OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
A review on Machine Learning based User-Centric Multimedia Streaming Techniques
Venue: arXiv cs.MM 2024
Year: 2024

The multimedia content and streaming are a major means of information exchange in the modern era and there is an increasing demand for such services. This coupled with the advancement of future wireless networks B5G/6G and the proliferation of intelligent handheld mobile devices, has facilitated the availability of multimedia content to heterogeneous mobile users. Apart from the conventional video, the 360$^o$ videos have gained popularity with the emerging virtual reality applications. All formats of videos (conventional and 360$^o$) undergo processing, compression, and transmission across dynamic wireless channels with restricted bandwidth to facilitate the streaming services. This causes video impairments, leading to quality degradation and poses challenges in delivering good Quality-of-Experience (QoE) to the viewers. The QoE is a prominent subjective quality measure to assess multimedia services. This requires end-to-end QoE evaluation. Efficient multimedia streaming techniques can improve the service quality while dealing with dynamic network and end-user challenges. A paradigm shift in user-centric multimedia services is envisioned with a focus on Machine Learning (ML) based QoE modeling and streaming strategies. This survey paper presents a comprehensive overview of the overall and continuous, time varying QoE modeling for the purpose of QoE management in multimedia services. It also examines the recent research on intelligent and adaptive multimedia streaming strategies, with a special emphasis on ML based techniques for video (conventional and 360$^o$) streaming. This paper discusses the overall and continuous QoE modeling to optimize the end-user viewing experience, efficient video streaming with a focus on user-centric strategies, associated datasets for modeling and streaming, along with existing shortcoming and open challenges.
LoRA-Mini : Adaptation Matrices Decomposition and Selective Training
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

The rapid advancements in large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized natural language processing, creating an increased need for efficient, task-specific fine-tuning methods. Traditional fine-tuning of LLMs involves updating a large number of parameters, which is computationally expensive and memory-intensive. Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) has emerged as a promising solution, enabling parameter-efficient fine-tuning by reducing the number of trainable parameters. However, while LoRA reduces the number of trainable parameters, LoRA modules still create significant storage challenges. We propose LoRA-Mini, an optimized adaptation of LoRA that improves parameter efficiency by splitting low-rank matrices into four parts, with only the two inner matrices being trainable. This approach achieves upto a 20x reduction compared to standard LoRA in the number of trainable parameters while preserving performance levels comparable to standard LoRA, addressing both computational and storage efficiency in LLM fine-tuning.
Properties of the Shannon, Rényi and other entropies: dependence in parameters, robustness in distributions and extremes
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2024
Year: 2024

We calculate and analyze various entropy measures and their properties for selected probability distributions. The entropies considered include Shannon, Rényi, generalized Rényi, Tsallis, Sharma-Mittal, and modified Shannon entropy, along with the Kullback-Leibler divergence. These measures are examined for several distributions, including gamma, chi-squared, exponential, Laplace, and log-normal distributions. We investigate the dependence of the entropy on the parameters of the respective distribution. We also study the convergence of Shannon entropy for certain probability distributions. Furthermore, we identify the extreme values of Shannon entropy for Gaussian vectors.
Streaming SQL Multi-Way Join Method for Long State Streams
Venue: arXiv cs.DB 2024
Year: 2024

Streaming computing effectively manages large-scale streaming data in real-time, making it ideal for applications such as real-time recommendations, anomaly detection, and monitoring, all of which require immediate processing. In this context, the multi-way stream join operator is crucial, as it combines multiple data streams into a single operator, providing deeper insights through the integration of information from various sources. However, challenges related to memory limitations can arise when processing long state-based data streams, particularly in the area of streaming SQL. In this paper, we propose a streaming SQL multi-way stream join method that utilizes the LSM-Tree to address this issue. We first introduce a multi-way stream join operator called UMJoin, which employs an LSM-Tree state backend to leverage disk storage, thereby increasing the capacity for storing multi-way stream states beyond what memory can accommodate. Subsequently, we develop a method for converting execution plans, referred to as TSC, specifically for the UMJoin operator. This method identifies binary join tree patterns and generates corresponding multi-way stream join nodes, enabling us to transform execution plans based on binary joins into those that incorporate UMJoin nodes. This transformation facilitates the application of the UMJoin operator in streaming SQL. Experiments with the TPC-DS dataset demonstrate that the UMJoin operator can effectively process long state-based data streams, even with limited memory. Furthermore, tests on execution plan conversion for multi-way stream join queries using the TPC-H benchmark confirm the effectiveness of the TSC method in executing these conversions.
Modality Alignment Meets Federated Broadcasting
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Federated learning (FL) has emerged as a powerful approach to safeguard data privacy by training models across distributed edge devices without centralizing local data. Despite advancements in homogeneous data scenarios, maintaining performance between the global and local clients in FL over heterogeneous data remains challenging due to data distribution variations that degrade model convergence and increase computational costs. This paper introduces a novel FL framework leveraging modality alignment, where a text encoder resides on the server, and image encoders operate on local devices. Inspired by multi-modal learning paradigms like CLIP, this design aligns cross-client learning by treating server-client communications akin to multi-modal broadcasting. We initialize with a pre-trained model to mitigate overfitting, updating select parameters through low-rank adaptation (LoRA) to meet computational demand and performance efficiency. Local models train independently and communicate updates to the server, which aggregates parameters via a query-based method, facilitating cross-client knowledge sharing and performance improvement under extreme heterogeneity. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate the efficacy in maintaining generalization and robustness, even in highly heterogeneous settings.
ResCLIP: Residual Attention for Training-free Dense Vision-language Inference
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

