Impressive predictive model for Breast Cancer based on Machine Learning

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Breast cancer is a major health concern for women all over the world.
 OBJECTIVES: In order to reduce mortality rates and provide the most effective treatment, Histopathology image prognosis is essential. When a pathologist examines a biopsy specimen under a microscope, they are engaging in histopathology. The pathologist looks for the picture, determines its type, labels it, and assigns a grade.
 METHODS: Tissue architecture, cell distribution, and cellular form all play a role in determining whether a histopathological scan is benign or malignant. Manual picture classification is the slowest and most error-prone method. Automated diagnosis based on machine learning is necessary for early and precise diagnosis, but this challenge has prevented it from being addressed thus far. In this study, we apply curvelet transform to a picture that has been segmented using k-means clustering to isolate individual cell nuclei.
 RESULTS: We analysed data from the Wisconsin Diagnosis Breast Cancer database for this article in the context of similar studies in the literature.
 CONCLUSION: It is demonstrated that compared to another machine learning algorithm, the IICA-ANN IICA-KNN and IICA-SVM-KNN method using the logistic algorithm achieves 98.04% accuracy.


Assessing non-Markovian dynamics through moments of the Choi state

Abstract: Non-Markovian effects in open quantum system dynamics usually manifest the backflow of information from the environment to the system, indicating complete-positive divisibility breaking of the dynamics. We provide a criterion for witnessing such non-Markovian dynamics exhibiting information backflow, based on partial moments of Choi matrices. The moment condition determined by the positive semi-definiteness of a matrix does not hold for a Choi state describing non-Markovian dynamics. We then present some explicit examples in support of our proposed non-Markovianity detection scheme. Finally, a moment-based measure of non-Markovianity for unital dynamics is formulated.


Discrimination and certification of unknown quantum measurements

Abstract: We study the discrimination of von Neumann measurements in the scenario when we are given a reference measurement and some other measurement. The aim of the discrimination is to determine whether the other measurement is the same as the first one. We consider the cases when the reference measurement is given without the classical description and when its classical description is known. Both cases are studied in the symmetric and asymmetric discrimination setups. Moreover, we provide optimal certification schemes enabling us to certify a known quantum measurement against the unknown one.


Classification of Mobile-Based Oral Cancer Images Using the Vision Transformer and the Swin Transformer

Abstract: Oral cancer, a pervasive and rapidly growing malignant disease, poses a significant global health concern. Early and accurate diagnosis is pivotal for improving patient outcomes. Automatic diagnosis methods based on artificial intelligence have shown promising results in the oral cancer field, but the accuracy still needs to be improved for realistic diagnostic scenarios. Vision Transformers (ViT) have outperformed learning CNN models recently in many computer vision benchmark tasks. This study explores the effectiveness of the Vision Transformer and the Swin Transformer, two cutting-edge variants of the transformer architecture, for the mobile-based oral cancer image classification application. The pre-trained Swin transformer model achieved 88.7% accuracy in the binary classification task, outperforming the ViT model by 2.3%, while the conventional convolutional network model VGG19 and ResNet50 achieved 85.2% and 84.5% accuracy. Our experiments demonstrate that these transformer-based architectures outperform traditional convolutional neural networks in terms of oral cancer image classification, and underscore the potential of the ViT and the Swin Transformer in advancing the state of the art in oral cancer image analysis.


Efficient Path Planning Based on Dynamic Bridging Rapidly Exploring Random Tree

Abstract: In the domain of mobile robotic navigation, the real-time generation of low-cost, executable reference trajectories is crucial. This paper propounds an innovative path planning strategy, termed Dynamic Bridging Rapidly Exploring Random Tree (DBR-RRT), which endeavors to enable safe and expedited path navigation. Initially, a heuristic discrimination method is engaged in the path search phase, whereby the issue of sluggish search velocity is tackled by evaluating whether sampled points reside at “bridging locations” within a free space, and by assessing the spatial–geometric relationships between proximate obstacles and auxiliary points. Subsequently, by leveraging extended speed, additional sampling points are generated in the vicinity of existing points to augment the search’s efficacy. Ultimately, the path is optimized and pruned by synthesizing the local curvature of the sampling points and the proximity to obstacles, assigning varied priorities to nodes, thus ensuring that the path’s quality and smoothness is upheld.


