pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
SK-VQA: Synthetic Knowledge Generation at Scale for Training Context-Augmented Multimodal LLMs
Authors: Xin Su, Man Luo, Kris W Pan, Tien Pei Chou, Vasudev Lal, Phillip Howard
Date: 2024-06-28 00:00:00
Tasks: RAG, Retrieval-augmented Generation, Synthetic Data Generation, Visual Question Answering (VQA)

Synthetic data generation has gained significant attention recently for its utility in training large vision and language models. However, the application of synthetic data to the training of multimodal context-augmented generation systems has been relatively unexplored. This gap in existing work is important because existing vision and language models (VLMs) are not trained specifically for context-augmented generation. Resources for adapting such models are therefore crucial for enabling their use in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) settings, where a retriever is used to gather relevant information that is then subsequently provided to a generative model via context augmentation. To address this challenging problem, we generate SK-VQA: a large synthetic multimodal dataset containing over 2 million question-answer pairs which require external knowledge to determine the final answer. Our dataset is both larger and significantly more diverse than existing resources of its kind, possessing over 11x more unique questions and containing images from a greater variety of sources than previously-proposed datasets. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that our synthetic dataset can not only serve as a challenging benchmark, but is also highly effective for adapting existing generative multimodal models for context-augmented generation.
Cost-efficient Active Illumination Camera For Hyper-spectral Reconstruction
Authors: Yuxuan Zhang, T. M. Sazzad, Yangyang Song, Spencer J. Chang, Ritesh Chowdhry, Tomas Mejia, Anna Hampton, Shelby Kucharski, Stefan Gerber, Barry Tillman, Marcio F. R. Resende, William M. Hammond, Chris H. Wilson, Alina Zare, Sanjeev J. Koppal
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Spectral Reconstruction

Hyper-spectral imaging has recently gained increasing attention for use in different applications, including agricultural investigation, ground tracking, remote sensing and many other. However, the high cost, large physical size and complicated operation process stop hyperspectral cameras from being employed for various applications and research fields. In this paper, we introduce a cost-efficient, compact and easy to use active illumination camera that may benefit many applications. We developed a fully functional prototype of such camera. With the hope of helping with agricultural research, we tested our camera for plant root imaging. In addition, a U-Net model for spectral reconstruction was trained by using a reference hyperspectral camera's data as ground truth and our camera's data as input. We demonstrated our camera's ability to obtain additional information over a typical RGB camera. In addition, the ability to reconstruct hyperspectral data from multi-spectral input makes our device compatible to models and algorithms developed for hyperspectral applications with no modifications required.
Robustness Testing of Black-Box Models Against CT Degradation Through Test-Time Augmentation
Authors: Jack Highton, Quok Zong Chong, Samuel Finestone, Arian Beqiri, Julia A. Schnabel, Kanwal K. Bhatia
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Image Segmentation, Medical Image Segmentation, object-detection, Object Detection, Semantic Segmentation

Deep learning models for medical image segmentation and object detection are becoming increasingly available as clinical products. However, as details are rarely provided about the training data, models may unexpectedly fail when cases differ from those in the training distribution. An approach allowing potential users to independently test the robustness of a model, treating it as a black box and using only a few cases from their own site, is key for adoption. To address this, a method to test the robustness of these models against CT image quality variation is presented. In this work we present this framework by demonstrating that given the same training data, the model architecture and data pre processing greatly affect the robustness of several frequently used segmentation and object detection methods to simulated CT imaging artifacts and degradation. Our framework also addresses the concern about the sustainability of deep learning models in clinical use, by considering future shifts in image quality due to scanner deterioration or imaging protocol changes which are not reflected in a limited local test dataset.
BOrg: A Brain Organoid-Based Mitosis Dataset for Automatic Analysis of Brain Diseases
Authors: Muhammad Awais, Mehaboobathunnisa Sahul Hameed, Bidisha Bhattacharya, Orly Reiner, Rao Muhammad Anwer
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00
Tasks: object-detection, Object Detection

