In the rapidly evolving landscape of information retrieval, search engines strive to provide more personalized and relevant results to users. Query suggestion systems play a crucial role in achieving this goal by assisting users in formulating effective queries. However, existing query suggestion systems mainly rely on textual inputs, potentially limiting user search experiences for querying images. In this paper, we introduce a novel Multimodal Query Suggestion (MMQS) task, which aims to generate query suggestions based on user query images to improve the intentionality and diversity of search results. We present the RL4Sugg framework, leveraging the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) with Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback to optimize the generation process. Through comprehensive experiments, we validate the effectiveness of RL4Sugg, demonstrating a 18% improvement compared to the best existing approach. Moreover, the MMQS has been transferred into real-world search engine products, which yield enhanced user engagement. Our research advances query suggestion systems and provides a new perspective on multimodal information retrieval.
Untrained networks inspired by deep image prior have shown promising capabilities in recovering a high-quality image from noisy or partial measurements, without requiring training data. Their success has been widely attributed to the spectral bias acting as an implicit regularization induced by suitable network architectures. However, applications of such network-based priors often entail superfluous architectural decisions, overfitting risks, and slow optimization, all of which hinder their practicality. In this work, we propose efficient, architecture-agnostic methods for a more direct frequency control over the network priors: 1) constraining the bandwidth of the white-noise input, 2) controlling the bandwidth of the interpolation-based upsamplers, and 3) regularizing the Lipschitz constants of the layers. We show that even with just one extra line of code, the overfitting issues in underperforming architectures can be alleviated such that their performance gaps with the high-performing counterparts can be largely closed despite their distinct configurations, mitigating the need for architecture tuning. This then makes it possible to employ a more compact model to achieve similar or superior performance to larger models with greater efficiency. Our regularized network priors compare favorably with current supervised and self-supervised methods on MRI reconstruction and image inpainting tasks, serving as a stronger zero-shot baseline reconstructor. Our code will be made publicly available.
Reusable embeddings of user behaviour have shown significant performance improvements for the personalised saliency prediction task. However, prior works require explicit user characteristics and preferences as input, which are often difficult to obtain. We present a novel method to extract user embeddings from pairs of natural images and corresponding saliency maps generated from a small amount of user-specific eye tracking data. At the core of our method is a Siamese convolutional neural encoder that learns the user embeddings by contrasting the image and personal saliency map pairs of different users. Evaluations on two public saliency datasets show that the generated embeddings have high discriminative power, are effective at refining universal saliency maps to the individual users, and generalise well across users and images. Finally, based on our model's ability to encode individual user characteristics, our work points towards other applications that can benefit from reusable embeddings of gaze behaviour.
Introduction: The paper addresses the challenging problem of predicting the short-term realized volatility of the Bitcoin price using order flow information. The inherent stochastic nature and anti-persistence of price pose difficulties in accurate prediction. Methods: To address this, we propose a method that transforms order flow data over a fixed time interval (snapshots) into images. The order flow includes trade sizes, trade directions, and limit order book, and is mapped into image colour channels. These images are then used to train both a simple 3-layer Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and more advanced ResNet-18 and ConvMixer, with additionally supplementing them with hand-crafted features. The models are evaluated against classical GARCH, Multilayer Perceptron trained on raw data, and a naive guess method that considers current volatility as a prediction. Results: The experiments are conducted using price data from January 2021 and evaluate model performance in terms of root mean square error (RMSPE). The results show that our order flow representation with a CNN as a predictive model achieves the best performance, with an RMSPE of 0.85+/-1.1 for the model with aggregated features and 1.0+/-1.4 for the model without feature supplementation. ConvMixer with feature supplementation follows closely. In comparison, the RMSPE for the naive guess method was 1.4+/-3.0.
In the rapidly advancing realm of visual generation, diffusion models have revolutionized the landscape, marking a significant shift in capabilities with their impressive text-guided generative functions. However, relying solely on text for conditioning these models does not fully cater to the varied and complex requirements of different applications and scenarios. Acknowledging this shortfall, a variety of studies aim to control pre-trained text-to-image (T2I) models to support novel conditions. In this survey, we undertake a thorough review of the literature on controllable generation with T2I diffusion models, covering both the theoretical foundations and practical advancements in this domain. Our review begins with a brief introduction to the basics of denoising diffusion probabilistic models (DDPMs) and widely used T2I diffusion models. We then reveal the controlling mechanisms of diffusion models, theoretically analyzing how novel conditions are introduced into the denoising process for conditional generation. Additionally, we offer a detailed overview of research in this area, organizing it into distinct categories from the condition perspective: generation with specific conditions, generation with multiple conditions, and universal controllable generation. For an exhaustive list of the controllable generation literature surveyed, please refer to our curated repository at \url{//github.com/PRIV-Creation/Awesome-Controllable-T2I-Diffusion-Models}.
