OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Developing Normative Gait Cycle Parameters for Clinical Analysis Using Human Pose Estimation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Gait analysis using computer vision is an emerging field in AI, offering clinicians an objective, multi-feature approach to analyse complex movements. Despite its promise, current applications using RGB video data alone are limited in measuring clinically relevant spatial and temporal kinematics and establishing normative parameters essential for identifying movement abnormalities within a gait cycle. This paper presents a data-driven method using RGB video data and 2D human pose estimation for developing normative kinematic gait parameters. By analysing joint angles, an established kinematic measure in biomechanics and clinical practice, we aim to enhance gait analysis capabilities and improve explainability. Our cycle-wise kinematic analysis enables clinicians to simultaneously measure and compare multiple joint angles, assessing individuals against a normative population using just monocular RGB video. This approach expands clinical capacity, supports objective decision-making, and automates the identification of specific spatial and temporal deviations and abnormalities within the gait cycle.
Hardware Accelerators for Artificial Intelligence
Venue: arXiv cs.AR 2024
Year: 2024

In this chapter, we aim to explore an in-depth exploration of the specialized hardware accelerators designed to enhance Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, focusing on their necessity, development, and impact on the field of AI. It covers the transition from traditional computing systems to advanced AI-specific hardware, addressing the growing demands of AI algorithms and the inefficiencies of conventional architectures. The discussion extends to various types of accelerators, including GPUs, FPGAs, and ASICs, and their roles in optimizing AI workloads. Additionally, it touches on the challenges and considerations in designing and implementing these accelerators, along with future prospects in the evolution of AI hardware. This comprehensive overview aims to equip readers with a clear understanding of the current landscape and future directions in AI hardware development, making it accessible to both experts and newcomers to the field.
Benchmarking GPT-4 against Human Translators: A Comprehensive Evaluation Across Languages, Domains, and Expertise Levels
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of GPT-4's translation capabilities compared to human translators of varying expertise levels. Through systematic human evaluation using the MQM schema, we assess translations across three language pairs (Chinese$\longleftrightarrow$English, Russian$\longleftrightarrow$English, and Chinese$\longleftrightarrow$Hindi) and three domains (News, Technology, and Biomedical). Our findings reveal that GPT-4 achieves performance comparable to junior-level translators in terms of total errors, while still lagging behind senior translators. Unlike traditional Neural Machine Translation systems, which show significant performance degradation in resource-poor language directions, GPT-4 maintains consistent translation quality across all evaluated language pairs. Through qualitative analysis, we identify distinctive patterns in translation approaches: GPT-4 tends toward overly literal translations and exhibits lexical inconsistency, while human translators sometimes over-interpret context and introduce hallucinations. This study represents the first systematic comparison between LLM and human translators across different proficiency levels, providing valuable insights into the current capabilities and limitations of LLM-based translation systems.
Hugging Rain Man: A Novel Facial Action Units Dataset for Analyzing Atypical Facial Expressions in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often exhibit atypical facial expressions. However, the specific objective facial features that underlie this subjective perception remain unclear. In this paper, we introduce a novel dataset, Hugging Rain Man (HRM), which includes facial action units (AUs) manually annotated by FACS experts for both children with ASD and typical development (TD). The dataset comprises a rich collection of posed and spontaneous facial expressions, totaling approximately 130,000 frames, along with 22 AUs, 10 Action Descriptors (ADs), and atypicality ratings. A statistical analysis of static images from the HRM reveals significant differences between the ASD and TD groups across multiple AUs and ADs when displaying the same emotional expressions, confirming that participants with ASD tend to demonstrate more irregular and diverse expression patterns. Subsequently, a temporal regression method was presented to analyze atypicality of dynamic sequences, thereby bridging the gap between subjective perception and objective facial characteristics. Furthermore, baseline results for AU detection are provided for future research reference. This work not only contributes to our understanding of the unique facial expression characteristics associated with ASD but also provides potential tools for ASD early screening. Portions of the dataset, features, and pretrained models are accessible at: \url{https://github.com/Jonas-DL/Hugging-Rain-Man}.
CLIPer: Hierarchically Improving Spatial Representation of CLIP for Open-Vocabulary Semantic Segmentation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training (CLIP) exhibits strong zero-shot classification ability on various image-level tasks, leading to the research to adapt CLIP for pixel-level open-vocabulary semantic segmentation without additional training. The key is to improve spatial representation of image-level CLIP, such as replacing self-attention map at last layer with self-self attention map or vision foundation model based attention map. In this paper, we present a novel hierarchical framework, named CLIPer, that hierarchically improves spatial representation of CLIP. The proposed CLIPer includes an early-layer fusion module and a fine-grained compensation module. We observe that, the embeddings and attention maps at early layers can preserve spatial structural information. Inspired by this, we design the early-layer fusion module to generate segmentation map with better spatial coherence. Afterwards, we employ a fine-grained compensation module to compensate the local details using the self-attention maps of diffusion model. We conduct the experiments on seven segmentation datasets. Our proposed CLIPer achieves the state-of-the-art performance on these datasets. For instance, using ViT-L, CLIPer has the mIoU of 69.8% and 43.3% on VOC and COCO Object, outperforming ProxyCLIP by 9.2% and 4.1% respectively.
Arm Robot: AR-Enhanced Embodied Control and Visualization for Intuitive Robot Arm Manipulation
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

