Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Efficient quantum non-fungible tokens for blockchain

Blockchain is a decentralized system that allows transaction transmission and storage according to the roles of the Consensus algorithm and Smart contracts. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) consolidate the best characteristics of blockchain technology to deliver unique and bona fide tokens, each with distinctive attributes with non-fungible resources. Unfortunately, current classical NFTs are suffering from high costs regarding the consumed power of mining and lack of security. Therefore, this paper presents a new protocol for preparing quantum non-fungible tokens where a quantum state representing NFT is mounted on a blockchain instead of physically giving it to the owner. The proposed scheme is simulated and analyzed against various attacks and proves its ability to secure against them. Furthermore, the presented protocol provides reliable and cheaper NFTs than the classical one.
Semi-Supervised Clustering via Dynamic Graph Structure Learning

Most existing semi-supervised graph-based clustering methods exploit the supervisory information by either refining the affinity matrix or directly constraining the low-dimensional representations of data points. The affinity matrix represents the graph structure and is vital to the performance of semi-supervised graph-based clustering. However, existing methods adopt a static affinity matrix to learn the low-dimensional representations of data points and do not optimize the affinity matrix during the learning process. In this paper, we propose a novel dynamic graph structure learning method for semi-supervised clustering. In this method, we simultaneously optimize the affinity matrix and the low-dimensional representations of data points by leveraging the given pairwise constraints. Moreover, we propose an alternating minimization approach with proven convergence to solve the proposed nonconvex model. During the iteration process, our method cyclically updates the low-dimensional representations of data points and refines the affinity matrix, leading to a dynamic affinity matrix (graph structure). Specifically, for the update of the affinity matrix, we enforce the data points with remarkably different low-dimensional representations to have an affinity value of 0. Furthermore, we construct the initial affinity matrix by integrating the local distance and global self-representation among data points. Experimental results on eight benchmark datasets under different settings show the advantages of the proposed approach.
UPAR: Unified Pedestrian Attribute Recognition and Person Retrieval

Recognizing soft-biometric pedestrian attributes is essential in video surveillance and fashion retrieval. Recent works show promising results on single datasets. Nevertheless, the generalization ability of these methods under different attribute distributions, viewpoints, varying illumination, and low resolutions remains rarely understood due to strong biases and varying attributes in current datasets. To close this gap and support a systematic investigation, we present UPAR, the Unified Person Attribute Recognition Dataset. It is based on four well-known person attribute recognition datasets: PA100K, PETA, RAPv2, and Market1501. We unify those datasets by providing 3,3M additional annotations to harmonize 40 important binary attributes over 12 attribute categories across the datasets. We thus enable research on generalizable pedestrian attribute recognition as well as attribute-based person retrieval for the first time. Due to the vast variance of the image distribution, pedestrian pose, scale, and occlusion, existing approaches are greatly challenged both in terms of accuracy and efficiency. Furthermore, we develop a strong baseline for PAR and attribute-based person retrieval based on a thorough analysis of regularization methods. Our models achieve state-of-the-art performance in cross-domain and specialization settings on PA100k, PETA, RAPv2, Market1501-Attributes, and UPAR. We believe UPAR and our strong baseline will contribute to the artificial intelligence community and promote research on large-scale, generalizable attribute recognition systems.
Sequential Cross Attention Based Multi-task Learning

In multi-task learning (MTL) for visual scene understanding, it is crucial to transfer useful information between multiple tasks with minimal interferences. In this paper, we propose a novel architecture that effectively transfers informative features by applying the attention mechanism to the multi-scale features of the tasks. Since applying the attention module directly to all possible features in terms of scale and task requires a high complexity, we propose to apply the attention module sequentially for the task and scale. The cross-task attention module (CTAM) is first applied to facilitate the exchange of relevant information between the multiple task features of the same scale. The cross-scale attention module (CSAM) then aggregates useful information from feature maps at different resolutions in the same task. Also, we attempt to capture long range dependencies through the self-attention module in the feature extraction network. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance on the NYUD-v2 and PASCAL-Context dataset.
Explaining Machine Learning Models in Natural Conversations: Towards a Conversational XAI Agent

The goal of Explainable AI (XAI) is to design methods to provide insights into the reasoning process of black-box models, such as deep neural networks, in order to explain them to humans. Social science research states that such explanations should be conversational, similar to human-to-human explanations. In this work, we show how to incorporate XAI in a conversational agent, using a standard design for the agent comprising natural language understanding and generation components. We build upon an XAI question bank which we extend by quality-controlled paraphrases to understand the user's information needs. We further systematically survey the literature for suitable explanation methods that provide the information to answer those questions, and present a comprehensive list of suggestions. Our work is the first step towards truly natural conversations about machine learning models with an explanation agent. The comprehensive list of XAI questions and the corresponding explanation methods may support other researchers in providing the necessary information to address users' demands.
Finite-Time Error Bounds for Greedy-GQ

