pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Deep Learning for Spacecraft Pose Estimation from Photorealistic Rendering
Authors: Pedro F. Proenca, Yang Gao
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: 6D Pose Estimation, 6D Pose Estimation using RGB, Deep Learning, Pose Estimation, Spacecraft Pose Estimation

On-orbit proximity operations in space rendezvous, docking and debris removal require precise and robust 6D pose estimation under a wide range of lighting conditions and against highly textured background, i.e., the Earth. This paper investigates leveraging deep learning and photorealistic rendering for monocular pose estimation of known uncooperative spacecrafts. We first present a simulator built on Unreal Engine 4, named URSO, to generate labeled images of spacecrafts orbiting the Earth, which can be used to train and evaluate neural networks. Secondly, we propose a deep learning framework for pose estimation based on orientation soft classification, which allows modelling orientation ambiguity as a mixture of Gaussians. This framework was evaluated both on URSO datasets and the ESA pose estimation challenge. In this competition, our best model achieved 3rd place on the synthetic test set and 2nd place on the real test set. Moreover, our results show the impact of several architectural and training aspects, and we demonstrate qualitatively how models learned on URSO datasets can perform on real images from space.
A Light weight and Hybrid Deep Learning Model based Online Signature Verification
Authors: Chandra Sekhar V., Anoushka Doctor, Prerana Mukherjee, Viswanath Pulabaigiri
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Dimensionality Reduction

The augmented usage of deep learning-based models for various AI related problems are as a result of modern architectures of deeper length and the availability of voluminous interpreted datasets. The models based on these architectures require huge training and storage cost, which makes them inefficient to use in critical applications like online signature verification (OSV) and to deploy in resource constraint devices. As a solution, in this work, our contribution is two-fold. 1) An efficient dimensionality reduction technique, to reduce the number of features to be considered and 2) a state-of-the-art model CNN-LSTM based hybrid architecture for online signature verification. Thorough experiments on the publicly available datasets MCYT, SUSIG, SVC confirms that the proposed model achieves better accuracy even with as low as one training sample. The proposed models yield state-of-the-art performance in various categories of all the three datasets.
Depth from Small Motion using Rank-1 Initialization
Authors: Peter O. Fasogbon
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: CPU, GPU

Depth from Small Motion (DfSM) (Ha et al., 2016) is particularly interesting for commercial handheld devices because it allows the possibility to get depth information with minimal user effort and cooperation. Due to speed and memory issue on these devices, the self calibration optimization of the method using Bundle Adjustment (BA) need as little as 10-15 images. Therefore, the optimization tends to take many iterations to converge or may not converge at all in some cases. This work propose a robust initialization for the bundle adjustment using the rank-1 factorization method (Tomasi and Kanade, 1992), (Aguiar and Moura, 1999a). We create a constraint matrix that is rank-1 in a noiseless situation, then use SVD to compute the inverse depth values and the camera motion. We only need about quarter fraction of the bundle adjustment iteration to converge. We also propose grided feature extraction technique so that only important and small features are tracked all over the image frames. This also ensure speedup in the full execution time on the mobile device. For the experiments, we have documented the execution time with the proposed Rank-1 initialization on two mobile device platforms using optimized accelerations with CPU-GPU co-processing. The combination of Rank 1-BA generates more robust depth-map and is significantly faster than using BA alone.
UW-BHI at MEDIQA 2019: An Analysis of Representation Methods for Medical Natural Language Inference
Authors: William R. Kearns, Wilson Lau, Jason A. Thomas
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Proceeding: WS 2019 8
Tasks: Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Natural Language Inference

Recent advances in distributed language modeling have led to large performance increases on a variety of natural language processing (NLP) tasks. However, it is not well understood how these methods may be augmented by knowledge-based approaches. This paper compares the performance and internal representation of an Enhanced Sequential Inference Model (ESIM) between three experimental conditions based on the representation method: Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), Embeddings of Semantic Predications (ESP), or Cui2Vec. The methods were evaluated on the Medical Natural Language Inference (MedNLI) subtask of the MEDIQA 2019 shared task. This task relied heavily on semantic understanding and thus served as a suitable evaluation set for the comparison of these representation methods.
A Conformance Checking-based Approach for Drift Detection in Business Processes
Authors: Víctor Gallego-Fontenla, Juan. C. Vidal, Manuel Lama
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Benchmarking, Drift Detection

Real life business processes change over time, in both planned and unexpected ways. The detection of these changes is crucial for organizations to ensure that the expected and the real behavior are as similar as possible. These changes over time are called concept drift and its detection is a big challenge in process mining since the inherent complexity of the data makes difficult distinguishing between a change and an anomalous execution. In this paper, we present C2D2 (Conformance Checking-based Drift Detection), a new approach to detect sudden control-flow changes in the process models from event traces. C2D2 combines discovery techniques with conformance checking methods to perform an offline detection. Our approach has been validated with a synthetic benchmarking dataset formed by 68 logs, showing an improvement in the accuracy while maintaining a minimum delay in the drift detection.
A divide-and-conquer algorithm for binary matrix completion
Authors: Melanie Beckerleg, Andrew Thompson
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Low-Rank Matrix Completion, Matrix Completion, Recommendation Systems

We propose an algorithm for low rank matrix completion for matrices with binary entries which obtains explicit binary factors. Our algorithm, which we call TBMC (\emph{Tiling for Binary Matrix Completion}), gives interpretable output in the form of binary factors which represent a decomposition of the matrix into tiles. Our approach is inspired by a popular algorithm from the data mining community called PROXIMUS: it adopts the same recursive partitioning approach while extending to missing data. The algorithm relies upon rank-one approximations of incomplete binary matrices, and we propose a linear programming (LP) approach for solving this subproblem. We also prove a $2$-approximation result for the LP approach which holds for any level of subsampling and for any subsampling pattern. Our numerical experiments show that TBMC outperforms existing methods on recommender systems arising in the context of real datasets.
Security for Distributed Deep Neural Networks Towards Data Confidentiality & Intellectual Property Protection
Authors: Laurent Gomez, Marcus Wilhelm, José Márquez, Patrick Duverger
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: image-classification, Image Classification

Current developments in Enterprise Systems observe a paradigm shift, moving the needle from the backend to the edge sectors of those; by distributing data, decentralizing applications and integrating novel components seamlessly to the central systems. Distributively deployed AI capabilities will thrust this transition. Several non-functional requirements arise along with these developments, security being at the center of the discussions. Bearing those requirements in mind, hereby we propose an approach to holistically protect distributed Deep Neural Network (DNN) based/enhanced software assets, i.e. confidentiality of their input & output data streams as well as safeguarding their Intellectual Property. Making use of Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), our approach enables the protection of Distributed Neural Networks, while processing encrypted data. On that respect we evaluate the feasibility of this solution on a Convolutional Neuronal Network (CNN) for image classification deployed on distributed infrastructures.
Learning in Competitive Network with Haeusslers Equation adapted using FIREFLY algorithm
Authors: N. Joshi
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00

Many of the competitive neural network consists of spatially arranged neurons. The weigh matrix that connects cells represents local excitation and long-range inhibition. They are known as soft-winner-take-all networks and shown to exhibit desirable information-processing. The local excitatory connections are many times predefined hand-wired based depending on spatial arrangement which is chosen using the previous knowledge of data. Here we present learning in recurrent network through Haeusslers equation and modified wiring scheme based on biologically based Firefly algorithm. Following results show learning in such network from input patterns without hand-wiring with fixed topology.
Lidar-based Object Classification with Explicit Occlusion Modeling
Authors: Xiaoxiang Zhang, Hao Fu, Bin Dai
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Classification, General Classification, Object, object-detection, Object Detection

LIDAR is one of the most important sensors for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV). Object detection and classification based on lidar point cloud is a key technology for UGV. In object detection and classification, the mutual occlusion between neighboring objects is an important factor affecting the accuracy. In this paper, we consider occlusion as an intrinsic property of the point cloud data. We propose a novel approach that explicitly model the occlusion. The occlusion property is then taken into account in the subsequent classification step. We perform experiments on the KITTI dataset. Experimental results indicate that by utilizing the occlusion property that we modeled, the classifier obtains much better performance.
PathRank: A Multi-Task Learning Framework to Rank Paths in Spatial Networks
Authors: Sean Bin Yang, Bin Yang
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Multi-Task Learning, Network Embedding, regression

Modern navigation services often provide multiple paths connecting the same source and destination for users to select. Hence, ranking such paths becomes increasingly important, which directly affects the service quality. We present PathRank, a data-driven framework for ranking paths based on historical trajectories using multi-task learning. If a trajectory used path P from source s to destination d, PathRank considers this as an evidence that P is preferred over all other paths from s to d. Thus, a path that is similar to P should have a larger ranking score than a path that is dissimilar to P. Based on this intuition, PathRank models path ranking as a regression problem, where each path is associated with a ranking score. To enable PathRank, we first propose an effective method to generate a compact set of training data: for each trajectory, we generate a small set of diversified paths. Next, we propose a multi-task learning framework to solve the regression problem. In particular, a spatial network embedding is proposed to embed each vertex to a feature vector by considering both road network topology and spatial properties, such as distances and travel times. Since a path is represented by a sequence of vertices, which is now a sequence of feature vectors after embedding, recurrent neural network is applied to model the sequence. The objective function is designed to consider errors on both ranking scores and spatial properties, making the framework a multi-task learning framework. Empirical studies on a substantial trajectory data set offer insight into the designed properties of the proposed framework and indicating that it is effective and practical.
SVGD: A Virtual Gradients Descent Method for Stochastic Optimization
Authors: Zheng Li, Shi Shu
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Stochastic Optimization

Inspired by dynamic programming, we propose Stochastic Virtual Gradient Descent (SVGD) algorithm where the Virtual Gradient is defined by computational graph and automatic differentiation. The method is computationally efficient and has little memory requirements. We also analyze the theoretical convergence properties and implementation of the algorithm. Experimental results on multiple datasets and network models show that SVGD has advantages over other stochastic optimization methods.
Incremental Semantic Mapping with Unsupervised On-line Learning
Authors: Ygor C. N. Sousa, Hansenclever F. Bassani
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Clustering

This paper introduces an incremental semantic mapping approach, with on-line unsupervised learning, based on Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) for robotic agents. The method includes a mapping module, which incrementally creates a topological map of the environment, enriched with objects recognized around each topological node, and a module of places categorization, endowed with an incremental unsupervised learning SOM with on-line training. The proposed approach was tested in experiments with real-world data, in which it demonstrates promising capabilities of incremental acquisition of topological maps enriched with semantic information, and for clustering together similar places based on this information. The approach was also able to continue learning from newly visited environments without degrading the information previously learned.
Accurate Nuclear Segmentation with Center Vector Encoding
Authors: Jiahui Li, Zhiqiang Hu, Shuang Yang
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Nuclear Segmentation, Segmentation

Nuclear segmentation is important and frequently demanded for pathology image analysis, yet is also challenging due to nuclear crowdedness and possible occlusion. In this paper, we present a novel bottom-up method for nuclear segmentation. The concepts of Center Mask and Center Vector are introduced to better depict the relationship between pixels and nuclear instances. The instance differentiation process are thus largely simplified and easier to understand. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of Center Vector Encoding, where our method outperforms state-of-the-arts by a clear margin.
Understanding Player Engagement and In-Game Purchasing Behavior with Ensemble Learning
Authors: Anna Guitart, Ana Fernández del Río, África Periáñez
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Ensemble Learning

As video games attract more and more players, the major challenge for game studios is to retain them. We present a deep behavioral analysis of churn (game abandonment) and what we called "purchase churn" (the transition from paying to non-paying user). A series of churning behavior profiles are identified, which allows a classification of churners in terms of whether they eventually return to the game (false churners)--or start purchasing again (false purchase churners)--and their subsequent behavior. The impact of excluding some or all of these churners from the training sample is then explored in several churn and purchase churn prediction models. Our results suggest that discarding certain combinations of "zombies" (players whose activity is extremely sporadic) and false churners has a significant positive impact in all models considered.
Applications of a Novel Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Process Model for Metabolomics
Authors: Ahmed BaniMustafa, Nigel Hardy
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00

This work demonstrates the execution of a novel process model for knowledge discovery and data mining for metabolomics (MeKDDaM). It aims to illustrate MeKDDaM process model applicability using four different real-world applications and to highlight its strengths and unique features. The demonstrated applications provide coverage for metabolite profiling, target analysis, and metabolic fingerprinting. The data analysed in these applications were captured by chromatographic separation and mass spectrometry technique (LC-MS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and involve the analysis of plant, animal, and human samples. The process was executed using both data-driven and hypothesis-driven data mining approaches in order to perform various data mining goals and tasks by applying a number of data mining techniques. The applications were selected to achieve a range of analytical goals and research questions and to provide coverage for metabolite profiling, target analysis, and metabolic fingerprinting using datasets that were captured by NMR, LC-MS, and FT-IR using samples of a plant, animal, and human origin. The process was applied using an implementation environment which was created in order to provide a computer-aided realisation of the process model execution.
Profiling Players with Engagement Predictions
Authors: Ana Fernández del Río, Pei Pei Chen, África Periáñez
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00

The possibility of using player engagement predictions to profile high spending video game users is explored. In particular, individual-player survival curves in terms of days after first login, game level reached and accumulated playtime are used to classify players into different groups. Lifetime value predictions for each player---generated using a deep learning method based on long short-term memory---are also included in the analysis, and the relations between all these variables are thoroughly investigated. Our results suggest this constitutes a promising approach to user profiling.
Non-technical Loss Detection with Statistical Profile Images Based on Semi-supervised Learning
Authors: Jiangteng Li, Fei Wang
Date: 2019-07-09 00:00:00
Tasks: Time Series, Time Series Analysis

