Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Whistleblower protection in the digital age -- why 'anonymous' is not enough. From technology to a wider view of governance

When technology enters applications and processes with a long tradition of controversial societal debate, multi-faceted new ethical and legal questions arise. This paper focusses on the process of whistleblowing, an activity with large impacts on democracy and business. Computer science can, for the first time in history, provide for truly anonymous communication. We investigate this in relation to the values and rights of accountability, fairness and data protection, focusing on opportunities and limitations of the anonymity that can be provided computationally; possible consequences of outsourcing whistleblowing support; and challenges for the interpretation and use of some relevant laws. We conclude that to address these questions, whistleblowing and anonymous whistleblowing must rest on three pillars, forming a 'triangle of whistleblowing protection and incentivisation' that combines anonymity in a formal and technical sense; whistleblower protection through laws; and other norms and practices including organisational error culture.
HydraGAN A Multi-head, Multi-objective Approach to Synthetic Data Generation

Synthetic data generation overcomes limitations of real-world machine learning. Traditional methods are valuable for augmenting costly datasets but only optimize one criterion: realism. In this paper, we tackle the problem of generating synthetic data that optimize multiple criteria. This goal is necessary when real data are replaced by synthetic for privacy preservation. We introduce HydraGAN, a new approach to synthetic data generation that introduces multiple generator and discriminator agents into the system. The multi-agent GAN optimizes the goal of privacy-preservation as well as data realism. To facilitate multi-agent training, we adapt game-theoretic principles to offer equilibrium guarantees. We observe that HydraGAN outperforms baseline methods for three datasets for multiple criteria of maximizing data realism, maximizing model accuracy, and minimizing re-identification risk.
MC-CIM: Compute-in-Memory with Monte-Carlo Dropouts for Bayesian Edge Intelligence

We propose MC-CIM, a compute-in-memory (CIM) framework for robust, yet low power, Bayesian edge intelligence. Deep neural networks (DNN) with deterministic weights cannot express their prediction uncertainties, thereby pose critical risks for applications where the consequences of mispredictions are fatal such as surgical robotics. To address this limitation, Bayesian inference of a DNN has gained attention. Using Bayesian inference, not only the prediction itself, but the prediction confidence can also be extracted for planning risk-aware actions. However, Bayesian inference of a DNN is computationally expensive, ill-suited for real-time and/or edge deployment. An approximation to Bayesian DNN using Monte Carlo Dropout (MC-Dropout) has shown high robustness along with low computational complexity. Enhancing the computational efficiency of the method, we discuss a novel CIM module that can perform in-memory probabilistic dropout in addition to in-memory weight-input scalar product to support the method. We also propose a compute-reuse reformulation of MC-Dropout where each successive instance can utilize the product-sum computations from the previous iteration. Even more, we discuss how the random instances can be optimally ordered to minimize the overall MC-Dropout workload by exploiting combinatorial optimization methods. Application of the proposed CIM-based MC-Dropout execution is discussed for MNIST character recognition and visual odometry (VO) of autonomous drones. The framework reliably gives prediction confidence amidst non-idealities imposed by MC-CIM to a good extent. Proposed MC-CIM with 16x31 SRAM array, 0.85 V supply, 16nm low-standby power (LSTP) technology consumes 27.8 pJ for 30 MC-Dropout instances of probabilistic inference in its most optimal computing and peripheral configuration, saving 43% energy compared to typical execution.
On the Translation Strategies of Human-computer Interaction Based on Machine Translation

With the rapid development of language service industry and artificial intelligence technology, machine translation plays a more prominent role in the translation industry. Human-computer interaction translation greatly improves the speed and quality of translation, and pre-translation editing and post-translation editing are two important links and manifestations in human-computer interaction collaborative translation. On the basis of summarizing machine translation problems, this paper proposes translation strategies including replacing well-translated terms in advance, rewriting, addition, omission, and shift via pre-editing and post-editing, which greatly improves the quality of machine translation.
ORGANIZATION OF VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF MATHEMATICAL CONTENT WHEN TEACHING HIGHER MATHEMATICS TO FOREIGN STUDENTS

The paper poses the problem of teaching foreign students in Russian universities, connected with the effectiveness of the use of forms, means and methods of education associated with socio-cognitive systems, the formation of which occurs in conditions of primary socialization and enculturation. The pedagogical conditions and principles of teaching higher mathematics to foreign students in a non-native language are analyzed, taking into account the peculiarities of cognition and style characteristics of thinking. The possibility and effectiveness of using the author's methodology for organizing a visual representation of the content of mathematical disciplines in the process of teaching higher mathematics to foreign students is considered. Students (total 52 people) took part in the experimental work, among them foreign and Russian students aged 18-25 years (M = 21), studying under the technical bachelor's program. The effectiveness of the developed methodology is confirmed by the results of applying the methods of group evaluation of demonstration material according to specified criteria and the semantic differential. A positive effect is recorded during the certification of students and midterm control of the formation of the competencies necessary for mastering the academic discipline.
Gapped Indexing for Consecutive Occurrences

