pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
The effect of speech and noise levels on the quality perceived by cochlear implant and normal hearing listeners
Authors: Sara Akbarzadeh, Sungmin Lee, Fei Chen, Chin-Tuan Tan
Date: 2021-03-03 00:00:00

Electrical hearing by cochlear implants (CIs) may be fundamentally different from acoustic hearing by normal-hearing (NH) listeners, presumably showing unequal speech quality perception in various noise environments. Noise reduction (NR) algorithms used in CI reduce the noise in favor of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), regardless of plausible accompanying distortions that may degrade the speech quality perception. To gain better understanding of CI speech quality perception, the present work aimed investigating speech quality perception in a diverse noise conditions, including factors of speech/noise levels, type of noise, and distortions caused by NR models. Fifteen NH and seven CI subjects participated in this study. Speech sentences were set to two different levels (65 and 75 dB SPL). Two types of noise (Cafeteria and Babble) at three levels (55, 65, and 75 dB SPL) were used. Sentences were processed using two NR algorithms to investigate the perceptual sensitivity of CI and NH listeners to the distortion. All sentences processed with the combinations of these sets were presented to CI and NH listeners, and they were asked to rate the sound quality of speech as they perceived. The effect of each factor on the perceived speech quality was investigated based on the group averaged quality rated by CI and NH listeners. Consistent with previous studies, CI listeners were not as sensitive as NH to the distortion made by NR algorithms. Statistical analysis showed that the speech level has significant effect on quality perception. At the same SNR, the quality of 65 dB speech was rated higher than that of 75 dB for CI users, but vice versa for NH listeners. Therefore, the present study showed that the perceived speech quality patterns were different between CI and NH listeners in terms of their sensitivity to distortion and speech level in complex listening environment.
Multi-view Audio and Music Classification
Authors: Huy Phan, Huy Le Nguyen, Oliver Y. Chén, Lam Pham, Philipp Koch, Ian McLoughlin, Alfred Mertins
Date: 2021-03-03 00:00:00
Tasks: Classification, General Classification, MULTI-VIEW LEARNING, Music Classification

We propose in this work a multi-view learning approach for audio and music classification. Considering four typical low-level representations (i.e. different views) commonly used for audio and music recognition tasks, the proposed multi-view network consists of four subnetworks, each handling one input types. The learned embedding in the subnetworks are then concatenated to form the multi-view embedding for classification similar to a simple concatenation network. However, apart from the joint classification branch, the network also maintains four classification branches on the single-view embedding of the subnetworks. A novel method is then proposed to keep track of the learning behavior on the classification branches and adapt their weights to proportionally blend their gradients for network training. The weights are adapted in such a way that learning on a branch that is generalizing well will be encouraged whereas learning on a branch that is overfitting will be slowed down. Experiments on three different audio and music classification tasks show that the proposed multi-view network not only outperforms the single-view baselines but also is superior to the multi-view baselines based on concatenation and late fusion.
Deep Learning-based Automated Aortic Area and Distensibility Assessment: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)
Authors: Vivek P. Jani, Nadjia Kachenoura, Alban Redheuil, Gisela Teixido-Tura, Kevin Bouaou, Emilie Bollache, Elie Mousseaux, Alain De Cesare, Shelby Kutty, Colin O. Wu, David A. Bluemke, Joao A. C. Lima, Bharath Ambale-Venkatesh
Date: 2021-03-03 00:00:00
Tasks: parameter estimation, Segmentation

