pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
MaxDropout: Deep Neural Network Regularization Based on Maximum Output Values
Authors: Claudio Filipi Goncalves do Santos, Danilo Colombo, Mateus Roder, João Paulo Papa
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: image-classification, Image Classification

Different techniques have emerged in the deep learning scenario, such as Convolutional Neural Networks, Deep Belief Networks, and Long Short-Term Memory Networks, to cite a few. In lockstep, regularization methods, which aim to prevent overfitting by penalizing the weight connections, or turning off some units, have been widely studied either. In this paper, we present a novel approach called MaxDropout, a regularizer for deep neural network models that works in a supervised fashion by removing (shutting off) the prominent neurons (i.e., most active) in each hidden layer. The model forces fewer activated units to learn more representative information, thus providing sparsity. Regarding the experiments, we show that it is possible to improve existing neural networks and provide better results in neural networks when Dropout is replaced by MaxDropout. The proposed method was evaluated in image classification, achieving comparable results to existing regularizers, such as Cutout and RandomErasing, also improving the accuracy of neural networks that uses Dropout by replacing the existing layer by MaxDropout.
The Lasso with general Gaussian designs with applications to hypothesis testing
Authors: Michael Celentano, Andrea Montanari, Yuting Wei
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Two-sample testing, valid

The Lasso is a method for high-dimensional regression, which is now commonly used when the number of covariates $p$ is of the same order or larger than the number of observations $n$. Classical asymptotic normality theory does not apply to this model due to two fundamental reasons: $(1)$ The regularized risk is non-smooth; $(2)$ The distance between the estimator $\widehat{\boldsymbol{\theta}}$ and the true parameters vector $\boldsymbol{\theta}^*$ cannot be neglected. As a consequence, standard perturbative arguments that are the traditional basis for asymptotic normality fail. On the other hand, the Lasso estimator can be precisely characterized in the regime in which both $n$ and $p$ are large and $n/p$ is of order one. This characterization was first obtained in the case of Gaussian designs with i.i.d. covariates: here we generalize it to Gaussian correlated designs with non-singular covariance structure. This is expressed in terms of a simpler ``fixed-design'' model. We establish non-asymptotic bounds on the distance between the distribution of various quantities in the two models, which hold uniformly over signals $\boldsymbol{\theta}^*$ in a suitable sparsity class and over values of the regularization parameter. As an application, we study the distribution of the debiased Lasso and show that a degrees-of-freedom correction is necessary for computing valid confidence intervals.
Point Cloud Based Reinforcement Learning for Sim-to-Real and Partial Observability in Visual Navigation
Authors: Kenzo Lobos-Tsunekawa, Tatsuya Harada
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Reinforcement Learning (RL), Visual Navigation

Reinforcement Learning (RL), among other learning-based methods, represents powerful tools to solve complex robotic tasks (e.g., actuation, manipulation, navigation, etc.), with the need for real-world data to train these systems as one of its most important limitations. The use of simulators is one way to address this issue, yet knowledge acquired in simulations does not work directly in the real-world, which is known as the sim-to-real transfer problem. While previous works focus on the nature of the images used as observations (e.g., textures and lighting), which has proven useful for a sim-to-sim transfer, they neglect other concerns regarding said observations, such as precise geometrical meanings, failing at robot-to-robot, and thus in sim-to-real transfers. We propose a method that learns on an observation space constructed by point clouds and environment randomization, generalizing among robots and simulators to achieve sim-to-real, while also addressing partial observability. We demonstrate the benefits of our methodology on the point goal navigation task, in which our method proves to be highly unaffected to unseen scenarios produced by robot-to-robot transfer, outperforms image-based baselines in robot-randomized experiments, and presents high performances in sim-to-sim conditions. Finally, we perform several experiments to validate the sim-to-real transfer to a physical domestic robot platform, confirming the out-of-the-box performance of our system.
The Unsupervised Method of Vessel Movement Trajectory Prediction
Authors: Chih-Wei Chen, Charles Harrison, Hsin-Hsiung Huang
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Clustering, Prediction, Trajectory Prediction

In real-world application scenarios, it is crucial for marine navigators and security analysts to predict vessel movement trajectories at sea based on the Automated Identification System (AIS) data in a given time span. This article presents an unsupervised method of ship movement trajectory prediction which represents the data in a three-dimensional space which consists of time difference between points, the scaled error distance between the tested and its predicted forward and backward locations, and the space-time angle. The representation feature space reduces the search scope for the next point to a collection of candidates which fit the local path prediction well, and therefore improve the accuracy. Unlike most statistical learning or deep learning methods, the proposed clustering-based trajectory reconstruction method does not require computationally expensive model training. This makes real-time reliable and accurate prediction feasible without using a training set. Our results show that the most prediction trajectories accurately consist of the true vessel paths.
Resource Allocation via Model-Free Deep Learning in Free Space Optical Communications
Authors: Zhan Gao, Mark Eisen, Alejandro Ribeiro
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Computational Efficiency, Stochastic Optimization