Brain tumor segmentation using synthetic MR images - A comparison of GANs and diffusion models

Abstract: Large annotated datasets are required for training deep learning models, but in medical imaging data sharing is often complicated due to ethics, anonymization and data protection legislation. Generative AI models, such as generative adversarial networks (GANs) and diffusion models, can today produce very realistic synthetic images, and can potentially facilitate data sharing. However, in order to share synthetic medical images it must first be demonstrated that they can be used for training different networks with acceptable performance. Here, we therefore comprehensively evaluate four GANs (progressive GAN, StyleGAN 1-3) and a diffusion model for the task of brain tumor segmentation (using two segmentation networks, U-Net and a Swin transformer). Our results show that segmentation networks trained on synthetic images reach Dice scores that are 80%-90% of Dice scores when training with real images, but that memorization of the training images can be a problem for diffusion models if the original dataset is too small. Our conclusion is that sharing synthetic medical images is a viable option to sharing real images, but that further work is required. The trained generative models and the generated synthetic images are shared on AIDA data hub.


Using LSTM to translate Thai sign language to text in real time

Abstract: Abstract Between 2019 and 2022, as the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, numerous countries implemented lockdown policies, leading most corporate companies to permit employees to work from home. Communication and meetings transitioned to online platforms, replacing face-to-face interactions. This shift posed challenges for deaf or hearing-impaired individuals who rely on sign language, using hand gestures for communication. However, it also affected those who can hear clearly but lack knowledge of sign language. Unfortunately, many online meeting platforms lack sign language translation features. This study addresses this issue, focusing on Thai sign language. The objective is to develop a model capable of translating Thai sign language in real-time. The Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture is employed in conjunction with MediaPipe Holistic for data collection. MediaPipe Holistic captures keypoints of hand, pose, and head, while the LSTM model translates hand gestures into a sequence of words. The model’s efficiency is assessed based on accuracy, with real-time testing achieving an 86% accuracy, slightly lower than the performance on the test dataset. Nonetheless, there is room for improvement, such as expanding the dataset by collecting data from diverse individuals, employing data augmentation techniques, and incorporating an attention mechanism to enhance model accuracy.


Camouflage: Utility-Aware Obfuscation for Accurate Simulation of Sensitive Program Traces

Abstract: Trace-based simulation is a widely used methodology for system design exploration. It relies on realistic traces that represent a range of behaviors necessary to be evaluated, containing a lot of information about the application, its inputs and the underlying system on which it was generated. Consequently, generating traces from real-world executions risk leakage of sensitive information. To prevent this, traces can be obfuscated before release. However, this can undermine their ideal utility, i.e., how realistically a program behavior was captured. To address this, we propose Camouflage, a novel obfuscation framework, designed with awareness of the necessary architectural properties required to preserve trace utility , while ensuring secrecy of the inputs used to generate the trace. Focusing on memory access traces, our extensive evaluation on various benchmarks shows that camouflaged traces preserve the performance measurements of the original execution, with an average τ correlation of 0.66. We model input secrecy as an input indistinguishability problem and show that the average security loss is 7.8%, which is better than traces generated from the state-of-the-art.


Whisper-based spoken term detection systems for search on speech ALBAYZIN evaluation challenge

