pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Time-Correlated Sparsification for Communication-Efficient Federated Learning
Authors: Emre Ozfatura, Kerem Ozfatura, Deniz Gunduz
Date: 2021-01-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning, Quantization

Federated learning (FL) enables multiple clients to collaboratively train a shared model without disclosing their local datasets. This is achieved by exchanging local model updates with the help of a parameter server (PS). However, due to the increasing size of the trained models, the communication load due to the iterative exchanges between the clients and the PS often becomes a bottleneck in the performance. Sparse communication is often employed to reduce the communication load, where only a small subset of the model updates are communicated from the clients to the PS. In this paper, we introduce a novel time-correlated sparsification (TCS) scheme, which builds upon the notion that sparse communication framework can be considered as identifying the most significant elements of the underlying model. Hence, TCS seeks a certain correlation between the sparse representations used at consecutive iterations in FL, so that the overhead due to encoding and transmission of the sparse representation can be significantly reduced without compromising the test accuracy. Through extensive simulations on the CIFAR-10 dataset, we show that TCS can achieve centralized training accuracy with 100 times sparsification, and up to 2000 times reduction in the communication load when employed together with quantization.
SSTVOS: Sparse Spatiotemporal Transformers for Video Object Segmentation
Authors: Brendan Duke, Abdalla Ahmed, Christian Wolf, Parham Aarabi, Graham W. Taylor
Date: 2021-01-21 00:00:00
Proceeding: CVPR 2021 1
Tasks: Inductive Bias, Motion Segmentation, Object, One-shot visual object segmentation, Segmentation, Semantic Segmentation, Semi-Supervised Video Object Segmentation, Video Object Segmentation, Video Semantic Segmentation, Visual Object Tracking

In this paper we introduce a Transformer-based approach to video object segmentation (VOS). To address compounding error and scalability issues of prior work, we propose a scalable, end-to-end method for VOS called Sparse Spatiotemporal Transformers (SST). SST extracts per-pixel representations for each object in a video using sparse attention over spatiotemporal features. Our attention-based formulation for VOS allows a model to learn to attend over a history of multiple frames and provides suitable inductive bias for performing correspondence-like computations necessary for solving motion segmentation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of attention-based over recurrent networks in the spatiotemporal domain. Our method achieves competitive results on YouTube-VOS and DAVIS 2017 with improved scalability and robustness to occlusions compared with the state of the art. Code is available at https://github.com/dukebw/SSTVOS.
PyGlove: Symbolic Programming for Automated Machine Learning
Authors: Daiyi Peng, Xuanyi Dong, Esteban Real, Mingxing Tan, Yifeng Lu, Hanxiao Liu, Gabriel Bender, Adam Kraft, Chen Liang, Quoc V. Le
Date: 2021-01-21 00:00:00
Proceeding: NeurIPS 2020 12
Tasks: AutoML, BIG-bench Machine Learning

Neural networks are sensitive to hyper-parameter and architecture choices. Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) is a promising paradigm for automating these choices. Current ML software libraries, however, are quite limited in handling the dynamic interactions among the components of AutoML. For example, efficientNAS algorithms, such as ENAS and DARTS, typically require an implementation coupling between the search space and search algorithm, the two key components in AutoML. Furthermore, implementing a complex search flow, such as searching architectures within a loop of searching hardware configurations, is difficult. To summarize, changing the search space, search algorithm, or search flow in current ML libraries usually requires a significant change in the program logic. In this paper, we introduce a new way of programming AutoML based on symbolic programming. Under this paradigm, ML programs are mutable, thus can be manipulated easily by another program. As a result, AutoML can be reformulated as an automated process of symbolic manipulation. With this formulation, we decouple the triangle of the search algorithm, the search space and the child program. This decoupling makes it easy to change the search space and search algorithm (without and with weight sharing), as well as to add search capabilities to existing code and implement complex search flows. We then introduce PyGlove, a new Python library that implements this paradigm. Through case studies on ImageNet and NAS-Bench-101, we show that with PyGlove users can easily convert a static program into a search space, quickly iterate on the search spaces and search algorithms, and craft complex search flows to achieve better results.
Virtual laser scanning with HELIOS++: A novel take on ray tracing-based simulation of topographic 3D laser scanning
Authors: Lukas Winiwarter, Alberto Manuel Esmorís Pena, Hannah Weiser, Katharina Anders, Jorge Martínez Sanchez, Mark Searle, Bernhard Höfle
Date: 2021-01-21 00:00:00

