We explore computational aspects of maximum likelihood estimation of the mixture proportions of a nonparametric finite mixture model -- a convex optimization problem with old roots in statistics and a key member of the modern data analysis toolkit. Motivated by problems in shape constrained inference, we consider structured variants of this problem with additional convex polyhedral constraints. We propose a new cubic regularized Newton method for this problem and present novel worst-case and local computational guarantees for our algorithm. We extend earlier work by Nesterov and Polyak to the case of a self-concordant objective with polyhedral constraints, such as the ones considered herein. We propose a Frank-Wolfe method to solve the cubic regularized Newton subproblem; and derive efficient solutions for the linear optimization oracles that may be of independent interest. In the particular case of Gaussian mixtures without shape constraints, we derive bounds on how well the finite mixture problem approximates the infinite-dimensional Kiefer-Wolfowitz maximum likelihood estimator. Experiments on synthetic and real datasets suggest that our proposed algorithms exhibit improved runtimes and scalability features over existing benchmarks.
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We tackle the problem of Byzantine errors in distributed gradient descent within the Byzantine-resilient gradient coding framework. Our proposed solution can recover the exact full gradient in the presence of $s$ malicious workers with a data replication factor of only $s+1$. It generalizes previous solutions to any data assignment scheme that has a regular replication over all data samples. The scheme detects malicious workers through additional interactive communication and a small number of local computations at the main node, leveraging group-wise comparisons between workers with a provably optimal grouping strategy. The scheme requires at most $s$ interactive rounds that incur a total communication cost logarithmic in the number of data samples.
In the realm of robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery, dynamic scene reconstruction can significantly enhance downstream tasks and improve surgical outcomes. Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF)-based methods have recently risen to prominence for their exceptional ability to reconstruct scenes. Nonetheless, these methods are hampered by slow inference, prolonged training, and substantial computational demands. Additionally, some rely on stereo depth estimation, which is often infeasible due to the high costs and logistical challenges associated with stereo cameras. Moreover, the monocular reconstruction quality for deformable scenes is currently inadequate. To overcome these obstacles, we present Endo-4DGS, an innovative, real-time endoscopic dynamic reconstruction approach that utilizes 4D Gaussian Splatting (GS) and requires no ground truth depth data. This method extends 3D GS by incorporating a temporal component and leverages a lightweight MLP to capture temporal Gaussian deformations. This effectively facilitates the reconstruction of dynamic surgical scenes with variable conditions. We also integrate Depth-Anything to generate pseudo-depth maps from monocular views, enhancing the depth-guided reconstruction process. Our approach has been validated on two surgical datasets, where it has proven to render in real-time, compute efficiently, and reconstruct with remarkable accuracy. These results underline the vast potential of Endo-4DGS to improve surgical assistance.
Heterogeneous Bayesian decentralized data fusion captures the set of problems in which two robots must combine two probability density functions over non-equal, but overlapping sets of random variables. In the context of multi-robot dynamic systems, this enables robots to take a "divide and conquer" approach to reason and share data over complementary tasks instead of over the full joint state space. For example, in a target tracking application, this allows robots to track different subsets of targets and share data on only common targets. This paper presents a framework by which robots can each use a local factor graph to represent relevant partitions of a complex global joint probability distribution, thus allowing them to avoid reasoning over the entirety of a more complex model and saving communication as well as computation costs. From a theoretical point of view, this paper makes contributions by casting the heterogeneous decentralized fusion problem in terms of a factor graph, analyzing the challenges that arise due to dynamic filtering, and then developing a new conservative filtering algorithm that ensures statistical correctness. From a practical point of view, we show how this framework can be used to represent different multi-robot applications and then test it with simulations and hardware experiments to validate and demonstrate its statistical conservativeness, applicability, and robustness to real-world challenges.
Semantic communications have emerged as a new paradigm for improving communication efficiency by transmitting the semantic information of a source message that is most relevant to a desired task at the receiver. Most existing approaches typically utilize neural networks (NNs) to design end-to-end semantic communication systems, where NN-based semantic encoders output continuously distributed signals to be sent directly to the channel in an analog fashion. In this work, we propose a joint coding-modulation (JCM) framework for digital semantic communications by using variational autoencoder (VAE). Our approach learns the transition probability from source data to discrete constellation symbols, thereby avoiding the non-differentiability problem of digital modulation. Meanwhile, by jointly designing the coding and modulation process together, we can match the obtained modulation strategy with the operating channel condition. We also derive a matching loss function with information-theoretic meaning for end-to-end training. Experiments on image semantic communication validate the superiority of our proposed JCM framework over the state-of-the-art quantization-based digital semantic coding-modulation methods across a wide range of channel conditions, transmission rates, and modulation orders. Furthermore, its performance gap to analog semantic communication reduces as the modulation order increases while enjoying the hardware implementation convenience.