The classic string indexing problem is to preprocess a string S into a compact data structure that supports efficient pattern matching queries. Typical queries include existential queries (decide if the pattern occurs in S), reporting queries (return all positions where the pattern occurs), and counting queries (return the number of occurrences of the pattern). In this paper we consider a variant of string indexing, where the goal is to compactly represent the string such that given two patterns P1 and P2 and a gap range [\alpha,\beta] we can quickly find the consecutive occurrences of P1 and P2 with distance in [\alpha,\beta], i.e., pairs of occurrences immediately following each other and with distance within the range. We present data structures that use \~O(n) space and query time \~O(|P1|+|P2|+n^(2/3)) for existence and counting and \~O(|P1|+|P2|+n^(2/3)*occ^(1/3)) for reporting. We complement this with a conditional lower bound based on the set intersection problem showing that any solution using \~O(n) space must use \tilde{\Omega}}(|P1|+|P2|+\sqrt{n}) query time. To obtain our results we develop new techniques and ideas of independent interest including a new suffix tree decomposition and hardness of a variant of the set intersection problem.
Learning Generalized Gumbel-max Causal Mechanisms

To perform counterfactual reasoning in Structural Causal Models (SCMs), one needs to know the causal mechanisms, which provide factorizations of conditional distributions into noise sources and deterministic functions mapping realizations of noise to samples. Unfortunately, the causal mechanism is not uniquely identified by data that can be gathered by observing and interacting with the world, so there remains the question of how to choose causal mechanisms. In recent work, Oberst & Sontag (2019) propose Gumbel-max SCMs, which use Gumbel-max reparameterizations as the causal mechanism due to an intuitively appealing counterfactual stability property. In this work, we instead argue for choosing a causal mechanism that is best under a quantitative criteria such as minimizing variance when estimating counterfactual treatment effects. We propose a parameterized family of causal mechanisms that generalize Gumbel-max. We show that they can be trained to minimize counterfactual effect variance and other losses on a distribution of queries of interest, yielding lower variance estimates of counterfactual treatment effect than fixed alternatives, also generalizing to queries not seen at training time.
LoMEF: A Framework to Produce Local Explanations for Global Model Time Series Forecasts

Global Forecasting Models (GFM) that are trained across a set of multiple time series have shown superior results in many forecasting competitions and real-world applications compared with univariate forecasting approaches. One aspect of the popularity of statistical forecasting models such as ETS and ARIMA is their relative simplicity and interpretability (in terms of relevant lags, trend, seasonality, and others), while GFMs typically lack interpretability, especially towards particular time series. This reduces the trust and confidence of the stakeholders when making decisions based on the forecasts without being able to understand the predictions. To mitigate this problem, in this work, we propose a novel local model-agnostic interpretability approach to explain the forecasts from GFMs. We train simpler univariate surrogate models that are considered interpretable (e.g., ETS) on the predictions of the GFM on samples within a neighbourhood that we obtain through bootstrapping or straightforwardly as the one-step-ahead global black-box model forecasts of the time series which needs to be explained. After, we evaluate the explanations for the forecasts of the global models in both qualitative and quantitative aspects such as accuracy, fidelity, stability and comprehensibility, and are able to show the benefits of our approach.
A feast for trolls -- Engagement analysis of counternarratives against online toxicity

This report provides an engagement analysis of counternarratives against online toxicity. Between February 2020 and July 2021, we observed over 15 million toxic messages on social media identified by our fine-grained, multilingual detection AI. Over 1,000 dashboard users responded to toxic messages with combinations of visual memes, text, or AI-generated text, or they reported content. This leads to new, real-life insights on self-regulatory approaches for the mitigation of online hate.
Sampling and Update Frequencies in Proximal Variance-Reduced Stochastic Gradient Methods

Variance-reduced stochastic gradient methods have gained popularity in recent times. Several variants exist with different strategies for the storing and sampling of gradients and this work concerns the interactions between these two aspects. We present a general proximal variance-reduced gradient method and analyze it under strong convexity assumptions. Special cases of the algorithm include SAGA, L-SVRG and their proximal variants. Our analysis sheds light on epoch-length selection and the need to balance the convergence of the iterates with how often gradients are stored. The analysis improves on other convergence rates found in the literature and produces a new and faster converging sampling strategy for SAGA. Problem instances for which the predicted rates are the same as the practical rates are presented together with problems based on real world data.
Penalized Model-based Clustering of Complex Functional Data

