pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Kernel Looping: Eliminating Synchronization Boundaries for Peak Inference Performance
Authors: David Koeplinger, Darshan Gandhi, Pushkar Nandkar, Nathan Sheeley, Matheen Musaddiq, Leon Zhang, Reid Goodbar, Matthew Shaffer, Han Wang, Angela Wang, Mingran Wang, Raghu Prabhakar
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: global-optimization

Token generation speed is critical to power the next wave of AI inference applications. GPUs significantly underperform during token generation due to synchronization overheads at kernel boundaries, utilizing only 21% of their peak memory bandwidth. While recent dataflow architectures mitigate these overheads by enabling aggressive fusion of decoder layers into a single kernel, they too leave performance on the table due to synchronization penalties at layer boundaries. This paper presents kernel looping, a specialized global optimization technique which exploits an optimization opportunity brought by combining the unique layer-level fusion possible in modern dataflow architectures with the repeated layer structure found in language models. Kernel looping eliminates synchronization costs between consecutive calls to the same kernel by transforming these calls into a single call to a modified kernel containing a pipelined outer loop. We evaluate kernel looping on the SambaNova SN40L Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU), a commercial dataflow accelerator for AI. Experiments demonstrate that kernel looping speeds up the decode phase of a wide array of powerful open-source models by up to 2.2$\times$ on SN40L. Kernel looping allows scaling of decode performance over multiple SN40L sockets, achieving speedups of up to 2.5$\times$. Finally, kernel looping enables SN40L to achieve over 90% of peak performance on 8 and 16 sockets and achieve a speedup of up to 3.7$\times$ over DGX H100. Kernel looping, as well as the models evaluated in this paper, are deployed in production in a commercial AI inference cloud.
Deep Convolutional Neural Networks on Multiclass Classification of Three-Dimensional Brain Images for Parkinson's Disease Stage Prediction
Authors: Guan-Hua Huang, Wan-Chen Lai, Tai-Been Chen, Chien-Chin Hsu, Huei-Yung Chen, Yi-Chen Wu, Li-Ren Yeh
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00

Parkinson's disease (PD), a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, is commonly diagnosed using functional medical imaging techniques such as single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). In this study, we utilized two SPECT data sets (n = 634 and n = 202) from different hospitals to develop a model capable of accurately predicting PD stages, a multiclass classification task. We used the entire three-dimensional (3D) brain images as input and experimented with various model architectures. Initially, we treated the 3D images as sequences of two-dimensional (2D) slices and fed them sequentially into 2D convolutional neural network (CNN) models pretrained on ImageNet, averaging the outputs to obtain the final predicted stage. We also applied 3D CNN models pretrained on Kinetics-400. Additionally, we incorporated an attention mechanism to account for the varying importance of different slices in the prediction process. To further enhance model efficacy and robustness, we simultaneously trained the two data sets using weight sharing, a technique known as cotraining. Our results demonstrated that 2D models pretrained on ImageNet outperformed 3D models pretrained on Kinetics-400, and models utilizing the attention mechanism outperformed both 2D and 3D models. The cotraining technique proved effective in improving model performance when the cotraining data sets were sufficiently large.
Anytime-Constrained Equilibria in Polynomial Time
Authors: Jeremy McMahan
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning

We extend anytime constraints to the Markov game setting and the corresponding solution concept of an anytime-constrained equilibrium (ACE). Then, we present a comprehensive theory of anytime-constrained equilibria that includes (1) a computational characterization of feasible policies, (2) a fixed-parameter tractable algorithm for computing ACE, and (3) a polynomial-time algorithm for approximately computing ACE. Since computing a feasible policy is NP-hard even for two-player zero-sum games, our approximation guarantees are optimal so long as $P \neq NP$. We also develop the first theory of efficient computation for action-constrained Markov games, which may be of independent interest.
Adaptive Alignment: Dynamic Preference Adjustments via Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning for Pluralistic AI
Authors: Hadassah Harland, Richard Dazeley, Peter Vamplew, Hashini Senaratne, Bahareh Nakisa, Francisco Cruz
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning

Emerging research in Pluralistic Artificial Intelligence (AI) alignment seeks to address how intelligent systems can be designed and deployed in accordance with diverse human needs and values. We contribute to this pursuit with a dynamic approach for aligning AI with diverse and shifting user preferences through Multi Objective Reinforcement Learning (MORL), via post-learning policy selection adjustment. In this paper, we introduce the proposed framework for this approach, outline its anticipated advantages and assumptions, and discuss technical details about the implementation. We also examine the broader implications of adopting a retroactive alignment approach through the sociotechnical systems perspective.
Posture-Informed Muscular Force Learning for Robust Hand Pressure Estimation
Authors: Kyungjin Seo, Junghoon Seo, Hanseok Jeong, Sangpil Kim, Sang Ho Yoon
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00

