Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Blockchain Smart Contract to Prevent Forgery of Degree Certificates: Artificial Intelligence Consensus Algorithm

Certificates are often falsified, such as fake diplomas and forged transcripts. As such, many schools and educational institutions have begun to issue diplomas online. Although diplomas can be issued conveniently anytime, anywhere, there are many cases wherein diplomas are forged through hacking and forgery. This paper deals with the required Blockchain diploma. In addition, we use an automatic translation system, which incorporates natural language processing, to perform verification work that does not require an existing public certificate. The hash algorithm is used to authenticate security. This paper also proposes the use of these security protocols to provide more secure data protection. In addition, each transaction history, whether a diploma is true or not, may be different in length if it is presented in text, but converting it into a hash function means that it is always more than a certain length of SHA-512 or higher. It is then verified using the time stamp values. These chaining codes are designed. This paper also provides the necessary experimental environment. At least 10 nodes are constructed. Blockchain platform development applies and references Blockchain standardization, and a platform test, measurement test, and performance measurement test are conducted to assess the smart contract development and performance measurement. A total of 500 nodes were obtained by averaging 200 times, and a Blockchain-based diploma file was agreed upon at the same time. It shows performance information of about 4100 TPS. In addition, the analysis of artificial intelligence distribution diagram was conducted using a four-point method, and the distribution chart was evenly distributed, confirming the diploma with the highest similarity. The verified values were then analyzed. This paper proposes these natural language processing-based Blockchain algorithms.
Backdoor Attack is a Devil in Federated GAN-Based Medical Image Synthesis

Deep Learning-based image synthesis techniques have been applied in healthcare research for generating medical images to support open research. Training generative adversarial neural networks (GAN) usually requires large amounts of training data. Federated learning (FL) provides a way of training a central model using distributed data from different medical institutions while keeping raw data locally. However, FL is vulnerable to backdoor attack, an adversarial by poisoning training data, given the central server cannot access the original data directly. Most backdoor attack strategies focus on classification models and centralized domains. In this study, we propose a way of attacking federated GAN (FedGAN) by treating the discriminator with a commonly used data poisoning strategy in backdoor attack classification models. We demonstrate that adding a small trigger with size less than 0.5% of the original image size can corrupt the FedGAN model. Based on the proposed attack, we provide two effective defense strategies: global malicious detection and local training regularization. We show that combining the two defense strategies yields a robust medical image generation.
Domain Adaptive Nuclei Instance Segmentation and Classification via Category-Aware Feature Alignment and Pseudo-Labelling

Unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) methods have been broadly utilized to improve the models’ adaptation ability in general computer vision. However, different from the natural images, there exist huge semantic gaps for the nuclei from different categories in histopathology images. It is still under-explored how could we build generalized UDA models for precise segmentation or classification of nuclei instances across different datasets. In this work, we propose a novel deep neural network, namely Category-Aware feature alignment and Pseudo-Labelling Network (CAPL-Net) for UDA nuclei instance segmentation and classification. Specifically, we first propose a category-level feature alignment module with dynamic learnable trade-off weights. Second, we propose to facilitate the model performance on the target data via self-supervised training with pseudo labels based on nuclei-level prototype features. Comprehensive experiments on cross-domain nuclei instance segmentation and classification tasks demonstrate that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art UDA methods with a remarkable margin.
Cyber Defense in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Financial Fraud Detection Application

Cyber security comes with a combination of various security policies, AI techniques, network technologies that work together to protect various computing resources like computing networks, intelligent programs, and sensitive data from attacks. Nowadays, the shift to digital freedom had led to opened many new challenges for financial services. Cybercriminals have found the ability to leverage e- currency exchanges and other financial transactions to perform their fraudulent activities. The unregulated channel makes it essential for banks and financial institutions to deploy advanced AI &amp; ML (DL) techniques to fight cybercrime. This can be implemented by deploying AI &amp; ML (DL) techniques. Customers are experiencing an increase in the fraud-hit rate in financial banking operations. It is difficult to defend against dynamic cyber-attacks using conventional non- dynamic algorithms. Therefore, AI with machine learning techniques has been set up with cyber security to build intelligent models for malware categorization &amp; intelligently sensing the fraught with danger. This paper introduces the cyber security defense mechanism by using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML)) techniques with the current Feedzai security model to identifying fraudulent banking transaction. We have given a preface to the popular ML &amp; AI model with random forest algorithm and Feedzai’s Open ML fraud detection software tool, which provides automatic fraud-recognition to the current intelligent framework for solving Financial Fraud Detection.
Coverage-Based Debloating for Java Bytecode

