pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Uncertainty is Fragile: Manipulating Uncertainty in Large Language Models
Authors: Qingcheng Zeng, Mingyu Jin, Qinkai Yu, Zhenting Wang, Wenyue Hua, ZiHao Zhou, Guangyan Sun, Yanda Meng, Shiqing Ma, Qifan Wang, Felix Juefei-Xu, Kaize Ding, Fan Yang, Ruixiang Tang, Yongfeng Zhang
Date: 2024-07-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Backdoor Attack, Multiple-choice

Large Language Models (LLMs) are employed across various high-stakes domains, where the reliability of their outputs is crucial. One commonly used method to assess the reliability of LLMs' responses is uncertainty estimation, which gauges the likelihood of their answers being correct. While many studies focus on improving the accuracy of uncertainty estimations for LLMs, our research investigates the fragility of uncertainty estimation and explores potential attacks. We demonstrate that an attacker can embed a backdoor in LLMs, which, when activated by a specific trigger in the input, manipulates the model's uncertainty without affecting the final output. Specifically, the proposed backdoor attack method can alter an LLM's output probability distribution, causing the probability distribution to converge towards an attacker-predefined distribution while ensuring that the top-1 prediction remains unchanged. Our experimental results demonstrate that this attack effectively undermines the model's self-evaluation reliability in multiple-choice questions. For instance, we achieved a 100 attack success rate (ASR) across three different triggering strategies in four models. Further, we investigate whether this manipulation generalizes across different prompts and domains. This work highlights a significant threat to the reliability of LLMs and underscores the need for future defenses against such attacks. The code is available at https://github.com/qcznlp/uncertainty_attack.
Target conversation extraction: Source separation using turn-taking dynamics
Authors: Tuochao Chen, Qirui Wang, Bohan Wu, Malek Itani, Sefik Emre Eskimez, Takuya Yoshioka, Shyamnath Gollakota
Date: 2024-07-15 00:00:00

Extracting the speech of participants in a conversation amidst interfering speakers and noise presents a challenging problem. In this paper, we introduce the novel task of target conversation extraction, where the goal is to extract the audio of a target conversation based on the speaker embedding of one of its participants. To accomplish this, we propose leveraging temporal patterns inherent in human conversations, particularly turn-taking dynamics, which uniquely characterize speakers engaged in conversation and distinguish them from interfering speakers and noise. Using neural networks, we show the feasibility of our approach on English and Mandarin conversation datasets. In the presence of interfering speakers, our results show an 8.19 dB improvement in signal-to-noise ratio for 2-speaker conversations and a 7.92 dB improvement for 2-4-speaker conversations. Code, dataset available at https://github.com/chentuochao/Target-Conversation-Extraction.
Bridging Sequence-Structure Alignment in RNA Foundation Models
Authors: Heng Yang, Renzhi Chen, Ke Li
Date: 2024-07-15 00:00:00

The alignment between RNA sequences and structures in foundation models (FMs) has yet to be thoroughly investigated. Existing FMs have struggled to establish sequence-structure alignment, hindering the free flow of genomic information between RNA sequences and structures. In this study, we introduce OmniGenome, an RNA FM trained to align RNA sequences with respect to secondary structures based on structure-contextualised modelling. The alignment enables free and bidirectional mappings between sequences and structures by utilising the flexible RNA modelling paradigm that supports versatile input and output modalities, i.e., sequence and/or structure as input/output. We implement RNA design and zero-shot secondary structure prediction as case studies to evaluate the Seq2Str and Str2Seq mapping capacity of OmniGenome. Results on the EternaV2 benchmark show that OmniGenome solved 74% of puzzles, whereas existing FMs only solved up to 3% of the puzzles due to the oversight of sequence-structure alignment. We leverage four comprehensive in-silico genome modelling benchmarks to evaluate performance across a diverse set of genome downstream tasks, where the results show that OmniGenome achieves state-of-the-art performance on RNA and DNA benchmarks, even without any training on DNA genomes.
Actuation without production bias
Authors: James Kirby, Morgan Sonderegger
Date: 2024-07-15 00:00:00

