pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Data-Driven Computational Imaging for Scientific Discovery
Authors: Andrew Olsen, Yolanda Hu, Vidya Ganapati
Date: 2022-10-29 00:00:00
Tasks: Computed Tomography (CT), Object Reconstruction, scientific discovery, Super-Resolution, Transparent objects

In computational imaging, hardware for signal sampling and software for object reconstruction are designed in tandem for improved capability. Examples of such systems include computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and superresolution microscopy. In contrast to more traditional cameras, in these devices, indirect measurements are taken and computational algorithms are used for reconstruction. This allows for advanced capabilities such as super-resolution or 3-dimensional imaging, pushing forward the frontier of scientific discovery. However, these techniques generally require a large number of measurements, causing low throughput, motion artifacts, and/or radiation damage, limiting applications. Data-driven approaches to reducing the number of measurements needed have been proposed, but they predominately require a ground truth or reference dataset, which may be impossible to collect. This work outlines a self-supervised approach and explores the future work that is necessary to make such a technique usable for real applications. Light-emitting diode (LED) array microscopy, a modality that allows visualization of transparent objects in two and three dimensions with high resolution and field-of-view, is used as an illustrative example. We release our code at https://github.com/vganapati/LED_PVAE and our experimental data at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21232088 .
Shrinkage Methods for Treatment Choice
Authors: Takuya Ishihara, Daisuke Kurisu
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00

This study examines the problem of determining whether to treat individuals based on observed covariates. The most common decision rule is the conditional empirical success (CES) rule proposed by Manski (2004), which assigns individuals to treatments that yield the best experimental outcomes conditional on the observed covariates. Conversely, using shrinkage estimators, which shrink unbiased but noisy preliminary estimates toward the average of these estimates, is a common approach in statistical estimation problems because it is well-known that shrinkage estimators may have smaller mean squared errors than unshrunk estimators. Inspired by this idea, we propose a computationally tractable shrinkage rule that selects the shrinkage factor by minimizing an upper bound of the maximum regret. Then, we compare the maximum regret of the proposed shrinkage rule with those of the CES and pooling rules when the space of conditional average treatment effects (CATEs) is correctly specified or misspecified. Our theoretical results demonstrate that the shrinkage rule performs well in many cases and these findings are further supported by numerical experiments. Specifically, we show that the maximum regret of the shrinkage rule can be strictly smaller than those of the CES and pooling rules in certain cases when the space of CATEs is correctly specified. In addition, we find that the shrinkage rule is robust against misspecification of the space of CATEs. Finally, we apply our method to experimental data from the National Job Training Partnership Act Study.
Non-Robustness of the Cluster-Robust Inference: with a Proposal of a New Robust Method
Authors: Yuya Sasaki, Yulong Wang
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Articles

The conventional cluster-robust (CR) standard errors may not be robust. They are vulnerable to data that contain a small number of large clusters. When a researcher uses the 51 states in the U.S. as clusters, the largest cluster (California) consists of about 10% of the total sample. Such a case in fact violates the assumptions under which the widely used CR methods are guaranteed to work. We formally show that the conventional CR methods fail if the distribution of cluster sizes follows a power law with exponent less than two. Besides the example of 51 state clusters, some examples are drawn from a list of recent original research articles published in a top journal. In light of these negative results about the existing CR methods, we propose a weighted CR (WCR) method as a simple fix. Simulation studies support our arguments that the WCR method is robust while the conventional CR methods are not.
DeFi versus TradFi: Valuation Using Multiples and Discounted Cash Flows
Authors: Teng Andrea Xu, Jiahua Xu, Kristof Lommers
Date: 2022-10-30 00:00:00

