pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
GeNet: A Graph Neural Network-based Anti-noise Task-Oriented Semantic Communication Paradigm
Authors: Chunhang Zheng, Kechao Cai
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Data Augmentation, Decoder, Graph Neural Network, Semantic Communication

Traditional approaches to semantic communication tasks rely on the knowledge of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to mitigate channel noise. Moreover, these methods necessitate training under specific SNR conditions, entailing considerable time and computational resources. In this paper, we propose GeNet, a Graph Neural Network (GNN)-based paradigm for semantic communication aimed at combating noise, thereby facilitating Task-Oriented Communication (TOC). We propose a novel approach where we first transform the input data image into graph structures. Then we leverage a GNN-based encoder to extract semantic information from the source data. This extracted semantic information is then transmitted through the channel. At the receiver's end, a GNN-based decoder is utilized to reconstruct the relevant semantic information from the source data for TOC. Through experimental evaluation, we show GeNet's effectiveness in anti-noise TOC while decoupling the SNR dependency. We further evaluate GeNet's performance by varying the number of nodes, revealing its versatility as a new paradigm for semantic communication. Additionally, we show GeNet's robustness to geometric transformations by testing it with different rotation angles, without resorting to data augmentation.
Few-Shot Recalibration of Language Models
Authors: Xiang Lisa Li, Urvashi Khandelwal, Kelvin Guu
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Math, MMLU

Recent work has uncovered promising ways to extract well-calibrated confidence estimates from language models (LMs), where the model's confidence score reflects how likely it is to be correct. However, while LMs may appear well-calibrated over broad distributions, this often hides significant miscalibration within narrower slices (e.g., systemic over-confidence in math can balance out systemic under-confidence in history, yielding perfect calibration in aggregate). To attain well-calibrated confidence estimates for any slice of a distribution, we propose a new framework for few-shot slice-specific recalibration. Specifically, we train a recalibration model that takes in a few unlabeled examples from any given slice and predicts a curve that remaps confidence scores to be more accurate for that slice. Our trained model can recalibrate for arbitrary new slices, without using any labeled data from that slice. This enables us to identify domain-specific confidence thresholds above which the LM's predictions can be trusted, and below which it should abstain. Experiments show that our few-shot recalibrator consistently outperforms existing calibration methods, for instance improving calibration error for PaLM2-Large on MMLU by 16%, as compared to temperature scaling.
Identification and Uses of Deep Learning Backbones via Pattern Mining
Authors: Michael Livanos, Ian Davidson
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Bird Audio Detection, Deep Learning

Deep learning is extensively used in many areas of data mining as a black-box method with impressive results. However, understanding the core mechanism of how deep learning makes predictions is a relatively understudied problem. Here we explore the notion of identifying a backbone of deep learning for a given group of instances. A group here can be instances of the same class or even misclassified instances of the same class. We view each instance for a given group as activating a subset of neurons and attempt to find a subgraph of neurons associated with a given concept/group. We formulate this problem as a set cover style problem and show it is intractable and presents a highly constrained integer linear programming (ILP) formulation. As an alternative, we explore a coverage-based heuristic approach related to pattern mining, and show it converges to a Pareto equilibrium point of the ILP formulation. Experimentally we explore these backbones to identify mistakes and improve performance, explanation, and visualization. We demonstrate application-based results using several challenging data sets, including Bird Audio Detection (BAD) Challenge and Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW), as well as the classic MNIST data.
DSF-GAN: DownStream Feedback Generative Adversarial Network
Authors: Oriel Perets, Nadav Rappoport
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Generative Adversarial Network

Utility and privacy are two crucial measurements of the quality of synthetic tabular data. While significant advancements have been made in privacy measures, generating synthetic samples with high utility remains challenging. To enhance the utility of synthetic samples, we propose a novel architecture called the DownStream Feedback Generative Adversarial Network (DSF-GAN). This approach incorporates feedback from a downstream prediction model during training to augment the generator's loss function with valuable information. Thus, DSF-GAN utilizes a downstream prediction task to enhance the utility of synthetic samples. To evaluate our method, we tested it using two popular datasets. Our experiments demonstrate improved model performance when training on synthetic samples generated by DSF-GAN, compared to those generated by the same GAN architecture without feedback. The evaluation was conducted on the same validation set comprising real samples. All code and datasets used in this research will be made openly available for ease of reproduction.
Enhancing Generative Class Incremental Learning Performance with Model Forgetting Approach
Authors: Taro Togo, Ren Togo, Keisuke Maeda, Takahiro Ogawa, Miki Haseyama
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: class-incremental learning, Class Incremental Learning, Continual Learning, Incremental Learning

