pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Split Federated Learning Over Heterogeneous Edge Devices: Algorithm and Optimization
Authors: Yunrui Sun, Gang Hu, Yinglei Teng, Dunbo Cai
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning

Split Learning (SL) is a promising collaborative machine learning approach, enabling resource-constrained devices to train models without sharing raw data, while reducing computational load and preserving privacy simultaneously. However, current SL algorithms face limitations in training efficiency and suffer from prolonged latency, particularly in sequential settings, where the slowest device can bottleneck the entire process due to heterogeneous resources and frequent data exchanges between clients and servers. To address these challenges, we propose the Heterogeneous Split Federated Learning (HSFL) framework, which allows resource-constrained clients to train their personalized client-side models in parallel, utilizing different cut layers. Aiming to mitigate the impact of heterogeneous environments and accelerate the training process, we formulate a latency minimization problem that optimizes computational and transmission resources jointly. Additionally, we design a resource allocation algorithm that combines the Sample Average Approximation (SAA), Genetic Algorithm (GA), Lagrangian relaxation and Branch and Bound (B\&B) methods to efficiently solve this problem. Simulation results demonstrate that HSFL outperforms other frameworks in terms of both convergence rate and model accuracy on heterogeneous devices with non-iid data, while the optimization algorithm is better than other baseline methods in reducing latency.
AmpliNetECG12: A lightweight SoftMax-based relativistic amplitude amplification architecture for 12 lead ECG classification
Authors: Shreya Srivastava
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: ECG Classification

The urgent need to promptly detect cardiac disorders from 12-lead Electrocardiograms using limited computations is motivated by the heart's fast and complex electrical activity and restricted computational power of portable devices. Timely and precise diagnoses are crucial since delays might significantly impact patient health outcomes. This research presents a novel deep-learning architecture that aims to diagnose heart abnormalities quickly and accurately. We devised a new activation function called aSoftMax, designed to improve the visibility of ECG deflections. The proposed activation function is used with Convolutional Neural Network architecture to includes kernel weight sharing across the ECG's various leads. This innovative method thoroughly generalizes the global 12-lead ECG features and minimizes the model's complexity by decreasing the trainable parameters. aSoftMax, combined with enhanced CNN architecture yielded AmpliNetECG12, we obtain exceptional accuracy of 84% in diagnosing cardiac disorders. AmpliNetECG12 shows outstanding prediction ability when used with the CPSC2018 dataset for arrhythmia classification. The model attains an F1-score of 80.71% and a ROC-AUC score of 96.00%, with 280,000 trainable parameters which signifies the lightweight yet efficient nature of AmpliNetECG12. The stochastic characteristics of aSoftMax, a fundamental element of AmpliNetECG12, improve prediction accuracy and also increasse the model's interpretability. This feature enhances comprehension of important ECG segments in different forms of arrhythmias, establishing a new standard of explainable architecture for cardiac disorder classification.
PIORS: Personalized Intelligent Outpatient Reception based on Large Language Model with Multi-Agents Medical Scenario Simulation
Authors: Zhijie Bao, Qingyun Liu, Ying Guo, Zhengqiang Ye, Jun Shen, Shirong Xie, Jiajie Peng, Xuanjing Huang, Zhongyu Wei
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Large Language Model

In China, receptionist nurses face overwhelming workloads in outpatient settings, limiting their time and attention for each patient and ultimately reducing service quality. In this paper, we present the Personalized Intelligent Outpatient Reception System (PIORS). This system integrates an LLM-based reception nurse and a collaboration between LLM and hospital information system (HIS) into real outpatient reception setting, aiming to deliver personalized, high-quality, and efficient reception services. Additionally, to enhance the performance of LLMs in real-world healthcare scenarios, we propose a medical conversational data generation framework named Service Flow aware Medical Scenario Simulation (SFMSS), aiming to adapt the LLM to the real-world environments and PIORS settings. We evaluate the effectiveness of PIORS and SFMSS through automatic and human assessments involving 15 users and 15 clinical experts. The results demonstrate that PIORS-Nurse outperforms all baselines, including the current state-of-the-art model GPT-4o, and aligns with human preferences and clinical needs. Further details and demo can be found at https://github.com/FudanDISC/PIORS
When Online Algorithms Influence the Environment: A Dynamical Systems Analysis of the Unintended Consequences
Authors: Prabhat Lankireddy, Jayakrishnan Nair, D Manjunath
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Attribute, Recommendation Systems

