OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Pre-Release Experimentation in Indie Game Development: An Interview Survey
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2024
Year: 2024

[Background] The game industry faces fierce competition and games are developed on short deadlines and tight budgets. Continuously testing and experimenting with new ideas and features is essential in validating and guiding development toward market viability and success. Such continuous experimentation (CE) requires user data, which is often limited in early development stages. This challenge is further exacerbated for independent (indie) game companies with limited resources. [Aim] We wanted to gain insights into CE practices in pre-release indie game development. [Method] We performed an exploratory interview survey with 10 indie game developers from different companies and synthesised findings through an iterative coding process. [Results] We present a CE framework for game development that highlights key parts to consider when planning and implementing an experiment and note that pre-release experimentation is centred on qualitative data. Time and resource constraints impose limits on the type and extent of experimentation and playtesting that indie companies can perform, e.g. due to limited access to participants, biases and representativeness of the target audience. [Conclusions] Our results outline challenges and practices for conducting experiments with limited user data in early stages of indie game development, and may be of value also for larger game companies, and for software intensive organisations in other industries.
On the Efficiency of NLP-Inspired Methods for Tabular Deep Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

Recent advancements in tabular deep learning (DL) have led to substantial performance improvements, surpassing the capabilities of traditional models. With the adoption of techniques from natural language processing (NLP), such as language model-based approaches, DL models for tabular data have also grown in complexity and size. Although tabular datasets do not typically pose scalability issues, the escalating size of these models has raised efficiency concerns. Despite its importance, efficiency has been relatively underexplored in tabular DL research. This paper critically examines the latest innovations in tabular DL, with a dual focus on performance and computational efficiency. The source code is available at https://github.com/basf/mamba-tabular.
Scaling nnU-Net for CBCT Segmentation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

This paper presents our approach to scaling the nnU-Net framework for multi-structure segmentation on Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) images, specifically in the scope of the ToothFairy2 Challenge. We leveraged the nnU-Net ResEnc L model, introducing key modifications to patch size, network topology, and data augmentation strategies to address the unique challenges of dental CBCT imaging. Our method achieved a mean Dice coefficient of 0.9253 and HD95 of 18.472 on the test set, securing a mean rank of 4.6 and with it the first place in the ToothFairy2 challenge. The source code is publicly available, encouraging further research and development in the field.
AIGV-Assessor: Benchmarking and Evaluating the Perceptual Quality of Text-to-Video Generation with LMM
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

The rapid advancement of large multimodal models (LMMs) has led to the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence generated videos (AIGVs), which highlights the pressing need for effective video quality assessment (VQA) models designed specifically for AIGVs. Current VQA models generally fall short in accurately assessing the perceptual quality of AIGVs due to the presence of unique distortions, such as unrealistic objects, unnatural movements, or inconsistent visual elements. To address this challenge, we first present AIGVQA-DB, a large-scale dataset comprising 36,576 AIGVs generated by 15 advanced text-to-video models using 1,048 diverse prompts. With these AIGVs, a systematic annotation pipeline including scoring and ranking processes is devised, which collects 370k expert ratings to date. Based on AIGVQA-DB, we further introduce AIGV-Assessor, a novel VQA model that leverages spatiotemporal features and LMM frameworks to capture the intricate quality attributes of AIGVs, thereby accurately predicting precise video quality scores and video pair preferences. Through comprehensive experiments on both AIGVQA-DB and existing AIGV databases, AIGV-Assessor demonstrates state-of-the-art performance, significantly surpassing existing scoring or evaluation methods in terms of multiple perceptual quality dimensions.
The Exploration of Neural Collapse under Imbalanced Data
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

Neural collapse, a newly identified characteristic, describes a property of solutions during model training. In this paper, we explore neural collapse in the context of imbalanced data. We consider the $L$-extended unconstrained feature model with a bias term and provide a theoretical analysis of global minimizer. Our findings include: (1) Features within the same class converge to their class mean, similar to both the balanced case and the imbalanced case without bias. (2) The geometric structure is mainly on the left orthonormal transformation of the product of $L$ linear classifiers and the right transformation of the class-mean matrix. (3) Some rows of the left orthonormal transformation of the product of $L$ linear classifiers collapse to zeros and others are orthogonal, which relies on the singular values of $\hat Y=(I_K-1/N\mathbf{n}1^\top_K)D$, where $K$ is class size, $\mathbf{n}$ is the vector of sample size for each class, $D$ is the diagonal matrix whose diagonal entries are given by $\sqrt{\mathbf{n}}$. Similar results are for the columns of the right orthonormal transformation of the product of class-mean matrix and $D$. (4) The $i$-th row of the left orthonormal transformation of the product of $L$ linear classifiers aligns with the $i$-th column of the right orthonormal transformation of the product of class-mean matrix and $D$. (5) We provide the estimation of singular values about $\hat Y$. Our numerical experiments support these theoretical findings.
PIM-AI: A Novel Architecture for High-Efficiency LLM Inference
Venue: arXiv cs.AR 2024
Year: 2024