This study presents a novel approach to Generative Class Incremental Learning (GCIL) by introducing the forgetting mechanism, aimed at dynamically managing class information for better adaptation to streaming data. GCIL is one of the hot topics in the field of computer vision, and this is considered one of the crucial tasks in society, specifically the continual learning of generative models. The ability to forget is a crucial brain function that facilitates continual learning by selectively discarding less relevant information for humans. However, in the field of machine learning models, the concept of intentionally forgetting has not been extensively investigated. In this study we aim to bridge this gap by incorporating the forgetting mechanisms into GCIL, thereby examining their impact on the models' ability to learn in continual learning. Through our experiments, we have found that integrating the forgetting mechanisms significantly enhances the models' performance in acquiring new knowledge, underscoring the positive role that strategic forgetting plays in the process of continual learning.
Manipulating Neural Path Planners via Slight Perturbations
Authors: Zikang Xiong, Suresh Jagannathan
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Decision Making

Data-driven neural path planners are attracting increasing interest in the robotics community. However, their neural network components typically come as black boxes, obscuring their underlying decision-making processes. Their black-box nature exposes them to the risk of being compromised via the insertion of hidden malicious behaviors. For example, an attacker may hide behaviors that, when triggered, hijack a delivery robot by guiding it to a specific (albeit wrong) destination, trapping it in a predefined region, or inducing unnecessary energy expenditure by causing the robot to repeatedly circle a region. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to specify and inject a range of hidden malicious behaviors, known as backdoors, into neural path planners. Our approach provides a concise but flexible way to define these behaviors, and we show that hidden behaviors can be triggered by slight perturbations (e.g., inserting a tiny unnoticeable object), that can nonetheless significantly compromise their integrity. We also discuss potential techniques to identify these backdoors aimed at alleviating such risks. We demonstrate our approach on both sampling-based and search-based neural path planners.
Beyond Embeddings: The Promise of Visual Table in Visual Reasoning
Authors: Yiwu Zhong, Zi-Yuan Hu, Michael R. Lyu, LiWei Wang
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Representation Learning, Visual Question Answering, Visual Reasoning, World Knowledge

Visual representation learning has been a cornerstone in computer vision, involving typical forms such as visual embeddings, structural symbols, and text-based representations. Despite the success of CLIP-type visual embeddings, they often lack access to world knowledge critical for visual reasoning. In this work, we propose Visual Table, a novel form of visual representation tailored for visual reasoning. Visual tables are constructed as hierarchical descriptions of visual scenes, featuring a scene description and multiple object-centric descriptions covering categories, attributes, and knowledge. Thanks to the structural and textual formats, visual tables offer unique advantages over mere visual embeddings, such as interpretability and controllable editing. Furthermore, they deliver instance-level world knowledge and detailed attributes that are essential for visual reasoning. To create visual tables, we develop a generator trained on the dataset with collected, small-scale annotations. Extensive results on 11 visual reasoning benchmarks demonstrate that the generated visual tables significantly outperform previous structural and text-based representations. Moreover, they consistently enhance state-of-the-art multimodal large language models across diverse benchmarks, showcasing their potential for advancing visual reasoning tasks. Our code is available at https://github.com/LaVi-Lab/Visual-Table.
Boosting Conversational Question Answering with Fine-Grained Retrieval-Augmentation and Self-Check
Authors: Linhao Ye, Zhikai Lei, Jianghao Yin, Qin Chen, Jie zhou, Liang He
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Conversational Question Answering, Question Answering, RAG, Retrieval, Retrieval-augmented Generation

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) aims to generate more reliable and accurate responses, by augmenting large language models (LLMs) with the external vast and dynamic knowledge. Most previous work focuses on using RAG for single-round question answering, while how to adapt RAG to the complex conversational setting wherein the question is interdependent on the preceding context is not well studied. In this paper, we propose a conversation-level RAG approach, which incorporates fine-grained retrieval augmentation and self-check for conversational question answering (CQA). In particular, our approach consists of three components, namely conversational question refiner, fine-grained retriever and self-check based response generator, which work collaboratively for question understanding and relevant information acquisition in conversational settings. Extensive experiments demonstrate the great advantages of our approach over the state-of-the-art baselines. Moreover, we also release a Chinese CQA dataset with new features including reformulated question, extracted keyword, retrieved paragraphs and their helpfulness, which facilitates further researches in RAG enhanced CQA.
NeuSDFusion: A Spatial-Aware Generative Model for 3D Shape Completion, Reconstruction, and Generation
Authors: Ruikai Cui, Weizhe Liu, Weixuan Sun, Senbo Wang, Taizhang Shang, Yang Li, Xibin Song, Han Yan, Zhennan Wu, Shenzhou Chen, Hongdong Li, Pan Ji
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: 3D Shape Generation, 3D Shape Modeling

