier functions with sliding manifolds to manipulate the barrier function dynamics. The adaptive properties of the sliding manifolds are tailored to the key and governing flight parameters, ensuring that the nuisance-free requirement is satisfied. Furthermore, to ensure all safety requirements are met, a flight envelope protection algorithm is designed using control barrier functions to assess the commands generated by the Auto-GCAS. Eventually, the performance of the proposed methodology is demonstrated, focusing on authority-sharing, collision avoidance capability, and nuisance-free operation through various scenarios and Monte Carlo simulations.
2501.15613
Stepback: Enhanced Disentanglement for Voice Conversion via Multi-Task Learning
cs.SD cs.CL eess.AS
Voice conversion (VC) modifies voice characteristics while preserving linguistic content. This paper presents the Stepback network, a novel model for converting speaker identity using non-parallel data. Unlike traditional VC methods that rely on parallel data, our approach leverages deep learning techniques to enhance disentanglement completion and linguistic content preservation. The Stepback network incorporates a dual flow of different domain data inputs and uses constraints with self-destructive amendments to optimize the content encoder. Extensive experiments show that our model significantly improves VC performance, reducing training costs while achieving high-quality voice conversion. The Stepback network's design offers a promising solution for advanced voice conversion tasks.
2501.15615
Deterministic Reservoir Computing for Chaotic Time Series Prediction
cs.LG
Reservoir Computing was shown in recent years to be useful as efficient to learn networks in the field of time series tasks. Their randomized initialization, a computational benefit, results in drawbacks in theoretical analysis of large random graphs, because of which deterministic variations are an still open field of research. Building upon Next-Gen Reservoir Computing and the Temporal Convolution Derived Reservoir Computing, we propose a deterministic alternative to the higher-dimensional mapping therein, TCRC-LM and TCRC-CM, utilizing the parametrized but deterministic Logistic mapping and Chebyshev maps. To further enhance the predictive capabilities in the task of time series forecasting, we propose the novel utilization of the Lobachevsky function as non-linear activation function. As a result, we observe a new, fully deterministic network being able to outperform TCRCs and classical Reservoir Computing in the form of the prominent Echo State Networks by up to $99.99\%$ for the non-chaotic time series and $87.13\%$ for the chaotic ones.
2501.15616
IPVTON: Image-based 3D Virtual Try-on with Image Prompt Adapter
cs.CV
Given a pair of images depicting a person and a garment separately, image-based 3D virtual try-on methods aim to reconstruct a 3D human model that realistically portrays the person wearing the desired garment. In this paper, we present IPVTON, a novel image-based 3D virtual try-on framework. IPVTON employs score distillation sampling with image prompts to optimize a hybrid 3D human representation, integrating target garment features into diffusion priors through an image prompt adapter. To avoid interference with non-target areas, we leverage mask-guided image prompt embeddings to focus the image features on the try-on regions. Moreover, we impose geometric constraints on the 3D model with a pseudo silhouette generated by ControlNet, ensuring that the clothed 3D human model retains the shape of the source identity while accurately wearing the target garments. Extensive qualitative and quantitative experiments demonstrate that IPVTON outperforms previous methods in image-based 3D virtual try-on tasks, excelling in both geometry and texture.
2501.15617
I-trustworthy Models. A framework for trustworthiness evaluation of probabilistic classifiers
stat.ML cs.LG stat.ME
As probabilistic models continue to permeate various facets of our society and contribute to scientific advancements, it becomes a necessity to go beyond traditional metrics such as predictive accuracy and error rates and assess their trustworthiness. Grounded in the competence-based theory of trust, this work formalizes I-trustworthy framework -- a novel framework for assessing the trustworthiness of probabilistic classifiers for inference tasks by linking local calibration to trustworthiness. To assess I-trustworthiness, we use the local calibration error (LCE) and develop a method of hypothesis-testing. This method utilizes a kernel-based test statistic, Kernel Local Calibration Error (KLCE), to test local calibration of a probabilistic classifier. This study provides theoretical guarantees by offering convergence bounds for an unbiased estimator of KLCE. Additionally, we present a diagnostic tool designed to identify and measure biases in cases of miscalibration. The effectiveness of the proposed test statistic is demonstrated through its application to both simulated and real-world datasets. Finally, LCE of related recalibration methods is studied, and we provide evidence of insufficiency of existing methods to achieve I-trustworthiness.
2501.15618
Your Learned Constraint is Secretly a Backward Reachable Tube
cs.RO cs.AI cs.LG
Inverse Constraint Learning (ICL) is the problem of inferring constraints from safe (i.e., constraint-satisfying) demonstrations. The hope is that these inferred constraints can then be used downstream to search for safe policies for new tasks and, potentially, under different dynamics. Our paper explores the question of what mathematical entity ICL recovers. Somewhat surprisingly, we show that both in theory and in practice, ICL recovers the set of states where failure is inevitable, rather than the set of states where failure has already happened. In the language of safe control, this means we recover a backwards reachable tube (BRT) rather than a failure set. In contrast to the failure set, the BRT depends on the dynamics of the data collection system. We discuss the implications of the dynamics-conditionedness of the recovered constraint on both the sample-efficiency of policy search and the transferability of learned constraints.
2501.15619
GaussianToken: An Effective Image Tokenizer with 2D Gaussian Splatting
cs.CV cs.AI
Effective image tokenization is crucial for both multi-modal understanding and generation tasks due to the necessity of the alignment with discrete text data. To this end, existing approaches utilize vector quantization (VQ) to project pixels onto a discrete codebook and reconstruct images from the discrete representation. However, compared with the continuous latent space, the limited discrete codebook space significantly restrict the representational ability of these image tokenizers. In this paper, we propose GaussianToken: An Effective Image Tokenizer with 2D Gaussian Splatting as a solution. We first represent the encoded samples as multiple flexible featured 2D Gaussians characterized by positions, rotation angles, scaling factors, and feature coefficients. We adopt the standard quantization for the Gaussian features and then concatenate the quantization results with the other intrinsic Gaussian parameters before the corresponding splatting operation and the subsequent decoding module. In general, GaussianToken integrates the local influence of 2D Gaussian distribution into the discrete space and thus enhances the representation capability of the image tokenizer. Competitive reconstruction performances on CIFAR, Mini-ImageNet, and ImageNet-1K demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework. Our code is available at: https://github.com/ChrisDong-THU/GaussianToken.
2501.15624
Improving Estonian Text Simplification through Pretrained Language Models and Custom Datasets
cs.CL
This study introduces an approach to Estonian text simplification using two model architectures: a neural machine translation model and a fine-tuned large language model (LLaMA). Given the limited resources for Estonian, we developed a new dataset, the Estonian Simplification Dataset, combining translated data and GPT-4.0-generated simplifications. We benchmarked OpenNMT, a neural machine translation model that frames text simplification as a translation task, and fine-tuned the LLaMA model on our dataset to tailor it specifically for Estonian simplification. Manual evaluations on the test set show that the LLaMA model consistently outperforms OpenNMT in readability, grammaticality, and meaning preservation. These findings underscore the potential of large language models for low-resource languages and provide a basis for further research in Estonian text simplification.
2501.15627
HardML: A Benchmark For Evaluating Data Science And Machine Learning knowledge and reasoning in AI
cs.LG cs.AI
We present HardML, a benchmark designed to evaluate the knowledge and reasoning abilities in the fields of data science and machine learning. HardML comprises a diverse set of 100 challenging multiple-choice questions, handcrafted over a period of 6 months, covering the most popular and modern branches of data science and machine learning. These questions are challenging even for a typical Senior Machine Learning Engineer to answer correctly. To minimize the risk of data contamination, HardML uses mostly original content devised by the author. Current state of the art AI models achieve a 30% error rate on this benchmark, which is about 3 times larger than the one achieved on the equivalent, well known MMLU ML. While HardML is limited in scope and not aiming to push the frontier, primarily due to its multiple choice nature, it serves as a rigorous and modern testbed to quantify and track the progress of top AI. While plenty benchmarks and experimentation in LLM evaluation exist in other STEM fields like mathematics, physics and chemistry, the subfields of data science and machine learning remain fairly underexplored.
2501.15630
Quantum-Enhanced Attention Mechanism in NLP: A Hybrid Classical-Quantum Approach
cs.CL quant-ph
Transformer-based models have achieved remarkable results in natural language processing (NLP) tasks such as text classification and machine translation. However, their computational complexity and resource demands pose challenges for scalability and accessibility. This research proposes a hybrid quantum-classical transformer model that integrates a quantum-enhanced attention mechanism to address these limitations. By leveraging quantum kernel similarity and variational quantum circuits (VQC), the model captures intricate token dependencies while improving computational efficiency. Experimental results on the IMDb dataset demonstrate that the quantum-enhanced model outperforms the classical baseline across all key metrics, achieving a 1.5% improvement in accuracy (65.5% vs. 64%), precision, recall, and F1 score. Statistical significance tests validate these improvements, highlighting the robustness of the quantum approach. These findings illustrate the transformative potential of quantum-enhanced attention mechanisms in optimizing NLP architectures for real-world applications.