Phonetic production bias is the external force most commonly invoked in computational models of sound change, despite the fact that it is not responsible for all, or even most, sound changes. Furthermore, the existence of production bias alone cannot account for how changes do or do not propagate throughout a speech community. While many other factors have been invoked by (socio)phoneticians, including but not limited to contact (between subpopulations) and differences in social evaluation (of variants, groups, or individuals), these are not typically modeled in computational simulations of sound change. In this paper, we consider whether production biases have a unique dynamics in terms of how they impact the population-level spread of change in a setting where agents learn from multiple teachers. We show that, while the dynamics conditioned by production bias are not unique, it is not the case that all perturbing forces have the same dynamics: in particular, if social weight is a function of individual teachers and the correlation between a teacher's social weight and the extent to which they realize a production bias is weak, change is unlikely to propagate. Nevertheless, it remains the case that changes initiated from different sources may display a similar dynamics. A more nuanced understanding of how population structure interacts with individual biases can thus provide a (partial) solution to the `non-phonologization problem'.
YouTube-SL-25: A Large-Scale, Open-Domain Multilingual Sign Language Parallel Corpus
Authors: Garrett Tanzer, Biao Zhang
Date: 2024-07-15 00:00:00

Even for better-studied sign languages like American Sign Language (ASL), data is the bottleneck for machine learning research. The situation is worse yet for the many other sign languages used by Deaf/Hard of Hearing communities around the world. In this paper, we present YouTube-SL-25, a large-scale, open-domain multilingual corpus of sign language videos with seemingly well-aligned captions drawn from YouTube. With >3000 hours of videos across >25 sign languages, YouTube-SL-25 is a) >3x the size of YouTube-ASL, b) the largest parallel sign language dataset to date, and c) the first or largest parallel dataset for many of its component languages. We provide baselines for sign-to-text tasks using a unified multilingual multitask model based on T5 and report scores on benchmarks across 4 sign languages. The results demonstrate that multilingual transfer benefits both higher- and lower-resource sign languages within YouTube-SL-25.
BMR and BWR: Two simple metaphor-free optimization algorithms for solving real-life non-convex constrained and unconstrained problems
Authors: Ravipudi Venkata Rao, Ravikumar shah
Date: 2024-07-15 00:00:00

Two simple yet powerful optimization algorithms, named the Best-Mean-Random (BMR) and Best-Worst-Random (BWR) algorithms, are developed and presented in this paper to handle both constrained and unconstrained optimization problems. These algorithms are free of metaphors and algorithm-specific parameters. The BMR algorithm is based on the best, mean, and random solutions of the population generated for solving a given problem, and the BWR algorithm is based on the best, worst, and random solutions. The performances of the proposed two algorithms are investigated by implementing them on 26 real-life nonconvex constrained optimization problems given in the Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) 2020 competition, and comparisons are made with those of the other prominent optimization algorithms. The performances on 12 constrained engineering problems are also investigated, and the results are compared with those of very recent algorithms (in some cases, compared with more than 30 algorithms). Furthermore, computational experiments are conducted on 30 unconstrained standard benchmark optimization problems, including 5 recently developed benchmark problems with distinct characteristics. The results demonstrated the superior competitiveness and superiority of the proposed simple algorithms. The optimization research community may gain an advantage by adapting these algorithms to solve various constrained and unconstrained real-life optimization problems across various scientific and engineering disciplines. The codes of the BMR and BWR algorithms are available at https://sites.google.com/view/bmr-bwr-optimization-algorithm/home?authuser=0.
Learning by the F-adjoint
Authors: Ahmed Boughammoura
Date: 2024-07-08 00:00:00

A recent paper by Boughammoura (2023) describes the back-propagation algorithm in terms of an alternative formulation called the F-adjoint method. In particular, by the F-adjoint algorithm the computation of the loss gradient, with respect to each weight within the network, is straightforward and can simply be done. In this work, we develop and investigate this theoretical framework to improve some supervised learning algorithm for feed-forward neural network. Our main result is that by introducing some neural dynamical model combined by the gradient descent algorithm, we derived an equilibrium F-adjoint process which yields to some local learning rule for deep feed-forward networks setting. Experimental results on MNIST and Fashion-MNIST datasets, demonstrate that the proposed approach provide a significant improvements on the standard back-propagation training procedure.
Fuzzy Recurrent Stochastic Configuration Networks for Industrial Data Analytics
Authors: Dianhui Wang, Gang Dang
Date: 2024-07-06 00:00:00