As of August 2022, blockchain-based assets boast a combined market capitalisation exceeding one trillion USD, among which the most prominent are the decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) tokens associated with decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols. In this work, we seek to value DeFi tokens using the canonical multiples and discount cash flow (DCF) approaches. We examine a subset of DeFi services including decentralised exchanges (DEXs), protocol for loanable funds (PLFs), and yield aggregators. We apply the same analysis to some publicly traded firms and compare them with DeFi tokens of the analogous category. Interestingly, despite the crypto bear market lasting for more than one year as of August 2022, both approaches evidence overvaluation in DeFi.
Trade-Offs Between Ranking Objectives: Reduced-Form Evidence and Structural Estimation
Authors: Rafael P. Greminger
Date: 2022-10-28 00:00:00
Tasks: counterfactual, Form, Position

Online retailers and platforms typically present alternatives using ranked product lists. By adjusting the ranking, these platforms influence consumers' choices and, in turn, conversions, platform revenues, and consumer welfare. In this paper, I study the trade-offs between ranking algorithms that target these different objectives. First, I highlight and provide reduced-form evidence for a key factor shaping these trade-offs: cross-product heterogeneity in position effects. To quantify the effects of different rankings, I then develop an empirical framework based on the search and discovery model of Greminger (2022). For this framework, I show that the ranking that maximizes conversions also maximizes consumer welfare, implying no trade-off between these two objectives. Moreover, I develop and test a heuristic ranking algorithm to maximize revenues. Finally, I estimate the model and compare the effects of the rankings developed for the different objectives. The results highlight the effectiveness of the different rankings and reveal that the proposed heuristic to maximize revenues also increases consumer welfare, suggesting that the trade-off between revenue maximization and consumer welfare also is limited.
Rationalization of indecisive choice behavior by majoritarian ballots
Authors: José Carlos R. Alcantud, Domenico Cantone, Alfio Giarlotta, Stephen Watson
Date: 2022-10-30 00:00:00

We describe a model that explains possibly indecisive choice behavior, that is, quasi-choices (choice correspondences that may be empty on some menus). The justification is here provided by a proportion of ballots, which are quasi-choices rationalizable by an arbitrary binary relation. We call a quasi-choice $s$-majoritarian if all options selected from a menu are endorsed by a share of ballots larger than $s$. We prove that all forms of majoritarianism are equivalent to a well-known behavioral property, namely Chernoff axiom. Then we focus on two paradigms of majoritarianism, whereby either a simple majority of ballots justifies a quasi-choice, or the endorsement by a single ballot suffices - a liberal justification. These benchmark explanations typically require a different minimum number of ballots. We determine the asymptotic minimum size of a liberal justification.
A Fast Automatic Method for Deconvoluting Macro X-ray Fluorescence Data Collected from Easel Paintings
Authors: Su Yan, Jun-Jie Huang, Herman Verinaz-Jadan, Nathan Daly, Catherine Higgitt, Pier Luigi Dragotti
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: FAD

Macro X-ray Fluorescence (MA-XRF) scanning is increasingly widely used by researchers in heritage science to analyse easel paintings as one of a suite of non-invasive imaging techniques. The task of processing the resulting MA-XRF datacube generated in order to produce individual chemical element maps is called MA-XRF deconvolution. While there are several existing methods that have been proposed for MA-XRF deconvolution, they require a degree of manual intervention from the user that can affect the final results. The state-of-the-art AFRID approach can automatically deconvolute the datacube without user input, but it has a long processing time and does not exploit spatial dependency. In this paper, we propose two versions of a fast automatic deconvolution (FAD) method for MA-XRF datacubes collected from easel paintings with ADMM (alternating direction method of multipliers) and FISTA (fast iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm). The proposed FAD method not only automatically analyses the datacube and produces element distribution maps of high-quality with spatial dependency considered, but also significantly reduces the running time. The results generated on the MA-XRF datacubes collected from two easel paintings from the National Gallery, London, verify the performance of the proposed FAD method.
Separable multidimensional orthogonal matching pursuit and its application to joint localization and communication at mmWave
Authors: Joan Palacios, Nuria González-Prelcic
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Position