Embodied interaction has been introduced to human-robot interaction (HRI) as a type of teleoperation, in which users control robot arms with bodily action via handheld controllers or haptic gloves. Embodied teleoperation has made robot control intuitive to non-technical users, but differences between humans' and robots' capabilities \eg ranges of motion and response time, remain challenging. In response, we present Arm Robot, an embodied robot arm teleoperation system that helps users tackle human-robot discrepancies. Specifically, Arm Robot (1) includes AR visualization as real-time feedback on temporal and spatial discrepancies, and (2) allows users to change observing perspectives and expand action space. We conducted a user study (N=18) to investigate the usability of the Arm Robot and learn how users perceive the embodiment. Our results show users could use Arm Robot's features to effectively control the robot arm, providing insights for continued work in embodied HRI.
A Data-Driven Modeling and Motion Control of Heavy-Load Hydraulic Manipulators via Reversible Transformation
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

This work proposes a data-driven modeling and the corresponding hybrid motion control framework for unmanned and automated operation of industrial heavy-load hydraulic manipulator. Rather than the direct use of a neural network black box, we construct a reversible nonlinear model by using multilayer perceptron to approximate dynamics in the physical integrator chain system after reversible transformations. The reversible nonlinear model is trained offline using supervised learning techniques, and the data are obtained from simulations or experiments. Entire hybrid motion control framework consists of the model inversion controller that compensates for the nonlinear dynamics and proportional-derivative controller that enhances the robustness. The stability is proved with Lyapunov theory. Co-simulation and Experiments show the effectiveness of proposed modeling and hybrid control framework. With a commercial 39-ton class hydraulic excavator for motion control tasks, the root mean square error of trajectory tracking error decreases by at least 50\% compared to traditional control methods. In addition, by analyzing the system model, the proposed framework can be rapidly applied to different control plants.
PIORS: Personalized Intelligent Outpatient Reception based on Large Language Model with Multi-Agents Medical Scenario Simulation
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

In China, receptionist nurses face overwhelming workloads in outpatient settings, limiting their time and attention for each patient and ultimately reducing service quality. In this paper, we present the Personalized Intelligent Outpatient Reception System (PIORS). This system integrates an LLM-based reception nurse and a collaboration between LLM and hospital information system (HIS) into real outpatient reception setting, aiming to deliver personalized, high-quality, and efficient reception services. Additionally, to enhance the performance of LLMs in real-world healthcare scenarios, we propose a medical conversational data generation framework named Service Flow aware Medical Scenario Simulation (SFMSS), aiming to adapt the LLM to the real-world environments and PIORS settings. We evaluate the effectiveness of PIORS and SFMSS through automatic and human assessments involving 15 users and 15 clinical experts. The results demonstrate that PIORS-Nurse outperforms all baselines, including the current state-of-the-art model GPT-4o, and aligns with human preferences and clinical needs. Further details and demo can be found at https://github.com/FudanDISC/PIORS
NBMLSS: probabilistic forecasting of electricity prices via Neural Basis Models for Location Scale and Shape
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

Forecasters using flexible neural networks (NN) in multi-horizon distributional regression setups often struggle to gain detailed insights into the underlying mechanisms that lead to the predicted feature-conditioned distribution parameters. In this work, we deploy a Neural Basis Model for Location, Scale and Shape, that blends the principled interpretability of GAMLSS with a computationally scalable shared basis decomposition, combined by linear projections supporting dedicated stepwise and parameter-wise feature shape functions aggregations. Experiments have been conducted on multiple market regions, achieving probabilistic forecasting performance comparable to that of distributional neural networks, while providing more insights into the model behavior through the learned nonlinear feature level maps to the distribution parameters across the prediction steps.
Material synthesis through simulations guided by machine learning: a position paper
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