This paper presents a novel neuro-fuzzy model, termed fuzzy recurrent stochastic configuration networks (F-RSCNs), for industrial data analytics. Unlike the original recurrent stochastic configuration network (RSCN), the proposed F-RSCN is constructed by multiple sub-reservoirs, and each sub-reservoir is associated with a Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) fuzzy rule. Through this hybrid framework, first, the interpretability of the model is enhanced by incorporating fuzzy reasoning to embed the prior knowledge into the network. Then, the parameters of the neuro-fuzzy model are determined by the recurrent stochastic configuration (RSC) algorithm. This scheme not only ensures the universal approximation property and fast learning speed of the built model but also overcomes uncertain problems, such as unknown dynamic orders, arbitrary structure determination, and the sensitivity of learning parameters in modelling nonlinear dynamics. Finally, an online update of the output weights is performed using the projection algorithm, and the convergence analysis of the learning parameters is given. By integrating TSK fuzzy inference systems into RSCNs, F-RSCNs have strong fuzzy inference capability and can achieve sound performance for both learning and generalization. Comprehensive experiments show that the proposed F-RSCNs outperform other classical neuro-fuzzy and non-fuzzy models, demonstrating great potential for modelling complex industrial systems.
Quantum-tunnelling deep neural network for optical illusion recognition
Authors: Ivan S. Maksymov
Date: 2024-06-26 00:00:00
Tasks: Autonomous Vehicles, Benchmarking

The discovery of the quantum tunnelling (QT) effect -- the transmission of particles through a high potential barrier -- was one of the most impressive achievements of quantum mechanics made in the 1920s. Responding to the contemporary challenges, I introduce a deep neural network (DNN) architecture that processes information using the effect of QT. I demonstrate the ability of QT-DNN to recognise optical illusions like a human. Tasking QT-DNN to simulate human perception of the Necker cube and Rubin's vase, I provide arguments in favour of the superiority of QT-based activation functions over the activation functions optimised for modern applications in machine vision, also showing that, at the fundamental level, QT-DNN is closely related to biology-inspired DNNs and models based on the principles of quantum information processing.
Impossibility of latent inner product recovery via rate distortion
Authors: Cheng Mao, Shenduo Zhang
Date: 2024-07-16 00:00:00

In this largely expository note, we present an impossibility result for inner product recovery in a random geometric graph or latent space model using the rate-distortion theory. More precisely, suppose that we observe a graph $A$ on $n$ vertices with average edge density $p$ generated from Gaussian or spherical latent locations $z_1, \dots, z_n \in \mathbb{R}^d$ associated with the $n$ vertices. It is of interest to estimate the inner products $\langle z_i, z_j \rangle$ which represent the geometry of the latent points. We prove that it is impossible to recover the inner products if $d \gtrsim n h(p)$ where $h(p)$ is the binary entropy function. This matches the condition required for positive results on inner product recovery in the literature. The proof follows the well-established rate-distortion theory with the main technical ingredient being a lower bound on the rate-distortion function of the Wishart distribution which is interesting in its own right.
Gradient Flows and Riemannian Structure in the Gromov-Wasserstein Geometry
Authors: Zhengxin Zhang, Ziv Goldfeld, Kristjan Greenewald, Youssef Mroueh, Bharath K. Sriperumbudur
Date: 2024-07-16 00:00:00

