OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Chain of Generation: Multi-Modal Gesture Synthesis via Cascaded Conditional Control
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

This study aims to improve the generation of 3D gestures by utilizing multimodal information from human speech. Previous studies have focused on incorporating additional modalities to enhance the quality of generated gestures. However, these methods perform poorly when certain modalities are missing during inference. To address this problem, we suggest using speech-derived multimodal priors to improve gesture generation. We introduce a novel method that separates priors from speech and employs multimodal priors as constraints for generating gestures. Our approach utilizes a chain-like modeling method to generate facial blendshapes, body movements, and hand gestures sequentially. Specifically, we incorporate rhythm cues derived from facial deformation and stylization prior based on speech emotions, into the process of generating gestures. By incorporating multimodal priors, our method improves the quality of generated gestures and eliminate the need for expensive setup preparation during inference. Extensive experiments and user studies confirm that our proposed approach achieves state-of-the-art performance.
Cross Initialization for Personalized Text-to-Image Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Recently, there has been a surge in face personalization techniques, benefiting from the advanced capabilities of pretrained text-to-image diffusion models. Among these, a notable method is Textual Inversion, which generates personalized images by inverting given images into textual embeddings. However, methods based on Textual Inversion still struggle with balancing the trade-off between reconstruction quality and editability. In this study, we examine this issue through the lens of initialization. Upon closely examining traditional initialization methods, we identified a significant disparity between the initial and learned embeddings in terms of both scale and orientation. The scale of the learned embedding can be up to 100 times greater than that of the initial embedding. Such a significant change in the embedding could increase the risk of overfitting, thereby compromising the editability. Driven by this observation, we introduce a novel initialization method, termed Cross Initialization, that significantly narrows the gap between the initial and learned embeddings. This method not only improves both reconstruction and editability but also reduces the optimization steps from 5000 to 320. Furthermore, we apply a regularization term to keep the learned embedding close to the initial embedding. We show that when combined with Cross Initialization, this regularization term can effectively improve editability. We provide comprehensive empirical evidence to demonstrate the superior performance of our method compared to the baseline methods. Notably, in our experiments, Cross Initialization is the only method that successfully edits an individual's facial expression. Additionally, a fast version of our method allows for capturing an input image in roughly 26 seconds, while surpassing the baseline methods in terms of both reconstruction and editability. Code will be made publicly available.
Review on Causality Detection Based on Empirical Dynamic Modeling
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

In contemporary scientific research, understanding the distinction between correlation and causation is crucial. While correlation is a widely used analytical standard, it does not inherently imply causation. This paper addresses the potential for misinterpretation in relying solely on correlation, especially in the context of nonlinear dynamics. Despite the rapid development of various correlation research methodologies, including machine learning, the exploration into mining causal correlations between variables remains ongoing. Empirical Dynamic Modeling (EDM) emerges as a data-driven framework for modeling dynamic systems, distinguishing itself by eschewing traditional formulaic methods in data analysis. Instead, it reconstructs dynamic system behavior directly from time series data. The fundamental premise of EDM is that dynamic systems can be conceptualized as processes where a set of states, governed by specific rules, evolve over time in a high-dimensional space. By reconstructing these evolving states, dynamic systems can be effectively modeled. Using EDM, this paper explores the detection of causal relationships between variables within dynamic systems through their time series data. It posits that if variable X causes variable Y, then the information about X is inherent in Y and can be extracted from Y's data. This study begins by examining the dialectical relationship between correlation and causation, emphasizing that correlation does not equate to causation, and the absence of correlation does not necessarily indicate a lack of causation.
Exploiting the capacity of deep networks only at training stage for nonlinear black-box system identification
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

To benefit from the modeling capacity of deep models in system identification, without worrying about inference time, this study presents a novel training strategy that uses deep models only at the training stage. For this purpose two separate models with different structures and goals are employed. The first one is a deep generative model aiming at modeling the distribution of system output(s), called the teacher model, and the second one is a shallow basis function model, named the student model, fed by system input(s) to predict the system output(s). That means these isolated paths must reach the same ultimate target. As deep models show a great performance in modeling of highly nonlinear systems, aligning the representation space learned by these two models make the student model to inherit the approximation power of the teacher model. The proposed objective function consists of the objective of each student and teacher model adding up with a distance penalty between the learned latent representations. The simulation results on three nonlinear benchmarks show a comparative performance with examined deep architectures applied on the same benchmarks. Algorithmic transparency and structure efficiency are also achieved as byproducts.
HarmonyView: Harmonizing Consistency and Diversity in One-Image-to-3D
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Recent progress in single-image 3D generation highlights the importance of multi-view coherency, leveraging 3D priors from large-scale diffusion models pretrained on Internet-scale images. However, the aspect of novel-view diversity remains underexplored within the research landscape due to the ambiguity in converting a 2D image into 3D content, where numerous potential shapes can emerge. Here, we aim to address this research gap by simultaneously addressing both consistency and diversity. Yet, striking a balance between these two aspects poses a considerable challenge due to their inherent trade-offs. This work introduces HarmonyView, a simple yet effective diffusion sampling technique adept at decomposing two intricate aspects in single-image 3D generation: consistency and diversity. This approach paves the way for a more nuanced exploration of the two critical dimensions within the sampling process. Moreover, we propose a new evaluation metric based on CLIP image and text encoders to comprehensively assess the diversity of the generated views, which closely aligns with human evaluators' judgments. In experiments, HarmonyView achieves a harmonious balance, demonstrating a win-win scenario in both consistency and diversity.
Practical Bias Mitigation through Proxy Sensitive Attribute Label Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Addressing bias in the trained machine learning system often requires access to sensitive attributes. In practice, these attributes are not available either due to legal and policy regulations or data unavailability for a given demographic. Existing bias mitigation algorithms are limited in their applicability to real-world scenarios as they require access to sensitive attributes to achieve fairness. In this research work, we aim to address this bottleneck through our proposed unsupervised proxy-sensitive attribute label generation technique. Towards this end, we propose a two-stage approach of unsupervised embedding generation followed by clustering to obtain proxy-sensitive labels. The efficacy of our work relies on the assumption that bias propagates through non-sensitive attributes that are correlated to the sensitive attributes and, when mapped to the high dimensional latent space, produces clusters of different demographic groups that exist in the data. Experimental results demonstrate that bias mitigation using existing algorithms such as Fair Mixup and Adversarial Debiasing yields comparable results on derived proxy labels when compared against using true sensitive attributes.
AutoTask: Executing Arbitrary Voice Commands by Exploring and Learning from Mobile GUI
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2023
Year: 2023

Voice command interfaces (VCIs) have gained increasing importance, enabling hands-free and eyes-free interaction with digital devices. However, the inherent complexity in constructing effective voice interfaces has limited the VCIs' functionalities to only a small fraction of GUI applications and tasks. This paper presents AutoTask, a VCI capable of automating any task in any mobile application without configuration or modification from developers or end users. The primary challenge for AutoTask is the lack of knowledge, as it needs to accomplish unknown tasks (e.g., user commands) within an unknown environment (e.g., GUI). To address this challenge, AutoTask employs two strategies: (1) trial and error: AutoTask explores the GUI, attempts potential operation sequences, and recovers from errors through backtracking; (2) learning from the environment: AutoTask accumulates experiences during exploration and summarizes correct knowledge from these experiences. We implemented AutoTask on Android devices and conducted an evaluation study, which proved the feasibility of AutoTask.
Coexistence assessment and interference mitigation for 5G and Fixed Satellite Stations in C-band in India
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we present the findings of a study conducted to assess the coexistence of Fifth Generation (5G) wireless networks and Fixed Satellite Station (FSS) receivers in the C-Band (3300-4200 MHz) in India. Through simulations, we evaluate the coexistence feasibility and calculate the minimum separation distances required to mitigate interference, consider-ing factors such as 5G Base Station power, off-axis angle, clutter, filtering, and shielding. Next, we present various interference mitigation techniques, including distance, antenna tilt and height, power control, antenna design, coordination, filtering, and others, aiming for balanced coexistence. The simulation results corroborate the efficacy of these solutions in containing interference from 5G in the C-Band FSS receivers. The paper offers valuable insights into frequency allocation in India and considerations for 5G network design, including site selection and antenna orientation. The insights provided are relevant to other regions facing similar coexistence challenges. Overall, this paper offers a comprehensive overview of 5G and FSS coexistence in the C-band, emphasising the importance of addressing this issue during network design and deployment.
fMPI: Fast Novel View Synthesis in the Wild with Layered Scene Representations
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

In this study, we propose two novel input processing paradigms for novel view synthesis (NVS) methods based on layered scene representations that significantly improve their runtime without compromising quality. Our approach identifies and mitigates the two most time-consuming aspects of traditional pipelines: building and processing the so-called plane sweep volume (PSV), which is a high-dimensional tensor of planar re-projections of the input camera views. In particular, we propose processing this tensor in parallel groups for improved compute efficiency as well as super-sampling adjacent input planes to generate denser, and hence more accurate scene representation. The proposed enhancements offer significant flexibility, allowing for a balance between performance and speed, thus making substantial steps toward real-time applications. Furthermore, they are very general in the sense that any PSV-based method can make use of them, including methods that employ multiplane images, multisphere images, and layered depth images. In a comprehensive set of experiments, we demonstrate that our proposed paradigms enable the design of an NVS method that achieves state-of-the-art on public benchmarks while being up to $50x$ faster than existing state-of-the-art methods. It also beats the current forerunner in terms of speed by over $3x$, while achieving significantly better rendering quality.
SoundCount: Sound Counting from Raw Audio with Dyadic Decomposition Neural Network
Venue: arXiv cs.SD 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we study an underexplored, yet important and challenging problem: counting the number of distinct sounds in raw audio characterized by a high degree of polyphonicity. We do so by systematically proposing a novel end-to-end trainable neural network (which we call DyDecNet, consisting of a dyadic decomposition front-end and backbone network), and quantifying the difficulty level of counting depending on sound polyphonicity. The dyadic decomposition front-end progressively decomposes the raw waveform dyadically along the frequency axis to obtain time-frequency representation in multi-stage, coarse-to-fine manner. Each intermediate waveform convolved by a parent filter is further processed by a pair of child filters that evenly split the parent filter's carried frequency response, with the higher-half child filter encoding the detail and lower-half child filter encoding the approximation. We further introduce an energy gain normalization to normalize sound loudness variance and spectrum overlap, and apply it to each intermediate parent waveform before feeding it to the two child filters. To better quantify sound counting difficulty level, we further design three polyphony-aware metrics: polyphony ratio, max polyphony and mean polyphony. We test DyDecNet on various datasets to show its superiority, and we further show dyadic decomposition network can be used as a general front-end to tackle other acoustic tasks.
Security in 5G Networks -- How 5G networks help Mitigate Location Tracking Vulnerability
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2023
Year: 2023

As 5G networks become more mainstream, privacy has come to the forefront of end users. More scrutiny has been shown to previous generation cellular technologies such as 3G and 4G on how they handle sensitive metadata transmitted from an end user mobile device to base stations during registration with a cellular network. These generation cellular networks do not enforce any encryption on this information transmitted during this process, giving malicious actors an easy way to intercept the information. Such an interception can allow an adversary to locate end users with shocking accuracy. This paper investigates this problem in great detail and discusses how a newly introduced approach in 5G networks is helping combat this problem. The paper discusses the implications of this vulnerability and the technical details of the new approach, including the encryption schemes used to secure this sensitive information. Finally, the paper will discuss any limitations to this new approach.
Segment Any Events via Weighted Adaptation of Pivotal Tokens
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we delve into the nuanced challenge of tailoring the Segment Anything Models (SAMs) for integration with event data, with the overarching objective of attaining robust and universal object segmentation within the event-centric domain. One pivotal issue at the heart of this endeavor is the precise alignment and calibration of embeddings derived from event-centric data such that they harmoniously coincide with those originating from RGB imagery. Capitalizing on the vast repositories of datasets with paired events and RGB images, our proposition is to harness and extrapolate the profound knowledge encapsulated within the pre-trained SAM framework. As a cornerstone to achieving this, we introduce a multi-scale feature distillation methodology. This methodology rigorously optimizes the alignment of token embeddings originating from event data with their RGB image counterparts, thereby preserving and enhancing the robustness of the overall architecture. Considering the distinct significance that token embeddings from intermediate layers hold for higher-level embeddings, our strategy is centered on accurately calibrating the pivotal token embeddings. This targeted calibration is aimed at effectively managing the discrepancies in high-level embeddings originating from both the event and image domains. Extensive experiments on different datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed distillation method. Code in http://github.com/happychenpipi/EventSAM.
More than Correlation: Do Large Language Models Learn Causal Representations of Space?
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2023
Year: 2023

Recent work found high mutual information between the learned representations of large language models (LLMs) and the geospatial property of its input, hinting an emergent internal model of space. However, whether this internal space model has any causal effects on the LLMs' behaviors was not answered by that work, led to criticism of these findings as mere statistical correlation. Our study focused on uncovering the causality of the spatial representations in LLMs. In particular, we discovered the potential spatial representations in DeBERTa, GPT-Neo using representational similarity analysis and linear and non-linear probing. Our casual intervention experiments showed that the spatial representations influenced the model's performance on next word prediction and a downstream task that relies on geospatial information. Our experiments suggested that the LLMs learn and use an internal model of space in solving geospatial related tasks.
Zur Darstellung eines mehrstufigen Prototypbegriffs in der multilingualen automatischen Sprachgenerierung: vom Korpus über word embeddings bis hin zum automatischen Wörterbuch
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2023
Year: 2023

