Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
LiDAR-HMR: 3D Human Mesh Recovery from LiDAR

In recent years, point cloud perception tasks have been garnering increasing attention. This paper presents the first attempt to estimate 3D human body mesh from sparse LiDAR point clouds. We found that the major challenge in estimating human pose and mesh from point clouds lies in the sparsity, noise, and incompletion of LiDAR point clouds. Facing these challenges, we propose an effective sparse-to-dense reconstruction scheme to reconstruct 3D human mesh. This involves estimating a sparse representation of a human (3D human pose) and gradually reconstructing the body mesh. To better leverage the 3D structural information of point clouds, we employ a cascaded graph transformer (graphormer) to introduce point cloud features during sparse-to-dense reconstruction. Experimental results on three publicly available databases demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Code: https://github.com/soullessrobot/LiDAR-HMR/
ROOT-SGD: Sharp Nonasymptotics and Asymptotic Efficiency in a Single Algorithm

We study the problem of solving strongly convex and smooth unconstrained optimization problems using stochastic first-order algorithms. We devise a novel algorithm, referred to as \emph{Recursive One-Over-T SGD} (\ROOTSGD), based on an easily implementable, recursive averaging of past stochastic gradients. We prove that it simultaneously achieves state-of-the-art performance in both a finite-sample, nonasymptotic sense and an asymptotic sense. On the nonasymptotic side, we prove risk bounds on the last iterate of \ROOTSGD with leading-order terms that match the optimal statistical risk with a unity pre-factor, along with a higher-order term that scales at the sharp rate of $O(n^{-3/2})$ under the Lipschitz condition on the Hessian matrix. On the asymptotic side, we show that when a mild, one-point Hessian continuity condition is imposed, the rescaled last iterate of (multi-epoch) \ROOTSGD converges asymptotically to a Gaussian limit with the Cram\'{e}r-Rao optimal asymptotic covariance, for a broad range of step-size choices.
Efficient Model Agnostic Approach for Implicit Neural Representation Based Arbitrary-Scale Image Super-Resolution

Single image super-resolution (SISR) has experienced significant advancements, primarily driven by deep convolutional networks. Traditional networks, however, are limited to upscaling images to a fixed scale, leading to the utilization of implicit neural functions for generating arbitrarily scaled images. Nevertheless, these methodologies have imposed substantial computational demands as they involve querying every target pixel to a single resource-intensive decoder. In this paper, we introduce a novel and efficient framework, the Mixture of Experts Implicit Super-Resolution (MoEISR), which enables super-resolution at arbitrary scales with significantly increased computational efficiency without sacrificing reconstruction quality. MoEISR dynamically allocates the most suitable decoding expert to each pixel using a lightweight mapper module, allowing experts with varying capacities to reconstruct pixels across regions with diverse complexities. Our experiments demonstrate that MoEISR successfully reduces up to 73% in floating point operations (FLOPs) while delivering comparable or superior peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR).
Leveraging Closed-Access Multilingual Embedding for Automatic Sentence Alignment in Low Resource Languages

The importance of qualitative parallel data in machine translation has long been determined but it has always been very difficult to obtain such in sufficient quantity for the majority of world languages, mainly because of the associated cost and also the lack of accessibility to these languages. Despite the potential for obtaining parallel datasets from online articles using automatic approaches, forensic investigations have found a lot of quality-related issues such as misalignment, and wrong language codes. In this work, we present a simple but qualitative parallel sentence aligner that carefully leveraged the closed-access Cohere multilingual embedding, a solution that ranked second in the just concluded #CoHereAIHack 2023 Challenge (see https://ai6lagos.devpost.com). The proposed approach achieved $94.96$ and $54.83$ f1 scores on FLORES and MAFAND-MT, compared to $3.64$ and $0.64$ of LASER respectively. Our method also achieved an improvement of more than 5 BLEU scores over LASER, when the resulting datasets were used with MAFAND-MT dataset to train translation models. Our code and data are available for research purposes here (https://github.com/abumafrim/Cohere-Align).
Exploring Time Granularity on Temporal Graphs for Dynamic Link Prediction in Real-world Networks

