pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Words Matter: Reducing Stigma in Online Conversations about Substance Use with Large Language Models
Authors: Layla Bouzoubaa, Elham Aghakhani, Shadi Rezapour
Date: 2024-08-15 00:00:00

Stigma is a barrier to treatment for individuals struggling with substance use disorders (SUD), which leads to significantly lower treatment engagement rates. With only 7% of those affected receiving any form of help, societal stigma not only discourages individuals with SUD from seeking help but isolates them, hindering their recovery journey and perpetuating a cycle of shame and self-doubt. This study investigates how stigma manifests on social media, particularly Reddit, where anonymity can exacerbate discriminatory behaviors. We analyzed over 1.2 million posts, identifying 3,207 that exhibited stigmatizing language towards people who use substances (PWUS). Using Informed and Stylized LLMs, we develop a model for de-stigmatization of these expressions into empathetic language, resulting in 1,649 reformed phrase pairs. Our paper contributes to the field by proposing a computational framework for analyzing stigma and destigmatizing online content, and delving into the linguistic features that propagate stigma towards PWUS. Our work not only enhances understanding of stigma's manifestations online but also provides practical tools for fostering a more supportive digital environment for those affected by SUD. Code and data will be made publicly available upon acceptance.
Time-Dependent VAE for Building Latent Representations from Visual Neural Activity with Complex Dynamics
Authors: Liwei Huang, Zhengyu Ma, Liutao Yu, Huihui Zhou, Yonghong Tian
Date: 2024-08-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Contrastive Learning

Seeking high-quality representations with latent variable models (LVMs) to reveal the intrinsic correlation between neural activity and behavior or sensory stimuli has attracted much interest. Most work has focused on analyzing motor neural activity that controls clear behavioral traces and has modeled neural temporal relationships in a way that does not conform to natural reality. For studies of visual brain regions, naturalistic visual stimuli are high-dimensional and time-dependent, making neural activity exhibit intricate dynamics. To cope with such conditions, we propose Time-Dependent Split VAE (TiDeSPL-VAE), a sequential LVM that decomposes visual neural activity into two latent representations while considering time dependence. We specify content latent representations corresponding to the component of neural activity driven by the current visual stimulus, and style latent representations corresponding to the neural dynamics influenced by the organism's internal state. To progressively generate the two latent representations over time, we introduce state factors to construct conditional distributions with time dependence and apply self-supervised contrastive learning to shape them. By this means, TiDeSPL-VAE can effectively analyze complex visual neural activity and model temporal relationships in a natural way. We compare our model with alternative approaches on synthetic data and neural data from the mouse visual cortex. The results show that our model not only yields the best decoding performance on naturalistic scenes/movies but also extracts explicit neural dynamics, demonstrating that it builds latent representations more relevant to visual stimuli.
Analog Spiking Neuron in CMOS 28 nm Towards Large-Scale Neuromorphic Processors
Authors: Marwan Besrour, Jacob Lavoie, Takwa Omrani, Gabriel Martin-Hardy, Esmaeil Ranjbar Koleibi, Jeremy Menard, Konin Koua, Philippe Marcoux, Mounir Boukadoum, Rejean Fontaine
Date: 2024-08-14 00:00:00
Tasks: Quantization

The computational complexity of deep learning algorithms has given rise to significant speed and memory challenges for the execution hardware. In energy-limited portable devices, highly efficient processing platforms are indispensable for reproducing the prowess afforded by much bulkier processing platforms. In this work, we present a low-power Leaky Integrate-and-Fire (LIF) neuron design fabricated in TSMC's 28 nm CMOS technology as proof of concept to build an energy-efficient mixed-signal Neuromorphic System-on-Chip (NeuroSoC). The fabricated neuron consumes 1.61 fJ/spike and occupies an active area of 34 $\mu m^{2}$, leading to a maximum spiking frequency of 300 kHz at 250 mV power supply. These performances are used in a software model to emulate the dynamics of a Spiking Neural Network (SNN). Employing supervised backpropagation and a surrogate gradient technique, the resulting accuracy on the MNIST dataset, using 4-bit post-training quantization stands at 82.5\%. The approach underscores the potential of such ASIC implementation of quantized SNNs to deliver high-performance, energy-efficient solutions to various embedded machine-learning applications.
Localized Sparse Principal Component Analysis of Multivariate Time Series in Frequency Domain
Authors: Jamshid Namdari, Amita Manatunga, Fabio Ferrarelli, Robert Krafty
Date: 2024-08-15 00:00:00
Tasks: EEG, Time Series

