OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
MetaFBP: Learning to Learn High-Order Predictor for Personalized Facial Beauty Prediction
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Predicting individual aesthetic preferences holds significant practical applications and academic implications for human society. However, existing studies mainly focus on learning and predicting the commonality of facial attractiveness, with little attention given to Personalized Facial Beauty Prediction (PFBP). PFBP aims to develop a machine that can adapt to individual aesthetic preferences with only a few images rated by each user. In this paper, we formulate this task from a meta-learning perspective that each user corresponds to a meta-task. To address such PFBP task, we draw inspiration from the human aesthetic mechanism that visual aesthetics in society follows a Gaussian distribution, which motivates us to disentangle user preferences into a commonality and an individuality part. To this end, we propose a novel MetaFBP framework, in which we devise a universal feature extractor to capture the aesthetic commonality and then optimize to adapt the aesthetic individuality by shifting the decision boundary of the predictor via a meta-learning mechanism. Unlike conventional meta-learning methods that may struggle with slow adaptation or overfitting to tiny support sets, we propose a novel approach that optimizes a high-order predictor for fast adaptation. In order to validate the performance of the proposed method, we build several PFBP benchmarks by using existing facial beauty prediction datasets rated by numerous users. Extensive experiments on these benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MetaFBP method.
Human Machine Co-Creation. A Complementary Cognitive Approach to Creative Character Design Process Using GANs
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2023
Year: 2023

Recent advances in Generative Adversarial Networks GANs applications continue to attract the attention of researchers in different fields. In such a framework, two neural networks compete adversely to generate new visual contents indistinguishable from the original dataset. The objective of this research is to create a complementary codesign process between humans and machines to augment character designers abilities in visualizing and creating new characters for multimedia projects such as games and animation. Driven by design cognitive scaffolding, the proposed approach aims to inform the process of perceiving, knowing, and making. The machine generated concepts are used as a launching platform for character designers to conceptualize new characters. A labelled dataset of 22,000 characters was developed for this work and deployed using different GANs to evaluate the most suited for the context, followed by mixed methods evaluation for the machine output and human derivations. The discussed results substantiate the value of the proposed cocreation framework and elucidate how the generated concepts are used as cognitive substances that interact with designers competencies in a versatile manner to influence the creative processes of conceptualizing novel characters.
MedISure: Towards Assuring Machine Learning-based Medical Image Classifiers using Mixup Boundary Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Machine learning (ML) models are becoming integral in healthcare technologies, presenting a critical need for formal assurance to validate their safety, fairness, robustness, and trustworthiness. These models are inherently prone to errors, potentially posing serious risks to patient health and could even cause irreparable harm. Traditional software assurance techniques rely on fixed code and do not directly apply to ML models since these algorithms are adaptable and learn from curated datasets through a training process. However, adapting established principles, such as boundary testing using synthetic test data can effectively bridge this gap. To this end, we present a novel technique called Mix-Up Boundary Analysis (MUBA) that facilitates evaluating image classifiers in terms of prediction fairness. We evaluated MUBA for two important medical imaging tasks -- brain tumour classification and breast cancer classification -- and achieved promising results. This research aims to showcase the importance of adapting traditional assurance principles for assessing ML models to enhance the safety and reliability of healthcare technologies. To facilitate future research, we plan to publicly release our code for MUBA.
Probabilistic Tree-of-thought Reasoning for Answering Knowledge-intensive Complex Questions
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2023
Year: 2023

Large language models (LLMs) are capable of answering knowledge-intensive complex questions with chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning. However, they tend to generate factually incorrect reasoning steps when the required knowledge is not available or up-to-date in models' parameters. Recent works turn to retrieving external knowledge to augment CoT reasoning. Despite being promising, these chain-based methods suffer from: 1) Negative retrieval. Unnecessary or incorrect retrieval may mislead the reasoning; 2) Limited sight. Lacking the ability to look backward or forward, a local error in one step will propagate along the chain. In this paper, we propose a novel approach: Probabilistic Tree-of-thought Reasoning (ProbTree). First, LLMs translate a complex question into a query tree, in which each non-root node denotes a sub-question of its parent node. Then, probabilistic reasoning is conducted over the tree, by solving questions from leaf to root considering the confidence of both question decomposing and answering. During reasoning, for leaf nodes, LLMs choose a more confident answer from Closed-book QA that employs parametric knowledge and Open-book QA that employs retrieved external knowledge, thus eliminating the negative retrieval problem. For non-leaf nodes, with the hierarchical structure, LLMs have broader sights and are able to globally reason with the information from child nodes, thus recovering from local errors. The experiments on three Complex QA datasets under the open-domain setting show that our approach outperforms SOTA methods significantly, demonstrating the effect of probabilistic tree-of-thought reasoning.
Docking Multirotors in Close Proximity using Learnt Downwash Models
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2023
Year: 2023