We analyze the effect that online algorithms have on the environment that they are learning. As a motivation, consider recommendation systems that use online algorithms to learn optimal product recommendations based on user and product attributes. It is well known that the sequence of recommendations affects user preferences. However, typical learning algorithms treat the user attributes as static and disregard the impact of their recommendations on user preferences. Our interest is to analyze the effect of this mismatch between the model assumption of a static environment, and the reality of an evolving environment affected by the recommendations. To perform this analysis, we first introduce a model for a generic coupled evolution of the parameters that are being learned, and the environment that is affected by it. We then frame a linear bandit recommendation system (RS) into this generic model where the users are characterized by a state variable that evolves based on the sequence of recommendations. The learning algorithm of the RS does not explicitly account for this evolution and assumes that the users are static. A dynamical system model that captures the coupled evolution of the population state and the learning algorithm is described, and its equilibrium behavior is analyzed. We show that when the recommendation algorithm is able to learn the population preferences in the presence of this mismatch, the algorithm induces similarity in the preferences of the user population. In particular, we present results on how different properties of the recommendation algorithm, namely the user attribute space and the exploration-exploitation tradeoff, effect the population preferences when they are learned by the algorithm. We demonstrate these results using model simulations.
Next-Generation Phishing: How LLM Agents Empower Cyber Attackers
Authors: Khalifa Afane, Wenqi Wei, Ying Mao, Junaid Farooq, Juntao Chen
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Data Augmentation

The escalating threat of phishing emails has become increasingly sophisticated with the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs). As attackers exploit LLMs to craft more convincing and evasive phishing emails, it is crucial to assess the resilience of current phishing defenses. In this study we conduct a comprehensive evaluation of traditional phishing detectors, such as Gmail Spam Filter, Apache SpamAssassin, and Proofpoint, as well as machine learning models like SVM, Logistic Regression, and Naive Bayes, in identifying both traditional and LLM-rephrased phishing emails. We also explore the emerging role of LLMs as phishing detection tools, a method already adopted by companies like NTT Security Holdings and JPMorgan Chase. Our results reveal notable declines in detection accuracy for rephrased emails across all detectors, highlighting critical weaknesses in current phishing defenses. As the threat landscape evolves, our findings underscore the need for stronger security controls and regulatory oversight on LLM-generated content to prevent its misuse in creating advanced phishing attacks. This study contributes to the development of more effective Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) by leveraging LLMs to generate diverse phishing variants that can be used for data augmentation, harnessing the power of LLMs to enhance phishing detection, and paving the way for more robust and adaptable threat detection systems.
Generative Fuzzy System for Sequence Generation
Authors: Hailong Yang, Zhaohong Deng, Wei zhang, Zhuangzhuang Zhao, Guanjin Wang, Kup-Sze Choi
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Code Generation, Machine Translation

Generative Models (GMs), particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), have garnered significant attention in machine learning and artificial intelligence for their ability to generate new data by learning the statistical properties of training data and creating data that resemble the original. This capability offers a wide range of applications across various domains. However, the complex structures and numerous model parameters of GMs make the input-output processes opaque, complicating the understanding and control of outputs. Moreover, the purely data-driven learning mechanism limits GM's ability to acquire broader knowledge. There remains substantial potential for enhancing the robustness and generalization capabilities of GMs. In this work, we introduce the fuzzy system, a classical modeling method that combines data and knowledge-driven mechanisms, to generative tasks. We propose a novel Generative Fuzzy System framework, named GenFS, which integrates the deep learning capabilities of GM with the interpretability and dual-driven mechanisms of fuzzy systems. Specifically, we propose an end-to-end GenFS-based model for sequence generation, called FuzzyS2S. A series of experimental studies were conducted on 12 datasets, covering three distinct categories of generative tasks: machine translation, code generation, and summary generation. The results demonstrate that FuzzyS2S outperforms the Transformer in terms of accuracy and fluency. Furthermore, it exhibits better performance on some datasets compared to state-of-the-art models T5 and CodeT5.
Breaking Information Cocoons: A Hyperbolic Graph-LLM Framework for Exploration and Exploitation in Recommender Systems
Authors: Qiyao Ma, Menglin Yang, Mingxuan Ju, Tong Zhao, Neil Shah, Rex Ying
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Recommendation Systems, Representation Learning

Modern recommender systems often create information cocoons, restricting users' exposure to diverse content. A key challenge lies in balancing content exploration and exploitation while allowing users to adjust their recommendation preferences. Intuitively, this balance can be modeled as a tree-structured representation, where depth search facilitates exploitation and breadth search enables exploration. However, existing approaches face two fundamental limitations: Euclidean methods struggle to capture hierarchical structures, while hyperbolic methods, despite their superior hierarchical modeling, lack semantic understanding of user and item profiles and fail to provide a principled mechanism for balancing exploration and exploitation. To address these challenges, we propose HERec, a hyperbolic graph-LLM framework that effectively balances exploration and exploitation in recommender systems. Our framework introduces two key innovations: (1) a hierarchical-aware graph-LLM mechanism that jointly aligns textual descriptions with user-item collaborative information in hyperbolic space, and (2) a hierarchical representation structure that enables user-adjustable exploration-exploitation trade-offs. Extensive experiments demonstrate that HERec consistently outperforms both Euclidean and hyperbolic baselines, achieving up to 5.49% improvement in utility metrics and 11.39% increase in diversity metrics, effectively mitigating information cocoons. We open-source our model implementation at https://github.com/Martin-qyma/HERec.
Exploratory Study Of Human-AI Interaction For Hindustani Music
Authors: Nithya Shikarpur, Cheng-Zhi Anna Huang
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00

