The rise of power-efficient embedded computers based on highly-parallel accelerators opens a number of opportunities and challenges for researchers and engineers, and paved the way to the era of edge computing. At the same time, advances in embedded AI for object detection and categorization such as YOLO, GoogleNet and AlexNet reached an unprecedented level of accuracy (mean-Average Precision - mAP) and performance (Frames-Per-Second - FPS). Today, edge computers based on heterogeneous many-core systems are a predominant choice to deploy such systems in industry 4.0, wearable devices, and - our focus - autonomous driving systems. In these latter systems, engineers struggle to make reduced automotive power and size budgets co-exist with the accuracy and performance targets requested by autonomous driving. We aim at validating the effectiveness and efficiency of most recent networks on state-of-the-art platforms with embedded commercial-off-the-shelf System-on-Chips, such as Xavier AGX, Tegra X2 and Nano for NVIDIA and XCZU9EG and XCZU3EG of the Zynq UltraScale+ family, for the Xilinx counterpart. Our work aims at supporting engineers in choosing the most appropriate CNN package and computing system for their designs, and deriving guidelines for adequately sizing their systems.
Threshold selection is a fundamental problem in any threshold-based extreme value analysis. While models are asymptotically motivated, selecting an appropriate threshold for finite samples can be difficult through standard methods. Inference can also be highly sensitive to the choice of threshold. Too low a threshold choice leads to bias in the fit of the extreme value model, while too high a choice leads to unnecessary additional uncertainty in the estimation of model parameters. In this paper, we develop a novel methodology for automated threshold selection that directly tackles this bias-variance trade-off. We also develop a method to account for the uncertainty in this threshold choice and propagate this uncertainty through to high quantile inference. Through a simulation study, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our method for threshold selection and subsequent extreme quantile estimation. We apply our method to the well-known, troublesome example of the River Nidd dataset.
Optical computing systems provide high-speed and low-energy data processing but face deficiencies in computationally demanding training and simulation-to-reality gaps. We propose a model-free optimization (MFO) method based on a score gradient estimation algorithm for computationally efficient in situ training of optical computing systems. This approach treats an optical computing system as a black box and back-propagates the loss directly to the optical computing weights' probability distributions, circumventing the need for a computationally heavy and biased system simulation. Our experiments on a single-layer diffractive optical computing system show that MFO outperforms hybrid training on the MNIST and FMNIST datasets. Furthermore, we demonstrate image-free and high-speed classification of cells from their phase maps. Our method's model-free and high-performance nature, combined with its low demand for computational resources, expedites the transition of optical computing from laboratory demonstrations to real-world applications.
Modern high-throughput sequencing assays efficiently capture not only gene expression and different levels of gene regulation but also a multitude of genome variants. Focused analysis of alternative alleles of variable sites at homologous chromosomes of the human genome reveals allele-specific gene expression and allele-specific gene regulation by assessing allelic imbalance of read counts at individual sites. Here we formally describe an advanced statistical framework for detecting the allelic imbalance in allelic read counts at single-nucleotide variants detected in diverse omics studies (ChIP-Seq, ATAC-Seq, DNase-Seq, CAGE-Seq, and others). MIXALIME accounts for copy-number variants and aneuploidy, reference read mapping bias, and provides several scoring models to balance between sensitivity and specificity when scoring data with varying levels of experimental noise-caused overdispersion.
A novel method for detecting faults in power grids using a graph neural network (GNN) has been developed, aimed at enhancing intelligent fault diagnosis in network operation and maintenance. This GNN-based approach identifies faulty nodes within the power grid through a specialized electrical feature extraction model coupled with a knowledge graph. Incorporating temporal data, the method leverages the status of nodes from preceding and subsequent time periods to aid in current fault detection. To validate the effectiveness of this GNN in extracting node features, a correlation analysis of the output features from each node within the neural network layer was conducted. The results from experiments show that this method can accurately locate fault nodes in simulated scenarios with a remarkable 99.53% accuracy. Additionally, the graph neural network's feature modeling allows for a qualitative examination of how faults spread across nodes, providing valuable insights for analyzing fault nodes.
The ultimate goal of any numerical scheme for partial differential equations (PDEs) is to compute an approximation of user-prescribed accuracy at quasi-minimal computational time. To this end, algorithmically, the standard adaptive finite element method (AFEM) integrates an inexact solver and nested iterations with discerning stopping criteria balancing the different error components. The analysis ensuring optimal convergence order of AFEM with respect to the overall computational cost critically hinges on the concept of R-linear convergence of a suitable quasi-error quantity. This work tackles several shortcomings of previous approaches by introducing a new proof strategy. First, the algorithm requires several fine-tuned parameters in order to make the underlying analysis work. A redesign of the standard line of reasoning and the introduction of a summability criterion for R-linear convergence allows us to remove restrictions on those parameters. Second, the usual assumption of a (quasi-)Pythagorean identity is replaced by the generalized notion of quasi-orthogonality from [Feischl, Math. Comp., 91 (2022)]. Importantly, this paves the way towards extending the analysis to general inf-sup stable problems beyond the energy minimization setting. Numerical experiments investigate the choice of the adaptivity parameters.