Unmodeled aerodynamic disturbances pose a key challenge for multirotor flight when multiple vehicles are in close proximity to each other. However, certain missions \textit{require} two multirotors to approach each other within 1-2 body-lengths of each other and hold formation -- we consider one such practical instance: vertically docking two multirotors in the air. In this leader-follower setting, the follower experiences significant downwash interference from the leader in its final docking stages. To compensate for this, we employ a learnt downwash model online within an optimal feedback controller to accurately track a docking maneuver and then hold formation. Through real-world flights with different maneuvers, we demonstrate that this compensation is crucial for reducing the large vertical separation otherwise required by conventional/naive approaches. Our evaluations show a tracking error of less than 0.06m for the follower (a 3-4x reduction) when approaching vertically within two body-lengths of the leader. Finally, we deploy the complete system to effect a successful physical docking between two airborne multirotors in a single smooth planned trajectory.
DPSUR: Accelerating Differentially Private Stochastic Gradient Descent Using Selective Update and Release
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Machine learning models are known to memorize private data to reduce their training loss, which can be inadvertently exploited by privacy attacks such as model inversion and membership inference. To protect against these attacks, differential privacy (DP) has become the de facto standard for privacy-preserving machine learning, particularly those popular training algorithms using stochastic gradient descent, such as DPSGD. Nonetheless, DPSGD still suffers from severe utility loss due to its slow convergence. This is partially caused by the random sampling, which brings bias and variance to the gradient, and partially by the Gaussian noise, which leads to fluctuation of gradient updates. Our key idea to address these issues is to apply selective updates to the model training, while discarding those useless or even harmful updates. Motivated by this, this paper proposes DPSUR, a Differentially Private training framework based on Selective Updates and Release, where the gradient from each iteration is evaluated based on a validation test, and only those updates leading to convergence are applied to the model. As such, DPSUR ensures the training in the right direction and thus can achieve faster convergence than DPSGD. The main challenges lie in two aspects -- privacy concerns arising from gradient evaluation, and gradient selection strategy for model update. To address the challenges, DPSUR introduces a clipping strategy for update randomization and a threshold mechanism for gradient selection. Experiments conducted on MNIST, FMNIST, CIFAR-10, and IMDB datasets show that DPSUR significantly outperforms previous works in terms of convergence speed and model utility.
Machine learning-based decentralized TDMA for VLC IoT networks
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, a machine learning-based decentralized time division multiple access (TDMA) algorithm for visible light communication (VLC) Internet of Things (IoT) networks is proposed. The proposed algorithm is based on Q-learning, a reinforcement learning algorithm. This paper considers a decentralized condition in which there is no coordinator node for sending synchronization frames and assigning transmission time slots to other nodes. The proposed algorithm uses a decentralized manner for synchronization, and each node uses the Q-learning algorithm to find the optimal transmission time slot for sending data without collisions. The proposed algorithm is implemented on a VLC hardware system, which had been designed and implemented in our laboratory. Average reward, convergence time, goodput, average delay, and data packet size are evaluated parameters. The results show that the proposed algorithm converges quickly and provides collision-free decentralized TDMA for the network. The proposed algorithm is compared with carrier-sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) algorithm as a potential selection for decentralized VLC IoT networks. The results show that the proposed algorithm provides up to 61% more goodput and up to 49% less average delay than CSMA/CA.
You Only Explain Once
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we propose a new black-box explainability algorithm and tool, YO-ReX, for efficient explanation of the outputs of object detectors. The new algorithm computes explanations for all objects detected in the image simultaneously. Hence, compared to the baseline, the new algorithm reduces the number of queries by a factor of 10X for the case of ten detected objects. The speedup increases further with with the number of objects. Our experimental results demonstrate that YO-ReX can explain the outputs of YOLO with a negligible overhead over the running time of YOLO. We also demonstrate similar results for explaining SSD and Faster R-CNN. The speedup is achieved by avoiding backtracking by combining aggressive pruning with a causal analysis.
Question Answering in Natural Language: the Special Case of Temporal Expressions
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2023
Year: 2023