Abstract: Abstract The vast amount of information stored in audio repositories makes necessary the development of efficient and automatic methods to search on audio content. In that direction, search on speech (SoS) has received much attention in the last decades. To motivate the development of automatic systems, ALBAYZIN evaluations include a search on speech challenge since 2012. This challenge releases several databases that cover different acoustic domains (i.e., spontaneous speech from TV shows, conference talks, parliament sessions, to name a few) aiming to build automatic systems that retrieve a set of terms from those databases. This paper presents a baseline system based on the Whisper automatic speech recognizer for the spoken term detection task in the search on speech challenge held in 2022 within the ALBAYZIN evaluations. This baseline system will be released with this publication and will be given to participants in the upcoming SoS ALBAYZIN evaluation in 2024. Additionally, several analyses based on some term properties (i.e., in-language and foreign terms, and single-word and multi-word terms) are carried out to show the Whisper capability at retrieving terms that convey specific properties. Although the results obtained for some databases are far from being perfect (e.g., for broadcast news domain), this Whisper-based approach has obtained the best results on the challenge databases so far so that it presents a strong baseline system for the upcoming challenge, encouraging participants to improve it.


Multipartite Entanglement: A Journey through Geometry

Abstract: Genuine multipartite entanglement is crucial for quantum information and related technologies, but quantifying it has been a long-standing challenge. Most proposed measures do not meet the "genuine" requirement, making them unsuitable for many applications. In this work, we propose a journey toward addressing this issue by introducing an unexpected relation between multipartite entanglement and hypervolume of geometric simplices, leading to a tetrahedron measure of quadripartite entanglement. By comparing the entanglement ranking of two highly entangled four-qubit states, we show that the tetrahedron measure relies on the degree of permutation invariance among parties within the quantum system. We demonstrate potential future applications of our measure in the context of quantum information scrambling within many-body systems.


Joint optimization of load balancing and resource allocation in cloud environment using optimal container management strategy

Abstract: Summary Due to the high performance of cloud computing‐based microservices, a wide range of industries and fields rely on them. In a containerized cloud, traditional resource management strategies are typically used to allocate and migrate virtual machines. A major problem for cloud service providers is resource allocation for containers, which directly affects system performance and resource consumption. In this paper, we propose a joint optimization of load balancing and resource allocation in the cloud using an optimal container management strategy. We aim to enhance scheduling efficiency and reduce costs by improving the container's schedule requested digitally by users. An improved backtracking search optimization (IBSO) algorithm is used to allocate resources between end‐users/IoT devices and the cloud under the consideration of service‐level agreements. Mechanic quantum recurrent neural networks (MQ‐RNNs) are designed to allocate, consolidate, and migrate containers in cloud environments. The various simulation measures used to validate the proposed strategy are energy consumption, number of active servers, number of interruptions, total cost, runtime, and statistical measures.


Governing Chinese technologies: TikTok, foreign interference, and technological sovereignty

Abstract: TikTok bans have been presented as one solution to threats to national security, data security, foreign interference, child safety, and foreign espionage.In this article we investigate four countries/regions -Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Unionthat have banned or attempted to govern TikTok, examining the policy and legal bases for such restrictions.Our analysis is conceptually informed by legal and political narrations of foreign interference and technological sovereignty.We approach this with particular attention to countries with existing intelligence and data sharing agreements (i.e. three members of the Five Eyes alliance and the trilateral AUKUS alliance) and the European Union given its regulatory approach to data protection.This research makes significant and timely contributions to the geopolitics of TikTok and foreign interference in an international context.It informs inconsistencies in regulatory and legal approaches relating to foreign interference and data sovereignty, beyond "China threat" narratives.We argue that the European Union regulation presents an approach that attempts to protect citizens and citizen data rather than attack platforms and governments that challenge Western technological hegemony.


Extrinsic Calibration for a Modular 3D Scanning Quality Validation Platform with a 3D Checkerboard

Abstract: Optical 3D scanning applications are increasingly used in various medical fields. Setups involving multiple adjustable systems require repeated extrinsic calibration between patients. Existing calibration solutions are either not applicable to the medical field or require a time-consuming process with multiple captures and target poses. Here, we present an application with a 3D checkerboard (3Dcb) for extrinsic calibration with a single capture. The 3Dcb application can register captures with a reference to validate measurement quality. Furthermore, it can register captures from camera pairs for point-cloud stitching of static and dynamic scenes. Registering static captures from TIDA-00254 to its reference from a Photoneo MotionCam-3D resulted in an error (root mean square error ± standard deviation) of 0.02 mm ± 2.9 mm. Registering a pair of Photoneo MotionCam-3D cameras for dynamic captures resulted in an error of 2.2 mm ± 1.4 mm. These results show that our 3Dcb implementation provides registration for static and dynamic captures that is sufficiently accurate for clinical use. The implementation is also robust and can be used with cameras with comparatively low accuracy. In addition, we provide an extended overview of extrinsic calibration approaches and the application's code for completeness and service to fellow researchers.