Large Language Models (LLMs) have become essential in a variety of applications due to their advanced language understanding and generation capabilities. However, their computational and memory requirements pose significant challenges to traditional hardware architectures. Processing-in-Memory (PIM), which integrates computational units directly into memory chips, offers several advantages for LLM inference, including reduced data transfer bottlenecks and improved power efficiency. This paper introduces PIM-AI, a novel DDR5/LPDDR5 PIM architecture designed for LLM inference without modifying the memory controller or DDR/LPDDR memory PHY. We have developed a simulator to evaluate the performance of PIM-AI in various scenarios and demonstrate its significant advantages over conventional architectures. In cloud-based scenarios, PIM-AI reduces the 3-year TCO per queries-per-second by up to 6.94x compared to state-of-the-art GPUs, depending on the LLM model used. In mobile scenarios, PIM-AI achieves a 10- to 20-fold reduction in energy per token compared to state-of-the-art mobile SoCs, resulting in 25 to 45~\% more queries per second and 6.9x to 13.4x less energy per query, extending battery life and enabling more inferences per charge. These results highlight PIM-AI's potential to revolutionize LLM deployments, making them more efficient, scalable, and sustainable.
Towards Intention Recognition for Robotic Assistants Through Online POMDP Planning
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2024
Year: 2024

Intention recognition, or the ability to anticipate the actions of another agent, plays a vital role in the design and development of automated assistants that can support humans in their daily tasks. In particular, industrial settings pose interesting challenges that include potential distractions for a decision-maker as well as noisy or incomplete observations. In such a setting, a robotic assistant tasked with helping and supporting a human worker must interleave information gathering actions with proactive tasks of its own, an approach that has been referred to as active goal recognition. In this paper we describe a partially observable model for online intention recognition, show some preliminary experimental results and discuss some of the challenges present in this family of problems.
Multimodal Outer Arithmetic Block Dual Fusion of Whole Slide Images and Omics Data for Precision Oncology
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

The integration of DNA methylation data with a Whole Slide Image (WSI) offers significant potential for enhancing the diagnostic precision of central nervous system (CNS) tumor classification in neuropathology. While existing approaches typically integrate encoded omic data with histology at either an early or late fusion stage, the potential of reintroducing omic data through dual fusion remains unexplored. In this paper, we propose the use of omic embeddings during early and late fusion to capture complementary information from local (patch-level) to global (slide-level) interactions, boosting performance through multimodal integration. In the early fusion stage, omic embeddings are projected onto WSI patches in latent-space, which generates embeddings that encapsulate per-patch molecular and morphological insights. This effectively incorporates omic information into the spatial representation of the WSI. These embeddings are then refined with a Multiple Instance Learning gated attention mechanism which attends to diagnostic patches. In the late fusion stage, we reintroduce the omic data by fusing it with slide-level omic-WSI embeddings using a Multimodal Outer Arithmetic Block (MOAB), which richly intermingles features from both modalities, capturing their correlations and complementarity. We demonstrate accurate CNS tumor subtyping across 20 fine-grained subtypes and validate our approach on benchmark datasets, achieving improved survival prediction on TCGA-BLCA and competitive performance on TCGA-BRCA compared to state-of-the-art methods. This dual fusion strategy enhances interpretability and classification performance, highlighting its potential for clinical diagnostics.
Exploring Structural Dynamics in Retracted and Non-Retracted Author's Collaboration Networks: A Quantitative Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2024
Year: 2024