This study applies convolutional neural network (CNN)-based automatic segmentation and distensibility measurement of the ascending and descending aorta from 2D phase-contrast cine magnetic resonance imaging (PC-cine MRI) within the large MESA cohort with subsequent assessment on an external cohort of thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) patients. 2D PC-cine MRI images of the ascending and descending aorta at the pulmonary artery bifurcation from the MESA study were included. Train, validation, and internal test sets consisted of 1123 studies (24282 images), 374 studies (8067 images), and 375 studies (8069 images), respectively. An external test set of TAAs consisted of 37 studies (3224 images). A U-Net based CNN was constructed, and performance was evaluated utilizing dice coefficient (for segmentation) and concordance correlation coefficients (CCC) of aortic geometric parameters by comparing to manual segmentation and parameter estimation. Dice coefficients for aorta segmentation were 97.6% (CI: 97.5%-97.6%) and 93.6% (84.6%-96.7%) on the internal and external test of TAAs, respectively. CCC for comparison of manual and CNN maximum and minimum ascending aortic areas were 0.97 and 0.95, respectively, on the internal test set and 0.997 and 0.995, respectively, for the external test. CCCs for maximum and minimum descending aortic areas were 0.96 and 0. 98, respectively, on the internal test set and 0.93 and 0.93, respectively, on the external test set. We successfully developed and validated a U-Net based ascending and descending aortic segmentation and distensibility quantification model in a large multi-ethnic database and in an external cohort of TAA patients.
A continuous-state cellular automata algorithm for global optimization
Authors: Juan Carlos Seck-Tuoh-Mora, Norberto Hernandez-Romero, Pedro Lagos-Eulogio, Joselito Medina-Marin, Nadia Samantha Zuñiga-Peña
Date: 2021-03-02 00:00:00
Tasks: global-optimization

Cellular automata are capable of developing complex behaviors based on simple local interactions between their elements. Some of these characteristics have been used to propose and improve meta-heuristics for global optimization; however, the properties offered by the evolution rules in cellular automata have not yet been used directly in optimization tasks. Inspired by the complexity that various evolution rules of cellular automata can offer, the continuous-state cellular automata algorithm (CCAA) is proposed. In this way, the CCAA takes advantage of different evolution rules to maintain a balance that maximizes the exploration and exploitation properties in each iteration. The efficiency of the CCAA is proven with 33 test problems widely used in the literature, 4 engineering applications that were also used in recent literature, and the design of adaptive infinite-impulse response (IIR) filters, testing 10 full-order IIR reference functions. The numerical results prove its competitiveness in comparison with state-of-the-art algorithms. The source codes of the CCAA are publicly available at https://github.com/juanseck/CCAA.git
Surrogate-assisted cooperative signal optimization for large-scale traffic networks
Authors: Yongsheng Liang, Zhigang Ren, Lin Wang, Hanqing Liu, Wenhao Du
Date: 2021-03-03 00:00:00

Reasonable setting of traffic signals can be very helpful in alleviating congestion in urban traffic networks. Meta-heuristic optimization algorithms have proved themselves to be able to find high-quality signal timing plans. However, they generally suffer from performance deterioration when solving large-scale traffic signal optimization problems due to the huge search space and limited computational budget. Directing against this issue, this study proposes a surrogate-assisted cooperative signal optimization (SCSO) method. Different from existing methods that directly deal with the entire traffic network, SCSO first decomposes it into a set of tractable sub-networks, and then achieves signal setting by cooperatively optimizing these sub-networks with a surrogate-assisted optimizer. The decomposition operation significantly narrows the search space of the whole traffic network, and the surrogate-assisted optimizer greatly lowers the computational burden by reducing the number of expensive traffic simulations. By taking Newman fast algorithm, radial basis function and a modified estimation of distribution algorithm as decomposer, surrogate model and optimizer, respectively, this study develops a concrete SCSO algorithm. To evaluate its effectiveness and efficiency, a large-scale traffic network involving crossroads and T-junctions is generated based on a real traffic network. Comparison with several existing meta-heuristic algorithms specially designed for traffic signal optimization demonstrates the superiority of SCSO in reducing the average delay time of vehicles.
Leading or Following? Dyadic Robot Imitative Interaction Using the Active Inference Framework
Authors: Nadine Wirkuttis, Jun Tani
Date: 2021-03-03 00:00:00