2501.15631
BoKDiff: Best-of-K Diffusion Alignment for Target-Specific 3D Molecule Generation
q-bio.BM cs.LG
Structure-based drug design (SBDD) leverages the 3D structure of biomolecular targets to guide the creation of new therapeutic agents. Recent advances in generative models, including diffusion models and geometric deep learning, have demonstrated promise in optimizing ligand generation. However, the scarcity of high-quality protein-ligand complex data and the inherent challenges in aligning generated ligands with target proteins limit the effectiveness of these methods. We propose BoKDiff, a novel framework that enhances ligand generation by combining multi-objective optimization and Best-of-K alignment methodologies. Built upon the DecompDiff model, BoKDiff generates diverse candidates and ranks them using a weighted evaluation of molecular properties such as QED, SA, and docking scores. To address alignment challenges, we introduce a method that relocates the center of mass of generated ligands to their docking poses, enabling accurate sub-component extraction. Additionally, we integrate a Best-of-N (BoN) sampling approach, which selects the optimal ligand from multiple generated candidates without requiring fine-tuning. BoN achieves exceptional results, with QED values exceeding 0.6, SA scores above 0.75, and a success rate surpassing 35%, demonstrating its efficiency and practicality. BoKDiff achieves state-of-the-art results on the CrossDocked2020 dataset, including a -8.58 average Vina docking score and a 26% success rate in molecule generation. This study is the first to apply Best-of-K alignment and Best-of-N sampling to SBDD, highlighting their potential to bridge generative modeling with practical drug discovery requirements. The code is provided at https://github.com/khodabandeh-ali/BoKDiff.git.
2501.15634
Be Intentional About Fairness!: Fairness, Size, and Multiplicity in the Rashomon Set
cs.CY cs.LG
When selecting a model from a set of equally performant models, how much unfairness can you really reduce? Is it important to be intentional about fairness when choosing among this set, or is arbitrarily choosing among the set of ''good'' models good enough? Recent work has highlighted that the phenomenon of model multiplicity-where multiple models with nearly identical predictive accuracy exist for the same task-has both positive and negative implications for fairness, from strengthening the enforcement of civil rights law in AI systems to showcasing arbitrariness in AI decision-making. Despite the enormous implications of model multiplicity, there is little work that explores the properties of sets of equally accurate models, or Rashomon sets, in general. In this paper, we present five main theoretical and methodological contributions which help us to understand the relatively unexplored properties of the Rashomon set, in particular with regards to fairness. Our contributions include methods for efficiently sampling models from this set and techniques for identifying the fairest models according to key fairness metrics such as statistical parity. We also derive the probability that an individual's prediction will be flipped within the Rashomon set, as well as expressions for the set's size and the distribution of error tolerance used across models. These results lead to policy-relevant takeaways, such as the importance of intentionally looking for fair models within the Rashomon set, and understanding which individuals or groups may be more susceptible to arbitrary decisions.
2501.15638
A Comprehensive Survey on Self-Interpretable Neural Networks
cs.LG cs.AI
Neural networks have achieved remarkable success across various fields. However, the lack of interpretability limits their practical use, particularly in critical decision-making scenarios. Post-hoc interpretability, which provides explanations for pre-trained models, is often at risk of robustness and fidelity. This has inspired a rising interest in self-interpretable neural networks, which inherently reveal the prediction rationale through the model structures. Although there exist surveys on post-hoc interpretability, a comprehensive and systematic survey of self-interpretable neural networks is still missing. To address this gap, we first collect and review existing works on self-interpretable neural networks and provide a structured summary of their methodologies from five key perspectives: attribution-based, function-based, concept-based, prototype-based, and rule-based self-interpretation. We also present concrete, visualized examples of model explanations and discuss their applicability across diverse scenarios, including image, text, graph data, and deep reinforcement learning. Additionally, we summarize existing evaluation metrics for self-interpretability and identify open challenges in this field, offering insights for future research. To support ongoing developments, we present a publicly accessible resource to track advancements in this domain: https://github.com/yangji721/Awesome-Self-Interpretable-Neural-Network.
2501.15641
Bringing Characters to New Stories: Training-Free Theme-Specific Image Generation via Dynamic Visual Prompting
cs.CV
The stories and characters that captivate us as we grow up shape unique fantasy worlds, with images serving as the primary medium for visually experiencing these realms. Personalizing generative models through fine-tuning with theme-specific data has become a prevalent approach in text-to-image generation. However, unlike object customization, which focuses on learning specific objects, theme-specific generation encompasses diverse elements such as characters, scenes, and objects. Such diversity also introduces a key challenge: how to adaptively generate multi-character, multi-concept, and continuous theme-specific images (TSI). Moreover, fine-tuning approaches often come with significant computational overhead, time costs, and risks of overfitting. This paper explores a fundamental question: Can image generation models directly leverage images as contextual input, similarly to how large language models use text as context? To address this, we present T-Prompter, a novel training-free TSI method for generation. T-Prompter introduces visual prompting, a mechanism that integrates reference images into generative models, allowing users to seamlessly specify the target theme without requiring additional training. To further enhance this process, we propose a Dynamic Visual Prompting (DVP) mechanism, which iteratively optimizes visual prompts to improve the accuracy and quality of generated images. Our approach enables diverse applications, including consistent story generation, character design, realistic character generation, and style-guided image generation. Comparative evaluations against state-of-the-art personalization methods demonstrate that T-Prompter achieves significantly better results and excels in maintaining character identity preserving, style consistency and text alignment, offering a robust and flexible solution for theme-specific image generation.
2501.15645
Individual Confidential Computing of Polynomials over Non-Uniform Information
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we address the problem of secure distributed computation in scenarios where user data is not uniformly distributed, extending existing frameworks that assume uniformity, an assumption that is challenging to enforce in data for computation. Motivated by the pervasive reliance on single service providers for data storage and computation, we propose a privacy-preserving scheme that achieves information-theoretic security guarantees for computing polynomials over non-uniform data distributions. Our framework builds upon the concept of perfect subset privacy and employs linear hashing techniques to transform non-uniform data into approximately uniform distributions, enabling robust and secure computation. We derive leakage bounds and demonstrate that information leakage of any subset of user data to untrusted service providers, i.e., not only to colluding workers but also (and more importantly) to the admin, remains negligible under the proposed scheme.
2501.15646
Mathematical analysis of the gradients in deep learning
cs.LG cs.NA math.NA
Deep learning algorithms -- typically consisting of a class of deep artificial neural networks (ANNs) trained by a stochastic gradient descent (SGD) optimization method -- are nowadays an integral part in many areas of science, industry, and also our day to day life. Roughly speaking, in their most basic form, ANNs can be regarded as functions that consist of a series of compositions of affine-linear functions with multidimensional versions of so-called activation functions. One of the most popular of such activation functions is the rectified linear unit (ReLU) function $\mathbb{R} \ni x \mapsto \max\{ x, 0 \} \in \mathbb{R}$. The ReLU function is, however, not differentiable and, typically, this lack of regularity transfers to the cost function of the supervised learning problem under consideration. Regardless of this lack of differentiability issue, deep learning practioners apply SGD methods based on suitably generalized gradients in standard deep learning libraries like {\sc TensorFlow} or {\sc Pytorch}. In this work we reveal an accurate and concise mathematical description of such generalized gradients in the training of deep fully-connected feedforward ANNs and we also study the resulting generalized gradient function analytically. Specifically, we provide an appropriate approximation procedure that uniquely describes the generalized gradient function, we prove that the generalized gradients are limiting Fr\'echet subgradients of the cost functional, and we conclude that the generalized gradients must coincide with the standard gradient of the cost functional on every open sets on which the cost functional is continuously differentiable.
2501.15648
Can Pose Transfer Models Generate Realistic Human Motion?
cs.CV cs.AI cs.LG
Recent pose-transfer methods aim to generate temporally consistent and fully controllable videos of human action where the motion from a reference video is reenacted by a new identity. We evaluate three state-of-the-art pose-transfer methods -- AnimateAnyone, MagicAnimate, and ExAvatar -- by generating videos with actions and identities outside the training distribution and conducting a participant study about the quality of these videos. In a controlled environment of 20 distinct human actions, we find that participants, presented with the pose-transferred videos, correctly identify the desired action only 42.92% of the time. Moreover, the participants find the actions in the generated videos consistent with the reference (source) videos only 36.46% of the time. These results vary by method: participants find the splatting-based ExAvatar more consistent and photorealistic than the diffusion-based AnimateAnyone and MagicAnimate.
2501.15652
Rate Distortion Approach to Joint Communication and Sensing With Markov States: Open Loop Case
cs.IT math.IT
We investigate a joint communication and sensing (JCAS) framework in which a transmitter concurrently transmits information to a receiver and estimates a state of interest based on noisy observations. The state is assumed to evolve according to a known dynamical model. Past state estimates may then be used to inform current state estimates. We show that Bayesian filtering constitutes the optimal sensing strategy. We analyze JCAS performance under an open loop encoding strategy with results presented in terms of the tradeoff between asymptotic communication rate and expected per-block distortion of the state. We illustrate the general result by specializing the analysis to a beam-pointing model with mobile state tracking. Our results shed light on the relative performance of two beam control strategies, beam-switching and multi-beam.
