OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Deciphering Air Travel Disruptions: A Machine Learning Approach
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

This research investigates flight delay trends by examining factors such as departure time, airline, and airport. It employs regression machine learning methods to predict the contributions of various sources to delays. Time-series models, including LSTM, Hybrid LSTM, and Bi-LSTM, are compared with baseline regression models such as Multiple Regression, Decision Tree Regression, Random Forest Regression, and Neural Network. Despite considerable errors in the baseline models, the study aims to identify influential features in delay prediction, potentially informing flight planning strategies. Unlike previous work, this research focuses on regression tasks and explores the use of time-series models for predicting flight delays. It offers insights into aviation operations by independently analyzing each delay component (e.g., security, weather).
Mitigating Malicious Attacks in Federated Learning via Confidence-aware Defense
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

Federated Learning (FL) is a distributed machine learning diagram that enables multiple clients to collaboratively train a global model without sharing their private local data. However, FL systems are vulnerable to attacks that are happening in malicious clients through data poisoning and model poisoning, which can deteriorate the performance of aggregated global model. Existing defense methods typically focus on mitigating specific types of poisoning and are often ineffective against unseen types of attack. These methods also assume an attack happened moderately while is not always holds true in real. Consequently, these methods can significantly fail in terms of accuracy and robustness when detecting and addressing updates from attacked malicious clients. To overcome these challenges, in this work, we propose a simple yet effective framework to detect malicious clients, namely Confidence-Aware Defense (CAD), that utilizes the confidence scores of local models as criteria to evaluate the reliability of local updates. Our key insight is that malicious attacks, regardless of attack type, will cause the model to deviate from its previous state, thus leading to increased uncertainty when making predictions. Therefore, CAD is comprehensively effective for both model poisoning and data poisoning attacks by accurately identifying and mitigating potential malicious updates, even under varying degrees of attacks and data heterogeneity. Experimental results demonstrate that our method significantly enhances the robustness of FL systems against various types of attacks across various scenarios by achieving higher model accuracy and stability.
Enabling High-Throughput Parallel I/O in Particle-in-Cell Monte Carlo Simulations with openPMD and Darshan I/O Monitoring
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2024
Year: 2024

Large-scale HPC simulations of plasma dynamics in fusion devices require efficient parallel I/O to avoid slowing down the simulation and to enable the post-processing of critical information. Such complex simulations lacking parallel I/O capabilities may encounter performance bottlenecks, hindering their effectiveness in data-intensive computing tasks. In this work, we focus on introducing and enhancing the efficiency of parallel I/O operations in Particle-in-Cell Monte Carlo simulations. We first evaluate the scalability of BIT1, a massively-parallel electrostatic PIC MC code, determining its initial write throughput capabilities and performance bottlenecks using an HPC I/O performance monitoring tool, Darshan. We design and develop an adaptor to the openPMD I/O interface that allows us to stream PIC particle and field information to I/O using the BP4 backend, aggressively optimized for I/O efficiency, including the highly efficient ADIOS2 interface. Next, we explore advanced optimization techniques such as data compression, aggregation, and Lustre file striping, achieving write throughput improvements while enhancing data storage efficiency. Finally, we analyze the enhanced high-throughput parallel I/O and storage capabilities achieved through the integration of openPMD with rapid metadata extraction in BP4 format. Our study demonstrates that the integration of openPMD and advanced I/O optimizations significantly enhances BIT1's I/O performance and storage capabilities, successfully introducing high throughput parallel I/O and surpassing the capabilities of traditional file I/O.
Elevating Software Trust: Unveiling and Quantifying the Risk Landscape
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2024
Year: 2024

Considering the ever-evolving threat landscape and rapid changes in software development, we propose a risk assessment framework called SAFER (Software Analysis Framework for Evaluating Risk). This framework is based on the necessity of a dynamic, data-driven, and adaptable process to quantify security risk in the software supply chain. Usually, when formulating such frameworks, static pre-defined weights are assigned to reflect the impact of each contributing parameter while aggregating these individual parameters to compute resulting security risk scores. This leads to inflexibility, a lack of adaptability, and reduced accuracy, making them unsuitable for the changing nature of the digital world. We adopt a novel perspective by examining security risk through the lens of trust and incorporating the human aspect. Moreover, we quantify security risk associated with individual software by assessing and formulating risk elements quantitatively and exploring dynamic data-driven weight assignment. This enhances the sensitivity of the framework to cater to the evolving security risk factors associated with software development and the different actors involved in the entire process. The devised framework is tested through a dataset containing 9000 samples, comprehensive scenarios, assessments, and expert opinions. Furthermore, a comparison between scores computed by the OpenSSF scorecard, OWASP risk calculator, and the proposed SAFER framework has also been presented. The results suggest that SAFER mitigates subjectivity and yields dynamic data-driven weights as well as security risk scores.
VizECGNet: Visual ECG Image Network for Cardiovascular Diseases Classification with Multi-Modal Training and Knowledge Distillation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