Developing a Deep Learning and Reliable Optimization Techniques for Solar Photovoltaic Power Prediction

Abstract: Due to its significant solar energy generation, solar PV power facilities have recently been utilized. Although PV power stations are highly preferable, the state’s fundamental drawback is that its output current qualities are unpredictable. Consequently, to ensure a balance and complete functioning, it would be crucial to build systems that allow accurate future projections of solar PV production in the short or medium term. Research postulates a strategy for using deep learning to estimate the short-term electricity generated by solar photovoltaic facilities. This study offers a novel method for predicting photovoltaic systems output power utilizing a Hybrid Deep Neural Network framework, making significant advancements in the field of deep learning applications to transmission system prediction issues. CNN and LSTM are combined in the postulated HDNN paradigm. Traditional deep learning techniques are employed in the initial stage. The effectiveness assessments of these techniques are instead presented in greater detail after they have been trained using firefly optimization techniques. The method with the highest reliability is chosen out of all the techniques used in previous research. Deep learning and power efficiency create a combination that appears to have a successful future, predominantlyin improving sustainable management and the digitalization of the electrical sector.


A clustering effectiveness measurement model based on merging similar clusters

Abstract: This article presents a clustering effectiveness measurement model based on merging similar clusters to address the problems experienced by the affinity propagation (AP) algorithm in the clustering process, such as excessive local clustering, low accuracy, and invalid clustering evaluation results that occur due to the lack of variety in some internal evaluation indices when the proportion of clusters is very high. First, depending upon the "rough clustering" process of the AP clustering algorithm, similar clusters are merged according to the relationship between the similarity between any two clusters and the average inter-cluster similarity in the entire sample set to decrease the maximum number of clusters Kmax. Then, a new scheme is proposed to calculate intra-cluster compactness, inter-cluster relative density, and inter-cluster overlap coefficient. On the basis of this new method, several internal evaluation indices based on intra-cluster cohesion and inter-cluster dispersion are designed. Results of experiments show that the proposed model can perform clustering and classification correctly and provide accurate ranges for clustering using public UCI and NSL-KDD datasets, and it is significantly superior to the three improved clustering algorithms compared with it in terms of intrusion detection indices such as detection rate and false positive rate (FPR).


Social Network Community Detection to Deal with Gray-Sheep and Cold-Start Problems in Music Recommender Systems

Abstract: Information from social networks is currently being widely used in many application domains, although in the music recommendation area, its use is less common because of the limited availability of social data. However, most streaming platforms allow for establishing relationships between users that can be leveraged to address some drawbacks of recommender systems. In this work, we take advantage of the social network structure to improve recommendations for users with unusual preferences and new users, thus dealing with the gray-sheep and cold-start problems, respectively. Since collaborative filtering methods base the recommendations for a given user on the preferences of his/her most similar users, the scarcity of users with similar tastes to the gray-sheep users and the unawareness of the preferences of the new users usually lead to bad recommendations. These general problems of recommender systems are worsened in the music domain, where the popularity bias drawback is also present. In order to address these problems, we propose a user similarity metric based on the network structure as well as on user ratings. This metric significantly improves the recommendation reliability in those scenarios by capturing both homophily effects in implicit communities of users in the network and user similarity in terms of preferences.


