pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Neuro-symbolic Architectures for Context Understanding
Authors: Alessandro Oltramari, Jonathan Francis, Cory Henson, Kaixin Ma, Ruwan Wickramarachchi
Date: 2020-03-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Decision Making

Computational context understanding refers to an agent's ability to fuse disparate sources of information for decision-making and is, therefore, generally regarded as a prerequisite for sophisticated machine reasoning capabilities, such as in artificial intelligence (AI). Data-driven and knowledge-driven methods are two classical techniques in the pursuit of such machine sense-making capability. However, while data-driven methods seek to model the statistical regularities of events by making observations in the real-world, they remain difficult to interpret and they lack mechanisms for naturally incorporating external knowledge. Conversely, knowledge-driven methods, combine structured knowledge bases, perform symbolic reasoning based on axiomatic principles, and are more interpretable in their inferential processing; however, they often lack the ability to estimate the statistical salience of an inference. To combat these issues, we propose the use of hybrid AI methodology as a general framework for combining the strengths of both approaches. Specifically, we inherit the concept of neuro-symbolism as a way of using knowledge-bases to guide the learning progress of deep neural networks. We further ground our discussion in two applications of neuro-symbolism and, in both cases, show that our systems maintain interpretability while achieving comparable performance, relative to the state-of-the-art.
TorchIO: A Python library for efficient loading, preprocessing, augmentation and patch-based sampling of medical images in deep learning
Authors: Fernando Pérez-García, Rachel Sparks, Sébastien Ourselin
Date: 2020-03-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Data Augmentation

Processing of medical images such as MRI or CT presents unique challenges compared to RGB images typically used in computer vision. These include a lack of labels for large datasets, high computational costs, and metadata to describe the physical properties of voxels. Data augmentation is used to artificially increase the size of the training datasets. Training with image patches decreases the need for computational power. Spatial metadata needs to be carefully taken into account in order to ensure a correct alignment of volumes. We present TorchIO, an open-source Python library to enable efficient loading, preprocessing, augmentation and patch-based sampling of medical images for deep learning. TorchIO follows the style of PyTorch and integrates standard medical image processing libraries to efficiently process images during training of neural networks. TorchIO transforms can be composed, reproduced, traced and extended. We provide multiple generic preprocessing and augmentation operations as well as simulation of MRI-specific artifacts. Source code, comprehensive tutorials and extensive documentation for TorchIO can be found at https://torchio.rtfd.io/. The package can be installed from the Python Package Index running 'pip install torchio'. It includes a command-line interface which allows users to apply transforms to image files without using Python. Additionally, we provide a graphical interface within a TorchIO extension in 3D Slicer to visualize the effects of transforms. TorchIO was developed to help researchers standardize medical image processing pipelines and allow them to focus on the deep learning experiments. It encourages open science, as it supports reproducibility and is version controlled so that the software can be cited precisely. Due to its modularity, the library is compatible with other frameworks for deep learning with medical images.
Machine Learning-based Approach for Depression Detection in Twitter Using Content and Activity Features
Authors: Hatoon S. AlSagri, Mourad Ykhlef
Date: 2020-03-09 00:00:00
Tasks: BIG-bench Machine Learning, Depression Detection

Social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, have altered our world forever. People are now increasingly connected than ever and reveal a sort of digital persona. Although social media certainly has several remarkable features, the demerits are undeniable as well. Recent studies have indicated a correlation between high usage of social media sites and increased depression. The present study aims to exploit machine learning techniques for detecting a probable depressed Twitter user based on both, his/her network behavior and tweets. For this purpose, we trained and tested classifiers to distinguish whether a user is depressed or not using features extracted from his/ her activities in the network and tweets. The results showed that the more features are used, the higher are the accuracy and F-measure scores in detecting depressed users. This method is a data-driven, predictive approach for early detection of depression or other mental illnesses. This study's main contribution is the exploration part of the features and its impact on detecting the depression level.
Dual-attention Guided Dropblock Module for Weakly Supervised Object Localization
Authors: Junhui Yin, Siqing Zhang, Dongliang Chang, Zhanyu Ma, Jun Guo
Date: 2020-03-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Object Localization, Weakly-Supervised Object Localization