Greedy-GQ with linear function approximation, originally proposed in \cite{maei2010toward}, is a value-based off-policy algorithm for optimal control in reinforcement learning, and it has a non-linear two timescale structure with a non-convex objective function. This paper develops its finite-time error bounds. We show that the Greedy-GQ algorithm converges as fast as $\mathcal{O}({1}/{\sqrt{T}})$ under the i.i.d.\ setting and $\mathcal{O}({\log T}/{\sqrt{T}})$ under the Markovian setting. We further design a variant of the vanilla Greedy-GQ algorithm using the nested-loop approach, and show that its sample complexity is $\mathcal{O}({\log(1/\epsilon)\epsilon^{-2}})$, which matches with the one of the vanilla Greedy-GQ. Our finite-time error bounds match with one of the stochastic gradient descent algorithms for general smooth non-convex optimization problems. Our finite-sample analysis provides theoretical guidance on choosing step-sizes for faster convergence in practice and suggests the trade-off between the convergence rate and the quality of the obtained policy. Our techniques in this paper provide a general approach for finite-sample analysis of non-convex two timescale value-based reinforcement learning algorithms.
Progressive Domain Adaptation with Contrastive Learning for Object Detection in the Satellite Imagery

State-of-the-art object detection methods applied to satellite and drone imagery largely fail to identify small and dense objects. One reason is the high variability of content in the overhead imagery due to the terrestrial region captured and the high variability of acquisition conditions. Another reason is that the number and size of objects in aerial imagery are very different than in the consumer data. In this work, we propose a small object detection pipeline that improves the feature extraction process by spatial pyramid pooling, cross-stage partial networks, heatmap-based region proposal network, and object localization and identification through a novel image difficulty score that adapts the overall focal loss measure based on the image difficulty. Next, we propose novel contrastive learning with progressive domain adaptation to produce domain-invariant features across aerial datasets using local and global components. We show we can alleviate the degradation of object identification in previously unseen datasets. We create a first-ever domain adaptation benchmark using contrastive learning for the object detection task in highly imbalanced satellite datasets with significant domain gaps and dominant small objects. The proposed method results in a 7.4% increase in mAP performance measure over the best state-of-art.
When Privacy Meets Partial Information: A Refined Analysis of Differentially Private Bandits

We study the problem of multi-armed bandits with $\epsilon$-global Differential Privacy (DP). First, we prove the minimax and problem-dependent regret lower bounds for stochastic and linear bandits that quantify the hardness of bandits with $\epsilon$-global DP. These bounds suggest the existence of two hardness regimes depending on the privacy budget $\epsilon$. In the high-privacy regime (small $\epsilon$), the hardness depends on a coupled effect of privacy and partial information about the reward distributions. In the low-privacy regime (large $\epsilon$), bandits with $\epsilon$-global DP are not harder than the bandits without privacy. For stochastic bandits, we further propose a generic framework to design a near-optimal $\epsilon$ global DP extension of an index-based optimistic bandit algorithm. The framework consists of three ingredients: the Laplace mechanism, arm-dependent adaptive episodes, and usage of only the rewards collected in the last episode for computing private statistics. Specifically, we instantiate $\epsilon$-global DP extensions of UCB and KL-UCB algorithms, namely AdaP-UCB and AdaP-KLUCB. AdaP-KLUCB is the first algorithm that both satisfies $\epsilon$-global DP and yields a regret upper bound that matches the problem-dependent lower bound up to multiplicative constants.
Learning Interpretable Temporal Properties from Positive Examples Only

We consider the problem of explaining the temporal behavior of black-box systems using human-interpretable models. To this end, based on recent research trends, we rely on the fundamental yet interpretable models of deterministic finite automata (DFAs) and linear temporal logic (LTL) formulas. In contrast to most existing works for learning DFAs and LTL formulas, we rely on only positive examples. Our motivation is that negative examples are generally difficult to observe, in particular, from black-box systems. To learn meaningful models from positive examples only, we design algorithms that rely on conciseness and language minimality of models as regularizers. To this end, our algorithms adopt two approaches: a symbolic and a counterexample-guided one. While the symbolic approach exploits an efficient encoding of language minimality as a constraint satisfaction problem, the counterexample-guided one relies on generating suitable negative examples to prune the search. Both the approaches provide us with effective algorithms with theoretical guarantees on the learned models. To assess the effectiveness of our algorithms, we evaluate all of them on synthetic data.
Membership Inference Attack and Defense for Wireless Signal Classifiers with Deep Learning