Greedy sparse recovery has become a popular tool in many applications, although its complexity is still prohibitive when large sparsifying dictionaries or sensing matrices have to be exploited. In this paper, we formulate first a new class of sparse recovery problems that exploit multidimensional dictionaries and the separability of the measurement matrices that appear in certain problems. Then we develop a new algorithm, Separable Multidimensional Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (SMOMP), which can solve this class of problems with low complexity. Finally, we apply SMOMP to the problem of joint localization and communication at mmWave, and numerically show its effectiveness to provide, at a reasonable complexity, high accuracy channel and position estimations.
Algebraic Convolutional Filters on Lie Group Algebras
Authors: Harshat Kumar, Alejandro Parada-Mayorga, Alejandro Ribeiro
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00

Group convolutional neural networks are a useful tool for utilizing symmetries known to be in a signal; however, they require that the signal is defined on the group itself. Existing approaches either work directly with group signals, or they impose a lifting step with heuristics to compute the convolution which can be computationally costly. Taking an algebraic signal processing perspective, we propose a novel convolutional filter from the Lie group algebra directly, thereby removing the need to lift altogether. Furthermore, we establish stability of the filter by drawing connections to multigraph signal processing. The proposed filter is evaluated on a classification problem on two datasets with $SO(3)$ group symmetries.
OFDM-Based Massive Connectivity for LEO Satellite Internet of Things
Authors: Yong Zuo, Mingyang Yue, Mingchen Zhang, Sixian Li, Shaojie Ni, Xiaojun Yuan
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Action Detection, Activity Detection

Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite has been considered as a potential supplement for the terrestrial Internet of Things (IoT). In this paper, we consider grant-free non-orthogonal random access (GF-NORA) in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system to increase access capacity and reduce access latency for LEO satellite-IoT. We focus on the joint device activity detection (DAD) and channel estimation (CE) problem at the satellite access point. The delay and the Doppler effect of the LEO satellite channel are assumed to be partially compensated. We propose an OFDM-symbol repetition technique to better distinguish the residual Doppler frequency shifts, and present a grid-based parametric probability model to characterize channel sparsity in the delay-Doppler-user domain, as well as to characterize the relationship between the channel states and the device activity. Based on that, we develop a robust Bayesian message passing algorithm named modified variance state propagation (MVSP) for joint DAD and CE. Moreover, to tackle the mismatch between the real channel and its on-grid representation, an expectation-maximization (EM) framework is proposed to learn the grid parameters. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithms significantly outperform the existing approaches in both activity detection probability and channel estimation accuracy.
From Nano to Macro: Overview of the IEEE Bio Image and Signal Processing Technical Committee
Authors: Selin Aviyente, Alejandro Frangi, Erik Meijering, Arrate Muñoz-Barrutia, Michael Liebling, Dimitri Van De Ville, Jean-Christophe Olivo-Marin, Jelena Kovačević, Michael Unser
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Medical Image Analysis

The Bio Image and Signal Processing (BISP) Technical Committee (TC) of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) promotes activities within the broad technical field of biomedical image and signal processing. Areas of interest include medical and biological imaging, digital pathology, molecular imaging, microscopy, and associated computational imaging, image analysis, and image-guided treatment, alongside physiological signal processing, computational biology, and bioinformatics. BISP has 40 members and covers a wide range of EDICS, including CIS-MI: Medical Imaging, BIO-MIA: Medical Image Analysis, BIO-BI: Biological Imaging, BIO: Biomedical Signal Processing, BIO-BCI: Brain/Human-Computer Interfaces, and BIO-INFR: Bioinformatics. BISP plays a central role in the organization of the IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) and contributes to the technical sessions at the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), and the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP). In this paper, we provide a brief history of the TC, review the technological and methodological contributions its community delivered, and highlight promising new directions we anticipate.
Downlink Massive MIMO Channel Estimation via Deep Unrolling : Sparsity Exploitations in Angular Domain
Authors: An Chen, Wenbo Xu, Liyang Lu, Yue Wang
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Compressive Sensing, Rolling Shutter Correction

