OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
FedMS: Federated Learning with Mixture of Sparsely Activated Foundations Models
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Foundation models have shown great success in natural language processing, computer vision, and multimodal tasks. FMs have a large number of model parameters, thus requiring a substantial amount of data to help optimize the model during the training. Federated learning has revolutionized machine learning by enabling collaborative learning from decentralized data while still preserving the data privacy of clients. Despite the great benefits foundation models can have empowered by federated learning, they face severe computation, communication, and statistical challenges. In this paper, we propose a novel two-stage federated learning algorithm called FedMS. A global expert is trained in the first stage and a local expert is trained in the second stage to provide better personalization. We construct a Mixture of Foundation Models (MoFM) with these two experts and design a gate neural network with an inserted gate adapter that joins the aggregation every communication round in the second stage. To further adapt to edge computing scenarios with limited computational resources, we design a novel Sparsely Activated LoRA (SAL) algorithm that freezes the pre-trained foundation model parameters inserts low-rank adaptation matrices into transformer blocks and activates them progressively during the training. We employ extensive experiments to verify the effectiveness of FedMS, results show that FedMS outperforms other SOTA baselines by up to 55.25% in default settings.
Fast Algorithm for Embedded Order Dependency Validation (Extended Version)
Venue: arXiv cs.DB 2023
Year: 2023

Order Dependencies (ODs) have many applications, such as query optimization, data integration, and data cleaning. Although many works addressed the problem of discovering OD (and its variants), they do not consider datasets with missing values, a standard observation in real-world datasets. This paper introduces the novel notion of Embedded ODs (eODs) to deal with missing values. The intuition of eODs is to confirm ODs only on tuples with no missing values on a given embedding (a set of attributes). In this paper, we address the problem of validating a given eOD. If the eOD holds, we return true. Otherwise, we search for an updated embedding such that the updated eOD holds. If such embedding does not exist, we return false. A trivial requirement is to consider an embedding such that the number of ignored tuples is minimized. We show that it is NP-complete to compute such embedding. We therefore propose an efficient heuristic algorithm for validating embedded ODs. We conduct experiments on real-world datasets, and the results confirm the efficiency of our algorithm.
Ensemble Learning to Assess Dynamics of Affective Experience Ratings and Physiological Change
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

The congruence between affective experiences and physiological changes has been a debated topic for centuries. Recent technological advances in measurement and data analysis provide hope to solve this epic challenge. Open science and open data practices, together with data analysis challenges open to the academic community, are also promising tools for solving this problem. In this entry to the Emotion Physiology and Experience Collaboration (EPiC) challenge, we propose a data analysis solution that combines theoretical assumptions with data-driven methodologies. We used feature engineering and ensemble selection. Each predictor was trained on subsets of the training data that would maximize the information available for training. Late fusion was used with an averaging step. We chose to average considering a ``wisdom of crowds'' strategy. This strategy yielded an overall RMSE of 1.19 in the test set. Future work should carefully explore if our assumptions are correct and the potential of weighted fusion.
Critical nonlinear aspects of hopping transport for reconfigurable logic in disordered dopant networks
Venue: arXiv cs.ET 2023
Year: 2023

Nonlinear behavior in the hopping transport of interacting charges enables reconfigurable logic in disordered dopant network devices, where voltages applied at control electrodes tune the relation between voltages applied at input electrodes and the current measured at an output electrode. From kinetic Monte Carlo simulations we analyze the critical nonlinear aspects of variable-range hopping transport for realizing Boolean logic gates in these devices on three levels. First, we quantify the occurrence of individual gates for random choices of control voltages. We find that linearly inseparable gates such as the XOR gate are less likely to occur than linearly separable gates such as the AND gate, despite the fact that the number of different regions in the multidimensional control voltage space for which AND or XOR gates occur is comparable. Second, we use principal component analysis to characterize the distribution of the output current vectors for the (00,10,01,11) logic input combinations in terms of eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the output covariance matrix. This allows a simple and direct comparison of the behavior of different simulated devices and a comparison to experimental devices. Third, we quantify the nonlinearity in the distribution of the output current vectors necessary for realizing Boolean functionality by introducing three nonlinearity indicators. The analysis provides a physical interpretation of the effects of changing the hopping distance and temperature and is used in a comparison with data generated by a deep neural network trained on a physical device.
Multi-scale Progressive Feature Embedding for Accurate NIR-to-RGB Spectral Domain Translation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