Dynamic Graph Neural Networks (DGNNs) have emerged as the predominant approach for processing dynamic graph-structured data. However, the influence of temporal information on model performance and robustness remains insufficiently explored, particularly regarding how models address prediction tasks with different time granularities. In this paper, we explore the impact of time granularity when training DGNNs on dynamic graphs through extensive experiments. We examine graphs derived from various domains and compare three different DGNNs to the baseline model across four varied time granularities. We mainly consider the interplay between time granularities, model architectures, and negative sampling strategies to obtain general conclusions. Our results reveal that a sophisticated memory mechanism and proper time granularity are crucial for a DGNN to deliver competitive and robust performance in the dynamic link prediction task. We also discuss drawbacks in considered models and datasets and propose promising directions for future research on the time granularity of temporal graphs.
Stable Diffusion For Aerial Object Detection

Aerial object detection is a challenging task, in which one major obstacle lies in the limitations of large-scale data collection and the long-tail distribution of certain classes. Synthetic data offers a promising solution, especially with recent advances in diffusion-based methods like stable diffusion (SD). However, the direct application of diffusion methods to aerial domains poses unique challenges: stable diffusion's optimization for rich ground-level semantics doesn't align with the sparse nature of aerial objects, and the extraction of post-synthesis object coordinates remains problematic. To address these challenges, we introduce a synthetic data augmentation framework tailored for aerial images. It encompasses sparse-to-dense region of interest (ROI) extraction to bridge the semantic gap, fine-tuning the diffusion model with low-rank adaptation (LORA) to circumvent exhaustive retraining, and finally, a Copy-Paste method to compose synthesized objects with backgrounds, providing a nuanced approach to aerial object detection through synthetic data.
Malicious URL Detection via Pretrained Language Model Guided Multi-Level Feature Attention Network

The widespread use of the Internet has revolutionized information retrieval methods. However, this transformation has also given rise to a significant cybersecurity challenge: the rapid proliferation of malicious URLs, which serve as entry points for a wide range of cyber threats. In this study, we present an efficient pre-training model-based framework for malicious URL detection. Leveraging the subword and character-aware pre-trained model, CharBERT, as our foundation, we further develop three key modules: hierarchical feature extraction, layer-aware attention, and spatial pyramid pooling. The hierarchical feature extraction module follows the pyramid feature learning principle, extracting multi-level URL embeddings from the different Transformer layers of CharBERT. Subsequently, the layer-aware attention module autonomously learns connections among features at various hierarchical levels and allocates varying weight coefficients to each level of features. Finally, the spatial pyramid pooling module performs multiscale downsampling on the weighted multi-level feature pyramid, achieving the capture of local features as well as the aggregation of global features. The proposed method has been extensively validated on multiple public datasets, demonstrating a significant improvement over prior works, with the maximum accuracy gap reaching 8.43% compared to the previous state-of-the-art method. Additionally, we have assessed the model's generalization and robustness in scenarios such as cross-dataset evaluation and adversarial attacks. Finally, we conducted real-world case studies on the active phishing URLs.
Linear-time online visibility graph transformation algorithm: for both natural and horizontal visibility criteria

Visibility graph (VG) transformation is a technique used to convert a time series into a graph based on specific visibility criteria. It has attracted increasing interest in the fields of time series analysis, forecasting, and classification. Optimizing the VG transformation algorithm to accelerate the process is a critical aspect of VG-related research, as it enhances the applicability of VG transformation in latency-sensitive areas and conserves computational resources. In the real world, many time series are presented in the form of data streams. Despite the proposal of the concept of VG's online functionality, previous studies have not thoroughly explored the acceleration of VG transformation by leveraging the characteristics of data streams. In this paper, we propose that an efficient online VG algorithm should adhere to two criteria and develop a linear-time method, termed the LOT framework, for both natural and horizontal visibility graph transformations in data stream scenarios. Experiments are conducted on two datasets, comparing our approach with five existing methods as baselines. The results demonstrate the validity and promising computational efficiency of our framework.
Learning Part Motion of Articulated Objects Using Spatially Continuous Neural Implicit Representations

Articulated objects (e.g., doors and drawers) exist everywhere in our life. Different from rigid objects, articulated objects have higher degrees of freedom and are rich in geometries, semantics, and part functions. Modeling different kinds of parts and articulations with nerual networks plays an essential role in articulated object understanding and manipulation, and will further benefit 3D vision and robotics communities. To model articulated objects, most previous works directly encode articulated objects into feature representations, without specific designs for parts, articulations and part motions. In this paper, we introduce a novel framework that explicitly disentangles the part motion of articulated objects by predicting the transformation matrix of points on the part surface, using spatially continuous neural implicit representations to model the part motion smoothly in the space. More importantly, while many methods could only model a certain kind of joint motion (such as the revolution in the clockwise order), our proposed framework is generic to different kinds of joint motions in that transformation matrix can model diverse kinds of joint motions in the space. Quantitative and qualitative results of experiments over diverse categories of articulated objects demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework.
Autonomous Exploration of Unknown 3D Environments Using a Frontier-Based Collector Strategy