In this position paper, we propose an approach for sustainable data collection in the field of optimal mix design for marble sludge reuse. Marble sludge, a calcium-rich residual from stone-cutting processes, can be repurposed by mixing it with various ingredients. However, determining the optimal mix design is challenging due to the variability in sludge composition and the costly, time-consuming nature of experimental data collection. Also, we investigate the possibility of using machine learning models using meta-learning as an optimization tool to estimate the correct quantity of stone-cutting sludge to be used in aggregates to obtain a mix design with specific mechanical properties that can be used successfully in the building industry. Our approach offers two key advantages: (i) through simulations, a large dataset can be generated, saving time and money during the data collection phase, and (ii) Utilizing machine learning models, with performance enhancement through hyper-parameter optimization via meta-learning, to estimate optimal mix designs reducing the need for extensive manual experimentation, lowering costs, minimizing environmental impact, and accelerating the processing of quarry sludge. Our idea promises to streamline the marble sludge reuse process by leveraging collective data and advanced machine learning, promoting sustainability and efficiency in the stonecutting sector.
FedRAV: Hierarchically Federated Region-Learning for Traffic Object Classification of Autonomous Vehicles
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2024
Year: 2024

The emerging federated learning enables distributed autonomous vehicles to train equipped deep learning models collaboratively without exposing their raw data, providing great potential for utilizing explosively growing autonomous driving data. However, considering the complicated traffic environments and driving scenarios, deploying federated learning for autonomous vehicles is inevitably challenged by non-independent and identically distributed (Non-IID) data of vehicles, which may lead to failed convergence and low training accuracy. In this paper, we propose a novel hierarchically Federated Region-learning framework of Autonomous Vehicles (FedRAV), a two-stage framework, which adaptively divides a large area containing vehicles into sub-regions based on the defined region-wise distance, and achieves personalized vehicular models and regional models. This approach ensures that the personalized vehicular model adopts the beneficial models while discarding the unprofitable ones. We validate our FedRAV framework against existing federated learning algorithms on three real-world autonomous driving datasets in various heterogeneous settings. The experiment results demonstrate that our framework outperforms those known algorithms, and improves the accuracy by at least 3.69%. The source code of FedRAV is available at: https://github.com/yjzhai-cs/FedRAV.
Mirror Target YOLO: An Improved YOLOv8 Method with Indirect Vision for Heritage Buildings Fire Detection
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

Fires can cause severe damage to heritage buildings, making timely fire detection essential. Traditional dense cabling and drilling can harm these structures, so reducing the number of cameras to minimize such impact is challenging. Additionally, avoiding false alarms due to noise sensitivity and preserving the expertise of managers in fire-prone areas is crucial. To address these needs, we propose a fire detection method based on indirect vision, called Mirror Target YOLO (MITA-YOLO). MITA-YOLO integrates indirect vision deployment and an enhanced detection module. It uses mirror angles to achieve indirect views, solving issues with limited visibility in irregular spaces and aligning each indirect view with the target monitoring area. The Target-Mask module is designed to automatically identify and isolate the indirect vision areas in each image, filtering out non-target areas. This enables the model to inherit managers' expertise in assessing fire-risk zones, improving focus and resistance to interference in fire detection.In our experiments, we created an 800-image fire dataset with indirect vision. Results show that MITA-YOLO significantly reduces camera requirements while achieving superior detection performance compared to other mainstream models.
A Multi-Layer Blockchain Simulator and Performance Evaluation of Social Internet of Vehicles with Multi-Connectivity Management
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2024
Year: 2024

The evolution of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication brings significant challenges, such as data integrity and vulnerabilities stemming from centralized management. This paper presents an innovative integration of decentralized blockchain technology with V2X communication through a multi-layered architecture that combines the Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) traffic simulator and the BlockSim blockchain simulator. In addition, as the Social Internet of Vehicles (SIoV) emerges, efficient resource management becomes indispensable for ensuring seamless communication. We also propose a reference multi-connectivity management method named Enhanced MAX-SINR, designed to advance research in blockchain-specific approaches, taking into account retransmission successfull rates. We evaluate blockchain performance in diverse environments such as urban, suburban, and rural areas, demonstrating that enhancing the success rate of retransmitted blockchain-related messages significantly boosts blockchain transaction performance and provides a foundation for developing intelligent SIoV systems.
SEMPose: A Single End-to-end Network for Multi-object Pose Estimation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