Abstract High dimensional data, large-scale data, imaging and manifold data are all fostering new frontiers of statistics. These type of data are commonly considered in Functional Data Analysis (FDA) where they are viewed as infinite-dimensional random vectors in a functional space. The rapid development of new technologies has generated a flow of complex data that have led to the development of new modeling strategies by scientists. In this paper, we basically deal with the problem of clustering a set of complex functional data into homogeneous groups. Working in a mixture model-based framework, we develop a flexible clustering technique achieving dimensionality reduction schemes through an L1 penalization. The proposed procedure results in an integrated modelling approach where shrinkage techniques are applied to enable sparse solutions in both the means and the covariance matrices of the mixture components, while preserving the underlying clustering structure. This leads to an entirely data-driven methodology suitable for simultaneous dimensionality reduction and clustering. The proposed methodology is evaluated through a Monte Carlo simulation study and an empirical analysis of real-world datasets showing different degrees of complexity.
READING ANXIETY OF EFL LEARNERS IN INDONESIAN RURAL SCHOOLS: A QUANTITATIVE STUDY

The purposes of this current study were twofold. First, it attempted to find out the level of reading anxiety among EFL learners in rural schools. Second, it sought to determine whether there is a statistical difference in reading anxiety between rural EFL learners across gender and level of study. Seventy-seven EFL learners from several rural Indonesian schools were involved in completing a 27-items EFL Reading Anxiety Inventory (EFLRAI). The findings revealed different levels of top-down, bottom-up, and classroom reading anxiety among rural school learners. Regarding the statistical differences across gender, it is found that male learners outperformed females in terms of top-down and bottom-up reading anxiety. However, female learners offered a better understanding than male learners. Meanwhile, in terms of study grades, it is stated that freshmen learners are more dominant in experiencing reading anxiety than junior and senior learners. In short, reading anxiety has different levels among different EFL learners. In addition, differences occur when each learner with different gender and study grade experience anxiety in reading.
On Optimal Subarchitectures for Quantum Circuit Mapping

Compiling a high-level quantum circuit down to a low-level description that can be executed on state-of-the-art quantum computers is a crucial part of the software stack for quantum computing. One step in compiling a quantum circuit to some device is quantum circuit mapping, where the circuit is transformed such that it complies with the architecture's limited qubit connectivity. Because the search space in quantum circuit mapping grows exponentially in the number of qubits, it is desirable to consider as few of the device's physical qubits as possible in the process. Previous work conjectured that it suffices to consider only subarchitectures of a quantum computer composed of as many qubits as used in the circuit. In this work, we refute this conjecture and establish criteria for judging whether considering larger parts of the architecture might yield better solutions to the mapping problem. We show that determining subarchitectures that are of minimal size, i.e., of which no physical qubit can be removed without losing the optimal mapping solution for some quantum circuit, is a very hard problem. Based on a relaxation of the criteria for optimality, we introduce a relaxed consideration that still maintains optimality for practically relevant quantum circuits. Eventually, this results in two methods for computing near-optimal sets of subarchitectures$\unicode{x2014}$providing the basis for efficient quantum circuit mapping solutions. We demonstrate the benefits of this novel method for state-of-the-art quantum computers by IBM, Google and Rigetti.
Robust Imitation of a Few Demonstrations with a Backwards Model

Behavior cloning of expert demonstrations can speed up learning optimal policies in a more sample-efficient way over reinforcement learning. However, the policy cannot extrapolate well to unseen states outside of the demonstration data, creating covariate shift (agent drifting away from demonstrations) and compounding errors. In this work, we tackle this issue by extending the region of attraction around the demonstrations so that the agent can learn how to get back onto the demonstrated trajectories if it veers off-course. We train a generative backwards dynamics model and generate short imagined trajectories from states in the demonstrations. By imitating both demonstrations and these model rollouts, the agent learns the demonstrated paths and how to get back onto these paths. With optimal or near-optimal demonstrations, the learned policy will be both optimal and robust to deviations, with a wider region of attraction. On continuous control domains, we evaluate the robustness when starting from different initial states unseen in the demonstration data. While both our method and other imitation learning baselines can successfully solve the tasks for initial states in the training distribution, our method exhibits considerably more robustness to different initial states.
Reconstructing random pictures

Given a random binary picture $P_n$ of size $n$, i.e., an $n\times n$ grid filled with zeros and ones uniformly at random, when is it possible to reconstruct $P_n$ from its $k$-deck, i.e., the multiset of all its $k\times k$ subgrids? We demonstrate ``two-point concentration'' for the reconstruction threshold by showing that there is an integer $k_c(n) \sim (2 \log n)^{1/2}$ such that if $k > k_c$, then $P_n$ is reconstructible from its $k$-deck with high probability, and if $k < k_c$, then with high probability, it is impossible to reconstruct $P_n$ from its $k$-deck. The proof of this result uses a combination of interface-exploration arguments and entropic arguments.
Multimodal Shared Autonomy for Social Navigation Assistance of Telepresence Robots