NIR-to-RGB spectral domain translation is a challenging task due to the mapping ambiguities, and existing methods show limited learning capacities. To address these challenges, we propose to colorize NIR images via a multi-scale progressive feature embedding network (MPFNet), with the guidance of grayscale image colorization. Specifically, we first introduce a domain translation module that translates NIR source images into the grayscale target domain. By incorporating a progressive training strategy, the statistical and semantic knowledge from both task domains are efficiently aligned with a series of pixel- and feature-level consistency constraints. Besides, a multi-scale progressive feature embedding network is designed to improve learning capabilities. Experiments show that our MPFNet outperforms state-of-the-art counterparts by 2.55 dB in the NIR-to-RGB spectral domain translation task in terms of PSNR.
Inter-X: Towards Versatile Human-Human Interaction Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

The analysis of the ubiquitous human-human interactions is pivotal for understanding humans as social beings. Existing human-human interaction datasets typically suffer from inaccurate body motions, lack of hand gestures and fine-grained textual descriptions. To better perceive and generate human-human interactions, we propose Inter-X, a currently largest human-human interaction dataset with accurate body movements and diverse interaction patterns, together with detailed hand gestures. The dataset includes ~11K interaction sequences and more than 8.1M frames. We also equip Inter-X with versatile annotations of more than 34K fine-grained human part-level textual descriptions, semantic interaction categories, interaction order, and the relationship and personality of the subjects. Based on the elaborate annotations, we propose a unified benchmark composed of 4 categories of downstream tasks from both the perceptual and generative directions. Extensive experiments and comprehensive analysis show that Inter-X serves as a testbed for promoting the development of versatile human-human interaction analysis. Our dataset and benchmark will be publicly available for research purposes.
Clique Analysis and Bypassing in Continuous-Time Conflict-Based Search
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2023
Year: 2023

While the study of unit-cost Multi-Agent Pathfinding (MAPF) problems has been popular, many real-world problems require continuous time and costs due to various movement models. In this context, this paper studies symmetry-breaking enhancements for Continuous-Time Conflict-Based Search (CCBS), a solver for continuous-time MAPF. Resolving conflict symmetries in MAPF can require an exponential amount of work. We adapt known enhancements from unit-cost domains for CCBS: bypassing, which resolves cost symmetries and biclique constraints which resolve spatial conflict symmetries. We formulate a novel combination of biclique constraints with disjoint splitting for spatial conflict symmetries. Finally, we show empirically that these enhancements yield a statistically significant performance improvement versus previous state of the art, solving problems for up to 10% or 20% more agents in the same amount of time on dense graphs.
The linear time encoding scheme fails to encode
Venue: arXiv cs.CC 2023
Year: 2023

We point out an error in the paper "Linear Time Encoding of LDPC Codes" (by Jin Lu and José M. F. Moura, IEEE Trans). The paper claims to present a linear time encoding algorithm for every LDPC code. We present a family of counterexamples, and point out where the analysis fails. The algorithm in the aforementioned paper fails to encode our counterexample, let alone in linear time.
EmbodiedScan: A Holistic Multi-Modal 3D Perception Suite Towards Embodied AI
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

In the realm of computer vision and robotics, embodied agents are expected to explore their environment and carry out human instructions. This necessitates the ability to fully understand 3D scenes given their first-person observations and contextualize them into language for interaction. However, traditional research focuses more on scene-level input and output setups from a global view. To address the gap, we introduce EmbodiedScan, a multi-modal, ego-centric 3D perception dataset and benchmark for holistic 3D scene understanding. It encompasses over 5k scans encapsulating 1M ego-centric RGB-D views, 1M language prompts, 160k 3D-oriented boxes spanning over 760 categories, some of which partially align with LVIS, and dense semantic occupancy with 80 common categories. Building upon this database, we introduce a baseline framework named Embodied Perceptron. It is capable of processing an arbitrary number of multi-modal inputs and demonstrates remarkable 3D perception capabilities, both within the two series of benchmarks we set up, i.e., fundamental 3D perception tasks and language-grounded tasks, and in the wild. Codes, datasets, and benchmarks will be available at https://github.com/OpenRobotLab/EmbodiedScan.
OpenRL: A Unified Reinforcement Learning Framework
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

We present OpenRL, an advanced reinforcement learning (RL) framework designed to accommodate a diverse array of tasks, from single-agent challenges to complex multi-agent systems. OpenRL's robust support for self-play training empowers agents to develop advanced strategies in competitive settings. Notably, OpenRL integrates Natural Language Processing (NLP) with RL, enabling researchers to address a combination of RL training and language-centric tasks effectively. Leveraging PyTorch's robust capabilities, OpenRL exemplifies modularity and a user-centric approach. It offers a universal interface that simplifies the user experience for beginners while maintaining the flexibility experts require for innovation and algorithm development. This equilibrium enhances the framework's practicality, adaptability, and scalability, establishing a new standard in RL research. To delve into OpenRL's features, we invite researchers and enthusiasts to explore our GitHub repository at https://github.com/OpenRL-Lab/openrl and access our comprehensive documentation at https://openrl-docs.readthedocs.io.
Deciding the Feasibility and Minimizing the Height of Tangles
Venue: arXiv cs.CG 2023
Year: 2023

