OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
The Many Voices of Duying: Revisiting the Disputed Essays Between Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2023
Year: 2023

Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren stand as two of the most influential writers in modern Chinese literature. Beyond their familial ties as brothers, they were also intimate collaborators during the nascent stages of their writing careers. This research employs quantitative methods to revisit three disputed essays pseudonymously published by the brothers in 1912. Our stylometric analysis uses an interpretable authorship attribution model to investigate the essays' authorship and examine the brothers' respective writing styles. Our findings suggest that 'Looking at the Country of China' was authored by Lu Xun. Moreover, 'People of Yue, Forget Not Your Ancestors' Instructions' seems to be either predominantly authored or extensively revised by Lu Xun given its notable stylistic similarities to 'Looking at the Land of Yue,' a piece Zhou Zuoren recognized as his own, but edited by Lu Xun. The third essay, 'Where Has the Character of the Republic Gone?,' exhibits a 'diluted', mixed writing style, suggesting thorough collaboration. We offer visual representations of essay features to facilitate a nuanced and intuitive understanding. We have uncovered evidence suggesting Lu Xun's covert engagement with social issues during his purported 'silent era' and provided insights into the brothers' formative intellectual trajectories.
NarrativePlay: Interactive Narrative Understanding
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we introduce NarrativePlay, a novel system that allows users to role-play a fictional character and interact with other characters in narratives such as novels in an immersive environment. We leverage Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate human-like responses, guided by personality traits extracted from narratives. The system incorporates auto-generated visual display of narrative settings, character portraits, and character speech, greatly enhancing user experience. Our approach eschews predefined sandboxes, focusing instead on main storyline events extracted from narratives from the perspective of a user-selected character. NarrativePlay has been evaluated on two types of narratives, detective and adventure stories, where users can either explore the world or improve their favorability with the narrative characters through conversations.
A Good Snowman is Hard to Plan
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2023
Year: 2023

In this work we face a challenging puzzle video game: A Good Snowman is Hard to Build. The objective of the game is to build snowmen by moving and stacking snowballs on a discrete grid. For the sake of player engagement with the game, it is interesting to avoid that a player finds a much easier solution than the one the designer expected. Therefore, having tools that are able to certify the optimality of solutions is crucial. Although the game can be stated as a planning problem and can be naturally modelled in PDDL, we show that a direct translation to SAT clearly outperforms off-the-shelf state-of-the-art planners. As we show, this is mainly due to the fact that reachability properties can be easily modelled in SAT, allowing for shorter plans, whereas using axioms to express a reachability derived predicate in PDDL does not result in any significant reduction of solving time with the considered planners. We deal with a set of 51 levels, both original and crafted, solving 43 and with 8 challenging instances still remaining to be solved.
Towards a Model of Puzznic
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2023
Year: 2023

We report on progress in modelling and solving Puzznic, a video game requiring the player to plan sequences of moves to clear a grid by matching blocks. We focus here on levels with no moving blocks. We compare a planning approach and three constraint programming approaches on a small set of benchmark instances. The planning approach is at present superior to the constraint programming approaches, but we outline proposals for improving the constraint models.
Progressive DeepSSM: Training Methodology for Image-To-Shape Deep Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Statistical shape modeling (SSM) is an enabling quantitative tool to study anatomical shapes in various medical applications. However, directly using 3D images in these applications still has a long way to go. Recent deep learning methods have paved the way for reducing the substantial preprocessing steps to construct SSMs directly from unsegmented images. Nevertheless, the performance of these models is not up to the mark. Inspired by multiscale/multiresolution learning, we propose a new training strategy, progressive DeepSSM, to train image-to-shape deep learning models. The training is performed in multiple scales, and each scale utilizes the output from the previous scale. This strategy enables the model to learn coarse shape features in the first scales and gradually learn detailed fine shape features in the later scales. We leverage shape priors via segmentation-guided multi-task learning and employ deep supervision loss to ensure learning at each scale. Experiments show the superiority of models trained by the proposed strategy from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. This training methodology can be employed to improve the stability and accuracy of any deep learning method for inferring statistical representations of anatomies from medical images and can be adopted by existing deep learning methods to improve model accuracy and training stability.
Memory-efficient particle filter recurrent neural network for object localization
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2023
Year: 2023