Attention mechanisms is frequently used to learn the discriminative features for better feature representations. In this paper, we extend the attention mechanism to the task of weakly supervised object localization (WSOL) and propose the dual-attention guided dropblock module (DGDM), which aims at learning the informative and complementary visual patterns for WSOL. This module contains two key components, the channel attention guided dropout (CAGD) and the spatial attention guided dropblock (SAGD). To model channel interdependencies, the CAGD ranks the channel attentions and treats the top-k attentions with the largest magnitudes as the important ones. It also keeps some low-valued elements to increase their value if they become important during training. The SAGD can efficiently remove the most discriminative information by erasing the contiguous regions of feature maps rather than individual pixels. This guides the model to capture the less discriminative parts for classification. Furthermore, it can also distinguish the foreground objects from the background regions to alleviate the attention misdirection. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves new state-of-the-art localization performance.
Communication-Efficient Distributed SGD with Error-Feedback, Revisited
Authors: Tran Thi Phuong, Le Trieu Phong
Date: 2020-03-09 00:00:00

We show that the convergence proof of a recent algorithm called dist-EF-SGD for distributed stochastic gradient descent with communication efficiency using error-feedback of Zheng et al. (NeurIPS 2019) is problematic mathematically. Concretely, the original error bound for arbitrary sequences of learning rate is unfortunately incorrect, leading to an invalidated upper bound in the convergence theorem for the algorithm. As evidences, we explicitly provide several counter-examples, for both convex and non-convex cases, to show the incorrectness of the error bound. We fix the issue by providing a new error bound and its corresponding proof, leading to a new convergence theorem for the dist-EF-SGD algorithm, and therefore recovering its mathematical analysis.
Security of Distributed Machine Learning: A Game-Theoretic Approach to Design Secure DSVM
Authors: Rui Zhang, Quanyan Zhu
Date: 2020-03-08 00:00:00
Tasks: BIG-bench Machine Learning, Data Poisoning

Distributed machine learning algorithms play a significant role in processing massive data sets over large networks. However, the increasing reliance on machine learning on information and communication technologies (ICTs) makes it inherently vulnerable to cyber threats. This work aims to develop secure distributed algorithms to protect the learning from data poisoning and network attacks. We establish a game-theoretic framework to capture the conflicting goals of a learner who uses distributed support vector machines (SVMs) and an attacker who is capable of modifying training data and labels. We develop a fully distributed and iterative algorithm to capture real-time reactions of the learner at each node to adversarial behaviors. The numerical results show that distributed SVM is prone to fail in different types of attacks, and their impact has a strong dependence on the network structure and attack capabilities.
Implementation of Deep Neural Networks to Classify EEG Signals using Gramian Angular Summation Field for Epilepsy Diagnosis
Authors: K. Palani Thanaraj, B. Parvathavarthini, U. John Tanik, V. Rajinikanth, Seifedine Kadry, K. Kamalanand
Date: 2020-03-08 00:00:00
Tasks: EEG, Electroencephalogram (EEG), image-classification, Image Classification, Transfer Learning

