pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
NL2Plan: Robust LLM-Driven Planning from Minimal Text Descriptions
Authors: Elliot Gestrin, Marco Kuhlmann, Jendrik Seipp
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00

Today's classical planners are powerful, but modeling input tasks in formats such as PDDL is tedious and error-prone. In contrast, planning with Large Language Models (LLMs) allows for almost any input text, but offers no guarantees on plan quality or even soundness. In an attempt to merge the best of these two approaches, some work has begun to use LLMs to automate parts of the PDDL creation process. However, these methods still require various degrees of expert input. We present NL2Plan, the first domain-agnostic offline LLM-driven planning system. NL2Plan uses an LLM to incrementally extract the necessary information from a short text prompt before creating a complete PDDL description of both the domain and the problem, which is finally solved by a classical planner. We evaluate NL2Plan on four planning domains and find that it solves 10 out of 15 tasks - a clear improvement over a plain chain-of-thought reasoning LLM approach, which only solves 2 tasks. Moreover, in two out of the five failure cases, instead of returning an invalid plan, NL2Plan reports that it failed to solve the task. In addition to using NL2Plan in end-to-end mode, users can inspect and correct all of its intermediate results, such as the PDDL representation, increasing explainability and making it an assistive tool for PDDL creation.
Green Tsetlin Redefining Efficiency in Tsetlin Machine Frameworks
Authors: Sondre Glimsdal, Sebastian Østby, Tobias M. Brambo, Eirik M. Vinje
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00

Green Tsetlin (GT) is a Tsetlin Machine (TM) framework developed to solve real-world problems using TMs. Several frameworks already exist that provide access to TM implementations. However, these either lack features or have a research-first focus. GT is an easy-to-use framework that aims to lower the complexity and provide a production-ready TM implementation that is great for experienced practitioners and beginners. To this end, GT establishes a clear separation between training and inference. A C++ backend with a Python interface provides competitive training and inference performance, with the option of running in pure Python. It also integrates support for critical components such as exporting trained models, hyper-parameter search, and cross-validation out-of-the-box.
NOVA: NoC-based Vector Unit for Mapping Attention Layers on a CNN Accelerator
Authors: Mohit Upadhyay, Rohan Juneja, Weng-Fai Wong, Li-Shiuan Peh
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00

Attention mechanisms are becoming increasingly popular, being used in neural network models in multiple domains such as natural language processing (NLP) and vision applications, especially at the edge. However, attention layers are difficult to map onto existing neuro accelerators since they have a much higher density of non-linear operations, which lead to inefficient utilization of today's vector units. This work introduces NOVA, a NoC-based Vector Unit that can perform non-linear operations within the NoC of the accelerators, and can be overlaid onto existing neuro accelerators to map attention layers at the edge. Our results show that the NOVA architecture is up to 37.8x more power-efficient than state-of-the-art hardware approximators when running existing attention-based neural networks.
FedStale: leveraging stale client updates in federated learning
Authors: Angelo Rodio, Giovanni Neglia
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning

Federated learning algorithms, such as FedAvg, are negatively affected by data heterogeneity and partial client participation. To mitigate the latter problem, global variance reduction methods, like FedVARP, leverage stale model updates for non-participating clients. These methods are effective under homogeneous client participation. Yet, this paper shows that, when some clients participate much less than others, aggregating updates with different levels of staleness can detrimentally affect the training process. Motivated by this observation, we introduce FedStale, a novel algorithm that updates the global model in each round through a convex combination of "fresh" updates from participating clients and "stale" updates from non-participating ones. By adjusting the weight in the convex combination, FedStale interpolates between FedAvg, which only uses fresh updates, and FedVARP, which treats fresh and stale updates equally. Our analysis of FedStale convergence yields the following novel findings: i) it integrates and extends previous FedAvg and FedVARP analyses to heterogeneous client participation; ii) it underscores how the least participating client influences convergence error; iii) it provides practical guidelines to best exploit stale updates, showing that their usefulness diminishes as data heterogeneity decreases and participation heterogeneity increases. Extensive experiments featuring diverse levels of client data and participation heterogeneity not only confirm these findings but also show that FedStale outperforms both FedAvg and FedVARP in many settings.
Opportunities for machine learning in scientific discovery
Authors: Ricardo Vinuesa, Jean Rabault, Hossein Azizpour, Stefan Bauer, Bingni W. Brunton, Arne Elofsson, Elias Jarlebring, Hedvig Kjellstrom, Stefano Markidis, David Marlevi, Paola Cinnella, Steven L. Brunton
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: scientific discovery