An over-the-air membership inference attack (MIA) is presented to leak private information from a wireless signal classifier. Machine learning (ML) provides powerful means to classify wireless signals, e.g., for PHY-layer authentication. As an adversarial machine learning attack, the MIA infers whether a signal of interest has been used in the training data of a target classifier. This private information incorporates waveform, channel, and device characteristics, and if leaked, can be exploited by an adversary to identify vulnerabilities of the underlying ML model (e.g., to infiltrate the PHY-layer authentication). One challenge for the over-the-air MIA is that the received signals and consequently the RF fingerprints at the adversary and the intended receiver differ due to the discrepancy in channel conditions. Therefore, the adversary first builds a surrogate classifier by observing the spectrum and then launches the black-box MIA on this classifier. The MIA results show that the adversary can reliably infer signals (and potentially the radio and channel information) used to build the target classifier. Therefore, a proactive defense is developed against the MIA by building a shadow MIA model and fooling the adversary. This defense can successfully reduce the MIA accuracy and prevent information leakage from the wireless signal classifier.
Review Curriculum Evaluation of Physical Education Specialty Under the Perspective of Teacher Training Certification

The purpose of this study was to summarize the main body, content, method and application effects of physical education curriculum evaluation, to understand the current situation of physical education curriculum evaluation in China, and to construct an evaluation index system based on teacher training professional certification. The Chinese and English databases were searched by systematic evaluation, and the retrieval time was from December 31, 2018. The research literature that met the standard were included, and qualitative analysis was conducted by subject analysis method. A total of 100 studies were included, most of which summarized the concept, content and subject of physical education curriculum evaluation in different historical backgrounds. It has the following characteristics: The main body of evaluation is diversified, but it is still dominated by teachers' and administrative departments' top-down evaluation. The content of evaluation is diversified, but the homogenization is serious, and the essential problem of course evaluation is not explained enough yet. Evaluation methods are diversified, but there are few methods combining information technology and cross-boundary evaluation. Based on the three core concepts of teachers' professional certification, the evaluation standard is established. With the student-oriented concept, establish the evaluation subject, content, method and means; Taking output orientation as the concept, integrate various methods or means to improve the quality of teaching and student training; Build a developmental evaluation system and promote the continuous improvement of physical education curriculum system.
CN-LBP: Complex Networks-based Local Binary Patterns for Texture Classification

To overcome the limitations of original local binary patterns (LBP), this article proposes a new texture descriptor aided by complex networks (CN) and LBP, named CN-LBP. Specifically, we first abstract a texture image (TI) as directed graphs over different bands with the help of pixel distance, intensity, and gradient (magnitude and angle). Second, several CN-based feature measurements (including clustering coefficient, in-degree centrality, out-degree centrality, and eigenvector centrality) are selected to further decipher the texture features, which generates four feature images that can retain the image information as much as possible. Third, given the original TIs, gradient images (GI), and generated feature images, we can obtain the discriminative representation of texture images based on uniform LBP (ULBP). Finally, the feature vector is obtained by jointly calculating and concatenating the spatial histograms. In contrast to original LBP, the proposed texture descriptor contains more detailed image information, and shows resistance to imaging and noise. Experiment results on four datasets demonstrate that the proposed texture descriptor can significantly improve the classification accuracies compared with the state-of-the-art LBP-based variants and deep learning-based methods.
Cloud Futurology

The Cloud has become integral to most Internet-based applications and user gadgets. This article provides a brief history of the Cloud and presents a researcher's view of the prospects for innovating at the infrastructure, middleware, and application and delivery levels of the already crowded Cloud computing stack.
On an example of LaBuz

I acknowledge that the example of LaBuz does show that Proposition 9 in and therefore the proof of Proposition 10 is incorrect. I show what the correct "universal basis" is.
ANALISIS POTENSI TENAGA SURYA PADA PERMODELAN BANGUNAN TIGA DIMENSI BERDASARKAN DATA OPEN STREET MAP (STUDI KASUS: UNIVERSITAS GADJAH MADA YOGYAKARTA)

