The possibility of dynamically modifying the computational load of neural models at inference time is crucial for on-device processing, where computational power is limited and time-varying. Established approaches for neural model compression exist, but they provide architecturally static models. In this paper, we investigate the use of early-exit architectures, that rely on intermediate exit branches, applied to large-vocabulary speech recognition. This allows for the development of dynamic models that adjust their computational cost to the available resources and recognition performance. Unlike previous works, besides using pre-trained backbones we also train the model from scratch with an early-exit architecture. Experiments on public datasets show that early-exit architectures from scratch not only preserve performance levels when using fewer encoder layers, but also improve task accuracy as compared to using single-exit models or using pre-trained models. Additionally, we investigate an exit selection strategy based on posterior probabilities as an alternative to frame-based entropy.
Generalized linear models (GLMs) are routinely used for modeling relationships between a response variable and a set of covariates. The simple form of a GLM comes with easy interpretability, but also leads to concerns about model misspecification impacting inferential conclusions. A popular semi-parametric solution adopted in the frequentist literature is quasi-likelihood, which improves robustness by only requiring correct specification of the first two moments. We develop a robust approach to Bayesian inference in GLMs through quasi-posterior distributions. We show that quasi-posteriors provide a coherent generalized Bayes inference method, while also approximating so-called coarsened posteriors. In so doing, we obtain new insights into the choice of coarsening parameter. Asymptotically, the quasi-posterior converges in total variation to a normal distribution and has important connections with the loss-likelihood bootstrap posterior. We demonstrate that it is also well-calibrated in terms of frequentist coverage. Moreover, the loss-scale parameter has a clear interpretation as a dispersion, and this leads to a consolidated method of moments estimator.
We present the OGAN algorithm for automatic requirement falsification of cyber-physical systems. System inputs and output are represented as piecewise constant signals over time while requirements are expressed in signal temporal logic. OGAN can find inputs that are counterexamples for the safety of a system revealing design, software, or hardware defects before the system is taken into operation. The OGAN algorithm works by training a generative machine learning model to produce such counterexamples. It executes tests atomically and does not require any previous model of the system under test. We evaluate OGAN using the ARCH-COMP benchmark problems, and the experimental results show that generative models are a viable method for requirement falsification. OGAN can be applied to new systems with little effort, has few requirements for the system under test, and exhibits state-of-the-art CPS falsification efficiency and effectiveness.
Common-signal-induced synchronization of semiconductor lasers with optical feedback inspired a promising physical key distribution with information-theoretic security and potential in high rate. A significant challenge is the requirement to shorten the synchronization recovery time for increasing key rate without sacrificing operation parameter space for security. Here, open-loop synchronization of wavelength-tunable multi-section distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) lasers is proposed as a solution for physical-layer key distribution. Experiments show that the synchronization is sensitive to two operation parameters, i.e., currents of grating section and phase section. Furthermore, fast wavelength-shift keying synchronization can be achieved by direct modulation on one of the two currents. The synchronization recovery time is shortened by one order of magnitude compared to close-loop synchronization. An experimental implementation is demonstrated with a final key rate of 5.98 Mbit/s over 160 km optical fiber distance. It is thus believed that fast-tunable multi-section semiconductor lasers opens a new avenue of high-rate physical-layer key distribution using laser synchronization.
Motivated by models of human decision making proposed to explain commonly observed deviations from conventional expected value preferences, we formulate two stochastic multi-armed bandit problems with distorted probabilities on the reward distributions: the classic $K$-armed bandit and the linearly parameterized bandit settings. We consider the aforementioned problems in the regret minimization as well as best arm identification framework for multi-armed bandits. For the regret minimization setting in $K$-armed as well as linear bandit problems, we propose algorithms that are inspired by Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) algorithms, incorporate reward distortions, and exhibit sublinear regret. For the $K$-armed bandit setting, we derive an upper bound on the expected regret for our proposed algorithm, and then we prove a matching lower bound to establish the order-optimality of our algorithm. For the linearly parameterized setting, our algorithm achieves a regret upper bound that is of the same order as that of regular linear bandit algorithm called Optimism in the Face of Uncertainty Linear (OFUL) bandit algorithm, and unlike OFUL, our algorithm handles distortions and an arm-dependent noise model. For the best arm identification problem in the $K$-armed bandit setting, we propose algorithms, derive guarantees on their performance, and also show that these algorithms are order optimal by proving matching fundamental limits on performance. For best arm identification in linear bandits, we propose an algorithm and establish sample complexity guarantees. Finally, we present simulation experiments which demonstrate the advantages resulting from using distortion-aware learning algorithms in a vehicular traffic routing application.