While vision-language models like CLIP have shown remarkable success in open-vocabulary tasks, their application is currently confined to image-level tasks, and they still struggle with dense predictions. Recent works often attribute such deficiency in dense predictions to the self-attention layers in the final block, and have achieved commendable results by modifying the original query-key attention to self-correlation attention, (e.g., query-query and key-key attention). However, these methods overlook the cross-correlation attention (query-key) properties, which capture the rich spatial correspondence. In this paper, we reveal that the cross-correlation of the self-attention in CLIP's non-final layers also exhibits localization properties. Therefore, we propose the Residual Cross-correlation Self-attention (RCS) module, which leverages the cross-correlation self-attention from intermediate layers to remold the attention in the final block. The RCS module effectively reorganizes spatial information, unleashing the localization potential within CLIP for dense vision-language inference. Furthermore, to enhance the focus on regions of the same categories and local consistency, we propose the Semantic Feedback Refinement (SFR) module, which utilizes semantic segmentation maps to further adjust the attention scores. By integrating these two strategies, our method, termed ResCLIP, can be easily incorporated into existing approaches as a plug-and-play module, significantly boosting their performance in dense vision-language inference. Extensive experiments across multiple standard benchmarks demonstrate that our method surpasses state-of-the-art training-free methods, validating the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Code is available at https://github.com/yvhangyang/ResCLIP.
Generalizable Single-view Object Pose Estimation by Two-side Generating and Matching
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

In this paper, we present a novel generalizable object pose estimation method to determine the object pose using only one RGB image. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on instance-level object pose estimation and necessitate extensive training data, our method offers generalization to unseen objects without extensive training, operates with a single reference image of the object, and eliminates the need for 3D object models or multiple views of the object. These characteristics are achieved by utilizing a diffusion model to generate novel-view images and conducting a two-sided matching on these generated images. Quantitative experiments demonstrate the superiority of our method over existing pose estimation techniques across both synthetic and real-world datasets. Remarkably, our approach maintains strong performance even in scenarios with significant viewpoint changes, highlighting its robustness and versatility in challenging conditions. The code will be re leased at https://github.com/scy639/Gen2SM.
Pathways to Tractability for Geometric Thickness
Venue: arXiv cs.CC 2024
Year: 2024

We study the classical problem of computing geometric thickness, i.e., finding a straight-line drawing of an input graph and a partition of its edges into as few parts as possible so that each part is crossing-free. Since the problem is NP-hard, we investigate its tractability through the lens of parameterized complexity. As our first set of contributions, we provide two fixed-parameter algorithms which utilize well-studied parameters of the input graph, notably the vertex cover and feedback edge numbers. Since parameterizing by the thickness itself does not yield tractability and the use of other structural parameters remains open due to general challenges identified in previous works, as our second set of contributions, we propose a different pathway to tractability for the problem: extension of partial solutions. In particular, we establish a full characterization of the problem's parameterized complexity in the extension setting depending on whether we parameterize by the number of missing vertices, edges, or both.
Optimization-Driven Statistical Models of Anatomies using Radial Basis Function Shape Representation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Particle-based shape modeling (PSM) is a popular approach to automatically quantify shape variability in populations of anatomies. The PSM family of methods employs optimization to automatically populate a dense set of corresponding particles (as pseudo landmarks) on 3D surfaces to allow subsequent shape analysis. A recent deep learning approach leverages implicit radial basis function representations of shapes to better adapt to the underlying complex geometry of anatomies. Here, we propose an adaptation of this method using a traditional optimization approach that allows more precise control over the desired characteristics of models by leveraging both an eigenshape and a correspondence loss. Furthermore, the proposed approach avoids using a black-box model and allows more freedom for particles to navigate the underlying surfaces, yielding more informative statistical models. We demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach to state-of-the-art methods on two real datasets and justify our choice of losses empirically.
Distribution-aware Online Continual Learning for Urban Spatio-Temporal Forecasting
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

