Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Transferable Interactiveness Knowledge for Human-Object Interaction Detection

Human-object interaction (HOI) Detection is an important problem to understand how humans interact with objects. In this paper, we explore Interactiveness Knowledge which indicates whether human and object interact with each other or not. We found that interactiveness knowledge can be learned across HOI datasets and alleviate the gap between diverse HOI category settings. Our core idea is to exploit an Interactiveness Network to learn the general interactiveness knowledge from multiple HOI datasets and perform Non-Interaction Suppression before HOI classification in inference. On account of the generalization of interactiveness, interactiveness network is a transferable knowledge learner and can be cooperated with any HOI detection models to achieve desirable results. We utilize the human instance and body part features together to learn the interactiveness in hierarchical paradigm, i.e., instance-level and body part-level interactivenesses. Thereafter, a consistency task is proposed to guide the learning and extract deeper interactive visual clues. We extensively evaluate the proposed method on HICO-DET, V-COCO, and a newly constructed HAKE-HOI dataset. With the learned interactiveness, our method outperforms state-of-the-art HOI detection methods, verifying its efficacy and flexibility. Code is available at https://github.com/DirtyHarryLYL/Transferable-Interactiveness-Network.
Effective person re-identification by self-attention model guided feature learning

Person re-identification (re-ID), of which the goal is to recognize person identities of images captured by non-overlapping cameras, is a challenging topic in computer vision. Most existing person re-ID methods conduct directly on detected objects, which ignore the space misalignment caused by detectors, human pose variation, and occlusion problems. To tackle the above mentioned difficulties, we propose a self-attention model guided deep convolutional neural network(DCNN) to learn robust features from image shots. Kernels of the self-attention model evaluate weights for the importance of different person regions. To solve the local feature dependence problem of feature extraction, the non-local feature map generated by the self-attention model is fused with the original feature map generated from the resnet-50. Furthermore, the loss function considers both the cross-entropy loss and the triplet loss in the training process, which enables the network to capture common characteristics within the same individuals and significant differences between distinct persons. Extensive experiments and comparative evaluations show that our proposed strategy outperforms most of the state-of-the-art methods on standard datasets: Market-1501, DukeMTMC-reID, and CUHK03.
A multivariate Poisson-log normal mixture model for clustering transcriptome sequencing data

High-dimensional data of discrete and skewed nature is commonly encountered in high-throughput sequencing studies. Analyzing the network itself or the interplay between genes in this type of data continues to present many challenges. As data visualization techniques become cumbersome for higher dimensions and unconvincing when there is no clear separation between homogeneous subgroups within the data, cluster analysis provides an intuitive alternative. The aim of applying mixture model-based clustering in this context is to discover groups of co-expressed genes, which can shed light on biological functions and pathways of gene products.A mixture of multivariate Poisson-log normal (MPLN) model is developed for clustering of high-throughput transcriptome sequencing data. Parameter estimation is carried out using a Markov chain Monte Carlo expectation-maximization (MCMC-EM) algorithm, and information criteria are used for model selection.The mixture of MPLN model is able to fit a wide range of correlation and overdispersion situations, and is suited for modeling multivariate count data from RNA sequencing studies. All scripts used for implementing the method can be found at https://github.com/anjalisilva/MPLNClust .
Hand Gesture Recognition Enhancement Based on Spatial Fuzzy Matching in Leap Motion

Gesture recognition is an important human-computer interaction interface. This article introduces a novel hand gesture recognition system based on Leap Motion gen.2. In this system, a spatial fuzzy matching (SFM) algorithm is first presented by matching and fusing spatial information to construct a fused gesture dataset. For dynamic hand recognition, an initial frame correction strategy based on SFM is proposed to fast initialize the trajectory of test gesture with respect to the gesture dataset. A notable feature of this system is that it can run on ordinary laptops due to the small size of the fused dataset, which accelerates the calculation of recognition rate. Experimental results show that the system recognizes static hand gestures at recognition rates of 94%-100% and over 90% of dynamic gestures using our collected dataset. This can greatly enhance the usability of Leap Motion.
Robust Optimization over Multiple Domains