We present PiMForce, a novel framework that enhances hand pressure estimation by leveraging 3D hand posture information to augment forearm surface electromyography (sEMG) signals. Our approach utilizes detailed spatial information from 3D hand poses in conjunction with dynamic muscle activity from sEMG to enable accurate and robust whole-hand pressure measurements under diverse hand-object interactions. We also developed a multimodal data collection system that combines a pressure glove, an sEMG armband, and a markerless finger-tracking module. We created a comprehensive dataset from 21 participants, capturing synchronized data of hand posture, sEMG signals, and exerted hand pressure across various hand postures and hand-object interaction scenarios using our collection system. Our framework enables precise hand pressure estimation in complex and natural interaction scenarios. Our approach substantially mitigates the limitations of traditional sEMG-based or vision-based methods by integrating 3D hand posture information with sEMG signals. Video demos, data, and code are available online.
Using Structural Similarity and Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks for Anatomical Embedding of 3-hinge Gyrus
Authors: Minheng Chen, Chao Cao, Tong Chen, Yan Zhuang, Jing Zhang, Yanjun Lyu, Xiaowei Yu, Lu Zhang, Tianming Liu, Dajiang Zhu
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

The 3-hinge gyrus (3HG) is a newly defined folding pattern, which is the conjunction of gyri coming from three directions in cortical folding. Many studies demonstrated that 3HGs can be reliable nodes when constructing brain networks or connectome since they simultaneously possess commonality and individuality across different individual brains and populations. However, 3HGs are identified and validated within individual spaces, making it difficult to directly serve as the brain network nodes due to the absence of cross-subject correspondence. The 3HG correspondences represent the intrinsic regulation of brain organizational architecture, traditional image-based registration methods tend to fail because individual anatomical properties need to be fully respected. To address this challenge, we propose a novel self-supervised framework for anatomical feature embedding of the 3HGs to build the correspondences among different brains. The core component of this framework is to construct a structural similarity-enhanced multi-hop feature encoding strategy based on the recently developed Kolmogorov-Arnold network (KAN) for anatomical feature embedding. Extensive experiments suggest that our approach can effectively establish robust cross-subject correspondences when no one-to-one mapping exists.
How Do Flow Matching Models Memorize and Generalize in Sample Data Subspaces?
Authors: Weiguo Gao, Ming Li
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Dimensionality Reduction

Real-world data is often assumed to lie within a low-dimensional structure embedded in high-dimensional space. In practical settings, we observe only a finite set of samples, forming what we refer to as the sample data subspace. It serves an essential approximation supporting tasks such as dimensionality reduction and generation. A major challenge lies in whether generative models can reliably synthesize samples that stay within this subspace rather than drifting away from the underlying structure. In this work, we provide theoretical insights into this challenge by leveraging Flow Matching models, which transform a simple prior into a complex target distribution via a learned velocity field. By treating the real data distribution as discrete, we derive analytical expressions for the optimal velocity field under a Gaussian prior, showing that generated samples memorize real data points and represent the sample data subspace exactly. To generalize to suboptimal scenarios, we introduce the Orthogonal Subspace Decomposition Network (OSDNet), which systematically decomposes the velocity field into subspace and off-subspace components. Our analysis shows that the off-subspace component decays, while the subspace component generalizes within the sample data subspace, ensuring generated samples preserve both proximity and diversity.
Automating Quantum Software Maintenance: Flakiness Detection and Root Cause Analysis
Authors: Janakan Sivaloganathan, Ainaz Jamshidi, Andriy Miranskyy, Lei Zhang
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00

Flaky tests, which pass or fail inconsistently without code changes, are a major challenge in software engineering in general and in quantum software engineering in particular due to their complexity and probabilistic nature, leading to hidden issues and wasted developer effort. We aim to create an automated framework to detect flaky tests in quantum software and an extended dataset of quantum flaky tests, overcoming the limitations of manual methods. Building on prior manual analysis of 14 quantum software repositories, we expanded the dataset and automated flaky test detection using transformers and cosine similarity. We conducted experiments with Large Language Models (LLMs) from the OpenAI GPT and Meta LLaMA families to assess their ability to detect and classify flaky tests from code and issue descriptions. Embedding transformers proved effective: we identified 25 new flaky tests, expanding the dataset by 54%. Top LLMs achieved an F1-score of 0.8871 for flakiness detection but only 0.5839 for root cause identification. We introduced an automated flaky test detection framework using machine learning, showing promising results but highlighting the need for improved root cause detection and classification in large quantum codebases. Future work will focus on improving detection techniques and developing automatic flaky test fixes.
MS-Glance: Bio-Insipred Non-semantic Context Vectors and their Applications in Supervising Image Reconstruction
Authors: Ziqi Gao, Wendi Yang, Yujia Li, Lei Xing, S. Kevin Zhou
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Image Reconstruction, Image Restoration, MRI Reconstruction

