pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
A principled approach for generating adversarial images under non-smooth dissimilarity metrics
Authors: Aram-Alexandre Pooladian, Chris Finlay, Tim Hoheisel, Adam Oberman
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Adversarial Attack

Deep neural networks perform well on real world data but are prone to adversarial perturbations: small changes in the input easily lead to misclassification. In this work, we propose an attack methodology not only for cases where the perturbations are measured by $\ell_p$ norms, but in fact any adversarial dissimilarity metric with a closed proximal form. This includes, but is not limited to, $\ell_1, \ell_2$, and $\ell_\infty$ perturbations; the $\ell_0$ counting "norm" (i.e. true sparseness); and the total variation seminorm, which is a (non-$\ell_p$) convolutional dissimilarity measuring local pixel changes. Our approach is a natural extension of a recent adversarial attack method, and eliminates the differentiability requirement of the metric. We demonstrate our algorithm, ProxLogBarrier, on the MNIST, CIFAR10, and ImageNet-1k datasets. We consider undefended and defended models, and show that our algorithm easily transfers to various datasets. We observe that ProxLogBarrier outperforms a host of modern adversarial attacks specialized for the $\ell_0$ case. Moreover, by altering images in the total variation seminorm, we shed light on a new class of perturbations that exploit neighboring pixel information.
Predicting Actions to Help Predict Translations
Authors: Zixiu Wu, Julia Ive, Josiah Wang, Pranava Madhyastha, Lucia Specia
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Translation

We address the task of text translation on the How2 dataset using a state of the art transformer-based multimodal approach. The question we ask ourselves is whether visual features can support the translation process, in particular, given that this is a dataset extracted from videos, we focus on the translation of actions, which we believe are poorly captured in current static image-text datasets currently used for multimodal translation. For that purpose, we extract different types of action features from the videos and carefully investigate how helpful this visual information is by testing whether it can increase translation quality when used in conjunction with (i) the original text and (ii) the original text where action-related words (or all verbs) are masked out. The latter is a simulation that helps us assess the utility of the image in cases where the text does not provide enough context about the action, or in the presence of noise in the input text.
Review of Algorithms for Compressive Sensing of Images
Authors: Yoni Sher
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Compressive Sensing

We provide a comprehensive review of classical algorithms for compressive sensing of images, focused on Total variation methods, with a view to application in LiDAR systems. Our primary focus is providing a full review for beginners in the field, as well as simulating the kind of noise found in real LiDAR systems. To this end, we provide an overview of the theoretical background, a brief discussion of various considerations that come in to play in compressive sensing, and a standardized comparison of off-the-shelf methods, intended as a quick-start guide to choosing algorithms for compressive sensing applications.
Modeling Event Propagation via Graph Biased Temporal Point Process
Authors: Weichang Wu, Huanxi Liu, Xiaohu Zhang, Yu Liu, Hongyuan Zha
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Graph Representation Learning, Representation Learning

Temporal point process is widely used for sequential data modeling. In this paper, we focus on the problem of modeling sequential event propagation in graph, such as retweeting by social network users, news transmitting between websites, etc. Given a collection of event propagation sequences, conventional point process model consider only the event history, i.e. embed event history into a vector, not the latent graph structure. We propose a Graph Biased Temporal Point Process (GBTPP) leveraging the structural information from graph representation learning, where the direct influence between nodes and indirect influence from event history is modeled respectively. Moreover, the learned node embedding vector is also integrated into the embedded event history as side information. Experiments on a synthetic dataset and two real-world datasets show the efficacy of our model compared to conventional methods and state-of-the-art.
Speech Driven Backchannel Generation using Deep Q-Network for Enhancing Engagement in Human-Robot Interaction
Authors: Nusrah Hussain, Engin Erzin, T. Metin Sezgin, Yucel Yemez
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

We present a novel method for training a social robot to generate backchannels during human-robot interaction. We address the problem within an off-policy reinforcement learning framework, and show how a robot may learn to produce non-verbal backchannels like laughs, when trained to maximize the engagement and attention of the user. A major contribution of this work is the formulation of the problem as a Markov decision process (MDP) with states defined by the speech activity of the user and rewards generated by quantified engagement levels. The problem that we address falls into the class of applications where unlimited interaction with the environment is not possible (our environment being a human) because it may be time-consuming, costly, impracticable or even dangerous in case a bad policy is executed. Therefore, we introduce deep Q-network (DQN) in a batch reinforcement learning framework, where an optimal policy is learned from a batch data collected using a more controlled policy. We suggest the use of human-to-human dyadic interaction datasets as a batch of trajectories to train an agent for engaging interactions. Our experiments demonstrate the potential of our method to train a robot for engaging behaviors in an offline manner.
Convergence Analysis of Machine Learning Algorithms for the Numerical Solution of Mean Field Control and Games: II -- The Finite Horizon Case
Authors: René Carmona, Mathieu Laurière
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00

