OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Smart Edition of MIDI Files
Venue: arXiv cs.SD 2019
Year: 2019

We address the issue of editing musical performance data, in particular MIDI files representing human musical performances. Editing such sequences raises specific issues due to the ambiguous nature of musical objects. The first source of ambiguity is that musicians naturally produce many deviations from the metrical frame. These deviations may be intentional or subconscious, but they play an important role in conveying the groove or feeling of a performance. Relations between musical elements are also usually implicit, creating even more ambiguity. A note is in relation with the surrounding notes in many possible ways: it can be part of a melodic pattern, it can also play a harmonic role with the simultaneous notes, or be a pedal-tone. All these aspects play an essential role that should be preserved, as much as possible, when editing musical sequences. In this paper, we contribute specifically to the problem of editing non-quantized, metrical musical sequences represented as MIDI files. We first list of number of problems caused by the use of naive edition operations applied to performance data, using a motivating example. We then introduce a model, called Dancing MIDI, based on 1) two desirable, well-defined properties for edit operations and 2) two well-defined operations, Split and Concat, with an implementation. We show that our model formally satisfies the two properties, and that it prevents most of the problems that occur with naive edit operations on our motivating example, as well as on a real-world example using an automatic harmonizer.
Column2Vec: Structural Understanding via Distributed Representations of Database Schemas
Venue: arXiv cs.DB 2019
Year: 2019

We present Column2Vec, a distributed representation of database columns based on column metadata. Our distributed representation has several applications. Using known names for groups of columns (i.e., a table name), we train a model to generate an appropriate name for columns in an unnamed table. We demonstrate the viability of our approach using schema information collected from open source applications on GitHub.
An Optimal Task Allocation Strategy for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2019
Year: 2019

For a team of heterogeneous robots executing multiple tasks, we propose a novel algorithm to optimally allocate tasks to robots while accounting for their different capabilities. Motivated by the need that robot teams have in many real-world applications of remaining operational for long periods of time, we allow each robot to choose tasks taking into account the energy consumed by executing them, besides the global specifications on the task allocation. The tasks are encoded as constraints in an energy minimization problem solved at each point in time by each robot. The prioritization of a task over others -- effectively signifying the allocation of the task to that particular robot -- occurs via the introduction of slack variables in the task constraints. Moreover, the suitabilities of certain robots towards certain tasks are also taken into account to generate a task allocation algorithm for a team of robots with heterogeneous capabilities. The efficacy of the developed approach is demonstrated both in simulation and on a team of real robots.
Combination of multiple Deep Learning architectures for Offensive Language Detection in Tweets
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2019
Year: 2019

This report contains the details regarding our submission to the OffensEval 2019 (SemEval 2019 - Task 6). The competition was based on the Offensive Language Identification Dataset. We first discuss the details of the classifier implemented and the type of input data used and pre-processing performed. We then move onto critically evaluating our performance. We have achieved a macro-average F1-score of 0.76, 0.68, 0.54, respectively for Task a, Task b, and Task c, which we believe reflects on the level of sophistication of the models implemented. Finally, we will be discussing the difficulties encountered and possible improvements for the future.
Using Ego-Clusters to Measure Network Effects at LinkedIn
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2019
Year: 2019

A network effect is said to take place when a new feature not only impacts the people who receive it, but also other users of the platform, like their connections or the people who follow them. This very common phenomenon violates the fundamental assumption underpinning nearly all enterprise experimentation systems, the stable unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA). When this assumption is broken, a typical experimentation platform, which relies on Bernoulli randomization for assignment and two-sample t-test for assessment of significance, will not only fail to account for the network effect, but potentially give highly biased results. This paper outlines a simple and scalable solution to measuring network effects, using ego-network randomization, where a cluster is comprised of an "ego" (a focal individual), and her "alters" (the individuals she is immediately connected to). Our approach aims at maintaining representativity of clusters, avoiding strong modeling assumption, and significantly increasing power compared to traditional cluster-based randomization. In particular, it does not require product-specific experiment design, or high levels of investment from engineering teams, and does not require any changes to experimentation and analysis platforms, as it only requires assigning treatment an individual level. Each user either has the feature or does not, and no complex manipulation of interactions between users is needed. It focuses on measuring the one-out network effect (i.e the effect of my immediate connection's treatment on me), and gives reasonable estimates at a very low setup cost, allowing us to run such experiments dozens of times a year.
A Unified Analytical Framework for Trustable Machine Learning and Automation Running with Blockchain
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

