OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
A Multi-population Integrated Approach for Capacitated Location Routing
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2024
Year: 2024

The capacitated location-routing problem involves determining the depots from a set of candidate capacitated depot locations and finding the required routes from the selected depots to serve a set of customers whereas minimizing a cost function that includes the cost of opening the chosen depots, the fixed utilization cost per vehicle used, and the total cost (distance) of the routes. This paper presents a multi-population integrated framework in which a multi-depot edge assembly crossover generates promising offspring solutions from the perspective of both depot location and route edge assembly. The method includes an effective neighborhood-based local search, a feasibility-restoring procedure and a diversification-oriented mutation. Of particular interest is the multi-population scheme which organizes the population into multiple subpopulations based on depot configurations. Extensive experiments on 281 benchmark instances from the literature show that the algorithm performs remarkably well, by improving 101 best-known results (new upper bounds) and matching 84 best-known results. Additional experiments are presented to gain insight into the role of the key elements of the algorithm.
Sentinel-Guided Zero-Shot Learning: A Collaborative Paradigm without Real Data Exposure
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

With increasing concerns over data privacy and model copyrights, especially in the context of collaborations between AI service providers and data owners, an innovative SG-ZSL paradigm is proposed in this work. SG-ZSL is designed to foster efficient collaboration without the need to exchange models or sensitive data. It consists of a teacher model, a student model and a generator that links both model entities. The teacher model serves as a sentinel on behalf of the data owner, replacing real data, to guide the student model at the AI service provider's end during training. Considering the disparity of knowledge space between the teacher and student, we introduce two variants of the teacher model: the omniscient and the quasi-omniscient teachers. Under these teachers' guidance, the student model seeks to match the teacher model's performance and explores domains that the teacher has not covered. To trade off between privacy and performance, we further introduce two distinct security-level training protocols: white-box and black-box, enhancing the paradigm's adaptability. Despite the inherent challenges of real data absence in the SG-ZSL paradigm, it consistently outperforms in ZSL and GZSL tasks, notably in the white-box protocol. Our comprehensive evaluation further attests to its robustness and efficiency across various setups, including stringent black-box training protocol.
Impact of Synthetic Images on Morphing Attack Detection Using a Siamese Network
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

This paper evaluated the impact of synthetic images on Morphing Attack Detection (MAD) using a Siamese network with a semi-hard-loss function. Intra and cross-dataset evaluations were performed to measure synthetic image generalisation capabilities using a cross-dataset for evaluation. Three different pre-trained networks were used as feature extractors from traditional MobileNetV2, MobileNetV3 and EfficientNetB0. Our results show that MAD trained on EfficientNetB0 from FERET, FRGCv2, and FRLL can reach a lower error rate in comparison with SOTA. Conversely, worse performances were reached when the system was trained only with synthetic images. A mixed approach (synthetic + digital) database may help to improve MAD and reduce the error rate. This fact shows that we still need to keep going with our efforts to include synthetic images in the training process.
ConDiSR: Contrastive Disentanglement and Style Regularization for Single Domain Generalization
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Medical data often exhibits distribution shifts, which cause test-time performance degradation for deep learning models trained using standard supervised learning pipelines. This challenge is addressed in the field of Domain Generalization (DG) with the sub-field of Single Domain Generalization (SDG) being specifically interesting due to the privacy- or logistics-related issues often associated with medical data. Existing disentanglement-based SDG methods heavily rely on structural information embedded in segmentation masks, however classification labels do not provide such dense information. This work introduces a novel SDG method aimed at medical image classification that leverages channel-wise contrastive disentanglement. It is further enhanced with reconstruction-based style regularization to ensure extraction of distinct style and structure feature representations. We evaluate our method on the complex task of multicenter histopathology image classification, comparing it against state-of-the-art (SOTA) SDG baselines. Results demonstrate that our method surpasses the SOTA by a margin of 1% in average accuracy while also showing more stable performance. This study highlights the importance and challenges of exploring SDG frameworks in the context of the classification task. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/BioMedIA-MBZUAI/ConDiSR
Mitigating attribute amplification in counterfactual image generation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Causal generative modelling is gaining interest in medical imaging due to its ability to answer interventional and counterfactual queries. Most work focuses on generating counterfactual images that look plausible, using auxiliary classifiers to enforce effectiveness of simulated interventions. We investigate pitfalls in this approach, discovering the issue of attribute amplification, where unrelated attributes are spuriously affected during interventions, leading to biases across protected characteristics and disease status. We show that attribute amplification is caused by the use of hard labels in the counterfactual training process and propose soft counterfactual fine-tuning to mitigate this issue. Our method substantially reduces the amplification effect while maintaining effectiveness of generated images, demonstrated on a large chest X-ray dataset. Our work makes an important advancement towards more faithful and unbiased causal modelling in medical imaging.
Adversarial Fine-tuning of Compressed Neural Networks for Joint Improvement of Robustness and Efficiency
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