Topographic laser scanning is a remote sensing method to create detailed 3D point cloud representations of the Earth's surface. Since data acquisition is expensive, simulations can complement real data given certain premises are available: i) a model of 3D scene and scanner, ii) a model of the beam-scene interaction, simplified to a computationally feasible while physically realistic level, and iii) an application for which simulated data is fit for use. A number of laser scanning simulators for different purposes exist, which we enrich by presenting HELIOS++. HELIOS++ is an open-source simulation framework for terrestrial static, mobile, UAV-based and airborne laser scanning implemented in C++. The HELIOS++ concept provides a flexible solution for the trade-off between physical accuracy (realism) and computational complexity (runtime, memory footprint), as well as ease of use and of configuration. Unique features of HELIOS++ include the availability of Python bindings (pyhelios) for controlling simulations, and a range of model types for 3D scene representation. HELIOS++ further allows the simulation of beam divergence using a subsampling strategy, and is able to create full-waveform outputs as a basis for detailed analysis. As generation and analysis of waveforms can strongly impact runtimes, the user may set the level of detail for the subsampling, or optionally disable full-waveform output altogether. A detailed assessment of computational considerations and a comparison of HELIOS++ to its predecessor, HELIOS, reveal reduced runtimes by up to 83 %. At the same time, memory requirements are reduced by up to 94 %, allowing for much larger (i.e. more complex) 3D scenes to be loaded into memory and hence to be virtually acquired by laser scanning simulation.
A Person Re-identification Data Augmentation Method with Adversarial Defense Effect
Authors: Yunpeng Gong, Zhiyong Zeng, Liwen Chen, Yifan Luo, Bin Weng, Feng Ye
Date: 2021-01-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Adversarial Defense, Data Augmentation, MS-SSIM, Person Re-Identification, SSIM

The security of the Person Re-identification(ReID) model plays a decisive role in the application of ReID. However, deep neural networks have been shown to be vulnerable, and adding undetectable adversarial perturbations to clean images can trick deep neural networks that perform well in clean images. We propose a ReID multi-modal data augmentation method with adversarial defense effect: 1) Grayscale Patch Replacement, it consists of Local Grayscale Patch Replacement(LGPR) and Global Grayscale Patch Replacement(GGPR). This method can not only improve the accuracy of the model, but also help the model defend against adversarial examples; 2) Multi-Modal Defense, it integrates three homogeneous modal images of visible, grayscale and sketch, and further strengthens the defense ability of the model. These methods fuse different modalities of homogeneous images to enrich the input sample variety, the variaty of samples will reduce the over-fitting of the ReID model to color variations and make the adversarial space of the dataset that the attack method can find difficult to align, thus the accuracy of model is improved, and the attack effect is greatly reduced. The more modal homogeneous images are fused, the stronger the defense capabilities is . The proposed method performs well on multiple datasets, and successfully defends the attack of MS-SSIM proposed by CVPR2020 against ReID [10], and increases the accuracy by 467 times(0.2% to 93.3%).The code is available at https://github.com/finger-monkey/ReID_Adversarial_Defense.
Improved Sensitivity of Base Layer on the Performance of Rigid Pavement
Authors: Sajib Saha, Fan Gu, Xue Luo, Robert L. Lytton
Date: 2021-01-20 00:00:00
Tasks: Sensitivity

The performance of rigid pavement is greatly affected by the properties of base/subbase as well as subgrade layer. However, the performance predicted by the AASHTOWare Pavement ME design shows low sensitivity to the properties of base and subgrade layers. To improve the sensitivity and better reflect the influence of unbound layers a new set of improved models i.e., resilient modulus (MR) and modulus of subgrade reaction (k-value) are adopted in this study. An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model is developed to predict the modified k-value based on finite element (FE) analysis. The training and validation datasets in the ANN model consist of 27000 simulation cases with different combinations of pavement layer thickness, layer modulus and slab-base interface bond ratio. To examine the sensitivity of modified MR and k-values on pavement response, eight pavement sections data are collected from the Long-Term Pavement performance (LTPP) database and modeled by using the FE software ISLAB2000. The computational results indicate that the modified MR values have higher sensitivity to water content in base layer on critical stress and deflection response of rigid pavements compared to the results using the Pavement ME design model. It is also observed that the k-values using ANN model has the capability of predicting critical pavement response at any partially bonded conditions whereas the Pavement ME design model can only calculate at two extreme bonding conditions (i.e., fully bonding and no bonding).
A Robust Blockchain Readiness Index Model
Authors: Elias Iosif, Klitos Christodoulou, Andreas Vlachos
Date: 2021-01-20 00:00:00
Tasks: Information Retrieval, model, Retrieval