This study investigated how social interaction among robotic agents changes dynamically depending on the individual belief of action intention. In a set of simulation studies, we examine dyadic imitative interactions of robots using a variational recurrent neural network model. The model is based on the free energy principle such that a pair of interacting robots find themselves in a loop, attempting to predict and infer each other's actions using active inference. We examined how regulating the complexity term to minimize free energy determines the dynamic characteristics of networks and interactions. When one robot trained with tighter regulation and another trained with looser regulation interact, the latter tends to lead the interaction by exerting stronger action intention, while the former tends to follow by adapting to its observations. The study confirms that the dyadic imitative interaction becomes successful by achieving a high synchronization rate when a leader and a follower are determined by developing action intentions with strong belief and weak belief, respectively.
EmoWrite: A Sentiment Analysis-Based Thought to Text Conversion -- A Validation Study
Authors: Imran Raza, Syed Asad Hussain, Muhammad Hasan Jamal, Isabel de la Torre Diez, Carmen Lili Rodriguez Velasco, Jose Manuel Brenosa, Imran Ashraf
Date: 2021-03-03 00:00:00
Tasks: Brain Computer Interface, Sentiment Analysis

Objective- The objective of this study is to introduce EmoWrite, a novel brain-computer interface (BCI) system aimed at addressing the limitations of existing BCI-based systems. Specifically, the objective includes improving typing speed, accuracy, user convenience, emotional state capturing, and sentiment analysis within the context of BCI technology. Method- The method involves the development and implementation of EmoWrite, utilizing a user-centric Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) for thought-to-text conversion. The system incorporates visual feedback and introduces a dynamic keyboard with a contextually adaptive character appearance. Comprehensive evaluation and comparison against existing approaches are conducted, considering various metrics such as accuracy, typing speed, sentiment analysis, emotional state capturing, and user interface latency. The data required for this experiment was obtained from a total of 72 volunteers (40 male and 32 female) aged between 18 and 40 Results- EmoWrite achieves notable results, including a typing speed of 6.6 Words Per Minute (WPM) and 31.9 Characters Per Minute (CPM) with a high accuracy rate of 90.36%. It excels in capturing emotional states, with an Information Transfer Rate (ITR) of 87.55 bits/min for commands and 72.52 bits/min for letters, surpassing other systems. Additionally, it offers an intuitive user interface with low latency of 2.685 seconds. Conclusion- The introduction of EmoWrite represents a significant stride towards enhancing BCI usability and emotional integration. The findings suggest that EmoWrite holds promising potential for revolutionizing communication aids for individuals with motor disabilities.
Deep Recurrent Encoder: A scalable end-to-end network to model brain signals
Authors: Omar Chehab, Alexandre Defossez, Jean-Christophe Loiseau, Alexandre Gramfort, Jean-Remi King
Date: 2021-03-03 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Learning

Understanding how the brain responds to sensory inputs is challenging: brain recordings are partial, noisy, and high dimensional; they vary across sessions and subjects and they capture highly nonlinear dynamics. These challenges have led the community to develop a variety of preprocessing and analytical (almost exclusively linear) methods, each designed to tackle one of these issues. Instead, we propose to address these challenges through a specific end-to-end deep learning architecture, trained to predict the brain responses of multiple subjects at once. We successfully test this approach on a large cohort of magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings acquired during a one-hour reading task. Our Deep Recurrent Encoding (DRE) architecture reliably predicts MEG responses to words with a three-fold improvement over classic linear methods. To overcome the notorious issue of interpretability of deep learning, we describe a simple variable importance analysis. When applied to DRE, this method recovers the expected evoked responses to word length and word frequency. The quantitative improvement of the present deep learning approach paves the way to better understand the nonlinear dynamics of brain activity from large datasets.
CloudAAE: Learning 6D Object Pose Regression with On-line Data Synthesis on Point Clouds
Authors: Ge Gao, Mikko Lauri, Xiaolin Hu, Jianwei Zhang, Simone Frintrop
Date: 2021-03-02 00:00:00
Tasks: 6D Pose Estimation, Object, Pose Estimation, regression