Traditional machine learning algorithms use data from databases that are mutable, and therefore the data cannot be fully trusted. Also, the machine learning process is difficult to automate. This paper proposes building a trustable machine learning system by using blockchain technology, which can store data in a permanent and immutable way. In addition, smart contracts are used to automate the machine learning process. This paper makes three contributions. First, it establishes a link between machine learning technology and blockchain technology. Previously, machine learning and blockchain have been considered two independent technologies without an obvious link. Second, it proposes a unified analytical framework for trustable machine learning by using blockchain technology. This unified framework solves both the trustability and automation issues in machine learning. Third, it enables a computer to translate core machine learning implementation from a single thread on a single machine to multiple threads on multiple machines running with blockchain by using a unified approach. The paper uses association rule mining as an example to demonstrate how trustable machine learning can be implemented with blockchain, and it shows how this approach can be used to analyze opioid prescriptions to help combat the opioid crisis.
Non-target Structural Displacement Measurement Using Reference Frame Based Deepflow
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2019
Year: 2019

Structural displacement is crucial for structural health monitoring, although it is very challenging to measure in field conditions. Most existing displacement measurement methods are costly, labor intensive, and insufficiently accurate for measuring small dynamic displacements. Computer vision (CV) based methods incorporate optical devices with advanced image processing algorithms to accurately, cost-effectively, and remotely measure structural displacement with easy installation. However, non-target based CV methods are still limited by insufficient feature points, incorrect feature point detection, occlusion, and drift induced by tracking error accumulation. This paper presents a reference frame based Deepflow algorithm integrated with masking and signal filtering for non-target based displacement measurements. The proposed method allows the user to select points of interest for images with a low gradient for displacement tracking and directly calculate displacement without drift accumulated by measurement error. The proposed method is experimentally validated on a cantilevered beam under ambient and occluded test conditions. The accuracy of the proposed method is compared with that of a reference laser displacement sensor for validation. The significant advantage of the proposed method is its flexibility in extracting structural displacement in any region on structures that do not have distinct natural features.
Learning Disentangled Representations of Satellite Image Time Series
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2019
Year: 2019

In this paper, we investigate how to learn a suitable representation of satellite image time series in an unsupervised manner by leveraging large amounts of unlabeled data. Additionally , we aim to disentangle the representation of time series into two representations: a shared representation that captures the common information between the images of a time series and an exclusive representation that contains the specific information of each image of the time series. To address these issues, we propose a model that combines a novel component called cross-domain autoencoders with the variational autoencoder (VAE) and generative ad-versarial network (GAN) methods. In order to learn disentangled representations of time series, our model learns the multimodal image-to-image translation task. We train our model using satellite image time series from the Sentinel-2 mission. Several experiments are carried out to evaluate the obtained representations. We show that these disentangled representations can be very useful to perform multiple tasks such as image classification, image retrieval, image segmentation and change detection.
Context-Constrained Accurate Contour Extraction for Occlusion Edge Detection
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2019
Year: 2019

Occlusion edge detection requires both accurate locations and context constraints of the contour. Existing CNN-based pipeline does not utilize adaptive methods to filter the noise introduced by low-level features. To address this dilemma, we propose a novel Context-constrained accurate Contour Extraction Network (CCENet). Spatial details are retained and contour-sensitive context is augmented through two extraction blocks, respectively. Then, an elaborately designed fusion module is available to integrate features, which plays a complementary role to restore details and remove clutter. Weight response of attention mechanism is eventually utilized to enhance occluded contours and suppress noise. The proposed CCENet significantly surpasses state-of-the-art methods on PIOD and BSDS ownership dataset of object edge detection and occlusion orientation detection.
Characterizing HCI Research in China: Streams, Methodologies and Future Directions
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2019
Year: 2019

This position paper takes the first step to attempt to present the initial characterization of HCI research in China. We discuss the current streams and methodologies of Chinese HCI research based on two well-known HCI theories: Micro/Marco-HCI and the Three Paradigms of HCI. We evaluate the discussion with a survey of Chinese publications at CHI 2019, which shows HCI research in China has less attention to Macro-HCI topics and the third paradigms of HCI (Phenomenologically situated Interaction). We then propose future HCI research directions such as paying more attention to Macro-HCI topics and third paradigm of HCI, combining research methodologies from multiple HCI paradigms, including emergent users who have less access to technology, and addressing the cultural dimensions in order to provide better technical solutions and support.
Dynamic Power Management for Neuromorphic Many-Core Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2019
Year: 2019

