pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Can ChatGPT Support Developers? An Empirical Evaluation of Large Language Models for Code Generation
Authors: Kailun Jin, Chung-Yu Wang, Hung Viet Pham, Hadi Hemmati
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Code Generation

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated notable proficiency in code generation, with numerous prior studies showing their promising capabilities in various development scenarios. However, these studies mainly provide evaluations in research settings, which leaves a significant gap in understanding how effectively LLMs can support developers in real-world. To address this, we conducted an empirical analysis of conversations in DevGPT, a dataset collected from developers' conversations with ChatGPT (captured with the Share Link feature on platforms such as GitHub). Our empirical findings indicate that the current practice of using LLM-generated code is typically limited to either demonstrating high-level concepts or providing examples in documentation, rather than to be used as production-ready code. These findings indicate that there is much future work needed to improve LLMs in code generation before they can be integral parts of modern software development.
ALLaVA: Harnessing GPT4V-Synthesized Data for Lite Vision-Language Models
Authors: Guiming Hardy Chen, Shunian Chen, Ruifei Zhang, Junying Chen, Xiangbo Wu, Zhiyi Zhang, Zhihong Chen, Jianquan Li, Xiang Wan, Benyou Wang
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Language Modelling, Question Answering, Visual Question Answering

Large vision-language models (LVLMs) have shown premise in a broad range of vision-language tasks with their strong reasoning and generalization capabilities. However, they require considerable computational resources for training and deployment. This study aims to bridge the performance gap between traditional-scale LVLMs and resource-friendly lite versions by adopting high-quality training data. To this end, we propose a comprehensive pipeline for generating a synthetic dataset. The key idea is to leverage strong proprietary models to generate (i) fine-grained image annotations for vision-language alignment and (ii) complex reasoning visual question-answering pairs for visual instruction fine-tuning, yielding 1.3M samples in total. We train a series of lite VLMs on the synthetic dataset and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, where they achieve competitive performance on 17 benchmarks among 4B LVLMs, and even perform on par with 7B/13B-scale models on various benchmarks. This work highlights the feasibility of adopting high-quality data in crafting more efficient LVLMs. We name our dataset \textit{ALLaVA}, and open-source it to research community for developing better resource-efficient LVLMs for wider usage.
3D Point Cloud Compression with Recurrent Neural Network and Image Compression Methods
Authors: Till Beemelmanns, Yuchen Tao, Bastian Lampe, Lennart Reiher, Raphael van Kempen, Timo Woopen, Lutz Eckstein
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Data Compression, Image Compression

Storing and transmitting LiDAR point cloud data is essential for many AV applications, such as training data collection, remote control, cloud services or SLAM. However, due to the sparsity and unordered structure of the data, it is difficult to compress point cloud data to a low volume. Transforming the raw point cloud data into a dense 2D matrix structure is a promising way for applying compression algorithms. We propose a new lossless and calibrated 3D-to-2D transformation which allows compression algorithms to efficiently exploit spatial correlations within the 2D representation. To compress the structured representation, we use common image compression methods and also a self-supervised deep compression approach using a recurrent neural network. We also rearrange the LiDAR's intensity measurements to a dense 2D representation and propose a new metric to evaluate the compression performance of the intensity. Compared to approaches that are based on generic octree point cloud compression or based on raw point cloud data compression, our approach achieves the best quantitative and visual performance. Source code and dataset are available at https://github.com/ika-rwth-aachen/Point-Cloud-Compression.
MultiCorrupt: A Multi-Modal Robustness Dataset and Benchmark of LiDAR-Camera Fusion for 3D Object Detection
Authors: Till Beemelmanns, Quan Zhang, Christian Geller, Lutz Eckstein
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: 3D Object Detection, Dataset Generation, object-detection, Object Detection

Multi-modal 3D object detection models for automated driving have demonstrated exceptional performance on computer vision benchmarks like nuScenes. However, their reliance on densely sampled LiDAR point clouds and meticulously calibrated sensor arrays poses challenges for real-world applications. Issues such as sensor misalignment, miscalibration, and disparate sampling frequencies lead to spatial and temporal misalignment in data from LiDAR and cameras. Additionally, the integrity of LiDAR and camera data is often compromised by adverse environmental conditions such as inclement weather, leading to occlusions and noise interference. To address this challenge, we introduce MultiCorrupt, a comprehensive benchmark designed to evaluate the robustness of multi-modal 3D object detectors against ten distinct types of corruptions. We evaluate five state-of-the-art multi-modal detectors on MultiCorrupt and analyze their performance in terms of their resistance ability. Our results show that existing methods exhibit varying degrees of robustness depending on the type of corruption and their fusion strategy. We provide insights into which multi-modal design choices make such models robust against certain perturbations. The dataset generation code and benchmark are open-sourced at https://github.com/ika-rwth-aachen/MultiCorrupt.
A Multi-Aspect Framework for Counter Narrative Evaluation using Large Language Models
Authors: Jaylen Jones, Lingbo Mo, Eric Fosler-Lussier, Huan Sun
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00