Software bloat is code that is packaged in an application but is actually not necessary to run the application. The presence of software bloat is an issue for security, performance, and for maintenance. In this article, we introduce a novel technique for debloating, which we call coverage-based debloating. We implement the technique for one single language: Java bytecode. We leverage a combination of state-of-the-art Java bytecode coverage tools to precisely capture what parts of a project and its dependencies are used when running with a specific workload. Then, we automatically remove the parts that are not covered, in order to generate a debloated version of the project. We succeed to debloat 211 library versions from a dataset of 94 unique open-source Java libraries. The debloated versions are syntactically correct and preserve their original behaviour according to the workload. Our results indicate that 68.3% of the libraries’ bytecode and 20.3% of their total dependencies can be removed through coverage-based debloating. For the first time in the literature on software debloating, we assess the utility of debloated libraries with respect to client applications that reuse them. We select 988 client projects that either have a direct reference to the debloated library in their source code or which test suite covers at least one class of the libraries that we debloat. Our results show that 81.5% of the clients, with at least one test that uses the library, successfully compile and pass their test suite when the original library is replaced by its debloated version.
An improved probability propagation algorithm for density peak clustering based on natural nearest neighborhood

Clustering by fast search and find of density peaks (DPC) (Since, 2014) has been proven to be a promising clustering approach that efficiently discovers the centers of clusters by finding the density peaks. The accuracy of DPC depends on the cutoff distance (dc), the cluster number (k) and the selection of the centers of clusters. Moreover, the final allocation strategy is sensitive and has poor fault tolerance. The shortcomings above make the algorithm sensitive to parameters and only applicable for some specific datasets. To overcome the limitations of DPC, this paper presents an improved probability propagation algorithm for density peak clustering based on the natural nearest neighborhood (DPC-PPNNN). By introducing the idea of natural nearest neighborhood and probability propagation, DPC-PPNNN realizes the nonparametric clustering process and makes the algorithm applicable for more complex datasets. In experiments on several datasets, DPC-PPNNN is shown to outperform DPC, K-means and DBSCAN.
Design of Intelligent Management Platform for Industry–Education Cooperation of Vocational Education by Data Mining

Data are playing an increasingly important role in the development of industry–education cooperation strategies in vocational education and training. The objective of this study was to promote the comprehensive progress of an industry–education cooperation system and improve the effect of the application of big data technology in this system. First, we designed of a big data technology application in an intelligent management platform system for industry–education cooperation. Second, we analyzed the synthetical design of the system. Finally, we optimized and designed a support vector machine (SVM) data mining (DM) algorithm model based on big data, and evaluated the model. The results revealed that the designed algorithm model provides outstanding advantages compared with similar algorithm models. In general, the highest average computation time of the designed SVM algorithm model is about 95 ms. The overall average calculation time linearly decreases around 200 iterations and tends to be stable, and the lowest overall average computation time is about 20 ms. In the DM process, the highest accuracy rate of the model is about 97%, and the lowest is about 92%. The DM accuracy rate is always stable as the number of iterations of the model continues to increase. The designed model slowly increases the occupancy rate of the system in the process of increasing computing time. At about 60 min, the system occupancy rate of the model tends to be stable, and the highest is maintained at about 23%. This study not only provides technical support for the optimization of DM algorithms with big data technology, but also contributes to the integrated development of industry–education cooperation systems.
Multiscale Attentive Image De-Raining Networks via Neural Architecture Search

Multi-scale architectures and attention modules have shown effectiveness in many deep learning-based image de-raining methods. However, manually designing and integrating these two components into a neural network requires a bulk of labor and extensive expertise. In this article, a high-performance multi-scale attentive neural architecture search (MANAS) framework is technically developed for image deraining. The proposed method formulates a new multi-scale attention search space with multiple flexible modules that are favorite to the image de-raining task. Under the search space, multi-scale attentive cells are built, which are further used to construct a powerful image de-raining network. The internal multiscale attentive architecture of the de-raining network is searched automatically through a gradient-based search algorithm, which avoids the daunting procedure of the manual design to some extent. Moreover, in order to obtain a robust image de-raining model, a practical and effective multi-to-one training strategy is also presented to allow the de-raining network to get sufficient background information from multiple rainy images with the same background scene, and meanwhile, multiple loss functions including external loss, internal loss, architecture regularization loss, and model complexity loss are jointly optimized to achieve robust de-raining performance and controllable model complexity. Extensive experimental results on both synthetic and realistic rainy images, as well as the down-stream vision applications (i.e., objection detection and segmentation) consistently demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/lcai-gz/MANAS.
Smart contracts vs incomplete contracts: A transaction cost economics viewpoint