An electrocardiogram (ECG) captures the heart's electrical signal to assess various heart conditions. In practice, ECG data is stored as either digitized signals or printed images. Despite the emergence of numerous deep learning models for digitized signals, many hospitals prefer image storage due to cost considerations. Recognizing the unavailability of raw ECG signals in many clinical settings, we propose VizECGNet, which uses only printed ECG graphics to determine the prognosis of multiple cardiovascular diseases. During training, cross-modal attention modules (CMAM) are used to integrate information from two modalities - image and signal, while self-modality attention modules (SMAM) capture inherent long-range dependencies in ECG data of each modality. Additionally, we utilize knowledge distillation to improve the similarity between two distinct predictions from each modality stream. This innovative multi-modal deep learning architecture enables the utilization of only ECG images during inference. VizECGNet with image input achieves higher performance in precision, recall, and F1-Score compared to signal-based ECG classification models, with improvements of 3.50%, 8.21%, and 7.38%, respectively.
Lighthouse: A User-Friendly Library for Reproducible Video Moment Retrieval and Highlight Detection
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

We propose Lighthouse, a user-friendly library for reproducible video moment retrieval and highlight detection (MR-HD). Although researchers proposed various MR-HD approaches, the research community holds two main issues. The first is a lack of comprehensive and reproducible experiments across various methods, datasets, and video-text features. This is because no unified training and evaluation codebase covers multiple settings. The second is user-unfriendly design. Because previous works use different libraries, researchers set up individual environments. In addition, most works release only the training codes, requiring users to implement the whole inference process of MR-HD. Lighthouse addresses these issues by implementing a unified reproducible codebase that includes six models, three features, and five datasets. In addition, it provides an inference API and web demo to make these methods easily accessible for researchers and developers. Our experiments demonstrate that Lighthouse generally reproduces the reported scores in the reference papers. The code is available at https://github.com/line/lighthouse.
VirtualNexus: Enhancing 360-Degree Video AR/VR Collaboration with Environment Cutouts and Virtual Replicas
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2024
Year: 2024

Asymmetric AR/VR collaboration systems bring a remote VR user to a local AR user's physical environment, allowing them to communicate and work within a shared virtual/physical space. Such systems often display the remote environment through 3D reconstructions or 360-degree videos. While 360-degree cameras stream an environment in higher quality, they lack spatial information, making them less interactable. We present VirtualNexus, an AR/VR collaboration system that enhances 360-degree video AR/VR collaboration with environment cutouts and virtual replicas. VR users can define cutouts of the remote environment to interact with as a world-in-miniature, and their interactions are synchronized to the local AR perspective. Furthermore, AR users can rapidly scan and share 3D virtual replicas of physical objects using neural rendering. We demonstrated our system's utility through 3 example applications and evaluated our system in a dyadic usability test. VirtualNexus extends the interaction space of 360-degree telepresence systems, offering improved physical presence, versatility, and clarity in interactions.
Adversarial Robustness of Open-source Text Classification Models and Fine-Tuning Chains
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2024
Year: 2024

Context:With the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and applications, numerous AI models have been developed, leading to the emergence of open-source model hosting platforms like Hugging Face (HF). Thanks to these platforms, individuals can directly download and use models, as well as fine-tune them to construct more domain-specific models. However, just like traditional software supply chains face security risks, AI models and fine-tuning chains also encounter new security risks, such as adversarial attacks. Therefore, the adversarial robustness of these models has garnered attention, potentially influencing people's choices regarding open-source models. Objective:This paper aims to explore the adversarial robustness of open-source AI models and their chains formed by the upstream-downstream relationships via fine-tuning to provide insights into the potential adversarial risks. Method:We collect text classification models on HF and construct the fine-tuning chains.Then, we conduct an empirical analysis of model reuse and associated robustness risks under existing adversarial attacks from two aspects, i.e., models and their fine-tuning chains. Results:Despite the models' widespread downloading and reuse, they are generally susceptible to adversarial attack risks, with an average of 52.70% attack success rate. Moreover, fine-tuning typically exacerbates this risk, resulting in an average 12.60% increase in attack success rates. We also delve into the influence of factors such as attack techniques, datasets, and model architectures on the success rate, as well as the transitivity along the model chains.
Towards Smart Microfarming in an Urban Computing Continuum
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2024
Year: 2024