This paper evaluates the approach of imaging timeseries data such as EEG in the diagnosis of epilepsy through Deep Neural Network (DNN). EEG signal is transformed into an RGB image using Gramian Angular Summation Field (GASF). Many such EEG epochs are transformed into GASF images for the normal and focal EEG signals. Then, some of the widely used Deep Neural Networks for image classification problems are used here to detect the focal GASF images. Three pre-trained DNN such as the AlexNet, VGG16, and VGG19 are validated for epilepsy detection based on the transfer learning approach. Furthermore, the textural features are extracted from GASF images, and prominent features are selected for a multilayer Artificial Neural Network (ANN) classifier. Lastly, a Custom Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) with three CNN layers, Batch Normalization, Max-pooling layer, and Dense layers, is proposed for epilepsy diagnosis from GASF images. The results of this paper show that the Custom CNN model was able to discriminate against the focal and normal GASF images with an average peak Precision of 0.885, Recall of 0.92, and F1-score of 0.90. Moreover, the Area Under the Curve (AUC) value of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve is 0.92 for the Custom CNN model. This paper suggests that Deep Learning methods widely used in image classification problems can be an alternative approach for epilepsy detection from EEG signals through GASF images.
A Comparative Study on Parameter Estimation in Software Reliability Modeling using Swarm Intelligence
Authors: Najla Akram AL-Saati, Marrwa Abd-AlKareem Alabajee
Date: 2020-03-08 00:00:00
Tasks: parameter estimation

This work focuses on a comparison between the performances of two well-known Swarm algorithms: Cuckoo Search (CS) and Firefly Algorithm (FA), in estimating the parameters of Software Reliability Growth Models. This study is further reinforced using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). All algorithms are evaluated according to real software failure data, the tests are performed and the obtained results are compared to show the performance of each of the used algorithms. Furthermore, CS and FA are also compared with each other on bases of execution time and iteration number. Experimental results show that CS is more efficient in estimating the parameters of SRGMs, and it has outperformed FA in addition to PSO and ACO for the selected Data sets and employed models.
Neighborhood Information-based Probabilistic Algorithm for Network Disintegration
Authors: Qian Li, San-Yang Liu, Xin-She Yang
Date: 2020-03-08 00:00:00
Tasks: Protein Folding

Many real-world applications can be modelled as complex networks, and such networks include the Internet, epidemic disease networks, transport networks, power grids, protein-folding structures and others. Network integrity and robustness are important to ensure that crucial networks are protected and undesired harmful networks can be dismantled. Network structure and integrity can be controlled by a set of key nodes, and to find the optimal combination of nodes in a network to ensure network structure and integrity can be an NP-complete problem. Despite extensive studies, existing methods have many limitations and there are still many unresolved problems. This paper presents a probabilistic approach based on neighborhood information and node importance, namely, neighborhood information-based probabilistic algorithm (NIPA). We also define a new centrality-based importance measure (IM), which combines the contribution ratios of the neighbor nodes of each target node and two-hop node information. Our proposed NIPA has been tested for different network benchmarks and compared with three other methods: optimal attack strategy (OAS), high betweenness first (HBF) and high degree first (HDF). Experiments suggest that the proposed NIPA is most effective among all four methods. In general, NIPA can identify the most crucial node combination with higher effectiveness, and the set of optimal key nodes found by our proposed NIPA is much smaller than that by heuristic centrality prediction. In addition, many previously neglected weakly connected nodes are identified, which become a crucial part of the newly identified optimal nodes. Thus, revised strategies for protection are recommended to ensure the safeguard of network integrity. Further key issues and future research topics are also discussed.
New advances in enumerative biclustering algorithms with online partitioning
Authors: Rosana Veroneze, Fernando J. Von Zuben
Date: 2020-03-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Attribute, Descriptive, Missing Values

This paper further extends RIn-Close_CVC, a biclustering algorithm capable of performing an efficient, complete, correct and non-redundant enumeration of maximal biclusters with constant values on columns in numerical datasets. By avoiding a priori partitioning and itemization of the dataset, RIn-Close_CVC implements an online partitioning, which is demonstrated here to guide to more informative biclustering results. The improved algorithm is called RIn-Close_CVC3, keeps those attractive properties of RIn-Close_CVC, as formally proved here, and is characterized by: a drastic reduction in memory usage; a consistent gain in runtime; additional ability to handle datasets with missing values; and additional ability to operate with attributes characterized by distinct distributions or even mixed data types. The experimental results include synthetic and real-world datasets used to perform scalability and sensitivity analyses. As a practical case study, a parsimonious set of relevant and interpretable mixed-attribute-type rules is obtained in the context of supervised descriptive pattern mining.
Distributed Deep Convolutional Compression for Massive MIMO CSI Feedback
Authors: Mahdi Boloursaz Mashhadi, Qianqian Yang, Deniz Gunduz
Date: 2020-03-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Quantization

