OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Speeding Up the Bilateral Filter: A Joint Acceleration Way
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Computational complexity of the brute-force implementation of the bilateral filter (BF) depends on its filter kernel size. To achieve the constant-time BF whose complexity is irrelevant to the kernel size, many techniques have been proposed, such as 2D box filtering, dimension promotion, and shiftability property. Although each of the above techniques suffers from accuracy and efficiency problems, previous algorithm designers were used to take only one of them to assemble fast implementations due to the hardness of combining them together. Hence, no joint exploitation of these techniques has been proposed to construct a new cutting edge implementation that solves these problems. Jointly employing five techniques: kernel truncation, best N -term approximation as well as previous 2D box filtering, dimension promotion, and shiftability property, we propose a unified framework to transform BF with arbitrary spatial and range kernels into a set of 3D box filters that can be computed in linear time. To the best of our knowledge, our algorithm is the first method that can integrate all these acceleration techniques and, therefore, can draw upon one another's strong point to overcome deficiencies. The strength of our method has been corroborated by several carefully designed experiments. In particular, the filtering accuracy is significantly improved without sacrificing the efficiency at running time.
A Retinal Image Enhancement Technique for Blood Vessel Segmentation Algorithm
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

The morphology of blood vessels in retinal fundus images is an important indicator of diseases like glaucoma, hypertension and diabetic retinopathy. The accuracy of retinal blood vessels segmentation affects the quality of retinal image analysis which is used in diagnosis methods in modern ophthalmology. Contrast enhancement is one of the crucial steps in any of retinal blood vessel segmentation approaches. The reliability of the segmentation depends on the consistency of the contrast over the image. This paper presents an assessment of the suitability of a recently invented spatially adaptive contrast enhancement technique for enhancing retinal fundus images for blood vessel segmentation. The enhancement technique was integrated with a variant of Tyler Coye algorithm, which has been improved with Hough line transformation based vessel reconstruction method. The proposed approach was evaluated on two public datasets STARE and DRIVE. The assessment was done by comparing the segmentation performance with five widely used contrast enhancement techniques based on wavelet transform, contrast limited histogram equalization, local normalization, linear un-sharp masking and contourlet transform. The results revealed that the assessed enhancement technique is well suited for the application and also outperforms all compared techniques.
Hamiltonian cycles in hypercubes with faulty edges
Venue: arXiv cs.DM 2018
Year: 2018

Szepietowski [A. Szepietowski, Hamiltonian cycles in hypercubes with $2n-4$ faulty edges, Information Sciences, 215 (2012) 75--82] observed that the hypercube $Q_n$ is not Hamiltonian if it contains a trap disconnected halfway. A proper subgraph $T$ is disconnected halfway if at least half of its nodes have parity 0 (or 1, resp.) and the edges joining all nodes of parity 0 (or 1, resp.) in $T$ with nodes outside $T$, are faulty. The simplest examples of such traps are: (1) a vertex with $n-1$ incident faulty edges, or (2) a cycle $(u,v,w,x)$, where all edges going out of the cycle from $u$ and $w$ are faulty. In this paper we describe all traps disconnected halfway $T$ with the size $|T|\le8$, and discuss the problem whether there exist small sets of faulty edges which preclude Hamiltonian cycles and are not based on sets disconnected halfway. We describe heuristic which detects sets of faulty edges which preclude HC also those sets that are not based on subgraphs disconnected halfway. We describe all $Q_4$ cubes that are not Hamiltonian, and all $Q_5$ cubes with 8 or 9 faulty edges that are not Hamiltonian.
A Generic Top-N Recommendation Framework For Trading-off Accuracy, Novelty, and Coverage
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2018
Year: 2018

Standard collaborative filtering approaches for top-N recommendation are biased toward popular items. As a result, they recommend items that users are likely aware of and under-represent long-tail items. This is inadequate, both for consumers who prefer novel items and because concentrating on popular items poorly covers the item space, whereas high item space coverage increases providers' revenue. We present an approach that relies on historical rating data to learn user long-tail novelty preferences. We integrate these preferences into a generic re-ranking framework that customizes balance between accuracy and coverage. We empirically validate that our proposedframework increases the novelty of recommendations. Furthermore, by promoting long-tail items to the right group of users, we significantly increase the system's coverage while scalably maintaining accuracy. Our framework also enables personalization of existing non-personalized algorithms, making them competitive with existing personalized algorithms in key performance metrics, including accuracy and coverage.
Collaborative Metric Learning Recommendation System: Application to Theatrical Movie Releases
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2018
Year: 2018