In this work, we study the problem of learning a single model for multiple domains. Unlike the conventional machine learning scenario where each domain can have the corresponding model, multiple domains (i.e., applications/users) may share the same machine learning model due to maintenance loads in cloud computing services. For example, a digit-recognition model should be applicable to hand-written digits, house numbers, car plates, etc. Therefore, an ideal model for cloud computing has to perform well at each applicable domain. To address this new challenge from cloud computing, we develop a framework of robust optimization over multiple domains. In lieu of minimizing the empirical risk, we aim to learn a model optimized to the adversarial distribution over multiple domains. Hence, we propose to learn the model and the adversarial distribution simultaneously with the stochastic algorithm for efficiency. Theoretically, we analyze the convergence rate for convex and non-convex models. To our best knowledge, we first study the convergence rate of learning a robust non-convex model with a practical algorithm. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the robustness of the framework and the convergence rate can be further enhanced by appropriate regularizers over the adversarial distribution. The empirical study on real-world fine-grained visual categorization and digits recognition tasks verifies the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed framework.
Smart Contract-Based Pool Hopping Attack Prevention for Blockchain Networks

Pool hopping attack is the result of miners leaving the pool when it offers fewer financial rewards and joining back when the rewards of mining yield higher rewards in blockchain networks. This act of leaving and rejoining the pool only during the good times results in the miner receiving more rewards than the computational power they contribute. Miners exiting the pool deprive it of its collective hash power, which leaves the pool unable to mine the block successfully. This results in its competitors mining the block before they can finish mining. Existing research shows pool hopping resistant measures and detection strategies; however, they do not offer any robust preventive solution to discourage miners from leaving the mining pool. To prevent pool hopping attacks, a smart contract-based pool hopping attack prevention model is proposed. The main objective of our research is maintaining the symmetrical relationship between the miners by requiring them all to continually contribute their computational power to successfully mine a block. We implement a ledger containing records of all miners, in the form of a miner certificate, which tracks the history of the miner’s earlier behavior. The certificate enables a pool manager to better initiate terms of the smart contract, which safeguards the interests of existing mining pool members. The model prevents frequent mine hoppers from pool hopping as they submit coins in the form of an escrow and risk losing them if they abandon the pool before completing mining of the block. The key critical factors that every pool hopping attack prevention solution must address and a study of comparative analysis with existing solutions are presented in the paper.
Single-shot realization of nonadiabatic holonomic gates with a superconducting Xmon qutrit

Abstract Nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation has received increasing attention due to its robustness against control errors and high-speed realization. The original protocol of nonadiabatic holonomic one-qubit gates has been experimentally demonstrated with a superconducting transmon qutrit. However, it requires two noncommuting gates to complete an arbitrary one-qubit gate, doubling the exposure time of the gate to error sources and thus leaving the gate vulnerable to environment-induced decoherence. Single-shot protocol has been subsequently proposed to realize an arbitrary one-qubit nonadiabatic holonomic gate. In this paper, a single-shot protocol of nonadiabatic holonomic gates is experimentally demonstrated by using a superconducting Xmon qutrit, with all the single-qubit Clifford gates carried out by a single-shot implementation. Characterized by quantum process tomography and randomized benchmarking, the single-shot gates reach a fidelity exceeding 99%.
Online Embedding Compression for Text Classification Using Low Rank Matrix Factorization

Deep learning models have become state of the art for natural language processing (NLP) tasks, however deploying these models in production system poses significant memory constraints. Existing compression methods are either lossy or introduce significant latency. We propose a compression method that leverages low rank matrix factorization during training, to compress the word embedding layer which represents the size bottleneck for most NLP models. Our models are trained, compressed and then further re-trained on the downstream task to recover accuracy while maintaining the reduced size. Empirically, we show that the proposed method can achieve 90% compression with minimal impact in accuracy for sentence classification tasks, and outperforms alternative methods like fixed-point quantization or offline word embedding compression. We also analyze the inference time and storage space for our method through FLOP calculations, showing that we can compress DNN models by a configurable ratio and regain accuracy loss without introducing additional latency compared to fixed point quantization. Finally, we introduce a novel learning rate schedule, the Cyclically Annealed Learning Rate (CALR), which we empirically demonstrate to outperform other popular adaptive learning rate algorithms on a sentence classification benchmark.
Learning Representations in Model-Free Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning

Common approaches to Reinforcement Learning (RL) are seriously challenged by large-scale applications involving huge state spaces and sparse delayed reward feedback. Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) methods attempt to address this scalability issue by learning action selection policies at multiple levels of temporal abstraction. Abstraction can be had by identifying a relatively small set of states that are likely to be useful as subgoals, in concert with the learning of corresponding skill policies to achieve those subgoals. Many approaches to subgoal discovery in HRL depend on the analysis of a model of the environment, but the need to learn such a model introduces its own problems of scale. Once subgoals are identified, skills may be learned through intrinsic motivation, introducing an internal reward signal marking subgoal attainment. We present a novel model-free method for subgoal discovery using incremental unsupervised learning over a small memory of the most recent experiences of the agent. When combined with an intrinsic motivation learning mechanism, this method learns subgoals and skills together, based on experiences in the environment. Thus, we offer an original approach to HRL that does not require the acquisition of a model of the environment, suitable for large-scale applications. We demonstrate the efficiency of our method on a variant of the rooms environment.
Reparameterizable Subset Sampling via Continuous Relaxations