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems require downlink channel state information (CSI) at the base station (BS) to achieve spatial diversity and multiplexing gains. In a frequency division duplex (FDD) multiuser massive MIMO network, each user needs to compress and feedback its downlink CSI to the BS. The CSI overhead scales with the number of antennas, users and subcarriers, and becomes a major bottleneck for the overall spectral efficiency. In this paper, we propose a deep learning (DL)-based CSI compression scheme, called DeepCMC, composed of convolutional layers followed by quantization and entropy coding blocks. In comparison with previous DL-based CSI reduction structures, DeepCMC proposes a novel fully-convolutional neural network (NN) architecture, with residual layers at the decoder, and incorporates quantization and entropy coding blocks into its design. DeepCMC is trained to minimize a weighted rate-distortion cost, which enables a trade-off between the CSI quality and its feedback overhead. Simulation results demonstrate that DeepCMC outperforms the state of the art CSI compression schemes in terms of the reconstruction quality of CSI for the same compression rate. We also propose a distributed version of DeepCMC for a multi-user MIMO scenario to encode and reconstruct the CSI from multiple users in a distributed manner. Distributed DeepCMC not only utilizes the inherent CSI structures of a single MIMO user for compression, but also benefits from the correlations among the channel matrices of nearby users to further improve the performance in comparison with DeepCMC. We also propose a reduced-complexity training method for distributed DeepCMC, allowing to scale it to multiple users, and suggest a cluster-based distributed DeepCMC approach for practical implementation.
Link Prediction using Graph Neural Networks for Master Data Management
Authors: Balaji Ganesan, Srinivas Parkala, Neeraj R Singh, Sumit Bhatia, Gayatri Mishra, Matheen Ahmed Pasha, Hima Patel, Somashekar Naganna
Date: 2020-03-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Fraud Detection, Link Prediction, Management, Prediction

Learning graph representations of n-ary relational data has a number of real world applications like anti-money laundering, fraud detection, and customer due diligence. Contact tracing of COVID19 positive persons could also be posed as a Link Prediction problem. Predicting links between people using Graph Neural Networks requires careful ethical and privacy considerations than in domains where GNNs have typically been applied so far. We introduce novel methods for anonymizing data, model training, explainability and verification for Link Prediction in Master Data Management, and discuss our results.
Speaker Identification using EEG
Authors: Gautam Krishna, Co Tran, Mason Carnahan, Ahmed Tewfik
Date: 2020-03-07 00:00:00
Tasks: EEG, Electroencephalogram (EEG), Speaker Identification

In this paper we explore speaker identification using electroencephalography (EEG) signals. The performance of speaker identification systems degrades in presence of background noise, this paper demonstrates that EEG features can be used to enhance the performance of speaker identification systems operating in presence and absence of background noise. The paper further demonstrates that in presence of high background noise, speaker identification system using only EEG features as input demonstrates better performance than the system using only acoustic features as input.
Optimizing Revenue while showing Relevant Assortments at Scale
Authors: Theja Tulabandhula, Deeksha Sinha, Saketh Karra
Date: 2020-03-06 00:00:00
Tasks: Assortment Optimization, Information Retrieval, Retrieval