Smart contracts (i.e., agreements enforced by a blockchain) are supposed to work at lower transaction costs than traditional (and incomplete) contracts that instead exploit a costly legal enforcement. This paper challenges that claim. I argue that because of the need for adaptation to mutable and unpredictable occurrences (a chief challenge of transaction cost economics à la Oliver Williamson), smart contracts may incur higher transaction costs than traditional contracts. This paper focuses on two problems related to the adaptation: first, smart contracts are constructed to limit and potentially avoid any ex-post legal intervention, including efficiency-enhancing adaptation by courts. Second, the consensus mechanism on which every smart contract depends may lead to additional transaction costs due to a majority-driven adaptation of the blockchain that follows Mancur Olson's Logic of groups. The paper further proposes several institutional expedients that may reduce these transaction costs of smart contracts.
On the Joint Optimization of Function Assignment and Communication Scheduling toward Performance Efficient Serverless Edge Computing

Serverless edge computing is booming as an efficient carrier of deploying complex applications composed of dependent functions, whose assignment decisions highly influence the application performance. Although similar problem has been widely studied, none of existing approaches considers the diversity of communication styles, which is specially introduced in serverless computing and also imposes high influence to the performance efficiency. We compare two communication styles, called direct-passing and remote-storage, to transmit intermediate data between functions. We find that there is no single communication style that can prevail under all scenarios and the optimal selection depends on several factors, such as fanout degree, data size, and network bandwidth. Hence, how to select the appropriate communication style for each inter-function communication link, together with the function assignment decision, is essential to the application performance. To this end, we propose a Priority-based ASsignment and Selection (PASS) algorithm with joint consideration of function assignment and communication style selection. We theoretically analyze the approximation ratio of PASS algorithm and extensive experiments on real-world applications show that PASS can averagely reduce the completion time by 24.1% in comparison with state-of-the-art approaches.
Optimizing Local Alignment along the Seamline for Parallax-Tolerant Orthoimage Mosaicking

Orthoimage mosaicking with obvious parallax caused by geometric misalignment is a challenging problem in the field of remote sensing. Because the obvious objects are not included in the digital terrain model (DTM), large parallax exists in these objects. A common strategy is to search an optimal seamline between orthoimages, avoiding the majority of obvious objects. However, stitching artifacts may remain because (1) the seamline may still cross several obvious objects and (2) the orthoimages may not be precisely aligned in geometry when the accuracy of the DTM is low. While applying general image warping methods to orthoimages can improve the local geometric consistency of adjacent images, these methods usually significantly modify the geometric properties of orthophoto maps. To the best of our knowledge, no approach has been proposed in the field of remote sensing to solve the problem of local geometric misalignments after orthoimage mosaicking with obvious parallax. In this paper, we creatively propose a method to optimize local alignment along the seamline after seamline detection. It consists of the following main processes. First, we locate regions with geometric misalignments along the seamline based on the similarity measure. Second, for any one region, we find one-dimensional (1D) feature matches along the seamline using a semi-global matching approach. The deformation vectors are calculated for these matches. Third, these deformation vectors are robustly and smoothly propagated into the buffer region centered on the seamline by minimizing the associated energy function. Finally, we directly warp the orthoimages to eliminate the local parallax under the guidance of dense deformation vectors. The experimental results on several groups of orthoimages show that our proposed approach is capable of eliminating the local parallax existing in the seamline while preserving most geometric properties of digital orthophoto maps, and that it outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in terms of both visual quality and quantitative metrics.
Fostering Coopetition While Plugging Leaks

We articulate the design and implementation of the MS MARCO document ranking and passage ranking leaderboards. In contrast to "standard" community-wide evaluations such as those at TREC, which can be characterized as simultaneous games, leaderboards represent sequential games, where every player move is immediately visible to the entire community. The fundamental challenge with this setup is that every leaderboard submission leaks information about the held-out evaluation set, which conflicts with the fundamental tenant in machine learning about separation of training and test data. These "leaks", accumulated over long periods of time, threaten the validity of the insights that can be derived from the leaderboards. In this paper, we share our experiences grappling with this issue over the past few years and how our considerations are operationalized into a coherent submission policy. Our work provides a useful guide to help the community understand the design choices made in the popular MS MARCO leaderboards and offers lessons for designers of future leaderboards.
Virtual learning environments: major trends in the use of modern digital technologies in higher education institutions