It is often desired to train 6D pose estimation systems on synthetic data because manual annotation is expensive. However, due to the large domain gap between the synthetic and real images, synthesizing color images is expensive. In contrast, this domain gap is considerably smaller and easier to fill for depth information. In this work, we present a system that regresses 6D object pose from depth information represented by point clouds, and a lightweight data synthesis pipeline that creates synthetic point cloud segments for training. We use an augmented autoencoder (AAE) for learning a latent code that encodes 6D object pose information for pose regression. The data synthesis pipeline only requires texture-less 3D object models and desired viewpoints, and it is cheap in terms of both time and hardware storage. Our data synthesis process is up to three orders of magnitude faster than commonly applied approaches that render RGB image data. We show the effectiveness of our system on the LineMOD, LineMOD Occlusion, and YCB Video datasets. The implementation of our system is available at: https://github.com/GeeeG/CloudAAE.
Self-supervised Pretraining of Visual Features in the Wild
Authors: Priya Goyal, Mathilde Caron, Benjamin Lefaudeux, Min Xu, Pengchao Wang, Vivek Pai, Mannat Singh, Vitaliy Liptchinsky, Ishan Misra, Armand Joulin, Piotr Bojanowski
Date: 2021-03-02 00:00:00
Tasks: Image Classification, Self-Supervised Image Classification, Self-Supervised Learning, Semi-Supervised Image Classification

Recently, self-supervised learning methods like MoCo, SimCLR, BYOL and SwAV have reduced the gap with supervised methods. These results have been achieved in a control environment, that is the highly curated ImageNet dataset. However, the premise of self-supervised learning is that it can learn from any random image and from any unbounded dataset. In this work, we explore if self-supervision lives to its expectation by training large models on random, uncurated images with no supervision. Our final SElf-supERvised (SEER) model, a RegNetY with 1.3B parameters trained on 1B random images with 512 GPUs achieves 84.2% top-1 accuracy, surpassing the best self-supervised pretrained model by 1% and confirming that self-supervised learning works in a real world setting. Interestingly, we also observe that self-supervised models are good few-shot learners achieving 77.9% top-1 with access to only 10% of ImageNet. Code: https://github.com/facebookresearch/vissl
Sequence-Based Filtering for Visual Route-Based Navigation: Analysing the Benefits, Trade-offs and Design Choices
Authors: Mihnea-Alexandru Tomită, Mubariz Zaffar, Michael Milford, Klaus McDonald-Maier, Shoaib Ehsan
Date: 2021-03-02 00:00:00
Tasks: Visual Place Recognition

Visual Place Recognition (VPR) is the ability to correctly recall a previously visited place using visual information under environmental, viewpoint and appearance changes. An emerging trend in VPR is the use of sequence-based filtering methods on top of single-frame-based place matching techniques for route-based navigation. The combination leads to varying levels of potential place matching performance boosts at increased computational costs. This raises a number of interesting research questions: How does performance boost (due to sequential filtering) vary along the entire spectrum of single-frame-based matching methods? How does sequence matching length affect the performance curve? Which specific combinations provide a good trade-off between performance and computation? However, there is lack of previous work looking at these important questions and most of the sequence-based filtering work to date has been used without a systematic approach. To bridge this research gap, this paper conducts an in-depth investigation of the relationship between the performance of single-frame-based place matching techniques and the use of sequence-based filtering on top of those methods. It analyzes individual trade-offs, properties and limitations for different combinations of single-frame-based and sequential techniques. A number of state-of-the-art VPR methods and widely used public datasets are utilized to present the findings that contain a number of meaningful insights for the VPR community.
Material Measurement Units for a Circular Economy: Foundations through a Review
Authors: Federico Zocco, Seán McLoone, Beatrice Smyth
Date: 2021-03-02 00:00:00
Tasks: Management