As the blockchain ecosystem gets more mature many businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs are seeking opportunities on working with blockchain systems and cryptocurrencies. A critical challenge for these actors is to identify the most suitable environment to start or evolve their businesses. In general, the question is to identify which countries are offering the most suitable conditions to host their blockchain-based activities and implement their innovative projects. The Blockchain Readiness Index (BRI) provides a numerical metric (referred to as the blockchain readiness score) in measuring the maturity/readiness levels of a country in adopting blockchain and cryptocurrencies. In doing so, BRI leverages on techniques from information retrieval to algorithmically derive an index ranking for a set of countries. The index considers a range of indicators organized under five pillars: Government Regulation, Research, Technology, Industry, and User Engagement. In this paper, we further extent BRI with the capability of deriving the index - at the country level - even in the presence of missing information for the indicators. In doing so, we are proposing two weighting schemes namely, linear and sigmoid weighting for refining the initial estimates for the indicator values. A classification framework was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed techniques which yielded to a significant classification accuracy.
The Next Decade of Telecommunications Artificial Intelligence
Authors: Ye Ouyang, Lilei Wang, Aidong Yang, Maulik Shah, David Belanger, Tongqing Gao, Leping Wei, Yaqin Zhang
Date: 2021-01-19 00:00:00
Tasks: Management

It has been an exciting journey since the mobile communications and artificial intelligence were conceived 37 years and 64 years ago. While both fields evolved independently and profoundly changed communications and computing industries, the rapid convergence of 5G and deep learning is beginning to significantly transform the core communication infrastructure, network management and vertical applications. The paper first outlines the individual roadmaps of mobile communications and artificial intelligence in the early stage, with a concentration to review the era from 3G to 5G when AI and mobile communications started to converge. With regard to telecommunications artificial intelligence, the paper further introduces in detail the progress of artificial intelligence in the ecosystem of mobile communications. The paper then summarizes the classifications of AI in telecom ecosystems along with its evolution paths specified by various international telecommunications standardization bodies. Towards the next decade, the paper forecasts the prospective roadmap of telecommunications artificial intelligence. In line with 3GPP and ITU-R timeline of 5G & 6G, the paper further explores the network intelligence following 3GPP and ORAN routes respectively, experience and intention driven network management and operation, network AI signalling system, intelligent middle-office based BSS, intelligent customer experience management and policy control driven by BSS and OSS convergence, evolution from SLA to ELA, and intelligent private network for verticals. The paper is concluded with the vision that AI will reshape the future B5G or 6G landscape and we need pivot our R&D, standardizations, and ecosystem to fully take the unprecedented opportunities.
Towards efficient models for real-time deep noise suppression
Authors: Sebastian Braun, Hannes Gamper, Chandan K. A. Reddy, Ivan Tashev
Date: 2021-01-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Speech Enhancement

With recent research advancements, deep learning models are becoming attractive and powerful choices for speech enhancement in real-time applications. While state-of-the-art models can achieve outstanding results in terms of speech quality and background noise reduction, the main challenge is to obtain compact enough models, which are resource efficient during inference time. An important but often neglected aspect for data-driven methods is that results can be only convincing when tested on real-world data and evaluated with useful metrics. In this work, we investigate reasonably small recurrent and convolutional-recurrent network architectures for speech enhancement, trained on a large dataset considering also reverberation. We show interesting tradeoffs between computational complexity and the achievable speech quality, measured on real recordings using a highly accurate MOS estimator. It is shown that the achievable speech quality is a function of network complexity, and show which models have better tradeoffs.
Approximation capability of two hidden layer feedforward neural networks with fixed weights
Authors: Namig J. Guliyev, Vugar E. Ismailov
Date: 2021-01-22 00:00:00

We algorithmically construct a two hidden layer feedforward neural network (TLFN) model with the weights fixed as the unit coordinate vectors of the $d$-dimensional Euclidean space and having $3d+2$ number of hidden neurons in total, which can approximate any continuous $d$-variable function with an arbitrary precision. This result, in particular, shows an advantage of the TLFN model over the single hidden layer feedforward neural network (SLFN) model, since SLFNs with fixed weights do not have the capability of approximating multivariate functions.
Personal Fixations-Based Object Segmentation with Object Localization and Boundary Preservation
Authors: Gongyang Li, Zhi Liu, Ran Shi, Zheng Hu, Weijie Wei, Yong Wu, Mengke Huang, Haibin Ling
Date: 2021-01-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Image Segmentation, Object, Object Localization, Semantic Segmentation