Retractions undermine the reliability of scientific literature and the foundation of future research. Analyzing collaboration networks in retracted papers can identify risk factors, such as recurring co-authors or institutions. This study compared the network structures of retracted and non-retracted papers, using data from Retraction Watch and Scopus for 30 authors with significant retractions. Collaboration networks were constructed, and network properties analyzed. Retracted networks showed hierarchical and centralized structures, while non-retracted networks exhibited distributed collaboration with stronger clustering and connectivity. Statistical tests, including $t$-tests and Cohen's $d$, revealed significant differences in metrics like Degree Centrality and Weighted Degree, highlighting distinct structural dynamics. These insights into retraction-prone collaborations can guide policies to improve research integrity.
Spatially Visual Perception for End-to-End Robotic Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Recent advances in imitation learning have shown significant promise for robotic control and embodied intelligence. However, achieving robust generalization across diverse mounted camera observations remains a critical challenge. In this paper, we introduce a video-based spatial perception framework that leverages 3D spatial representations to address environmental variability, with a focus on handling lighting changes. Our approach integrates a novel image augmentation technique, AugBlender, with a state-of-the-art monocular depth estimation model trained on internet-scale data. Together, these components form a cohesive system designed to enhance robustness and adaptability in dynamic scenarios. Our results demonstrate that our approach significantly boosts the success rate across diverse camera exposures, where previous models experience performance collapse. Our findings highlight the potential of video-based spatial perception models in advancing robustness for end-to-end robotic learning, paving the way for scalable, low-cost solutions in embodied intelligence.
Adversarial Bounding Boxes Generation (ABBG) Attack against Visual Object Trackers
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Adversarial perturbations aim to deceive neural networks into predicting inaccurate results. For visual object trackers, adversarial attacks have been developed to generate perturbations by manipulating the outputs. However, transformer trackers predict a specific bounding box instead of an object candidate list, which limits the applicability of many existing attack scenarios. To address this issue, we present a novel white-box approach to attack visual object trackers with transformer backbones using only one bounding box. From the tracker predicted bounding box, we generate a list of adversarial bounding boxes and compute the adversarial loss for those bounding boxes. Experimental results demonstrate that our simple yet effective attack outperforms existing attacks against several robust transformer trackers, including TransT-M, ROMTrack, and MixFormer, on popular benchmark tracking datasets such as GOT-10k, UAV123, and VOT2022STS.
What's in the Image? A Deep-Dive into the Vision of Vision Language Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Vision-Language Models (VLMs) have recently demonstrated remarkable capabilities in comprehending complex visual content. However, the mechanisms underlying how VLMs process visual information remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we conduct a thorough empirical analysis, focusing on attention modules across layers. We reveal several key insights about how these models process visual data: (i) the internal representation of the query tokens (e.g., representations of "describe the image"), is utilized by VLMs to store global image information; we demonstrate that these models generate surprisingly descriptive responses solely from these tokens, without direct access to image tokens. (ii) Cross-modal information flow is predominantly influenced by the middle layers (approximately 25% of all layers), while early and late layers contribute only marginally.(iii) Fine-grained visual attributes and object details are directly extracted from image tokens in a spatially localized manner, i.e., the generated tokens associated with a specific object or attribute attend strongly to their corresponding regions in the image. We propose novel quantitative evaluation to validate our observations, leveraging real-world complex visual scenes. Finally, we demonstrate the potential of our findings in facilitating efficient visual processing in state-of-the-art VLMs.
Simplification of Polyhedral Reductions in Practice
Venue: arXiv cs.PL 2024
Year: 2024

Reductions combine collections of inputs with an associative (and here, also commutative) operator to produce collections of outputs. When the same value contributes to multiple outputs, there is an opportunity to reuse partial results, enabling reduction simplification. We provide the first complete push-button implementation of reduction simplification in a compiler. We evaluate its effectiveness on a range of real-world applications, and show that simplification rediscovers several key results in algorithmic improvement across multiple domains, previously only obtained through clever manual human analysis and effort. We also discover alternate, previously unknown algorithms, albeit without improving the asymptotic complexity.
Time-Series Forecasting in Smart Manufacturing Systems: An Experimental Evaluation of the State-of-the-art Algorithms
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

TSF is growing in various domains including manufacturing. Although numerous TSF algorithms have been developed recently, the validation and evaluation of algorithms hold substantial value for researchers and practitioners and are missing. This study aims to fill this gap by evaluating the SoTA TSF algorithms on thirteen manufacturing datasets, focusing on their applicability in manufacturing. Each algorithm was selected based on its TSF category to ensure a representative set of algorithms. The evaluation includes different scenarios to evaluate the models using two problem categories and two forecasting horizons. To evaluate the performance, the WAPE was calculated, and additional post hoc analyses were conducted to assess the significance of observed differences. Only algorithms with codes from open-source libraries were utilized, and no hyperparameter tuning was done. This allowed us to evaluate the algorithms as "out-of-the-box" solutions that can be easily implemented, ensuring their usability within the manufacturing by practitioners with limited technical knowledge. This aligns to facilitate the adoption of these techniques in smart manufacturing systems. Based on the results, transformer and MLP-based architectures demonstrated the best performance with MLP-based architecture winning the most scenarios. For univariate TSF, PatchTST emerged as the most robust, particularly for long-term horizons, while for multivariate problems, MLP-based architectures like N-HITS and TiDE showed superior results. The study revealed that simpler algorithms like XGBoost could outperform complex algorithms in certain tasks. These findings challenge the assumption that more sophisticated models produce better results. Additionally, the research highlighted the importance of computational resource considerations, showing variations in runtime and memory usage across different algorithms.
Learning-Based On-Track System Identification for Scaled Autonomous Racing in Under a Minute
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