Energy crisis that occurred in the world after being exploited on a large scale against fossil energy caused people has to think again about renewable energy. In Indonesia, the electricity consumption always increases every year with fossil energy dominating energy sources. Based on the Government Regulation number 79 of 2014, concerning the National Energy Policy, the Government of Indonesia has a national target in the implementation of renewable energy of 23% in 2025 and 31% in 2050. Information disclosure and development of geospatial technology is shown through the availability of information on the dimensions, location, and the height of objects on the surface of the earth through the open street map (OSM) website, one of which is the building. Digital Elevation Model (DEM/DEMNAS) data can be accessed through the Geospatial Information Agency (BIG) website. Utilization of this information can be done by utilizing QGIS and ArcGIS Pro software. The existence of an energy crisis and technological developments led to calculate Solar Radiation (contained in ArcGIS Pro) which can calculate the solar potential at a location based on three-dimensional building data, DEM, and solar intensity. Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) has announced their commitment in realizing new and renewable energy in Indonesia. Therefore, researchers intend to find out the solar potential in the UGM region in order to realize government programs in the application of new renewable energy. Based on the analysis done in this research, we get the amount of solar energy potential of 369.543 kWh/ m2/ day. Through this research we hope that UGM can become a pilot campus in the application of renewable energy, solar energy and can reduce the use of conventional electricity using fossil energy.Keywords: Solar Energy Potential, Three Dimensional Building, Open Street Map, UGM.
Fully Convolutional Line Parsing

We present a one-stage Fully Convolutional Line Parsing network (F-Clip) that detects line segments from images. The proposed network is very simple and flexible with variations that gracefully trade off between speed and accuracy for different applications. F-Clip detects line segments in an end-to-end fashion by predicting each line's center position, length, and angle. We further customize the design of convolution kernels of our fully convolutional network to effectively exploit the statistical priors of the distribution of line angles in real image datasets. We conduct extensive experiments and show that our method achieves a significantly better trade-off between efficiency and accuracy, resulting in a real-time line detector at up to 73 FPS on a single GPU. Such inference speed makes our method readily applicable to real-time tasks without compromising any accuracy of previous methods. Moreover, when equipped with a performance-improving backbone network, F-Clip is able to significantly outperform all state-of-the-art line detectors on accuracy at a similar or even higher frame rate. In other word, under same inference speed, F-Clip always achieving best accuracy compare with other methods. Source code https://github.com/Delay-Xili/F-Clip.
Adversarial Training for Improving Model Robustness? Look at Both Prediction and Interpretation

Neural language models show vulnerability to adversarial examples which are semantically similar to their original counterparts with a few words replaced by their synonyms. A common way to improve model robustness is adversarial training which follows two steps-collecting adversarial examples by attacking a target model, and fine-tuning the model on the augmented dataset with these adversarial examples. The objective of traditional adversarial training is to make a model produce the same correct predictions on an original/adversarial example pair. However, the consistency between model decision-makings on two similar texts is ignored. We argue that a robust model should behave consistently on original/adversarial example pairs, that is making the same predictions (what) based on the same reasons (how) which can be reflected by consistent interpretations. In this work, we propose a novel feature-level adversarial training method named FLAT. FLAT aims at improving model robustness in terms of both predictions and interpretations. FLAT incorporates variational word masks in neural networks to learn global word importance and play as a bottleneck teaching the model to make predictions based on important words. FLAT explicitly shoots at the vulnerability problem caused by the mismatch between model understandings on the replaced words and their synonyms in original/adversarial example pairs by regularizing the corresponding global word importance scores. Experiments show the effectiveness of FLAT in improving the robustness with respect to both predictions and interpretations of four neural network models (LSTM, CNN, BERT, and DeBERTa) to two adversarial attacks on four text classification tasks. The models trained via FLAT also show better robustness than baseline models on unforeseen adversarial examples across different attacks.
QURANICPRENEUR: INNOVATION OF THE NEURO NADI METHOD TOWARDS LEARNING OF THE QUR’AN IN BANDA ACEH

Facts show that the alumni of the Iqra Method have weaknesses in society, short lengths of reading, lack of remembering the nature and meaning of letters. The Iqra Method should be able to overcome these weaknesses and weaknesses by evaluating the method. Weaknesses of the Iqra Method provides an opportunity to innovate for other methods. As a solution to the problem, we offer Neuro Nadi Technique Method with the Nadi Quranic Learning Center program aged 7-70 years. Characteristics This method focuses the work of the left brain and the right brain which has a special work system. This study gives results that the Neuro Nadi Aceh Alumni have the competence in reading the al Qur'an better than the previous Iqra Method. This research is useful for institutes of teaching the al Qur’an to improve methods that have evolved to support Islamic law in Aceh.