2501.15653
A Privacy Enhancing Technique to Evade Detection by Street Video Cameras Without Using Adversarial Accessories
cs.CV
In this paper, we propose a privacy-enhancing technique leveraging an inherent property of automatic pedestrian detection algorithms, namely, that the training of deep neural network (DNN) based methods is generally performed using curated datasets and laboratory settings, while the operational areas of these methods are dynamic real-world environments. In particular, we leverage a novel side effect of this gap between the laboratory and the real world: location-based weakness in pedestrian detection. We demonstrate that the position (distance, angle, height) of a person, and ambient light level, directly impact the confidence of a pedestrian detector when detecting the person. We then demonstrate that this phenomenon is present in pedestrian detectors observing a stationary scene of pedestrian traffic, with blind spot areas of weak detection of pedestrians with low confidence. We show how privacy-concerned pedestrians can leverage these blind spots to evade detection by constructing a minimum confidence path between two points in a scene, reducing the maximum confidence and average confidence of the path by up to 0.09 and 0.13, respectively, over direct and random paths through the scene. To counter this phenomenon, and force the use of more costly and sophisticated methods to leverage this vulnerability, we propose a novel countermeasure to improve the confidence of pedestrian detectors in blind spots, raising the max/average confidence of paths generated by our technique by 0.09 and 0.05, respectively. In addition, we demonstrate that our countermeasure improves a Faster R-CNN-based pedestrian detector's TPR and average true positive confidence by 0.03 and 0.15, respectively.
2501.15654
People who frequently use ChatGPT for writing tasks are accurate and robust detectors of AI-generated text
cs.CL cs.AI
In this paper, we study how well humans can detect text generated by commercial LLMs (GPT-4o, Claude, o1). We hire annotators to read 300 non-fiction English articles, label them as either human-written or AI-generated, and provide paragraph-length explanations for their decisions. Our experiments show that annotators who frequently use LLMs for writing tasks excel at detecting AI-generated text, even without any specialized training or feedback. In fact, the majority vote among five such "expert" annotators misclassifies only 1 of 300 articles, significantly outperforming most commercial and open-source detectors we evaluated even in the presence of evasion tactics like paraphrasing and humanization. Qualitative analysis of the experts' free-form explanations shows that while they rely heavily on specific lexical clues ('AI vocabulary'), they also pick up on more complex phenomena within the text (e.g., formality, originality, clarity) that are challenging to assess for automatic detectors. We release our annotated dataset and code to spur future research into both human and automated detection of AI-generated text.
2501.15655
A Machine Learning Approach to Automatic Fall Detection of Soldiers
cs.LG cs.NE
Military personnel and security agents often face significant physical risks during conflict and engagement situations, particularly in urban operations. Ensuring the rapid and accurate communication of incidents involving injuries is crucial for the timely execution of rescue operations. This article presents research conducted under the scope of the Brazilian Navy's ``Soldier of the Future'' project, focusing on the development of a Casualty Detection System to identify injuries that could incapacitate a soldier and lead to severe blood loss. The study specifically addresses the detection of soldier falls, which may indicate critical injuries such as hypovolemic hemorrhagic shock. To generate the publicly available dataset, we used smartwatches and smartphones as wearable devices to collect inertial data from soldiers during various activities, including simulated falls. The data were used to train 1D Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN1D) with the objective of accurately classifying falls that could result from life-threatening injuries. We explored different sensor placements (on the wrists and near the center of mass) and various approaches to using inertial variables, including linear and angular accelerations. The neural network models were optimized using Bayesian techniques to enhance their performance. The best-performing model and its results, discussed in this article, contribute to the advancement of automated systems for monitoring soldier safety and improving response times in engagement scenarios.
2501.15656
Classifying Deepfakes Using Swin Transformers
cs.CV
The proliferation of deepfake technology poses significant challenges to the authenticity and trustworthiness of digital media, necessitating the development of robust detection methods. This study explores the application of Swin Transformers, a state-of-the-art architecture leveraging shifted windows for self-attention, in detecting and classifying deepfake images. Using the Real and Fake Face Detection dataset by Yonsei University's Computational Intelligence Photography Lab, we evaluate the Swin Transformer and hybrid models such as Swin-ResNet and Swin-KNN, focusing on their ability to identify subtle manipulation artifacts. Our results demonstrate that the Swin Transformer outperforms conventional CNN-based architectures, including VGG16, ResNet18, and AlexNet, achieving a test accuracy of 71.29%. Additionally, we present insights into hybrid model design, highlighting the complementary strengths of transformer and CNN-based approaches in deepfake detection. This study underscores the potential of transformer-based architectures for improving accuracy and generalizability in image-based manipulation detection, paving the way for more effective countermeasures against deepfake threats.
2501.15659
AirIO: Learning Inertial Odometry with Enhanced IMU Feature Observability
cs.RO cs.CV cs.LG
Inertial odometry (IO) using only Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) offers a lightweight and cost-effective solution for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) applications, yet existing learning-based IO models often fail to generalize to UAVs due to the highly dynamic and non-linear-flight patterns that differ from pedestrian motion. In this work, we identify that the conventional practice of transforming raw IMU data to global coordinates undermines the observability of critical kinematic information in UAVs. By preserving the body-frame representation, our method achieves substantial performance improvements, with a 66.7% average increase in accuracy across three datasets. Furthermore, explicitly encoding attitude information into the motion network results in an additional 23.8% improvement over prior results. Combined with a data-driven IMU correction model (AirIMU) and an uncertainty-aware Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), our approach ensures robust state estimation under aggressive UAV maneuvers without relying on external sensors or control inputs. Notably, our method also demonstrates strong generalizability to unseen data not included in the training set, underscoring its potential for real-world UAV applications.
2501.15660
Marker Track: Accurate Fiducial Marker Tracking for Evaluation of Residual Motions During Breath-Hold Radiotherapy
cs.CV cs.AI eess.IV physics.med-ph
Fiducial marker positions in projection image of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans have been studied to evaluate daily residual motion during breath-hold radiation therapy. Fiducial marker migration posed challenges in accurately locating markers, prompting the development of a novel algorithm that reconstructs volumetric probability maps of marker locations from filtered gradient maps of projections. This guides the development of a Python-based algorithm to detect fiducial markers in projection images using Meta AI's Segment Anything Model 2 (SAM 2). Retrospective data from a pancreatic cancer patient with two fiducial markers were analyzed. The three-dimensional (3D) marker positions from simulation computed tomography (CT) were compared to those reconstructed from CBCT images, revealing a decrease in relative distances between markers over time. Fiducial markers were successfully detected in 2777 out of 2786 projection frames. The average standard deviation of superior-inferior (SI) marker positions was 0.56 mm per breath-hold, with differences in average SI positions between two breath-holds in the same scan reaching up to 5.2 mm, and a gap of up to 7.3 mm between the end of the first and beginning of the second breath-hold. 3D marker positions were calculated using projection positions and confirmed marker migration. This method effectively calculates marker probability volume and enables accurate fiducial marker tracking during treatment without requiring any specialized equipment, additional radiation doses, or manual initialization and labeling. It has significant potential for automatically assessing daily residual motion to adjust planning margins, functioning as an adaptive radiation therapy tool.
2501.15661
Constrained Hybrid Metaheuristic Algorithm for Probabilistic Neural Networks Learning
cs.NE cs.AI
This study investigates the potential of hybrid metaheuristic algorithms to enhance the training of Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNNs) by leveraging the complementary strengths of multiple optimisation strategies. Traditional learning methods, such as gradient-based approaches, often struggle to optimise high-dimensional and uncertain environments, while single-method metaheuristics may fail to exploit the solution space fully. To address these challenges, we propose the constrained Hybrid Metaheuristic (cHM) algorithm, a novel approach that combines multiple population-based optimisation techniques into a unified framework. The proposed procedure operates in two phases: an initial probing phase evaluates multiple metaheuristics to identify the best-performing one based on the error rate, followed by a fitting phase where the selected metaheuristic refines the PNN to achieve optimal smoothing parameters. This iterative process ensures efficient exploration and convergence, enhancing the network's generalisation and classification accuracy. cHM integrates several popular metaheuristics, such as BAT, Simulated Annealing, Flower Pollination Algorithm, Bacterial Foraging Optimization, and Particle Swarm Optimisation as internal optimisers. To evaluate cHM performance, experiments were conducted on 16 datasets with varying characteristics, including binary and multiclass classification tasks, balanced and imbalanced class distributions, and diverse feature dimensions. The results demonstrate that cHM effectively combines the strengths of individual metaheuristics, leading to faster convergence and more robust learning. By optimising the smoothing parameters of PNNs, the proposed method enhances classification performance across diverse datasets, proving its application flexibility and efficiency.
2501.15665
StagFormer: Time Staggering Transformer Decoding for RunningLayers In Parallel
cs.LG cs.AI
Standard decoding in a Transformer based language model is inherently sequential as we wait for a token's embedding to pass through all the layers in the network before starting the generation of the next token. In this work, we propose a new architecture StagFormer (Staggered Transformer), which staggered execution along the time axis and thereby enables parallelizing the decoding process along the depth of the model. We achieve this by breaking the dependency of the token representation at time step $i$ in layer $l$ upon the representations of tokens until time step $i$ from layer $l-1$. Instead, we stagger the execution and only allow a dependency on token representations until time step $i-1$. The later sections of the Transformer still get access to the ``rich" representations from the prior section but only from those token positions which are one time step behind. StagFormer allows for different sections of the model to be executed in parallel yielding at potential 33\% speedup in decoding while being quality neutral in our simulations. We also explore many natural variants of this idea. We present how weight-sharing across the different sections being staggered can be more practical in settings with limited memory. We show how one can approximate a recurrent model during inference using such weight-sharing. We explore the efficacy of using a bounded window attention to pass information from one section to another which helps drive further latency gains for some applications. We also explore demonstrate the scalability of the staggering idea over more than 2 sections of the Transformer.