This paper investigates the general problem of resource allocation for mitigating channel fading effects in Free Space Optical (FSO) communications. The resource allocation problem is modeled as the constrained stochastic optimization framework, which covers a variety of FSO scenarios involving power adaptation, relay selection and their joint allocation. Under this framework, we propose two algorithms that solve FSO resource allocation problems. We first present the Stochastic Dual Gradient (SDG) algorithm that is shown to solve the problem exactly by exploiting the strong duality but whose implementation necessarily requires explicit and accurate system models. As an alternative we present the Primal-Dual Deep Learning (PDDL) algorithm based on the SDG algorithm, which parametrizes the resource allocation policy with Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) and optimizes the latter via a primal-dual method. The parametrized resource allocation problem incurs only a small loss of optimality due to the strong representational power of DNNs, and can be moreover implemented without knowledge of system models. A wide set of numerical experiments are performed to corroborate the proposed algorithms in FSO resource allocation problems. We demonstrate their superior performance and computational efficiency compared to the baseline methods in both continuous power allocation and binary relay selection settings.
Innovative Platform for Designing Hybrid Collaborative & Context-Aware Data Mining Scenarios
Authors: Anca Avram, Oliviu Matei, Camelia Pintea, Carmen Anton
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00

The process of knowledge discovery involves nowadays a major number of techniques. Context-Aware Data Mining (CADM) and Collaborative Data Mining (CDM) are some of the recent ones. the current research proposes a new hybrid and efficient tool to design prediction models called Scenarios Platform-Collaborative & Context-Aware Data Mining (SP-CCADM). Both CADM and CDM approaches are included in the new platform in a flexible manner; SP-CCADM allows the setting and testing of multiple configurable scenarios related to data mining at once. The introduced platform was successfully tested and validated on real life scenarios, providing better results than each standalone technique-CADM and CDM. Nevertheless, SP-CCADM was validated with various machine learning algorithms-k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN), Deep Learning (DL), Gradient Boosted Trees (GBT) and Decision Trees (DT). SP-CCADM makes a step forward when confronting complex data, properly approaching data contexts and collaboration between data. Numerical experiments and statistics illustrate in detail the potential of the proposed platform.
WGANVO: Monocular Visual Odometry based on Generative Adversarial Networks
Authors: Javier Cremona, Lucas Uzal, Taihú Pire
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Learning, Monocular Visual Odometry, Visual Odometry

In this work we present WGANVO, a Deep Learning based monocular Visual Odometry method. In particular, a neural network is trained to regress a pose estimate from an image pair. The training is performed using a semi-supervised approach. Unlike geometry based monocular methods, the proposed method can recover the absolute scale of the scene without neither prior knowledge nor extra information. The evaluation of the system is carried out on the well-known KITTI dataset where it is shown to work in real time and the accuracy obtained is encouraging to continue the development of Deep Learning based methods.
From Sound Representation to Model Robustness
Authors: Mohammad Esmaeilpour, Patrick Cardinal, Alessandro Lameiras Koerich
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Adversarial Attack, Adversarial Robustness, Benchmarking, model

In this paper, we investigate the impact of different standard environmental sound representations (spectrograms) on the recognition performance and adversarial attack robustness of a victim residual convolutional neural network. Averaged over various experiments on three benchmarking environmental sound datasets, we found the ResNet-18 model outperforms other deep learning architectures such as GoogLeNet and AlexNet both in terms of classification accuracy and the number of training parameters. Therefore we set this model as our front-end classifier for subsequent investigations. Herein, we measure the impact of different settings required for generating more informative mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC), short-time Fourier transform (STFT), and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) representations on our front-end model. This measurement involves comparing the classification performance over the adversarial robustness. On the balance of average budgets allocated by adversary and the cost of attack, we demonstrate an inverse relationship between recognition accuracy and model robustness against six attack algorithms. Moreover, our experimental results show that while the ResNet-18 model trained on DWT spectrograms achieves the highest recognition accuracy, attacking this model is relatively more costly for the adversary compared to other 2D representations.
Deep learning Framework for Mobile Microscopy
Authors: Anatasiia Kornilova, Mikhail Salnikov, Olga Novitskaya, Maria Begicheva, Egor Sevriugov, Kirill Shcherbakov, Valeriya Pronina, Dmitry V. Dylov
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Deblurring, Deep Learning, Denoising, Image Deblurring, Multi-Focus Microscopical Images Fusion, Super-Resolution, Translation