Principal component analysis has been a main tool in multivariate analysis for estimating a low dimensional linear subspace that explains most of the variability in the data. However, in high-dimensional regimes, naive estimates of the principal loadings are not consistent and difficult to interpret. In the context of time series, principal component analysis of spectral density matrices can provide valuable, parsimonious information about the behavior of the underlying process, particularly if the principal components are interpretable in that they are sparse in coordinates and localized in frequency bands. In this paper, we introduce a formulation and consistent estimation procedure for interpretable principal component analysis for high-dimensional time series in the frequency domain. An efficient frequency-sequential algorithm is developed to compute sparse-localized estimates of the low-dimensional principal subspaces of the signal process. The method is motivated by and used to understand neurological mechanisms from high-density resting-state EEG in a study of first episode psychosis.
A Bayesian Classification Trees Approach to Treatment Effect Variation with Noncompliance
Authors: Jared D. Fisher, David W. Puelz, Sameer K. Deshpande
Date: 2024-08-14 00:00:00
Tasks: Imputation

Estimating varying treatment effects in randomized trials with noncompliance is inherently challenging since variation comes from two separate sources: variation in the impact itself and variation in the compliance rate. In this setting, existing flexible machine learning methods are highly sensitive to the weak instruments problem, in which the compliance rate is (locally) close to zero. Our main methodological contribution is to present a Bayesian Causal Forest model for binary response variables in scenarios with noncompliance. By repeatedly imputing individuals' compliance types, we can flexibly estimate heterogeneous treatment effects among compliers. Simulation studies demonstrate the usefulness of our approach when compliance and treatment effects are heterogeneous. We apply the method to detect and analyze heterogeneity in the treatment effects in the Illinois Workplace Wellness Study, which not only features heterogeneous and one-sided compliance but also several binary outcomes of interest. We demonstrate the methodology on three outcomes one year after intervention. We confirm a null effect on the presence of a chronic condition, discover meaningful heterogeneity impact of the intervention on metabolic parameters though the average effect is null in classical partial effect estimates, and find substantial heterogeneity in individuals' perception of management prioritization of health and safety.
DaRec: A Disentangled Alignment Framework for Large Language Model and Recommender System
Authors: Xihong Yang, Heming Jing, Zixing Zhang, Jindong Wang, Huakang Niu, Shuaiqiang Wang, Yu Lu, Junfeng Wang, Dawei Yin, Xinwang Liu, En Zhu, Defu Lian, Erxue Min
Date: 2024-08-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Contrastive Learning, Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Large Language Model, Recommendation Systems, Transfer Learning

Benefiting from the strong reasoning capabilities, Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance in recommender systems. Various efforts have been made to distill knowledge from LLMs to enhance collaborative models, employing techniques like contrastive learning for representation alignment. In this work, we prove that directly aligning the representations of LLMs and collaborative models is sub-optimal for enhancing downstream recommendation tasks performance, based on the information theorem. Consequently, the challenge of effectively aligning semantic representations between collaborative models and LLMs remains unresolved. Inspired by this viewpoint, we propose a novel plug-and-play alignment framework for LLMs and collaborative models. Specifically, we first disentangle the latent representations of both LLMs and collaborative models into specific and shared components via projection layers and representation regularization. Subsequently, we perform both global and local structure alignment on the shared representations to facilitate knowledge transfer. Additionally, we theoretically prove that the specific and shared representations contain more pertinent and less irrelevant information, which can enhance the effectiveness of downstream recommendation tasks. Extensive experimental results on benchmark datasets demonstrate that our method is superior to existing state-of-the-art algorithms.
Modeling Domain and Feedback Transitions for Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation
Authors: Changshuo Zhang, Teng Shi, Xiao Zhang, Qi Liu, Ruobing Xie, Jun Xu, Ji-Rong Wen
Date: 2024-08-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Recommendation Systems, Representation Learning, Sequential Recommendation

Nowadays, many recommender systems encompass various domains to cater to users' diverse needs, leading to user behaviors transitioning across different domains. In fact, user behaviors across different domains reveal changes in preference toward recommended items. For instance, a shift from negative feedback to positive feedback indicates improved user satisfaction. However, existing cross-domain sequential recommendation methods typically model user interests by focusing solely on information about domain transitions, often overlooking the valuable insights provided by users' feedback transitions. In this paper, we propose $\text{Transition}^2$, a novel method to model transitions across both domains and types of user feedback. Specifically, $\text{Transition}^2$ introduces a transition-aware graph encoder based on user history, assigning different weights to edges according to the feedback type. This enables the graph encoder to extract historical embeddings that capture the transition information between different domains and feedback types. Subsequently, we encode the user history using a cross-transition multi-head self-attention, incorporating various masks to distinguish different types of transitions. To further enhance representation learning, we employ contrastive losses to align transitions across domains and feedback types. Finally, we integrate these modules to make predictions across different domains. Experimental results on two public datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of $\text{Transition}^2$.
From Clicks to Carbon: The Environmental Toll of Recommender Systems
Authors: Tobias Vente, Lukas Wegmeth, Alan Said, Joeran Beel
Date: 2024-08-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Learning, Recommendation Systems