2501.15666
MimicGait: A Model Agnostic approach for Occluded Gait Recognition using Correlational Knowledge Distillation
cs.CV
Gait recognition is an important biometric technique over large distances. State-of-the-art gait recognition systems perform very well in controlled environments at close range. Recently, there has been an increased interest in gait recognition in the wild prompted by the collection of outdoor, more challenging datasets containing variations in terms of illumination, pitch angles, and distances. An important problem in these environments is that of occlusion, where the subject is partially blocked from camera view. While important, this problem has received little attention. Thus, we propose MimicGait, a model-agnostic approach for gait recognition in the presence of occlusions. We train the network using a multi-instance correlational distillation loss to capture both inter-sequence and intra-sequence correlations in the occluded gait patterns of a subject, utilizing an auxiliary Visibility Estimation Network to guide the training of the proposed mimic network. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on challenging real-world datasets like GREW, Gait3D and BRIAR. We release the code in https://github.com/Ayush-00/mimicgait.
2501.15674
TensorLLM: Tensorising Multi-Head Attention for Enhanced Reasoning and Compression in LLMs
cs.CL cs.LG
The reasoning abilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) can be improved by structurally denoising their weights, yet existing techniques primarily focus on denoising the feed-forward network (FFN) of the transformer block, and can not efficiently utilise the Multi-head Attention (MHA) block, which is the core of transformer architectures. To address this issue, we propose a novel intuitive framework that, at its very core, performs MHA compression through a multi-head tensorisation process and the Tucker decomposition. This enables both higher-dimensional structured denoising and compression of the MHA weights, by enforcing a shared higher-dimensional subspace across the weights of the multiple attention heads. We demonstrate that this approach consistently enhances the reasoning capabilities of LLMs across multiple benchmark datasets, and for both encoder-only and decoder-only architectures, while achieving compression rates of up to $\sim 250$ times in the MHA weights, all without requiring any additional data, training, or fine-tuning. Furthermore, we show that the proposed method can be seamlessly combined with existing FFN-only-based denoising techniques to achieve further improvements in LLM reasoning performance.
2501.15675
Joint Communication and Sensing with Bipartite Entanglement over Bosonic Channels
quant-ph cs.IT math.IT
We consider a joint communication and sensing problem in an optical link in which a low-power transmitter attempts to communicate with a receiver while simultaneously identifying the range of a defect creating a backscattered signal. We model the system as a lossy thermal noise bosonic channel in which the location of the target, modeled as a beamsplitter, affects the timing of the backscattered signal. Motivated by the envisioned deployment of entanglement sharing quantum networks, we allow the transmitter to exploit entanglement to assist its sensing and communication. Since entanglement is known to enhance sensing, as known from quantum illumination, and increase communication rates, as known from the characterization of the entanglement-assisted capacity, the transmitter is faced with a trade-off and must judiciously allocate its entanglement resources. Our main result is a characterization of the trade-offs incurred in the form of an achievable rate/error-exponent region which can beat time-sharing in certain cases. The proof of our result relies on technical results of independent interests, by which we carefully show how to extend the known asymptotic characterization of multi-hypothesis testing Chernoff exponent in finite-dimensional spaces to infinite-dimensional spaces and provide a characterization of phase shift keying modulated displaced thermal states in Fock basis.
2501.15677
Exploring the Feasibility of Deep Learning Models for Long-term Disease Prediction: A Case Study for Wheat Yellow Rust in England
cs.LG
Wheat yellow rust, caused by the fungus Puccinia striiformis, is a critical disease affecting wheat crops across Britain, leading to significant yield losses and economic consequences. Given the rapid environmental changes and the evolving virulence of pathogens, there is a growing need for innovative approaches to predict and manage such diseases over the long term. This study explores the feasibility of using deep learning models to predict outbreaks of wheat yellow rust in British fields, offering a proactive approach to disease management. We construct a yellow rust dataset with historial weather information and disease indicator acrossing multiple regions in England. We employ two poweful deep learning models, including fully connected neural networks and long short-term memory to develop predictive models capable of recognizing patterns and predicting future disease outbreaks.The models are trained and validated in a randomly sliced datasets. The performance of these models with different predictive time steps are evaluated based on their accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. Preliminary results indicate that deep learning models can effectively capture the complex interactions between multiple factors influencing disease dynamics, demonstrating a promising capacity to forecast wheat yellow rust with considerable accuracy. Specifically, the fully-connected neural network achieved 83.65% accuracy in a disease prediction task with 6 month predictive time step setup. These findings highlight the potential of deep learning to transform disease management strategies, enabling earlier and more precise interventions. Our study provides a methodological framework for employing deep learning in agricultural settings but also opens avenues for future research to enhance the robustness and applicability of predictive models in combating crop diseases globally.
2501.15678
Blissful (A)Ignorance: People form overly positive impressions of others based on their written messages, despite wide-scale adoption of Generative AI
cs.CY cs.AI cs.CL cs.HC
As the use of Generative AI (GenAI) tools becomes more prevalent in interpersonal communication, understanding their impact on social perceptions is crucial. According to signaling theory, GenAI may undermine the credibility of social signals conveyed in writing, since it reduces the cost of writing and makes it hard to verify the authenticity of messages. Using a pre-registered large-scale online experiment (N = 647; Prolific), featuring scenarios in a range of communication contexts (personal vs. professional; close others vs. strangers), we explored how senders' use of GenAI influenced recipients' impressions of senders, both when GenAI use was known or uncertain. Consistent with past work, we found strong negative effects on social impressions when disclosing that a message was AI-generated, compared to when the same message was human-written. However, under the more realistic condition when potential GenAI use was not explicitly highlighted, recipients did not exhibit any skepticism towards senders, and these "uninformed" impressions were virtually indistinguishable from those of fully human-written messages. Even when we highlighted the potential (but uncertain) use of GenAI, recipients formed overly positive impressions. These results are especially striking given that 46% of our sample admitted having used such tools for writing messages, just within the past two weeks. Our findings put past work in a new light: While social judgments can be substantially affected when GenAI use is explicitly disclosed, this information may not be readily available in more realistic communication settings, making recipients blissfully ignorant about others' potential use of GenAI.
2501.15688
Transformer-Based Multimodal Knowledge Graph Completion with Link-Aware Contexts
cs.CL cs.AI cs.LG
Multimodal knowledge graph completion (MMKGC) aims to predict missing links in multimodal knowledge graphs (MMKGs) by leveraging information from various modalities alongside structural data. Existing MMKGC approaches primarily extend traditional knowledge graph embedding (KGE) models, which often require creating an embedding for every entity. This results in large model sizes and inefficiencies in integrating multimodal information, particularly for real-world graphs. Meanwhile, Transformer-based models have demonstrated competitive performance in knowledge graph completion (KGC). However, their focus on single-modal knowledge limits their capacity to utilize cross-modal information. Recently, Large vision-language models (VLMs) have shown potential in cross-modal tasks but are constrained by the high cost of training. In this work, we propose a novel approach that integrates Transformer-based KGE models with cross-modal context generated by pre-trained VLMs, thereby extending their applicability to MMKGC. Specifically, we employ a pre-trained VLM to transform relevant visual information from entities and their neighbors into textual sequences. We then frame KGC as a sequence-to-sequence task, fine-tuning the model with the generated cross-modal context. This simple yet effective method significantly reduces model size compared to traditional KGE approaches while achieving competitive performance across multiple large-scale datasets with minimal hyperparameter tuning.
2501.15690
Refined climatologies of future precipitation over High Mountain Asia using probabilistic ensemble learning
physics.ao-ph cs.LG stat.ML
High Mountain Asia holds the largest concentration of frozen water outside the polar regions, serving as a crucial water source for more than 1.9 billion people. In the face of climate change, precipitation represents the largest source of uncertainty for hydrological modelling in this area. Future precipitation predictions remain challenging due to complex orography, lack of in situ hydrological observations, and limitations in climate model resolution and parametrisation for this region. To address the uncertainty posed by these challenges, climate models are often aggregated into multi-model ensembles. While multi-model ensembles are known to improve the predictive accuracy and analysis of future climate projections, consensus regarding how models are aggregated is lacking. In this study, we propose a probabilistic machine learning framework to systematically combine 13 regional climate models from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) over High Mountain Asia. Our approach accounts for seasonal and spatial biases within the models, enabling the prediction of more faithful precipitation distributions. The framework is validated against gridded historical precipitation data and is used to generate projections for the near-future (2036-2065) and far-future (2066-2095) under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios.
2501.15693
Beyond Benchmarks: On The False Promise of AI Regulation
cs.LG cs.AI cs.CL
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in critical domains like healthcare, justice, and social services has sparked numerous regulatory initiatives aimed at ensuring their safe deployment. Current regulatory frameworks, exemplified by recent US and EU efforts, primarily focus on procedural guidelines while presuming that scientific benchmarking can effectively validate AI safety, similar to how crash tests verify vehicle safety or clinical trials validate drug efficacy. However, this approach fundamentally misunderstands the unique technical challenges posed by modern AI systems. Through systematic analysis of successful technology regulation case studies, we demonstrate that effective scientific regulation requires a causal theory linking observable test outcomes to future performance - for instance, how a vehicle's crash resistance at one speed predicts its safety at lower speeds. We show that deep learning models, which learn complex statistical patterns from training data without explicit causal mechanisms, preclude such guarantees. This limitation renders traditional regulatory approaches inadequate for ensuring AI safety. Moving forward, we call for regulators to reckon with this limitation, and propose a preliminary two-tiered regulatory framework that acknowledges these constraints: mandating human oversight for high-risk applications while developing appropriate risk communication strategies for lower-risk uses. Our findings highlight the urgent need to reconsider fundamental assumptions in AI regulation and suggest a concrete path forward for policymakers and researchers.