Non-semantic context information is crucial for visual recognition, as the human visual perception system first uses global statistics to process scenes rapidly before identifying specific objects. However, while semantic information is increasingly incorporated into computer vision tasks such as image reconstruction, non-semantic information, such as global spatial structures, is often overlooked. To bridge the gap, we propose a biologically informed non-semantic context descriptor, \textbf{MS-Glance}, along with the Glance Index Measure for comparing two images. A Global Glance vector is formulated by randomly retrieving pixels based on a perception-driven rule from an image to form a vector representing non-semantic global context, while a local Glance vector is a flattened local image window, mimicking a zoom-in observation. The Glance Index is defined as the inner product of two standardized sets of Glance vectors. We evaluate the effectiveness of incorporating Glance supervision in two reconstruction tasks: image fitting with implicit neural representation (INR) and undersampled MRI reconstruction. Extensive experimental results show that MS-Glance outperforms existing image restoration losses across both natural and medical images. The code is available at \url{https://github.com/Z7Gao/MSGlance}.
Transferable Ensemble Black-box Jailbreak Attacks on Large Language Models
Authors: Yiqi Yang, Hongye Fu
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00

In this report, we propose a novel black-box jailbreak attacking framework that incorporates various LLM-as-Attacker methods to deliver transferable and powerful jailbreak attacks. Our method is designed based on three key observations from existing jailbreaking studies and practices. First, we consider an ensemble approach should be more effective in exposing the vulnerabilities of an aligned LLM compared to individual attacks. Second, different malicious instructions inherently vary in their jailbreaking difficulty, necessitating differentiated treatment to ensure more efficient attacks. Finally, the semantic coherence of a malicious instruction is crucial for triggering the defenses of an aligned LLM; therefore, it must be carefully disrupted to manipulate its embedding representation, thereby increasing the jailbreak success rate. We validated our approach by participating in the Competition for LLM and Agent Safety 2024, where our team achieved top performance in the Jailbreaking Attack Track.
From Context to Action: Analysis of the Impact of State Representation and Context on the Generalization of Multi-Turn Web Navigation Agents
Authors: Nalin Tiwary, Vardhan Dongre, Sanil Arun Chawla, Ashwin Lamani, Dilek Hakkani-Tür
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Action Analysis, Conversational Web Navigation, Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Large Language Model, Management, Navigate

Recent advancements in Large Language Model (LLM)-based frameworks have extended their capabilities to complex real-world applications, such as interactive web navigation. These systems, driven by user commands, navigate web browsers to complete tasks through multi-turn dialogues, offering both innovative opportunities and significant challenges. Despite the introduction of benchmarks for conversational web navigation, a detailed understanding of the key contextual components that influence the performance of these agents remains elusive. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the various contextual elements crucial to the functioning of web navigation agents. We investigate the optimization of context management, focusing on the influence of interaction history and web page representation. Our work highlights improved agent performance across out-of-distribution scenarios, including unseen websites, categories, and geographic locations through effective context management. These findings provide insights into the design and optimization of LLM-based agents, enabling more accurate and effective web navigation in real-world applications.
ALISE: Accelerating Large Language Model Serving with Speculative Scheduling
Authors: Youpeng Zhao, Jun Wang
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Blocking, Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Large Language Model, Quantization, Scheduling

Large Language Models (LLMs) represent a revolutionary advancement in the contemporary landscape of artificial general intelligence (AGI). As exemplified by ChatGPT, LLM-based applications necessitate minimal response latency and maximal throughput for inference serving. However, due to the unpredictability of LLM execution, the first-come-first-serve (FCFS) scheduling policy employed by current LLM serving systems suffers from head-of-line (HoL) blocking issues and long job response times. In this paper, we propose a new efficient LLM inference serving framework, named ALISE. The key design paradigm of ALISE is to leverage a novel speculative scheduler by estimating the execution time for each job and exploiting such prior knowledge to assign appropriate job priority orders, thus minimizing potential queuing delays for heterogeneous workloads. Furthermore, to mitigate the memory overhead of the intermediate key-value (KV) cache, we employ a priority-based adaptive memory management protocol and quantization-based compression techniques. Evaluations demonstrate that in comparison to the state-of-the-art solution vLLM, ALISE improves the throughput of inference serving by up to 1.8x and 2.1x under the same latency constraint on the Alpaca and ShareGPT datasets, respectively.
Simulating User Agents for Embodied Conversational-AI
Authors: Daniel Philipov, Vardhan Dongre, Gokhan Tur, Dilek Hakkani-Tür
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Dataset Generation, Large Language Model