We study the following combinatorial problem. Given a set of $n$ y-monotone \emph{wires}, a \emph{tangle} determines the order of the wires on a number of horizontal \emph{layers} such that the orders of the wires on any two consecutive layers differ only in swaps of neighboring wires. Given a multiset~$L$ of \emph{swaps} (that is, unordered pairs of wires) and an initial order of the wires, a tangle \emph{realizes}~$L$ if each pair of wires changes its order exactly as many times as specified by~$L$. \textsc{List-Feasibility} is the problem of finding a tangle that realizes a given list~$L$ if such a tangle exists. \textsc{Tangle-Height Minimization} is the problem of finding a tangle that realizes a given list and additionally uses the minimum number of layers. \textsc{List-Feasibility} (and therefore \textsc{Tangle-Height Minimization}) is NP-hard [Yamanaka, Horiyama, Uno, Wasa; CCCG 2018]. We prove that \textsc{List-Feasibility} remains NP-hard if every pair of wires swaps only a constant number of times. On the positive side, we present an algorithm for \textsc{Tangle-Height Minimization} that computes an optimal tangle for $n$ wires and a given list~$L$ of swaps in $O((2|L|/n^2+1)^{n^2/2} \cdot φ^n \cdot n)$ time, where $φ\approx 1.618$ is the golden ratio and $|L|$ is the total number of swaps in~$L$. From this algorithm, we derive a simpler and faster version to solve \textsc{List-Feasibility}. We also use the algorithm to show that \textsc{List-Feasibility} is in NP and fixed-parameter tractable with respect to the number of wires. For \emph{simple} lists, where every swap occurs at most once, we show how to solve \textsc{Tangle-Height Minimization} in $O(n!φ^n)$ time.
XuanCe: A Comprehensive and Unified Deep Reinforcement Learning Library
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we present XuanCe, a comprehensive and unified deep reinforcement learning (DRL) library designed to be compatible with PyTorch, TensorFlow, and MindSpore. XuanCe offers a wide range of functionalities, including over 40 classical DRL and multi-agent DRL algorithms, with the flexibility to easily incorporate new algorithms and environments. It is a versatile DRL library that supports CPU, GPU, and Ascend, and can be executed on various operating systems such as Ubuntu, Windows, MacOS, and EulerOS. Extensive benchmarks conducted on popular environments including MuJoCo, Atari, and StarCraftII multi-agent challenge demonstrate the library's impressive performance. XuanCe is open-source and can be accessed at https://github.com/agi-brain/xuance.git.
Active Third-Person Imitation Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

We consider the problem of third-person imitation learning with the additional challenge that the learner must select the perspective from which they observe the expert. In our setting, each perspective provides only limited information about the expert's behavior, and the learning agent must carefully select and combine information from different perspectives to achieve competitive performance. This setting is inspired by real-world imitation learning applications, e.g., in robotics, a robot might observe a human demonstrator via camera and receive information from different perspectives depending on the camera's position. We formalize the aforementioned active third-person imitation learning problem, theoretically analyze its characteristics, and propose a generative adversarial network-based active learning approach. Empirically, we demstrate that our proposed approach can effectively learn from expert demonstrations and explore the importance of different architectural choices for the learner's performance.
Free Variable as Effect, in Practice
Venue: arXiv cs.PL 2023
Year: 2023

Variable environment is the time-honored way of making sense of free variables, used in programming language theory as well when writing interpreters and some compilers. Algebraic effects give another way, as was pointed already at HOPE 2017. Although a theoretical curiosity, it may have surprising practical benefits: a new way of writing compilers, with the incremental type-checking, with easy variable usage, leaf function analyses. This work-in-progress report prototypes and illustrates the idea.
Adaptive trajectory-constrained exploration strategy for deep reinforcement learning
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) faces significant challenges in addressing the hard-exploration problems in tasks with sparse or deceptive rewards and large state spaces. These challenges severely limit the practical application of DRL. Most previous exploration methods relied on complex architectures to estimate state novelty or introduced sensitive hyperparameters, resulting in instability. To mitigate these issues, we propose an efficient adaptive trajectory-constrained exploration strategy for DRL. The proposed method guides the policy of the agent away from suboptimal solutions by leveraging incomplete offline demonstrations as references. This approach gradually expands the exploration scope of the agent and strives for optimality in a constrained optimization manner. Additionally, we introduce a novel policy-gradient-based optimization algorithm that utilizes adaptively clipped trajectory-distance rewards for both single- and multi-agent reinforcement learning. We provide a theoretical analysis of our method, including a deduction of the worst-case approximation error bounds, highlighting the validity of our approach for enhancing exploration. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, we conducted experiments on two large 2D grid world mazes and several MuJoCo tasks. The extensive experimental results demonstrate the significant advantages of our method in achieving temporally extended exploration and avoiding myopic and suboptimal behaviors in both single- and multi-agent settings. Notably, the specific metrics and quantifiable results further support these findings. The code used in the study is available at \url{https://github.com/buaawgj/TACE}.
Transfer and Alignment Network for Generalized Category Discovery
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2023
Year: 2023