In computer vision, estimating the six-degree-of-freedom pose from an RGB image is a fundamental task. However, this task becomes highly challenging in multi-object scenes. Currently, the best methods typically employ an indirect strategy, which identifies 2D and 3D correspondences, and then solves with the Perspective-n-Points method. Yet, this approach cannot be trained end-to-end. Direct methods, on the other hand, suffer from lower accuracy due to challenges such as varying object sizes and occlusions. To address these issues, we propose SEMPose, an end-to-end multi-object pose estimation network. SEMPose utilizes a well-designed texture-shape guided feature pyramid network, effectively tackling the challenge of object size variations. Additionally, it employs an iterative refinement head structure, progressively regressing rotation and translation separately to enhance estimation accuracy. During training, we alleviate the impact of occlusion by selecting positive samples from visible parts. Experimental results demonstrate that SEMPose can perform inference at 32 FPS without requiring inputs other than the RGB image. It can accurately estimate the poses of multiple objects in real time, with inference time unaffected by the number of target objects. On the LM-O and YCB-V datasets, our method outperforms other RGB-based single-model methods, achieving higher accuracy. Even when compared with multi-model methods and approaches that use additional refinement, our results remain competitive.
A Simulated real-world upper-body Exoskeleton Accident and Investigation
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

This paper describes the enactment of a simulated (mock) accident involving an upper-body exoskeleton and its investigation. The accident scenario is enacted by role-playing volunteers, one of whom is wearing the exoskeleton. Following the mock accident, investigators - also volunteers - interview both the subject of the accident and relevant witnesses. The investigators then consider the witness testimony alongside robot data logged by the ethical black box, in order to address the three key questions: what happened?, why did it happen?, and how can we make changes to prevent the accident happening again? This simulated accident scenario is one of a series we have run as part of the RoboTIPS project, with the overall aim of developing and testing both processes and technologies to support social robot accident investigation.
GPT versus Humans: Uncovering Ethical Concerns in Conversational Generative AI-empowered Multi-Robot Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) and large language models (LLMs) such ChatGPT has enabled the realization of long-harbored desires in software and robotic development. The technology however, has brought with it novel ethical challenges. These challenges are compounded by the application of LLMs in other machine learning systems, such as multi-robot systems. The objectives of the study were to examine novel ethical issues arising from the application of LLMs in multi-robot systems. Unfolding ethical issues in GPT agent behavior (deliberation of ethical concerns) was observed, and GPT output was compared with human experts. The article also advances a model for ethical development of multi-robot systems. A qualitative workshop-based method was employed in three workshops for the collection of ethical concerns: two human expert workshops (N=16 participants) and one GPT-agent-based workshop (N=7 agents; two teams of 6 agents plus one judge). Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The results reveal differences between the human-produced and GPT-based ethical concerns. Human experts placed greater emphasis on new themes related to deviance, data privacy, bias and unethical corporate conduct. GPT agents emphasized concerns present in existing AI ethics guidelines. The study contributes to a growing body of knowledge in context-specific AI ethics and GPT application. It demonstrates the gap between human expert thinking and LLM output, while emphasizing new ethical concerns emerging in novel technology.
LLM-based Multi-Agent Systems: Techniques and Business Perspectives
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2024
Year: 2024

In the era of (multi-modal) large language models, most operational processes can be reformulated and reproduced using LLM agents. The LLM agents can perceive, control, and get feedback from the environment so as to accomplish the given tasks in an autonomous manner. Besides the environment-interaction property, the LLM agents can call various external tools to ease the task completion process. The tools can be regarded as a predefined operational process with private or real-time knowledge that does not exist in the parameters of LLMs. As a natural trend of development, the tools for calling are becoming autonomous agents, thus the full intelligent system turns out to be a LLM-based Multi-Agent System (LaMAS). Compared to the previous single-LLM-agent system, LaMAS has the advantages of i) dynamic task decomposition and organic specialization, ii) higher flexibility for system changing, iii) proprietary data preserving for each participating entity, and iv) feasibility of monetization for each entity. This paper discusses the technical and business landscapes of LaMAS. To support the ecosystem of LaMAS, we provide a preliminary version of such LaMAS protocol considering technical requirements, data privacy, and business incentives. As such, LaMAS would be a practical solution to achieve artificial collective intelligence in the near future.