As global warming soars, the need to assess the environmental impact of research is becoming increasingly urgent. Despite this, few recommender systems research papers address their environmental impact. In this study, we estimate the environmental impact of recommender systems research by reproducing typical experimental pipelines. Our analysis spans 79 full papers from the 2013 and 2023 ACM RecSys conferences, comparing traditional "good old-fashioned AI" algorithms with modern deep learning algorithms. We designed and reproduced representative experimental pipelines for both years, measuring energy consumption with a hardware energy meter and converting it to CO2 equivalents. Our results show that papers using deep learning algorithms emit approximately 42 times more CO2 equivalents than papers using traditional methods. On average, a single deep learning-based paper generates 3,297 kilograms of CO2 equivalents - more than the carbon emissions of one person flying from New York City to Melbourne or the amount of CO2 one tree sequesters over 300 years.
KGV: Integrating Large Language Models with Knowledge Graphs for Cyber Threat Intelligence Credibility Assessment
Authors: Zongzong Wu, Fengxiao Tang, Ming Zhao, Yufeng Li
Date: 2024-08-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Fact Checking, Knowledge Graphs, Semantic Similarity, Semantic Textual Similarity

Cyber threat intelligence is a critical tool that many organizations and individuals use to protect themselves from sophisticated, organized, persistent, and weaponized cyber attacks. However, few studies have focused on the quality assessment of threat intelligence provided by intelligence platforms, and this work still requires manual analysis by cybersecurity experts. In this paper, we propose a knowledge graph-based verifier, a novel Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) quality assessment framework that combines knowledge graphs and Large Language Models (LLMs). Our approach introduces LLMs to automatically extract OSCTI key claims to be verified and utilizes a knowledge graph consisting of paragraphs for fact-checking. This method differs from the traditional way of constructing complex knowledge graphs with entities as nodes. By constructing knowledge graphs with paragraphs as nodes and semantic similarity as edges, it effectively enhances the semantic understanding ability of the model and simplifies labeling requirements. Additionally, to fill the gap in the research field, we created and made public the first dataset for threat intelligence assessment from heterogeneous sources. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to create a dataset on threat intelligence reliability verification, providing a reference for future research. Experimental results show that KGV (Knowledge Graph Verifier) significantly improves the performance of LLMs in intelligence quality assessment. Compared with traditional methods, we reduce a large amount of data annotation while the model still exhibits strong reasoning capabilities. Finally, our method can achieve XXX accuracy in network threat assessment.
Mamba Retriever: Utilizing Mamba for Effective and Efficient Dense Retrieval
Authors: Hanqi Zhang, Chong Chen, Lang Mei, Qi Liu, Jiaxin Mao
Date: 2024-08-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Information Retrieval, Mamba, Passage Ranking, Retrieval, Text Retrieval

In the information retrieval (IR) area, dense retrieval (DR) models use deep learning techniques to encode queries and passages into embedding space to compute their semantic relations. It is important for DR models to balance both efficiency and effectiveness. Pre-trained language models (PLMs), especially Transformer-based PLMs, have been proven to be effective encoders of DR models. However, the self-attention component in Transformer-based PLM results in a computational complexity that grows quadratically with sequence length, and thus exhibits a slow inference speed for long-text retrieval. Some recently proposed non-Transformer PLMs, especially the Mamba architecture PLMs, have demonstrated not only comparable effectiveness to Transformer-based PLMs on generative language tasks but also better efficiency due to linear time scaling in sequence length. This paper implements the Mamba Retriever to explore whether Mamba can serve as an effective and efficient encoder of DR model for IR tasks. We fine-tune the Mamba Retriever on the classic short-text MS MARCO passage ranking dataset and the long-text LoCoV0 dataset. Experimental results show that (1) on the MS MARCO passage ranking dataset and BEIR, the Mamba Retriever achieves comparable or better effectiveness compared to Transformer-based retrieval models, and the effectiveness grows with the size of the Mamba model; (2) on the long-text LoCoV0 dataset, the Mamba Retriever can extend to longer text length than its pre-trained length after fine-tuning on retrieval task, and it has comparable or better effectiveness compared to other long-text retrieval models; (3) the Mamba Retriever has superior inference speed for long-text retrieval. In conclusion, Mamba Retriever is both effective and efficient, making it a practical model, especially for long-text retrieval.
AIE: Auction Information Enhanced Framework for CTR Prediction in Online Advertising
Authors: Yang Yang, Bo Chen, Chenxu Zhu, Menghui Zhu, Xinyi Dai, Huifeng Guo, Muyu Zhang, Zhenhua Dong, Ruiming Tang
Date: 2024-08-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Click-Through Rate Prediction, Prediction