With the burgeoning growth of online video platforms and the escalating volume of video content, the demand for proficient video understanding tools has intensified markedly. With Large Language Models (LLMs) showcasing remarkable capabilities in key language tasks, this survey provides a detailed overview of the recent advancements in video understanding harnessing the power of LLMs (Vid-LLMs). The emergent capabilities of Vid-LLMs are surprisingly advanced, particularly their ability for open-ended spatial-temporal reasoning combined with commonsense knowledge, suggesting a promising path for future video understanding. We examine the unique characteristics and capabilities of Vid-LLMs, categorizing the approaches into four main types: LLM-based Video Agents, Vid-LLMs Pretraining, Vid-LLMs Instruction Tuning, and Hybrid Methods. Furthermore, this survey also presents a comprehensive study of the tasks and datasets for Vid-LLMs, along with the methodologies employed for evaluation. Additionally, the survey explores the expansive applications of Vid-LLMs across various domains, thereby showcasing their remarkable scalability and versatility in addressing challenges in real-world video understanding. Finally, the survey summarizes the limitations of existing Vid-LLMs and the directions for future research. For more information, we recommend readers visit the repository at //github.com/yunlong10/Awesome-LLMs-for-Video-Understanding.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), generative large language models (LLMs) stand at the forefront, revolutionizing how we interact with our data. However, the computational intensity and memory consumption of deploying these models present substantial challenges in terms of serving efficiency, particularly in scenarios demanding low latency and high throughput. This survey addresses the imperative need for efficient LLM serving methodologies from a machine learning system (MLSys) research perspective, standing at the crux of advanced AI innovations and practical system optimizations. We provide in-depth analysis, covering a spectrum of solutions, ranging from cutting-edge algorithmic modifications to groundbreaking changes in system designs. The survey aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state and future directions in efficient LLM serving, offering valuable insights for researchers and practitioners in overcoming the barriers of effective LLM deployment, thereby reshaping the future of AI.
The accurate and interpretable prediction of future events in time-series data often requires the capturing of representative patterns (or referred to as states) underpinning the observed data. To this end, most existing studies focus on the representation and recognition of states, but ignore the changing transitional relations among them. In this paper, we present evolutionary state graph, a dynamic graph structure designed to systematically represent the evolving relations (edges) among states (nodes) along time. We conduct analysis on the dynamic graphs constructed from the time-series data and show that changes on the graph structures (e.g., edges connecting certain state nodes) can inform the occurrences of events (i.e., time-series fluctuation). Inspired by this, we propose a novel graph neural network model, Evolutionary State Graph Network (EvoNet), to encode the evolutionary state graph for accurate and interpretable time-series event prediction. Specifically, Evolutionary State Graph Network models both the node-level (state-to-state) and graph-level (segment-to-segment) propagation, and captures the node-graph (state-to-segment) interactions over time. Experimental results based on five real-world datasets show that our approach not only achieves clear improvements compared with 11 baselines, but also provides more insights towards explaining the results of event predictions.
Translational distance-based knowledge graph embedding has shown progressive improvements on the link prediction task, from TransE to the latest state-of-the-art RotatE. However, N-1, 1-N and N-N predictions still remain challenging. In this work, we propose a novel translational distance-based approach for knowledge graph link prediction. The proposed method includes two-folds, first we extend the RotatE from 2D complex domain to high dimension space with orthogonal transforms to model relations for better modeling capacity. Second, the graph context is explicitly modeled via two directed context representations. These context representations are used as part of the distance scoring function to measure the plausibility of the triples during training and inference. The proposed approach effectively improves prediction accuracy on the difficult N-1, 1-N and N-N cases for knowledge graph link prediction task. The experimental results show that it achieves better performance on two benchmark data sets compared to the baseline RotatE, especially on data set (FB15k-237) with many high in-degree connection nodes.
Knowledge graphs capture interlinked information between entities and they represent an attractive source of structured information that can be harnessed for recommender systems. However, existing recommender engines use knowledge graphs by manually designing features, do not allow for end-to-end training, or provide poor scalability. Here we propose Knowledge Graph Convolutional Networks (KGCN), an end-to-end trainable framework that harnesses item relationships captured by the knowledge graph to provide better recommendations. Conceptually, KGCN computes user-specific item embeddings by first applying a trainable function that identifies important knowledge graph relations for a given user and then transforming the knowledge graph into a user-specific weighted graph. Then, KGCN applies a graph convolutional neural network that computes an embedding of an item node by propagating and aggregating knowledge graph neighborhood information. Moreover, to provide better inductive bias KGCN uses label smoothness (LS), which provides regularization over edge weights and we prove that it is equivalent to label propagation scheme on a graph. Finally, We unify KGCN and LS regularization, and present a scalable minibatch implementation for KGCN-LS model. Experiments show that KGCN-LS outperforms strong baselines in four datasets. KGCN-LS also achieves great performance in sparse scenarios and is highly scalable with respect to the knowledge graph size.
With the rapid increase of large-scale, real-world datasets, it becomes critical to address the problem of long-tailed data distribution (i.e., a few classes account for most of the data, while most classes are under-represented). Existing solutions typically adopt class re-balancing strategies such as re-sampling and re-weighting based on the number of observations for each class. In this work, we argue that as the number of samples increases, the additional benefit of a newly added data point will diminish. We introduce a novel theoretical framework to measure data overlap by associating with each sample a small neighboring region rather than a single point. The effective number of samples is defined as the volume of samples and can be calculated by a simple formula $(1-\beta^{n})/(1-\beta)$, where $n$ is the number of samples and $\beta \in [0,1)$ is a hyperparameter. We design a re-weighting scheme that uses the effective number of samples for each class to re-balance the loss, thereby yielding a class-balanced loss. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on artificially induced long-tailed CIFAR datasets and large-scale datasets including ImageNet and iNaturalist. Our results show that when trained with the proposed class-balanced loss, the network is able to achieve significant performance gains on long-tailed datasets.