Recent advances have enabled the study of human brain development using brain organoids derived from stem cells. Quantifying cellular processes like mitosis in these organoids offers insights into neurodevelopmental disorders, but the manual analysis is time-consuming, and existing datasets lack specific details for brain organoid studies. We introduce BOrg, a dataset designed to study mitotic events in the embryonic development of the brain using confocal microscopy images of brain organoids. BOrg utilizes an efficient annotation pipeline with sparse point annotations and techniques that minimize expert effort, overcoming limitations of standard deep learning approaches on sparse data. We adapt and benchmark state-of-the-art object detection and cell counting models on BOrg for detecting and analyzing mitotic cells across prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase stages. Our results demonstrate these adapted models significantly improve mitosis analysis efficiency and accuracy for brain organoid research compared to existing methods. BOrg facilitates the development of automated tools to quantify statistics like mitosis rates, aiding mechanistic studies of neurodevelopmental processes and disorders. Data and code are available at https://github.com/awaisrauf/borg.
Weighted Circle Fusion: Ensembling Circle Representation from Different Object Detection Results
Authors: Jialin Yue, Tianyuan Yao, Ruining Deng, Quan Liu, Juming Xiong, Junlin Guo, Haichun Yang, Yuankai Huo
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Object, object-detection, Object Detection

Recently, the use of circle representation has emerged as a method to improve the identification of spherical objects (such as glomeruli, cells, and nuclei) in medical imaging studies. In traditional bounding box-based object detection, combining results from multiple models improves accuracy, especially when real-time processing isn't crucial. Unfortunately, this widely adopted strategy is not readily available for combining circle representations. In this paper, we propose Weighted Circle Fusion (WCF), a simple approach for merging predictions from various circle detection models. Our method leverages confidence scores associated with each proposed bounding circle to generate averaged circles. We evaluate our method on a proprietary dataset for glomerular detection in whole slide imaging (WSI) and find a performance gain of 5% compared to existing ensemble methods. Additionally, we assess the efficiency of two annotation methods, fully manual annotation and a human-in-the-loop (HITL) approach, in labeling 200,000 glomeruli. The HITL approach, which integrates machine learning detection with human verification, demonstrated remarkable improvements in annotation efficiency. The Weighted Circle Fusion technique not only enhances object detection precision but also notably reduces false detections, presenting a promising direction for future research and application in pathological image analysis. The source code has been made publicly available at https://github.com/hrlblab/WeightedCircleFusion
Comparative Analysis Of Color Models For Human Perception And Visual Color Difference
Authors: Aruzhan Burambekova, Pakizar Shamoi
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Models Alignment

Color is integral to human experience, influencing emotions, decisions, and perceptions. This paper presents a comparative analysis of various color models' alignment with human visual perception. The study evaluates color models such as RGB, HSV, HSL, XYZ, CIELAB, and CIELUV to assess their effectiveness in accurately representing how humans perceive color. We evaluate each model based on its ability to accurately reflect visual color differences and dominant palette extraction compatible with the human eye. In image processing, accurate assessment of color difference is essential for applications ranging from digital design to quality control. Current color difference metrics do not always match how people see colors, causing issues in accurately judging subtle differences. Understanding how different color models align with human visual perception is crucial for various applications in image processing, digital media, and design.
Stereo Vision Based Robot for Remote Monitoring with VR Support
Authors: Mohamed Fazil M. S., Arockia Selvakumar A., Daniel Schilberg
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00