2501.15694
A Statistical Learning Approach to Mediterranean Cyclones
physics.ao-ph cs.LG
Mediterranean cyclones are extreme meteorological events of which much less is known compared to their tropical, oceanic counterparts. The raising interest in such phenomena is due to their impact on a region increasingly more affected by climate change, but a precise characterization remains a non trivial task. In this work we showcase how a Bayesian algorithm (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) can classify Mediterranean cyclones relying on wind velocity data, leading to a drastic dimensional reduction that allows the use of supervised statistical learning techniques for detecting and tracking new cyclones.
2501.15695
Contextual Knowledge Sharing in Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Decentralized Communication and Coordination
cs.MA cs.AI
Decentralized Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (Dec-MARL) has emerged as a pivotal approach for addressing complex tasks in dynamic environments. Existing Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) methodologies typically assume a shared objective among agents and rely on centralized control. However, many real-world scenarios feature agents with individual goals and limited observability of other agents, complicating coordination and hindering adaptability. Existing Dec-MARL strategies prioritize either communication or coordination, lacking an integrated approach that leverages both. This paper presents a novel Dec-MARL framework that integrates peer-to-peer communication and coordination, incorporating goal-awareness and time-awareness into the agents' knowledge-sharing processes. Our framework equips agents with the ability to (i) share contextually relevant knowledge to assist other agents, and (ii) reason based on information acquired from multiple agents, while considering their own goals and the temporal context of prior knowledge. We evaluate our approach through several complex multi-agent tasks in environments with dynamically appearing obstacles. Our work demonstrates that incorporating goal-aware and time-aware knowledge sharing significantly enhances overall performance.
2501.15696
Random Walk Guided Hyperbolic Graph Distillation
cs.LG
Graph distillation (GD) is an effective approach to extract useful information from large-scale network structures. However, existing methods, which operate in Euclidean space to generate condensed graphs, struggle to capture the inherent tree-like geometry of real-world networks, resulting in distilled graphs with limited task-specific information for downstream tasks. Furthermore, these methods often fail to extract dynamic properties from graphs, which are crucial for understanding information flow and facilitating graph continual learning. This paper presents the Hyperbolic Graph Distillation with Random Walks Optimization (HyDRO), a novel graph distillation approach that leverages hyperbolic embeddings to capture complex geometric patterns and optimize the spectral gap in hyperbolic space. Experiments show that HyDRO demonstrates strong task generalization, consistently outperforming state-of-the-art methods in both node classification and link prediction tasks. HyDRO also effectively preserves graph random walk properties, producing condensed graphs that achieve enhanced performance in continual graph learning. Additionally, HyDRO achieves competitive results on mainstream graph distillation benchmarks, while maintaining a strong balance between privacy and utility, and exhibiting robust resistance to noises.
2501.15700
Adapting Biomedical Abstracts into Plain language using Large Language Models
cs.CL
A vast amount of medical knowledge is available for public use through online health forums, and question-answering platforms on social media. The majority of the population in the United States doesn't have the right amount of health literacy to make the best use of that information. Health literacy means the ability to obtain and comprehend the basic health information to make appropriate health decisions. To build the bridge between this gap, organizations advocate adapting this medical knowledge into plain language. Building robust systems to automate the adaptations helps both medical and non-medical professionals best leverage the available information online. The goal of the Plain Language Adaptation of Biomedical Abstracts (PLABA) track is to adapt the biomedical abstracts in English language extracted from PubMed based on the questions asked in MedlinePlus for the general public using plain language at the sentence level. As part of this track, we leveraged the best open-source Large Language Models suitable and fine-tuned for dialog use cases. We compare and present the results for all of our systems and our ranking among the other participants' submissions. Our top performing GPT-4 based model ranked first in the avg. simplicity measure and 3rd on the avg. accuracy measure.
2501.15705
Disentanglement Analysis in Deep Latent Variable Models Matching Aggregate Posterior Distributions
cs.LG stat.ML
Deep latent variable models (DLVMs) are designed to learn meaningful representations in an unsupervised manner, such that the hidden explanatory factors are interpretable by independent latent variables (aka disentanglement). The variational autoencoder (VAE) is a popular DLVM widely studied in disentanglement analysis due to the modeling of the posterior distribution using a factorized Gaussian distribution that encourages the alignment of the latent factors with the latent axes. Several metrics have been proposed recently, assuming that the latent variables explaining the variation in data are aligned with the latent axes (cardinal directions). However, there are other DLVMs, such as the AAE and WAE-MMD (matching the aggregate posterior to the prior), where the latent variables might not be aligned with the latent axes. In this work, we propose a statistical method to evaluate disentanglement for any DLVMs in general. The proposed technique discovers the latent vectors representing the generative factors of a dataset that can be different from the cardinal latent axes. We empirically demonstrate the advantage of the method on two datasets.
2501.15708
StaICC: Standardized Evaluation for Classification Task in In-context Learning
cs.CL cs.AI
Classification tasks are widely investigated in the In-Context Learning (ICL) paradigm. However, current efforts are evaluated on disjoint benchmarks and settings, while their performances are significantly influenced by some trivial variables, such as prompt templates, data sampling, instructions, etc., which leads to significant inconsistencies in the results reported across various literature, preventing fair comparison or meta-analysis across different papers. Therefore, this paper proposes a standardized and easy-to-use evaluation toolkit (StaICC) for in-context classification. Including, for the normal classification task, we provide StaICC-Normal, selecting 10 widely used datasets, and generating prompts with a fixed form, to mitigate the variance among the experiment implementations. To enrich the usage of our benchmark, we also provide a sub-benchmark StaICC-Diag for diagnosing ICL from several aspects, aiming for a more robust inference processing.
2501.15712
SeqSeg: Learning Local Segments for Automatic Vascular Model Construction
eess.IV cs.CV q-bio.TO
Computational modeling of cardiovascular function has become a critical part of diagnosing, treating and understanding cardiovascular disease. Most strategies involve constructing anatomically accurate computer models of cardiovascular structures, which is a multistep, time-consuming process. To improve the model generation process, we herein present SeqSeg (sequential segmentation): a novel deep learning based automatic tracing and segmentation algorithm for constructing image-based vascular models. SeqSeg leverages local U-Net-based inference to sequentially segment vascular structures from medical image volumes. We tested SeqSeg on CT and MR images of aortic and aortofemoral models and compared the predictions to those of benchmark 2D and 3D global nnU-Net models, which have previously shown excellent accuracy for medical image segmentation. We demonstrate that SeqSeg is able to segment more complete vasculature and is able to generalize to vascular structures not annotated in the training data.
2501.15713
Modeling shared micromobility as a label propagation process for detecting the overlapping communities
cs.SI physics.app-ph
Shared micro-mobility such as e-scooters has gained significant popularity in many cities. However, existing methods for detecting community structures in mobility networks often overlook potential overlaps between communities. In this study, we conceptualize shared micro-mobility in urban spaces as a process of information exchange, where locations are connected through e-scooters, facilitating the interaction and propagation of community affiliations. As a result, similar locations are assigned the same label. Based on this concept, we developed a Geospatial Interaction Propagation model (GIP) by designing a Speaker-Listener Label Propagation Algorithm (SLPA) that accounts for geographic distance decay, incorporating anomaly detection to ensure the derived community structures reflect meaningful spatial patterns. We applied this model to detect overlapping communities within the e-scooter system in Washington, D.C. The results demonstrate that our algorithm outperforms existing model of overlapping community detection in both efficiency and modularity. However, existing methods for detecting community structures in mobility networks often overlook potential overlaps between communities. In this study, we conceptualize shared micro-mobility in urban spaces as a process of information exchange, where locations are connected through e-scooters, facilitating the interaction and propagation of community affiliations. As a result, similar locations are assigned the same label. Based on this concept, we developed a Geospatial Interaction Propagation model (GIP) by designing a Speaker-Listener Label Propagation Algorithm (SLPA) that accounts for geographic distance decay, incorporating anomaly detection to ensure the derived community structures reflect meaningful spatial patterns.
2501.15717
Physics-Aware Decoding for Communication Channels Governed by Partial Differential Equations
cs.IT math.IT
Digital communication systems inherently operate through physical media governed by partial differential equations (PDEs). In this paper, we introduce a physics-aware decoding framework that integrates gradient descent-based error correcting algorithms with PDE-based channel modeling using differentiable PDE solvers. At the core of our approach is gradient flow decoding, which harnesses gradient information directly from the PDE solver to guide the decoding process. We validate our method through numerical experiments on both the heat equation and the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation (NLSE), demonstrating significant improvements in decoding performance. The implications of this work extend beyond decoding applications, establishing a new paradigm for physics-aware signal processing that shows promise for various signal detection and signal recovery tasks.
2501.15718
CENSOR: Defense Against Gradient Inversion via Orthogonal Subspace Bayesian Sampling
cs.LG cs.CR
Federated learning collaboratively trains a neural network on a global server, where each local client receives the current global model weights and sends back parameter updates (gradients) based on its local private data. The process of sending these model updates may leak client's private data information. Existing gradient inversion attacks can exploit this vulnerability to recover private training instances from a client's gradient vectors. Recently, researchers have proposed advanced gradient inversion techniques that existing defenses struggle to handle effectively. In this work, we present a novel defense tailored for large neural network models. Our defense capitalizes on the high dimensionality of the model parameters to perturb gradients within a subspace orthogonal to the original gradient. By leveraging cold posteriors over orthogonal subspaces, our defense implements a refined gradient update mechanism. This enables the selection of an optimal gradient that not only safeguards against gradient inversion attacks but also maintains model utility. We conduct comprehensive experiments across three different datasets and evaluate our defense against various state-of-the-art attacks and defenses. Code is available at https://censor-gradient.github.io.