Technological advancements have substantially increased computational power and data availability, enabling the application of powerful machine-learning (ML) techniques across various fields. However, our ability to leverage ML methods for scientific discovery, {\it i.e.} to obtain fundamental and formalized knowledge about natural processes, is still in its infancy. In this review, we explore how the scientific community can increasingly leverage ML techniques to achieve scientific discoveries. We observe that the applicability and opportunity of ML depends strongly on the nature of the problem domain, and whether we have full ({\it e.g.}, turbulence), partial ({\it e.g.}, computational biochemistry), or no ({\it e.g.}, neuroscience) {\it a-priori} knowledge about the governing equations and physical properties of the system. Although challenges remain, principled use of ML is opening up new avenues for fundamental scientific discoveries. Throughout these diverse fields, there is a theme that ML is enabling researchers to embrace complexity in observational data that was previously intractable to classic analysis and numerical investigations.
GPT-Enabled Cybersecurity Training: A Tailored Approach for Effective Awareness
Authors: Nabil Al-Dhamari, Nathan Clarke
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00

This study explores the limitations of traditional Cybersecurity Awareness and Training (CSAT) programs and proposes an innovative solution using Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPT) to address these shortcomings. Traditional approaches lack personalization and adaptability to individual learning styles. To overcome these challenges, the study integrates GPT models to deliver highly tailored and dynamic cybersecurity learning expe-riences. Leveraging natural language processing capabilities, the proposed approach personalizes training modules based on individual trainee pro-files, helping to ensure engagement and effectiveness. An experiment using a GPT model to provide a real-time and adaptive CSAT experience through generating customized training content. The findings have demonstrated a significant improvement over traditional programs, addressing issues of en-gagement, dynamicity, and relevance. GPT-powered CSAT programs offer a scalable and effective solution to enhance cybersecurity awareness, provid-ing personalized training content that better prepares individuals to miti-gate cybersecurity risks in their specific roles within the organization.
Enriched BERT Embeddings for Scholarly Publication Classification
Authors: Benjamin Wolff, Eva Seidlmayer, Konrad U. Förstner
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Articles, Classification, Data Augmentation, Transfer Learning

With the rapid expansion of academic literature and the proliferation of preprints, researchers face growing challenges in manually organizing and labeling large volumes of articles. The NSLP 2024 FoRC Shared Task I addresses this challenge organized as a competition. The goal is to develop a classifier capable of predicting one of 123 predefined classes from the Open Research Knowledge Graph (ORKG) taxonomy of research fields for a given article.This paper presents our results. Initially, we enrich the dataset (containing English scholarly articles sourced from ORKG and arXiv), then leverage different pre-trained language Models (PLMs), specifically BERT, and explore their efficacy in transfer learning for this downstream task. Our experiments encompass feature-based and fine-tuned transfer learning approaches using diverse PLMs, optimized for scientific tasks, including SciBERT, SciNCL, and SPECTER2. We conduct hyperparameter tuning and investigate the impact of data augmentation from bibliographic databases such as OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, and Crossref. Our results demonstrate that fine-tuning pre-trained models substantially enhances classification performance, with SPECTER2 emerging as the most accurate model. Moreover, enriching the dataset with additional metadata improves classification outcomes significantly, especially when integrating information from S2AG, OpenAlex and Crossref. Our best-performing approach achieves a weighted F1-score of 0.7415. Overall, our study contributes to the advancement of reliable automated systems for scholarly publication categorization, offering a potential solution to the laborious manual curation process, thereby facilitating researchers in efficiently locating relevant resources.
Human-centric Reward Optimization for Reinforcement Learning-based Automated Driving using Large Language Models
Authors: Ziqi Zhou, Jingyue Zhang, Jingyuan Zhang, Yangfan He, Boyue Wang, Tianyu Shi, Alaa Khamis
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: In-Context Learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

One of the key challenges in current Reinforcement Learning (RL)-based Automated Driving (AD) agents is achieving flexible, precise, and human-like behavior cost-effectively. This paper introduces an innovative approach that uses large language models (LLMs) to intuitively and effectively optimize RL reward functions in a human-centric way. We developed a framework where instructions and dynamic environment descriptions are input into the LLM. The LLM then utilizes this information to assist in generating rewards, thereby steering the behavior of RL agents towards patterns that more closely resemble human driving. The experimental results demonstrate that this approach not only makes RL agents more anthropomorphic but also achieves better performance. Additionally, various strategies for reward-proxy and reward-shaping are investigated, revealing the significant impact of prompt design on shaping an AD vehicle's behavior. These findings offer a promising direction for the development of more advanced, human-like automated driving systems. Our experimental data and source code can be found here
Comparative Study of State-based Neural Networks for Virtual Analog Audio Effects Modeling
Authors: Riccardo Simionato, Stefano Fasciani
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Audio Effects Modeling, Audio Signal Processing, State Space Models