Click-Through Rate (CTR) prediction is a fundamental technique for online advertising recommendation and the complex online competitive auction process also brings many difficulties to CTR optimization. Recent studies have shown that introducing posterior auction information contributes to the performance of CTR prediction. However, existing work doesn't fully capitalize on the benefits of auction information and overlooks the data bias brought by the auction, leading to biased and suboptimal results. To address these limitations, we propose Auction Information Enhanced Framework (AIE) for CTR prediction in online advertising, which delves into the problem of insufficient utilization of auction signals and first reveals the auction bias. Specifically, AIE introduces two pluggable modules, namely Adaptive Market-price Auxiliary Module (AM2) and Bid Calibration Module (BCM), which work collaboratively to excavate the posterior auction signals better and enhance the performance of CTR prediction. Furthermore, the two proposed modules are lightweight, model-agnostic, and friendly to inference latency. Extensive experiments are conducted on a public dataset and an industrial dataset to demonstrate the effectiveness and compatibility of AIE. Besides, a one-month online A/B test in a large-scale advertising platform shows that AIE improves the base model by 5.76% and 2.44% in terms of eCPM and CTR, respectively.
SWaT: Statistical Modeling of Video Watch Time through User Behavior Analysis
Authors: Shentao Yang, Haichuan Yang, Linna Du, Adithya Ganesh, Bo Peng, Boying Liu, Serena Li, Ji Liu
Date: 2024-08-14 00:00:00
Tasks: Binary Classification

The significance of estimating video watch time has been highlighted by the rising importance of (short) video recommendation, which has become a core product of mainstream social media platforms. Modeling video watch time, however, has been challenged by the complexity of user-video interaction, such as different user behavior modes in watching the recommended videos and varying watching probability over the video progress bar. Despite the importance and challenges, existing literature on modeling video watch time mostly focuses on relatively black-box mechanical enhancement of the classical regression/classification losses, without factoring in user behavior in a principled manner. In this paper, we for the first time take on a user-centric perspective to model video watch time, from which we propose a white-box statistical framework that directly translates various user behavior assumptions in watching (short) videos into statistical watch time models. These behavior assumptions are portrayed by our domain knowledge on users' behavior modes in video watching. We further employ bucketization to cope with user's non-stationary watching probability over the video progress bar, which additionally helps to respect the constraint of video length and facilitate the practical compatibility between the continuous regression event of watch time and other binary classification events. We test our models extensively on two public datasets, a large-scale offline industrial dataset, and an online A/B test on a short video platform with hundreds of millions of daily-active users. On all experiments, our models perform competitively against strong relevant baselines, demonstrating the efficacy of our user-centric perspective and proposed framework.
A Guide to Similarity Measures
Authors: Avivit Levy, B. Riva Shalom, Michal Chalamish
Date: 2024-08-07 00:00:00

Similarity measures play a central role in various data science application domains for a wide assortment of tasks. This guide describes a comprehensive set of prevalent similarity measures to serve both non-experts and professional. Non-experts that wish to understand the motivation for a measure as well as how to use it may find a friendly and detailed exposition of the formulas of the measures, whereas experts may find a glance to the principles of designing similarity measures and ideas for a better way to measure similarity for their desired task in a given application domain.
Enhancing Supply Chain Visibility with Knowledge Graphs and Large Language Models
Authors: Sara AlMahri, Liming Xu, Alexandra Brintrup
Date: 2024-08-05 00:00:00
Tasks: Knowledge Graphs, Management, named-entity-recognition, Named Entity Recognition, Named Entity Recognition (NER), NER, Relation Extraction

In today's globalized economy, comprehensive supply chain visibility is crucial for effective risk management. Achieving visibility remains a significant challenge due to limited information sharing among supply chain partners. This paper presents a novel framework leveraging Knowledge Graphs (KGs) and Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance supply chain visibility without relying on direct stakeholder information sharing. Our zero-shot, LLM-driven approach automates the extraction of supply chain information from diverse public sources and constructs KGs to capture complex interdependencies between supply chain entities. We employ zero-shot prompting for Named Entity Recognition (NER) and Relation Extraction (RE) tasks, eliminating the need for extensive domain-specific training. We validate the framework with a case study on electric vehicle supply chains, focusing on tracking critical minerals for battery manufacturing. Results show significant improvements in supply chain mapping, extending visibility beyond tier-2 suppliers. The framework reveals critical dependencies and alternative sourcing options, enhancing risk management and strategic planning. With high accuracy in NER and RE tasks, it provides an effective tool for understanding complex, multi-tiered supply networks. This research offers a scalable, flexible method for constructing domain-specific supply chain KGs, addressing longstanding challenges in visibility and paving the way for advancements in digital supply chain surveillance.