Product recommendation systems are important for major movie studios during the movie greenlight process and as part of machine learning personalization pipelines. Collaborative Filtering (CF) models have proved to be effective at powering recommender systems for online streaming services with explicit customer feedback data. CF models do not perform well in scenarios in which feedback data is not available, in cold start situations like new product launches, and situations with markedly different customer tiers (e.g., high frequency customers vs. casual customers). Generative natural language models that create useful theme-based representations of an underlying corpus of documents can be used to represent new product descriptions, like new movie plots. When combined with CF, they have shown to increase the performance in cold start situations. Outside of those cases though in which explicit customer feedback is available, recommender engines must rely on binary purchase data, which materially degrades performance. Fortunately, purchase data can be combined with product descriptions to generate meaningful representations of products and customer trajectories in a convenient product space in which proximity represents similarity. Learning to measure the distance between points in this space can be accomplished with a deep neural network that trains on customer histories and on dense vectorizations of product descriptions. We developed a system based on Collaborative (Deep) Metric Learning (CML) to predict the purchase probabilities of new theatrical releases. We trained and evaluated the model using a large dataset of customer histories, and tested the model for a set of movies that were released outside of the training window. Initial experiments show gains relative to models that do not train on collaborative preferences.
Evolutionary Games for Correlation-Aware Clustering in Massive Machine-to-Machine Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.GT 2018
Year: 2018

In this paper, the problem of self-organizing, correlation-aware clustering is studied for a dense network of machine-type devices (MTDs) deployed over a cellular network. In dense machine-to-machine networks, MTDs are typically located within close proximity and will gather correlated data, and, thus, clustering MTDs based on data correlation will lead to a decrease in the number of redundant bits transmitted to the base station. To analyze this clustering problem, a novel utility function that captures the average MTD transmission power per cluster is derived, as a function of the MTD location, cluster size, and inter-cluster interference. Then, the clustering problem is formulated as an evolutionary game, which models the interactions among the massive number of MTDs, in order to decrease MTD transmission power. To solve this game, a distributed algorithm is proposed to allow the infinite number of MTDs to autonomously form clusters. It is shown that the proposed distributed algorithm converges to an evolutionary stable strategy (ESS), that is robust to a small portion of MTDs deviating from the stable cluster formation at convergence. The maximum fraction of MTDs that can deviate from the ESS, while still maintaining a stable cluster formation is derived. Simulation results show that the proposed approach can effectively cluster MTDs with highly correlated data, which, in turn, enables those MTDs to eliminate a large number of redundant bits. The results show that, on average, using the proposed approach yields reductions of up to 23.4% and 9.6% in terms of the transmit power per cluster, compared to forming clusters with the maximum possible size and uniformly selecting a cluster size, respectively.
Dišimo: Anchoring Our Breath
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2018
Year: 2018

We present a system that raises awareness about users' inner state. Dišimo is a multimodal ambient display that provides feedback about one's stress level, which is assessed through heart rate monitoring. Upon detecting a low heart rate variability for a prolonged period of time, Dišimo plays an audio track, setting the pace of a regular and deep breathing. Users can then choose to take a moment to focus on their breath. By doing so, they will activate the Dišimo devices belonging to their close ones, who can then join for a shared relaxation session.
Classifying flows and buffer state for YouTube's HTTP adaptive streaming service in mobile networks
Venue: arXiv cs.MM 2018
Year: 2018

Accurate cross-layer information is very useful to optimize mobile networks for specific applications. However, providing application-layer information to lower protocol layers has become very difficult due to the wide adoption of end-to-end encryption and due to the absence of cross-layer signaling standards. As an alternative, this paper presents a traffic profiling solution to passively estimate parameters of HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) applications at the lower layers. By observing IP packet arrivals, our machine learning system identifies video flows and detects the state of an HAS client's play-back buffer in real time. Our experiments with YouTube's mobile client show that Random Forests achieve very high accuracy even with a strong variation of link quality. Since this high performance is achieved at IP level with a small, generic feature set, our approach requires no Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), comes at low complexity, and does not interfere with end-to-end encryption. Traffic profiling is, thus, a powerful new tool for monitoring and managing even encrypted HAS traffic in mobile networks.
Minimax rates for cost-sensitive learning on manifolds with approximate nearest neighbours
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2018
Year: 2018

We study the approximate nearest neighbour method for cost-sensitive classification on low-dimensional manifolds embedded within a high-dimensional feature space. We determine the minimax learning rates for distributions on a smooth manifold, in a cost-sensitive setting. This generalises a classic result of Audibert and Tsybakov. Building upon recent work of Chaudhuri and Dasgupta we prove that these minimax rates are attained by the approximate nearest neighbour algorithm, where neighbours are computed in a randomly projected low-dimensional space. In addition, we give a bound on the number of dimensions required for the projection which depends solely upon the reach and dimension of the manifold, combined with the regularity of the marginal.
Dexterous Manipulation Graphs
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2018
Year: 2018