The machine vision systems have been playing a significant role in visual monitoring systems. With the help of stereovision and machine learning, it will be able to mimic human-like visual system and behaviour towards the environment. In this paper, we present a stereo vision based 3-DOF robot which will be used to monitor places from remote using cloud server and internet devices. The 3-DOF robot will transmit human-like head movements, i.e., yaw, pitch, roll and produce 3D stereoscopic video and stream it in Real-time. This video stream is sent to the user through any generic internet devices with VR box support, i.e., smartphones giving the user a First-person real-time 3D experience and transfers the head motion of the user to the robot also in Real-time. The robot will also be able to track moving objects and faces as a target using deep neural networks which enables it to be a standalone monitoring robot. The user will be able to choose specific subjects to monitor in a space. The stereovision enables us to track the depth information of different objects detected and will be used to track human interest objects with its distances and sent to the cloud. A full working prototype is developed which showcases the capabilities of a monitoring system based on stereo vision, robotics, and machine learning.
High-resolution segmentations of the hypothalamus and its subregions for training of segmentation models
Authors: Livia Rodrigues, Martina Bocchetta, Oula Puonti, Douglas Greve, Ana Carolina Londe, Marcondes França, Simone Appenzeller, Leticia Rittner, Juan Eugenio Iglesias
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Segmentation

Segmentation of brain structures on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a highly relevant neuroimaging topic, as it is a prerequisite for different analyses such as volumetry or shape analysis. Automated segmentation facilitates the study of brain structures in larger cohorts when compared with manual segmentation, which is time-consuming. However, the development of most automated methods relies on large and manually annotated datasets, which limits the generalizability of these methods. Recently, new techniques using synthetic images have emerged, reducing the need for manual annotation. Here we provide HELM, Hypothalamic ex vivo Label Maps, a dataset composed of label maps built from publicly available ultra-high resolution ex vivo MRI from 10 whole hemispheres, which can be used to develop segmentation methods using synthetic data. The label maps are obtained with a combination of manual labels for the hypothalamic regions and automated segmentations for the rest of the brain, and mirrored to simulate entire brains. We also provide the pre-processed ex vivo scans, as this dataset can support future projects to include other structures after these are manually segmented.
GAPNet: Granularity Attention Network with Anatomy-Prior-Constraint for Carotid Artery Segmentation
Authors: Lin Zhang, Chenggang Lu, Xin-yang Shi, Caifeng Shan, Jiong Zhang, Da Chen, Laurent D. Cohen
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Anatomy

Atherosclerosis is a chronic, progressive disease that primarily affects the arterial walls. It is one of the major causes of cardiovascular disease. Magnetic Resonance (MR) black-blood vessel wall imaging (BB-VWI) offers crucial insights into vascular disease diagnosis by clearly visualizing vascular structures. However, the complex anatomy of the neck poses challenges in distinguishing the carotid artery (CA) from surrounding structures, especially with changes like atherosclerosis. In order to address these issues, we propose GAPNet, which is a consisting of a novel geometric prior deduced from.
Efficient and Distributed Large-Scale 3D Map Registration using Tomographic Features
Authors: Halil Utku Unlu, Anthony Tzes, Prashanth Krishnamurthy, Farshad Khorrami
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00

A robust, resource-efficient, distributed, and minimally parameterized 3D map matching and merging algorithm is proposed. The suggested algorithm utilizes tomographic features from 2D projections of horizontal cross-sections of gravity-aligned local maps, and matches these projection slices at all possible height differences, enabling the estimation of four degrees of freedom in an efficient and parallelizable manner. The advocated algorithm improves state-of-the-art feature extraction and registration pipelines by an order of magnitude in memory use and execution time. Experimental studies are offered to investigate the efficiency of this 3D map merging scheme.
A Sanity Check for AI-generated Image Detection
Authors: Shilin Yan, Ouxiang Li, Jiayin Cai, Yanbin Hao, XiaoLong Jiang, Yao Hu, Weidi Xie
Date: 2024-06-27 00:00:00