This study proposes a novel memory-efficient recurrent neural network (RNN) architecture specified to solve the object localization problem. This problem is to recover the object states along with its movement in a noisy environment. We take the idea of the classical particle filter and combine it with GRU RNN architecture. The key feature of the resulting memory-efficient particle filter RNN model (mePFRNN) is that it requires the same number of parameters to process environments of different sizes. Thus, the proposed mePFRNN architecture consumes less memory to store parameters compared to the previously proposed PFRNN model. To demonstrate the performance of our model, we test it on symmetric and noisy environments that are incredibly challenging for filtering algorithms. In our experiments, the mePFRNN model provides more precise localization than the considered competitors and requires fewer trained parameters.
The RESET and MARC Techniques, with Application to Multiserver-Job Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.PF 2023
Year: 2023

Multiserver-job (MSJ) systems, where jobs need to run concurrently across many servers, are increasingly common in practice. The default service ordering in many settings is First-Come First-Served (FCFS) service. Virtually all theoretical work on MSJ FCFS models focuses on characterizing the stability region, with almost nothing known about mean response time. We derive the first explicit characterization of mean response time in the MSJ FCFS system. Our formula characterizes mean response time up to an additive constant, which becomes negligible as arrival rate approaches throughput, and allows for general phase-type job durations. We derive our result by utilizing two key techniques: REduction to Saturated for Expected Time (RESET) and MArkovian Relative Completions (MARC). Using our novel RESET technique, we reduce the problem of characterizing mean response time in the MSJ FCFS system to an M/M/1 with Markovian service rate (MMSR). The Markov chain controlling the service rate is based on the saturated system, a simpler closed system which is far more analytically tractable. Unfortunately, the MMSR has no explicit characterization of mean response time. We therefore use our novel MARC technique to give the first explicit characterization of mean response time in the MMSR, again up to constant additive error. We specifically introduce the concept of "relative completions," which is the cornerstone of our MARC technique.
CoDBench: A Critical Evaluation of Data-driven Models for Continuous Dynamical Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Continuous dynamical systems, characterized by differential equations, are ubiquitously used to model several important problems: plasma dynamics, flow through porous media, weather forecasting, and epidemic dynamics. Recently, a wide range of data-driven models has been used successfully to model these systems. However, in contrast to established fields like computer vision, limited studies are available analyzing the strengths and potential applications of different classes of these models that could steer decision-making in scientific machine learning. Here, we introduce CodBench, an exhaustive benchmarking suite comprising 11 state-of-the-art data-driven models for solving differential equations. Specifically, we comprehensively evaluate 4 distinct categories of models, viz., feed forward neural networks, deep operator regression models, frequency-based neural operators, and transformer architectures against 8 widely applicable benchmark datasets encompassing challenges from fluid and solid mechanics. We conduct extensive experiments, assessing the operators' capabilities in learning, zero-shot super-resolution, data efficiency, robustness to noise, and computational efficiency. Interestingly, our findings highlight that current operators struggle with the newer mechanics datasets, motivating the need for more robust neural operators. All the datasets and codes will be shared in an easy-to-use fashion for the scientific community. We hope this resource will be an impetus for accelerated progress and exploration in modeling dynamical systems.
Wellbeing in Future Mobility: Toward AV Policy Design to Increase Wellbeing through Interactions
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2023
Year: 2023

Recent advances in Automated vehicle (AV) technology and micromobility devices promise a transformational change in the future of mobility usage. These advances also pose challenges concerning human-AV interactions. To ensure the smooth adoption of these new mobilities, it is essential to assess how past experiences and perceptions of social interactions by people may impact the interactions with AV mobility. This research identifies and estimates an individual's wellbeing based on their actions, prior experiences, social interaction perceptions, and dyadic interactions with other road users. An online video-based user study was designed, and responses from 300 participants were collected and analyzed to investigate the impact on individual wellbeing. A machine learning model was designed to predict the change in wellbeing. An optimal policy based on the model allows informed AV actions toward its yielding behavior with other road users to enhance users' wellbeing. The findings from this study have broader implications for creating human-aware systems by creating policies that align with the individual state and contribute toward designing systems that align with an individual's state of wellbeing.
DANI: Fast Diffusion Aware Network Inference with Preserving Topological Structure Property
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2023
Year: 2023