We propose two numerical methods for the optimal control of McKean-Vlasov dynamics in finite time horizon. Both methods are based on the introduction of a suitable loss function defined over the parameters of a neural network. This allows the use of machine learning tools, and efficient implementations of stochastic gradient descent in order to perform the optimization. In the first method, the loss function stems directly from the optimal control problem. The second method tackles a generic forward-backward stochastic differential equation system (FBSDE) of McKean-Vlasov type, and relies on suitable reformulation as a mean field control problem. To provide a guarantee on how our numerical schemes approximate the solution of the original mean field control problem, we introduce a new optimization problem, directly amenable to numerical computation, and for which we rigorously provide an error rate. Several numerical examples are provided. Both methods can easily be applied to certain problems with common noise, which is not the case with the existing technology. Furthermore, although the first approach is designed for mean field control problems, the second is more general and can also be applied to the FBSDE arising in the theory of mean field games.
Multi-Contrast Super-Resolution MRI Through a Progressive Network
Authors: Qing Lyu, Hongming Shan, Ge Wang
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Computed Tomography (CT), Image Super-Resolution, Super-Resolution

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely used for screening, diagnosis, image-guided therapy, and scientific research. A significant advantage of MRI over other imaging modalities such as computed tomography (CT) and nuclear imaging is that it clearly shows soft tissues in multi-contrasts. Compared with other medical image super-resolution (SR) methods that are in a single contrast, multi-contrast super-resolution studies can synergize multiple contrast images to achieve better super-resolution results. In this paper, we propose a one-level non-progressive neural network for low up-sampling multi-contrast super-resolution and a two-level progressive network for high up-sampling multi-contrast super-resolution. Multi-contrast information is combined in high-level feature space. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed networks can produce MRI super-resolution images with good image quality and outperform other multi-contrast super-resolution methods in terms of structural similarity and peak signal-to-noise ratio. Also, the progressive network produces a better SR image quality than the non-progressive network, even if the original low-resolution images were highly down-sampled.
Model Decay in Long-Term Tracking
Authors: Efstratios Gavves, Ran Tao, Deepak K. Gupta, Arnold W. M. Smeulders
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: model

Updating the tracker model with adverse bounding box predictions adds an unavoidable bias term to the learning. This bias term, which we refer to as model decay, offsets the learning and causes tracking drift. While its adverse affect might not be visible in short-term tracking, accumulation of this bias over a long-term can eventually lead to a permanent loss of the target. In this paper, we look at the problem of model bias from a mathematical perspective. Further, we briefly examine the effect of various sources of tracking error on model decay, using a correlation filter (ECO) and a Siamese (SINT) tracker. Based on observations and insights, we propose simple additions that help to reduce model decay in long-term tracking. The proposed tracker is evaluated on four long-term and one short term tracking benchmarks, demonstrating superior accuracy and robustness, even in 30 minute long videos.
Solving high-dimensional optimal stopping problems using deep learning
Authors: Sebastian Becker, Patrick Cheridito, Arnulf Jentzen, Timo Welti
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Learning, Vocal Bursts Intensity Prediction

Nowadays many financial derivatives, such as American or Bermudan options, are of early exercise type. Often the pricing of early exercise options gives rise to high-dimensional optimal stopping problems, since the dimension corresponds to the number of underlying assets. High-dimensional optimal stopping problems are, however, notoriously difficult to solve due to the well-known curse of dimensionality. In this work, we propose an algorithm for solving such problems, which is based on deep learning and computes, in the context of early exercise option pricing, both approximations of an optimal exercise strategy and the price of the considered option. The proposed algorithm can also be applied to optimal stopping problems that arise in other areas where the underlying stochastic process can be efficiently simulated. We present numerical results for a large number of example problems, which include the pricing of many high-dimensional American and Bermudan options, such as Bermudan max-call options in up to 5000 dimensions. Most of the obtained results are compared to reference values computed by exploiting the specific problem design or, where available, to reference values from the literature. These numerical results suggest that the proposed algorithm is highly effective in the case of many underlyings, in terms of both accuracy and speed.
Knee menisci segmentation and relaxometry of 3D ultrashort echo time (UTE) cones MR imaging using attention U-Net with transfer learning
Authors: Michal Byra, Mei Wu, Xiaodong Zhang, Hyungseok Jang, Ya-Jun Ma, Eric Y Chang, Sameer Shah, Jiang Du
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Learning, Segmentation, Transfer Learning