The Role of Sulfuric Acid, Abiotic–Organic Acids, and Biotic Acids on Serpentinite Dissolution and Trace Metal Release

Abstract: Organic acids produced by biota have been shown to accelerate the dissolution of minerals, possibly creating biosignatures in either reacting solutions or the solid materials. We tested aqueous alteration of serpentinite in three groups of solutions: inorganic acids, organic acids created through abiotic processes (termed “abiotic–organics”), and organic acids created through biotic processes (termed “biotic acids”) over a range of temperatures relevant to conditions on Mars and Europa. A total of 48 batch reactor experiments were carried out at 0 °C, 22 °C, and 62 °C in 16 different acids at pH 2.6 over 28 days. Additional experiments were conducted in sulfuric acid solutions to assess aqueous alteration in sulfate-rich environments. These results show that biotic acids accelerate serpentinite dissolution compared to the control inorganic acid, whereas abiotic–organic acids have little or no effect. Sulfuric acid enhances serpentinite dissolution over nitric acid. Secondary precipitates found in the presence of biotic acids were consistently enhanced in Mn, Ti, and W. We propose that these preferentially released elements and secondary minerals may be potential biosignatures. We also show that the release of the rock-forming elements Mg and Si is correlated with stability constants for the metal–acid aqueous complex, providing a possible mechanistic interpretation of the observed results.


A Comparison between Invariant and Equivariant Classical and Quantum Graph Neural Networks

Abstract: Machine learning algorithms are heavily relied on to understand the vast amounts of data from high-energy particle collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The data from such collision events can naturally be represented with graph structures. Therefore, deep geometric methods, such as graph neural networks (GNNs), have been leveraged for various data analysis tasks in high-energy physics. One typical task is jet tagging, where jets are viewed as point clouds with distinct features and edge connections between their constituent particles. The increasing size and complexity of the LHC particle datasets, as well as the computational models used for their analysis, have greatly motivated the development of alternative fast and efficient computational paradigms such as quantum computation. In addition, to enhance the validity and robustness of deep networks, we can leverage the fundamental symmetries present in the data through the use of invariant inputs and equivariant layers. In this paper, we provide a fair and comprehensive comparison of classical graph neural networks (GNNs) and equivariant graph neural networks (EGNNs) and their quantum counterparts: quantum graph neural networks (QGNNs) and equivariant quantum graph neural networks (EQGNN). The four architectures were benchmarked on a binary classification task to classify the parton-level particle initiating the jet. Based on their area under the curve (AUC) scores, the quantum networks were found to outperform the classical networks. However, seeing the computational advantage of quantum networks in practice may have to wait for the further development of quantum technology and its associated application programming interfaces (APIs).


A Novel NLP-Driven Dashboard for Interactive CyberAttacks Tweet Classification and Visualization

Abstract: The pervasive reach of social media like the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, offers unique opportunities for real-time analysis of cyberattack developments. By parsing and classifying tweets related to cyberattacks, we can glean valuable insights into their type, location, impact, and potential mitigation strategies. However, with millions of daily tweets, manual analysis is inefficient and time-consuming. This paper proposes an interactive and automated dashboard powered by natural language processing to effectively address this challenge. First, we created the CybAttT dataset, which contains 36,071 manually labeled English cyberattack tweets. We experimented with different classification algorithms. Following that, the best model was deployed and integrated into the streaming pipeline for real-time classification. This dynamic dashboard makes use of four different visualization formats: a geographical map, a data table, informative tiles, and a bar chart. Users can readily access crucial information about attacks, including location, timing, and perpetrators, enabling a swift response and mitigation efforts. Our experimental results demonstrated the dashboard’s promising visualization capabilities, highlighting its potential as a valuable tool for organizations and individuals seeking an intuitive and comprehensive overview of cyberattack events.


Using Super-Resolution for Enhancing Visual Perception and Segmentation Performance in Veterinary Cytology

Abstract: The primary objective of this research was to enhance the quality of semantic segmentation in cytology images by incorporating super-resolution (SR) architectures. An additional contribution was the development of a novel dataset aimed at improving imaging quality in the presence of inaccurate focus. Our experimental results demonstrate that the integration of SR techniques into the segmentation pipeline can lead to a significant improvement of up to 25% in the mean average precision (mAP) metric. These findings suggest that leveraging SR architectures holds great promise for advancing the state-of-the-art in cytology image analysis.