Many machine learning tasks require sampling a subset of items from a collection based on a parameterized distribution. The Gumbel-softmax trick can be used to sample a single item, and allows for low-variance reparameterized gradients with respect to the parameters of the underlying distribution. However, stochastic optimization involving subset sampling is typically not reparameterizable. To overcome this limitation, we define a continuous relaxation of subset sampling that provides reparameterization gradients by generalizing the Gumbel-max trick. We use this approach to sample subsets of features in an instance-wise feature selection task for model interpretability, subsets of neighbors to implement a deep stochastic k-nearest neighbors model, and sub-sequences of neighbors to implement parametric t-SNE by directly comparing the identities of local neighbors. We improve performance in all these tasks by incorporating subset sampling in end-to-end training.
Improvement of Spatial Modeling of Cr, Pb, Cd, As and Ni in Soil Based on Portable X-ray Fluorescence (PXRF) and Geostatistics: A Case Study in East China

To verify the feasibility of portable X-ray ﬂuorescence (PXRF) for rapidly analyzing, assessing and improving soil heavy metals mapping, 351 samples were collected from Fuyang District, Hangzhou City, in eastern China. Ordinary kriging (OK) and co-ordinary kriging (COK) combined with PXRF measurements were used to explore spatial patterns of heavy metals content in the soil. The Getis-Ord index was calculated to discern hot spots of heavy metals. Finally, multi-variable indicator kriging was conducted to obtain a map of multi-heavy metals pollution. The results indicated Cd is the primary pollution element in Fuyang, followed by As and Pb. Application of PXRF measurements as covariates in COK improved model accuracy, especially for Pb and Cd. Heavy metals pollution hot spots were mainly detected in northern Fuyang and plains along the Fuchun River in southern Fuyang because of mining, industrial and traffic activities, and irrigation with polluted water. Area with high risk of multi-heavy metals pollution mainly distributed in plain along the Fuchun River and the eastern Fuyang. These findings certified the feasibility of using PXRF as an efficient and reliable method for soil heavy metals pollution assessment and mapping, which could contribute to reduce the cost of surveys and pollution remediation.
Cascaded Revision Network for Novel Object Captioning

Image captioning, a challenging task where the machine automatically describes an image with natural language, has drawn significant attention in recent years. Despite the remarkable improvements of recent approaches, however, these methods are built upon a large set of training image-sentence pairs. The expensive labor efforts hence limit the captioning model to describe the wider world. In this paper, we present a novel network structure, Cascaded Revision Network, which aims at relieving the problem by equipping the model with out-of-domain knowledge. CRN first tries its best to describe an image using the existing vocabulary from in-domain knowledge. Due to the lack of out-of-domain knowledge, the caption may be inaccurate or include ambiguous words for the image with unknown (novel) objects. We propose to re-edit the primary captioning sentence by a series of cascaded operations. We introduce a perplexity predictor to find out which words are most likely to be inaccurate given the input image. Thereafter, we utilize external knowledge from a pretrained object detection model and select more accurate words from detection results by the visual matching module. In the last step, we design a semantic matching module to ensure that the novel object is fit in the right position. By this novel cascaded captioning-revising mechanism, CRN can accurately describe images with unseen objects. We validate the proposed method with state-of-the-art performance on the held-out MSCOCO dataset as well as scale to ImageNet, demonstrating the effectiveness of our method.
Self-attentive Biaffine Dependency Parsing

The current state-of-the-art dependency parsing approaches employ BiLSTMs to encode input sentences.Motivated by the success of the transformer-based machine translation, this work for the first time applies the self-attention mechanism to dependency parsing as the replacement of the BiLSTM-based encoders, leading to competitive performance on both English and Chinese benchmark data. Based on the detailed error analysis, we then combine the power of both BiLSTM and self-attention via model ensembles, demonstrating their complementary capability of capturing contextual information. Finally, we explore the recently proposed contextualized word representations as extra input features, and further improve the parsing performance.
Label distribution learning with label-specific features

Label distribution learning (LDL) is a novel machine learning paradigm to deal with label ambiguity issues by placing more emphasis on how relevant each label is to a particular instance. Many LDL algorithms have been proposed and most of them concentrate on the learning models, while few of them focus on the feature selection problem. All existing LDL models are built on a simple feature space in which all features are shared by all the class labels. However, this kind of traditional data representation strategy tends to select features that are distinguishable for all labels, but ignores label-specific features that are pertinent and discriminative for each class label. In this paper, we propose a novel LDL algorithm by leveraging label-specific features. The common features for all labels and specific features for each label are simultaneously learned to enhance the LDL model. Moreover, we also exploit the label correlations in the proposed LDL model. The experimental results on several real-world data sets validate the effectiveness of our method.
A Video-Based Automated Driving Simulator for Automotive UI Prototyping, UX and Behaviour Research