Autonomous exploration using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is essential for various tasks such as building inspections, rescue operations, deliveries, and warehousing. However, there are two main limitations to previous approaches: they may not be able to provide a complete map of the environment and assume that the map built during exploration is accurate enough for safe navigation, which is usually not the case. To address these limitations, a novel exploration method is proposed that combines frontier-based exploration with a collector strategy that achieves global exploration and complete map creation. In each iteration, the collector strategy stores and validates frontiers detected during exploration and selects the next best frontier to navigate to. The collector strategy ensures global exploration by balancing the exploitation of a known map with the exploration of unknown areas. In addition, the online path replanning ensures safe navigation through the map created during motion. The performance of the proposed method is verified by exploring 3D simulation environments in comparison with the state-of-the-art methods. Finally, the proposed approach is validated in a real-world experiment.
Classifier Calibration with ROC-Regularized Isotonic Regression

Calibration of machine learning classifiers is necessary to obtain reliable and interpretable predictions, bridging the gap between model confidence and actual probabilities. One prominent technique, isotonic regression (IR), aims at calibrating binary classifiers by minimizing the cross entropy on a calibration set via monotone transformations. IR acts as an adaptive binning procedure, which allows achieving a calibration error of zero, but leaves open the issue of the effect on performance. In this paper, we first prove that IR preserves the convex hull of the ROC curve -- an essential performance metric for binary classifiers. This ensures that a classifier is calibrated while controlling for overfitting of the calibration set. We then present a novel generalization of isotonic regression to accommodate classifiers with K classes. Our method constructs a multidimensional adaptive binning scheme on the probability simplex, again achieving a multi-class calibration error equal to zero. We regularize this algorithm by imposing a form of monotony that preserves the K-dimensional ROC surface of the classifier. We show empirically that this general monotony criterion is effective in striking a balance between reducing cross entropy loss and avoiding overfitting of the calibration set.
AR Visualization System for Ship Detection and Recognition Based on AI

Augmented reality technology has been widely used in industrial design interaction, exhibition guide, information retrieval and other fields. The combination of artificial intelligence and augmented reality technology has also become a future development trend. This project is an AR visualization system for ship detection and recognition based on AI, which mainly includes three parts: artificial intelligence module, Unity development module and Hololens2AR module. This project is based on R3Det algorithm to complete the detection and recognition of ships in remote sensing images. The recognition rate of model detection trained on RTX 2080Ti can reach 96%. Then, the 3D model of the ship is obtained by ship categories and information and generated in the virtual scene. At the same time, voice module and UI interaction module are added. Finally, we completed the deployment of the project on Hololens2 through MRTK. The system realizes the fusion of computer vision and augmented reality technology, which maps the results of object detection to the AR field, and makes a brave step toward the future technological trend and intelligent application.
PhayaThaiBERT: Enhancing a Pretrained Thai Language Model with Unassimilated Loanwords

While WangchanBERTa has become the de facto standard in transformer-based Thai language modeling, it still has shortcomings in regard to the understanding of foreign words, most notably English words, which are often borrowed without orthographic assimilation into Thai in many contexts. We identify the lack of foreign vocabulary in WangchanBERTa's tokenizer as the main source of these shortcomings. We then expand WangchanBERTa's vocabulary via vocabulary transfer from XLM-R's pretrained tokenizer and pretrain a new model using the expanded tokenizer, starting from WangchanBERTa's checkpoint, on a new dataset that is larger than the one used to train WangchanBERTa. Our results show that our new pretrained model, PhayaThaiBERT, outperforms WangchanBERTa in many downstream tasks and datasets.
Multilingual Word Embeddings for Low-Resource Languages using Anchors and a Chain of Related Languages

Very low-resource languages, having only a few million tokens worth of data, are not well-supported by multilingual NLP approaches due to poor quality cross-lingual word representations. Recent work showed that good cross-lingual performance can be achieved if a source language is related to the low-resource target language. However, not all language pairs are related. In this paper, we propose to build multilingual word embeddings (MWEs) via a novel language chain-based approach, that incorporates intermediate related languages to bridge the gap between the distant source and target. We build MWEs one language at a time by starting from the resource rich source and sequentially adding each language in the chain till we reach the target. We extend a semi-joint bilingual approach to multiple languages in order to eliminate the main weakness of previous works, i.e., independently trained monolingual embeddings, by anchoring the target language around the multilingual space. We evaluate our method on bilingual lexicon induction for 4 language families, involving 4 very low-resource (<5M tokens) and 4 moderately low-resource (<50M) target languages, showing improved performance in both categories. Additionally, our analysis reveals the importance of good quality embeddings for intermediate languages as well as the importance of leveraging anchor points from all languages in the multilingual space.
Classification of Tabular Data by Text Processing