3D shape generation aims to produce innovative 3D content adhering to specific conditions and constraints. Existing methods often decompose 3D shapes into a sequence of localized components, treating each element in isolation without considering spatial consistency. As a result, these approaches exhibit limited versatility in 3D data representation and shape generation, hindering their ability to generate highly diverse 3D shapes that comply with the specified constraints. In this paper, we introduce a novel spatial-aware 3D shape generation framework that leverages 2D plane representations for enhanced 3D shape modeling. To ensure spatial coherence and reduce memory usage, we incorporate a hybrid shape representation technique that directly learns a continuous signed distance field representation of the 3D shape using orthogonal 2D planes. Additionally, we meticulously enforce spatial correspondences across distinct planes using a transformer-based autoencoder structure, promoting the preservation of spatial relationships in the generated 3D shapes. This yields an algorithm that consistently outperforms state-of-the-art 3D shape generation methods on various tasks, including unconditional shape generation, multi-modal shape completion, single-view reconstruction, and text-to-shape synthesis. Our project page is available at https://weizheliu.github.io/NeuSDFusion/ .
Large Language Models Need Consultants for Reasoning: Becoming an Expert in a Complex Human System Through Behavior Simulation
Authors: Chuwen Wang, Shirong Zeng, Cheng Wang
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Common Sense Reasoning, World Knowledge

Large language models (LLMs), in conjunction with various reasoning reinforcement methodologies, have demonstrated remarkable capabilities comparable to humans in fields such as mathematics, law, coding, common sense, and world knowledge. In this paper, we delve into the reasoning abilities of LLMs within complex human systems. We propose a novel reasoning framework, termed ``Mosaic Expert Observation Wall'' (MEOW) exploiting generative-agents-based simulation technique. In the MEOW framework, simulated data are utilized to train an expert model concentrating ``experience'' about a specific task in each independent time of simulation. It is the accumulated ``experience'' through the simulation that makes for an expert on a task in a complex human system. We conduct the experiments within a communication game that mirrors real-world security scenarios. The results indicate that our proposed methodology can cooperate with existing methodologies to enhance the reasoning abilities of LLMs in complex human systems.
A Transformer-Based Framework for Payload Malware Detection and Classification
Authors: Kyle Stein, Arash Mahyari, Guillermo Francia III, Eman El-Sheikh
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Binary Classification, Intrusion Detection, Malware Detection

As malicious cyber threats become more sophisticated in breaching computer networks, the need for effective intrusion detection systems (IDSs) becomes crucial. Techniques such as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) have been introduced to allow IDSs analyze the content of network packets, providing more context for identifying potential threats. IDSs traditionally rely on using anomaly-based and signature-based detection techniques to detect unrecognized and suspicious activity. Deep learning techniques have shown great potential in DPI for IDSs due to their efficiency in learning intricate patterns from the packet content being transmitted through the network. In this paper, we propose a revolutionary DPI algorithm based on transformers adapted for the purpose of detecting malicious traffic with a classifier head. Transformers learn the complex content of sequence data and generalize them well to similar scenarios thanks to their self-attention mechanism. Our proposed method uses the raw payload bytes that represent the packet contents and is deployed as man-in-the-middle. The payload bytes are used to detect malicious packets and classify their types. Experimental results on the UNSW-NB15 and CIC-IOT23 datasets demonstrate that our transformer-based model is effective in distinguishing malicious from benign traffic in the test dataset, attaining an average accuracy of 79\% using binary classification and 72\% on the multi-classification experiment, both using solely payload bytes.
From Two-Dimensional to Three-Dimensional Environment with Q-Learning: Modeling Autonomous Navigation with Reinforcement Learning and no Libraries
Authors: Ergon Cugler de Moraes Silva
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Autonomous Navigation, Decision Making, Q-Learning, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms have become indispensable tools in artificial intelligence, empowering agents to acquire optimal decision-making policies through interactions with their environment and feedback mechanisms. This study explores the performance of RL agents in both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) environments, aiming to research the dynamics of learning across different spatial dimensions. A key aspect of this investigation is the absence of pre-made libraries for learning, with the algorithm developed exclusively through computational mathematics. The methodological framework centers on RL principles, employing a Q-learning agent class and distinct environment classes tailored to each spatial dimension. The research aims to address the question: How do reinforcement learning agents adapt and perform in environments of varying spatial dimensions, particularly in 2D and 3D settings? Through empirical analysis, the study evaluates agents' learning trajectories and adaptation processes, revealing insights into the efficacy of RL algorithms in navigating complex, multi-dimensional spaces. Reflections on the findings prompt considerations for future research, particularly in understanding the dynamics of learning in higher-dimensional environments.
Leveraging Large Language Models for Fuzzy String Matching in Political Science
Authors: Yu Wang
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00