We propose the Dexterous Manipulation Graph as a tool to address in-hand manipulation and reposition an object inside a robot's end-effector. This graph is used to plan a sequence of manipulation primitives so to bring the object to the desired end pose. This sequence of primitives is translated into motions of the robot to move the object held by the end-effector. We use a dual arm robot with parallel grippers to test our method on a real system and show successful planning and execution of in-hand manipulation.
Context-Aware Learning using Transferable Features for Classification of Breast Cancer Histology Images
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been recently used for a variety of histology image analysis. However, availability of a large dataset is a major prerequisite for training a CNN which limits its use by the computational pathology community. In previous studies, CNNs have demonstrated their potential in terms of feature generalizability and transferability accompanied with better performance. Considering these traits of CNN, we propose a simple yet effective method which leverages the strengths of CNN combined with the advantages of including contextual information, particularly designed for a small dataset. Our method consists of two main steps: first it uses the activation features of CNN trained for a patch-based classification and then it trains a separate classifier using features of overlapping patches to perform image-based classification using the contextual information. The proposed framework outperformed the state-of-the-art method for breast cancer classification.
Satellite imagery analysis for operational damage assessment in Emergency situations
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

When major disaster occurs the questions are raised how to estimate the damage in time to support the decision making process and relief efforts by local authorities or humanitarian teams. In this paper we consider the use of Machine Learning and Computer Vision on remote sensing imagery to improve time efficiency of assessment of damaged buildings in disaster affected area. We propose a general workflow that can be useful in various disaster management applications, and demonstrate the use of the proposed workflow for the assessment of the damage caused by the wildfires in California in 2017.
Robust positioning of drones for land use monitoring in strong terrain relief using vision-based navigation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

For land use monitoring, the main problems are robust positioning in urban canyons and strong terrain reliefs with the use of GPS system only. Indeed, satellite signal reflection and shielding in urban canyons and strong terrain relief results in problems with correct positioning. Using GNSS-RTK does not solve the problem completely because in some complex situations the whole satellite's system works incorrectly. We transform the weakness (urban canyons and strong terrain relief) to an advantage. It is a vision-based navigation using a map of the terrain relief. We investigate and demonstrate the effectiveness of this technology in Chinese region Xiaoshan. The accuracy of the vision-based navigation system corresponds to the expected for these conditions. . It was concluded that the maximum position error based on vision-based navigation is 20 m and the maximum angle Euler error based on vision-based navigation is 0.83 degree. In case of camera movement, the maximum position error based on vision-based navigation is 30m and the maximum Euler angle error based on vision-based navigation is 2.2 degrees.
Calcium Removal From Cardiac CT Images Using Deep Convolutional Neural Network
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Coronary calcium causes beam hardening and blooming artifacts on cardiac computed tomography angiography (CTA) images, which lead to overestimation of lumen stenosis and reduction of diagnostic specificity. To properly remove coronary calcification and restore arterial lumen precisely, we propose a machine learning-based method with a multi-step inpainting process. We developed a new network configuration, Dense-Unet, to achieve optimal performance with low computational cost. Results after the calcium removal process were validated by comparing with gold-standard X-ray angiography. Our results demonstrated that removing coronary calcification from images with the proposed approach was feasible, and may potentially improve the diagnostic accuracy of CTA.
A general formal memory framework in Coq for verifying the properties of programs based on higher-order logic theorem proving with increased automation, consistency, and reusability
Venue: arXiv cs.PL 2018
Year: 2018

In recent years, a number of lightweight programs have been deployed in critical domains, such as in smart contracts based on blockchain technology. Therefore, the security and reliability of such programs should be guaranteed by the most credible technology. Higher-order logic theorem proving is one of the most reliable technologies for verifying the properties of programs. However, programs may be developed by different high-level programming languages, and a general, extensible, and reusable formal memory (GERM) framework that can simultaneously support different formal verification specifications, particularly at the code level, is presently unavailable for verifying the properties of programs. Therefore, the present work proposes a GERM framework to fill this gap. The framework simulates physical memory hardware structure, including a low-level formal memory space, and provides a set of simple, nonintrusive application programming interfaces and assistant tools using Coq that can support different formal verification specifications simultaneously. The proposed GERM framework is independent and customizable, and was verified entirely in Coq. We also present an extension of Curry-Howard isomorphism, denoted as execution-verification isomorphism (EVI), which combines symbolic execution and theorem proving for increasing the degree of automation in higher-order logic theorem proving assistant tools. We also implement a toy functional programming language in a generalized algebraic datatypes style and a formal interpreter in Coq based on the GERM framework. These implementations are then employed to demonstrate the application of EVI to a simple code segment.
Yedrouj-Net: An efficient CNN for spatial steganalysis
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