As deep learning (DL) models are increasingly being integrated into our everyday lives, ensuring their safety by making them robust against adversarial attacks has become increasingly critical. DL models have been found to be susceptible to adversarial attacks which can be achieved by introducing small, targeted perturbations to disrupt the input data. Adversarial training has been presented as a mitigation strategy which can result in more robust models. This adversarial robustness comes with additional computational costs required to design adversarial attacks during training. The two objectives -- adversarial robustness and computational efficiency -- then appear to be in conflict of each other. In this work, we explore the effects of two different model compression methods -- structured weight pruning and quantization -- on adversarial robustness. We specifically explore the effects of fine-tuning on compressed models, and present the trade-off between standard fine-tuning and adversarial fine-tuning. Our results show that compression does not inherently lead to loss in model robustness and adversarial fine-tuning of a compressed model can yield large improvement to the robustness performance of models. We present experiments on two benchmark datasets showing that adversarial fine-tuning of compressed models can achieve robustness performance comparable to adversarially trained models, while also improving computational efficiency.
Machine learning for structural design models of continuous beam systems via influence zones
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

This work develops a machine learned structural design model for continuous beam systems from the inverse problem perspective. After demarcating between forward, optimisation and inverse machine learned operators, the investigation proposes a novel methodology based on the recently developed influence zone concept which represents a fundamental shift in approach compared to traditional structural design methods. The aim of this approach is to conceptualise a non-iterative structural design model that predicts cross-section requirements for continuous beam systems of arbitrary system size. After generating a dataset of known solutions, an appropriate neural network architecture is identified, trained, and tested against unseen data. The results show a mean absolute percentage testing error of 1.6% for cross-section property predictions, along with a good ability of the neural network to generalise well to structural systems of variable size. The CBeamXP dataset generated in this work and an associated python-based neural network training script are available at an open-source data repository to allow for the reproducibility of results and to encourage further investigations.
The Neural-SRP method for positional sound source localization
Venue: arXiv cs.SD 2024
Year: 2024

Steered Response Power (SRP) is a widely used method for the task of sound source localization using microphone arrays, showing satisfactory localization performance on many practical scenarios. However, its performance is diminished under highly reverberant environments. Although Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have been previously proposed to overcome this limitation, most are trained for a specific number of microphones with fixed spatial coordinates. This restricts their practical application on scenarios frequently observed in wireless acoustic sensor networks, where each application has an ad-hoc microphone topology. We propose Neural-SRP, a DNN which combines the flexibility of SRP with the performance gains of DNNs. We train our network using simulated data and transfer learning, and evaluate our approach on recorded and simulated data. Results verify that Neural-SRP's localization performance significantly outperforms the baselines.
Outlier Robust Multivariate Polynomial Regression
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2024
Year: 2024

We study the problem of robust multivariate polynomial regression: let $p\colon\mathbb{R}^n\to\mathbb{R}$ be an unknown $n$-variate polynomial of degree at most $d$ in each variable. We are given as input a set of random samples $(\mathbf{x}_i,y_i) \in [-1,1]^n \times \mathbb{R}$ that are noisy versions of $(\mathbf{x}_i,p(\mathbf{x}_i))$. More precisely, each $\mathbf{x}_i$ is sampled independently from some distribution $χ$ on $[-1,1]^n$, and for each $i$ independently, $y_i$ is arbitrary (i.e., an outlier) with probability at most $ρ< 1/2$, and otherwise satisfies $|y_i-p(\mathbf{x}_i)|\leqσ$. The goal is to output a polynomial $\hat{p}$, of degree at most $d$ in each variable, within an $\ell_\infty$-distance of at most $O(σ)$ from $p$. Kane, Karmalkar, and Price [FOCS'17] solved this problem for $n=1$. We generalize their results to the $n$-variate setting, showing an algorithm that achieves a sample complexity of $O_n(d^n\log d)$, where the hidden constant depends on $n$, if $χ$ is the $n$-dimensional Chebyshev distribution. The sample complexity is $O_n(d^{2n}\log d)$, if the samples are drawn from the uniform distribution instead. The approximation error is guaranteed to be at most $O(σ)$, and the run-time depends on $\log(1/σ)$. In the setting where each $\mathbf{x}_i$ and $y_i$ are known up to $N$ bits of precision, the run-time's dependence on $N$ is linear. We also show that our sample complexities are optimal in terms of $d^n$. Furthermore, we show that it is possible to have the run-time be independent of $1/σ$, at the cost of a higher sample complexity.
VisionGPT-3D: A Generalized Multimodal Agent for Enhanced 3D Vision Understanding
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