2501.15720
ESGSenticNet: A Neurosymbolic Knowledge Base for Corporate Sustainability Analysis
cs.CL
Evaluating corporate sustainability performance is essential to drive sustainable business practices, amid the need for a more sustainable economy. However, this is hindered by the complexity and volume of corporate sustainability data (i.e. sustainability disclosures), not least by the effectiveness of the NLP tools used to analyse them. To this end, we identify three primary challenges - immateriality, complexity, and subjectivity, that exacerbate the difficulty of extracting insights from sustainability disclosures. To address these issues, we introduce ESGSenticNet, a publicly available knowledge base for sustainability analysis. ESGSenticNet is constructed from a neurosymbolic framework that integrates specialised concept parsing, GPT-4o inference, and semi-supervised label propagation, together with a hierarchical taxonomy. This approach culminates in a structured knowledge base of 44k knowledge triplets - ('halve carbon emission', supports, 'emissions control'), for effective sustainability analysis. Experiments indicate that ESGSenticNet, when deployed as a lexical method, more effectively captures relevant and actionable sustainability information from sustainability disclosures compared to state of the art baselines. Besides capturing a high number of unique ESG topic terms, ESGSenticNet outperforms baselines on the ESG relatedness and ESG action orientation of these terms by 26% and 31% respectively. These metrics describe the extent to which topic terms are related to ESG, and depict an action toward ESG. Moreover, when deployed as a lexical method, ESGSenticNet does not require any training, possessing a key advantage in its simplicity for non-technical stakeholders.
2501.15722
INRet: A General Framework for Accurate Retrieval of INRs for Shapes
cs.LG
Implicit neural representations (INRs) have become an important method for encoding various data types, such as 3D objects or scenes, images, and videos. They have proven to be particularly effective at representing 3D content, e.g., 3D scene reconstruction from 2D images, novel 3D content creation, as well as the representation, interpolation, and completion of 3D shapes. With the widespread generation of 3D data in an INR format, there is a need to support effective organization and retrieval of INRs saved in a data store. A key aspect of retrieval and clustering of INRs in a data store is the formulation of similarity between INRs that would, for example, enable retrieval of similar INRs using a query INR. In this work, we propose INRet, a method for determining similarity between INRs that represent shapes, thus enabling accurate retrieval of similar shape INRs from an INR data store. INRet flexibly supports different INR architectures such as INRs with octree grids, triplanes, and hash grids, as well as different implicit functions including signed/unsigned distance function and occupancy field. We demonstrate that our method is more general and accurate than the existing INR retrieval method, which only supports simple MLP INRs and requires the same architecture between the query and stored INRs. Furthermore, compared to converting INRs to other representations (e.g., point clouds or multi-view images) for 3D shape retrieval, INRet achieves higher accuracy while avoiding the conversion overhead.
2501.15724
A Survey on Computational Pathology Foundation Models: Datasets, Adaptation Strategies, and Evaluation Tasks
cs.CV cs.AI
Computational pathology foundation models (CPathFMs) have emerged as a powerful approach for analyzing histopathological data, leveraging self-supervised learning to extract robust feature representations from unlabeled whole-slide images. These models, categorized into uni-modal and multi-modal frameworks, have demonstrated promise in automating complex pathology tasks such as segmentation, classification, and biomarker discovery. However, the development of CPathFMs presents significant challenges, such as limited data accessibility, high variability across datasets, the necessity for domain-specific adaptation, and the lack of standardized evaluation benchmarks. This survey provides a comprehensive review of CPathFMs in computational pathology, focusing on datasets, adaptation strategies, and evaluation tasks. We analyze key techniques, such as contrastive learning and multi-modal integration, and highlight existing gaps in current research. Finally, we explore future directions from four perspectives for advancing CPathFMs. This survey serves as a valuable resource for researchers, clinicians, and AI practitioners, guiding the advancement of CPathFMs toward robust and clinically applicable AI-driven pathology solutions.
2501.15726
Vision-Aided Channel Prediction Based on Image Segmentation at Street Intersection Scenarios
cs.IT eess.SP math.IT
Intelligent vehicular communication with vehicle road collaboration capability is a key technology enabled by 6G, and the integration of various visual sensors on vehicles and infrastructures plays a crucial role. Moreover, accurate channel prediction is foundational to realizing intelligent vehicular communication. Traditional methods are still limited by the inability to balance accuracy and operability based on substantial spectrum resource consumption and highly refined description of environment. Therefore, leveraging out-of-band information introduced by visual sensors provides a new solution and is increasingly applied across various communication tasks. In this paper, we propose a computer vision (CV)-based prediction model for vehicular communications, realizing accurate channel characterization prediction including path loss, Rice K-factor and delay spread based on image segmentation. First, we conduct extensive vehicle-to-infrastructure measurement campaigns, collecting channel and visual data from various street intersection scenarios. The image-channel dataset is generated after a series of data post-processing steps. Image data consists of individual segmentation of target user using YOLOv8 network. Subsequently, established dataset is used to train and test prediction network ResNet-32, where segmented images serve as input of network, and various channel characteristics are treated as labels or target outputs of network. Finally, self-validation and cross-validation experiments are performed. The results indicate that models trained with segmented images achieve high prediction accuracy and remarkable generalization performance across different streets and target users. The model proposed in this paper offers novel solutions for achieving intelligent channel prediction in vehicular communications.
2501.15727
Gensors: Authoring Personalized Visual Sensors with Multimodal Foundation Models and Reasoning
cs.HC cs.AI
Multimodal large language models (MLLMs), with their expansive world knowledge and reasoning capabilities, present a unique opportunity for end-users to create personalized AI sensors capable of reasoning about complex situations. A user could describe a desired sensing task in natural language (e.g., "alert if my toddler is getting into mischief"), with the MLLM analyzing the camera feed and responding within seconds. In a formative study, we found that users saw substantial value in defining their own sensors, yet struggled to articulate their unique personal requirements and debug the sensors through prompting alone. To address these challenges, we developed Gensors, a system that empowers users to define customized sensors supported by the reasoning capabilities of MLLMs. Gensors 1) assists users in eliciting requirements through both automatically-generated and manually created sensor criteria, 2) facilitates debugging by allowing users to isolate and test individual criteria in parallel, 3) suggests additional criteria based on user-provided images, and 4) proposes test cases to help users "stress test" sensors on potentially unforeseen scenarios. In a user study, participants reported significantly greater sense of control, understanding, and ease of communication when defining sensors using Gensors. Beyond addressing model limitations, Gensors supported users in debugging, eliciting requirements, and expressing unique personal requirements to the sensor through criteria-based reasoning; it also helped uncover users' "blind spots" by exposing overlooked criteria and revealing unanticipated failure modes. Finally, we discuss how unique characteristics of MLLMs--such as hallucinations and inconsistent responses--can impact the sensor-creation process. These findings contribute to the design of future intelligent sensing systems that are intuitive and customizable by everyday users.
2501.15728
Integrating Personalized Federated Learning with Control Systems for Enhanced Performance
cs.LG cs.SY eess.SY
In the expanding field of machine learning, federated learning has emerged as a pivotal methodology for distributed data environments, ensuring privacy while leveraging decentralized data sources. However, the heterogeneity of client data and the need for tailored models necessitate the integration of personalization techniques to enhance learning efficacy and model performance. This paper introduces a novel framework that amalgamates personalized federated learning with robust control systems, aimed at optimizing both the learning process and the control of data flow across diverse networked environments. Our approach harnesses personalized algorithms that adapt to the unique characteristics of each client's data, thereby improving the relevance and accuracy of the model for individual nodes without compromising the overall system performance. To manage and control the learning process across the network, we employ a sophisticated control system that dynamically adjusts the parameters based on real-time feedback and system states, ensuring stability and efficiency. Through rigorous experimentation, we demonstrate that our integrated system not only outperforms standard federated learning models in terms of accuracy and learning speed but also maintains system integrity and robustness in face of varying network conditions and data distributions. The experimental results, obtained from a multi-client simulated environment with non-IID data distributions, underscore the benefits of integrating control systems into personalized federated learning frameworks, particularly in scenarios demanding high reliability and precision.
2501.15729
Measurement-Based Non-Stationary Markov Tapped Delay Line Channel Model for 5G-Railways
cs.IT math.IT
5G for Railways (5G-R) is globally recognized as a promising next-generation railway communication system designed to meet increasing demands. Channel modeling serves as foundation for communication system design, with tapped delay line (TDL) models widely utilized in system simulations due to their simplicity and practicality and serves as a crucial component of various standards like 3GPP. However, existing TDL models applicable to 5G-R systems are limited. Most fail to capture non-stationarity, a critical characteristic of railway communications, while others are unsuitable for the specific frequency bands and bandwidths of 5G-R. In this paper, a channel measurement campaign for 5G-R dedicated network is carried out, resulting in a measurement-based 5-tap TDL model utilizing a first-order two-state Markov chain to represent channel non stationarity. Key model parameters, including number of taps, statistical distribution of amplitude, phase and Doppler shift, and state transition probability matrix, are extracted. The correlation between tap amplitudes are also obtained. Finally, accuracy of model is validated through comparisons with measurement data and 3GPP model. These findings are expected to offer valuable insights for design, optimization, and link-level simulation and validation of 5G-R systems.