Fuzzy string matching remains a key issue when political scientists combine data from different sources. Existing matching methods invariably rely on string distances, such as Levenshtein distance and cosine similarity. As such, they are inherently incapable of matching strings that refer to the same entity with different names such as ''JP Morgan'' and ''Chase Bank'', ''DPRK'' and ''North Korea'', ''Chuck Fleischmann (R)'' and ''Charles Fleischmann (R)''. In this letter, we propose to use large language models to entirely sidestep this problem in an easy and intuitive manner. Extensive experiments show that our proposed methods can improve the state of the art by as much as 39% in terms of average precision while being substantially easier and more intuitive to use by political scientists. Moreover, our results are robust against various temperatures. We further note that enhanced prompting can lead to additional performance improvements.
Preference-Based Planning in Stochastic Environments: From Partially-Ordered Temporal Goals to Most Preferred Policies
Authors: Hazhar Rahmani, Abhishek N. Kulkarni, Jie Fu
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00

Human preferences are not always represented via complete linear orders: It is natural to employ partially-ordered preferences for expressing incomparable outcomes. In this work, we consider decision-making and probabilistic planning in stochastic systems modeled as Markov decision processes (MDPs), given a partially ordered preference over a set of temporally extended goals. Specifically, each temporally extended goal is expressed using a formula in Linear Temporal Logic on Finite Traces (LTL$_f$). To plan with the partially ordered preference, we introduce order theory to map a preference over temporal goals to a preference over policies for the MDP. Accordingly, a most preferred policy under a stochastic ordering induces a stochastic nondominated probability distribution over the finite paths in the MDP. To synthesize a most preferred policy, our technical approach includes two key steps. In the first step, we develop a procedure to transform a partially ordered preference over temporal goals into a computational model, called preference automaton, which is a semi-automaton with a partial order over acceptance conditions. In the second step, we prove that finding a most preferred policy is equivalent to computing a Pareto-optimal policy in a multi-objective MDP that is constructed from the original MDP, the preference automaton, and the chosen stochastic ordering relation. Throughout the paper, we employ running examples to illustrate the proposed preference specification and solution approaches. We demonstrate the efficacy of our algorithm using these examples, providing detailed analysis, and then discuss several potential future directions.
Long and Short-Term Constraints Driven Safe Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Driving
Authors: Xuemin Hu, Pan Chen, Yijun Wen, Bo Tang, Long Chen
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Autonomous Driving, Decision Making, Reinforcement Learning (RL), Safe Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement learning (RL) has been widely used in decision-making and control tasks, but the risk is very high for the agent in the training process due to the requirements of interaction with the environment, which seriously limits its industrial applications such as autonomous driving systems. Safe RL methods are developed to handle this issue by constraining the expected safety violation costs as a training objective, but the occurring probability of an unsafe state is still high, which is unacceptable in autonomous driving tasks. Moreover, these methods are difficult to achieve a balance between the cost and return expectations, which leads to learning performance degradation for the algorithms. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm based on the long and short-term constraints (LSTC) for safe RL. The short-term constraint aims to enhance the short-term state safety that the vehicle explores, while the long-term constraint enhances the overall safety of the vehicle throughout the decision-making process, both of which are jointly used to enhance the vehicle safety in the training process. In addition, we develop a safe RL method with dual-constraint optimization based on the Lagrange multiplier to optimize the training process for end-to-end autonomous driving. Comprehensive experiments were conducted on the MetaDrive simulator. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves higher safety in continuous state and action tasks, and exhibits higher exploration performance in long-distance decision-making tasks compared with state-of-the-art methods.
An Evolutionary Network Architecture Search Framework with Adaptive Multimodal Fusion for Hand Gesture Recognition
Authors: Yizhang Xia, Shihao Song, Zhanglu Hou, Junwen Xu, Juan Zou, YuAn Liu, Shengxiang Yang
Date: 2024-03-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Gesture Recognition, Hand Gesture Recognition, Hand-Gesture Recognition

Hand gesture recognition (HGR) based on multimodal data has attracted considerable attention owing to its great potential in applications. Various manually designed multimodal deep networks have performed well in multimodal HGR (MHGR), but most of existing algorithms require a lot of expert experience and time-consuming manual trials. To address these issues, we propose an evolutionary network architecture search framework with the adaptive multimodel fusion (AMF-ENAS). Specifically, we design an encoding space that simultaneously considers fusion positions and ratios of the multimodal data, allowing for the automatic construction of multimodal networks with different architectures through decoding. Additionally, we consider three input streams corresponding to intra-modal surface electromyography (sEMG), intra-modal accelerometer (ACC), and inter-modal sEMG-ACC. To automatically adapt to various datasets, the ENAS framework is designed to automatically search a MHGR network with appropriate fusion positions and ratios. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that ENAS has been utilized in MHGR to tackle issues related to the fusion position and ratio of multimodal data. Experimental results demonstrate that AMF-ENAS achieves state-of-the-art performance on the Ninapro DB2, DB3, and DB7 datasets.