Microfarming and urban computing have evolved as two distinct sustainability pillars of urban living today. In this paper, we combine these two concepts, while majorly extending them jointly towards novel concepts of smart microfarming and urban computing continuum. Smart microfarming is proposed with applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in microfarming, while an urban computing continuum is proposed as a major extension of the concept towards an efficient Internet of Things (IoT) -edge-cloud continuum. We propose and build a system architecture for a plant recommendation system that uses machine learning (ML) at the edge to find, from a pool of given plants, the most suitable ones for a given microfarm using monitored soil values obtained from IoT sensor devices. Moreover, we propose to integrate long-distance LongRange (LoRa) communication solution for sending the data from IoT to the edge system, due to its unlicensed nature and potential for open source implementations. Finally, we propose to integrate open source and less constrained application protocol solutions, such as Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) and Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) protocols, for storing the data in the cloud. An experimental setup is used to evaluate and analyze the performance and reliability of the data collection procedure and the quality of the recommendation solution. Furthermore, collaborative filtering is used for the completion of an incomplete information about soils and plants. Finally, various ML algorithms are applied to identify and recommend the optimal plan for a specific microfarm in an urban area.
Faster and simpler online/sliding rightmost Lempel-Ziv factorizations
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2024
Year: 2024

We tackle the problems of computing the rightmost variant of the Lempel-Ziv factorizations in the online/sliding model. Previous best bounds for this problem are O(n log n) time with O(n) space, due to Amir et al. [IPL 2002] for the online model, and due to Larsson [CPM 2014] for the sliding model. In this paper, we present faster O(n log n/log log n)-time solutions to both of the online/sliding models. Our algorithms are built on a simple data structure named BP-linked trees, and on a slightly improved version of the range minimum/maximum query (RmQ/RMQ) data structure on a dynamic list of integers. We also present other applications of our algorithms.
The State of FaaS: An analysis of public Functions-as-a-Service providers
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2024
Year: 2024

Serverless computing is a growing and maturing field that is the focus of much research, industry interest and adoption. Previous works exploring Functions-as-a-Service providers have focused primarily on the most well known providers AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions and Microsoft Azure Functions without exploring other providers in similar detail. In this work, we conduct the first detailed review of ten currently publicly available FaaS platforms exploring everything from their history, to their features and pricing to where they sit within the overall public FaaS landscape, before making a number of observations as to the state of the FaaS.
L3iTC at the FinLLM Challenge Task: Quantization for Financial Text Classification & Summarization
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

This article details our participation (L3iTC) in the FinLLM Challenge Task 2024, focusing on two key areas: Task 1, financial text classification, and Task 2, financial text summarization. To address these challenges, we fine-tuned several large language models (LLMs) to optimize performance for each task. Specifically, we used 4-bit quantization and LoRA to determine which layers of the LLMs should be trained at a lower precision. This approach not only accelerated the fine-tuning process on the training data provided by the organizers but also enabled us to run the models on low GPU memory. Our fine-tuned models achieved third place for the financial classification task with an F1-score of 0.7543 and secured sixth place in the financial summarization task on the official test datasets.
Targeted Visual Prompting for Medical Visual Question Answering
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

With growing interest in recent years, medical visual question answering (Med-VQA) has rapidly evolved, with multimodal large language models (MLLMs) emerging as an alternative to classical model architectures. Specifically, their ability to add visual information to the input of pre-trained LLMs brings new capabilities for image interpretation. However, simple visual errors cast doubt on the actual visual understanding abilities of these models. To address this, region-based questions have been proposed as a means to assess and enhance actual visual understanding through compositional evaluation. To combine these two perspectives, this paper introduces targeted visual prompting to equip MLLMs with region-based questioning capabilities. By presenting the model with both the isolated region and the region in its context in a customized visual prompt, we show the effectiveness of our method across multiple datasets while comparing it to several baseline models. Our code and data are available at https://github.com/sergiotasconmorales/locvqallm.
Solving QUBO on the Loihi 2 Neuromorphic Processor
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2024
Year: 2024