In frequency division duplex (FDD) massive MIMO systems, reliable downlink channel estimation is essential for the subsequent data transmission but is realized at the cost of massive pilot overhead due to hundreds of antennas at base station (BS). In order to reduce the pilot overhead without compromising the estimation, compressive sensing (CS) based methods have been widely applied for channel estimation by exploiting the inherent sparse structure of massive MIMO channel in angular domain. However, they still suffer from high complexity during optimization process and the requirement of prior knowledge on sparsity information. To overcome these challenges, this paper develops a novel hybrid channel estimation framework by integrating the model-driven CS and data-driven deep unrolling techniques. The proposed framework is composed of a coarse estimation part and a fine correction part, which is implemented in a two-stage manner to exploit both inter- and intra-frame sparsities of channels in angular domain. Then, two estimation schemes are designed depending on whether priori sparsity information is required, where the second scheme designs a new thresholding function to eliminate such requirement. Numerical results are provided to verify that our schemes can achieve high accuracy with low pilot overhead and low complexity.
Device Scheduling for Over-the-Air Federated Learning with Differential Privacy
Authors: Na Yan, Kezhi Wang, Cunhua Pan, Kok Keong Chai
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning, Scheduling

In this paper, we propose a device scheduling scheme for differentially private over-the-air federated learning (DP-OTA-FL) systems, referred to as S-DPOTAFL, where the privacy of the participants is guaranteed by channel noise. In S-DPOTAFL, the gradients are aligned by the alignment coefficient and aggregated via over-the-air computation (AirComp). The scheme schedules the devices with better channel conditions in the training to avoid the problem that the alignment coefficient is limited by the device with the worst channel condition in the system. We conduct the privacy and convergence analysis to theoretically demonstrate the impact of device scheduling on privacy protection and learning performance. To improve the learning accuracy, we formulate an optimization problem with the goal to minimize the training loss subjecting to privacy and transmit power constraints. Furthermore, we present the condition that the S-DPOTAFL performs better than the DP-OTA-FL without considering device scheduling (NoS-DPOTAFL). The effectiveness of the S-DPOTAFL is validated through simulations.
Lightweight Neural Network with Knowledge Distillation for CSI Feedback
Authors: Yiming Cui, Jiajia Guo, Zheng Cao, Huaze Tang, Chao-Kai Wen, Shi Jin, Xin Wang, Xiaolin Hou
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Knowledge Distillation

Deep learning has shown promise in enhancing channel state information (CSI) feedback. However, many studies indicate that better feedback performance often accompanies higher computational complexity. Pursuing better performance-complexity tradeoffs is crucial to facilitate practical deployment, especially on computation-limited devices, which may have to use lightweight autoencoder with unfavorable performance. To achieve this goal, this paper introduces knowledge distillation (KD) to achieve better tradeoffs, where knowledge from a complicated teacher autoencoder is transferred to a lightweight student autoencoder for performance improvement. Specifically, two methods are proposed for implementation. Firstly, an autoencoder KD-based method is introduced by training a student autoencoder to mimic the reconstructed CSI of a pretrained teacher autoencoder. Secondly, an encoder KD-based method is proposed to reduce training overhead by performing KD only on the student encoder. Additionally, a variant of encoder KD is introduced to protect user equipment and base station vendor intellectual property. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed methods can significantly improve the student autoencoder's performance, while reducing the number of floating point operations and inference time to 3.05%-5.28% and 13.80%-14.76% of the teacher network, respectively. Furthermore, the variant encoder KD method effectively enhances the student autoencoder's generalization capability across different scenarios, environments, and bandwidths.
Collaboration with Cellular Networks for RFI Cancellation at Radio Telescope
Authors: Shuvam Chakraborty, Gregory Hellbourg, Maqsood Careem, Dola Saha, Aveek Dutta
Date: 2022-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Astronomy

