Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
VIS30K: A Collection of Figures and Tables From IEEE Visualization Conference Publications

We present the VIS30K dataset, a collection of 29,689 images that represents 30 years of figures and tables from each track of the IEEE Visualization conference series (Vis, SciVis, InfoVis, VAST). VIS30K's comprehensive coverage of the scientific literature in visualization not only reflects the progress of the field but also enables researchers to study the evolution of the state-of-the-art and to find relevant work based on graphical content. We describe the dataset and our semi-automatic collection process, which couples convolutional neural networks (CNN) with curation. Extracting figures and tables semi-automatically allows us to verify that no images are overlooked or extracted erroneously. To improve quality further, we engaged in a peer-search process for high-quality figures from early IEEE Visualization papers. With the resulting data, we also contribute VISImageNavigator (VIN, visimagenavigator.github.io), a web-based tool that facilitates searching and exploring VIS30K by author names, paper keywords, title and abstract, and years.
An Empirical Study of Speculative Concurrency in Ethereum Smart Contracts

We use historical data to estimate the potential benefit of speculative techniques for executing Ethereum smart contracts in parallel. We replay transaction traces of sampled blocks from the Ethereum blockchain over time, using a simple speculative execution engine. In this engine, miners attempt to execute all transactions in a block in parallel, rolling back those that cause data conflicts. Aborted transactions are then executed sequentially. Validators execute the same schedule as miners.We find that our speculative technique yields estimated speed-ups starting at about 8-fold in 2016, declining to about 2-fold at the end of 2017, where speed-up is measured using either gas costs or instruction counts. We also observe that a small set of contracts are responsible for many data conflicts resulting from speculative concurrent execution.
Evaluation of NoSQL Databases

The explosion of the data quantities, which reflects the scaling of volumes, numbers, and types, has resulted in the development of new locations techniques and access to data. The final steps in this evolution have emerged new technologies: cloud computing and big data. The new requirements and the difficulties encountered in the management of data classified “big data” have emerged NoSQL and NewSQL systems. This paper develops a comparative study about the performance of six solutions NoSQL, employed by the important companies in the IT sector: MongoDB, Cassandra, HBase, Redis, Couchbase, and OrientDB. To compare the performance of these NoSQL systems, the authors will use a very powerful tool called YCSB: Yahoo! Cloud Serving Benchmark. The contribution is to provide some answers to choose the appropriate NoSQL system for the type of data used and the type of processing performed on that data.
A Report on the VarDial Evaluation Campaign 2020

This paper presents the results of the VarDial Evaluation Campaign 2020 organized as part of the seventh workshop on Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Similar Languages, Varieties and Dialects (VarDial), co-located with COLING 2020. The campaign included three shared tasks each focusing on a different challenge of language and dialect identification: Romanian Dialect Identification (RDI), Social Media Variety Geolocation (SMG), and Uralic Language Identification (ULI). The campaign attracted 30 teams who enrolled to participate in one or multiple shared tasks and 14 of them submitted runs across the three shared tasks. Finally, 11 papers describing participating systems are published in the VarDial proceedings and referred to in this report.
Temporal Reasoning in Natural Language Inference

We introduce five new natural language inference (NLI) datasets focused on temporal reasoning.We recast four existing datasets annotated for event duration-how long an event lasts-and event ordering-how events are temporally arranged-into more than one million NLI examples.We use these datasets to investigate how well neural models trained on a popular NLI corpus capture these forms of temporal reasoning.
ARPEGE Cloud Cover Forecast Postprocessing with Convolutional Neural Network

Abstract Cloud cover provides crucial information for many applications such as planning land observation missions from space. It remains, however, a challenging variable to forecast, and numerical weather prediction (NWP) models suffer from significant biases, hence, justifying the use of statistical postprocessing techniques. In this study, ARPEGE (Météo-France global NWP) cloud cover is postprocessed using a convolutional neural network (CNN). CNN is the most popular machine learning tool to deal with images. In our case, CNN allows the integration of spatial information contained in NWP outputs. We use a gridded cloud cover product derived from satellite observations over Europe as ground truth, and predictors are spatial fields of various variables produced by ARPEGE at the corresponding lead time. We show that a simple U-Net architecture (a particular type of CNN) produces significant improvements over Europe. Moreover, the U-Net outclasses more traditional machine learning methods used operationally such as a random forest and a logistic quantile regression. When using a large number of predictors, a first step toward interpretation is to produce a ranking of predictors by importance. Traditional methods of ranking (permutation importance, sequential selection, etc.) need important computational resources. We introduced a weighting predictor layer prior to the traditional U-Net architecture in order to produce such a ranking. The small number of additional weights to train (the same as the number of predictors) does not impact the computational time, representing a huge advantage compared to traditional methods.
Second-Order Unsupervised Neural Dependency Parsing

