pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Fed-Safe: Securing Federated Learning in Healthcare Against Adversarial Attacks
Authors: Erfan Darzi, Nanna M. Sijtsema, P. M. A van Ooijen
Date: 2023-10-12 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning, Medical Image Analysis

This paper explores the security aspects of federated learning applications in medical image analysis. Current robustness-oriented methods like adversarial training, secure aggregation, and homomorphic encryption often risk privacy compromises. The central aim is to defend the network against potential privacy breaches while maintaining model robustness against adversarial manipulations. We show that incorporating distributed noise, grounded in the privacy guarantees in federated settings, enables the development of a adversarially robust model that also meets federated privacy standards. We conducted comprehensive evaluations across diverse attack scenarios, parameters, and use cases in cancer imaging, concentrating on pathology, meningioma, and glioma. The results reveal that the incorporation of distributed noise allows for the attainment of security levels comparable to those of conventional adversarial training while requiring fewer retraining samples to establish a robust model.
SSG2: A new modelling paradigm for semantic segmentation
Authors: Foivos I. Diakogiannis, Suzanne Furby, Peter Caccetta, Xiaoliang Wu, Rodrigo Ibata, Ondrej Hlinka, John Taylor
Date: 2023-10-12 00:00:00
Tasks: Change Detection, Lesion Segmentation, Segmentation, Semantic Segmentation, Skin Lesion Segmentation

State-of-the-art models in semantic segmentation primarily operate on single, static images, generating corresponding segmentation masks. This one-shot approach leaves little room for error correction, as the models lack the capability to integrate multiple observations for enhanced accuracy. Inspired by work on semantic change detection, we address this limitation by introducing a methodology that leverages a sequence of observables generated for each static input image. By adding this "temporal" dimension, we exploit strong signal correlations between successive observations in the sequence to reduce error rates. Our framework, dubbed SSG2 (Semantic Segmentation Generation 2), employs a dual-encoder, single-decoder base network augmented with a sequence model. The base model learns to predict the set intersection, union, and difference of labels from dual-input images. Given a fixed target input image and a set of support images, the sequence model builds the predicted mask of the target by synthesizing the partial views from each sequence step and filtering out noise. We evaluate SSG2 across three diverse datasets: UrbanMonitor, featuring orthoimage tiles from Darwin, Australia with five spectral bands and 0.2m spatial resolution; ISPRS Potsdam, which includes true orthophoto images with multiple spectral bands and a 5cm ground sampling distance; and ISIC2018, a medical dataset focused on skin lesion segmentation, particularly melanoma. The SSG2 model demonstrates rapid convergence within the first few tens of epochs and significantly outperforms UNet-like baseline models with the same number of gradient updates. However, the addition of the temporal dimension results in an increased memory footprint. While this could be a limitation, it is offset by the advent of higher-memory GPUs and coding optimizations.
Multimodal Large Language Model for Visual Navigation
Authors: Yao-Hung Hubert Tsai, Vansh Dhar, Jialu Li, BoWen Zhang, Jian Zhang
Date: 2023-10-12 00:00:00
Tasks: Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Large Language Model, model, Multimodal Large Language Model, Prompt Engineering, Visual Navigation

Recent efforts to enable visual navigation using large language models have mainly focused on developing complex prompt systems. These systems incorporate instructions, observations, and history into massive text prompts, which are then combined with pre-trained large language models to facilitate visual navigation. In contrast, our approach aims to fine-tune large language models for visual navigation without extensive prompt engineering. Our design involves a simple text prompt, current observations, and a history collector model that gathers information from previous observations as input. For output, our design provides a probability distribution of possible actions that the agent can take during navigation. We train our model using human demonstrations and collision signals from the Habitat-Matterport 3D Dataset (HM3D). Experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art behavior cloning methods and effectively reduces collision rates.
Histogram- and Diffusion-Based Medical Out-of-Distribution Detection
Authors: Evi M. C. Huijben, Sina Amirrajab, Josien P. W. Pluim
Date: 2023-10-12 00:00:00
Tasks: Anomaly Detection, Out-of-Distribution Detection, Out of Distribution (OOD) Detection, Unsupervised Anomaly Detection

