OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Differentiable Scene Graphs
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2020
Year: 2020

Reasoning about complex visual scenes involves perception of entities and their relations. Scene graphs provide a natural representation for reasoning tasks, by assigning labels to both entities (nodes) and relations (edges). Unfortunately, reasoning systems based on SGs are typically trained in a two-step procedure: First, training a model to predict SGs from images; Then, a separate model is created to reason based on predicted SGs. In many domains, it is preferable to train systems jointly in an end-to-end manner, but SGs are not commonly used as intermediate components in visual reasoning systems because being discrete and sparse, scene-graph representations are non-differentiable and difficult to optimize. Here we propose Differentiable Scene Graphs (DSGs), an image representation that is amenable to differentiable end-to-end optimization, and requires supervision only from the downstream tasks. DSGs provide a dense representation for all regions and pairs of regions, and do not spend modelling capacity on areas of the images that do not contain objects or relations of interest. We evaluate our model on the challenging task of identifying referring relationships (RR) in three benchmark datasets, Visual Genome, VRD and CLEVR. We describe a multi-task objective, and train in an end-to-end manner supervised by the downstream RR task. Using DSGs as an intermediate representation leads to new state-of-the-art performance.
An evolutionary model that satisfies detailed balance
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2020
Year: 2020

We propose a class of evolutionary models that involves an arbitrary exchangeable process as the breeding process and different selection schemes. In those models, a new genome is born according to the breeding process, and then a genome is removed according to the selection scheme that involves fitness. Thus the population size remains constant. The process evolves according to a Markov chain, and, unlike in many other existing models, the stationary distribution -- so called mutation-selection equilibrium -- can be easily found and studied. The behaviour of the stationary distribution when the population size increases is our main object of interest. Several phase-transition theorems are proved.
Virtual Adversarial Training on Graph Convolutional Networks in Node Classification
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2020
Year: 2020

The effectiveness of Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) has been demonstrated in a wide range of graph-based machine learning tasks. However, the update of parameters in GCNs is only from labeled nodes, lacking the utilization of unlabeled data. In this paper, we apply Virtual Adversarial Training (VAT), an adversarial regularization method based on both labeled and unlabeled data, on the supervised loss of GCN to enhance its generalization performance. By imposing virtually adversarial smoothness on the posterior distribution in semi-supervised learning, VAT yields improvement on the Symmetrical Laplacian Smoothness of GCNs. In addition, due to the difference of property in features, we perturb virtual adversarial perturbations on sparse and dense features, resulting in GCN Sparse VAT (GCNSVAT) and GCN Dense VAT (GCNDVAT) algorithms, respectively. Extensive experiments verify the effectiveness of our two methods across different training sizes. Our work paves the way towards better understanding the direction of improvement on GCNs in the future.
Vine Robots: Design, Teleoperation, and Deployment for Navigation and Exploration
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2020
Year: 2020

A new class of continuum robots has recently been explored, characterized by tip extension, significant length change, and directional control. Here, we call this class of robots "vine robots," due to their similar behavior to plants with the growth habit of trailing. Due to their growth-based movement, vine robots are well suited for navigation and exploration in cluttered environments, but until now, they have not been deployed outside the lab. Portability of these robots and steerability at length scales relevant for navigation are key to field applications. In addition, intuitive human-in-the-loop teleoperation enables movement in unknown and dynamic environments. We present a vine robot system that is teleoperated using a custom designed flexible joystick and camera system, long enough for use in navigation tasks, and portable for use in the field. We report on deployment of this system in two scenarios: a soft robot navigation competition and exploration of an archaeological site. The competition course required movement over uneven terrain, past unstable obstacles, and through a small aperture. The archaeological site required movement over rocks and through horizontal and vertical turns. The robot tip successfully moved past the obstacles and through the tunnels, demonstrating the capability of vine robots to achieve navigation and exploration tasks in the field.
A detailed comparative study of open source deep learning frameworks
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2020
Year: 2020

Deep Learning (DL) is one of the hottest trends in machine learning as DL approaches produced results superior to the state-of-the-art in problematic areas such as image processing and natural language processing (NLP). To foster the growth of DL, several open source frameworks appeared providing implementations of the most common DL algorithms. These frameworks vary in the algorithms they support and in the quality of their implementations. The purpose of this work is to provide a qualitative and quantitative comparison among three of the most popular and most comprehensive DL frameworks (namely Google's TensorFlow, University of Montreal's Theano and Microsoft's CNTK). The ultimate goal of this work is to help end users make an informed decision about the best DL framework that suits their needs and resources. To ensure that our study is as comprehensive as possible, we conduct several experiments using multiple benchmark datasets from different fields (image processing, NLP, etc.) and measure the performance of the frameworks' implementations of different DL algorithms. For most of our experiments, we find out that CNTK's implementations are superior to the other ones under consideration.
Infinite Automaton Semigroups and Groups Have Infinite Orbits
Venue: arXiv cs.FL 2020
Year: 2020