We systematically study a wide variety of generative models spanning semantically-diverse image datasets to understand and improve the feature extractors and metrics used to evaluate them. Using best practices in psychophysics, we measure human perception of image realism for generated samples by conducting the largest experiment evaluating generative models to date, and find that no existing metric strongly correlates with human evaluations. Comparing to 17 modern metrics for evaluating the overall performance, fidelity, diversity, rarity, and memorization of generative models, we find that the state-of-the-art perceptual realism of diffusion models as judged by humans is not reflected in commonly reported metrics such as FID. This discrepancy is not explained by diversity in generated samples, though one cause is over-reliance on Inception-V3. We address these flaws through a study of alternative self-supervised feature extractors, find that the semantic information encoded by individual networks strongly depends on their training procedure, and show that DINOv2-ViT-L/14 allows for much richer evaluation of generative models. Next, we investigate data memorization, and find that generative models do memorize training examples on simple, smaller datasets like CIFAR10, but not necessarily on more complex datasets like ImageNet. However, our experiments show that current metrics do not properly detect memorization: none in the literature is able to separate memorization from other phenomena such as underfitting or mode shrinkage. To facilitate further development of generative models and their evaluation we release all generated image datasets, human evaluation data, and a modular library to compute 17 common metrics for 9 different encoders at //github.com/layer6ai-labs/dgm-eval.
This contribution introduces a model order reduction approach for an advection-reaction problem with a parametrized reaction function. The underlying discretization uses an ultraweak formulation with an $L^2$-like trial space and an 'optimal' test space as introduced by Demkowicz et al. This ensures the stability of the discretization and in addition allows for a symmetric reformulation of the problem in terms of a dual solution which can also be interpreted as the normal equations of an adjoint least-squares problem. Classic model order reduction techniques can then be applied to the space of dual solutions which also immediately gives a reduced primal space. We show that the necessary computations do not require the reconstruction of any primal solutions and can instead be performed entirely on the space of dual solutions. We prove exponential convergence of the Kolmogorov $N$-width and show that a greedy algorithm produces quasi-optimal approximation spaces for both the primal and the dual solution space. Numerical experiments based on the benchmark problem of a catalytic filter confirm the applicability of the proposed method.
Synthetic power grids enable secure, real-world energy system simulations and are crucial for algorithm testing, resilience assessment, and policy formulation. We propose a novel method for the generation of synthetic transmission power grids using Exponential Random Graph (ERG) models. Our two main contributions are: (1) the formulation of an ERG model tailored specifically for capturing the topological nuances of power grids, and (2) a general procedure for estimating the parameters of such a model conditioned on working with connected graphs. From a modeling perspective, we identify the edge counts per bus type and $k$-triangles as crucial topological characteristics for synthetic power grid generation. From a technical perspective, we develop a rigorous methodology to estimate the parameters of an ERG constrained to the space of connected graphs. The proposed model is flexible, easy to implement, and successfully captures the desired topological properties of power grids.
The scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM) has recently been employed as an efficient means to model three-dimensional structures, in particular when the geometry is provided as a voxel-based image. To this end, an octree decomposition of the computational domain is deployed and each cubic cell is treated as an SBFEM subdomain. The surfaces of each subdomain are discretized in the finite element sense. We improve on this idea by combining the semi-analytical concept of the SBFEM with certain transition elements on the subdomains' surfaces. Thus, we avoid the triangulation of surfaces employed in previous works and consequently reduce the number of surface elements and degrees of freedom. In addition, these discretizations allow coupling elements of arbitrary order such that local p-refinement can be achieved straightforwardly.
Latent variable models (LVMs) are commonly used to capture the underlying dependencies, patterns, and hidden structure in observed data. Source duplication is a by-product of the data hankelisation pre-processing step common to single channel LVM applications, which hinders practical LVM utilisation. In this article, a Python package titled spectrally-regularised-LVMs is presented. The proposed package addresses the source duplication issue via the addition of a novel spectral regularisation term. This package provides a framework for spectral regularisation in single channel LVM applications, thereby making it easier to investigate and utilise LVMs with spectral regularisation. This is achieved via the use of symbolic or explicit representations of potential LVM objective functions which are incorporated into a framework that uses spectral regularisation during the LVM parameter estimation process. The objective of this package is to provide a consistent linear LVM optimisation framework which incorporates spectral regularisation and caters to single channel time-series applications.
This paper describes two intelligibility prediction systems derived from a pretrained noise-robust automatic speech recognition (ASR) model for the second Clarity Prediction Challenge (CPC2). One system is intrusive and leverages the hidden representations of the ASR model. The other system is non-intrusive and makes predictions with derived ASR uncertainty. The ASR model is only pretrained with a simulated noisy speech corpus and does not take advantage of the CPC2 data. For that reason, the intelligibility prediction systems are robust to unseen scenarios given the accurate prediction performance on the CPC2 evaluation.