Out-of-distribution (OOD) detection is crucial for the safety and reliability of artificial intelligence algorithms, especially in the medical domain. In the context of the Medical OOD (MOOD) detection challenge 2023, we propose a pipeline that combines a histogram-based method and a diffusion-based method. The histogram-based method is designed to accurately detect homogeneous anomalies in the toy examples of the challenge, such as blobs with constant intensity values. The diffusion-based method is based on one of the latest methods for unsupervised anomaly detection, called DDPM-OOD. We explore this method and propose extensive post-processing steps for pixel-level and sample-level anomaly detection on brain MRI and abdominal CT data provided by the challenge. Our results show that the proposed DDPM method is sensitive to blur and bias field samples, but faces challenges with anatomical deformation, black slice, and swapped patches. These findings suggest that further research is needed to improve the performance of DDPM for OOD detection in medical images.
Defect Analysis of 3D Printed Cylinder Object Using Transfer Learning Approaches
Authors: Md Manjurul Ahsan, Shivakumar Raman, Zahed Siddique
Date: 2023-10-12 00:00:00
Tasks: Defect Detection, Model Optimization, Transfer Learning

Additive manufacturing (AM) is gaining attention across various industries like healthcare, aerospace, and automotive. However, identifying defects early in the AM process can reduce production costs and improve productivity - a key challenge. This study explored the effectiveness of machine learning (ML) approaches, specifically transfer learning (TL) models, for defect detection in 3D-printed cylinders. Images of cylinders were analyzed using models including VGG16, VGG19, ResNet50, ResNet101, InceptionResNetV2, and MobileNetV2. Performance was compared across two datasets using accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score metrics. In the first study, VGG16, InceptionResNetV2, and MobileNetV2 achieved perfect scores. In contrast, ResNet50 had the lowest performance, with an average F1-score of 0.32. Similarly, in the second study, MobileNetV2 correctly classified all instances, while ResNet50 struggled with more false positives and fewer true positives, resulting in an F1-score of 0.75. Overall, the findings suggest certain TL models like MobileNetV2 can deliver high accuracy for AM defect classification, although performance varies across algorithms. The results provide insights into model optimization and integration needs for reliable automated defect analysis during 3D printing. By identifying the top-performing TL techniques, this study aims to enhance AM product quality through robust image-based monitoring and inspection.
Implicit Shape and Appearance Priors for Few-Shot Full Head Reconstruction
Authors: Pol Caselles, Eduard Ramon, Jaime Garcia, Gil Triginer, Francesc Moreno-Noguer
Date: 2023-10-12 00:00:00
Tasks: 3D Reconstruction, Multi-View 3D Reconstruction

Recent advancements in learning techniques that employ coordinate-based neural representations have yielded remarkable results in multi-view 3D reconstruction tasks. However, these approaches often require a substantial number of input views (typically several tens) and computationally intensive optimization procedures to achieve their effectiveness. In this paper, we address these limitations specifically for the problem of few-shot full 3D head reconstruction. We accomplish this by incorporating a probabilistic shape and appearance prior into coordinate-based representations, enabling faster convergence and improved generalization when working with only a few input images (even as low as a single image). During testing, we leverage this prior to guide the fitting process of a signed distance function using a differentiable renderer. By incorporating the statistical prior alongside parallelizable ray tracing and dynamic caching strategies, we achieve an efficient and accurate approach to few-shot full 3D head reconstruction. Moreover, we extend the H3DS dataset, which now comprises 60 high-resolution 3D full head scans and their corresponding posed images and masks, which we use for evaluation purposes. By leveraging this dataset, we demonstrate the remarkable capabilities of our approach in achieving state-of-the-art results in geometry reconstruction while being an order of magnitude faster than previous approaches.
BrainVoxGen: Deep learning framework for synthesis of Ultrasound to MRI
Authors: Shubham Singh, Mrunal Bewoor, Ammar Ranapurwala, Satyam Rai, Sheetal Patil
Date: 2023-10-11 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Learning, Generative Adversarial Network