The Wasserstein space of probability measures is known for its intricate Riemannian structure, which underpins the Wasserstein geometry and enables gradient flow algorithms. However, the Wasserstein geometry may not be suitable for certain tasks or data modalities. Motivated by scenarios where the global structure of the data needs to be preserved, this work initiates the study of gradient flows and Riemannian structure in the Gromov-Wasserstein (GW) geometry, which is particularly suited for such purposes. We focus on the inner product GW (IGW) distance between distributions on $\mathbb{R}^d$. Given a functional $\mathsf{F}:\mathcal{P}_2(\mathbb{R}^d)\to\mathbb{R}$ to optimize, we present an implicit IGW minimizing movement scheme that generates a sequence of distributions $\{\rho_i\}_{i=0}^n$, which are close in IGW and aligned in the 2-Wasserstein sense. Taking the time step to zero, we prove that the discrete solution converges to an IGW generalized minimizing movement (GMM) $(\rho_t)_t$ that follows the continuity equation with a velocity field $v_t\in L^2(\rho_t;\mathbb{R}^d)$, specified by a global transformation of the Wasserstein gradient of $\mathsf{F}$. The transformation is given by a mobility operator that modifies the Wasserstein gradient to encode not only local information, but also global structure. Our gradient flow analysis leads us to identify the Riemannian structure that gives rise to the intrinsic IGW geometry, using which we establish a Benamou-Brenier-like formula for IGW. We conclude with a formal derivation, akin to the Otto calculus, of the IGW gradient as the inverse mobility acting on the Wasserstein gradient. Numerical experiments validating our theory and demonstrating the global nature of IGW interpolations are provided.
Exponential tilting of subweibull distributions
Authors: F. William Townes
Date: 2024-07-16 00:00:00

The class of subweibull distributions has recently been shown to generalize the important properties of subexponential and subgaussian random variables. We describe alternative characterizations of subweibull distributions and detail the conditions under which their tail behavior is preserved after exponential tilting.
Moment Unfolding
Authors: Krish Desai, Benjamin Nachman, Jesse Thaler
Date: 2024-07-15 00:00:00

Deconvolving ("unfolding'') detector distortions is a critical step in the comparison of cross section measurements with theoretical predictions in particle and nuclear physics. However, most existing approaches require histogram binning while many theoretical predictions are at the level of statistical moments. We develop a new approach to directly unfold distribution moments as a function of another observable without having to first discretize the data. Our Moment Unfolding technique uses machine learning and is inspired by Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). We demonstrate the performance of this approach using jet substructure measurements in collider physics. With this illustrative example, we find that our Moment Unfolding protocol is more precise than bin-based approaches and is as or more precise than completely unbinned methods.
Robust Score-Based Quickest Change Detection
Authors: Sean Moushegian, Suya Wu, Enmao Diao, Jie Ding, Taposh Banerjee, Vahid Tarokh
Date: 2024-07-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Change Detection

Methods in the field of quickest change detection rapidly detect in real-time a change in the data-generating distribution of an online data stream. Existing methods have been able to detect this change point when the densities of the pre- and post-change distributions are known. Recent work has extended these results to the case where the pre- and post-change distributions are known only by their score functions. This work considers the case where the pre- and post-change score functions are known only to correspond to distributions in two disjoint sets. This work employs a pair of "least-favorable" distributions to robustify the existing score-based quickest change detection algorithm, the properties of which are studied. This paper calculates the least-favorable distributions for specific model classes and provides methods of estimating the least-favorable distributions for common constructions. Simulation results are provided demonstrating the performance of our robust change detection algorithm.
Combining Federated Learning and Control: A Survey
Authors: Jakob Weber, Markus Gurtner, Amadeus Lobe, Adrian Trachte, Andreas Kugi
Date: 2024-07-12 00:00:00
Tasks: Decision Making, Federated Learning, Survey, Transfer Learning

This survey provides an overview of combining Federated Learning (FL) and control to enhance adaptability, scalability, generalization, and privacy in (nonlinear) control applications. Traditional control methods rely on controller design models, but real-world scenarios often require online model retuning or learning. FL offers a distributed approach to model training, enabling collaborative learning across distributed devices while preserving data privacy. By keeping data localized, FL mitigates concerns regarding privacy and security while reducing network bandwidth requirements for communication. This survey summarizes the state-of-the-art concepts and ideas of combining FL and control. The methodical benefits are further discussed, culminating in a detailed overview of expected applications, from dynamical system modeling over controller design, focusing on adaptive control, to knowledge transfer in multi-agent decision-making systems.
Optimal estimators of cross-partial derivatives and surrogates of functions
Authors: Matieyendou Lamboni
Date: 2024-07-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Sensitivity