Although general question answering has been well explored in recent years, temporal question answering is a task which has not received as much focus. Our work aims to leverage a popular approach used for general question answering, answer extraction, in order to find answers to temporal questions within a paragraph. To train our model, we propose a new dataset, inspired by SQuAD, specifically tailored to provide rich temporal information. We chose to adapt the corpus WikiWars, which contains several documents on history's greatest conflicts. Our evaluation shows that a deep learning model trained to perform pattern matching, often used in general question answering, can be adapted to temporal question answering, if we accept to ask questions whose answers must be directly present within a text.
MonoNav: MAV Navigation via Monocular Depth Estimation and Reconstruction
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2023
Year: 2023

A major challenge in deploying the smallest of Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) platforms (< 100 g) is their inability to carry sensors that provide high-resolution metric depth information (e.g., LiDAR or stereo cameras). Current systems rely on end-to-end learning or heuristic approaches that directly map images to control inputs, and struggle to fly fast in unknown environments. In this work, we ask the following question: using only a monocular camera, optical odometry, and offboard computation, can we create metrically accurate maps to leverage the powerful path planning and navigation approaches employed by larger state-of-the-art robotic systems to achieve robust autonomy in unknown environments? We present MonoNav: a fast 3D reconstruction and navigation stack for MAVs that leverages recent advances in depth prediction neural networks to enable metrically accurate 3D scene reconstruction from a stream of monocular images and poses. MonoNav uses off-the-shelf pre-trained monocular depth estimation and fusion techniques to construct a map, then searches over motion primitives to plan a collision-free trajectory to the goal. In extensive hardware experiments, we demonstrate how MonoNav enables the Crazyflie (a 37 g MAV) to navigate fast (0.5 m/s) in cluttered indoor environments. We evaluate MonoNav against a state-of-the-art end-to-end approach, and find that the collision rate in navigation is significantly reduced (by a factor of 4). This increased safety comes at the cost of conservatism in terms of a 22% reduction in goal completion.
Anyone Can Code: Algorithmic Thinking
Venue: arXiv cs.PL 2023
Year: 2023

As the second book in the Anyone Can Code series, Algorithmic Thinking focuses on the logic behind computer programming and software design. With a data-centred approach, it starts with simple algorithms that work on simple data items and advances to more complex ones covering data structures and classes. Examples are given in C/C++ and Python and use both plain text and graphics applications to illustrate the concepts in different languages and forms. With the advances in artificial intelligence and automated code generators, it is essential to learn about the logic of what a code needs to do, not just how to write the code. Anyone Can Code: Algorithmic Thinking is suitable for anyone who aims to improve their programming skills and go beyond the simple craft of programming, stepping into the world of algorithm design.
An Agent-Based Discrete Event Simulation of Teleoperated Driving in Freight Transport Operations: The Fleet Sizing Problem
Venue: arXiv cs.MA 2023
Year: 2023

Teleoperated or remote-controlled driving complements automated driving and acts as transitional technology toward full automation. An economic advantage of teleoperated driving in logistics operations lies in managing fleets with fewer teleoperators compared to vehicles with in-vehicle drivers. This alleviates growing truck driver shortage problems in the logistics industry and saves costs. However, a trade-off exists between the teleoperator-to-vehicle ratio and the service level of teleoperation. This study designs a simulation framework to explore this trade-off generating multiple performance indicators as proxies for teleoperation service level. By applying the framework, we identify factors influencing the trade-off and optimal teleoperator-to-vehicle ratios under different scenarios. Our case study on road freight tours in The Netherlands reveals that for any operational setting, a teleoperation-to-vehicle ratio below one can manage all freight truck tours without delay, while one represents the current situation. The minimum teleoperator-to-vehicle ratio for zero-delay operations is never above 0.6, implying a minimum of 40% teleoperation labor cost saving. For operations where a small delay is allowed, teleoperator-to-vehicle ratios as low as 0.4 are shown to be feasible, which indicates potential savings of up to 60%. This confirms great promise for a positive business case for the teleoperated driving as a service.
Efficient Open-world Reinforcement Learning via Knowledge Distillation and Autonomous Rule Discovery
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2023
Year: 2023

Deep reinforcement learning suffers from catastrophic forgetting and sample inefficiency making it less applicable to the ever-changing real world. However, the ability to use previously learned knowledge is essential for AI agents to quickly adapt to novelties. Often, certain spatial information observed by the agent in the previous interactions can be leveraged to infer task-specific rules. Inferred rules can then help the agent to avoid potentially dangerous situations in the previously unseen states and guide the learning process increasing agent's novelty adaptation speed. In this work, we propose a general framework that is applicable to deep reinforcement learning agents. Our framework provides the agent with an autonomous way to discover the task-specific rules in the novel environments and self-supervise it's learning. We provide a rule-driven deep Q-learning agent (RDQ) as one possible implementation of that framework. We show that RDQ successfully extracts task-specific rules as it interacts with the world and uses them to drastically increase its learning efficiency. In our experiments, we show that the RDQ agent is significantly more resilient to the novelties than the baseline agents, and is able to detect and adapt to novel situations faster.
Segmentation-Based Parametric Painting
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