The work proposes a novel deep-learning framework for the synthesis of three-dimensional MRI volumes from corresponding 3D ultrasound images of the brain, leveraging a modified iteration of the Pix2Pix Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) model. Addressing the formidable challenge of bridging the modality disparity between ultrasound and MRI, this research holds promise for transformative applications in medical diagnostics and treatment planning within the neuroimaging domain. While the findings reveal a discernible degree of similarity between the synthesized MRI volumes and anticipated outcomes, they fall short of practical deployment standards, primarily due to constraints associated with dataset scale and computational resources. The methodology yields MRI volumes with a satisfactory similarity score, establishing a foundational benchmark for subsequent investigations.
Disentangled Latent Spaces Facilitate Data-Driven Auxiliary Learning
Authors: Geri Skenderi, Luigi Capogrosso, Andrea Toaiari, Matteo Denitto, Franco Fummi, Simone Melzi, Marco Cristani
Date: 2023-10-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Auxiliary Learning, Disentanglement, Meta-Learning, Multi-Task Learning

Auxiliary tasks facilitate learning in situations when data is scarce or the principal task of focus is extremely complex. This idea is primarily inspired by the improved generalization capability induced by solving multiple tasks simultaneously, which leads to a more robust shared representation. Nevertheless, finding optimal auxiliary tasks is a crucial problem that often requires hand-crafted solutions or expensive meta-learning approaches. In this paper, we propose a novel framework, dubbed Detaux, whereby a weakly supervised disentanglement procedure is used to discover a new unrelated auxiliary classification task, which allows us to go from a Single-Task Learning (STL) to a Multi-Task Learning (MTL) problem. The disentanglement procedure works at the representation level, isolating the variation related to the principal task into an isolated subspace and additionally producing an arbitrary number of orthogonal subspaces, each one of them encouraging high separability among the projections. We generate the auxiliary classification task through a clustering procedure on the most disentangled subspace, obtaining a discrete set of labels. Subsequently, the original data, the labels associated with the principal task, and the newly discovered ones can be fed into any MTL framework. Experimental validation on both synthetic and real data, along with various ablation studies, demonstrate promising results, revealing the potential in what has been, so far, an unexplored connection between learning disentangled representations and MTL. The source code will be made available upon acceptance.
A Hybrid Approach for Depression Classification: Random Forest-ANN Ensemble on Motor Activity Signals
Authors: Anket Patil, Dhairya Shah, Abhishek Shah, Mokshit Gala
Date: 2023-10-13 00:00:00

Regarding the rising number of people suffering from mental health illnesses in today's society, the importance of mental health cannot be overstated. Wearable sensors, which are increasingly widely available, provide a potential way to track and comprehend mental health issues. These gadgets not only monitor everyday activities but also continuously record vital signs like heart rate, perhaps providing information on a person's mental state. Recent research has used these sensors in conjunction with machine learning methods to identify patterns relating to different mental health conditions, highlighting the immense potential of this data beyond simple activity monitoring. In this research, we present a novel algorithm called the Hybrid Random forest - Neural network that has been tailored to evaluate sensor data from depressed patients. Our method has a noteworthy accuracy of 80\% when evaluated on a special dataset that included both unipolar and bipolar depressive patients as well as healthy controls. The findings highlight the algorithm's potential for reliably determining a person's depression condition using sensor data, making a substantial contribution to the area of mental health diagnostics.
Genetic algorithms are strong baselines for molecule generation
Authors: Austin Tripp, José Miguel Hernández-Lobato
Date: 2023-10-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Drug Discovery