Analog electronic circuits are at the core of an important category of musical devices, which includes a broad range of sound synthesizers and audio effects. The development of software that simulates analog musical devices, known as virtual analog modeling, is a significant sub-field in audio signal processing. Artificial neural networks are a promising technique for virtual analog modeling. While neural approaches have successfully accurately modeled distortion circuits, they require architectural improvements that account for parameter conditioning and low-latency response. This article explores the application of recent machine learning advancements for virtual analog modeling. In particular, we compare State-Space models and Linear Recurrent Units against the more common Long Short-Term Memory networks. Our comparative study uses these black-box neural modeling techniques with various audio effects. We evaluate the performance and limitations of these models using multiple metrics, providing insights for future research and development. Our metrics aim to assess the models' ability to accurately replicate energy envelopes and frequency contents, with a particular focus on transients in the audio signal. To incorporate control parameters into the models, we employ the Feature-wise Linear Modulation method. Long Short-Term Memory networks exhibit better accuracy in emulating distortions and equalizers, while the State-Space model, followed by Long Short-Term Memory networks when integrated in an encoder-decoder structure, and Linear Recurrent Unit outperforms others in emulating saturation and compression. When considering long time-variant characteristics, the State-Space model demonstrates the greatest capability to track history. Long Short-Term Memory networks tend to introduce audio artifacts.
Policy Learning with a Language Bottleneck
Authors: Megha Srivastava, Cedric Colas, Dorsa Sadigh, Jacob Andreas
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Decision Making, Image Reconstruction, Self-Driving Cars

Modern AI systems such as self-driving cars and game-playing agents achieve superhuman performance, but often lack human-like generalization, interpretability, and inter-operability with human users. Inspired by the rich interactions between language and decision-making in humans, we introduce Policy Learning with a Language Bottleneck (PLLB), a framework enabling AI agents to generate linguistic rules that capture the high-level strategies underlying rewarding behaviors. PLLB alternates between a *rule generation* step guided by language models, and an *update* step where agents learn new policies guided by rules, even when a rule is insufficient to describe an entire complex policy. Across five diverse tasks, including a two-player signaling game, maze navigation, image reconstruction, and robot grasp planning, we show that PLLB agents are not only able to learn more interpretable and generalizable behaviors, but can also share the learned rules with human users, enabling more effective human-AI coordination. We provide source code for our experiments at https://github.com/meghabyte/bottleneck .
Acceleration Algorithms in GNNs: A Survey
Authors: Lu Ma, Zeang Sheng, Xunkai Li, Xinyi Gao, Zhezheng Hao, Ling Yang, Wentao Zhang, Bin Cui
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Graph Learning, Survey

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have demonstrated effectiveness in various graph-based tasks. However, their inefficiency in training and inference presents challenges for scaling up to real-world and large-scale graph applications. To address the critical challenges, a range of algorithms have been proposed to accelerate training and inference of GNNs, attracting increasing attention from the research community. In this paper, we present a systematic review of acceleration algorithms in GNNs, which can be categorized into three main topics based on their purpose: training acceleration, inference acceleration, and execution acceleration. Specifically, we summarize and categorize the existing approaches for each main topic, and provide detailed characterizations of the approaches within each category. Additionally, we review several libraries related to acceleration algorithms in GNNs and discuss our Scalable Graph Learning (SGL) library. Finally, we propose promising directions for future research. A complete summary is presented in our GitHub repository: https://github.com/PKU-DAIR/SGL/blob/main/Awsome-GNN-Acceleration.md.
A2-DIDM: Privacy-preserving Accumulator-enabled Auditing for Distributed Identity of DNN Model
Authors: Tianxiu Xie, Keke Gai, Jing Yu, Liehuang Zhu, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Privacy Preserving

Recent booming development of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has facilitated an emerging model commercialization for the purpose of reinforcement on model performance, such as licensing or trading Deep Neural Network (DNN) models. However, DNN model trading may trigger concerns of the unauthorized replications or misuses over the model, so that the benefit of the model ownership will be violated. Model identity auditing is a challenging issue in protecting intellectual property of DNN models and verifying the integrity and ownership of models for guaranteeing trusts in transactions is one of the critical obstacles. In this paper, we focus on the above issue and propose a novel Accumulator-enabled Auditing for Distributed Identity of DNN Model (A2-DIDM) that utilizes blockchain and zero-knowledge techniques to protect data and function privacy while ensuring the lightweight on-chain ownership verification. The proposed model presents a scheme of identity records via configuring model weight checkpoints with corresponding zero-knowledge proofs, which incorporates predicates to capture incremental state changes in model weight checkpoints. Our scheme ensures both computational integrity of DNN training process and programmability, so that the uniqueness of the weight checkpoint sequence in a DNN model is preserved, ensuring the correctness of the model identity auditing. In addition, A2-DIDM also addresses privacy protections in distributed identity via a proposed method of accumulators. We systematically analyze the security and robustness of our proposed model and further evaluate the effectiveness and usability of auditing DNN model identities.
Continual Learning in the Presence of Repetition
Authors: Hamed Hemati, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Xiaotian Duan, Zixuan Zhao, Fangfang Xia, Marc Masana, Benedikt Tscheschner, Eduardo Veas, Yuxiang Zheng, Shiji Zhao, Shao-Yuan Li, Sheng-Jun Huang, Vincenzo Lomonaco, Gido M. van de Ven
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: class-incremental learning, Class Incremental Learning, Continual Learning, Incremental Learning