This paper presents a study of participants interacting with and using GaMaDHaNi, a novel hierarchical generative model for Hindustani vocal contours. To explore possible use cases in human-AI interaction, we conducted a user study with three participants, each engaging with the model through three predefined interaction modes. Although this study was conducted "in the wild"- with the model unadapted for the shift from the training data to real-world interaction - we use it as a pilot to better understand the expectations, reactions, and preferences of practicing musicians when engaging with such a model. We note their challenges as (1) the lack of restrictions in model output, and (2) the incoherence of model output. We situate these challenges in the context of Hindustani music and aim to suggest future directions for the model design to address these gaps.
Heterophilic Graph Neural Networks Optimization with Causal Message-passing
Authors: Botao Wang, Jia Li, Heng Chang, Keli Zhang, Fugee Tsung
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Causal Inference, Graph Learning, Graph Neural Network, Link Prediction, Node Classification

In this work, we discover that causal inference provides a promising approach to capture heterophilic message-passing in Graph Neural Network (GNN). By leveraging cause-effect analysis, we can discern heterophilic edges based on asymmetric node dependency. The learned causal structure offers more accurate relationships among nodes. To reduce the computational complexity, we introduce intervention-based causal inference in graph learning. We first simplify causal analysis on graphs by formulating it as a structural learning model and define the optimization problem within the Bayesian scheme. We then present an analysis of decomposing the optimization target into a consistency penalty and a structure modification based on cause-effect relations. We then estimate this target by conditional entropy and present insights into how conditional entropy quantifies the heterophily. Accordingly, we propose CausalMP, a causal message-passing discovery network for heterophilic graph learning, that iteratively learns the explicit causal structure of input graphs. We conduct extensive experiments in both heterophilic and homophilic graph settings. The result demonstrates that the our model achieves superior link prediction performance. Training on causal structure can also enhance node representation in classification task across different base models.
AutoMixQ: Self-Adjusting Quantization for High Performance Memory-Efficient Fine-Tuning
Authors: Changhai Zhou, Shiyang Zhang, Yuhua Zhou, Zekai Liu, Shichao Weng
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Quantization

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) under resource constraints is a significant challenge in deep learning. Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA), pruning, and quantization are all effective methods for improving resource efficiency. However, combining them directly often results in suboptimal performance, especially with uniform quantization across all model layers. This is due to the complex, uneven interlayer relationships introduced by pruning, necessitating more refined quantization strategies. To address this, we propose AutoMixQ, an end-to-end optimization framework that selects optimal quantization configurations for each LLM layer. AutoMixQ leverages lightweight performance models to guide the selection process, significantly reducing time and computational resources compared to exhaustive search methods. By incorporating Pareto optimality, AutoMixQ balances memory usage and performance, approaching the upper bounds of model capability under strict resource constraints. Our experiments on widely used benchmarks show that AutoMixQ reduces memory consumption while achieving superior performance. For example, at a 30\% pruning rate in LLaMA-7B, AutoMixQ achieved 66.21\% on BoolQ compared to 62.45\% for LoRA and 58.96\% for LoftQ, while reducing memory consumption by 35.5\% compared to LoRA and 27.5\% compared to LoftQ.
NewsInterview: a Dataset and a Playground to Evaluate LLMs' Ground Gap via Informational Interviews
Authors: Michael Lu, Hyundong Justin Cho, Weiyan Shi, Jonathan May, Alexander Spangher
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive capabilities in generating coherent text but often struggle with grounding language and strategic dialogue. To address this gap, we focus on journalistic interviews, a domain rich in grounding communication and abundant in data. We curate a dataset of 40,000 two-person informational interviews from NPR and CNN, and reveal that LLMs are significantly less likely than human interviewers to use acknowledgements and to pivot to higher-level questions. Realizing that a fundamental deficit exists in multi-turn planning and strategic thinking, we develop a realistic simulated environment, incorporating source personas and persuasive elements, in order to facilitate the development of agents with longer-horizon rewards. Our experiments show that while source LLMs mimic human behavior in information sharing, interviewer LLMs struggle with recognizing when questions are answered and engaging persuasively, leading to suboptimal information extraction across model size and capability. These findings underscore the need for enhancing LLMs' strategic dialogue capabilities.
A Survey on Adversarial Robustness of LiDAR-based Machine Learning Perception in Autonomous Vehicles
Authors: Junae Kim, Amardeep Kaur
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Adversarial Robustness, Autonomous Driving, Autonomous Vehicles