We show that an automaton group or semigroup is infinite if and only if it admits an $ω$-word (i. e. a right-infinite word) with an infinite orbit, which solves an open problem communicated to us by Ievgen V. Bondarenko. In fact, we prove a generalization of this result, which can be applied to show that finitely generated subgroups and subsemigroups as well as principal left ideals of automaton semigroups are infinite if and only if there is an $ω$ -word with an infinite orbit under their action. The proof also shows some interesting connections between the automaton semigroup and its dual. Finally, our result is interesting from an algorithmic perspective as it allows for a reformulation of the finiteness problem for automaton groups and semigroups.
Generating Grasp Poses for a High-DOF Gripper Using Neural Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2020
Year: 2020

We present a learning-based method for representing grasp poses of a high-DOF hand using neural networks. Due to redundancy in such high-DOF grippers, there exists a large number of equally effective grasp poses for a given target object, making it difficult for the neural network to find consistent grasp poses. We resolve this ambiguity by generating an augmented dataset that covers many possible grasps for each target object and train our neural networks using a consistency loss function to identify a one-to-one mapping from objects to grasp poses. We further enhance the quality of neural-network-predicted grasp poses using a collision loss function to avoid penetrations. We use an object dataset that combines the BigBIRD Database, the KIT Database, the YCB Database, and the Grasp Dataset to show that our method can generate high-DOF grasp poses with higher accuracy than supervised learning baselines. The quality of the grasp poses is on par with the groundtruth poses in the dataset. In addition, our method is robust and can handle noisy object models such as those constructed from multi-view depth images, allowing our method to be implemented on a 25-DOF Shadow Hand hardware platform.
Multi-Object Representation Learning with Iterative Variational Inference
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2020
Year: 2020

Human perception is structured around objects which form the basis for our higher-level cognition and impressive systematic generalization abilities. Yet most work on representation learning focuses on feature learning without even considering multiple objects, or treats segmentation as an (often supervised) preprocessing step. Instead, we argue for the importance of learning to segment and represent objects jointly. We demonstrate that, starting from the simple assumption that a scene is composed of multiple entities, it is possible to learn to segment images into interpretable objects with disentangled representations. Our method learns -- without supervision -- to inpaint occluded parts, and extrapolates to scenes with more objects and to unseen objects with novel feature combinations. We also show that, due to the use of iterative variational inference, our system is able to learn multi-modal posteriors for ambiguous inputs and extends naturally to sequences.
Instant MPC for linear systems and dissipativity-based stability analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2020
Year: 2020

This letter is devoted to the concept of ``instant'' model predictive control (iMPC) for linear systems. An optimization problem is formulated to express the finite-time constrained optimal regulation control, like conventional MPC. Then, iMPC determines the control action based on the optimization process rather than the optimizer, unlike MPC. The iMPC concept is realized by a continuous-time dynamic algorithm of solving the optimization; the primal-dual gradient algorithm is directly implemented as a dynamic controller. On the basis of the dissipativity evaluation of the algorithm, the stability of the control system is analyzed. Finally, a numerical experiment is performed in order to demonstrate that iMPC emulates MPC and to show its less computational burden.
A Model-Driven Stack-Based Fully Convolutional Network for Pancreas Segmentation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2020
Year: 2020

The irregular geometry and high inter-slice variability in computerized tomography (CT) scans of the human pancreas make an accurate segmentation of this crucial organ a challenging task for existing data-driven deep learning methods. To address this problem, we present a novel model-driven stack-based fully convolutional network with a sliding window fusion algorithm for pancreas segmentation, termed MDS-Net. The MDS-Net's cost function includes a data approximation term and a prior knowledge regularization term combined with a stack scheme for capturing and fusing the two-dimensional (2D) and local three-dimensional (3D) context information. Specifically, 3D CT scans are divided into multiple stacks to capture the local spatial context feature. To highlight the importance of single slices, the inter-slice relationships in the stack data are also incorporated in the MDS-Net framework. For implementing this proposed model-driven method, we create a stack-based U-Net architecture and successfully derive its back-propagation procedure for end-to-end training. Furthermore, a sliding window fusion algorithm is utilized to improve the consistency of adjacent CT slices and intra-stack. Finally, extensive quantitative assessments on the NIH Pancreas-CT dataset demonstrated higher pancreatic segmentation accuracy and reliability of MDS-Net compared to other state-of-the-art methods.
Designing Optimal Multiplex Networks for Certain Laplacian Spectral Properties
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2020
Year: 2020