The purpose of this work is to develop a deep learning-based method for knee menisci segmentation in 3D ultrashort echo time (UTE) cones magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and to automatically determine MR relaxation times, namely the T1, T1$\rho$, and T2* parameters, which can be used to assess knee osteoarthritis (OA). Whole knee joint imaging was performed using 3D UTE cones sequences to collect data from 61 human subjects. Regions of interest (ROIs) were outlined by two experienced radiologists based on subtracted T1$\rho$-weighted MR images. Transfer learning was applied to develop 2D attention U-Net convolutional neural networks for the menisci segmentation based on each radiologist's ROIs separately. Dice scores were calculated to assess segmentation performance. Next, the T1, T1$\rho$, T2* relaxations, and ROI areas were determined for the manual and automatic segmentations, then compared.The models developed using ROIs provided by two radiologists achieved high Dice scores of 0.860 and 0.833, while the radiologists' manual segmentations achieved a Dice score of 0.820. Linear correlation coefficients for the T1, T1$\rho$, and T2* relaxations calculated using the automatic and manual segmentations ranged between 0.90 and 0.97, and there were no associated differences between the estimated average meniscal relaxation parameters. The deep learning models achieved segmentation performance equivalent to the inter-observer variability of two radiologists. The proposed deep learning-based approach can be used to efficiently generate automatic segmentations and determine meniscal relaxations times. The method has the potential to help radiologists with the assessment of meniscal diseases, such as OA.
Knowledge Consistency between Neural Networks and Beyond
Authors: Ruofan Liang, Tianlin Li, Longfei Li, Jing Wang, Quanshi Zhang
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Proceeding: ICLR 2020 1
Tasks: Knowledge Distillation

This paper aims to analyze knowledge consistency between pre-trained deep neural networks. We propose a generic definition for knowledge consistency between neural networks at different fuzziness levels. A task-agnostic method is designed to disentangle feature components, which represent the consistent knowledge, from raw intermediate-layer features of each neural network. As a generic tool, our method can be broadly used for different applications. In preliminary experiments, we have used knowledge consistency as a tool to diagnose representations of neural networks. Knowledge consistency provides new insights to explain the success of existing deep-learning techniques, such as knowledge distillation and network compression. More crucially, knowledge consistency can also be used to refine pre-trained networks and boost performance.
The HSIC Bottleneck: Deep Learning without Back-Propagation
Authors: Wan-Duo Kurt Ma, J. P. Lewis, W. Bastiaan Kleijn
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Classification, Deep Learning, General Classification

We introduce the HSIC (Hilbert-Schmidt independence criterion) bottleneck for training deep neural networks. The HSIC bottleneck is an alternative to the conventional cross-entropy loss and backpropagation that has a number of distinct advantages. It mitigates exploding and vanishing gradients, resulting in the ability to learn very deep networks without skip connections. There is no requirement for symmetric feedback or update locking. We find that the HSIC bottleneck provides performance on MNIST/FashionMNIST/CIFAR10 classification comparable to backpropagation with a cross-entropy target, even when the system is not encouraged to make the output resemble the classification labels. Appending a single layer trained with SGD (without backpropagation) to reformat the information further improves performance.
Revisiting Feature Alignment for One-stage Object Detection
Authors: Yuntao Chen, Chenxia Han, Naiyan Wang, Zhao-Xiang Zhang
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Object, object-detection, Object Detection

Recently, one-stage object detectors gain much attention due to their simplicity in practice. Its fully convolutional nature greatly reduces the difficulty of training and deployment compared with two-stage detectors which require NMS and sorting for the proposal stage. However, a fundamental issue lies in all one-stage detectors is the misalignment between anchor boxes and convolutional features, which significantly hinders the performance of one-stage detectors. In this work, we first reveal the deep connection between the widely used im2col operator and the RoIAlign operator. Guided by this illuminating observation, we propose a RoIConv operator which aligns the features and its corresponding anchors in one-stage detection in a principled way. We then design a fully convolutional AlignDet architecture which combines the flexibility of learned anchors and the preciseness of aligned features. Specifically, our AlignDet achieves a state-of-the-art mAP of 44.1 on the COCO test-dev with ResNeXt-101 backbone.
Imperio: Robust Over-the-Air Adversarial Examples for Automatic Speech Recognition Systems
Authors: Lea Schönherr, Thorsten Eisenhofer, Steffen Zeiler, Thorsten Holz, Dorothea Kolossa
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Automatic Speech Recognition, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), speech-recognition, Speech Recognition