The article reveals the features of development and integrated implementation of virtual learning environment with the use of modern digital technologies in the learning process of higher education. The article summarizes the interpretation of the concept of "virtual learning environment". Virtual learning environment can be interpreted as an immersive online learning environment that has a methodologically integrated learning system, provides an open interactive dynamic learning process in cyberspace using modern digital technologies that take into account the individual educational characteristics of students. The main subjects and functions of the virtual learning environment are identified. One of the links in creating a virtual learning environment is the development of free learning space through websites. It is stated that the teacher's site should be integrated into the learning technology designed and implemented by the teacher. Then the logic and structure of the lesson will be an element of the teacher's creativity, and he is able to choose his own strategy and teaching methods, and not just follow the presentation of the material proposed by other authors. In conditions when the idea of personality-oriented learning, built on the innovative activities of the teacher, is fundamental in education, this approach, according to our research, is crucial. The possibilities of modern network technologies involved in the content management system are described, the roles of participants in the educational process are determined, the tasks solved by educational platforms are indicated, their main functions in the learning environment of higher education institutions are described.
Dynamics-Aware Adaptation for Reinforcement Learning Based Cross-Domain Interactive Recommendation

Interactive recommender systems (IRS) have received wide attention in recent years. To capture users' dynamic preferences and maximize their long-term engagement, IRS are usually formulated as reinforcement learning (RL) problems. Despite the promise to solve complex decision-making problems, RL-based methods generally require a large amount of online interaction, restricting their applications due to economic considerations. One possible direction to alleviate this issue is cross-domain recommendation that aims to leverage abundant logged interaction data from a source domain (e.g., adventure genre in movie recommendation) to improve the recommendation quality in the target domain (e.g., crime genre). Nevertheless, prior studies mostly focus on adapting the static representations of users/items. Few have explored how the temporally dynamic user-item interaction patterns transform across domains.
ReMoS

Transfer learning is a popular software reuse technique in the deep learning community that enables developers to build custom models (students) based on sophisticated pretrained models (teachers). However, like vulnerability inheritance in traditional software reuse, some defects in the teacher model may also be inherited by students, such as well-known adversarial vulnerabilities and backdoors. Reducing such defects is challenging since the student is unaware of how the teacher is trained and/or attacked. In this paper, we propose ReMoS, a relevant model slicing technique to reduce defect inheritance during transfer learning while retaining useful knowledge from the teacher model. Specifically, ReMoS computes a model slice (a subset of model weights) that is relevant to the student task based on the neuron coverage information obtained by profiling the teacher model on the student task. Only the relevant slice is used to finetune the student model, while the irrelevant weights are retrained from scratch to minimize the risk of inheriting defects. Our experiments on seven DNN defects, four DNN models, and eight datasets demonstrate that ReMoS can reduce inherited defects effectively (by 63% to 86% for CV tasks and by 40% to 61% for NLP tasks) and efficiently with minimal sacrifice of accuracy (3% on average).
The extent of orphan vulnerabilities from code reuse in open source software

Motivation: A key premise of open source software is the ability to copy code to other open source projects (white-box reuse). Such copying accelerates development of new projects, but the code flaws in the original projects, such as vulnerabilities, may also spread even if fixed in the projects from where the code was appropriated. The extent of the spread of vulnerabilities through code reuse, the potential impact of such spread, or avenues for mitigating risk of these secondary vulnerabilities has not been studied in the context of a nearly complete collection of open source code.
UserBERT

User modeling is critical for personalization. Existing methods usually train user models from task-specific labeled data, which may be insufficient. In fact, there are usually abundant unlabeled user behavior data that encode rich universal user information, and pre-training user models on them can empower user modeling in many downstream tasks. In this paper, we propose a user model pre-training method named UserBERT to learn universal user models on unlabeled user behavior data with two contrastive self-supervision tasks. The first one is masked behavior prediction and discrimination, aiming to model the contexts of user behaviors. The second one is behavior sequence matching, aiming to capture user interest stable in different periods. Besides, we propose a medium-hard negative sampling framework to select informative negative samples for better contrastive pre-training. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of UserBERT in user model pre-training.