OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
MR-GDINO: Efficient Open-World Continual Object Detection
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Open-world (OW) recognition and detection models show strong zero- and few-shot adaptation abilities, inspiring their use as initializations in continual learning methods to improve performance. Despite promising results on seen classes, such OW abilities on unseen classes are largely degenerated due to catastrophic forgetting. To tackle this challenge, we propose an open-world continual object detection task, requiring detectors to generalize to old, new, and unseen categories in continual learning scenarios. Based on this task, we present a challenging yet practical OW-COD benchmark to assess detection abilities. The goal is to motivate OW detectors to simultaneously preserve learned classes, adapt to new classes, and maintain open-world capabilities under few-shot adaptations. To mitigate forgetting in unseen categories, we propose MR-GDINO, a strong, efficient and scalable baseline via memory and retrieval mechanisms within a highly scalable memory pool. Experimental results show that existing continual detectors suffer from severe forgetting for both seen and unseen categories. In contrast, MR-GDINO largely mitigates forgetting with only 0.1% activated extra parameters, achieving state-of-the-art performance for old, new, and unseen categories.
Data-Centric Improvements for Enhancing Multi-Modal Understanding in Spoken Conversation Modeling
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

Conversational assistants are increasingly popular across diverse real-world applications, highlighting the need for advanced multimodal speech modeling. Speech, as a natural mode of communication, encodes rich user-specific characteristics such as speaking rate and pitch, making it critical for effective interaction. Our work introduces a data-centric customization approach for efficiently enhancing multimodal understanding in conversational speech modeling. Central to our contributions is a novel multi-task learning paradigm that involves designing auxiliary tasks to utilize a small amount of speech data. Our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on the Spoken-SQuAD benchmark, using only 10% of the training data with open-weight models, establishing a robust and efficient framework for audio-centric conversational modeling. We also introduce ASK-QA, the first dataset for multi-turn spoken dialogue with ambiguous user requests and dynamic evaluation inputs. Code and data forthcoming.
Multi-Strided Access Patterns to Boost Hardware Prefetching
Venue: arXiv cs.PF 2024
Year: 2024

Important memory-bound kernels, such as linear algebra, convolutions, and stencils, rely on SIMD instructions as well as optimizations targeting improved vectorized data traversal and data re-use to attain satisfactory performance. On on temporary CPU architectures, the hardware prefetcher is of key importance for efficient utilization of the memory hierarchy. In this paper, we demonstrate that transforming a memory access pattern consisting of a single stride to one that concurrently accesses multiple strides, can boost the utilization of the hardware prefetcher, and in turn improves the performance of memory-bound kernels significantly. Using a set of micro-benchmarks, we establish that accessing memory in a multi-strided manner enables more cache lines to be concurrently brought into the cache, resulting in improved cache hit ratios and higher effective memory bandwidth without the introduction of costly software prefetch instructions. Subsequently, we show that multi-strided variants of a collection of six memory-bound dense compute kernels outperform state-of-the-art counterparts on three different micro-architectures. More specifically, for kernels among which Matrix Vector Multiplication, Convolution Stencil and kernels from PolyBench, we achieve significant speedups of up to 12.55x over Polly, 2.99x over MKL, 1.98x over OpenBLAS, 1.08x over Halide and 1.87x over OpenCV. The code transformation to take advantage of multi-strided memory access is a natural extension of the loop unroll and loop interchange techniques, allowing this method to be incorporated into compiler pipelines in the future.
Segmentation of arbitrary features in very high resolution remote sensing imagery
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Very high resolution (VHR) mapping through remote sensing (RS) imagery presents a new opportunity to inform decision-making and sustainable practices in countless domains. Efficient processing of big VHR data requires automated tools applicable to numerous geographic regions and features. Contemporary RS studies address this challenge by employing deep learning (DL) models for specific datasets or features, which limits their applicability across contexts. The present research aims to overcome this limitation by introducing EcoMapper, a scalable solution to segment arbitrary features in VHR RS imagery. EcoMapper fully automates processing of geospatial data, DL model training, and inference. Models trained with EcoMapper successfully segmented two distinct features in a real-world UAV dataset, achieving scores competitive with prior studies which employed context-specific models. To evaluate EcoMapper, many additional models were trained on permutations of principal field survey characteristics (FSCs). A relationship was discovered allowing derivation of optimal ground sampling distance from feature size, termed Cording Index (CI). A comprehensive methodology for field surveys was developed to ensure DL methods can be applied effectively to collected data. The EcoMapper code accompanying this work is available at https://github.com/hcording/ecomapper .
SegCol Challenge: Semantic Segmentation for Tools and Fold Edges in Colonoscopy data
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, with polyp removal being an effective early screening method. However, navigating the colon for thorough polyp detection poses significant challenges. To advance camera navigation in colonoscopy, we propose the Semantic Segmentation for Tools and Fold Edges in Colonoscopy (SegCol) Challenge. This challenge introduces a dataset from the EndoMapper repository, featuring manually annotated, pixel-level semantic labels for colon folds and endoscopic tools across selected frames from 96 colonoscopy videos. By providing fold edges as anatomical landmarks and depth discontinuity information from both fold and tool labels, the dataset is aimed to improve depth perception and localization methods. Hosted as part of the Endovis Challenge at MICCAI 2024, SegCol aims to drive innovation in colonoscopy navigation systems. Details are available at https://www.synapse.org/Synapse:syn54124209/wiki/626563, and code resources at https://github.com/surgical-vision/segcol_challenge .
The Evolution of LLM Adoption in Industry Data Curation Practices
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2024
Year: 2024