Most of the unsupervised dependency parsers are based on first-order probabilistic generative models that only consider local parent-child information.Inspired by second-order supervised dependency parsing, we proposed a second-order extension of unsupervised neural dependency models that incorporate grandparent-child or sibling information.We also propose novel design of the neural parameterization and optimization methods of the dependency models.In secondorder models, the number of grammar rules grows cubically with the increase of vocabulary size, making it difficult to train lexicalized models that may contain thousands of words.To circumvent this problem while still benefiting from both second-order parsing and lexicalization, we use the agreement-based learning framework to jointly train a second-order unlexicalized model and a first-order lexicalized model.Experiments on multiple datasets show the effectiveness of our second-order models compared with recent state-of-the-art methods.Our joint model achieves a 10% improvement over the previous state-of-the-art parser on the full WSJ test set.
Personalized treatment options for chronic diseases using precision cohort analytics

Abstract To support point-of-care decision making by presenting outcomes of past treatment choices for cohorts of similar patients based on observational data from electronic health records (EHRs), a machine-learning precision cohort treatment option (PCTO) workflow consisting of (1) data extraction, (2) similarity model training, (3) precision cohort identification, and (4) treatment options analysis was developed. The similarity model is used to dynamically create a cohort of similar patients, to inform clinical decisions about an individual patient. The workflow was implemented using EHR data from a large health care provider for three different highly prevalent chronic diseases: hypertension (HTN), type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and hyperlipidemia (HL). A retrospective analysis demonstrated that treatment options with better outcomes were available for a majority of cases (75%, 74%, 85% for HTN, T2DM, HL, respectively). The models for HTN and T2DM were deployed in a pilot study with primary care physicians using it during clinic visits. A novel data-analytic workflow was developed to create patient-similarity models that dynamically generate personalized treatment insights at the point-of-care. By leveraging both knowledge-driven treatment guidelines and data-driven EHR data, physicians can incorporate real-world evidence in their medical decision-making process when considering treatment options for individual patients.
Collaborative representation with curriculum classifier boosting for unsupervised domain adaptation

Domain adaptation aims at leveraging rich knowledge in the source domain to build an accurate classifier in the different but related target domain. Most prior methods attempt to align features or reduce domain discrepancy by means of statistical properties yet ignore the differences among samples. In this paper, we put forward a novel solution based on collaborative representation for classifier adaptation. Similar to instance re-weighting, we aim to learn an adaptive classifier by multi-stage inference and instance rearranging. Specifically, a curriculum learning based sample selection scheme is proposed, then the chosen samples are integrated into training set iteratively. Due to the distribution mismatch of two domains, we propose distance-aware sparsity regularization to learn more flexible representations. Extensive experiments verify that the proposed method is comparable or superior to the state-of-the-art methods.
<i>Federated Sensing</i>: Edge-Cloud Elastic Collaborative Learning for Intelligent Sensing

The advancements of AI and the exponential growth of sensory data are unlocking a wave of intelligent sensing applications. To overcome the shortcoming of centralized learning and local training, Google proposes federated learning that allows users to collectively reap the benefits of shared models trained from decentralized data. However, directly applying federated learning to intelligent sensing applications faces two deficiencies: 1) omitting personalities of local models and 2) high latency. Aiming at these limitations, in this article, we propose a new framework, Federated Sensing, to enable edge-cloud elastic collaborative learning from decentralized sensory data. We design an elastic local update algorithm that can train the personalized models by setting specific updating weights for each node based on the difference between the global and local model. Our algorithm takes both the global consistency and the personalities of the local models. We further propose an n-softsync model aggregation method that significantly reduces training time by combining the synchronous and asynchronous aggregations. Extensive experiments are conducted on two real-world data sets of air quality from Beijing and Los Angeles. Compared with existing federated learning techniques, our framework improves the model performance at least by 2.61% and 18.8% in two data sets, respectively. Besides, it reduces the cloud idle time to 25.5% of the total time, which verifies the advantages of our method in terms of both model performance and training overhead.
TextMage: The Automated Bangla Caption Generator Based On Deep Learning