Long-term availability of minerals and industrial materials is a necessary condition for sustainable development as they are the constituents of any manufacturing product. To enhance the efficiency of material management, we define a computer-vision-enabled material measurement system and provide a review of works relevant to its development with particular emphasis on the foundations. A network of such systems for wide-area material stock monitoring is also covered. Finally, challenges and future research directions are discussed. As the first article bridging industrial ecology and advanced computer vision, this review is intended to support both research communities towards more sustainable manufacturing.
PECNet: A Deep Multi-Label Segmentation Network for Eosinophilic Esophagitis Biopsy Diagnostics
Authors: Nati Daniel, Ariel Larey, Eliel Aknin, Garrett A. Osswald, Julie M. Caldwell, Mark Rochman, Margaret H. Collins, Guang-Yu Yang, Nicoleta C. Arva, Kelley E. Capocelli, Marc E. Rothenberg, Yonatan Savir
Date: 2021-03-02 00:00:00
Tasks: Segmentation, Semantic Segmentation, Specificity, whole slide images

Background. Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is an allergic inflammatory condition of the esophagus associated with elevated numbers of eosinophils. Disease diagnosis and monitoring requires determining the concentration of eosinophils in esophageal biopsies, a time-consuming, tedious and somewhat subjective task currently performed by pathologists. Methods. Herein, we aimed to use machine learning to identify, quantitate and diagnose EoE. We labeled more than 100M pixels of 4345 images obtained by scanning whole slides of H&E-stained sections of esophageal biopsies derived from 23 EoE patients. We used this dataset to train a multi-label segmentation deep network. To validate the network, we examined a replication cohort of 1089 whole slide images from 419 patients derived from multiple institutions. Findings. PECNet segmented both intact and not-intact eosinophils with a mean intersection over union (mIoU) of 0.93. This segmentation was able to quantitate intact eosinophils with a mean absolute error of 0.611 eosinophils and classify EoE disease activity with an accuracy of 98.5%. Using whole slide images from the validation cohort, PECNet achieved an accuracy of 94.8%, sensitivity of 94.3%, and specificity of 95.14% in reporting EoE disease activity. Interpretation. We have developed a deep learning multi-label semantic segmentation network that successfully addresses two of the main challenges in EoE diagnostics and digital pathology, the need to detect several types of small features simultaneously and the ability to analyze whole slides efficiently. Our results pave the way for an automated diagnosis of EoE and can be utilized for other conditions with similar challenges.
DeepFake-o-meter: An Open Platform for DeepFake Detection
Authors: Yuezun Li, Cong Zhang, Pu Sun, Honggang Qi, Siwei Lyu
Date: 2021-03-02 00:00:00
Tasks: DeepFake Detection, Face Swapping

In recent years, the advent of deep learning-based techniques and the significant reduction in the cost of computation resulted in the feasibility of creating realistic videos of human faces, commonly known as DeepFakes. The availability of open-source tools to create DeepFakes poses as a threat to the trustworthiness of the online media. In this work, we develop an open-source online platform, known as DeepFake-o-meter, that integrates state-of-the-art DeepFake detection methods and provide a convenient interface for the users. We describe the design and function of DeepFake-o-meter in this work.
EnD: Entangling and Disentangling deep representations for bias correction
Authors: Enzo Tartaglione, Carlo Alberto Barbano, Marco Grangetto
Date: 2021-03-02 00:00:00
Proceeding: CVPR 2021 1
Tasks: Classification (ρ=0.990), Classification (ρ=0.995), Classification (ρ=0.997), Classification (ρ=0.999), HairColor/Bias-conflicting, HairColor/Unbiased, HeavyMakeup/Bias-conflicting, HeavyMakeup/Unbiased

Artificial neural networks perform state-of-the-art in an ever-growing number of tasks, and nowadays they are used to solve an incredibly large variety of tasks. There are problems, like the presence of biases in the training data, which question the generalization capability of these models. In this work we propose EnD, a regularization strategy whose aim is to prevent deep models from learning unwanted biases. In particular, we insert an "information bottleneck" at a certain point of the deep neural network, where we disentangle the information about the bias, still letting the useful information for the training task forward-propagating in the rest of the model. One big advantage of EnD is that we do not require additional training complexity (like decoders or extra layers in the model), since it is a regularizer directly applied on the trained model. Our experiments show that EnD effectively improves the generalization on unbiased test sets, and it can be effectively applied on real-case scenarios, like removing hidden biases in the COVID-19 detection from radiographic images.