In this article, we describe an algorithm for solving Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization problems on the Intel Loihi 2 neuromorphic processor. The solver is based on a hardware-aware fine-grained parallel simulated annealing algorithm developed for Intel's neuromorphic research chip Loihi 2. Preliminary results show that our approach can generate feasible solutions in as little as 1 ms and up to 37x more energy efficient compared to two baseline solvers running on a CPU. These advantages could be especially relevant for size-, weight-, and power-constrained edge computing applications.
Enhancing Complex Causality Extraction via Improved Subtask Interaction and Knowledge Fusion
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

Event Causality Extraction (ECE) aims at extracting causal event pairs from texts. Despite ChatGPT's recent success, fine-tuning small models remains the best approach for the ECE task. However, existing fine-tuning based ECE methods cannot address all three key challenges in ECE simultaneously: 1) Complex Causality Extraction, where multiple causal-effect pairs occur within a single sentence; 2) Subtask~ Interaction, which involves modeling the mutual dependence between the two subtasks of ECE, i.e., extracting events and identifying the causal relationship between extracted events; and 3) Knowledge Fusion, which requires effectively fusing the knowledge in two modalities, i.e., the expressive pretrained language models and the structured knowledge graphs. In this paper, we propose a unified ECE framework (UniCE to address all three issues in ECE simultaneously. Specifically, we design a subtask interaction mechanism to enable mutual interaction between the two ECE subtasks. Besides, we design a knowledge fusion mechanism to fuse knowledge in the two modalities. Furthermore, we employ separate decoders for each subtask to facilitate complex causality extraction. Experiments on three benchmark datasets demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance and outperforms ChatGPT with a margin of at least 30% F1-score. More importantly, our model can also be used to effectively improve the ECE performance of ChatGPT via in-context learning.
Prototype Learning for Micro-gesture Classification
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

In this paper, we briefly introduce the solution developed by our team, HFUT-VUT, for the track of Micro-gesture Classification in the MiGA challenge at IJCAI 2024. The task of micro-gesture classification task involves recognizing the category of a given video clip, which focuses on more fine-grained and subtle body movements compared to typical action recognition tasks. Given the inherent complexity of micro-gesture recognition, which includes large intra-class variability and minimal inter-class differences, we utilize two innovative modules, i.e., the cross-modal fusion module and prototypical refinement module, to improve the discriminative ability of MG features, thereby improving the classification accuracy. Our solution achieved significant success, ranking 1st in the track of Micro-gesture Classification. We surpassed the performance of last year's leading team by a substantial margin, improving Top-1 accuracy by 6.13%.
SuperSimpleNet: Unifying Unsupervised and Supervised Learning for Fast and Reliable Surface Defect Detection
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

The aim of surface defect detection is to identify and localise abnormal regions on the surfaces of captured objects, a task that's increasingly demanded across various industries. Current approaches frequently fail to fulfil the extensive demands of these industries, which encompass high performance, consistency, and fast operation, along with the capacity to leverage the entirety of the available training data. Addressing these gaps, we introduce SuperSimpleNet, an innovative discriminative model that evolved from SimpleNet. This advanced model significantly enhances its predecessor's training consistency, inference time, as well as detection performance. SuperSimpleNet operates in an unsupervised manner using only normal training images but also benefits from labelled abnormal training images when they are available. SuperSimpleNet achieves state-of-the-art results in both the supervised and the unsupervised settings, as demonstrated by experiments across four challenging benchmark datasets. Code: https://github.com/blaz-r/SuperSimpleNet .
Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) and IoT Use Cases in Universities, Campuses, and Educational Institutions: A Research Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.CY 2024
Year: 2024

The main objective of this research paper is to analyze the available use cases of Narrowband-IoT and IoT in universities, campuses, and educational institutions. A literature review was conducted using multiple databases such as IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, and Scopus. The study explores the benefits of IoT adoption in higher education. Various use cases of NB-IoT in educational institutions were analyzed, including smart campus management, asset tracking, monitoring, and safety and security systems. Of the six use cases assessed, three focused on the deployment of IoT Things, while three focused on NB-IoT Connectivity. The research paper concludes that NB-IoT technology has significant potential to enhance various aspects of educational institutions, from smart campus management to improving safety and security systems. The study recommends further exploration and implementation of NB-IoT technology in educational settings to improve efficiency, security, and overall campus management. The research highlights the potential applications of NB-IoT in universities and educational institutions, paving the way for future studies in this area. The social implications of this research could involve enhancing the overall learning experience for students, improving campus safety, and promoting technological advancements in educational settings. Keywords: narrowband-IoT, Internet-of-Things, smart campus, smart institutions