Natural Language Processing technology has advanced vastly in the past decade. Text processing has been successfully applied to a wide variety of domains. In this paper, we propose a novel framework, Text Based Classification(TBC), that uses state of the art text processing techniques to solve classification tasks on tabular data. We provide a set of controlled experiments where we present the benefits of using this approach against other classification methods. Experimental results on several data sets also show that this framework achieves comparable performance to that of several state of the art models in accuracy, precision and recall of predicted classes.
DeepTreeGAN: Fast Generation of High Dimensional Point Clouds

In High Energy Physics, detailed and time-consuming simulations are used for particle interactions with detectors. To bypass these simulations with a generative model, the generation of large point clouds in a short time is required, while the complex dependencies between the particles must be correctly modelled. Particle showers are inherently tree-based processes, as each particle is produced by the decay or detector interaction of a particle of the previous generation. In this work, we present a novel Graph Neural Network model (DeepTreeGAN) that is able to generate such point clouds in a tree-based manner. We show that this model can reproduce complex distributions, and we evaluate its performance on the public JetNet dataset.
Online landmark replacement for out-of-sample dimensionality reduction methods

A strategy to assist visualization and analysis of large and complex data sets is dimensionality reduction, with which one maps each data point into a low-dimensional manifold. However, various dimensionality reduction techniques are computationally infeasible for large data. Out-of-sample techniques aim to resolve this difficulty; they only apply the dimensionality reduction technique on a small portion of data, referred to as landmarks, and determine the embedding coordinates of the other points using landmarks as references. Out-of-sample techniques have been applied to online settings, or when data arrive as time series. However, existing online out-of-sample techniques use either all the previous data points as landmarks or the fixed set of landmarks and therefore are potentially not good at capturing the geometry of the entire data set when the time series is non-stationary. To address this problem, we propose an online landmark replacement algorithm for out-of-sample techniques using geometric graphs and the minimal dominating set on them. We mathematically analyze some properties of the proposed algorithm, particularly focusing on the case of landmark multidimensional scaling as the out-of-sample technique, and test its performance on synthetic and empirical time series data.
Content Augmented Graph Neural Networks

In recent years, graph neural networks (GNNs) have become a popular tool for solving various problems over graphs. In these models, the link structure of the graph is typically exploited and nodes' embeddings are iteratively updated based on adjacent nodes. Nodes' contents are used solely in the form of feature vectors, served as nodes' first-layer embeddings. However, the filters or convolutions, applied during iterations/layers to these initial embeddings lead to their impact diminish and contribute insignificantly to the final embeddings. In order to address this issue, in this paper we propose augmenting nodes' embeddings by embeddings generating from their content, at higher GNN layers. More precisely, we propose models wherein a structural embedding using a GNN and a content embedding are computed for each node. These two are combined using a combination layer to form the embedding of a node at a given layer. We suggest methods such as using an auto-encoder or building a content graph, to generate content embeddings. In the end, by conducting experiments over several real-world datasets, we demonstrate the high accuracy and performance of our models.
Physics-guided Shape-from-Template: Monocular Video Perception through Neural Surrogate Models

3D reconstruction of dynamic scenes is a long-standing problem in computer graphics and increasingly difficult the less information is available. Shape-from-Template (SfT) methods aim to reconstruct a template-based geometry from RGB images or video sequences, often leveraging just a single monocular camera without depth information, such as regular smartphone recordings. Unfortunately, existing reconstruction methods are either unphysical and noisy or slow in optimization. To solve this problem, we propose a novel SfT reconstruction algorithm for cloth using a pre-trained neural surrogate model that is fast to evaluate, stable, and produces smooth reconstructions due to a regularizing physics simulation. Differentiable rendering of the simulated mesh enables pixel-wise comparisons between the reconstruction and a target video sequence that can be used for a gradient-based optimization procedure to extract not only shape information but also physical parameters such as stretching, shearing, or bending stiffness of the cloth. This allows to retain a precise, stable, and smooth reconstructed geometry while reducing the runtime by a factor of 400-500 compared to $\phi$-SfT, a state-of-the-art physics-based SfT approach.