2501.15731
Renewable Energy Prediction: A Comparative Study of Deep Learning Models for Complex Dataset Analysis
cs.LG cs.AI
The increasing focus on predicting renewable energy production aligns with advancements in deep learning (DL). The inherent variability of renewable sources and the complexity of prediction methods require robust approaches, such as DL models, in the renewable energy sector. DL models are preferred over traditional machine learning (ML) because they capture complex, nonlinear relationships in renewable energy datasets. This study examines key factors influencing DL technique accuracy, including sampling and hyperparameter optimization, by comparing various methods and training and test ratios within a DL framework. Seven machine learning methods, LSTM, Stacked LSTM, CNN, CNN-LSTM, DNN, Time-Distributed MLP (TD-MLP), and Autoencoder (AE), are evaluated using a dataset combining weather and photovoltaic power output data from 12 locations. Regularization techniques such as early stopping, neuron dropout, L1 and L2 regularization are applied to address overfitting. The results demonstrate that the combination of early stopping, dropout, and L1 regularization provides the best performance to reduce overfitting in the CNN and TD-MLP models with larger training set, while the combination of early stopping, dropout, and L2 regularization is the most effective to reduce the overfitting in CNN-LSTM and AE models with smaller training set.
2501.15733
Leveraging Video Vision Transformer for Alzheimer's Disease Diagnosis from 3D Brain MRI
eess.IV cs.AI cs.CV
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting millions worldwide, necessitating early and accurate diagnosis for optimal patient management. In recent years, advancements in deep learning have shown remarkable potential in medical image analysis. Methods In this study, we present "ViTranZheimer," an AD diagnosis approach which leverages video vision transformers to analyze 3D brain MRI data. By treating the 3D MRI volumes as videos, we exploit the temporal dependencies between slices to capture intricate structural relationships. The video vision transformer's self-attention mechanisms enable the model to learn long-range dependencies and identify subtle patterns that may indicate AD progression. Our proposed deep learning framework seeks to enhance the accuracy and sensitivity of AD diagnosis, empowering clinicians with a tool for early detection and intervention. We validate the performance of the video vision transformer using the ADNI dataset and conduct comparative analyses with other relevant models. Results The proposed ViTranZheimer model is compared with two hybrid models, CNN-BiLSTM and ViT-BiLSTM. CNN-BiLSTM is the combination of a convolutional neural network (CNN) and a bidirectional long-short-term memory network (BiLSTM), while ViT-BiLSTM is the combination of a vision transformer (ViT) with BiLSTM. The accuracy levels achieved in the ViTranZheimer, CNN-BiLSTM, and ViT-BiLSTM models are 98.6%, 96.479%, and 97.465%, respectively. ViTranZheimer demonstrated the highest accuracy at 98.6%, outperforming other models in this evaluation metric, indicating its superior performance in this specific evaluation metric. Conclusion This research advances the understanding of applying deep learning techniques in neuroimaging and Alzheimer's disease research, paving the way for earlier and less invasive clinical diagnosis.
2501.15735
Selective Experience Sharing in Reinforcement Learning Enhances Interference Management
cs.LG eess.SP
We propose a novel multi-agent reinforcement learning (RL) approach for inter-cell interference mitigation, in which agents selectively share their experiences with other agents. Each base station is equipped with an agent, which receives signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio from its own associated users. This information is used to evaluate and selectively share experiences with neighboring agents. The idea is that even a few pertinent experiences from other agents can lead to effective learning. This approach enables fully decentralized training and execution, minimizes information sharing between agents and significantly reduces communication overhead, which is typically the burden of interference management. The proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art multi-agent RL techniques where training is done in a decentralized manner. Furthermore, with a 75% reduction in experience sharing, the proposed algorithm achieves 98% of the spectral efficiency obtained by algorithms sharing all experiences.
2501.15737
Geometric Deep Learning for Automated Landmarking of Maxillary Arches on 3D Oral Scans from Newborns with Cleft Lip and Palate
eess.IV cs.LG
Rapid advances in 3D model scanning have enabled the mass digitization of dental clay models. However, most clinicians and researchers continue to use manual morphometric analysis methods on these models such as landmarking. This is a significant step in treatment planning for craniomaxillofacial conditions. We aimed to develop and test a geometric deep learning model that would accurately and reliably label landmarks on a complicated and specialized patient population -- infants, as accurately as a human specialist without a large amount of training data. Our developed pipeline demonstrated an accuracy of 94.44% with an absolute mean error of 1.676 +/- 0.959 mm on a set of 100 models acquired from newborn babies with cleft lip and palate. Our proposed pipeline has the potential to serve as a fast, accurate, and reliable quantifier of maxillary arch morphometric features, as well as an integral step towards a future fully automated dental treatment pipeline.
2501.15738
Towards Interoperable Data Spaces: Comparative Analysis of Data Space Implementations between Japan and Europe
cs.DB
The rapid evolution of data spaces is transforming the landscape of secure and interoperable data sharing across industries and geographies. In Europe, the concept of data spaces, supported by initiatives such as the European Data Strategy, emphasises the importance of trust, sovereignty, and interoperability. Meanwhile, Japan has been developing its approach to data sharing, in line with global trends but also to address unique domestic challenges. Despite these parallel advances, achieving interoperability between European and Japanese data spaces remains a critical challenge due to differences in governance, technology standards, and authentication frameworks. This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of DATA-EX and Catena-X to explore the challenges and opportunities for achieving interoperability between Japanese and European data spaces. By examining common data exchange processes, key objects such as participants, datasets, and data catalogs, and specific evaluation criteria, the study identifies gaps and proposes actionable solutions. Through this analysis, the paper aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse on global data interoperability. It proposes an interoperable architecture that bridges regional differences while addressing common challenges. It also identifies challenges that should be addressed to achieve interoperability.
2501.15739
Automatic Machine Learning Framework to Study Morphological Parameters of AGN Host Galaxies within $z < 1.4$ in the Hyper Supreme-Cam Wide Survey
astro-ph.GA astro-ph.IM cs.LG
We present a composite machine learning framework to estimate posterior probability distributions of bulge-to-total light ratio, half-light radius, and flux for Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) host galaxies within $z<1.4$ and $m<23$ in the Hyper Supreme-Cam Wide survey. We divide the data into five redshift bins: low ($0<z<0.25$), mid ($0.25<z<0.5$), high ($0.5<z<0.9$), extra ($0.9<z<1.1$) and extreme ($1.1<z<1.4$), and train our models independently in each bin. We use PSFGAN to decompose the AGN point source light from its host galaxy, and invoke the Galaxy Morphology Posterior Estimation Network (GaMPEN) to estimate morphological parameters of the recovered host galaxy. We first trained our models on simulated data, and then fine-tuned our algorithm via transfer learning using labeled real data. To create training labels for transfer learning, we used GALFIT to fit $\sim 20,000$ real HSC galaxies in each redshift bin. We comprehensively examined that the predicted values from our final models agree well with the GALFIT values for the vast majority of cases. Our PSFGAN + GaMPEN framework runs at least three orders of magnitude faster than traditional light-profile fitting methods, and can be easily retrained for other morphological parameters or on other datasets with diverse ranges of resolutions, seeing conditions, and signal-to-noise ratios, making it an ideal tool for analyzing AGN host galaxies from large surveys coming soon from the Rubin-LSST, Euclid, and Roman telescopes.
2501.15740
Propositional Interpretability in Artificial Intelligence
cs.AI
Mechanistic interpretability is the program of explaining what AI systems are doing in terms of their internal mechanisms. I analyze some aspects of the program, along with setting out some concrete challenges and assessing progress to date. I argue for the importance of propositional interpretability, which involves interpreting a system's mechanisms and behavior in terms of propositional attitudes: attitudes (such as belief, desire, or subjective probability) to propositions (e.g. the proposition that it is hot outside). Propositional attitudes are the central way that we interpret and explain human beings and they are likely to be central in AI too. A central challenge is what I call thought logging: creating systems that log all of the relevant propositional attitudes in an AI system over time. I examine currently popular methods of interpretability (such as probing, sparse auto-encoders, and chain of thought methods) as well as philosophical methods of interpretation (including those grounded in psychosemantics) to assess their strengths and weaknesses as methods of propositional interpretability.
2501.15742
Intuition and importance of feedback control through laboratory experiences
eess.SY cs.SY
This work aims to raise awareness among engineering students from different disciplines on the importance of feedback control. The proposal consists in comparing the performance of different control strategies in a laboratory session, considering Matlab/Simulink simulations of the non-linear pendulum model. First, students attempt to make the pendulum stop at unstable equilibrium by controlling the torque input with a joystick connected to the computer via an Arduino board. Different friction scenarios are considered for students to explore the dissipation in the system response. Then, as a second task, the Arduino is used to introduce the position reference, while students implement different control strategies, such as Bang-Bang, PID (proportional-integral-derivative) and FPID (fractional PID) controllers, analyzing the system response by inspecting the signals in a scope and in a 3D animated model. The dynamic model results as an application of the laws of rotational motion, and the control methods are explained from an intuitive point of view, focusing on the meaning and motivation of the control actions, with the intention to develop intuition about PID and FPID control methods.
