In this paper, we investigate the Mechanism Design aspects of the $m$-Capacitated Facility Location Problem ($m$-CFLP) on a line. We focus on two frameworks. In the first framework, the number of facilities is arbitrary, all facilities have the same capacity, and the number of agents is equal to the total capacity of all facilities. In the second framework, we aim to place two facilities, each with a capacity of at least half of the total agents. For both of these frameworks, we propose truthful mechanisms with bounded approximation ratios with respect to the Social Cost (SC) and the Maximum Cost (MC). When $m>2$, the result sharply contrasts with the impossibility results known for the classic $m$-Facility Location Problem \cite{fotakis2014power}, where capacity constraints are not considered. Furthermore, all our mechanisms are (i) optimal with respect to the MC (ii) optimal or nearly optimal with respect to the SC among anonymous mechanisms. For both frameworks, we provide a lower bound on the approximation ratio that any truthful and deterministic mechanism can achieve with respect to the SC and MC.
This paper presents an efficient algorithm, naming Centralized Searching and Decentralized Optimization (CSDO), to find feasible solution for large-scale Multi-Vehicle Trajectory Planning (MVTP) problem. Due to the intractable growth of non-convex constraints with the number of agents, exploring various homotopy classes that imply different convex domains, is crucial for finding a feasible solution. However, existing methods struggle to explore various homotopy classes efficiently due to combining it with time-consuming precise trajectory solution finding. CSDO, addresses this limitation by separating them into different levels and integrating an efficient Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) algorithm to search homotopy classes. It first searches for a coarse initial guess using a large search step, identifying a specific homotopy class. Subsequent decentralized Quadratic Programming (QP) refinement processes this guess, resolving minor collisions efficiently. Experimental results demonstrate that CSDO outperforms existing MVTP algorithms in large-scale, high-density scenarios, achieving up to 95% success rate in 50m $\times$ 50m random scenarios around one second. Source codes are released in //github.com/YangSVM/CSDOTrajectoryPlanning.
Explainable AI (XAI) has a counterpart in analytical modeling which we refer to as model explainability. We tackle the issue of model explainability in the context of prediction models. We analyze a dataset of loans from a credit card company and apply three stages: execute and compare four different prediction methods, apply the best known explainability techniques in the current literature to the model training sets to identify feature importance (FI) (static case), and finally to cross-check whether the FI set holds up under what if prediction scenarios for continuous and categorical variables (dynamic case). We found inconsistency in FI identification between the static and dynamic cases. We summarize the state of the art in model explainability and suggest further research to advance the field.
In this paper, we propose a novel data augmentation technique called GenMix, which combines generative and mixture approaches to leverage the strengths of both methods. While generative models excel at creating new data patterns, they face challenges such as mode collapse in GANs and difficulties in training diffusion models, especially with limited medical imaging data. On the other hand, mixture models enhance class boundary regions but tend to favor the major class in scenarios with class imbalance. To address these limitations, GenMix integrates both approaches to complement each other. GenMix operates in two stages: (1) training a generative model to produce synthetic images, and (2) performing mixup between synthetic and real data. This process improves the quality and diversity of synthetic data while simultaneously benefiting from the new pattern learning of generative models and the boundary enhancement of mixture models. We validate the effectiveness of our method on the task of classifying focal liver lesions (FLLs) in CT images. Our results demonstrate that GenMix enhances the performance of various generative models, including DCGAN, StyleGAN, Textual Inversion, and Diffusion Models. Notably, the proposed method with Textual Inversion outperforms other methods without fine-tuning diffusion model on the FLL dataset.
In this paper, we introduce 4DHands, a robust approach to recovering interactive hand meshes and their relative movement from monocular inputs. Our approach addresses two major limitations of previous methods: lacking a unified solution for handling various hand image inputs and neglecting the positional relationship of two hands within images. To overcome these challenges, we develop a transformer-based architecture with novel tokenization and feature fusion strategies. Specifically, we propose a Relation-aware Two-Hand Tokenization (RAT) method to embed positional relation information into the hand tokens. In this way, our network can handle both single-hand and two-hand inputs and explicitly leverage relative hand positions, facilitating the reconstruction of intricate hand interactions in real-world scenarios. As such tokenization indicates the relative relationship of two hands, it also supports more effective feature fusion. To this end, we further develop a Spatio-temporal Interaction Reasoning (SIR) module to fuse hand tokens in 4D with attention and decode them into 3D hand meshes and relative temporal movements. The efficacy of our approach is validated on several benchmark datasets. The results on in-the-wild videos and real-world scenarios demonstrate the superior performances of our approach for interactive hand reconstruction. More video results can be found on the project page: //4dhands.github.io.