The lack of automated cars above SAE level 3 raises challenges for conducting User Experience Design (UXD) and behaviour research for automated driving. User-centred methods are critical to ensuring a human-friendly progress of vehicle automation. This work introduces the Immersive Video-based Automated Driving (IVAD) Simulator. It uses carefully recorded 180/360° videos that are played back in a driving simulator. This provides immersive driving experiences in visually realistic and familiar environments. This paper reports learnings from an iterative development of IVAD, and findings of two user studies: One simulator study (N=15) focused on the immersive experience; and one VR study (N=16) focused on rapid prototyping and the evaluation of Augmented Reality (AR) concepts. Overall, we found the method to be a useful, versatile and low budget UXD tool with a high level of immersion that is uniquely aided by the familiarity of the environment. IVAD's limitations and future improvements are discussed in relation to research applications within AutoUI.
Online Multi-Object Tracking With GMPHD Filter and Occlusion Group Management

In this paper, we propose an efficient online multi-object tracking framework based on the GMPHD filter and occlusion group management scheme where the GMPHD filter utilizes hierarchical data association to reduce the false negatives caused by miss detection. The hierarchical data association consists of two steps: detection-to-track and track-to-track associations, which can recover the lost tracks and their switched IDs. In addition, the proposed framework is equipped with an object grouping management scheme which handles occlusion problems with two main parts. The first part is "track merging" which can merge the false positive tracks caused by false positive detections from occlusions, where the false positive tracks are usually occluded with a measure. The measure is the occlusion ratio between visual objects, sum-of-intersection-over-area (SIOA) we defined instead of the IOU metric. The second part is "occlusion group energy minimization (OGEM)" which prevents the occluded true positive tracks from false "track merging". We define each group of the occluded objects as an energy function and find an optimal hypothesis which makes the energy minimal. We evaluate the proposed tracker in benchmark datasets such as MOT15 and MOT17 which are built for multi-person tracking. An ablation study in training dataset shows that not only "track merging" and "OGEM" complement each other but also the proposed tracking method has more robust performance and less sensitive to parameters than baseline methods. Also, SIOA works better than IOU for various sizes of false positives. Experimental results show that the proposed tracker efficiently handles occlusion situations and achieves competitive performance compared to the state-of-the-art methods. Especially, our method shows the best multi-object tracking accuracy among the online and real-time executable methods.
Intelligent and Secure Content-Based Image Retrieval for Mobile Users

With the tremendous growth of smart mobile devices, the Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) becomes popular and has great market potentials.Secure image retrieval has attracted considerable interests recently due to users' security concerns.However, it still suffers from the challenges of relieving mobile devices of excessive computation burdens, such as data encryption, feature extraction, and image similarity scoring.In this paper, we propose and implement an IND-CPA secure CBIR framework that performs image retrieval on the cloud without the user's constant interaction.A pre-trained deep CNN model, i.e., VGG-16, is used to extract the deep features of an image.The information about the neural network is strictly concealed by utilizing the lattice-based homomorphic scheme.We implement a real number computation mechanism and a divide-and-conquer CNN evaluation protocol to enable our framework to securely and efficiently evaluate the deep CNN with a large number of inputs.We further propose a secure image similarity scoring protocol, which enables the cloud servers to compare two images without knowing any information about their deep features.The comprehensive experimental results show that our framework is efficient and accurate.
Searching the Visual Style and Structure of D3 Visualizations

We present a search engine for D3 visualizations that allows queries based on their visual style and underlying structure. To build the engine we crawl a collection of 7860 D3 visualizations from the Web and deconstruct each one to recover its data, its data-encoding marks and the encodings describing how the data is mapped to visual attributes of the marks. We also extract axes and other non-data-encoding attributes of marks (e.g., typeface, background color). Our search engine indexes this style and structure information as well as metadata about the webpage containing the chart. We show how visualization developers can search the collection to find visualizations that exhibit specific design characteristics and thereby explore the space of possible designs. We also demonstrate how researchers can use the search engine to identify commonly used visual design patterns and we perform such a demographic design analysis across our collection of D3 charts. A user study reveals that visualization developers found our style and structure based search engine to be significantly more useful and satisfying for finding different designs of D3 charts, than a baseline search engine that only allows keyword search over the webpage containing a chart.