We discuss the design of interlayer edges in a multiplex network, under a limited budget, with the goal of improving its overall performance. We analyze the following three problems separately; first, we maximize the smallest nonzero eigenvalue, also known as the algebraic connectivity; secondly, we minimize the largest eigenvalue, also known as the spectral radius; and finally, we minimize the spectral width. Maximizing the algebraic connectivity requires identical weights on the interlayer edges for budgets less than a threshold value. However, for larger budgets, the optimal weights are generally non-uniform. The dual formulation transforms the problem into a graph realization (embedding) problem that allows us to give a fuller picture. Namely, before the threshold budget, the optimal realization is one-dimensional with nodes in the same layer embedded to a single point; while, beyond the threshold, the optimal embeddings generally unfold into spaces with dimension bounded by the multiplicity of the algebraic connectivity. Finally, for extremely large budgets the embeddings revert again to lower dimensions. Minimizing the largest eigenvalue is driven by the spectral radius of the individual networks and its corresponding eigenvector. Before a threshold, the total budget is distributed among interlayer edges corresponding to the nodal lines of this eigenvector, and the optimal largest eigenvalue of the Laplacian remains constant. For larger budgets, the weight distribution tends to be almost uniform. In the dual picture, the optimal graph embedding is one-dimensional and non-homogeneous at first and beyond this threshold, the optimal embedding expands to be multi-dimensional, and for larger values of the budget, the two layers fill the embedding space. Finally, we show how these two problems are connected to minimizing the spectral width.
CloudPSS: A High-Performance Power System Simulator Based on Cloud Computing
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2020
Year: 2020

With the increasing computations in power system simulations, high-performance and cost-effective power system simulator is highly required. In this paper, a cloud-computing based power system simulator, namely CloudPSS, is designed. Based on an open service integrating framework, a self-developed electromagnetic transients (EMT) simulator with an automatic code generator is provided to accelerate EMT simulations using heterogeneous devices in the cloud, such as CPU and GPU. Test results show that CloudPSS can achieve significant speedups for both large-scale simulation tasks and multi-scenario tasks. Moreover, benefit from the time-sharing of cloud computing resources, the computational cost can be greatly reduced.
Resource-sharing Policy in Multi-tenant Scientific Workflow-as-a-Service Cloud Platform
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2020
Year: 2020

Increased adoption of scientific workflows in the community has urged for the development of multi-tenant platforms that provide these workflow executions as a service. As a result, Workflow-as-a-Service (WaaS) concept has been created by researchers to address the future design of Workflow Management Systems (WMS) that can serve a large number of users from a single point of service. These platforms differ from traditional WMS in that they handle a workload of workflows at runtime. A traditional WMS is usually designed to execute a single workflow in a dedicated process while WaaS cloud platforms enhance the process by exploiting multiple workflows execution in a multi-tenant environment model. In this paper, we explore a novel resource-sharing policy to improve system utilization and to fulfil various Quality of Service (QoS) requirements from multiple users in WaaS cloud platforms. We propose an Elastic Budget-constrained resource Provisioning and Scheduling algorithm for Multiple workflows that can reduce the computational overhead by encouraging resource sharing to minimize workflows' makespan while meeting a user-defined budget. Our experiments show that the EBPSM algorithm can utilize the resource-sharing policy to achieve higher performance in terms of minimizing the makespan compared to the state-of-the-art budget-constraint scheduling algorithm.
Strongly Exponential Separation Between Monotone VP and Monotone VNP
Venue: arXiv cs.CC 2020
Year: 2020

We show that there is a sequence of explicit multilinear polynomials $P_n(x_1,\ldots,x_n)\in \mathbb{R}[x_1,\ldots,x_n]$ with non-negative coefficients that lies in monotone VNP such that any monotone algebraic circuit for $P_n$ must have size $\exp(Ω(n)).$ This builds on (and strengthens) a result of Yehudayoff (2018) who showed a lower bound of $\exp(\tildeΩ(\sqrt{n})).$
Attitudes, Beliefs, and Development Data Concerning Agile Software Development Practices
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2020
Year: 2020