In order to keep track of the operational state of power grid, the world's largest sensor systems, smart grid, was built by deploying hundreds of millions of smart meters. Such system makes it possible to discover and make quick response to any hidden threat to the entire power grid. Non-technical losses (NTLs) have always been a major concern for its consequent security risks as well as immeasurable revenue loss. However, various causes of NTL may have different characteristics reflected in the data. Accurately capturing these anomalies faced with such large scale of collected data records is rather tricky as a result. In this paper, we proposed a new methodology of detecting abnormal electricity consumptions. We did a transformation of the collected time-series data which turns it into an image representation that could well reflect users' relatively long term consumption behaviors. Inspired by the excellent neural network architecture used for objective detection in computer vision domain, we designed our deep learning model that takes the transformed images as input and yields joint featured inferred from the multiple aspects the input provides. Considering the limited labeled samples, especially the abnormal ones, we used our model in a semi-supervised fashion that is brought out in recent years. The model is tested on samples which are verified by on-field inspections and our method showed significant improvement.
Thompson Sampling on Symmetric $α$-Stable Bandits
Authors: Abhimanyu Dubey, Alex Pentland
Date: 2019-07-08 00:00:00
Tasks: Bayesian Inference, Decision Making, Sequential Bayesian Inference, Sequential Decision Making, Thompson Sampling

Thompson Sampling provides an efficient technique to introduce prior knowledge in the multi-armed bandit problem, along with providing remarkable empirical performance. In this paper, we revisit the Thompson Sampling algorithm under rewards drawn from symmetric $\alpha$-stable distributions, which are a class of heavy-tailed probability distributions utilized in finance and economics, in problems such as modeling stock prices and human behavior. We present an efficient framework for posterior inference, which leads to two algorithms for Thompson Sampling in this setting. We prove finite-time regret bounds for both algorithms, and demonstrate through a series of experiments the stronger performance of Thompson Sampling in this setting. With our results, we provide an exposition of symmetric $\alpha$-stable distributions in sequential decision-making, and enable sequential Bayesian inference in applications from diverse fields in finance and complex systems that operate on heavy-tailed features.
Rehearsal-Free Continual Learning over Small Non-I.I.D. Batches
Authors: Vincenzo Lomonaco, Davide Maltoni, Lorenzo Pellegrini
Date: 2019-07-08 00:00:00
Tasks: class-incremental learning, Class Incremental Learning, Continual Learning, Object Recognition

Robotic vision is a field where continual learning can play a significant role. An embodied agent operating in a complex environment subject to frequent and unpredictable changes is required to learn and adapt continuously. In the context of object recognition, for example, a robot should be able to learn (without forgetting) objects of never before seen classes as well as improving its recognition capabilities as new instances of already known classes are discovered. Ideally, continual learning should be triggered by the availability of short videos of single objects and performed on-line on on-board hardware with fine-grained updates. In this paper, we introduce a novel continual learning protocol based on the CORe50 benchmark and propose two rehearsal-free continual learning techniques, CWR* and AR1*, that can learn effectively even in the challenging case of nearly 400 small non-i.i.d. incremental batches. In particular, our experiments show that AR1* can outperform other state-of-the-art rehearsal-free techniques by more than 15% accuracy in some cases, with a very light and constant computational and memory overhead across training batches.
Fast Visual Object Tracking with Rotated Bounding Boxes
Authors: Bao Xin Chen, John K. Tsotsos
Date: 2019-07-08 00:00:00
Tasks: GPU, Object, Object Tracking, Video Object Tracking, Visual Object Tracking

In this paper, we demonstrate a novel algorithm that uses ellipse fitting to estimate the bounding box rotation angle and size with the segmentation(mask) on the target for online and real-time visual object tracking. Our method, SiamMask_E, improves the bounding box fitting procedure of the state-of-the-art object tracking algorithm SiamMask and still retains a fast-tracking frame rate (80 fps) on a system equipped with GPU (GeForce GTX 1080 Ti or higher). We tested our approach on the visual object tracking datasets (VOT2016, VOT2018, and VOT2019) that were labeled with rotated bounding boxes. By comparing with the original SiamMask, we achieved an improved Accuracy of 0.652 and 0.309 EAO on VOT2019, which is 0.056 and 0.026 higher than the original SiamMask. The implementation is available on GitHub: https://github.com/baoxinchen/siammask_e.