The fast growth of social networks and their data access limitations in recent years has led to increasing difficulty in obtaining the complete topology of these networks. However, diffusion information over these networks is available, and many algorithms have been proposed to infer the underlying networks using this information. The previously proposed algorithms only focus on inferring more links and ignore preserving the critical topological characteristics of the underlying social networks. In this paper, we propose a novel method called DANI to infer the underlying network while preserving its structural properties. It is based on the Markov transition matrix derived from time series cascades, as well as the node-node similarity that can be observed in the cascade behavior from a structural point of view. In addition, the presented method has linear time complexity (increases linearly with the number of nodes, number of cascades, and square of the average length of cascades), and its distributed version in the MapReduce framework is also scalable. We applied the proposed approach to both real and synthetic networks. The experimental results showed that DANI has higher accuracy and lower run time while maintaining structural properties, including modular structure, degree distribution, connected components, density, and clustering coefficients, than well-known network inference methods.
Evaluation of Cross-Lingual Bug Localization: Two Industrial Cases
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2023
Year: 2023

This study reports the results of applying the cross-lingual bug localization approach proposed by Xia et al. to industrial software projects. To realize cross-lingual bug localization, we applied machine translation to non-English descriptions in the source code and bug reports, unifying them into English-based texts, to which an existing English-based bug localization technique was applied. In addition, a prototype tool based on BugLocator was implemented and applied to two Japanese industrial projects, which resulted in a slightly different performance from that of Xia et al.
Learning and reusing primitive behaviours to improve Hindsight Experience Replay sample efficiency
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2023
Year: 2023

Hindsight Experience Replay (HER) is a technique used in reinforcement learning (RL) that has proven to be very efficient for training off-policy RL-based agents to solve goal-based robotic manipulation tasks using sparse rewards. Even though HER improves the sample efficiency of RL-based agents by learning from mistakes made in past experiences, it does not provide any guidance while exploring the environment. This leads to very large training times due to the volume of experience required to train an agent using this replay strategy. In this paper, we propose a method that uses primitive behaviours that have been previously learned to solve simple tasks in order to guide the agent toward more rewarding actions during exploration while learning other more complex tasks. This guidance, however, is not executed by a manually designed curriculum, but rather using a critic network to decide at each timestep whether or not to use the actions proposed by the previously-learned primitive policies. We evaluate our method by comparing its performance against HER and other more efficient variations of this algorithm in several block manipulation tasks. We demonstrate the agents can learn a successful policy faster when using our proposed method, both in terms of sample efficiency and computation time. Code is available at https://github.com/franroldans/qmp-her.
Semi-Aerodynamic Model Aided Invariant Kalman Filtering for UAV Full-State Estimation
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2023
Year: 2023

Due to the state trajectory-independent features of invariant Kalman filtering (InEKF), it has attracted widespread attention in the research community for its significantly improved state estimation accuracy and convergence under disturbance. In this paper, we formulate the full-source data fusion navigation problem for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) within a framework based on error state right-invariant extended Kalman filtering (ES-RIEKF) on Lie groups. We merge measurements from a multi-rate onboard sensor network on UAVs to achieve real-time estimation of pose, air flow angles, and wind speed. Detailed derivations are provided, and the algorithm's convergence and accuracy improvements over established methods like Error State EKF (ES-EKF) and Nonlinear Complementary Filter (NCF) are demonstrated using real-flight data from UAVs. Additionally, we introduce a semi-aerodynamic model fusion framework that relies solely on ground-measurable parameters. We design and train an Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) deep network to achieve drift-free prediction of the UAV's angle of attack (AOA) and side-slip angle (SA) using easily obtainable onboard data like control surface deflections, thereby significantly reducing dependency on GNSS or complicated aerodynamic model parameters. Further, we validate the algorithm's robust advantages under GNSS denied, where flight data shows that the maximum positioning error stays within 30 meters over a 130-second denial period. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to apply ES-RIEKF to full-source navigation applications for fixed-wing UAVs, aiming to provide engineering references for designers. Our implementations using MATLAB/Simulink will open source.
Conditional independence on semiring relations
Venue: arXiv cs.DB 2023
Year: 2023

Conditional independence plays a foundational role in database theory, probability theory, information theory, and graphical models. In databases, conditional independence appears in database normalization and is known as the (embedded) multivalued dependency. Many properties of conditional independence are shared across various domains, and to some extent these commonalities can be studied through a measure-theoretic approach. The present paper proposes an alternative approach via semiring relations, defined by extending database relations with tuple annotations from some commutative semiring. Integrating various interpretations of conditional independence in this context, we investigate how the choice of the underlying semiring impacts the corresponding axiomatic and decomposition properties. We specifically identify positivity and multiplicative cancellativity as the key semiring properties that enable extending results from the relational context to the broader semiring framework. Additionally, we explore the relationships between different conditional independence notions through model theory, and consider how methods to test logical consequence and validity generalize from database theory and information theory to semiring relations.
Stencil-HMLS: A multi-layered approach to the automatic optimisation of stencil codes on FPGA
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2023
Year: 2023