Mobile telepresence robots (MTRs) have become increasingly popular in the expanding world of remote work, providing new avenues for people to actively participate in activities at a distance. However, humans operating MTRs often have difficulty navigating in densely populated environments due to limited situation awareness and narrow field-of-view, which reduces user acceptance and satisfaction. Shared autonomy in navigation has been studied primarily in static environments or in situations where only one pedestrian interacts with the robot. We present a multimodal shared autonomy approach, leveraging visual and haptic guidance, to provide navigation assistance for remote operators in densely-populated environments. It uses a modified form of reciprocal velocity obstacles for generating safe control inputs while taking social proxemics constraints into account. Two different visual guidance designs, as well as haptic force rendering, were proposed to convey safe control input. We conducted a user study to compare the merits and limitations of multimodal navigation assistance to haptic or visual assistance alone on a shared navigation task. The study involved 15 participants operating a virtual telepresence robot in a virtual hall with moving pedestrians, using the different assistance modalities. We evaluated navigation performance, transparency and cooperation, as well as user preferences. Our results showed that participants preferred multimodal assistance with a visual guidance trajectory over haptic or visual modalities alone, although it had no impact on navigation performance. Additionally, we found that visual guidance trajectories conveyed a higher degree of understanding and cooperation than equivalent haptic cues in a navigation task.
Extensible Proxy for Efficient NAS

Neural Architecture Search (NAS) has become a de facto approach in the recent trend of AutoML to design deep neural networks (DNNs). Efficient or near-zero-cost NAS proxies are further proposed to address the demanding computational issues of NAS, where each candidate architecture network only requires one iteration of backpropagation. The values obtained from the proxies are considered the predictions of architecture performance on downstream tasks. However, two significant drawbacks hinder the extended usage of Efficient NAS proxies. (1) Efficient proxies are not adaptive to various search spaces. (2) Efficient proxies are not extensible to multi-modality downstream tasks. Based on the observations, we design a Extensible proxy (Eproxy) that utilizes self-supervised, few-shot training (i.e., 10 iterations of backpropagation) which yields near-zero costs. The key component that makes Eproxy efficient is an untrainable convolution layer termed barrier layer that add the non-linearities to the optimization spaces so that the Eproxy can discriminate the performance of architectures in the early stage. Furthermore, to make Eproxy adaptive to different downstream tasks/search spaces, we propose a Discrete Proxy Search (DPS) to find the optimized training settings for Eproxy with only handful of benchmarked architectures on the target tasks. Our extensive experiments confirm the effectiveness of both Eproxy and Eproxy+DPS. Code is available at https://github.com/leeyeehoo/GenNAS-Zero.
Fine-mixing: Mitigating Backdoors in Fine-tuned Language Models

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are known to be vulnerable to backdoor attacks. In Natural Language Processing (NLP), DNNs are often backdoored during the fine-tuning process of a large-scale Pre-trained Language Model (PLM) with poisoned samples. Although the clean weights of PLMs are readily available, existing methods have ignored this information in defending NLP models against backdoor attacks. In this work, we take the first step to exploit the pre-trained (unfine-tuned) weights to mitigate backdoors in fine-tuned language models. Specifically, we leverage the clean pre-trained weights via two complementary techniques: (1) a two-step Fine-mixing technique, which first mixes the backdoored weights (fine-tuned on poisoned data) with the pre-trained weights, then fine-tunes the mixed weights on a small subset of clean data; (2) an Embedding Purification (E-PUR) technique, which mitigates potential backdoors existing in the word embeddings. We compare Fine-mixing with typical backdoor mitigation methods on three single-sentence sentiment classification tasks and two sentence-pair classification tasks and show that it outperforms the baselines by a considerable margin in all scenarios. We also show that our E-PUR method can benefit existing mitigation methods. Our work establishes a simple but strong baseline defense for secure fine-tuned NLP models against backdoor attacks.
CNT (Conditioning on Noisy Targets): A new Algorithm for Leveraging Top-Down Feedback

We propose a novel regularizer for supervised learning called Conditioning on Noisy Targets (CNT). This approach consists in conditioning the model on a noisy version of the target(s) (e.g., actions in imitation learning or labels in classification) at a random noise level (from small to large noise). At inference time, since we do not know the target, we run the network with only noise in place of the noisy target. CNT provides hints through the noisy label (with less noise, we can more easily infer the true target). This give two main benefits: 1) the top-down feedback allows the model to focus on simpler and more digestible sub-problems and 2) rather than learning to solve the task from scratch, the model will first learn to master easy examples (with less noise), while slowly progressing toward harder examples (with more noise).