Generating a full spherical view by modeling the relation between two fisheye images

Abstract: Abstract Full spherical views provide advantages in many applications that use visual information. Dual back-to-back fisheye cameras are receiving much attention to obtain this type of view. However, obtaining a high-quality full spherical view is very challenging. In this paper, we propose a correction step that models the relation between the pixels of the pair of fisheye images in polar coordinates. This correction is implemented during the mapping from the unit sphere to the fisheye image using the equidistant fisheye projection. The objective is that the projections of the same point in the pair of images have the same position on the unit sphere after the correction. In this way, they will also have the same position on the equirectangular coordinate system. Consequently, the discontinuity between the spherical views for blending is minimized. Throughout the manuscript, we show that the angular polar coordinates of the same scene point in the fisheye images are related by a sine function and the radial distance coordinates by a linear function. Also, we propose employing a polynomial as a geometric transformation between the pair of spherical views during the image alignment since the relationship between the matching points of pairs of spherical views is not linear, especially in the top/bottom regions. Quantitative evaluations demonstrate that using the correction step improves the quality of the full spherical view, i.e. IQ MS-SSIM, up to 7%. Similarly, using a polynomial improves the IQ MS-SSIM up to 6.29% with respect to using an affine matrix.


Financial development impact on domestic investment: does income level matter?

Abstract: Financial development significantly bolsters a country’s economic growth and resilience. Despite increasing focus on the relationship between financial development and economic growth, few studies examine the impact of financial development on domestic investment across countries’ income levels. Therefore, this study employs the system Generalized Method of Moments estimator and the Pooled Mean Group estimator to investigate this relationship, utilizing a panel of 152 countries from 1980 to 2021. The empirical findings affirm that financial development positively influences investment performance until a specific threshold over time. However, while increasing financial development benefits investment, further deepening the financial sector may eventually diminish its impact on domestic investment. Specifically, the benefit of investment growth remains valid only up to a threshold of 0.5147, beyond which it becomes a hindrance. In the short run, financial development changes do not substantially impact investment. Additionally, the marginal effect of financial development on investment is more pronounced in low- and middle-income countries. These empirical findings provide valuable reference for enhancing financial development to foster investment growth.


Quantum Implementation of the SAND Algorithm and Its Quantum Resource Estimation for Brute-Force Attack

Abstract: The SAND algorithm is a family of lightweight AND-RX block ciphers released by DCC in 2022. Our research focuses on assessing the security of SAND with a quantum computation model. This paper presents the first quantum implementation of SAND (including two versions of SAND, SAND-64 and SAND-128). Considering the depth-times-width metric, the quantum circuit implementation of the SAND algorithm demonstrates a relatively lower consumption of quantum resources than that of the quantum implementations of existing lightweight algorithms. A generalized Grover-based brute-force attack framework was implemented and employed to perform attacks on two versions of the SAND algorithm. This framework utilized the g-database algorithm, which considered different plaintext-ciphertext pairs in a unified manner, reducing quantum resource consumption. Our findings indicate that the SAND-128 algorithm achieved the NIST security level I, while the SAND-64 algorithm fell short of meeting the requirements of security level I.


A Tool Kit for Relation Induction in Text Analysis

Abstract: Distances derived from word embeddings can measure a range of gradational relations—similarity, hierarchy, entailment, and stereotype—and can be used at the document- and author-level in ways that overcome some of the limitations of weighted dictionary methods. We provide a comprehensive introduction to using word embeddings for relation induction, and demonstrate how such techniques can complement dictionary methods as unsupervised, deductive methods.