This work presents a dynamic power management architecture for neuromorphic many core systems such as SpiNNaker. A fast dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) technique is presented which allows the processing elements (PE) to change their supply voltage and clock frequency individually and autonomously within less than 100 ns. This is employed by the neuromorphic simulation software flow, which defines the performance level (PL) of the PE based on the actual workload within each simulation cycle. A test chip in 28 nm SLP CMOS technology has been implemented. It includes 4 PEs which can be scaled from 0.7 V to 1.0 V with frequencies from 125 MHz to 500 MHz at three distinct PLs. By measurement of three neuromorphic benchmarks it is shown that the total PE power consumption can be reduced by 75%, with 80% baseline power reduction and a 50% reduction of energy per neuron and synapse computation, all while maintaining temporary peak system performance to achieve biological real-time operation of the system. A numerical model of this power management model is derived which allows DVFS architecture exploration for neuromorphics. The proposed technique is to be used for the second generation SpiNNaker neuromorphic many core system.
Learning Multi-Level Information for Dialogue Response Selection by Highway Recurrent Transformer
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2019
Year: 2019

With the increasing research interest in dialogue response generation, there is an emerging branch formulating this task as selecting next sentences, where given the partial dialogue contexts, the goal is to determine the most probable next sentence. Following the recent success of the Transformer model, this paper proposes (1) a new variant of attention mechanism based on multi-head attention, called highway attention, and (2) a recurrent model based on transformer and the proposed highway attention, so-called Highway Recurrent Transformer. Experiments on the response selection task in the seventh Dialog System Technology Challenge (DSTC7) show the capability of the proposed model of modeling both utterance-level and dialogue-level information; the effectiveness of each module is further analyzed as well.
SemEval-2019 Task 6: Identifying and Categorizing Offensive Language in Social Media (OffensEval)
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2019
Year: 2019

We present the results and the main findings of SemEval-2019 Task 6 on Identifying and Categorizing Offensive Language in Social Media (OffensEval). The task was based on a new dataset, the Offensive Language Identification Dataset (OLID), which contains over 14,000 English tweets. It featured three sub-tasks. In sub-task A, the goal was to discriminate between offensive and non-offensive posts. In sub-task B, the focus was on the type of offensive content in the post. Finally, in sub-task C, systems had to detect the target of the offensive posts. OffensEval attracted a large number of participants and it was one of the most popular tasks in SemEval-2019. In total, about 800 teams signed up to participate in the task, and 115 of them submitted results, which we present and analyze in this report.
Utilizing Mobile Nodes for Congestion Control in Wireless Sensor Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2019
Year: 2019

Congestion control and avoidance in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is a subject that has attracted a lot of research attention in the last decade. Besides rate and resource control, the utilization of mobile nodes has also been suggested as a way to control congestion. In this work, we present a Mobile Congestion Control (MobileCC) algorithm with two variations, to assist existing congestion control algorithms in facing congestion in WSNs. The first variation employs mobile nodes that create locally-significant alternative paths leading to the sink. The second variation employs mobile nodes that create completely individual (disjoint) paths to the sink. Simulation results show that both variations can significantly contribute to the alleviation of congestion in WSNs.
Localization of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Corridor Environments using Deep Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2019
Year: 2019

Vision-based pose estimation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in unknown environments is a rapidly growing research area in the field of robot vision. The task becomes more complex when the only available sensor is a static single camera (monocular vision). In this regard, we propose a monocular vision assisted localization algorithm, that will help a UAV to navigate safely in indoor corridor environments. Always, the aim is to navigate the UAV through a corridor in the forward direction by keeping it at the center with no orientation either to the left or right side. The algorithm makes use of the RGB image, captured from the UAV front camera, and passes it through a trained deep neural network (DNN) to predict the position of the UAV as either on the left or center or right side of the corridor. Depending upon the divergence of the UAV with respect to the central bisector line (CBL) of the corridor, a suitable command is generated to bring the UAV to the center. When the UAV is at the center of the corridor, a new image is passed through another trained DNN to predict the orientation of the UAV with respect to the CBL of the corridor. If the UAV is either left or right tilted, an appropriate command is generated to rectify the orientation. We also propose a new corridor dataset, named NITRCorrV1, which contains images as captured by the UAV front camera when the UAV is at all possible locations of a variety of corridors. An exhaustive set of experiments in different corridors reveal the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.
Exploiting Promising Sub-Sequences of Jobs to solve the No-Wait Flowshop Scheduling Problem
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2019
Year: 2019