Embodied agents designed to assist users with tasks must engage in natural language interactions, interpret instructions, execute actions, and communicate effectively to resolve issues. However, collecting large-scale, diverse datasets of situated human-robot dialogues to train and evaluate such agents is expensive, labor-intensive, and time-consuming. To address this challenge, we propose building a large language model (LLM)-based user agent that can simulate user behavior during interactions with an embodied agent in a virtual environment. Given a user goal (e.g., make breakfast), at each time step, the user agent may observe" the robot actions or speak" to either intervene with the robot or answer questions. Such a user agent assists in improving the scalability and efficiency of embodied dialogues dataset generation and is critical for enhancing and evaluating the robot's interaction and task completion ability, as well as for research in reinforcement learning using AI feedback. We evaluate our user agent's ability to generate human-like behaviors by comparing its simulated dialogues with the TEACh dataset. We perform three experiments: zero-shot prompting to predict dialogue acts, few-shot prompting, and fine-tuning on the TEACh training subset. Results show the LLM-based user agent achieves an F-measure of 42% with zero-shot prompting and 43.4% with few-shot prompting in mimicking human speaking behavior. Through fine-tuning, performance in deciding when to speak remained stable, while deciding what to say improved from 51.1% to 62.5%. These findings showcase the feasibility of the proposed approach for assessing and enhancing the effectiveness of robot task completion through natural language communication.
There and Back Again: On the relation between noises, images, and their inversions in diffusion models
Authors: Łukasz Staniszewski, Łukasz Kuciński, Kamil Deja
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Denoising, Relation

Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPMs) achieve state-of-the-art performance in synthesizing new images from random noise, but they lack meaningful latent space that encodes data into features. Recent DDPM-based editing techniques try to mitigate this issue by inverting images back to their approximated staring noise. In this work, we study the relation between the initial Gaussian noise, the samples generated from it, and their corresponding latent encodings obtained through the inversion procedure. First, we interpret their spatial distance relations to show the inaccuracy of the DDIM inversion technique by localizing latent representations manifold between the initial noise and generated samples. Then, we demonstrate the peculiar relation between initial Gaussian noise and its corresponding generations during diffusion training, showing that the high-level features of generated images stabilize rapidly, keeping the spatial distance relationship between noises and generations consistent throughout the training.
LEAF: Learning and Evaluation Augmented by Fact-Checking to Improve Factualness in Large Language Models
Authors: Hieu Tran, Junda Wang, Yujan Ting, Weijing Huang, Terrence Chen
Date: 2024-10-31 00:00:00
Tasks: Fact Checking, Medical Question Answering, Question Answering, RAG, Retrieval, Retrieval-augmented Generation

Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable capabilities in various natural language processing tasks, yet they often struggle with maintaining factual accuracy, particularly in knowledge-intensive domains like healthcare. This study introduces LEAF: Learning and Evaluation Augmented by Fact-Checking, a novel approach designed to enhance the factual reliability of LLMs, with a focus on medical question answering (QA). LEAF utilizes a dual strategy to enhance the factual accuracy of responses from models such as Llama 3 70B Instruct and Llama 3 8B Instruct. The first strategy, Fact-Check-Then-RAG, improves Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) by incorporating fact-checking results to guide the retrieval process without updating model parameters. The second strategy, Learning from Fact-Checks via Self-Training, involves supervised fine-tuning (SFT) on fact-checked responses or applying Simple Preference Optimization (SimPO) with fact-checking as a ranking mechanism, both updating LLM parameters from supervision. These findings suggest that integrating fact-checked responses whether through RAG enhancement or self-training enhances the reliability and factual correctness of LLM outputs, offering a promising solution for applications where information accuracy is crucial.
Dynamic Strategy Planning for Efficient Question Answering with Large Language Models
Authors: Tanmay Parekh, Pradyot Prakash, Alexander Radovic, Akshay Shekher, Denis Savenkov
Date: 2024-10-30 00:00:00
Tasks: Multi-hop Question Answering, Question Answering, Response Generation, Retrieval-augmented Generation

Research has shown the effectiveness of reasoning (e.g., Chain-of-Thought), planning (e.g., SelfAsk), and retrieval augmented generation strategies to improve the performance of Large Language Models (LLMs) on various tasks, such as question answering. However, using a single fixed strategy to answer different kinds of questions is suboptimal in performance and inefficient in terms of generated output tokens and performed retrievals. In our work, we propose a novel technique DyPlan, to induce a dynamic strategy selection process in LLMs, to improve performance and reduce costs in question-answering. DyPlan incorporates an initial decision step to select the most suitable strategy conditioned on the input question and guides the LLM's response generation accordingly. We extend DyPlan to DyPlan-verify, adding an internal verification and correction process to further enrich the generated answer. Experiments on three prominent multi-hop question answering (MHQA) datasets reveal how DyPlan can improve model performance by 7-13% while reducing the cost by 11-32% relative to the best baseline model.