As a natural way for human-computer interaction, fixation provides a promising solution for interactive image segmentation. In this paper, we focus on Personal Fixations-based Object Segmentation (PFOS) to address issues in previous studies, such as the lack of appropriate dataset and the ambiguity in fixations-based interaction. In particular, we first construct a new PFOS dataset by carefully collecting pixel-level binary annotation data over an existing fixation prediction dataset, such dataset is expected to greatly facilitate the study along the line. Then, considering characteristics of personal fixations, we propose a novel network based on Object Localization and Boundary Preservation (OLBP) to segment the gazed objects. Specifically, the OLBP network utilizes an Object Localization Module (OLM) to analyze personal fixations and locates the gazed objects based on the interpretation. Then, a Boundary Preservation Module (BPM) is designed to introduce additional boundary information to guard the completeness of the gazed objects. Moreover, OLBP is organized in the mixed bottom-up and top-down manner with multiple types of deep supervision. Extensive experiments on the constructed PFOS dataset show the superiority of the proposed OLBP network over 17 state-of-the-art methods, and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed OLM and BPM components. The constructed PFOS dataset and the proposed OLBP network are available at https://github.com/MathLee/OLBPNet4PFOS.
A Closer Look at Temporal Sentence Grounding in Videos: Dataset and Metric
Authors: Yitian Yuan, Xiaohan Lan, Xin Wang, Long Chen, Zhi Wang, Wenwu Zhu
Date: 2021-01-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Benchmarking, Sentence, Temporal Sentence Grounding

Temporal Sentence Grounding in Videos (TSGV), i.e., grounding a natural language sentence which indicates complex human activities in a long and untrimmed video sequence, has received unprecedented attentions over the last few years. Although each newly proposed method plausibly can achieve better performance than previous ones, current TSGV models still tend to capture the moment annotation biases and fail to take full advantage of multi-modal inputs. Even more incredibly, several extremely simple baselines without training can also achieve state-of-the-art performance. In this paper, we take a closer look at the existing evaluation protocols for TSGV, and find that both the prevailing dataset splits and evaluation metrics are the devils to cause unreliable benchmarking. To this end, we propose to re-organize two widely-used TSGV benchmarks (ActivityNet Captions and Charades-STA). Specifically, we deliberately make the ground-truth moment distribution different in the training and test splits, i.e., out-of-distribution (OOD) testing. Meanwhile, we introduce a new evaluation metric dR@n,IoU@m to calibrate the basic IoU scores by penalizing on the bias-influenced moment predictions and alleviate the inflating evaluations caused by the dataset annotation biases such as overlong ground-truth moments. Under our new evaluation protocol, we conduct extensive experiments and ablation studies on eight state-of-the-art TSGV methods. All the results demonstrate that the re-organized dataset splits and new metric can better monitor the progress in TSGV. Our reorganized datsets are available at https://github.com/yytzsy/grounding_changing_distribution.
DSAL: Deeply Supervised Active Learning from Strong and Weak Labelers for Biomedical Image Segmentation
Authors: Ziyuan Zhao, Zeng Zeng, Kaixin Xu, Cen Chen, Cuntai Guan
Date: 2021-01-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Active Learning, Ensemble Learning, Image Segmentation, Semantic Segmentation

Image segmentation is one of the most essential biomedical image processing problems for different imaging modalities, including microscopy and X-ray in the Internet-of-Medical-Things (IoMT) domain. However, annotating biomedical images is knowledge-driven, time-consuming, and labor-intensive, making it difficult to obtain abundant labels with limited costs. Active learning strategies come into ease the burden of human annotation, which queries only a subset of training data for annotation. Despite receiving attention, most of active learning methods generally still require huge computational costs and utilize unlabeled data inefficiently. They also tend to ignore the intermediate knowledge within networks. In this work, we propose a deep active semi-supervised learning framework, DSAL, combining active learning and semi-supervised learning strategies. In DSAL, a new criterion based on deep supervision mechanism is proposed to select informative samples with high uncertainties and low uncertainties for strong labelers and weak labelers respectively. The internal criterion leverages the disagreement of intermediate features within the deep learning network for active sample selection, which subsequently reduces the computational costs. We use the proposed criteria to select samples for strong and weak labelers to produce oracle labels and pseudo labels simultaneously at each active learning iteration in an ensemble learning manner, which can be examined with IoMT Platform. Extensive experiments on multiple medical image datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over state-of-the-art active learning methods.
Rethinking Domain Generalization Baselines
Authors: Francesco Cappio Borlino, Antonio D'Innocente, Tatiana Tommasi
Date: 2021-01-22 00:00:00
Tasks: Data Augmentation, Domain Generalization, Style Transfer

Despite being very powerful in standard learning settings, deep learning models can be extremely brittle when deployed in scenarios different from those on which they were trained. Domain generalization methods investigate this problem and data augmentation strategies have shown to be helpful tools to increase data variability, supporting model robustness across domains. In our work we focus on style transfer data augmentation and we present how it can be implemented with a simple and inexpensive strategy to improve generalization. Moreover, we analyze the behavior of current state of the art domain generalization methods when integrated with this augmentation solution: our thorough experimental evaluation shows that their original effect almost always disappears with respect to the augmented baseline. This issue open new scenarios for domain generalization research, highlighting the need of novel methods properly able to take advantage of the introduced data variability.