Urban spatio-temporal (ST) forecasting is crucial for various urban applications such as intelligent scheduling and trip planning. Previous studies focus on modeling ST correlations among urban locations in offline settings, which often neglect the non-stationary nature of urban ST data, particularly, distribution shifts over time. This oversight can lead to degraded performance in real-world scenarios. In this paper, we first analyze the distribution shifts in urban ST data, and then introduce DOST, a novel online continual learning framework tailored for ST data characteristics. DOST employs an adaptive ST network equipped with a variable-independent adapter to address the unique distribution shifts at each urban location dynamically. Further, to accommodate the gradual nature of these shifts, we also develop an awake-hibernate learning strategy that intermittently fine-tunes the adapter during the online phase to reduce computational overhead. This strategy integrates a streaming memory update mechanism designed for urban ST sequential data, enabling effective network adaptation to new patterns while preventing catastrophic forgetting. Experimental results confirm DOST's superiority over state-of-the-art models on four real-world datasets, providing online forecasts within an average of 0.1 seconds and achieving a 12.89% reduction in forecast errors compared to baseline models.
Deep Learning for automated multi-scale functional field boundaries extraction using multi-date Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope imagery: Case Study of Netherlands and Pakistan
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

This study explores the effectiveness of multi-temporal satellite imagery for better functional field boundary delineation using deep learning semantic segmentation architecture on two distinct geographical and multi-scale farming systems of Netherlands and Pakistan. Multidate images of April, August and October 2022 were acquired for PlanetScope and Sentinel-2 in sub regions of Netherlands and November 2022, February and March 2023 for selected area of Dunyapur in Pakistan. For Netherlands, Basic registration crop parcels (BRP) vector layer was used as labeled training data. while self-crafted field boundary vector data were utilized for Pakistan. Four deep learning models with UNET architecture were evaluated using different combinations of multi-date images and NDVI stacks in the Netherlands subregions. A comparative analysis of IoU scores assessed the effectiveness of the proposed multi-date NDVI stack approach. These findings were then applied for transfer learning, using pre-trained models from the Netherlands on the selected area in Pakistan. Additionally, separate models were trained using self-crafted field boundary data for Pakistan, and combined models were developed using data from both the Netherlands and Pakistan. Results indicate that multi-date NDVI stacks provide additional temporal context, reflecting crop growth over different times of the season. The study underscores the critical role of multi-scale ground information from diverse geographical areas in developing robust and universally applicable models for field boundary delineation. The results also highlight the importance of fine spatial resolution for extraction of field boundaries in regions with small scale framing. The findings can be extended to multi-scale implementations for improved automatic field boundary delineation in heterogeneous agricultural environments.
TransCompressor: LLM-Powered Multimodal Data Compression for Smart Transportation
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

The incorporation of Large Language Models (LLMs) into smart transportation systems has paved the way for improving data management and operational efficiency. This study introduces TransCompressor, a novel framework that leverages LLMs for efficient compression and decompression of multimodal transportation sensor data. TransCompressor has undergone thorough evaluation with diverse sensor data types, including barometer, speed, and altitude measurements, across various transportation modes like buses, taxis, and MTRs. Comprehensive evaluation illustrates the effectiveness of TransCompressor in reconstructing transportation sensor data at different compression ratios. The results highlight that, with well-crafted prompts, LLMs can utilize their vast knowledge base to contribute to data compression processes, enhancing data storage, analysis, and retrieval in smart transportation settings.
Agent-Based Modelling Meets Generative AI in Social Network Simulations
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2024
Year: 2024

Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) has emerged as an essential tool for simulating social networks, encompassing diverse phenomena such as information dissemination, influence dynamics, and community formation. However, manually configuring varied agent interactions and information flow dynamics poses challenges, often resulting in oversimplified models that lack real-world generalizability. Integrating modern Large Language Models (LLMs) with ABM presents a promising avenue to address these challenges and enhance simulation fidelity, leveraging LLMs' human-like capabilities in sensing, reasoning, and behavior. In this paper, we propose a novel framework utilizing LLM-empowered agents to simulate social network users based on their interests and personality traits. The framework allows for customizable agent interactions resembling various social network platforms, including mechanisms for content resharing and personalized recommendations. We validate our framework using a comprehensive Twitter dataset from the 2020 US election, demonstrating that LLM-agents accurately replicate real users' behaviors, including linguistic patterns and political inclinations. These agents form homogeneous ideological clusters and retain the main themes of their community. Notably, preference-based recommendations significantly influence agent behavior, promoting increased engagement, network homophily and the formation of echo chambers. Overall, our findings underscore the potential of LLM-agents in advancing social media simulations and unraveling intricate online dynamics.
Scaling Spike-driven Transformer with Efficient Spike Firing Approximation Training
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