With the rapid development of generative models, discerning AI-generated content has evoked increasing attention from both industry and academia. In this paper, we conduct a sanity check on "whether the task of AI-generated image detection has been solved". To start with, we present Chameleon dataset, consisting AIgenerated images that are genuinely challenging for human perception. To quantify the generalization of existing methods, we evaluate 9 off-the-shelf AI-generated image detectors on Chameleon dataset. Upon analysis, almost all models classify AI-generated images as real ones. Later, we propose AIDE (AI-generated Image DEtector with Hybrid Features), which leverages multiple experts to simultaneously extract visual artifacts and noise patterns. Specifically, to capture the high-level semantics, we utilize CLIP to compute the visual embedding. This effectively enables the model to discern AI-generated images based on semantics or contextual information; Secondly, we select the highest frequency patches and the lowest frequency patches in the image, and compute the low-level patchwise features, aiming to detect AI-generated images by low-level artifacts, for example, noise pattern, anti-aliasing, etc. While evaluating on existing benchmarks, for example, AIGCDetectBenchmark and GenImage, AIDE achieves +3.5% and +4.6% improvements to state-of-the-art methods, and on our proposed challenging Chameleon benchmarks, it also achieves the promising results, despite this problem for detecting AI-generated images is far from being solved. The dataset, codes, and pre-train models will be published at https://github.com/shilinyan99/AIDE.
Scaling Synthetic Data Creation with 1,000,000,000 Personas
Authors: Tao Ge, Xin Chan, Xiaoyang Wang, Dian Yu, Haitao Mi, Dong Yu
Date: 2024-06-28 00:00:00
Tasks: Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Large Language Model, Logical Reasoning, World Knowledge

We propose a novel persona-driven data synthesis methodology that leverages various perspectives within a large language model (LLM) to create diverse synthetic data. To fully exploit this methodology at scale, we introduce Persona Hub -- a collection of 1 billion diverse personas automatically curated from web data. These 1 billion personas (~13% of the world's total population), acting as distributed carriers of world knowledge, can tap into almost every perspective encapsulated within the LLM, thereby facilitating the creation of diverse synthetic data at scale for various scenarios. By showcasing Persona Hub's use cases in synthesizing high-quality mathematical and logical reasoning problems, instructions (i.e., user prompts), knowledge-rich texts, game NPCs and tools (functions) at scale, we demonstrate persona-driven data synthesis is versatile, scalable, flexible, and easy to use, potentially driving a paradigm shift in synthetic data creation and applications in practice, which may have a profound impact on LLM research and development.
Token Erasure as a Footprint of Implicit Vocabulary Items in LLMs
Authors: Sheridan Feucht, David Atkinson, Byron Wallace, David Bau
Date: 2024-06-28 00:00:00

LLMs process text as sequences of tokens that roughly correspond to words, where less common words are represented by multiple tokens. However, individual tokens are often semantically unrelated to the meanings of the words/concepts they comprise. For example, Llama-2-7b's tokenizer splits the word "northeastern" into the tokens ['_n', 'ort', 'he', 'astern'], none of which correspond to semantically meaningful units like "north" or "east." Similarly, the overall meanings of named entities like "Neil Young" and multi-word expressions like "break a leg" cannot be directly inferred from their constituent tokens. Mechanistically, how do LLMs convert such arbitrary groups of tokens into useful higher-level representations? In this work, we find that last token representations of named entities and multi-token words exhibit a pronounced "erasure" effect, where information about previous and current tokens is rapidly forgotten in early layers. Using this observation, we propose a method to "read out" the implicit vocabulary of an autoregressive LLM by examining differences in token representations across layers, and present results of this method for Llama-2-7b and Llama-3-8B. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to probe the implicit vocabulary of an LLM.
Cost-aware Bayesian Optimization via the Pandora's Box Gittins Index
Authors: Qian Xie, Raul Astudillo, Peter I. Frazier, Ziv Scully, Alexander Terenin
Date: 2024-06-28 00:00:00
Tasks: Bayesian Optimization