Neural Networks and Deep Learning have seen an upsurge of research in the past decade due to the improved results. Generates text from the given image is a crucial task that requires the combination of both sectors which are computer vision and natural language processing in order to understand an image and represent it using a natural language. However existing works have all been done on a particular lingual domain and on the same set of data. This leads to the systems being developed to perform poorly on images that belong to specific locales' geographical context. TextMage is a system that is capable of understanding visual scenes that belong to the Bangladeshi geographical context and use its knowledge to represent what it understands in Bengali. Hence, we have trained a model on our previously developed and published dataset named BanglaLekhaImageCaptions. This dataset contains 9,154 images along with two annotations for each image. In order to access performance, the proposed model has been implemented and evaluated.
Imperfect 1-Out-of-2 Quantum Oblivious Transfer: Bounds, a Protocol, and its Experimental Implementation

Oblivious transfer is an important primitive in modern cryptography. Applications include secure multiparty computation, oblivious sampling, e-voting, and signatures. Information-theoretically secure perfect 1-out-of 2 oblivious transfer is impossible to achieve. Imperfect variants, where both participants' ability to cheat is still limited, are possible using quantum means while remaining classically impossible. Precisely what security parameters are attainable remains unknown. We introduce a theoretical framework for studying semirandom quantum oblivious transfer, which is shown to be equivalent to regular oblivious transfer in terms of cheating probabilities. We then use it to derive bounds on cheating. We also present a protocol with lower cheating probabilities than previous schemes, together with its optical realization. We show that a lower bound of 2/3 on the minimum achievable cheating probability can be directly derived for semirandom protocols using a different method and definition of cheating than used previously. The lower bound increases from 2/3 to approximately 0.749 if the states output by the protocol are pure and symmetric. The oblivious transfer scheme we present uses unambiguous state elimination measurements and can be implemented with the same technological requirements as standard quantum cryptography. The cheating probabilities are 3/4 and approximately 0.729 for sender and receiver respectively, which is lower than in existing protocols. Using a photonic test-bed, we have implemented the protocol with honest parties, as well as optimal cheating strategies.
Comparison of the Performance of the Leap Motion ControllerTM with a Standard Marker-Based Motion Capture System

Over the last few years, the Leap Motion Controller™ (LMC) has been increasingly used in clinical environments to track hand, wrist and forearm positions as an alternative to the gold-standard motion capture systems. Since the LMC is marker-less, portable, easy-to-use and low-cost, it is rapidly being adopted in healthcare services. This paper demonstrates the comparison of finger kinematic data between the LMC and a gold-standard marker-based motion capture system, Qualisys Track Manager (QTM). Both systems were time synchronised, and the participants performed abduction/adduction of the thumb and flexion/extension movements of all fingers. The LMC and QTM were compared in both static measuring finger segment lengths and dynamic flexion movements of all fingers. A Bland–Altman plot was used to demonstrate the performance of the LMC versus QTM with Pearson’s correlation (r) to demonstrate trends in the data. Only the proximal interphalangeal joint (PIP) joint of the middle and ring finger during flexion/extension demonstrated acceptable agreement (r = 0.9062; r = 0.8978), but with a high mean bias. In conclusion, the study shows that currently, the LMC is not suitable to replace gold-standard motion capture systems in clinical settings. Further studies should be conducted to validate the performance of the LMC as it is updated and upgraded.
Bitcoin and Altcoins Price Dependency: Resilience and Portfolio Allocation in COVID-19 Outbreak

The main aim of this article is to examine the inter-relationships among the top cryptocurrencies on the crypto stock market in the presence and absence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The nine chosen cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Eos, BitcoinCash, Binance, Stellar, and Tron and their daily closing price data are captured from coinmarketcap over the period from 13 September 2017 to 21 September 2020. All of the cryptocurrencies are integrated of order 1 i.e., I(1). There is strong evidence of a long-run relationship between Bitcoin and altcoins irrespective of whether it is pre-pandemic or pandemic period. It has also been found that these cryptocurrencies’ prices and their inter-relationship are resilient to the pandemic. It is recommended that when the investors create investment plans and strategies they may highly consider Bitcoin and altcoins jointly as they give sustainability and resilience in the long run against the geopolitical risks and even in the tough time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Big Data Platform for Educational Analytics

Huge amounts of educational data are being produced, and a common challenge that many educational organizations confront, is finding an effective method to harness and analyze this data for continuously delivering enhanced education. Nowadays, the educational data is evolving and has become large in volume, wide in variety and high in velocity. This produced data needs to be handled in an efficient manner to extract value and make informed decisions. For that, this paper confronts such data as a big data challenge and presents a comprehensive platform tailored to perform educational big data analytical applications. Further, present an effective environment for non-data scientists and people in the educational sector to apply their demanding educational big data applications. The implementation stages of the educational big data platform on a cloud computing platform and the organization of educational data in a data lake architecture are highlighted. Furthermore, two analytical applications are performed to test the feasibility of the presented platform in discovering knowledge that potentially promotes the educational institutions.
Voice Assistant Application for Avoiding Sedentarism in Elderly People Based on IoT Technologies