The evolution of text to visual components facilitates people's daily lives, such as generating image, videos from text and identifying the desired elements within the images. Computer vision models involving the multimodal abilities in the previous days are focused on image detection, classification based on well-defined objects. Large language models (LLMs) introduces the transformation from nature language to visual objects, which present the visual layout for text contexts. OpenAI GPT-4 has emerged as the pinnacle in LLMs, while the computer vision (CV) domain boasts a plethora of state-of-the-art (SOTA) models and algorithms to convert 2D images to their 3D representations. However, the mismatching between the algorithms with the problem could lead to undesired results. In response to this challenge, we propose an unified VisionGPT-3D framework to consolidate the state-of-the-art vision models, thereby facilitating the development of vision-oriented AI. VisionGPT-3D provides a versatile multimodal framework building upon the strengths of multimodal foundation models. It seamlessly integrates various SOTA vision models and brings the automation in the selection of SOTA vision models, identifies the suitable 3D mesh creation algorithms corresponding to 2D depth maps analysis, generates optimal results based on diverse multimodal inputs such as text prompts. Keywords: VisionGPT-3D, 3D vision understanding, Multimodal agent
WeakSurg: Weakly supervised surgical instrument segmentation using temporal equivariance and semantic continuity
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

For robotic surgical videos, instrument presence annotations are typically recorded with video streams, which offering the potential to reduce the manually annotated costs for segmentation. However, weakly supervised surgical instrument segmentation with only instrument presence labels has been rarely explored in surgical domain due to the highly under-constrained challenges. Temporal properties can enhance representation learning by capturing sequential dependencies and patterns over time even in incomplete supervision situations. From this, we take the inherent temporal attributes of surgical video into account and extend a two-stage weakly supervised segmentation paradigm from different perspectives. Firstly, we make temporal equivariance constraint to enhance pixel-wise temporal consistency between adjacent features. Secondly, we constrain class-aware semantic continuity between global and local regions across temporal dimension. Finally, we generate temporal-enhanced pseudo masks from consecutive frames to suppress irrelevant regions. Extensive experiments are validated on two surgical video datasets, including one cholecystectomy surgery benchmark and one real robotic left lateral segment liver surgery dataset. We annotate instance-wise instrument labels with fixed time-steps which are double checked by a clinician with 3-years experience to evaluate segmentation results. Experimental results demonstrate the promising performances of our method, which consistently achieves comparable or favorable results with previous state-of-the-art approaches.
Network-Controlled Repeater -- An Introduction
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2024
Year: 2024

In fifth generation (5G) wireless cellular networks, millimeter wave spectrum opens room for several potential improvements in throughput, reliability, latency, among other aspects. However, it also brings challenges, such as a higher influence of blockage which may significantly limit the coverage. In this context, network-controlled repeaters (NCRs) are network nodes with low complexity that represent a technique to overcome coverage problems. In this paper, we introduce the NCR concept and study its performance gains and deployment options. Particularly, presenting the main specifications of NCR as agreed in 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) Rel-18, we analyze different NCR deployments in an urban scenario and compare its performance with alternative deployments. As demonstrated, with a proper network planning and beamforming design, NCR is an attractive solution to cover blind spots the base stations (BSs) may have.
GaussianGrasper: 3D Language Gaussian Splatting for Open-vocabulary Robotic Grasping
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

Constructing a 3D scene capable of accommodating open-ended language queries, is a pivotal pursuit, particularly within the domain of robotics. Such technology facilitates robots in executing object manipulations based on human language directives. To tackle this challenge, some research efforts have been dedicated to the development of language-embedded implicit fields. However, implicit fields (e.g. NeRF) encounter limitations due to the necessity of processing a large number of input views for reconstruction, coupled with their inherent inefficiencies in inference. Thus, we present the GaussianGrasper, which utilizes 3D Gaussian Splatting to explicitly represent the scene as a collection of Gaussian primitives. Our approach takes a limited set of RGB-D views and employs a tile-based splatting technique to create a feature field. In particular, we propose an Efficient Feature Distillation (EFD) module that employs contrastive learning to efficiently and accurately distill language embeddings derived from foundational models. With the reconstructed geometry of the Gaussian field, our method enables the pre-trained grasping model to generate collision-free grasp pose candidates. Furthermore, we propose a normal-guided grasp module to select the best grasp pose. Through comprehensive real-world experiments, we demonstrate that GaussianGrasper enables robots to accurately query and grasp objects with language instructions, providing a new solution for language-guided manipulation tasks. Data and codes can be available at https://github.com/MrSecant/GaussianGrasper.
Shapley Values-Powered Framework for Fair Reward Split in Content Produced by GenAI
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