AM‐MulFSNet: A fast semantic segmentation network combining attention mechanism and multi‐branch

Abstract: Abstract In order to balance accuracy and real‐time performance in semantic segmentation, this paper proposes a real‐time semantic segmentation algorithm model based on attention mechanism and multi‐branch feature fusion using Fast convolutional neural network model (Fast‐SCNN). In this method, the spatial detail feature enhancement branch is introduced to enhance spatial detail features firstly. Then, through rational design of fusion module, the feature information of each branch is optimized to achieve better fusion of deep and shallow features. At the end of the feature fusion module, an adaptive feature enhancement focus module is introduced to capture the interdependence between remote pixels. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves 71.55% segmentation accuracy on Cityscapes dataset, the reasoning speed FPS is 97.6 frames/s, and the number of parameters is 1.39 M, which verifies the effectiveness of the network model constructed by the algorithm. Code is available at https://github.com/ccchhheeennn/model .


The benefits and costs of explainable artificial intelligence in visual quality control: Evidence from fault detection performance and eye movements

Abstract: Abstract Visual inspection tasks often require humans to cooperate with artificial intelligence (AI)‐based image classifiers. To enhance this cooperation, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) can highlight those image areas that have contributed to an AI decision. However, the literature on visual cueing suggests that such XAI support might come with costs of its own. To better understand how the benefits and cost of XAI depend on the accuracy of AI classifications and XAI highlights, we conducted two experiments that simulated visual quality control in a chocolate factory. Participants had to decide whether chocolate molds contained faulty bars or not, and were always informed whether the AI had classified the mold as faulty or not. In half of the experiment, they saw additional XAI highlights that justified this classification. While XAI speeded up performance, its effects on error rates were highly dependent on (X)AI accuracy. XAI benefits were observed when the system correctly detected and highlighted the fault, but XAI costs were evident for misplaced highlights that marked an intact area while the actual fault was located elsewhere. Eye movement analyses indicated that participants spent less time searching the rest of the mold and thus looked at the fault less often. However, we also observed large interindividual differences. Taken together, the results suggest that despite its potentials, XAI can discourage people from investing effort into their own information analysis.


ArtProtect: Blockchain and NFC‐based anti‐counterfeit system for physical art

Abstract: Abstract Counterfeit artwork presents a significant risk to copyright holders and the economy. Without expertise in art, it is not straightforward to distinguish an artwork counterfeit from a genuine piece. This work designs and implements a reliable solution that enables users with near‐field communication‐enabled Android smartphones to verify artwork authenticity by accessing its respective certificate of authenticity stored in the Ethereum blockchain. To represent a physical artwork, the artwork image and metadata are stored in an inter‐planetary file system and minted as an ERC721 non‐fungible token to a smart contract deployed in Ethereum Rinkeby Testnet. The mobile app ArtProtect was developed to generate certificate of authenticity based on each non‐fungible token fetched through OpenSea Testnet API. Users access this information by scanning an near‐field communication tag embedded into the artwork. The content of the tag is signed by the respective artwork's artist and responsible agent by using Ethereum signing with their Ethereum wallet accounts. Through testing and analysis, the implemented work is secure, tamper‐evident, usable, flexible, and inexpensive to be applied to a real‐world scenario.


Riesz Networks: Scale-Invariant Neural Networks in a Single Forward Pass

Abstract: Abstract Scale invariance of an algorithm refers to its ability to treat objects equally independently of their size. For neural networks, scale invariance is typically achieved by data augmentation. However, when presented with a scale far outside the range covered by the training set, neural networks may fail to generalize. Here, we introduce the Riesz network, a novel scale- invariant neural network. Instead of standard 2d or 3d convolutions for combining spatial information, the Riesz network is based on the Riesz transform which is a scale-equivariant operation. As a consequence, this network naturally generalizes to unseen or even arbitrary scales in a single forward pass. As an application example, we consider detecting and segmenting cracks in tomographic images of concrete. In this context, ‘scale’ refers to the crack thickness which may vary strongly even within the same sample. To prove its scale invariance, the Riesz network is trained on one fixed crack width. We then validate its performance in segmenting simulated and real tomographic images featuring a wide range of crack widths. An additional experiment is carried out on the MNIST Large Scale data set.