The no-wait flowshop scheduling problem is a variant of the classical permutation flowshop problem, with the additional constraint that jobs have to be processed by the successive machines without waiting time. To efficiently address this NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem we conduct an analysis of the structure of good quality solutions. This analysis shows that the No-Wait specificity gives them a common structure: they share identical sub-sequences of jobs, we call super-jobs. After a discussion on the way to identify these super-jobs, we propose IG-SJ, an algorithm that exploits super-jobs within the state-of-the-art algorithm for the classical permutation flowshop, the well-known Iterated Greedy (IG) algorithm. An iterative approach of IG-SJ is also proposed. Experiments are conducted on Taillard's instances. The experimental results show that exploiting super-jobs is successful since IG-SJ is able to find 64 new best solutions.
Megapixel Photon-Counting Color Imaging using Quanta Image Sensor
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2019
Year: 2019

Quanta Image Sensor (QIS) is a single-photon detector designed for extremely low light imaging conditions. Majority of the existing QIS prototypes are monochrome based on single-photon avalanche diodes (SPAD). Passive color imaging has not been demonstrated with single-photon detectors due to the intrinsic difficulty of shrinking the pixel size and increasing the spatial resolution while maintaining acceptable intra-pixel cross-talk. In this paper, we present image reconstruction of the first color QIS with a resolution of $1024 \times 1024$ pixels, supporting both single-bit and multi-bit photon counting capability. Our color image reconstruction is enabled by a customized joint demosaicing-denoising algorithm, leveraging truncated Poisson statistics and variance stabilizing transforms. Experimental results of the new sensor and algorithm demonstrate superior color imaging performance for very low-light conditions with a mean exposure of as low as a few photons per pixel in both real and simulated images.
Profile-Based Privacy for Locally Private Computations
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2019
Year: 2019

Differential privacy has emerged as a gold standard in privacy-preserving data analysis. A popular variant is local differential privacy, where the data holder is the trusted curator. A major barrier, however, towards a wider adoption of this model is that it offers a poor privacy-utility tradeoff. In this work, we address this problem by introducing a new variant of local privacy called profile-based privacy. The central idea is that the problem setting comes with a graph G of data generating distributions, whose edges encode sensitive pairs of distributions that should be made indistinguishable. This provides higher utility because unlike local differential privacy, we no longer need to make every pair of private values in the domain indistinguishable, and instead only protect the identity of the underlying distribution. We establish privacy properties of the profile-based privacy definition, such as post-processing invariance and graceful composition. Finally, we provide mechanisms that are private in this framework, and show via simulations that they achieve higher utility than the corresponding local differential privacy mechanisms.
Distributed Transactional Systems Cannot Be Fast
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2019
Year: 2019

We prove that no fully transactional system can provide fast read transactions (including read-only ones that are considered the most frequent in practice). Specifically, to achieve fast read transactions, the system has to give up support of transactions that write more than one object. We prove this impossibility result for distributed storage systems that are causally consistent, i.e., they do not require to ensure any strong form of consistency. Therefore, our result holds also for any system that ensures a consistency level stronger than causal consistency, e.g., strict serializability. The impossibility result holds even for systems that store only two objects (and support at least two servers and at least four clients). It also holds for systems that are partially replicated. Our result justifies the design choices of state-of-the-art distributed transactional systems and insists that system designers should not put more effort to design fully-functional systems that support both fast read transactions and ensure causal or any stronger form of consistency.
Towards automatic construction of multi-network models for heterogeneous multi-task learning
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

Multi-task learning, as it is understood nowadays, consists of using one single model to carry out several similar tasks. From classifying hand-written characters of different alphabets to figuring out how to play several Atari games using reinforcement learning, multi-task models have been able to widen their performance range across different tasks, although these tasks are usually of a similar nature. In this work, we attempt to widen this range even further, by including heterogeneous tasks in a single learning procedure. To do so, we firstly formally define a multi-network model, identifying the necessary components and characteristics to allow different adaptations of said model depending on the tasks it is required to fulfill. Secondly, employing the formal definition as a starting point, we develop an illustrative model example consisting of three different tasks (classification, regression and data sampling). The performance of this model implementation is then analyzed, showing its capabilities. Motivated by the results of the analysis, we enumerate a set of open challenges and future research lines over which the full potential of the proposed model definition can be exploited.