As large language models (LLMs) grow increasingly adept at processing unstructured text data, they offer new opportunities to enhance data curation workflows. This paper explores the evolution of LLM adoption among practitioners at a large technology company, evaluating the impact of LLMs in data curation tasks through participants' perceptions, integration strategies, and reported usage scenarios. Through a series of surveys, interviews, and user studies, we provide a timely snapshot of how organizations are navigating a pivotal moment in LLM evolution. In Q2 2023, we conducted a survey to assess LLM adoption in industry for development tasks (N=84), and facilitated expert interviews to assess evolving data needs (N=10) in Q3 2023. In Q2 2024, we explored practitioners' current and anticipated LLM usage through a user study involving two LLM-based prototypes (N=12). While each study addressed distinct research goals, they revealed a broader narrative about evolving LLM usage in aggregate. We discovered an emerging shift in data understanding from heuristic-first, bottom-up approaches to insights-first, top-down workflows supported by LLMs. Furthermore, to respond to a more complex data landscape, data practitioners now supplement traditional subject-expert-created 'golden datasets' with LLM-generated 'silver' datasets and rigorously validated 'super golden' datasets curated by diverse experts. This research sheds light on the transformative role of LLMs in large-scale analysis of unstructured data and highlights opportunities for further tool development.
PruneVid: Visual Token Pruning for Efficient Video Large Language Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

In this paper, we introduce PruneVid, a visual token pruning method designed to enhance the efficiency of multi-modal video understanding. Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown promising performance in video tasks due to their extended capabilities in comprehending visual modalities. However, the substantial redundancy in video data presents significant computational challenges for LLMs. To address this issue, we introduce a training-free method that 1) minimizes video redundancy by merging spatial-temporal tokens, and 2) leverages LLMs' reasoning capabilities to selectively prune visual features relevant to question tokens, enhancing model efficiency. We validate our method across multiple video benchmarks, which demonstrate that PruneVid can prune over 80% of tokens while maintaining competitive performance combined with different model networks. This highlights its superior effectiveness and efficiency compared to existing pruning methods. Code: https://github.com/Visual-AI/PruneVid.
Can Generative Video Models Help Pose Estimation?
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Pairwise pose estimation from images with little or no overlap is an open challenge in computer vision. Existing methods, even those trained on large-scale datasets, struggle in these scenarios due to the lack of identifiable correspondences or visual overlap. Inspired by the human ability to infer spatial relationships from diverse scenes, we propose a novel approach, InterPose, that leverages the rich priors encoded within pre-trained generative video models. We propose to use a video model to hallucinate intermediate frames between two input images, effectively creating a dense, visual transition, which significantly simplifies the problem of pose estimation. Since current video models can still produce implausible motion or inconsistent geometry, we introduce a self-consistency score that evaluates the consistency of pose predictions from sampled videos. We demonstrate that our approach generalizes among three state-of-the-art video models and show consistent improvements over the state-of-the-art DUSt3R on four diverse datasets encompassing indoor, outdoor, and object-centric scenes. Our findings suggest a promising avenue for improving pose estimation models by leveraging large generative models trained on vast amounts of video data, which is more readily available than 3D data. See our project page for results: https://inter-pose.github.io/.
Personalized Representation from Personalized Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Modern vision models excel at general purpose downstream tasks. It is unclear, however, how they may be used for personalized vision tasks, which are both fine-grained and data-scarce. Recent works have successfully applied synthetic data to general-purpose representation learning, while advances in T2I diffusion models have enabled the generation of personalized images from just a few real examples. Here, we explore a potential connection between these ideas, and formalize the challenge of using personalized synthetic data to learn personalized representations, which encode knowledge about an object of interest and may be flexibly applied to any downstream task relating to the target object. We introduce an evaluation suite for this challenge, including reformulations of two existing datasets and a novel dataset explicitly constructed for this purpose, and propose a contrastive learning approach that makes creative use of image generators. We show that our method improves personalized representation learning for diverse downstream tasks, from recognition to segmentation, and analyze characteristics of image generation approaches that are key to this gain.
Survey Insights on M365 Copilot Adoption
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2024
Year: 2024