Counter narratives - informed responses to hate speech contexts designed to refute hateful claims and de-escalate encounters - have emerged as an effective hate speech intervention strategy. While previous work has proposed automatic counter narrative generation methods to aid manual interventions, the evaluation of these approaches remains underdeveloped. Previous automatic metrics for counter narrative evaluation lack alignment with human judgment as they rely on superficial reference comparisons instead of incorporating key aspects of counter narrative quality as evaluation criteria. To address prior evaluation limitations, we propose a novel evaluation framework prompting LLMs to provide scores and feedback for generated counter narrative candidates using 5 defined aspects derived from guidelines from counter narrative specialized NGOs. We found that LLM evaluators achieve strong alignment to human-annotated scores and feedback and outperform alternative metrics, indicating their potential as multi-aspect, reference-free and interpretable evaluators for counter narrative evaluation.
Autocorrect for Estonian texts: final report from project EKTB25
Authors: Agnes Luhtaru, Martin Vainikko, Krista Liin, Kais Allkivi-Metsoja, Jaagup Kippar, Pille Eslon, Mark Fishel
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Language Modelling, Transfer Learning

The project was funded in 2021-2023 by the National Programme of Estonian Language Technology. Its main aim was to develop spelling and grammar correction tools for the Estonian language. The main challenge was the very small amount of available error correction data needed for such development. To mitigate this, (1) we annotated more correction data for model training and testing, (2) we tested transfer-learning, i.e. retraining machine learning models created for other tasks, so as not to depend solely on correction data, (3) we compared the developed method and model with alternatives, including large language models. We also developed automatic evaluation, which can calculate the accuracy and yield of corrections by error category, so that the effectiveness of different methods can be compared in detail. There has been a breakthrough in large language models during the project: GPT4, a commercial language model with Estonian-language support, has been created. We took into account the existence of the model when adjusting plans and in the report we present a comparison with the ability of GPT4 to improve the Estonian language text. The final results show that the approach we have developed provides better scores than GPT4 and the result is usable but not entirely reliable yet. The report also contains ideas on how GPT4 and other major language models can be implemented in the future, focusing on open-source solutions. All results of this project are open-data/open-source, with licenses that allow them to be used for purposes including commercial ones.
Dynamic planning in hierarchical active inference
Authors: Matteo Priorelli, Ivilin Peev Stoianov
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Decision Making

By dynamic planning, we refer to the ability of the human brain to infer and impose motor trajectories related to cognitive decisions. A recent paradigm, active inference, brings fundamental insights into the adaptation of biological organisms, constantly striving to minimize prediction errors to restrict themselves to life-compatible states. Over the past years, many studies have shown how human and animal behaviors could be explained in terms of active inference - either as discrete decision-making or continuous motor control - inspiring innovative solutions in robotics and artificial intelligence. Still, the literature lacks a comprehensive outlook on effectively planning realistic actions in changing environments. Setting ourselves the goal of modeling complex tasks such as tool use, we delve into the topic of dynamic planning in active inference, keeping in mind two crucial aspects of biological behavior: the capacity to understand and exploit affordances for object manipulation, and to learn the hierarchical interactions between the self and the environment, including other agents. We start from a simple unit and gradually describe more advanced structures, comparing recently proposed design choices and providing basic examples. This study distances itself from traditional views centered on neural networks and reinforcement learning, and points toward a yet unexplored direction in active inference: hybrid representations in hierarchical models.
Combinatorial Client-Master Multiagent Deep Reinforcement Learning for Task Offloading in Mobile Edge Computing
Authors: Tesfay Zemuy Gebrekidan, Sebastian Stein, Timothy J. Norman
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Reinforcement Learning, Edge-computing, Face Recognition