The rise in the use of virtual assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa among different sectors of society is facilitating access to information and services that were previously inconceivable due to the existing digital divide due to age. This situation allows especially the elderly to perform tasks much more easily and to access applications and services that could be a challenge for them with other digital user interfaces. With this in mind, the EMERITI project aims to improve the lives of the elderly through the use of virtual assistants in different case studies. In this sense, virtual voice assistants along with the use of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies can contribute to avoid sedentarism in the elderly; however, it is necessary to address the problem of proactivity presented by the virtual assistants available in the market. This article presents a solution that, through the use of activity monitoring smart bracelets, IoT devices and virtual voice assistants allow the elderly to monitor their daily physical activity simply by using their voice and therefore prevent them from sedentary patterns. Finally, this study presents the technical results obtained after the deployment of the proposed system and discusses the main advantages and the current challenges of the use of virtual assistants in applications to prevent sedentary lifestyles in the elderly.
The effect of the TF-IDF algorithm in times series in forecasting word on social media

Forecasting is one of the main topics in data mining or machine learning in which forecasting, a group of data used, has a label class or target. Thus, many algorithms for solving forecasting problems are categorized as supervised learning with the aim of conducting training. In this case, the things that were supervised were the label or target data playing a role as a 'supervisor' who supervise the training process in achieving a certain level of accuracy or precision. Time series is a method that is generally used to forecast based on time and can forecast words in social media. In this study had conducted the word forecasting on twitter with 1734 tweets which were interpreted as weighted documents using the TF-IDF algorithm with a frequency that often comes out in tweets so the TF-IDF value is getting smaller and vice versa. After getting the word weight value of the tweets, a time series forecast was performed with the test data of 1734 tweets that the results referred to 1203 categories of Slack words and 531 verb tweets as training data resulting in good accuracy. The division of word forecasting was classified into two groups i.e. inactive users and active users. The results obtained were processed with a MAPE calculation process of 50% for inactive users and 0.1980198% for active users.
Breast Cancer Histopathological Images Recognition Based on Low Dimensional Three-Channel Features

Breast cancer (BC) is the primary threat to women’s health, and early diagnosis of breast cancer is imperative. Although there are many ways to diagnose breast cancer, the gold standard is still pathological examination. In this paper, a low dimensional three-channel features based breast cancer histopathological images recognition method is proposed to achieve fast and accurate breast cancer benign and malignant recognition. Three-channel features of 10 descriptors were extracted, which are gray level co-occurrence matrix on one direction (GLCM1), gray level co-occurrence matrix on four directions (GLCM4), average pixel value of each channel (APVEC), Hu invariant moment (HIM), wavelet features, Tamura, completed local binary pattern (CLBP), local binary pattern (LBP), Gabor, histogram of oriented gradient (Hog), respectively. Then support vector machine (SVM) was used to assess their performance. Experiments on BreaKHis dataset show that GLCM1, GLCM4 and APVEC achieved the recognition accuracy of 90.2%-94.97% at the image level and 89.18%-94.24% at the patient level, which is better than many state-of-the-art methods, including many deep learning frameworks. The experimental results show that the breast cancer recognition based on high dimensional features will increase the recognition time, but the recognition accuracy is not greatly improved. Three-channel features will enhance the recognizability of the image, so as to achieve higher recognition accuracy than gray-level features.
Learning to Embed Categorical Features without Embedding Tables for Recommendation

Embedding learning of categorical features (e.g. user/item IDs) is at the core of various recommendation models. The standard approach creates an embedding table where each row represents a dedicated embedding vector for every unique feature value. However, this method fails to efficiently handle high-cardinality features and unseen feature values (e.g. new video ID) that are prevalent in real-world recommendation systems. In this paper, we propose an alternative embedding framework Deep Hash Embedding (DHE), replacing embedding tables by a deep embedding network to compute embeddings on the fly. DHE first encodes the feature value to a unique identifier vector with multiple hashing functions and transformations, and then applies a DNN to convert the identifier vector to an embedding. The encoding module is deterministic, non-learnable, and free of storage, while the embedding network is updated during the training time to learn embedding generation. Empirical results show that DHE achieves comparable AUC against the standard one-hot full embedding, with smaller model sizes. Our work sheds light on the design of DNN-based alternative embedding schemes for categorical features without using embedding table lookup.