Mobile microscopy is a promising technology to assist and to accelerate disease diagnostics, with its widespread adoption being hindered by the mediocre quality of acquired images. Although some paired image translation and super-resolution approaches for mobile microscopy have emerged, a set of essential challenges, necessary for automating it in a high-throughput setting, still await to be addressed. The issues like in-focus/out-of-focus classification, fast scanning deblurring, focus-stacking, etc. -- all have specific peculiarities when the data are recorded using a mobile device. In this work, we aspire to create a comprehensive pipeline by connecting a set of methods purposely tuned to mobile microscopy: (1) a CNN model for stable in-focus / out-of-focus classification, (2) modified DeblurGAN architecture for image deblurring, (3) FuseGAN model for combining in-focus parts from multiple images to boost the detail. We discuss the limitations of the existing solutions developed for professional clinical microscopes, propose corresponding improvements, and compare to the other state-of-the-art mobile analytics solutions.
FlexPool: A Distributed Model-Free Deep Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for Joint Passengers & Goods Transportation
Authors: Kaushik Manchella, Abhishek K. Umrawal, Vaneet Aggarwal
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Reinforcement Learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

The growth in online goods delivery is causing a dramatic surge in urban vehicle traffic from last-mile deliveries. On the other hand, ride-sharing has been on the rise with the success of ride-sharing platforms and increased research on using autonomous vehicle technologies for routing and matching. The future of urban mobility for passengers and goods relies on leveraging new methods that minimize operational costs and environmental footprints of transportation systems. This paper considers combining passenger transportation with goods delivery to improve vehicle-based transportation. Even though the problem has been studied with a defined dynamics model of the transportation system environment, this paper considers a model-free approach that has been demonstrated to be adaptable to new or erratic environment dynamics. We propose FlexPool, a distributed model-free deep reinforcement learning algorithm that jointly serves passengers & goods workloads by learning optimal dispatch policies from its interaction with the environment. The proposed algorithm pools passengers for a ride-sharing service and delivers goods using a multi-hop transit method. These flexibilities decrease the fleet's operational cost and environmental footprint while maintaining service levels for passengers and goods. Through simulations on a realistic multi-agent urban mobility platform, we demonstrate that FlexPool outperforms other model-free settings in serving the demands from passengers & goods. FlexPool achieves 30% higher fleet utilization and 35% higher fuel efficiency in comparison to (i) model-free approaches where vehicles transport a combination of passengers & goods without the use of multi-hop transit, and (ii) model-free approaches where vehicles exclusively transport either passengers or goods.
Adaptive Height Optimisation for Cellular-Connected UAVs using Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Erika Fonseca, Boris Galkin, Ramy Amer, Luiz A. DaSilva, Ivana Dusparic
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

Providing reliable connectivity to cellular-connected UAV can be very challenging; their performance highly depends on the nature of the surrounding environment, such as density and heights of the ground BSs. On the other hand, tall buildings might block undesired interference signals from ground BSs, thereby improving the connectivity between the UAVs and their serving BSs. To address the connectivity of UAVs in such environments, this paper proposes a RL algorithm to dynamically optimise the height of a UAV as it moves through the environment, with the goal of increasing the throughput or spectrum efficiency that it experiences. The proposed solution is evaluated in two settings: using a series of generated environments where we vary the number of BS and building densities, and in a scenario using real-world data obtained from an experiment in Dublin, Ireland. Results show that our proposed RL-based solution improves UAVs QoS by 6% to 41%, depending on the scenario. We also conclude that, when flying at heights higher than the buildings, building density variation has no impact on UAV QoS. On the other hand, BS density can negatively impact UAV QoS, with higher numbers of BSs generating more interference and deteriorating UAV performance.
The MAMe Dataset: On the relevance of High Resolution and Variable Shape image properties
Authors: Ferran Parés, Anna Arias-Duart, Dario Garcia-Gasulla, Gema Campo-Francés, Nina Viladrich, Eduard Ayguadé, Jesús Labarta
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Classification, General Classification, image-classification, Image Classification