Continual learning (CL) provides a framework for training models in ever-evolving environments. Although re-occurrence of previously seen objects or tasks is common in real-world problems, the concept of repetition in the data stream is not often considered in standard benchmarks for CL. Unlike with the rehearsal mechanism in buffer-based strategies, where sample repetition is controlled by the strategy, repetition in the data stream naturally stems from the environment. This report provides a summary of the CLVision challenge at CVPR 2023, which focused on the topic of repetition in class-incremental learning. The report initially outlines the challenge objective and then describes three solutions proposed by finalist teams that aim to effectively exploit the repetition in the stream to learn continually. The experimental results from the challenge highlight the effectiveness of ensemble-based solutions that employ multiple versions of similar modules, each trained on different but overlapping subsets of classes. This report underscores the transformative potential of taking a different perspective in CL by employing repetition in the data stream to foster innovative strategy design.
Unmasking Illusions: Understanding Human Perception of Audiovisual Deepfakes
Authors: Ammarah Hashmi, Sahibzada Adil Shahzad, Chia-Wen Lin, Yu Tsao, Hsin-Min Wang
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: DeepFake Detection, Face Swapping

The emergence of contemporary deepfakes has attracted significant attention in machine learning research, as artificial intelligence (AI) generated synthetic media increases the incidence of misinterpretation and is difficult to distinguish from genuine content. Currently, machine learning techniques have been extensively studied for automatically detecting deepfakes. However, human perception has been less explored. Malicious deepfakes could ultimately cause public and social problems. Can we humans correctly perceive the authenticity of the content of the videos we watch? The answer is obviously uncertain; therefore, this paper aims to evaluate the human ability to discern deepfake videos through a subjective study. We present our findings by comparing human observers to five state-ofthe-art audiovisual deepfake detection models. To this end, we used gamification concepts to provide 110 participants (55 native English speakers and 55 non-native English speakers) with a webbased platform where they could access a series of 40 videos (20 real and 20 fake) to determine their authenticity. Each participant performed the experiment twice with the same 40 videos in different random orders. The videos are manually selected from the FakeAVCeleb dataset. We found that all AI models performed better than humans when evaluated on the same 40 videos. The study also reveals that while deception is not impossible, humans tend to overestimate their detection capabilities. Our experimental results may help benchmark human versus machine performance, advance forensics analysis, and enable adaptive countermeasures.
Combating Concept Drift with Explanatory Detection and Adaptation for Android Malware Classification
Authors: Yiling He, Junchi Lei, Zhan Qin, Kui Ren, Chun Chen
Date: 2024-05-07 00:00:00
Tasks: Drift Detection, Malware Classification

Machine learning-based Android malware classifiers achieve high accuracy in stationary environments but struggle with concept drift. The rapid evolution of malware, especially with new families, can depress classification accuracy to near-random levels. Previous research has largely centered on detecting drift samples, with expert-led label revisions on these samples to guide model retraining. However, these methods often lack a comprehensive understanding of malware concepts and provide limited guidance for effective drift adaptation, leading to unstable detection performance and high human labeling costs. To combat concept drift, we propose DREAM, a novel system that improves drift detection and establishes an explanatory adaptation process. Our core idea is to integrate classifier and expert knowledge within a unified model. To achieve this, we embed malware explanations (or concepts) within the latent space of a contrastive autoencoder, while constraining sample reconstruction based on classifier predictions. This approach enhances classifier retraining in two key ways: 1) capturing the target classifier's characteristics to select more effective samples in drift detection and 2) enabling concept revisions that extend the classifier's semantics to provide stronger guidance for adaptation. Additionally, DREAM eliminates reliance on training data during real-time drift detection and provides a behavior-based drift explainer to support concept revision. Our evaluation shows that DREAM effectively improves the drift detection accuracy and reduces the expert analysis effort in adaptation across different malware datasets and classifiers. Notably, when updating a widely-used Drebin classifier, DREAM achieves the same accuracy with 76.6% fewer newly labeled samples compared to the best existing methods.