Recently, there has been an explosion of mobile applications that perform computationally intensive tasks such as video streaming, data mining, virtual reality, augmented reality, image processing, video processing, face recognition, and online gaming. However, user devices (UDs), such as tablets and smartphones, have a limited ability to perform the computation needs of the tasks. Mobile edge computing (MEC) has emerged as a promising technology to meet the increasing computing demands of UDs. Task offloading in MEC is a strategy that meets the demands of UDs by distributing tasks between UDs and MEC servers. Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is gaining attention in task-offloading problems because it can adapt to dynamic changes and minimize online computational complexity. However, the various types of continuous and discrete resource constraints on UDs and MEC servers pose challenges to the design of an efficient DRL-based task-offloading strategy. Existing DRL-based task-offloading algorithms focus on the constraints of the UDs, assuming the availability of enough storage resources on the server. Moreover, existing multiagent DRL (MADRL)--based task-offloading algorithms are homogeneous agents and consider homogeneous constraints as a penalty in their reward function. We proposed a novel combinatorial client-master MADRL (CCM\_MADRL) algorithm for task offloading in MEC (CCM\_MADRL\_MEC) that enables UDs to decide their resource requirements and the server to make a combinatorial decision based on the requirements of the UDs. CCM\_MADRL\_MEC is the first MADRL in task offloading to consider server storage capacity in addition to the constraints in the UDs. By taking advantage of the combinatorial action selection, CCM\_MADRL\_MEC has shown superior convergence over existing MADDPG and heuristic algorithms.
Image Denoising with Machine Learning: A Novel Approach to Improve Quantum Image Processing Quality and Reliability
Authors: Yifan Zhou, Yan Shing Liang
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Denoising, Image Denoising, SSIM

Quantum Image Processing (QIP) is a field that aims to utilize the benefits of quantum computing for manipulating and analyzing images. However, QIP faces two challenges: the limitation of qubits and the presence of noise in a quantum machine. In this research, we propose a novel approach to address the issue of noise in QIP. By training and employing a machine learning model that identifies and corrects the noise in quantum-processed images, we can compensate for the noisiness caused by the machine and retrieve a processing result similar to that performed by a classical computer with higher efficiency. The model is trained by learning a dataset consisting of both existing processed images and quantum-processed images from open-access datasets. This model will be capable of providing us with the confidence level for each pixel and its potential original value. To assess the model's accuracy in compensating for loss and decoherence in QIP, we evaluate it using three metrics: Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), and Mean Opinion Score (MOS). Additionally, we discuss the applicability of our model across domains well as its cost effectiveness compared to alternative methods.
Logical Closed Loop: Uncovering Object Hallucinations in Large Vision-Language Models
Authors: Junfei Wu, Qiang Liu, Ding Wang, Jinghao Zhang, Shu Wu, Liang Wang, Tieniu Tan
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Hallucination, Object, Object Hallucination

Object hallucination has been an Achilles' heel which hinders the broader applications of large vision-language models (LVLMs). Object hallucination refers to the phenomenon that the LVLMs claim non-existent objects in the image. To mitigate the object hallucinations, instruction tuning and external model-based detection methods have been proposed, which either require large-scare computational resources or depend on the detection result of external models. However, there remains an under-explored field to utilize the LVLM itself to alleviate object hallucinations. In this work, we adopt the intuition that the LVLM tends to respond logically consistently for existent objects but inconsistently for hallucinated objects. Therefore, we propose a Logical Closed Loop-based framework for Object Hallucination Detection and Mitigation, namely LogicCheckGPT. In specific, we devise logical consistency probing to raise questions with logical correlations, inquiring about attributes from objects and vice versa. Whether their responses can form a logical closed loop serves as an indicator of object hallucination. As a plug-and-play method, it can be seamlessly applied to all existing LVLMs. Comprehensive experiments conducted on three benchmarks across four LVLMs have demonstrated significant improvements brought by our method, indicating its effectiveness and generality.
Simplifying Hyperparameter Tuning in Online Machine Learning -- The spotRiverGUI
Authors: Thomas Bartz-Beielstein
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Anomaly Detection

Batch Machine Learning (BML) reaches its limits when dealing with very large amounts of streaming data. This is especially true for available memory, handling drift in data streams, and processing new, unknown data. Online Machine Learning (OML) is an alternative to BML that overcomes the limitations of BML. OML is able to process data in a sequential manner, which is especially useful for data streams. The `river` package is a Python OML-library, which provides a variety of online learning algorithms for classification, regression, clustering, anomaly detection, and more. The `spotRiver` package provides a framework for hyperparameter tuning of OML models. The `spotRiverGUI` is a graphical user interface for the `spotRiver` package. The `spotRiverGUI` releases the user from the burden of manually searching for the optimal hyperparameter setting. After the data is provided, users can compare different OML algorithms from the powerful `river` package in a convenient way and tune the selected algorithms very efficiently.
SDiT: Spiking Diffusion Model with Transformer
Authors: Shu Yang, Hanzhi Ma, Chengting Yu, Aili Wang, Er-Ping Li
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Image Generation, model