In the image classification task, the most common approach is to resize all images in a dataset to a unique shape, while reducing their precision to a size which facilitates experimentation at scale. This practice has benefits from a computational perspective, but it entails negative side-effects on performance due to loss of information and image deformation. In this work we introduce the MAMe dataset, an image classification dataset with remarkable high resolution and variable shape properties. The goal of MAMe is to provide a tool for studying the impact of such properties in image classification, while motivating research in the field. The MAMe dataset contains thousands of artworks from three different museums, and proposes a classification task consisting on differentiating between 29 mediums (i.e. materials and techniques) supervised by art experts. After reviewing the singularity of MAMe in the context of current image classification tasks, a thorough description of the task is provided, together with dataset statistics. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the impact of using high resolution images, variable shape inputs and both properties at the same time. Results illustrate the positive impact in performance when using high resolution images, while highlighting the lack of solutions to exploit variable shapes. An additional experiment exposes the distinctiveness between the MAMe dataset and the prototypical ImageNet dataset. Finally, the baselines are inspected using explainability methods and expert knowledge, to gain insights on the challenges that remain ahead.
Semi-Automatic Data Annotation guided by Feature Space Projection
Authors: Barbara Caroline Benato, Jancarlo Ferreira Gomes, Alexandru Cristian Telea, Alexandre Xavier Falcão
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: General Classification

Data annotation using visual inspection (supervision) of each training sample can be laborious. Interactive solutions alleviate this by helping experts propagate labels from a few supervised samples to unlabeled ones based solely on the visual analysis of their feature space projection (with no further sample supervision). We present a semi-automatic data annotation approach based on suitable feature space projection and semi-supervised label estimation. We validate our method on the popular MNIST dataset and on images of human intestinal parasites with and without fecal impurities, a large and diverse dataset that makes classification very hard. We evaluate two approaches for semi-supervised learning from the latent and projection spaces, to choose the one that best reduces user annotation effort and also increases classification accuracy on unseen data. Our results demonstrate the added-value of visual analytics tools that combine complementary abilities of humans and machines for more effective machine learning.
Ordinary Differential Equation and Complex Matrix Exponential for Multi-resolution Image Registration
Authors: Abhishek Nan, Matthew Tennant, Uriel Rubin, Nilanjan Ray
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Image Registration

Autograd-based software packages have recently renewed interest in image registration using homography and other geometric models by gradient descent and optimization, e.g., AirLab and DRMIME. In this work, we emphasize on using complex matrix exponential (CME) over real matrix exponential to compute transformation matrices. CME is theoretically more suitable and practically provides faster convergence as our experiments show. Further, we demonstrate that the use of an ordinary differential equation (ODE) as an optimizable dynamical system can adapt the transformation matrix more accurately to the multi-resolution Gaussian pyramid for image registration. Our experiments include four publicly available benchmark datasets, two of them 2D and the other two being 3D. Experiments demonstrate that our proposed method yields significantly better registration compared to a number of off-the-shelf, popular, state-of-the-art image registration toolboxes.
3D Human Shape and Pose from a Single Low-Resolution Image with Self-Supervised Learning
Authors: Xiangyu Xu, Hao Chen, Francesc Moreno-Noguer, Laszlo A. Jeni, Fernando de la Torre
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Proceeding: ECCV 2020 8
Tasks: 3D Human Pose Estimation, 3D Shape Reconstruction, Activity Recognition, Contrastive Learning, Pose Estimation, Self-Supervised Learning, Super-Resolution

3D human shape and pose estimation from monocular images has been an active area of research in computer vision, having a substantial impact on the development of new applications, from activity recognition to creating virtual avatars. Existing deep learning methods for 3D human shape and pose estimation rely on relatively high-resolution input images; however, high-resolution visual content is not always available in several practical scenarios such as video surveillance and sports broadcasting. Low-resolution images in real scenarios can vary in a wide range of sizes, and a model trained in one resolution does not typically degrade gracefully across resolutions. Two common approaches to solve the problem of low-resolution input are applying super-resolution techniques to the input images which may result in visual artifacts, or simply training one model for each resolution, which is impractical in many realistic applications. To address the above issues, this paper proposes a novel algorithm called RSC-Net, which consists of a Resolution-aware network, a Self-supervision loss, and a Contrastive learning scheme. The proposed network is able to learn the 3D body shape and pose across different resolutions with a single model. The self-supervision loss encourages scale-consistency of the output, and the contrastive learning scheme enforces scale-consistency of the deep features. We show that both these new training losses provide robustness when learning 3D shape and pose in a weakly-supervised manner. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the RSC-Net can achieve consistently better results than the state-of-the-art methods for challenging low-resolution images.
Universality of Gradient Descent Neural Network Training
Authors: G. Welper
Date: 2020-07-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Meta-Learning

It has been observed that design choices of neural networks are often crucial for their successful optimization. In this article, we therefore discuss the question if it is always possible to redesign a neural network so that it trains well with gradient descent. This yields the following universality result: If, for a given network, there is any algorithm that can find good network weights for a classification task, then there exists an extension of this network that reproduces these weights and the corresponding forward output by mere gradient descent training. The construction is not intended for practical computations, but it provides some orientation on the possibilities of meta-learning and related approaches.