In this work, a class of continuous-time autonomous dynamical systems describing many important phenomena and processes arising in real-world applications is considered. We apply the nonstandard finite difference (NSFD) methodology proposed by Mickens to design a generalized NSFD method for the dynamical system models under consideration. This method is constructed based on a novel non-local approximation for the right-side functions of the dynamical systems. It is proved by rigorous mathematical analyses that the NSFD method is dynamically consistent with respect to positivity, asymptotic stability and three classes of conservation laws, including direct conservation, generalized conservation and sub-conservation laws. Furthermore, the NSFD method is easy to be implemented and can be applied to solve a broad range of mathematical models arising in real-life. Finally, a set of numerical experiments is performed to illustrate the theoretical findings and to show advantages of the proposed NSFD method.
Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) over the last decade demonstrate that machines can exhibit communicative behavior and influence how humans think, feel, and behave. In fact, the recent development of ChatGPT has shown that large language models (LLMs) can be leveraged to generate high-quality communication content at scale and across domains, suggesting that they will be increasingly used in practice. However, many questions remain about how knowing the source of the messages influences recipients' evaluation of and preference for AI-generated messages compared to human-generated messages. This paper investigated this topic in the context of vaping prevention messaging. In Study 1, which was pre-registered, we examined the influence of source disclosure on people's evaluation of AI-generated health prevention messages compared to human-generated messages. We found that source disclosure (i.e., labeling the source of a message as AI vs. human) significantly impacted the evaluation of the messages but did not significantly alter message rankings. In a follow-up study (Study 2), we examined how the influence of source disclosure may vary by the participants' negative attitudes towards AI. We found a significant moderating effect of negative attitudes towards AI on message evaluation, but not for message selection. However, for those with moderate levels of negative attitudes towards AI, source disclosure decreased the preference for AI-generated messages. Overall, the results of this series of studies showed a slight bias against AI-generated messages once the source was disclosed, adding to the emerging area of study that lies at the intersection of AI and communication.
We construct an efficient class of increasingly high-order (up to 17th-order) essentially non-oscillatory schemes with multi-resolution (ENO-MR) for solving hyperbolic conservation laws. The candidate stencils for constructing ENO-MR schemes range from first-order one-point stencil increasingly up to the designed very high-order stencil. The proposed ENO-MR schemes adopt a very simple and efficient strategy that only requires the computation of the highest-order derivatives of a part of candidate stencils. Besides simplicity and high efficiency, ENO-MR schemes are completely parameter-free and essentially scale-invariant. Theoretical analysis and numerical computations show that ENO-MR schemes achieve designed high-order convergence in smooth regions which may contain high-order critical points (local extrema) and retain ENO property for strong shocks. In addition, ENO-MR schemes could capture complex flow structures very well.
Previous researchers conducting Just-In-Time (JIT) defect prediction tasks have primarily focused on the performance of individual pre-trained models, without exploring the relationship between different pre-trained models as backbones. In this study, we build six models: RoBERTaJIT, CodeBERTJIT, BARTJIT, PLBARTJIT, GPT2JIT, and CodeGPTJIT, each with a distinct pre-trained model as its backbone. We systematically explore the differences and connections between these models. Specifically, we investigate the performance of the models when using Commit code and Commit message as inputs, as well as the relationship between training efficiency and model distribution among these six models. Additionally, we conduct an ablation experiment to explore the sensitivity of each model to inputs. Furthermore, we investigate how the models perform in zero-shot and few-shot scenarios. Our findings indicate that each model based on different backbones shows improvements, and when the backbone's pre-training model is similar, the training resources that need to be consumed are much more closer. We also observe that Commit code plays a significant role in defect detection, and different pre-trained models demonstrate better defect detection ability with a balanced dataset under few-shot scenarios. These results provide new insights for optimizing JIT defect prediction tasks using pre-trained models and highlight the factors that require more attention when constructing such models. Additionally, CodeGPTJIT and GPT2JIT achieved better performance than DeepJIT and CC2Vec on the two datasets respectively under 2000 training samples. These findings emphasize the effectiveness of transformer-based pre-trained models in JIT defect prediction tasks, especially in scenarios with limited training data.
We propose and compare methods for the analysis of extreme events in complex systems governed by PDEs that involve random parameters, in situations where we are interested in quantifying the probability that a scalar function of the system's solution is above a threshold. If the threshold is large, this probability is small and its accurate estimation is challenging. To tackle this difficulty, we blend theoretical results from large deviation theory (LDT) with numerical tools from PDE-constrained optimization. Our methods first compute parameters that minimize the LDT-rate function over the set of parameters leading to extreme events, using adjoint methods to compute the gradient of this rate function. The minimizers give information about the mechanism of the extreme events as well as estimates of their probability. We then propose a series of methods to refine these estimates, either via importance sampling or geometric approximation of the extreme event sets. Results are formulated for general parameter distributions and detailed expressions are provided when Gaussian distributions. We give theoretical and numerical arguments showing that the performance of our methods is insensitive to the extremeness of the events we are interested in. We illustrate the application of our approach to quantify the probability of extreme tsunami events on shore. Tsunamis are typically caused by a sudden, unpredictable change of the ocean floor elevation during an earthquake. We model this change as a random process, which takes into account the underlying physics. We use the one-dimensional shallow water equation to model tsunamis numerically. In the context of this example, we present a comparison of our methods for extreme event probability estimation, and find which type of ocean floor elevation change leads to the largest tsunamis on shore.