The growing need for electromagnetic spectrum to support the next generation (xG) communication networks increasingly generate unwanted radio frequency interference (RFI) in protected bands for radio astronomy. RFI is commonly mitigated at the Radio Telescope without any active collaboration with the interfering sources. In this work, we provide a method of signal characterization and its use in subsequent cancellation, that uses Eigenspaces derived from the telescope and the transmitter signals. This is different from conventional time-frequency domain analysis, which is limited to fixed characterizations (e.g., complex exponential in Fourier methods) that cannot adapt to the changing statistics (e.g., autocorrelation) of the RFI, typically observed in communication systems. We have presented effectiveness of this collaborative method using real-world astronomical signals and practical simulated LTE signals (downlink and uplink) as source of RFI along with propagation conditions based on preset benchmarks and standards. Through our analysis and simulation using these signals, we are able to remove 89.04% of the RFI from cellular networks, which reduces excision at the Telescope and capable of significantly improving throughput as corrupted time frequency bins data becomes usable.
Intelligent Blockage Recognition using Cellular mmWave Beamforming Data: Feasibility Study
Authors: Bram van Berlo, Yang Miao, Rizqi Hersyandika, Nirvana Meratnia, Tanir Ozcelebi, Andre Kokkeler, Sofie Pollin
Date: 2022-10-30 00:00:00

Joint Communication and Sensing (JCAS) is envisioned for 6G cellular networks, where sensing the operation environment, especially in presence of humans, is as important as the high-speed wireless connectivity. Sensing, and subsequently recognizing blockage types, is an initial step towards signal blockage avoidance. In this context, we investigate the feasibility of using human motion recognition as a surrogate task for blockage type recognition through a set of hypothesis validation experiments using both qualitative and quantitative analysis (visual inspection and hyperparameter tuning of deep learning (DL) models, respectively). A surrogate task is useful for DL model testing and/or pre-training, thereby requiring a low amount of data to be collected from the eventual JCAS environment. Therefore, we collect and use a small dataset from a 26 GHz cellular multi-user communication device with hybrid beamforming. The data is converted into Doppler Frequency Spectrum (DFS) and used for hypothesis validations. Our research shows that (i) the presence of domain shift between data used for learning and inference requires use of DL models that can successfully handle it, (ii) DFS input data dilution to increase dataset volume should be avoided, (iii) a small volume of input data is not enough for reasonable inference performance, (iv) higher sensing resolution, causing lower sensitivity, should be handled by doing more activities/gestures per frame and lowering sampling rate, and (v) a higher reported sampling rate to STFT during pre-processing may increase performance, but should always be tested on a per learning task basis.
BCI-Walls: A robust methodology to predict success or failure in brain computer interfaces
Authors: Bernd Porr, Lucía Muñoz Bohollo
Date: 2022-10-30 00:00:00
Tasks: EEG, Electroencephalogram (EEG)

Brain computer interfaces (BCI) depend on reliable realtime detection of conscious EEG changes for example to control a video game. However, scalp recordings are contaminated with non-stationary noise, such as facial muscle activity and eye movements. This interferes with the detection process making it potentially unreliable or even impossible. We have developed a new methodology which provides a hard and measurable criterion if conscious EEG changes can be detected in the presence of non-stationary noise by requiring the signal-to-noise ratio of a scalp recording to be greater than the SNR-wall which in turn is based on the highest and lowest noise variances of the recording. As an instructional example, we have recorded signals from the central electrode Cz during eight different activities causing non-stationary noise such as playing a video game or reading out loud. The results show that facial muscle activity and eye-movements have a strong impact on the detectability of EEG and that minimising both eye-movement artefacts and muscle noise is essential to be able to detect conscious EEG changes.