2501.15743
Z-Stack Scanning can Improve AI Detection of Mitosis: A Case Study of Meningiomas
eess.IV cs.CV
Z-stack scanning is an emerging whole slide imaging technology that captures multiple focal planes alongside the z-axis of a glass slide. Because z-stacking can offer enhanced depth information compared to the single-layer whole slide imaging, this technology can be particularly useful in analyzing small-scaled histopathological patterns. However, its actual clinical impact remains debated with mixed results. To clarify this, we investigate the effect of z-stack scanning on artificial intelligence (AI) mitosis detection of meningiomas. With the same set of 22 Hematoxylin and Eosin meningioma glass slides scanned by three different digital pathology scanners, we tested the performance of three AI pipelines on both single-layer and z-stacked whole slide images (WSIs). Results showed that in all scanner-AI combinations, z-stacked WSIs significantly increased AI's sensitivity (+17.14%) on the mitosis detection with only a marginal impact on precision. Our findings provide quantitative evidence that highlights z-stack scanning as a promising technique for AI mitosis detection, paving the way for more reliable AI-assisted pathology workflows, which can ultimately benefit patient management.
2501.15747
IndicMMLU-Pro: Benchmarking Indic Large Language Models on Multi-Task Language Understanding
cs.CL cs.AI
Known by more than 1.5 billion people in the Indian subcontinent, Indic languages present unique challenges and opportunities for natural language processing (NLP) research due to their rich cultural heritage, linguistic diversity, and complex structures. IndicMMLU-Pro is a comprehensive benchmark designed to evaluate Large Language Models (LLMs) across Indic languages, building upon the MMLU Pro (Massive Multitask Language Understanding) framework. Covering major languages such as Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu, our benchmark addresses the unique challenges and opportunities presented by the linguistic diversity of the Indian subcontinent. This benchmark encompasses a wide range of tasks in language comprehension, reasoning, and generation, meticulously crafted to capture the intricacies of Indian languages. IndicMMLU-Pro provides a standardized evaluation framework to push the research boundaries in Indic language AI, facilitating the development of more accurate, efficient, and culturally sensitive models. This paper outlines the benchmarks' design principles, task taxonomy, and data collection methodology, and presents baseline results from state-of-the-art multilingual models.
2501.15749
LLM-powered Multi-agent Framework for Goal-oriented Learning in Intelligent Tutoring System
cs.AI cs.MA
Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) have revolutionized education by offering personalized learning experiences. However, as goal-oriented learning, which emphasizes efficiently achieving specific objectives, becomes increasingly important in professional contexts, existing ITSs often struggle to deliver this type of targeted learning experience. In this paper, we propose GenMentor, an LLM-powered multi-agent framework designed to deliver goal-oriented, personalized learning within ITS. GenMentor begins by accurately mapping learners' goals to required skills using a fine-tuned LLM trained on a custom goal-to-skill dataset. After identifying the skill gap, it schedules an efficient learning path using an evolving optimization approach, driven by a comprehensive and dynamic profile of learners' multifaceted status. Additionally, GenMentor tailors learning content with an exploration-drafting-integration mechanism to align with individual learner needs. Extensive automated and human evaluations demonstrate GenMentor's effectiveness in learning guidance and content quality. Furthermore, we have deployed it in practice and also implemented it as an application. Practical human study with professional learners further highlights its effectiveness in goal alignment and resource targeting, leading to enhanced personalization. Supplementary resources are available at https://github.com/GeminiLight/gen-mentor.
2501.15751
A Privacy Model for Classical & Learned Bloom Filters
cs.CR cs.LG
The Classical Bloom Filter (CBF) is a class of Probabilistic Data Structures (PDS) for handling Approximate Query Membership (AMQ). The Learned Bloom Filter (LBF) is a recently proposed class of PDS that combines the Classical Bloom Filter with a Learning Model while preserving the Bloom Filter's one-sided error guarantees. Bloom Filters have been used in settings where inputs are sensitive and need to be private in the presence of an adversary with access to the Bloom Filter through an API or in the presence of an adversary who has access to the internal state of the Bloom Filter. Prior work has investigated the privacy of the Classical Bloom Filter providing attacks and defenses under various privacy definitions. In this work, we formulate a stronger differential privacy-based model for the Bloom Filter. We propose constructions of the Classical and Learned Bloom Filter that satisfy $(\epsilon, 0)$-differential privacy. This is also the first work that analyses and addresses the privacy of the Learned Bloom Filter under any rigorous model, which is an open problem.
2501.15753
Scale-Insensitive Neural Network Significance Tests
stat.ML cs.LG econ.EM
This paper develops a scale-insensitive framework for neural network significance testing, substantially generalizing existing approaches through three key innovations. First, we replace metric entropy calculations with Rademacher complexity bounds, enabling the analysis of neural networks without requiring bounded weights or specific architectural constraints. Second, we weaken the regularity conditions on the target function to require only Sobolev space membership $H^s([-1,1]^d)$ with $s > d/2$, significantly relaxing previous smoothness assumptions while maintaining optimal approximation rates. Third, we introduce a modified sieve space construction based on moment bounds rather than weight constraints, providing a more natural theoretical framework for modern deep learning practices. Our approach achieves these generalizations while preserving optimal convergence rates and establishing valid asymptotic distributions for test statistics. The technical foundation combines localization theory, sharp concentration inequalities, and scale-insensitive complexity measures to handle unbounded weights and general Lipschitz activation functions. This framework better aligns theoretical guarantees with contemporary deep learning practice while maintaining mathematical rigor.
2501.15754
Weight-based Analysis of Detokenization in Language Models: Understanding the First Stage of Inference Without Inference
cs.CL
According to the stages-of-inference hypothesis, early layers of language models map their subword-tokenized input, which does not necessarily correspond to a linguistically meaningful segmentation, to more meaningful representations that form the model's "inner vocabulary". Prior analysis of this detokenization stage has predominantly relied on probing and interventions such as path patching, which involve selecting particular inputs, choosing a subset of components that will be patched, and then observing changes in model behavior. Here, we show that several important aspects of the detokenization stage can be understood purely by analyzing model weights, without performing any model inference steps. Specifically, we introduce an analytical decomposition of first-layer attention in GPT-2. Our decomposition yields interpretable terms that quantify the relative contributions of position-related, token-related, and mixed effects. By focusing on terms in this decomposition, we discover weight-based explanations of attention bias toward close tokens and attention for detokenization.
2501.15755
GraphICL: Unlocking Graph Learning Potential in LLMs through Structured Prompt Design
cs.LG
The growing importance of textual and relational systems has driven interest in enhancing large language models (LLMs) for graph-structured data, particularly Text-Attributed Graphs (TAGs), where samples are represented by textual descriptions interconnected by edges. While research has largely focused on developing specialized graph LLMs through task-specific instruction tuning, a comprehensive benchmark for evaluating LLMs solely through prompt design remains surprisingly absent. Without such a carefully crafted evaluation benchmark, most if not all, tailored graph LLMs are compared against general LLMs using simplistic queries (e.g., zero-shot reasoning with LLaMA), which can potentially camouflage many advantages as well as unexpected predicaments of them. To achieve more general evaluations and unveil the true potential of LLMs for graph tasks, we introduce Graph In-context Learning (GraphICL) Benchmark, a comprehensive benchmark comprising novel prompt templates designed to capture graph structure and handle limited label knowledge. Our systematic evaluation shows that general-purpose LLMs equipped with our GraphICL outperform state-of-the-art specialized graph LLMs and graph neural network models in resource-constrained settings and out-of-domain tasks. These findings highlight the significant potential of prompt engineering to enhance LLM performance on graph learning tasks without training and offer a strong baseline for advancing research in graph LLMs.
2501.15757
Efficiency Bottlenecks of Convolutional Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks: A Comprehensive Scrutiny with ImageNet, AlexNet, LeNet and Tabular Classification
cs.CV cs.AI
Algorithmic level developments like Convolutional Neural Networks, transformers, attention mechanism, Retrieval Augmented Generation and so on have changed Artificial Intelligence. Recent such development was observed by Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks that suggested to challenge the fundamental concept of a Neural Network, thus change Multilayer Perceptron, and Convolutional Neural Networks. They received a good reception in terms of scientific modeling, yet had some drawbacks in terms of efficiency. In this paper, we train Convolutional Kolmogorov Arnold Networks (CKANs) with the ImageNet-1k dataset with 1.3 million images, MNIST dataset with 60k images and a tabular biological science related MoA dataset and test the promise of CKANs in terms of FLOPS, Inference Time, number of trainable parameters and training time against the accuracy, precision, recall and f-1 score they produce against the standard industry practice on CNN models. We show that the CKANs perform fair yet slower than CNNs in small size dataset like MoA and MNIST but are not nearly comparable as the dataset gets larger and more complex like the ImageNet. The code implementation of this paper can be found on the link: \href{https://github.com/ashimdahal/Study-of-Convolutional-Kolmogorov-Arnold-networks}{https://github.com/ashimdahal/Study-of-Convolutional-Kolmogorov-Arnold-networks}
2501.15758
Risk-Aware Distributional Intervention Policies for Language Models
cs.LG cs.CL math.OC
Language models are prone to occasionally undesirable generations, such as harmful or toxic content, despite their impressive capability to produce texts that appear accurate and coherent. This paper presents a new two-stage approach to detect and mitigate undesirable content generations by rectifying activations. First, we train an ensemble of layerwise classifiers to detect undesirable content using activations by minimizing a smooth surrogate of the risk-aware score. Then, for contents that are detected as undesirable, we propose layerwise distributional intervention policies that perturb the attention heads minimally while guaranteeing probabilistically the effectiveness of the intervention. Benchmarks on several language models and datasets show that our method outperforms baselines in reducing the generation of undesirable output.