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems can be fooled via targeted adversarial examples, which induce the ASR to produce arbitrary transcriptions in response to altered audio signals. However, state-of-the-art adversarial examples typically have to be fed into the ASR system directly, and are not successful when played in a room. The few published over-the-air adversarial examples fall into one of three categories: they are either handcrafted examples, they are so conspicuous that human listeners can easily recognize the target transcription once they are alerted to its content, or they require precise information about the room where the attack takes place, and are hence not transferable to other rooms. In this paper, we demonstrate the first algorithm that produces generic adversarial examples, which remain robust in an over-the-air attack that is not adapted to the specific environment. Hence, no prior knowledge of the room characteristics is required. Instead, we use room impulse responses (RIRs) to compute robust adversarial examples for arbitrary room characteristics and employ the ASR system Kaldi to demonstrate the attack. Further, our algorithm can utilize psychoacoustic methods to hide changes of the original audio signal below the human thresholds of hearing. In practical experiments, we show that the adversarial examples work for varying room setups, and that no direct line-of-sight between speaker and microphone is necessary. As a result, an attacker can create inconspicuous adversarial examples for any target transcription and apply these to arbitrary room setups without any prior knowledge.
Precise Estimation of Renal Vascular Dominant Regions Using Spatially Aware Fully Convolutional Networks, Tensor-Cut and Voronoi Diagrams
Authors: Chenglong Wang, Holger R. Roth, Takayuki Kitasaka, Masahiro Oda, Yuichiro Hayashi, Yasushi Yoshino, Tokunori Yamamoto, Naoto Sassa, Momokazu Goto, Kensaku MORI
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Segmentation

This paper presents a new approach for precisely estimating the renal vascular dominant region using a Voronoi diagram. To provide computer-assisted diagnostics for the pre-surgical simulation of partial nephrectomy surgery, we must obtain information on the renal arteries and the renal vascular dominant regions. We propose a fully automatic segmentation method that combines a neural network and tensor-based graph-cut methods to precisely extract the kidney and renal arteries. First, we use a convolutional neural network to localize the kidney regions and extract tiny renal arteries with a tensor-based graph-cut method. Then we generate a Voronoi diagram to estimate the renal vascular dominant regions based on the segmented kidney and renal arteries. The accuracy of kidney segmentation in 27 cases with 8-fold cross validation reached a Dice score of 95%. The accuracy of renal artery segmentation in 8 cases obtained a centerline overlap ratio of 80%. Each partition region corresponds to a renal vascular dominant region. The final dominant-region estimation accuracy achieved a Dice coefficient of 80%. A clinical application showed the potential of our proposed estimation approach in a real clinical surgical environment. Further validation using large-scale database is our future work.
Discriminating Spatial and Temporal Relevance in Deep Taylor Decompositions for Explainable Activity Recognition
Authors: Liam Hiley, Alun Preece, Yulia Hicks, David Marshall, Harrison Taylor
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Action Recognition, Activity Recognition

Current techniques for explainable AI have been applied with some success to image processing. The recent rise of research in video processing has called for similar work n deconstructing and explaining spatio-temporal models. While many techniques are designed for 2D convolutional models, others are inherently applicable to any input domain. One such body of work, deep Taylor decomposition, propagates relevance from the model output distributively onto its input and thus is not restricted to image processing models. However, by exploiting a simple technique that removes motion information, we show that it is not the case that this technique is effective as-is for representing relevance in non-image tasks. We instead propose a discriminative method that produces a na\"ive representation of both the spatial and temporal relevance of a frame as two separate objects. This new discriminative relevance model exposes relevance in the frame attributed to motion, that was previously ambiguous in the original explanation. We observe the effectiveness of this technique on a range of samples from the UCF-101 action recognition dataset, two of which are demonstrated in this paper.
3D Reconstruction of Deformable Revolving Object under Heavy Hand Interaction
Authors: Raoul de Charette, Sotiris Manitsaris
Date: 2019-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: 3D Reconstruction, Object, Object Reconstruction

We reconstruct 3D deformable object through time, in the context of a live pottery making process where the crafter molds the object. Because the object suffers from heavy hand interaction, and is being deformed, classical techniques cannot be applied. We use particle energy optimization to estimate the object profile and benefit of the object radial symmetry to increase the robustness of the reconstruction to both occlusion and noise. Our method works with an unconstrained scalable setup with one or more depth sensors. We evaluate on our database (released upon publication) on a per-frame and temporal basis and shows it significantly outperforms state-of-the-art achieving 7.60mm average object reconstruction error. Further ablation studies demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.