In autonomous driving, the combination of AI and vehicular technology offers great potential. However, this amalgamation comes with vulnerabilities to adversarial attacks. This survey focuses on the intersection of Adversarial Machine Learning (AML) and autonomous systems, with a specific focus on LiDAR-based systems. We comprehensively explore the threat landscape, encompassing cyber-attacks on sensors and adversarial perturbations. Additionally, we investigate defensive strategies employed in countering these threats. This paper endeavors to present a concise overview of the challenges and advances in securing autonomous driving systems against adversarial threats, emphasizing the need for robust defenses to ensure safety and security.
Benchmarking GPT-4 against Human Translators: A Comprehensive Evaluation Across Languages, Domains, and Expertise Levels
Authors: Jianhao Yan, Pingchuan Yan, Yulong Chen, Jing Li, Xianchao Zhu, Yue Zhang
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Benchmarking, Machine Translation, Translation

This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of GPT-4's translation capabilities compared to human translators of varying expertise levels. Through systematic human evaluation using the MQM schema, we assess translations across three language pairs (Chinese$\longleftrightarrow$English, Russian$\longleftrightarrow$English, and Chinese$\longleftrightarrow$Hindi) and three domains (News, Technology, and Biomedical). Our findings reveal that GPT-4 achieves performance comparable to junior-level translators in terms of total errors, while still lagging behind senior translators. Unlike traditional Neural Machine Translation systems, which show significant performance degradation in resource-poor language directions, GPT-4 maintains consistent translation quality across all evaluated language pairs. Through qualitative analysis, we identify distinctive patterns in translation approaches: GPT-4 tends toward overly literal translations and exhibits lexical inconsistency, while human translators sometimes over-interpret context and introduce hallucinations. This study represents the first systematic comparison between LLM and human translators across different proficiency levels, providing valuable insights into the current capabilities and limitations of LLM-based translation systems.
FastRAG: Retrieval Augmented Generation for Semi-structured Data
Authors: Amar Abane, Anis Bekri, Abdella Battou, Saddek Bensalem
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Management, Question Answering, RAG, Retrieval, Retrieval-augmented Generation

Efficiently processing and interpreting network data is critical for the operation of increasingly complex networks. Recent advances in Large Language Models (LLM) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques have improved data processing in network management. However, existing RAG methods like VectorRAG and GraphRAG struggle with the complexity and implicit nature of semi-structured technical data, leading to inefficiencies in time, cost, and retrieval. This paper introduces FastRAG, a novel RAG approach designed for semi-structured data. FastRAG employs schema learning and script learning to extract and structure data without needing to submit entire data sources to an LLM. It integrates text search with knowledge graph (KG) querying to improve accuracy in retrieving context-rich information. Evaluation results demonstrate that FastRAG provides accurate question answering, while improving up to 90% in time and 85% in cost compared to GraphRAG.
Evaluation-Driven Development of LLM Agents: A Process Model and Reference Architecture
Authors: Boming Xia, Qinghua Lu, Liming Zhu, Zhenchang Xing, Dehai Zhao, Hao Zhang
Date: 2024-11-21 00:00:00
Tasks: test driven development

Large Language Models (LLMs) have enabled the emergence of LLM agents: autonomous systems capable of achieving under-specified goals and adapting post-deployment, often without explicit code or model changes. Evaluating these agents is critical to ensuring their performance and safety, especially given their dynamic, probabilistic, and evolving nature. However, traditional approaches such as predefined test cases and standard redevelopment pipelines struggle to address the unique challenges of LLM agent evaluation. These challenges include capturing open-ended behaviors, handling emergent outcomes, and enabling continuous adaptation over the agent's lifecycle. To address these issues, we propose an evaluation-driven development approach, inspired by test-driven and behavior-driven development but reimagined for the unique characteristics of LLM agents. Through a multivocal literature review (MLR), we synthesize the limitations of existing LLM evaluation methods and introduce a novel process model and reference architecture tailored for evaluation-driven development of LLM agents. Our approach integrates online (runtime) and offline (redevelopment) evaluations, enabling adaptive runtime adjustments and systematic iterative refinement of pipelines, artifacts, system architecture, and LLMs themselves. By continuously incorporating evaluation results, including fine-grained feedback from human and AI evaluators, into each stage of development and operation, this framework ensures that LLM agents remain aligned with evolving goals, user needs, and governance standards.