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) have low power consumption and bio-interpretable characteristics, and are considered to have tremendous potential for energy-efficient computing. However, the exploration of SNNs on image generation tasks remains very limited, and a unified and effective structure for SNN-based generative models has yet to be proposed. In this paper, we explore a novel diffusion model architecture within spiking neural networks. We utilize transformer to replace the commonly used U-net structure in mainstream diffusion models. It can generate higher quality images with relatively lower computational cost and shorter sampling time. It aims to provide an empirical baseline for research of generative models based on SNNs. Experiments on MNIST, Fashion-MNIST, and CIFAR-10 datasets demonstrate that our work is highly competitive compared to existing SNN generative models.
Ain't Misbehavin' -- Using LLMs to Generate Expressive Robot Behavior in Conversations with the Tabletop Robot Haru
Authors: Zining Wang, Paul Reisert, Eric Nichols, Randy Gomez
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Automatic Speech Recognition, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Emotion Recognition, speech-recognition, Speech Recognition, text-to-speech, Text to Speech

Social robots aim to establish long-term bonds with humans through engaging conversation. However, traditional conversational approaches, reliant on scripted interactions, often fall short in maintaining engaging conversations. This paper addresses this limitation by integrating large language models (LLMs) into social robots to achieve more dynamic and expressive conversations. We introduce a fully-automated conversation system that leverages LLMs to generate robot responses with expressive behaviors, congruent with the robot's personality. We incorporate robot behavior with two modalities: 1) a text-to-speech (TTS) engine capable of various delivery styles, and 2) a library of physical actions for the robot. We develop a custom, state-of-the-art emotion recognition model to dynamically select the robot's tone of voice and utilize emojis from LLM output as cues for generating robot actions. A demo of our system is available here. To illuminate design and implementation issues, we conduct a pilot study where volunteers chat with a social robot using our proposed system, and we analyze their feedback, conducting a rigorous error analysis of chat transcripts. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with participants commenting on the robot's empathy, helpfulness, naturalness, and entertainment. Most negative feedback was due to automatic speech recognition (ASR) errors which had limited impact on conversations. However, we observed a small class of errors, such as the LLM repeating itself or hallucinating fictitious information and human responses, that have the potential to derail conversations, raising important issues for LLM application.
Developing Autonomous Robot-Mediated Behavior Coaching Sessions with Haru
Authors: Matouš Jelínek, Eric Nichols, Randy Gomez
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00

This study presents an empirical investigation into the design and impact of autonomous dialogues in human-robot interaction for behavior change coaching. We focus on the use of Haru, a tabletop social robot, and explore the implementation of the Tiny Habits method for fostering positive behavior change. The core of our study lies in developing a fully autonomous dialogue system that maximizes Haru's emotional expressiveness and unique personality. Our methodology involved iterative design and extensive testing of the dialogue system, ensuring it effectively embodied the principles of the Tiny Habits method while also incorporating strategies for trust-raising and trust-dampening. The effectiveness of the final version of the dialogue was evaluated in an experimental study with human participants (N=12). The results indicated a significant improvement in perceptions of Haru's liveliness, interactivity, and neutrality. Additionally, our study contributes to the broader understanding of dialogue design in social robotics, offering practical insights for future developments in the field.
Continual Learning on Graphs: Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities
Authors: Xikun Zhang, Dongjin Song, DaCheng Tao
Date: 2024-02-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Continual Learning, Graph Learning

Continual learning on graph data has recently attracted paramount attention for its aim to resolve the catastrophic forgetting problem on existing tasks while adapting the sequentially updated model to newly emerged graph tasks. While there have been efforts to summarize progress on continual learning research over Euclidean data, e.g., images and texts, a systematic review of progress in continual learning on graphs, a.k.a, continual graph learning (CGL) or lifelong graph learning, is still demanding. Graph data are far more complex in terms of data structures and application scenarios, making CGL task settings, model designs, and applications extremely challenging. To bridge the gap, we provide a comprehensive review of existing continual graph learning (CGL) algorithms by elucidating the different task settings and categorizing the existing methods based on their characteristics. We compare the CGL methods with traditional continual learning techniques and analyze the applicability of the traditional continual learning techniques to CGL tasks. Additionally, we review the benchmark works that are crucial to CGL research. Finally, we discuss the remaining challenges and propose several future directions. We will maintain an up-to-date GitHub repository featuring a comprehensive list of CGL algorithms, accessible at https://github.com/UConn-DSIS/Survey-of-Continual-Learning-on-Graphs.