Computing cross-partial derivatives using fewer model runs is relevant in modeling, such as stochastic approximation, derivative-based ANOVA, exploring complex models, and active subspaces. This paper introduces surrogates of all the cross-partial derivatives of functions by evaluating such functions at $N$ randomized points and using a set of $L$ constraints. Randomized points rely on independent, central, and symmetric variables. The associated estimators, based on $NL$ model runs, reach the optimal rates of convergence (i.e., $\mathcal{O}(N^{-1})$), and the biases of our approximations do not suffer from the curse of dimensionality for a wide class of functions. Such results are used for i) computing the main and upper-bounds of sensitivity indices, and ii) deriving emulators of simulators or surrogates of functions thanks to the derivative-based ANOVA. Simulations are presented to show the accuracy of our emulators and estimators of sensitivity indices. The plug-in estimates of indices using the U-statistics of one sample are numerically much stable.
A Geometric Framework for Adversarial Vulnerability in Machine Learning
Authors: Brian Bell
Date: 2024-07-03 00:00:00

This work starts with the intention of using mathematics to understand the intriguing vulnerability observed by ~\citet{szegedy2013} within artificial neural networks. Along the way, we will develop some novel tools with applications far outside of just the adversarial domain. We will do this while developing a rigorous mathematical framework to examine this problem. Our goal is to build out theory which can support increasingly sophisticated conjecture about adversarial attacks with a particular focus on the so called ``Dimpled Manifold Hypothesis'' by ~\citet{shamir2021dimpled}. Chapter one will cover the history and architecture of neural network architectures. Chapter two is focused on the background of adversarial vulnerability. Starting from the seminal paper by ~\citet{szegedy2013} we will develop the theory of adversarial perturbation and attack. Chapter three will build a theory of persistence that is related to Ricci Curvature, which can be used to measure properties of decision boundaries. We will use this foundation to make a conjecture relating adversarial attacks. Chapters four and five represent a sudden and wonderful digression that examines an intriguing related body of theory for spatial analysis of neural networks as approximations of kernel machines and becomes a novel theory for representing neural networks with bilinear maps. These heavily mathematical chapters will set up a framework and begin exploring applications of what may become a very important theoretical foundation for analyzing neural network learning with spatial and geometric information. We will conclude by setting up our new methods to address the conjecture from chapter 3 in continuing research.
Fine-tuning Multimodal Large Language Models for Product Bundling
Authors: Xiaohao Liu, Jie Wu, Zhulin Tao, Yunshan Ma, Yinwei Wei, Tat-Seng Chua
Date: 2024-07-16 00:00:00
Tasks: In-Context Learning, Multiple-choice

Recent advances in product bundling have leveraged multimodal information through sophisticated encoders, but remain constrained by limited semantic understanding and a narrow scope of knowledge. Therefore, some attempts employ In-context Learning (ICL) to explore the potential of large language models (LLMs) for their extensive knowledge and complex reasoning abilities. However, these efforts are inadequate in understanding mulitmodal data and exploiting LLMs' knowledge for product bundling. To bridge the gap, we introduce Bundle-MLLM, a novel framework that fine-tunes LLMs through a hybrid item tokenization approach within a well-designed optimization strategy. Specifically, we integrate textual, media, and relational data into a unified tokenization, introducing a soft separation token to distinguish between textual and non-textual tokens. Additionally, a streamlined yet powerful multimodal fusion module is employed to embed all non-textual features into a single, informative token, significantly boosting efficiency. To tailor product bundling tasks for LLMs, we reformulate the task as a multiple-choice question with candidate items as options. We further propose a progressive optimization strategy that fine-tunes LLMs for disentangled objectives: 1) learning bundle patterns and 2) enhancing multimodal semantic understanding specific to product bundling. Extensive experiments on four datasets across two domains demonstrate that our approach outperforms a range of state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods.