Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
Big data applications on small quantum computers

Current quantum hardware prohibits any direct use of large classical datasets. Coresets allow for a succinct description of these large datasets and their solution in a computational task is competitive with the solution on the original dataset. The method of combining coresets with small quantum computers to solve a given task that requires a large number of data points was first introduced by Harrow [arXiv:2004.00026]. In this paper, we apply the coreset method in three different well-studied classical machine learning problems, namely Divisive Clustering, 3-means Clustering, and Gaussian Mixture Model Clustering. We provide a Hamiltonian formulation of the aforementioned problems for which the number of qubits scales linearly with the size of the coreset. Then, we evaluate how the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) performs on these problems and demonstrate the practical efficiency of coresets when used along with a small quantum computer. We perform noiseless simulations on instances of sizes up to 25 qubits on CUDA Quantum and show that our approach provides comparable performance to classical solvers.
Low-Resource Cross-Domain Singing Voice Synthesis via Reduced  Self-Supervised Speech Representations

In this paper, we propose a singing voice synthesis model, Karaoker-SSL, that is trained only on text and speech data as a typical multi-speaker acoustic model. It is a low-resource pipeline that does not utilize any singing data end-to-end, since its vocoder is also trained on speech data. Karaoker-SSL is conditioned by self-supervised speech representations in an unsupervised manner. We preprocess these representations by selecting only a subset of their task-correlated dimensions. The conditioning module is indirectly guided to capture style information during training by multi-tasking. This is achieved with a Conformer-based module, which predicts the pitch from the acoustic model's output. Thus, Karaoker-SSL allows singing voice synthesis without reliance on hand-crafted and domain-specific features. There are also no requirements for text alignments or lyrics timestamps. To refine the voice quality, we employ a U-Net discriminator that is conditioned on the target speaker and follows a Diffusion GAN training scheme.
Adaptive Optimization for Prediction with Missing Data

When training predictive models on data with missing entries, the most widely used and versatile approach is a pipeline technique where we first impute missing entries and then compute predictions. In this paper, we view prediction with missing data as a two-stage adaptive optimization problem and propose a new class of models, adaptive linear regression models, where the regression coefficients adapt to the set of observed features. We show that some adaptive linear regression models are equivalent to learning an imputation rule and a downstream linear regression model simultaneously instead of sequentially. We leverage this joint-impute-then-regress interpretation to generalize our framework to non-linear models. In settings where data is strongly not missing at random, our methods achieve a 2-10% improvement in out-of-sample accuracy.
Quantum advantage in zero-error function computation with side  information

We consider the problem of zero-error function computation with side information. Alice has a source $X$ and Bob has correlated source $Y$ and they can communicate via either classical or a quantum channel. Bob wants to calculate $f(X,Y)$ with zero error. We aim to characterize the minimum amount of information that Alice needs to send to Bob for this to happen with zero-error. In the classical setting, this quantity depends on the asymptotic growth of $\chi(G^{(m)})$, the chromatic number of an appropriately defined $m$-instance "confusion graph". In this work we present structural characterizations of $G^{(m)}$ and demonstrate two function computation scenarios that have the same single-instance confusion graph. However, in one case there a strict advantage in using quantum transmission as against classical transmission, whereas there is no such advantage in the other case.
Boximator: Generating Rich and Controllable Motions for Video Synthesis

Generating rich and controllable motion is a pivotal challenge in video synthesis. We propose Boximator, a new approach for fine-grained motion control. Boximator introduces two constraint types: hard box and soft box. Users select objects in the conditional frame using hard boxes and then use either type of boxes to roughly or rigorously define the object's position, shape, or motion path in future frames. Boximator functions as a plug-in for existing video diffusion models. Its training process preserves the base model's knowledge by freezing the original weights and training only the control module. To address training challenges, we introduce a novel self-tracking technique that greatly simplifies the learning of box-object correlations. Empirically, Boximator achieves state-of-the-art video quality (FVD) scores, improving on two base models, and further enhanced after incorporating box constraints. Its robust motion controllability is validated by drastic increases in the bounding box alignment metric. Human evaluation also shows that users favor Boximator generation results over the base model.
Deep Active Learning for Data Mining from Conflict Text Corpora

High-resolution event data on armed conflict and related processes have revolutionized the study of political contention with datasets like UCDP GED, ACLED etc. However, most of these datasets limit themselves to collecting spatio-temporal (high-resolution) and intensity data. Information on dynamics, such as targets, tactics, purposes etc. are rarely collected owing to the extreme workload of collecting data. However, most datasets rely on a rich corpus of textual data allowing further mining of further information connected to each event. This paper proposes one such approach that is inexpensive and high performance, leveraging active learning - an iterative process of improving a machine learning model based on sequential (guided) human input. Active learning is employed to then step-wise train (fine-tuning) of a large, encoder-only language model adapted for extracting sub-classes of events relating to conflict dynamics. The approach shows performance similar to human (gold-standard) coding while reducing the amount of required human annotation by as much as 99%.
Efficient and Interaction-Aware Trajectory Planning for Autonomous  Vehicles with Particle Swarm Optimization

This paper introduces a novel numerical approach to achieving smooth lane-change trajectories in autonomous driving scenarios. Our trajectory generation approach leverages particle swarm optimization (PSO) techniques, incorporating Neural Network (NN) predictions for trajectory refinement. The generation of smooth and dynamically feasible trajectories for the lane change maneuver is facilitated by combining polynomial curve fitting with particle propagation, which can account for vehicle dynamics. The proposed planning algorithm is capable of determining feasible trajectories with real-time computation capability. We conduct comparative analyses with two baseline methods for lane changing, involving analytic solutions and heuristic techniques in numerical simulations. The simulation results validate the efficacy and effectiveness of our proposed approach.
Spiking Music: Audio Compression with Event Based Auto-encoders

Neurons in the brain communicate information via punctual events called spikes. The timing of spikes is thought to carry rich information, but it is not clear how to leverage this in digital systems. We demonstrate that event-based encoding is efficient for audio compression. To build this event-based representation we use a deep binary auto-encoder, and under high sparsity pressure, the model enters a regime where the binary event matrix is stored more efficiently with sparse matrix storage algorithms. We test this on the large MAESTRO dataset of piano recordings against vector quantized auto-encoders. Not only does our "Spiking Music compression" algorithm achieve a competitive compression/reconstruction trade-off, but selectivity and synchrony between encoded events and piano key strikes emerge without supervision in the sparse regime.
Free Quantum Codes from Twisted Unitary $t$-groups

We introduce twisted unitary $t$-groups, a generalization of unitary $t$-groups under a twisting by an irreducible representation. We then apply representation theoretic methods to the Knill-Laflamme error correction conditions to show that twisted unitary $t$-groups automatically correspond to quantum codes with distance $d=t+1$. By construction these codes have many transversal gates, which are naturally fault tolerant.
Stochastic Two Points Method for Deep Model Zeroth-order Optimization

Large foundation models, such as large language models, have performed exceptionally well in various application scenarios. Building or fully fine-tuning such large models is usually prohibitive due to either hardware budget or lack of access to backpropagation. The zeroth-order methods offer a promising direction for tackling this challenge, where only forward passes are needed to update the model. This paper introduces an efficient Stochastic Two-Point (S2P) approach within the gradient-free regime. We present the theoretical convergence properties of S2P under the general and relaxed smoothness assumptions. The theoretical properties also shed light on a faster and more stable S2P variant, Accelerated S2P (AS2P), through exploiting our new convergence properties that better represent the dynamics of deep models in training. Our comprehensive empirical results show that AS2P is highly effective in optimizing objectives for large deep models, including language models, and outperforms standard methods across various model types and scales, with 2 $\times$ speed-up in training over most conducted tasks.
Position Paper: Generalized grammar rules and structure-based  generalization beyond classical equivariance for lexical tasks and  transduction

Compositional generalization is one of the main properties which differentiates lexical learning in humans from state-of-art neural networks. We propose a general framework for building models that can generalize compositionally using the concept of Generalized Grammar Rules (GGRs), a class of symmetry-based compositional constraints for transduction tasks, which we view as a transduction analogue of equivariance constraints in physics-inspired tasks. Besides formalizing generalized notions of symmetry for language transduction, our framework is general enough to contain many existing works as special cases. We present ideas on how GGRs might be implemented, and in the process draw connections to reinforcement learning and other areas of research.
Hyperparameter tuning via trajectory predictions: Stochastic prox-linear  methods in matrix sensing

Motivated by the desire to understand stochastic algorithms for nonconvex optimization that are robust to their hyperparameter choices, we analyze a mini-batched prox-linear iterative algorithm for the problem of recovering an unknown rank-1 matrix from rank-1 Gaussian measurements corrupted by noise. We derive a deterministic recursion that predicts the error of this method and show, using a non-asymptotic framework, that this prediction is accurate for any batch-size and a large range of step-sizes. In particular, our analysis reveals that this method, though stochastic, converges linearly from a local initialization with a fixed step-size to a statistical error floor. Our analysis also exposes how the batch-size, step-size, and noise level affect the (linear) convergence rate and the eventual statistical estimation error, and we demonstrate how to use our deterministic predictions to perform hyperparameter tuning (e.g. step-size and batch-size selection) without ever running the method. On a technical level, our analysis is enabled in part by showing that the fluctuations of the empirical iterates around our deterministic predictions scale with the error of the previous iterate.
Estimating Max-Stable Random Vectors with Discrete Spectral Measure  using Model-Based Clustering

This study introduces a novel estimation method for the entries and structure of a matrix $A$ in the linear factor model $\textbf{X} = A\textbf{Z} + \textbf{E}$. This is applied to an observable vector $\textbf{X} \in \mathbb{R}^d$ with $\textbf{Z} \in \mathbb{R}^K$, a vector composed of independently regularly varying random variables, and light-tailed independent noise $\textbf{E} \in \mathbb{R}^d$. This leads to max-linear models treated in classical multivariate extreme value theory. The spectral measure of the limit distribution is subsequently discrete and completely characterized by the matrix $A$. Every max-stable random vector with discrete spectral measure can be written as a max-linear model. Each row of the matrix $A$ is both scaled and sparse. Additionally, the value of $K$ is not known a priori. The problem of identifying the matrix $A$ from its matrix of pairwise extremal correlation is addressed. In the presence of pure variables, which are elements of $\textbf{X}$ linked, through $A$, to a single latent factor, the matrix $A$ can be reconstructed from the extremal correlation matrix. Our proofs of identifiability are constructive and pave the way for our innovative estimation for determining the number of factors $K$ and the matrix $A$ from $n$ weakly dependent observations on $\textbf{X}$. We apply the suggested method to weekly maxima rainfall and wildfires to demonstrate its applicability.
NeuroCine: Decoding Vivid Video Sequences from Human Brain Activties

In the pursuit to understand the intricacies of human brain's visual processing, reconstructing dynamic visual experiences from brain activities emerges as a challenging yet fascinating endeavor. While recent advancements have achieved success in reconstructing static images from non-invasive brain recordings, the domain of translating continuous brain activities into video format remains underexplored. In this work, we introduce NeuroCine, a novel dual-phase framework to targeting the inherent challenges of decoding fMRI data, such as noises, spatial redundancy and temporal lags. This framework proposes spatial masking and temporal interpolation-based augmentation for contrastive learning fMRI representations and a diffusion model enhanced by dependent prior noise for video generation. Tested on a publicly available fMRI dataset, our method shows promising results, outperforming the previous state-of-the-art models by a notable margin of ${20.97\%}$, ${31.00\%}$ and ${12.30\%}$ respectively on decoding the brain activities of three subjects in the fMRI dataset, as measured by SSIM. Additionally, our attention analysis suggests that the model aligns with existing brain structures and functions, indicating its biological plausibility and interpretability.
A GP-based Robust Motion Planning Framework for Agile Autonomous Robot  Navigation and Recovery in Unknown Environments

For autonomous mobile robots, uncertainties in the environment and system model can lead to failure in the motion planning pipeline, resulting in potential collisions. In order to achieve a high level of robust autonomy, these robots should be able to proactively predict and recover from such failures. To this end, we propose a Gaussian Process (GP) based model for proactively detecting the risk of future motion planning failure. When this risk exceeds a certain threshold, a recovery behavior is triggered that leverages the same GP model to find a safe state from which the robot may continue towards the goal. The proposed approach is trained in simulation only and can generalize to real world environments on different robotic platforms. Simulations and physical experiments demonstrate that our framework is capable of both predicting planner failures and recovering the robot to states where planner success is likely, all while producing agile motion.
L2G2G: a Scalable Local-to-Global Network Embedding with Graph  Autoencoders

For analysing real-world networks, graph representation learning is a popular tool. These methods, such as a graph autoencoder (GAE), typically rely on low-dimensional representations, also called embeddings, which are obtained through minimising a loss function; these embeddings are used with a decoder for downstream tasks such as node classification and edge prediction. While GAEs tend to be fairly accurate, they suffer from scalability issues. For improved speed, a Local2Global approach, which combines graph patch embeddings based on eigenvector synchronisation, was shown to be fast and achieve good accuracy. Here we propose L2G2G, a Local2Global method which improves GAE accuracy without sacrificing scalability. This improvement is achieved by dynamically synchronising the latent node representations, while training the GAEs. It also benefits from the decoder computing an only local patch loss. Hence, aligning the local embeddings in each epoch utilises more information from the graph than a single post-training alignment does, while maintaining scalability. We illustrate on synthetic benchmarks, as well as real-world examples, that L2G2G achieves higher accuracy than the standard Local2Global approach and scales efficiently on the larger data sets. We find that for large and dense networks, it even outperforms the slow, but assumed more accurate, GAEs.
MAGDi: Structured Distillation of Multi-Agent Interaction Graphs  Improves Reasoning in Smaller Language Models

Multi-agent interactions between Large Language Model (LLM) agents have shown major improvements on diverse reasoning tasks. However, these involve long generations from multiple models across several rounds, making them expensive. Moreover, these multi-agent approaches fail to provide a final, single model for efficient inference. To address this, we introduce MAGDi, a new method for structured distillation of the reasoning interactions between multiple LLMs into smaller LMs. MAGDi teaches smaller models by representing multi-agent interactions as graphs, augmenting a base student model with a graph encoder, and distilling knowledge using three objective functions: next-token prediction, a contrastive loss between correct and incorrect reasoning, and a graph-based objective to model the interaction structure. Experiments on seven widely-used commonsense and math reasoning benchmarks show that MAGDi improves the reasoning capabilities of smaller models, outperforming several methods that distill from a single teacher and multiple teachers. Moreover, MAGDi also demonstrates an order of magnitude higher efficiency over its teachers. We conduct extensive analyses to show that MAGDi (1) enhances the generalizability to out-of-domain tasks, (2) scales positively with the size and strength of the base student model, and (3) obtains larger improvements (via our multi-teacher training) when applying self-consistency - an inference technique that relies on model diversity.
Securing Tomorrow: The Intersection of AI, Data, and Analytics in Fraud Prevention

Aim: This research investigates the interconnections among Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and other cutting-edge technologies to enhance comprehension of fraud prevention. The advantages of integrating machine learning and data analytics into artificial intelligence systems for industry-wide fraud detection and prevention are examined in this study. Study Design: My approach involved conducting an extensive examination of existing literature and analysing numerous case studies to gather information on the role of artificial intelligence, data, and analytics in fraud prevention. Place and Duration of the Study: A broad spectrum of academic, corporate, and governmental sources is utilised to supply the research study with its international scope. This study examines publications and developments from 2019 to 2023. Methodology: The research procedure incorporated an exhaustive literature review. This assessment was composed of academic journals, conference proceedings, and official publications. A qualitative analysis was conducted to assess the data, identify commonalities, and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of AI fraud protection solutions. A more comprehensive examination of practical implementations was facilitated by case studies, which enhanced comprehension of fraud prevention strategies propelled by AI. Results: The research revealed important findings concerning the various ways in which analytics, data, and artificial intelligence can be implemented to prevent fraudulent activities. An examination of comparisons between generative AI for social engineering, credit card analytics, and cyber-physical security for Internet of Things (IoT) networks illuminated the merits and demerits of different Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches. Conclusion: According to the findings of the study, AI, data, and analytics may alter system defences against fraud. The above-mentioned results underscore the significance of flexible fraud prevention strategies. Constant collaboration, innovative technology, and ongoing investigation are required to remain ahead of evolving fraud techniques. The paper concludes by emphasising the significance of future challenges and orientations.
Review of Twenty-First-Century Access Services: On the Front Line of Academic Librarianship, 2nd Edition

&#x0D; &#x0D; Review of Twenty-First-Century Access Services: On the Front Line of Academic Librarianship, 2nd edition, edited by Michael J. Krasulski and Trevor A. Dawes. Association of College and Research Libraries. 320 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8389-3931-4 $76&#x0D; &#x0D;
Advancing Spectral Clustering for Categorical and Mixed-Type Data: Insights and Applications

This study focuses on adapting spectral clustering, a numeric data-clustering technique, for categorical and mixed-type data. The method enhances spectral clustering for categorical and mixed-type data with novel kernel functions, showing improved accuracy in real-world applications. Despite achieving better clustering for datasets with mixed variables, challenges remain in identifying suitable kernel functions for categorical relationships.
Strategic Management Practices as Fundamental to the Achievement of Organizational Performances

Given the increased emphasis on evaluating an organization's effectiveness in relation to strategic management practices, it is now widely recognized that delivering high-quality products and services, utilizing cutting-edge technology, establishing effective plans, and building an efficient resource management system is crucial for gaining a competitive advantage. Therefore, this research investigates the impact of strategic management practices on organizational performance, focusing specifically on the perspectives of personnel in the regional office of UBA in Lagos, Nigeria. To accomplish the study's goals, the researchers utilized the Taro Yamane sampling technique to ascertain an ideal sample size of 171 participants, obtained from a population of 300 randomly selected. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS program, correlation analysis, and scatter plot charts with a predetermined significance level of 0.05. The study's results demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between strategic management practices (strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation) and organizational performance (profitability, productivity, and operational performance). Hence, the research recommends that management embrace strategic management methodologies to enhance organizational performance by establishing clear objectives, improving decision-making processes, optimizing resource allocation, adapting to environmental shifts, fostering creativity, ensuring organizational coherence, and implementing performance measurement.