It is evident that, currently, generative models are surpassed in quality by human professionals. However, with the advancements in Artificial Intelligence, this gap will narrow, leading to scenarios where individuals who have dedicated years of their lives to mastering a skill become obsolete due to their high costs, which are inherently linked to the time they require to complete a task -- a task that AI could accomplish in minutes or seconds. To avoid future social upheavals, we must, even now, contemplate how to fairly assess the contributions of such individuals in training generative models and how to compensate them for the reduction or complete loss of their incomes. In this work, we propose a method to structure collaboration between model developers and data providers. To achieve this, we employ Shapley Values to quantify the contribution of artist(s) in an image generated by the Stable Diffusion-v1.5 model and to equitably allocate the reward among them.
Concept-aware Data Construction Improves In-context Learning of Language Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

Many recent language models (LMs) are capable of in-context learning (ICL), manifested in the LMs' ability to perform a new task solely from natural-language instruction. Previous work curating in-context learners assumes that ICL emerges from a vast over-parametrization or the scale of multi-task training. However, recent theoretical work attributes the ICL ability to concept-dependent training data and creates functional in-context learners even in small-scale, synthetic settings. In this work, we practically explore this newly identified axis of ICL quality. We propose Concept-aware Training (CoAT), a framework for constructing training scenarios that make it beneficial for the LM to learn to utilize the analogical reasoning concepts from demonstrations. We find that by using CoAT, pre-trained transformers can learn to better utilise new latent concepts from demonstrations and that such ability makes ICL more robust to the functional deficiencies of the previous models. Finally, we show that concept-aware in-context learning is more effective for a majority of new tasks when compared to traditional instruction tuning, resulting in a performance comparable to the previous in-context learners using magnitudes of more training data.
A Novel Nuanced Conversation Evaluation Framework for Large Language Models in Mental Health
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

Understanding the conversation abilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) can help lead to its more cautious and appropriate deployment. This is especially important for safety-critical domains like mental health, where someone's life may depend on the exact wording of a response to an urgent question. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for evaluating the nuanced conversation abilities of LLMs. Within it, we develop a series of quantitative metrics developed from literature on using psychotherapy conversation analysis literature. While we ensure that our framework and metrics are transferable by researchers to relevant adjacent domains, we apply them to the mental health field. We use our framework to evaluate several popular frontier LLMs, including some GPT and Llama models, through a verified mental health dataset. Our results show that GPT4 Turbo can perform significantly more similarly to verified therapists than other selected LLMs. We conduct additional analysis to examine how LLM conversation performance varies across specific mental health topics. Our results indicate that GPT4 Turbo performs well in achieving high correlation with verified therapists in particular topics such as Parenting and Relationships. We believe our contributions will help researchers develop better LLMs that, in turn, will more positively support people's lives.
Institutional-Level Monitoring of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor IrAEs Using a Novel Natural Language Processing Algorithmic Pipeline
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized cancer treatment but can result in severe immune-related adverse events (IrAEs). Monitoring IrAEs on a large scale is essential for personalized risk profiling and assisting in treatment decisions. Methods: In this study, we conducted an analysis of clinical notes from patients who received ICIs at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. By employing a Natural Language Processing algorithmic pipeline, we systematically identified seven common or severe IrAEs. We examined the utilization of corticosteroids, treatment discontinuation rates following IrAEs, and constructed survival curves to visualize the occurrence of adverse events during treatment. Results: Our analysis encompassed 108,280 clinical notes associated with 1,635 patients who had undergone ICI therapy. The detected incidence of IrAEs was consistent with previous reports, exhibiting substantial variation across different ICIs. Treatment with corticosteroids varied depending on the specific IrAE, ranging from 17.3% for thyroiditis to 57.4% for myocarditis. Our algorithm demonstrated high accuracy in identifying IrAEs, as indicated by an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.89 for each suspected note and F1 scores of 0.87 or higher for five out of the seven IrAEs examined at the patient level. Conclusions: This study presents a novel, large-scale monitoring approach utilizing deep neural networks for IrAEs. Our method provides accurate results, enhancing understanding of detrimental consequences experienced by ICI-treated patients. Moreover, it holds potential for monitoring other medications, enabling comprehensive post-marketing surveillance to identify susceptible populations and establish personalized drug safety profiles.