Australia's National Science Agency conducted a six-month trial of M365 Copilot starting in January 2024 as part of an Australian Government initiative. Three hundred licenses were distributed across CSIRO using a persona-based approach to ensure diversity of roles and attributes among participants. As a scientific research organisation with a unique operational context, our objective was to study the use of M365 Copilot on enhancing productivity, efficiency, and creativity as well as overall satisfaction and ethical considerations. This paper presents the results from two surveys, conducted before and after the trial. The results showed mixed outcomes, with participants reporting improved productivity and efficiency in structured tasks such as meeting summaries and email drafting. Gaps were identified in advanced functionalities and integration, which limited Copilot's overall effectiveness. Satisfaction levels were generally positive, but user experiences varied in certain areas. Ethical concerns, particularly around data privacy, became more pronounced post-trial. These findings highlight Copilot's potential and the need for further refinement to meet users' diverse needs.
Decoding Poultry Vocalizations -- Natural Language Processing and Transformer Models for Semantic and Emotional Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.SD 2024
Year: 2024

Deciphering the acoustic language of chickens offers new opportunities in animal welfare and ecological informatics. Their subtle vocal signals encode health conditions, emotional states, and dynamic interactions within ecosystems. Understanding the semantics of these calls provides a valuable tool for interpreting their functional vocabulary and clarifying how each sound serves a specific purpose in social and environmental contexts. We apply advanced Natural Language Processing and transformer based models to translate bioacoustic data into meaningful insights. Our method integrates Wave2Vec 2.0 for raw audio feature extraction with a fine tuned Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers model, pretrained on a broad corpus of animal sounds and adapted to poultry tasks. This pipeline decodes poultry vocalizations into interpretable categories including distress calls, feeding signals, and mating vocalizations, revealing emotional nuances often overlooked by conventional analyses. Achieving 92 percent accuracy in classifying key vocalization types, our approach demonstrates the feasibility of real time automated monitoring of flock health and stress. By tracking this functional vocabulary, farmers can respond proactively to environmental or behavioral changes, improving poultry welfare, reducing stress related productivity losses, and supporting more sustainable farm management. Beyond agriculture, this research enhances our understanding of computational ecology. Accessing the semantic foundation of animal calls may indicate biodiversity, environmental stressors, and species interactions, informing integrative ecosystem level decision making.
Stabilizing Machine Learning for Reproducible and Explainable Results: A Novel Validation Approach to Subject-Specific Insights
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

Machine Learning is transforming medical research by improving diagnostic accuracy and personalizing treatments. General ML models trained on large datasets identify broad patterns across populations, but their effectiveness is often limited by the diversity of human biology. This has led to interest in subject-specific models that use individual data for more precise predictions. However, these models are costly and challenging to develop. To address this, we propose a novel validation approach that uses a general ML model to ensure reproducible performance and robust feature importance analysis at both group and subject-specific levels. We tested a single Random Forest (RF) model on nine datasets varying in domain, sample size, and demographics. Different validation techniques were applied to evaluate accuracy and feature importance consistency. To introduce variability, we performed up to 400 trials per subject, randomly seeding the ML algorithm for each trial. This generated 400 feature sets per subject, from which we identified top subject-specific features. A group-specific feature importance set was then derived from all subject-specific results. We compared our approach to conventional validation methods in terms of performance and feature importance consistency. Our repeated trials approach, with random seed variation, consistently identified key features at the subject level and improved group-level feature importance analysis using a single general model. Subject-specific models address biological variability but are resource-intensive. Our novel validation technique provides consistent feature importance and improved accuracy within a general ML model, offering a practical and explainable alternative for clinical research.
Synthetic Time Series Data Generation for Healthcare Applications: A PCG Case Study
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

The generation of high-quality medical time series data is essential for advancing healthcare diagnostics and safeguarding patient privacy. Specifically, synthesizing realistic phonocardiogram (PCG) signals offers significant potential as a cost-effective and efficient tool for cardiac disease pre-screening. Despite its potential, the synthesis of PCG signals for this specific application received limited attention in research. In this study, we employ and compare three state-of-the-art generative models from different categories - WaveNet, DoppelGANger, and DiffWave - to generate high-quality PCG data. We use data from the George B. Moody PhysioNet Challenge 2022. Our methods are evaluated using various metrics widely used in the previous literature in the domain of time series data generation, such as mean absolute error and maximum mean discrepancy. Our results demonstrate that the generated PCG data closely resembles the original datasets, indicating the effectiveness of our generative models in producing realistic synthetic PCG data. In our future work, we plan to incorporate this method into a data augmentation pipeline to synthesize abnormal PCG signals with heart murmurs, in order to address the current scarcity of abnormal data. We hope to improve the robustness and accuracy of diagnostic tools in cardiology, enhancing their effectiveness in detecting heart murmurs.
AdvIRL: Reinforcement Learning-Based Adversarial Attacks on 3D NeRF Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