Bayesian optimization is a technique for efficiently optimizing unknown functions in a black-box manner. To handle practical settings where gathering data requires use of finite resources, it is desirable to explicitly incorporate function evaluation costs into Bayesian optimization policies. To understand how to do so, we develop a previously-unexplored connection between cost-aware Bayesian optimization and the Pandora's Box problem, a decision problem from economics. The Pandora's Box problem admits a Bayesian-optimal solution based on an expression called the Gittins index, which can be reinterpreted as an acquisition function. We study the use of this acquisition function for cost-aware Bayesian optimization, and demonstrate empirically that it performs well, particularly in medium-high dimensions. We further show that this performance carries over to classical Bayesian optimization without explicit evaluation costs. Our work constitutes a first step towards integrating techniques from Gittins index theory into Bayesian optimization.
Evaluation of autonomous systems under data distribution shifts
Authors: Daniel Sikar, Artur Garcez
Date: 2024-06-28 00:00:00

We posit that data can only be safe to use up to a certain threshold of the data distribution shift, after which control must be relinquished by the autonomous system and operation halted or handed to a human operator. With the use of a computer vision toy example we demonstrate that network predictive accuracy is impacted by data distribution shifts and propose distance metrics between training and testing data to define safe operation limits within said shifts. We conclude that beyond an empirically obtained threshold of the data distribution shift, it is unreasonable to expect network predictive accuracy not to degrade
Explore as a Storm, Exploit as a Raindrop: On the Benefit of Fine-Tuning Kernel Schedulers with Coordinate Descent
Authors: Michael Canesche, Gaurav Verma, Fernando Magno Quintao Pereira
Date: 2024-06-28 00:00:00
Tasks: GPU, Scheduling

Machine-learning models consist of kernels, which are algorithms applying operations on tensors -- data indexed by a linear combination of natural numbers. Examples of kernels include convolutions, transpositions, and vectorial products. There are many ways to implement a kernel. These implementations form the kernel's optimization space. Kernel scheduling is the problem of finding the best implementation, given an objective function -- typically execution speed. Kernel optimizers such as Ansor, Halide, and AutoTVM solve this problem via search heuristics, which combine two phases: exploration and exploitation. The first step evaluates many different kernel optimization spaces. The latter tries to improve the best implementations by investigating a kernel within the same space. For example, Ansor combines kernel generation through sketches for exploration and leverages an evolutionary algorithm to exploit the best sketches. In this work, we demonstrate the potential to reduce Ansor's search time while enhancing kernel quality by incorporating Droplet Search, an AutoTVM algorithm, into Ansor's exploration phase. The approach involves limiting the number of samples explored by Ansor, selecting the best, and exploiting it with a coordinate descent algorithm. By applying this approach to the first 300 kernels that Ansor generates, we usually obtain better kernels in less time than if we let Ansor analyze 10,000 kernels. This result has been replicated in 20 well-known deep-learning models (AlexNet, ResNet, VGG, DenseNet, etc.) running on four architectures: an AMD Ryzen 7 (x86), an NVIDIA A100 tensor core, an NVIDIA RTX 3080 GPU, and an ARM A64FX. A patch with this combined approach was approved in Ansor in February 2024. As evidence of the generality of this search methodology, a similar patch, achieving equally good results, was submitted to TVM's MetaSchedule in June 2024.
On the Trade-off between Flatness and Optimization in Distributed Learning
Authors: Ying Cao, Zhaoxian Wu, Kun Yuan, Ali H. Sayed
Date: 2024-06-28 00:00:00

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to evaluate and compare the performance of gradient-descent algorithms for distributed learning in relation to their behavior around local minima in nonconvex environments. Previous works have noticed that convergence toward flat local minima tend to enhance the generalization ability of learning algorithms. This work discovers two interesting results. First, it shows that decentralized learning strategies are able to escape faster away from local minimizers and favor convergence toward flatter minima relative to the centralized solution in the large-batch training regime. Second, and importantly, the ultimate classification accuracy is not solely dependent on the flatness of the local minimizer but also on how well a learning algorithm can approach that minimum. In other words, the classification accuracy is a function of both flatness and optimization performance. The paper examines the interplay between the two measures of flatness and optimization error closely. One important conclusion is that decentralized strategies of the diffusion type deliver enhanced classification accuracy because it strikes a more favorable balance between flatness and optimization performance.