Generating molecules, both in a directed and undirected fashion, is a huge part of the drug discovery pipeline. Genetic algorithms (GAs) generate molecules by randomly modifying known molecules. In this paper we show that GAs are very strong algorithms for such tasks, outperforming many complicated machine learning methods: a result which many researchers may find surprising. We therefore propose insisting during peer review that new algorithms must have some clear advantage over GAs, which we call the GA criterion. Ultimately our work suggests that a lot of research in molecule generation should be re-assessed.
User Inference Attacks on Large Language Models
Authors: Nikhil Kandpal, Krishna Pillutla, Alina Oprea, Peter Kairouz, Christopher A. Choquette-Choo, Zheng Xu
Date: 2023-10-13 00:00:00

Fine-tuning is a common and effective method for tailoring large language models (LLMs) to specialized tasks and applications. In this paper, we study the privacy implications of fine-tuning LLMs on user data. To this end, we consider a realistic threat model, called user inference, wherein an attacker infers whether or not a user's data was used for fine-tuning. We design attacks for performing user inference that require only black-box access to the fine-tuned LLM and a few samples from a user which need not be from the fine-tuning dataset. We find that LLMs are susceptible to user inference across a variety of fine-tuning datasets, at times with near perfect attack success rates. Further, we theoretically and empirically investigate the properties that make users vulnerable to user inference, finding that outlier users, users with identifiable shared features between examples, and users that contribute a large fraction of the fine-tuning data are most susceptible to attack. Based on these findings, we identify several methods for mitigating user inference including training with example-level differential privacy, removing within-user duplicate examples, and reducing a user's contribution to the training data. While these techniques provide partial mitigation of user inference, we highlight the need to develop methods to fully protect fine-tuned LLMs against this privacy risk.
PromptRE: Weakly-Supervised Document-Level Relation Extraction via Prompting-Based Data Programming
Authors: Chufan Gao, Xulin Fan, Jimeng Sun, Xuan Wang
Date: 2023-10-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Document-level Relation Extraction, Relation, Relation Classification, Relation Extraction, Sentence

Relation extraction aims to classify the relationships between two entities into pre-defined categories. While previous research has mainly focused on sentence-level relation extraction, recent studies have expanded the scope to document-level relation extraction. Traditional relation extraction methods heavily rely on human-annotated training data, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. To mitigate the need for manual annotation, recent weakly-supervised approaches have been developed for sentence-level relation extraction while limited work has been done on document-level relation extraction. Weakly-supervised document-level relation extraction faces significant challenges due to an imbalanced number "no relation" instances and the failure of directly probing pretrained large language models for document relation extraction. To address these challenges, we propose PromptRE, a novel weakly-supervised document-level relation extraction method that combines prompting-based techniques with data programming. Furthermore, PromptRE incorporates the label distribution and entity types as prior knowledge to improve the performance. By leveraging the strengths of both prompting and data programming, PromptRE achieves improved performance in relation classification and effectively handles the "no relation" problem. Experimental results on ReDocRED, a benchmark dataset for document-level relation extraction, demonstrate the superiority of PromptRE over baseline approaches.
QUIK: Towards End-to-End 4-Bit Inference on Generative Large Language Models
Authors: Saleh Ashkboos, Ilia Markov, Elias Frantar, Tingxuan Zhong, Xincheng Wang, Jie Ren, Torsten Hoefler, Dan Alistarh
Date: 2023-10-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Computational Efficiency, GPU, Quantization