We introduce a novel image-to-painting method that facilitates the creation of large-scale, high-fidelity paintings with human-like quality and stylistic variation. To process large images and gain control over the painting process, we introduce a segmentation-based painting process and a dynamic attention map approach inspired by human painting strategies, allowing optimization of brush strokes to proceed in batches over different image regions, thereby capturing both large-scale structure and fine details, while also allowing stylistic control over detail. Our optimized batch processing and patch-based loss framework enable efficient handling of large canvases, ensuring our painted outputs are both aesthetically compelling and functionally superior as compared to previous methods, as confirmed by rigorous evaluations. Code available at: https://github.com/manuelladron/semantic\_based\_painting.git
Distance-Only Task Orchestration Algorithm for Energy Efficiency in Satellite-Based Mist Computing
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2023
Year: 2023

This paper addresses the challenge of efficiently offloading heavy computing tasks from ground mobile devices to the satellite-based mist computing environment. With ground-based edge and cloud servers often being inaccessible, the exploitation of satellite mist computing becomes imperative. Existing offloading algorithms have shown limitations in adapting to the unique characteristics of heavy computing tasks. Thus, we propose a heavy computing task offloading algorithm that prioritizes satellite proximity. This approach not only reduces energy consumption during telecommunications but also ensures tasks are executed within the specified timing constraints, which are typically non-time-critical. Our proposed algorithm outperforms other offloading schemes in terms of satellites energy consumption, average end-to-end delay, and tasks success rates. Although it exhibits a higher average VM CPU usage, this increase does not pose critical challenges. This distance-based approach offers a promising solution to enhance energy efficiency in satellite-based mist computing, making it well-suited for heavy computing tasks demands.
AI-based Attack Graph Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2023
Year: 2023

With the advancement of IoT technology, many electronic devices are interconnected through networks, communicating with each other and performing specific roles. However, as numerous devices join networks, the threat of cyberattacks also escalates. Preventing and detecting cyber threats are crucial, and one method of preventing such threats involves using attack graphs. Attack graphs are widely used to assess security threats within networks. However, a drawback emerges as the network scales, as generating attack graphs becomes time-consuming. To overcome this limitation, artificial intelligence models can be employed. By utilizing AI models, attack graphs can be created within a short period, approximating optimal outcomes. AI models designed for attack graph generation consist of encoders and decoders, trained using reinforcement learning algorithms. After training the AI models, we confirmed the model's learning effectiveness by observing changes in loss and reward values. Additionally, we compared attack graphs generated by the AI model with those created through conventional methods.
Modularity-based selection of the number of slices in temporal network clustering
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2023
Year: 2023

A popular way to cluster a temporal network is to transform it into a sequence of networks, also called slices, where each slice corresponds to a time interval and contains the vertices and edges existing in that interval. A reason to perform this transformation is that after a network has been sliced, existing algorithms designed to find clusters in multilayer networks can be used. However, to use this approach, we need to know how many slices to generate. This chapter discusses how to select the number of slices when generalized modularity is used to identify the clusters.
Robot Learning in the Era of Foundation Models: A Survey
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2023
Year: 2023

The proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) has s fueled a shift in robot learning from automation towards general embodied Artificial Intelligence (AI). Adopting foundation models together with traditional learning methods to robot learning has increasingly gained recent interest research community and showed potential for real-life application. However, there are few literatures comprehensively reviewing the relatively new technologies combined with robotics. The purpose of this review is to systematically assess the state-of-the-art foundation model techniques in the robot learning and to identify future potential areas. Specifically, we first summarized the technical evolution of robot learning and identified the necessary preliminary preparations for foundation models including the simulators, datasets, foundation model framework. In addition, we focused on the following four mainstream areas of robot learning including manipulation, navigation, planning, and reasoning and demonstrated how the foundation model techniques can be adopted in the above scenarios. Furthermore, critical issues which are neglected in the current literatures including robot hardware and software decoupling, dynamic data, generalization performance with the presence of human, etc. were discussed. This review highlights the state-of-the-art progress of foundation models in robot learning and future research should focus on multimodal interaction especially dynamics data, exclusive foundation models for robots, and AI alignment, etc.