The increasing deployment of AI models in critical applications has exposed them to significant risks from adversarial attacks. While adversarial vulnerabilities in 2D vision models have been extensively studied, the threat landscape for 3D generative models, such as Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF), remains underexplored. This work introduces \textit{AdvIRL}, a novel framework for crafting adversarial NeRF models using Instant Neural Graphics Primitives (Instant-NGP) and Reinforcement Learning. Unlike prior methods, \textit{AdvIRL} generates adversarial noise that remains robust under diverse 3D transformations, including rotations and scaling, enabling effective black-box attacks in real-world scenarios. Our approach is validated across a wide range of scenes, from small objects (e.g., bananas) to large environments (e.g., lighthouses). Notably, targeted attacks achieved high-confidence misclassifications, such as labeling a banana as a slug and a truck as a cannon, demonstrating the practical risks posed by adversarial NeRFs. Beyond attacking, \textit{AdvIRL}-generated adversarial models can serve as adversarial training data to enhance the robustness of vision systems. The implementation of \textit{AdvIRL} is publicly available at \url{https://github.com/Tommy-Nguyen-cpu/AdvIRL/tree/MultiView-Clean}, ensuring reproducibility and facilitating future research.
Color-Name Aware Optimization to Enhance the Perception of Transparent Overlapped Charts
Venue: arXiv cs.GR 2024
Year: 2024

Transparency is commonly utilized in visualizations to overlay color-coded histograms or sets, thereby facilitating the visual comparison of categorical data. However, these charts often suffer from significant overlap between objects, resulting in substantial color interactions. Existing color blending models struggle in these scenarios, frequently leading to ambiguous color mappings and the introduction of false colors. To address these challenges, we propose an automated approach for generating optimal color encodings to enhance the perception of translucent charts. Our method harnesses color nameability to maximize the association between composite colors and their respective class labels. We introduce a color-name aware (CNA) optimization framework that generates maximally coherent color assignments and transparency settings while ensuring perceptual discriminability for all segments in the visualization. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our technique through crowdsourced experiments with composite histograms, showing how our technique can significantly outperform both standard and visualization-specific color blending models. Furthermore, we illustrate how our approach can be generalized to other visualizations, including parallel coordinates and Venn diagrams. We provide an open-source implementation of our technique as a web-based tool.
Bag of Tricks for Multimodal AutoML with Image, Text, and Tabular Data
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

This paper studies the best practices for automatic machine learning (AutoML). While previous AutoML efforts have predominantly focused on unimodal data, the multimodal aspect remains under-explored. Our study delves into classification and regression problems involving flexible combinations of image, text, and tabular data. We curate a benchmark comprising 22 multimodal datasets from diverse real-world applications, encompassing all 4 combinations of the 3 modalities. Across this benchmark, we scrutinize design choices related to multimodal fusion strategies, multimodal data augmentation, converting tabular data into text, cross-modal alignment, and handling missing modalities. Through extensive experimentation and analysis, we distill a collection of effective strategies and consolidate them into a unified pipeline, achieving robust performance on diverse datasets.
Adversarial Robustness through Dynamic Ensemble Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2024
Year: 2024

Adversarial attacks pose a significant threat to the reliability of pre-trained language models (PLMs) such as GPT, BERT, RoBERTa, and T5. This paper presents Adversarial Robustness through Dynamic Ensemble Learning (ARDEL), a novel scheme designed to enhance the robustness of PLMs against such attacks. ARDEL leverages the diversity of multiple PLMs and dynamically adjusts the ensemble configuration based on input characteristics and detected adversarial patterns. Key components of ARDEL include a meta-model for dynamic weighting, an adversarial pattern detection module, and adversarial training with regularization techniques. Comprehensive evaluations using standardized datasets and various adversarial attack scenarios demonstrate that ARDEL significantly improves robustness compared to existing methods. By dynamically reconfiguring the ensemble to prioritize the most robust models for each input, ARDEL effectively reduces attack success rates and maintains higher accuracy under adversarial conditions. This work contributes to the broader goal of developing more secure and trustworthy AI systems for real-world NLP applications, offering a practical and scalable solution to enhance adversarial resilience in PLMs.