The challenges associated with effectively programming FPGAs have been a major blocker in popularising reconfigurable architectures for HPC workloads. However new compiler technologies, such as MLIR, are providing new capabilities which potentially deliver the ability to extract domain specific information and drive automatic structuring of codes for FPGAs. In this paper we explore domain specific optimisations for stencils, a fundamental access pattern in scientific computing, to obtain high performance on FPGAs via automated code structuring. We propose Stencil-HMLS, a multi-layered approach to automatic optimisation of stencil codes and introduce the HLS dialect, which brings FPGA programming into the MLIR ecosystem. Using the PSyclone Fortran DSL, we demonstrate an improvement of 14-100$\times$ with respect to the next best performant state-of-the-art tool. Furthermore, our approach is 14 to 92 times more energy efficient than the next most energy efficient approach.
CoralVOS: Dataset and Benchmark for Coral Video Segmentation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Coral reefs formulate the most valuable and productive marine ecosystems, providing habitat for many marine species. Coral reef surveying and analysis are currently confined to coral experts who invest substantial effort in generating comprehensive and dependable reports (\emph{e.g.}, coral coverage, population, spatial distribution, \textit{etc}), from the collected survey data. However, performing dense coral analysis based on manual efforts is significantly time-consuming, the existing coral analysis algorithms compromise and opt for performing down-sampling and only conducting sparse point-based coral analysis within selected frames. However, such down-sampling will \textbf{inevitable} introduce the estimation bias or even lead to wrong results. To address this issue, we propose to perform \textbf{dense coral video segmentation}, with no down-sampling involved. Through video object segmentation, we could generate more \textit{reliable} and \textit{in-depth} coral analysis than the existing coral reef analysis algorithms. To boost such dense coral analysis, we propose a large-scale coral video segmentation dataset: \textbf{CoralVOS} as demonstrated in Fig. 1. To the best of our knowledge, our CoralVOS is the first dataset and benchmark supporting dense coral video segmentation. We perform experiments on our CoralVOS dataset, including 6 recent state-of-the-art video object segmentation (VOS) algorithms. We fine-tuned these VOS algorithms on our CoralVOS dataset and achieved observable performance improvement. The results show that there is still great potential for further promoting the segmentation accuracy. The dataset and trained models will be released with the acceptance of this work to foster the coral reef research community.
Benign Overfitting in Two-Layer ReLU Convolutional Neural Networks for XOR Data
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Modern deep learning models are usually highly over-parameterized so that they can overfit the training data. Surprisingly, such overfitting neural networks can usually still achieve high prediction accuracy. To study this "benign overfitting" phenomenon, a line of recent works has theoretically studied the learning of linear models and two-layer neural networks. However, most of these analyses are still limited to the very simple learning problems where the Bayes-optimal classifier is linear. In this work, we investigate a class of XOR-type classification tasks with label-flipping noises. We show that, under a certain condition on the sample complexity and signal-to-noise ratio, an over-parameterized ReLU CNN trained by gradient descent can achieve near Bayes-optimal accuracy. Moreover, we also establish a matching lower bound result showing that when the previous condition is not satisfied, the prediction accuracy of the obtained CNN is an absolute constant away from the Bayes-optimal rate. Our result demonstrates that CNNs have a remarkable capacity to efficiently learn XOR problems, even in the presence of highly correlated features.
Understanding Masked Autoencoders From a Local Contrastive Perspective
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Masked AutoEncoder (MAE) has revolutionized the field of self-supervised learning with its simple yet effective masking and reconstruction strategies. However, despite achieving state-of-the-art performance across various downstream vision tasks, the underlying mechanisms that drive MAE's efficacy are less well-explored compared to the canonical contrastive learning paradigm. In this paper, we first propose a local perspective to explicitly extract a local contrastive form from MAE's reconstructive objective at the patch level. And then we introduce a new empirical framework, called Local Contrastive MAE (LC-MAE), to analyze both reconstructive and contrastive aspects of MAE. LC-MAE reveals that MAE learns invariance to random masking and ensures distribution consistency between the learned token embeddings and the original images. Furthermore, we dissect the contribution of the decoder and random masking to MAE's success, revealing both the decoder's learning mechanism and the dual role of random masking as data augmentation and effective receptive field restriction. Our experimental analysis sheds light on the intricacies of MAE and summarizes some useful design methodologies, which can inspire more powerful visual self-supervised methods.