In this paper, we propose the generalized mixed reduced rank regression method, GMR$^3$ for short. GMR$^3$ is a regression method for a mix of numeric, binary and ordinal response variables. The predictor variables can be a mix of binary, nominal, ordinal, and numeric variables. For dealing with the categorical predictors we use optimal scaling. A majorization-minimization algorithm is derived for maximum likelihood estimation under a local independence assumption. We discuss in detail model selection for the dimensionality or rank, and the selection of predictor variables. We show an application of GMR$^3$ using the Eurobarometer Surveys data set of 2023.
In this paper, we derive variational formulas for the asymptotic exponents (i.e., convergence rates) of the concentration and isoperimetric functions in the product Polish probability space under certain mild assumptions. These formulas are expressed in terms of relative entropies (which are from information theory) and optimal transport cost functionals (which are from optimal transport theory). Hence, our results verify an intimate connection among information theory, optimal transport, and concentration of measure or isoperimetric inequalities. In the concentration regime, the corresponding variational formula is in fact a dimension-free bound in the sense that this bound is valid for any dimension. A cardinality bound for the alphabet of the auxiliary random variable in the expression of the asymptotic isoperimetric exponent is provided, which makes the expression computable by a finite-dimensional program for the finite alphabet case. We lastly apply our results to obtain an isoperimetric inequality in the classic isoperimetric setting, which is asymptotically sharp under certain conditions. The proofs in this paper are based on information-theoretic and optimal transport techniques.
In this paper, we introduce a new task: Zero-Shot 3D Reasoning Segmentation for parts searching and localization for objects, which is a new paradigm to 3D segmentation that transcends limitations for previous category-specific 3D semantic segmentation, 3D instance segmentation, and open-vocabulary 3D segmentation. We design a simple baseline method, Reasoning3D, with the capability to understand and execute complex commands for (fine-grained) segmenting specific parts for 3D meshes with contextual awareness and reasoned answers for interactive segmentation. Specifically, Reasoning3D leverages an off-the-shelf pre-trained 2D segmentation network, powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), to interpret user input queries in a zero-shot manner. Previous research have shown that extensive pre-training endows foundation models with prior world knowledge, enabling them to comprehend complex commands, a capability we can harness to "segment anything" in 3D with limited 3D datasets (source efficient). Experimentation reveals that our approach is generalizable and can effectively localize and highlight parts of 3D objects (in 3D mesh) based on implicit textual queries, including these articulated 3d objects and real-world scanned data. Our method can also generate natural language explanations corresponding to these 3D models and the decomposition. Moreover, our training-free approach allows rapid deployment and serves as a viable universal baseline for future research of part-level 3d (semantic) object understanding in various fields including robotics, object manipulation, part assembly, autonomous driving applications, augment reality and virtual reality (AR/VR), and medical applications. The code, the model weight, the deployment guide, and the evaluation protocol are: //tianrun-chen.github.io/Reason3D/
In this paper, we introduce Partial Information Decomposition of Features (PIDF), a new paradigm for simultaneous data interpretability and feature selection. Contrary to traditional methods that assign a single importance value, our approach is based on three metrics per feature: the mutual information shared with the target variable, the feature's contribution to synergistic information, and the amount of this information that is redundant. In particular, we develop a novel procedure based on these three metrics, which reveals not only how features are correlated with the target but also the additional and overlapping information provided by considering them in combination with other features. We extensively evaluate PIDF using both synthetic and real-world data, demonstrating its potential applications and effectiveness, by considering case studies from genetics and neuroscience.
In this paper, we propose a continuous-time lidar-inertial odometry (CT-LIO) system named SLICT2, which promotes two main insights. One, contrary to conventional wisdom, CT-LIO algorithm can be optimized by linear solvers in only a few iterations, which is more efficient than commonly used nonlinear solvers. Two, CT-LIO benefits more from the correct association than the number of iterations. Based on these ideas, we implement our method with a customized solver where the feature association process is performed immediately after each incremental step, and the solution can converge within a few iterations. Our implementation can achieve real-time performance with a high density of control points while yielding competitive performance in highly dynamical motion scenarios. We demonstrate the advantages of our method by comparing with other existing state-of-the-art CT-LIO methods. The source code will be released for the benefit of the community.
This article presents the affordances that Generative Artificial Intelligence can have in disinformation context, one of the major threats to our digitalized society. We present a research framework to generate customized agent-based social networks for disinformation simulations that would enable understanding and evaluation of the phenomena whilst discussing open challenges.