The perceptions and attitudes of developers impact how software projects are run and which development practices are employed in development teams. Recent agile methodologies have taken this into account, focusing on collaboration and shared team culture. In this research, we investigate the perceptions of agile development practices and their usage in Scrum software development teams. Although perceptions collected through surveys of 42 participating students did not evolve significantly over time, our analyses show that the Scrum role significantly impacted participants' views of employed development practices. We find that using the version control system according to agile ideas was consistently rated most related to the values of the Agile Manifesto. Furthermore, we investigate how common software development artifacts can be used to gain insights into team behavior and present the development data measurements we employed. We show that we can reliably detect well-defined agile practices, such Test-Driven Development, in this data and that usage of these practices coincided with participants' self-assessments.
Copying Machine Learning Classifiers
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2020
Year: 2020

We study model-agnostic copies of machine learning classifiers. We develop the theory behind the problem of copying, highlighting its differences with that of learning, and propose a framework to copy the functionality of any classifier using no prior knowledge of its parameters or training data distribution. We identify the different sources of loss and provide guidelines on how best to generate synthetic sets for the copying process. We further introduce a set of metrics to evaluate copies in practice. We validate our framework through extensive experiments using data from a series of well-known problems. We demonstrate the value of copies in use cases where desiderata such as interpretability, fairness or productivization constrains need to be addressed. Results show that copies can be exploited to enhance existing solutions and improve them adding new features and characteristics.
TableBank: A Benchmark Dataset for Table Detection and Recognition
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2020
Year: 2020

We present TableBank, a new image-based table detection and recognition dataset built with novel weak supervision from Word and Latex documents on the internet. Existing research for image-based table detection and recognition usually fine-tunes pre-trained models on out-of-domain data with a few thousand human-labeled examples, which is difficult to generalize on real-world applications. With TableBank that contains 417K high quality labeled tables, we build several strong baselines using state-of-the-art models with deep neural networks. We make TableBank publicly available and hope it will empower more deep learning approaches in the table detection and recognition task. The dataset and models are available at \url{https://github.com/doc-analysis/TableBank}.
Open-Sourced Reinforcement Learning Environments for Surgical Robotics
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2020
Year: 2020

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a machine learning framework for artificially intelligent systems to solve a variety of complex problems. Recent years has seen a surge of successes solving challenging games and smaller domain problems, including simple though non-specific robotic manipulation and grasping tasks. Rapid successes in RL have come in part due to the strong collaborative effort by the RL community to work on common, open-sourced environment simulators such as OpenAI's Gym that allow for expedited development and valid comparisons between different, state-of-art strategies. In this paper, we aim to start the bridge between the RL and the surgical robotics communities by presenting the first open-sourced reinforcement learning environments for surgical robots, called dVRL[3]{dVRL available at https://github.com/ucsdarclab/dVRL}. Through the proposed RL environments, which are functionally equivalent to Gym, we show that it is easy to prototype and implement state-of-art RL algorithms on surgical robotics problems that aim to introduce autonomous robotic precision and accuracy to assisting, collaborative, or repetitive tasks during surgery. Learned policies are furthermore successfully transferable to a real robot. Finally, combining dVRL with the over 40+ international network of da Vinci Surgical Research Kits in active use at academic institutions, we see dVRL as enabling the broad surgical robotics community to fully leverage the newest strategies in reinforcement learning, and for reinforcement learning scientists with no knowledge of surgical robotics to test and develop new algorithms that can solve the real-world, high-impact challenges in autonomous surgery.
Compressed CSI Feedback With Learned Measurement Matrix for mmWave Massive MIMO
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2020
Year: 2020

A major challenge to implement the compressed sensing method for channel state information (CSI) acquisition lies in the design of a well-performed measurement matrix to reduce the dimension of sparse channel vectors. The widely adopted randomized measurement matrices drawn from Gaussian or Bernoulli distribution are not optimal. To tackle this problem, we propose a fully data-driven approach to optimize the measurement matrix for beamspace channel compression, and this method trains a mathematically interpretable autoencoder constructed according to the iterative solution of sparse recovery. The obtained measurement matrix can achieve near perfect CSI recovery with fewer measurements, thus the feedback overhead can be substantially reduced.
Fast Exact Dynamic Time Warping on Run-Length Encoded Time Series
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2020
Year: 2020

Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) is a well-known similarity measure for time series. The standard dynamic programming approach to compute the DTW distance of two length-$n$ time series, however, requires~$O(n^2)$ time, which is often too slow for real-world applications. Therefore, many heuristics have been proposed to speed up the DTW computation. These are often based on lower bounding techniques, approximating the DTW distance, or considering special input data such as binary or piecewise constant time series. In this paper, we present a first exact algorithm to compute the DTW distance of two run-length encoded time series whose running time only depends on the encoding lengths of the inputs. The worst-case running time is cubic in the encoding length. In experiments we show that our algorithm is indeed fast for time series with short encoding lengths.