We consider the linear lambda-calculus extended with the sup type constructor, which provides an additive conjunction along with a non-deterministic destructor. The sup type constructor has been introduced in the context of quantum computing. In this paper, we study this type constructor within a simple linear logic categorical model, employing the category of semimodules over a commutative semiring. We demonstrate that the non-deterministic destructor, either weighted or not, finds a suitable model in a weighted codiagonal map. Our approach offers a valid and insightful alternative to interpreting non-determinism and probability calculi, in instances where the conventional Moggi's Powerset Monad interpretation does not align with the category's structure, as is the case with the category of semimodules. The validity of this alternative relies on the presence of biproducts within the category.
This paper presents a plugin that adds a representation of homogeneous and heterogeneous, optically thick, translucent materials on the Blender 3D modeling tool. The working principle of this plugin is based on a combination of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD)-based subsurface scattering method (GenSSS). The proposed plugin has been implemented using Mitsuba renderer, which is an open source rendering software. The proposed plugin has been validated on measured subsurface scattering data. It's shown that the proposed plugin visualizes homogeneous and heterogeneous subsurface scattering effects, accurately, compactly and computationally efficiently.
Advancements in generative models have sparked significant interest in generating images while adhering to specific structural guidelines. Scene graph to image generation is one such task of generating images which are consistent with the given scene graph. However, the complexity of visual scenes poses a challenge in accurately aligning objects based on specified relations within the scene graph. Existing methods approach this task by first predicting a scene layout and generating images from these layouts using adversarial training. In this work, we introduce a novel approach to generate images from scene graphs which eliminates the need of predicting intermediate layouts. We leverage pre-trained text-to-image diffusion models and CLIP guidance to translate graph knowledge into images. Towards this, we first pre-train our graph encoder to align graph features with CLIP features of corresponding images using a GAN based training. Further, we fuse the graph features with CLIP embedding of object labels present in the given scene graph to create a graph consistent CLIP guided conditioning signal. In the conditioning input, object embeddings provide coarse structure of the image and graph features provide structural alignment based on relationships among objects. Finally, we fine tune a pre-trained diffusion model with the graph consistent conditioning signal with reconstruction and CLIP alignment loss. Elaborate experiments reveal that our method outperforms existing methods on standard benchmarks of COCO-stuff and Visual Genome dataset.
Narrative visualization effectively transforms data into engaging stories, making complex information accessible to a broad audience. Large models, essential for narrative visualization, inherently facilitate this process through their superior ability to handle natural language queries and answers, generate cohesive narratives, and enhance visual communication. Inspired by previous work in narrative visualization and recent advances in large models, we synthesized potential tasks and opportunities for large models at various stages of narrative visualization. In our study, we surveyed 79 papers to explore the role of large models in automating narrative visualization creation. We propose a comprehensive pipeline that leverages large models for crafting narrative visualization, categorizing the reviewed literature into four essential phases: Data, Narration, Visualization, and Presentation. Additionally, we identify nine specific tasks where large models are applied across these stages. This study maps out the landscape of challenges and opportunities in the LM4NV process, providing insightful directions for future research and valuable guidance for scholars in the field.
The existence of representative datasets is a prerequisite of many successful artificial intelligence and machine learning models. However, the subsequent application of these models often involves scenarios that are inadequately represented in the data used for training. The reasons for this are manifold and range from time and cost constraints to ethical considerations. As a consequence, the reliable use of these models, especially in safety-critical applications, is a huge challenge. Leveraging additional, already existing sources of knowledge is key to overcome the limitations of purely data-driven approaches, and eventually to increase the generalization capability of these models. Furthermore, predictions that conform with knowledge are crucial for making trustworthy and safe decisions even in underrepresented scenarios. This work provides an overview of existing techniques and methods in the literature that combine data-based models with existing knowledge. The identified approaches are structured according to the categories integration, extraction and conformity. Special attention is given to applications in the field of autonomous driving.
Images can convey rich semantics and induce various emotions in viewers. Recently, with the rapid advancement of emotional intelligence and the explosive growth of visual data, extensive research efforts have been dedicated to affective image content analysis (AICA). In this survey, we will comprehensively review the development of AICA in the recent two decades, especially focusing on the state-of-the-art methods with respect to three main challenges -- the affective gap, perception subjectivity, and label noise and absence. We begin with an introduction to the key emotion representation models that have been widely employed in AICA and description of available datasets for performing evaluation with quantitative comparison of label noise and dataset bias. We then summarize and compare the representative approaches on (1) emotion feature extraction, including both handcrafted and deep features, (2) learning methods on dominant emotion recognition, personalized emotion prediction, emotion distribution learning, and learning from noisy data or few labels, and (3) AICA based applications. Finally, we discuss some challenges and promising research directions in the future, such as image content and context understanding, group emotion clustering, and viewer-image interaction.
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