The ambition of brain-inspired Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) is to become a low-power alternative to traditional Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). This work addresses two major challenges in realizing this vision: the performance gap between SNNs and ANNs, and the high training costs of SNNs. We identify intrinsic flaws in spiking neurons caused by binary firing mechanisms and propose a Spike Firing Approximation (SFA) method using integer training and spike-driven inference. This optimizes the spike firing pattern of spiking neurons, enhancing efficient training, reducing power consumption, improving performance, enabling easier scaling, and better utilizing neuromorphic chips. We also develop an efficient spike-driven Transformer architecture and a spike-masked autoencoder to prevent performance degradation during SNN scaling. On ImageNet-1k, we achieve state-of-the-art top-1 accuracy of 78.5\%, 79.8\%, 84.0\%, and 86.2\% with models containing 10M, 19M, 83M, and 173M parameters, respectively. For instance, the 10M model outperforms the best existing SNN by 7.2\% on ImageNet, with training time acceleration and inference energy efficiency improved by 4.5$\times$ and 3.9$\times$, respectively. We validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method across various tasks, including object detection, semantic segmentation, and neuromorphic vision tasks. This work enables SNNs to match ANN performance while maintaining the low-power advantage, marking a significant step towards SNNs as a general visual backbone. Code is available at https://github.com/BICLab/Spike-Driven-Transformer-V3.
Debiasing Classifiers by Amplifying Bias with Latent Diffusion and Large Language Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Neural networks struggle with image classification when biases are learned and misleads correlations, affecting their generalization and performance. Previous methods require attribute labels (e.g. background, color) or utilizes Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to mitigate biases. We introduce DiffuBias, a novel pipeline for text-to-image generation that enhances classifier robustness by generating bias-conflict samples, without requiring training during the generation phase. Utilizing pretrained diffusion and image captioning models, DiffuBias generates images that challenge the biases of classifiers, using the top-$K$ losses from a biased classifier ($f_B$) to create more representative data samples. This method not only debiases effectively but also boosts classifier generalization capabilities. To the best of our knowledge, DiffuBias is the first approach leveraging a stable diffusion model to generate bias-conflict samples in debiasing tasks. Our comprehensive experimental evaluations demonstrate that DiffuBias achieves state-of-the-art performance on benchmark datasets. We also conduct a comparative analysis of various generative models in terms of carbon emissions and energy consumption to highlight the significance of computational efficiency.
HiDP: Hierarchical DNN Partitioning for Distributed Inference on Heterogeneous Edge Platforms
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2024
Year: 2024

Edge inference techniques partition and distribute Deep Neural Network (DNN) inference tasks among multiple edge nodes for low latency inference, without considering the core-level heterogeneity of edge nodes. Further, default DNN inference frameworks also do not fully utilize the resources of heterogeneous edge nodes, resulting in higher inference latency. In this work, we propose a hierarchical DNN partitioning strategy (HiDP) for distributed inference on heterogeneous edge nodes. Our strategy hierarchically partitions DNN workloads at both global and local levels by considering the core-level heterogeneity of edge nodes. We evaluated our proposed HiDP strategy against relevant distributed inference techniques over widely used DNN models on commercial edge devices. On average our strategy achieved 38% lower latency, 46% lower energy, and 56% higher throughput in comparison with other relevant approaches.
Forest Biomass Mapping with Terrestrial Hyperspectral Imaging for Wildfire Risk Monitoring
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

With the rapid increase in wildfires in the past decade, it has become necessary to detect and predict these disasters to mitigate losses to ecosystems and human lives. In this paper, we present a novel solution -- Hyper-Drive3D -- consisting of snapshot hyperspectral imaging and LiDAR, mounted on an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) that identifies areas inside forests at risk of becoming fuel for a forest fire. This system enables more accurate classification by analyzing the spectral signatures of forest vegetation. We conducted field trials in a controlled environment simulating forest conditions, yielding valuable insights into the system's effectiveness. Extensive data collection was also performed in a dense forest across varying environmental conditions and topographies to enhance the system's predictive capabilities for fire hazards and support a risk-informed, proactive forest management strategy. Additionally, we propose a framework for extracting moisture data from hyperspectral imagery and projecting it into 3D space.