Accurate tire modeling is crucial for optimizing autonomous racing vehicles, as state-of-the-art (SotA) model-based techniques rely on precise knowledge of the vehicle's parameters. Yet, system identification in dynamic racing conditions is challenging due to varying track and tire conditions. Traditional methods require extensive operational ranges, often impractical in racing scenarios. Machine learning (ML)-based methods, while improving performance, struggle with generalization and depend on accurate initialization. This paper introduces a novel on-track system identification algorithm, incorporating a neural network (NN) for error correction, which is then employed for traditional system identification with virtually generated data. Crucially, the process is iteratively reapplied, with tire parameters updated at each cycle, leading to notable improvements in accuracy in tests on a scaled vehicle. Experiments show that it is possible to learn a tire model without prior knowledge with only 30 seconds of driving data and 3 seconds of training time. This method demonstrates greater one-step prediction accuracy than the baseline nonlinear least squares (NLS) method under noisy conditions, achieving a 3.3x lower root mean square error (RMSE), and yields tire models with comparable accuracy to traditional steady-state system identification. Furthermore, unlike steady-state methods requiring large spaces and specific experimental setups, the proposed approach identifies tire parameters directly on a race track in dynamic racing environments.
HSI-Drive v2.0: More Data for New Challenges in Scene Understanding for Autonomous Driving
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

We present the updated version of the HSI-Drive dataset aimed at developing automated driving systems (ADS) using hyperspectral imaging (HSI). The v2.0 version includes new annotated images from videos recorded during winter and fall in real driving scenarios. Added to the spring and summer images included in the previous v1.1 version, the new dataset contains 752 images covering the four seasons. In this paper, we show the improvements achieved over previously published results obtained on the v1.1 dataset, showcasing the enhanced performance of models trained on the new v2.0 dataset. We also show the progress made in comprehensive scene understanding by experimenting with more capable image segmentation models. These models include new segmentation categories aimed at the identification of essential road safety objects such as the presence of vehicles and road signs, as well as highly vulnerable groups like pedestrians and cyclists. In addition, we provide evidence of the performance and robustness of the models when applied to segmenting HSI video sequences captured in various environments and conditions. Finally, for a correct assessment of the results described in this work, the constraints imposed by the processing platforms that can sensibly be deployed in vehicles for ADS must be taken into account. Thus, and although implementation details are out of the scope of this paper, we focus our research on the development of computationally efficient, lightweight ML models that can eventually operate at high throughput rates. The dataset and some examples of segmented videos are available in https://ipaccess.ehu.eus/HSI-Drive/.
Metaverse Innovation Canvas: A Tool for Extended Reality Product/Service Development
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2024
Year: 2024

This study investigated the factors contributing to the failure of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) startups in the emerging metaverse landscape. Through an in-depth analysis of 29 failed AR/VR startups from 2016 to 2022, key pitfalls were identified, such as a lack of scalability, poor usability, unclear value propositions, and the failure to address specific user problems. Grounded in these findings, we developed the Metaverse Innovation Canvas (MIC) a tailored business ideation framework for XR products and services. The canvas guides founders to define user problems, articulate unique XR value propositions, evaluate usability factors such as the motion-based interaction load, consider social/virtual economy opportunities, and plan for long term scalability. Unlike generalized models, specialized blocks prompt the consideration of critical XR factors from the outset. The canvas was evaluated through expert testing with startup consultants on five failed venture cases. The results highlighted the tool's effectiveness in surfacing overlooked usability issues and technology constraints upfront, enhancing the viability of future metaverse startups.
Rapid Deployment of Domain-specific Hyperspectral Image Processors with Application to Autonomous Driving
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

The article discusses the use of low cost System-On-Module (SOM) platforms for the implementation of efficient hyperspectral imaging (HSI) processors for application in autonomous driving. The work addresses the challenges of shaping and deploying multiple layer fully convolutional networks (FCN) for low-latency, on-board image semantic segmentation using resource- and power-constrained processing devices. The paper describes in detail the steps followed to redesign and customize a successfully trained HSI segmentation lightweight FCN that was previously tested on a high-end heterogeneous multiprocessing system-on-chip (MPSoC) to accommodate it to the constraints imposed by a low-cost SOM. This SOM features a lower-end but much cheaper MPSoC suitable for the deployment of automatic driving systems (ADS). In particular the article reports the data- and hardware-specific quantization techniques utilized to fit the FCN into a commercial fixed-point programmable AI coprocessor IP, and proposes a full customized post-training quantization scheme to reduce computation and storage costs without compromising segmentation accuracy.