For about 10 years, detecting the presence of a secret message hidden in an image was performed with an Ensemble Classifier trained with Rich features. In recent years, studies such as Xu et al. have indicated that well-designed convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) can achieve comparable performance to the two-step machine learning approaches. In this paper, we propose a CNN that outperforms the state-ofthe-art in terms of error probability. The proposition is in the continuity of what has been recently proposed and it is a clever fusion of important bricks used in various papers. Among the essential parts of the CNN, one can cite the use of a pre-processing filterbank and a Truncation activation function, five convolutional layers with a Batch Normalization associated with a Scale Layer, as well as the use of a sufficiently sized fully connected section. An augmented database has also been used to improve the training of the CNN. Our CNN was experimentally evaluated against S-UNIWARD and WOW embedding algorithms and its performances were compared with those of three other methods: an Ensemble Classifier plus a Rich Model, and two other CNN steganalyzers.
A theory of sequence indexing and working memory in recurrent neural networks
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2018
Year: 2018

To accommodate structured approaches of neural computation, we propose a class of recurrent neural networks for indexing and storing sequences of symbols or analog data vectors. These networks with randomized input weights and orthogonal recurrent weights implement coding principles previously described in vector symbolic architectures (VSA), and leverage properties of reservoir computing. In general, the storage in reservoir computing is lossy and crosstalk noise limits the retrieval accuracy and information capacity. A novel theory to optimize memory performance in such networks is presented and compared with simulation experiments. The theory describes linear readout of analog data, and readout with winner-take-all error correction of symbolic data as proposed in VSA models. We find that diverse VSA models from the literature have universal performance properties, which are superior to what previous analyses predicted. Further, we propose novel VSA models with the statistically optimal Wiener filter in the readout that exhibit much higher information capacity, in particular for storing analog data. The presented theory also applies to memory buffers, networks with gradual forgetting, which can operate on infinite data streams without memory overflow. Interestingly, we find that different forgetting mechanisms, such as attenuating recurrent weights or neural nonlinearities, produce very similar behavior if the forgetting time constants are aligned. Such models exhibit extensive capacity when their forgetting time constant is optimized for given noise conditions and network size. These results enable the design of new types of VSA models for the online processing of data streams.
Constrained Neural Style Transfer for Decorated Logo Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Making decorated logos requires image editing skills, without sufficient skills, it could be a time-consuming task. While there are many on-line web services to make new logos, they have limited designs and duplicates can be made. We propose using neural style transfer with clip art and text for the creation of new and genuine logos. We introduce a new loss function based on distance transform of the input image, which allows the preservation of the silhouettes of text and objects. The proposed method constrains style transfer only around the designated area. We demonstrate the characteristics of proposed method. Finally, we show the results of logo generation with various input images.
Spectral Presheaves, Kochen-Specker Contextuality, and Quantale-Valued Relations
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2018
Year: 2018

In the topos approach to quantum theory of Doering and Isham the Kochen-Specker Theorem, which asserts the contextual nature of quantum theory, can be reformulated in terms of the global sections of a presheaf characterised by the Gelfand spectrum of a commutative C*-algebra. In previous work we showed how this topos perspective can be generalised to a class of categories typically studied within the monoidal approach to quantum theory of Abramsky and Coecke, and in particular how one can generalise the Gelfand spectrum. Here we study the Gelfand spectrum presheaf for categories of quantale-valued relations, and by considering its global sections we give a non-contextuality result for these categories. We also show that the Gelfand spectrum comes equipped with a topology which has a natural interpretation when thinking of these structures as representing physical theories.
RankDCG: Rank-Ordering Evaluation Measure
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2018
Year: 2018

Ranking is used for a wide array of problems, most notably information retrieval (search). There are a number of popular approaches to the evaluation of ranking such as Kendall's $τ$, Average Precision, and nDCG. When dealing with problems such as user ranking or recommendation systems, all these measures suffer from various problems, including an inability to deal with elements of the same rank, inconsistent and ambiguous lower bound scores, and an inappropriate cost function. We propose a new measure, rankDCG, that addresses these problems. This is a modification of the popular nDCG algorithm. We provide a number of criteria for any effective ranking algorithm and show that only rankDCG satisfies all of them. Results are presented on constructed and real data sets. We release a publicly available rankDCG evaluation package.