Large Language Models (LLMs) from the GPT family have become extremely popular, leading to a race towards reducing their inference costs to allow for efficient local computation. Yet, the vast majority of existing work focuses on weight-only quantization, which can reduce runtime costs in the memory-bound one-token-at-a-time generative setting, but does not address them in compute-bound scenarios, such as batched inference or prompt processing. In this paper, we address the general quantization problem, where both weights and activations should be quantized. We show, for the first time, that the majority of inference computations for large generative models such as LLaMA, OPT, and Falcon can be performed with both weights and activations being cast to 4 bits, in a way that leads to practical speedups, while at the same time maintaining good accuracy. We achieve this via a hybrid quantization strategy called QUIK, which compresses most of the weights and activations to 4-bit, while keeping some outlier weights and activations in higher-precision. The key feature of our scheme is that it is designed with computational efficiency in mind: we provide GPU kernels matching the QUIK format with highly-efficient layer-wise runtimes, which lead to practical end-to-end throughput improvements of up to 3.4x relative to FP16 execution. We provide detailed studies for models from the OPT, LLaMA-2 and Falcon families, as well as a first instance of accurate inference using quantization plus 2:4 sparsity. Code is available at: https://github.com/IST-DASLab/QUIK.
GENOT: Entropic (Gromov) Wasserstein Flow Matching with Applications to Single-Cell Genomics
Authors: Dominik Klein, Théo Uscidda, Fabian Theis, Marco Cuturi
Date: 2023-10-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Inductive Bias

Single-cell genomics has significantly advanced our understanding of cellular behavior, catalyzing innovations in treatments and precision medicine. However, single-cell sequencing technologies are inherently destructive and can only measure a limited array of data modalities simultaneously. This limitation underscores the need for new methods capable of realigning cells. Optimal transport (OT) has emerged as a potent solution, but traditional discrete solvers are hampered by scalability, privacy, and out-of-sample estimation issues. These challenges have spurred the development of neural network-based solvers, known as neural OT solvers, that parameterize OT maps. Yet, these models often lack the flexibility needed for broader life science applications. To address these deficiencies, our approach learns stochastic maps (i.e. transport plans), allows for any cost function, relaxes mass conservation constraints and integrates quadratic solvers to tackle the complex challenges posed by the (Fused) Gromov-Wasserstein problem. Utilizing flow matching as a backbone, our method offers a flexible and effective framework. We demonstrate its versatility and robustness through applications in cell development studies, cellular drug response modeling, and cross-modality cell translation, illustrating significant potential for enhancing therapeutic strategies.
Insuring Smiles: Predicting routine dental coverage using Spark ML
Authors: Aishwarya Gupta, Rahul S. Bhogale, Priyanka Thota, Prathushkumar Dathuri, Jongwook Woo
Date: 2023-10-13 00:00:00

Finding suitable health insurance coverage can be challenging for individuals and small enterprises in the USA. The Health Insurance Exchange Public Use Files (Exchange PUFs) dataset provided by CMS offers valuable information on health and dental policies [1]. In this paper, we leverage machine learning algorithms to predict if a health insurance plan covers routine dental services for adults. By analyzing plan type, region, deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums, and copayments, we employ Logistic Regression, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Gradient Boost, Factorization Model and Support Vector Machine algorithms. Our goal is to provide a clinical strategy for individuals and families to select the most suitable insurance plan based on income and expenses.
Regularization-Based Methods for Ordinal Quantification
Authors: Mirko Bunse, Alejandro Moreo, Fabrizio Sebastiani, Martin Senz
Date: 2023-10-13 00:00:00

Quantification, i.e., the task of training predictors of the class prevalence values in sets of unlabeled data items, has received increased attention in recent years. However, most quantification research has concentrated on developing algorithms for binary and multiclass problems in which the classes are not ordered. Here, we study the ordinal case, i.e., the case in which a total order is defined on the set of n>2 classes. We give three main contributions to this field. First, we create and make available two datasets for ordinal quantification (OQ) research that overcome the inadequacies of the previously available ones. Second, we experimentally compare the most important OQ algorithms proposed in the literature so far. To this end, we bring together algorithms proposed by authors from very different research fields, such as data mining and astrophysics, who were unaware of each others' developments. Third, we propose a novel class of regularized OQ algorithms, which outperforms existing algorithms in our experiments. The key to this gain in performance is that our regularization prevents ordinally implausible estimates, assuming that ordinal distributions tend to be smooth in practice. We informally verify this assumption for several real-world applications.