The multilingual dictionary of noun valency Portlex is considered to be the trigger for the creation of the automatic language generators Xera and Combinatoria, whose development and use is presented in this paper. Both prototypes are used for the automatic generation of nominal phrases with their mono- and bi-argumental valence slots, which could be used, among others, as dictionary examples or as integrated components of future autonomous E-Learning-Tools. As samples for new types of automatic valency dictionaries including user interaction, we consider the language generators as we know them today. In the specific methodological procedure for the development of the language generators, the syntactic-semantic description of the noun slots turns out to be the main focus from a syntagmatic and paradigmatic point of view. Along with factors such as representativeness, grammatical correctness, semantic coherence, frequency and the variety of lexical candidates, as well as semantic classes and argument structures, which are fixed components of both resources, a concept of a multi-sided prototype stands out. The combined application of this prototype concept as well as of word embeddings together with techniques from the field of automatic natural language processing and generation (NLP and NLG) opens up a new way for the future development of automatically generated plurilingual valency dictionaries. All things considered, the paper depicts the language generators both from the point of view of their development as well as from that of the users. The focus lies on the role of the prototype concept within the development of the resources.
Efficient Cost Modeling of Space-filling Curves
Venue: arXiv cs.DB 2023
Year: 2023

A space-filling curve (SFC) maps points in a multi-dimensional space to one-dimensional points by discretizing the multi-dimensional space into cells and imposing a linear order on the cells. This way, an SFC enables the indexing of multi-dimensional data using a one-dimensional index such as a B+-tree. Choosing an appropriate SFC is crucial, as different SFCs have different effects on query performance. Currently, there are two primary strategies: 1) deterministic schemes, which are computationally efficient but often yield suboptimal query performance, and 2) dynamic schemes, which consider a broad range of candidate SFCs based on cost functions but incur significant computational overhead. Despite these strategies, existing methods cannot efficiently measure the effectiveness of SFCs under heavy query workloads and numerous SFC options. To address this problem, we propose means of constant-time cost estimations that can enhance existing SFC selection algorithms, enabling them to learn more effective SFCs. Additionally, we propose an SFC learning method that leverages reinforcement learning and our cost estimation to choose an SFC pattern efficiently. Experimental studies offer evidence of the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed means of cost estimation and SFC learning.
Keeping Teams in the Game: Predicting Dropouts in Online Problem-Based Learning Competition
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Online learning and MOOCs have become increasingly popular in recent years, and the trend will continue, given the technology boom. There is a dire need to observe learners' behavior in these online courses, similar to what instructors do in a face-to-face classroom. Learners' strategies and activities become crucial to understanding their behavior. One major challenge in online courses is predicting and preventing dropout behavior. While several studies have tried to perform such analysis, there is still a shortage of studies that employ different data streams to understand and predict the drop rates. Moreover, studies rarely use a fully online team-based collaborative environment as their context. Thus, the current study employs an online longitudinal problem-based learning (PBL) collaborative robotics competition as the testbed. Through methodological triangulation, the study aims to predict dropout behavior via the contributions of Discourse discussion forum 'activities' of participating teams, along with a self-reported Online Learning Strategies Questionnaire (OSLQ). The study also uses Qualitative interviews to enhance the ground truth and results. The OSLQ data is collected from more than 4000 participants. Furthermore, the study seeks to establish the reliability of OSLQ to advance research within online environments. Various Machine Learning algorithms are applied to analyze the data. The findings demonstrate the reliability of OSLQ with our substantial sample size and reveal promising results for predicting the dropout rate in online competition.
Polygon Detection from a Set of Lines
Venue: arXiv cs.CG 2023
Year: 2023

Detecting polygons defined by a set of line segments in a plane is an important step in analyzing vector drawings. This paper presents an approach combining several algorithms to detect basic polygons from arbitrary line segments. The resulting algorithm runs in polynomial time and space, with complexities of $O\bigl((N + M)^4\bigr)$ and $O\bigl((N + M)^2\bigr)$, where $N$ is the number of line segments and $M$ is the number of intersections between line segments. Our choice of algorithms was made to strike a good compromise between efficiency and ease of implementation. The result is a simple and efficient solution to detect polygons from lines.