Generalized Category Discovery is a crucial real-world task. Despite the improved performance on known categories, current methods perform poorly on novel categories. We attribute the poor performance to two reasons: biased knowledge transfer between labeled and unlabeled data and noisy representation learning on the unlabeled data. To mitigate these two issues, we propose a Transfer and Alignment Network (TAN), which incorporates two knowledge transfer mechanisms to calibrate the biased knowledge and two feature alignment mechanisms to learn discriminative features. Specifically, we model different categories with prototypes and transfer the prototypes in labeled data to correct model bias towards known categories. On the one hand, we pull instances with known categories in unlabeled data closer to these prototypes to form more compact clusters and avoid boundary overlap between known and novel categories. On the other hand, we use these prototypes to calibrate noisy prototypes estimated from unlabeled data based on category similarities, which allows for more accurate estimation of prototypes for novel categories that can be used as reliable learning targets later. After knowledge transfer, we further propose two feature alignment mechanisms to acquire both instance- and category-level knowledge from unlabeled data by aligning instance features with both augmented features and the calibrated prototypes, which can boost model performance on both known and novel categories with less noise. Experiments on three benchmark datasets show that our model outperforms SOTA methods, especially on novel categories. Theoretical analysis is provided for an in-depth understanding of our model in general. Our code and data are available at https://github.com/Lackel/TAN.
ReSynthDetect: A Fundus Anomaly Detection Network with Reconstruction and Synthetic Features
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Detecting anomalies in fundus images through unsupervised methods is a challenging task due to the similarity between normal and abnormal tissues, as well as their indistinct boundaries. The current methods have limitations in accurately detecting subtle anomalies while avoiding false positives. To address these challenges, we propose the ReSynthDetect network which utilizes a reconstruction network for modeling normal images, and an anomaly generator that produces synthetic anomalies consistent with the appearance of fundus images. By combining the features of consistent anomaly generation and image reconstruction, our method is suited for detecting fundus abnormalities. The proposed approach has been extensively tested on benchmark datasets such as EyeQ and IDRiD, demonstrating state-of-the-art performance in both image-level and pixel-level anomaly detection. Our experiments indicate a substantial 9% improvement in AUROC on EyeQ and a significant 17.1% improvement in AUPR on IDRiD.
Vector Flows and the Capacity of a Discrete Memoryless Channel
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2023
Year: 2023

One of the fundamental problems of information theory, since its foundation by Shannon in 1948, has been the computation of the capacity of a discrete memoryless channel, a quantity expressing the maximum rate at which information can travel through the channel. In the literature, several algorithms were proposed to approximately compute the capacity of a discrete memoryless channel, being an analytical solution unavailable for the general discrete memoryless channel. This paper presents a novel approach to compute the capacity, which is based on a continuous-time dynamical system. Such a dynamical system can indeed be regarded as a continuous-time version of the Blahut-Arimoto algorithm. In fact, the updating map appearing in the Blahut-Arimoto algorithm is here obtained as a suitable discretization of the vector flow presented, using an analogy with some game-theoretical models. Finally, this analogy suggests a high-level hardware circuit design enabling analog computation to estimate the capacity.
Noisy Correspondence Learning with Self-Reinforcing Errors Mitigation
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Cross-modal retrieval relies on well-matched large-scale datasets that are laborious in practice. Recently, to alleviate expensive data collection, co-occurring pairs from the Internet are automatically harvested for training. However, it inevitably includes mismatched pairs, \ie, noisy correspondences, undermining supervision reliability and degrading performance. Current methods leverage deep neural networks' memorization effect to address noisy correspondences, which overconfidently focus on \emph{similarity-guided training with hard negatives} and suffer from self-reinforcing errors. In light of above, we introduce a novel noisy correspondence learning framework, namely \textbf{S}elf-\textbf{R}einforcing \textbf{E}rrors \textbf{M}itigation (SREM). Specifically, by viewing sample matching as classification tasks within the batch, we generate classification logits for the given sample. Instead of a single similarity score, we refine sample filtration through energy uncertainty and estimate model's sensitivity of selected clean samples using swapped classification entropy, in view of the overall prediction distribution. Additionally, we propose cross-modal biased complementary learning to leverage negative matches overlooked in hard-negative training, further improving model optimization stability and curbing self-reinforcing errors. Extensive experiments on challenging benchmarks affirm the efficacy and efficiency of SREM.