Scalable real-time assortment optimization has become essential in e-commerce operations due to the need for personalization and the availability of a large variety of items. While this can be done when there are simplistic assortment choices to be made, the optimization process becomes difficult when imposing constraints on the collection of relevant assortments based on insights by store-managers and historically well-performing assortments. We design fast and flexible algorithms based on variations of binary search that find the (approximately) optimal assortment in this difficult regime. In particular, we revisit the problem of large-scale assortment optimization under the multinomial logit choice model without any assumptions on the structure of the feasible assortments. We speed up the comparison steps using advances in similarity search in the field of information retrieval/machine learning. For an arbitrary collection of assortments, our algorithms can find a solution in time that is sub-linear in the number of assortments, and for the simpler case of cardinality constraints - linear in the number of items (existing methods are quadratic or worse). Empirical validations using a real world dataset (in addition to experiments using semi-synthetic data based on the Billion Prices dataset and several retail transaction datasets) show that our algorithms are competitive even when the number of items is $\sim 10^5$ ($10\times$ larger instances than previously studied).
TopologyGAN: Topology Optimization Using Generative Adversarial Networks Based on Physical Fields Over the Initial Domain
Authors: Zhenguo Nie, Tong Lin, Haoliang Jiang, Levent Burak Kara
Date: 2020-03-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Generative Adversarial Network

In topology optimization using deep learning, load and boundary conditions represented as vectors or sparse matrices often miss the opportunity to encode a rich view of the design problem, leading to less than ideal generalization results. We propose a new data-driven topology optimization model called TopologyGAN that takes advantage of various physical fields computed on the original, unoptimized material domain, as inputs to the generator of a conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN). Compared to a baseline cGAN, TopologyGAN achieves a nearly $3\times$ reduction in the mean squared error and a $2.5\times$ reduction in the mean absolute error on test problems involving previously unseen boundary conditions. Built on several existing network models, we also introduce a hybrid network called U-SE(Squeeze-and-Excitation)-ResNet for the generator that further increases the overall accuracy. We publicly share our full implementation and trained network.
Weighted Encoding Based Image Interpolation With Nonlocal Linear Regression Model
Authors: Junchao Zhang
Date: 2020-03-04 00:00:00
Tasks: Clustering, Image Super-Resolution, regression, Super-Resolution, valid

Image interpolation is a special case of image super-resolution, where the low-resolution image is directly down-sampled from its high-resolution counterpart without blurring and noise. Therefore, assumptions adopted in super-resolution models are not valid for image interpolation. To address this problem, we propose a novel image interpolation model based on sparse representation. Two widely used priors including sparsity and nonlocal self-similarity are used as the regularization terms to enhance the stability of interpolation model. Meanwhile, we incorporate the nonlocal linear regression into this model since nonlocal similar patches could provide a better approximation to a given patch. Moreover, we propose a new approach to learn adaptive sub-dictionary online instead of clustering. For each patch, similar patches are grouped to learn adaptive sub-dictionary, generating a more sparse and accurate representation. Finally, the weighted encoding is introduced to suppress tailing of fitting residuals in data fidelity. Abundant experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms several state-of-the-art methods in terms of quantitative measures and visual quality.
GenNet : Reading Comprehension with Multiple Choice Questions using Generation and Selection model
Authors: Vaishali Ingale, Pushpender Singh
Date: 2020-03-03 00:00:00
Tasks: Answer Generation, Machine Reading Comprehension, Multiple-choice, Reading Comprehension

Multiple-choice machine reading comprehension is difficult task as its required machines to select the correct option from a set of candidate or possible options using the given passage and question.Reading Comprehension with Multiple Choice Questions task,required a human (or machine) to read a given passage, question pair and select the best one option from n given options. There are two different ways to select the correct answer from the given passage. Either by selecting the best match answer to by eliminating the worst match answer. Here we proposed GenNet model, a neural network-based model. In this model first we will generate the answer of the question from the passage and then will matched the generated answer with given answer, the best matched option will be our answer. For answer generation we used S-net (Tan et al., 2017) model trained on SQuAD and to evaluate our model we used Large-scale RACE (ReAding Comprehension Dataset From Examinations) (Lai et al.,2017).