Efficacy of federated learning on genomic data: a study on the UK Biobank and the 1000 Genomes Project

Abstract: Combining training data from multiple sources increases sample size and reduces confounding, leading to more accurate and less biased machine learning models. In healthcare, however, direct pooling of data is often not allowed by data custodians who are accountable for minimizing the exposure of sensitive information. Federated learning offers a promising solution to this problem by training a model in a decentralized manner thus reducing the risks of data leakage. Although there is increasing utilization of federated learning on clinical data, its efficacy on individual-level genomic data has not been studied. This study lays the groundwork for the adoption of federated learning for genomic data by investigating its applicability in two scenarios: phenotype prediction on the UK Biobank data and ancestry prediction on the 1000 Genomes Project data. We show that federated models trained on data split into independent nodes achieve performance close to centralized models, even in the presence of significant inter-node heterogeneity. Additionally, we investigate how federated model accuracy is affected by communication frequency and suggest approaches to reduce computational complexity or communication costs.


Chronoclasm: Real-Time Data Animation

Abstract: Chronoclasms are crises of time that occur when practices and concepts of time come into contradiction. The clash between the sovereign authority of the clock that is the material heartbeat of every computer (and every network) and the multidimensional flow of subatomic interactions enables another time to emerge, the time we call history. Temporal concepts and practices emerge into this third, historical form of time in forms that are themselves historically mutable. Close attention to techniques of animation, specifically solar, surveillance, and financial visualizations and their MPEG codec and generative adversarial network infrastructures, can give privileged entry to analysis of chronoclasm as crisis and as the underpinning structure of time under capital.


A comprehensive framework for quantitative risk assessment of organizational networks using FAIR-modified attack trees

Abstract: Attack trees are a widely used method for threat modeling and analyzing cyber-attacks in organizational networks. Assessing the risk associated with each individual node of an attack tree is crucial for understanding the overall risk of the attack. This article presents a comparative study of different threat modeling methods and risk assessment approaches in organizational networks. The article also presents a novel comprehensive approach for quantifying risk assessment of organizational networks based on attack trees modified according to the factor analysis of information risk (FAIR) approach. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of the novel approach in capturing the unique characteristics of different assets and their dependencies in an attack tree, leading to quantitative risk assessment.


INTEGRATION OF DIGITAL MEANS IN THE FINANCIAL SPHERE: THE POTENTIAL OF CLOUD COMPUTING, BLOCKCHAIN, BIG DATA AND AI

Abstract: The integration of digital means in the financial sphere nowadays is not just a necessity, but also a strategic step that determines the further development of this industry. The modern world of finance bets on high technologies, namely on such key areas as Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The purpose of our article is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the potential of Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in the context of their impact on the financial sphere. The object of our article is the financial sphere, including banking, the investment sector, insurance, and other component industries that interact with finance. As a result of the conducted research: the advantages and disadvantages of the integration of digital means in the financial sphere are considered; the potential of Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Big Data and AI in the financial sphere was investigated; it is emphasized that all these technologies are already changing the financial sphere and have great potential for further development. Thanks to them, financial institutions can be more competitive, respond faster to changes in the market, and provide more innovative services for customers. Therefore, the integration of these digital means into the financial sphere is a necessity and a key direction for the further development and modernization of the industry. Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies enable financial institutions to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve customer service.The challenges of implementing new technologies in the financial sector include the absence of a unified regulatory framework, high costs associated with transitioning to digital platforms, and resistance from traditional players. These challenges can be addressed by creating clear regulations, providing financial support to companies transitioning to digital technologies, and fostering partnerships between innovative startups and large financial institutions for collaborative development and implementation of technological solutions.


Model Explanation via Support Graphs

Abstract: Abstract In this note, we introduce the notion of support graph to define explanations for any model of a logic program. An explanation is an acyclic support graph that, for each true atom in the model, induces a proof in terms of program rules represented by labels. A classical model may have zero, one or several explanations: when it has at least one, it is called a justified model. We prove that all stable models are justified, whereas, for disjunctive programs, some justified models may not be stable. We also provide a meta-programming encoding in Answer Set Programming that generates the explanations for a given stable model of some program. We prove that the encoding is sound and complete, that is, there is a one-to-one correspondence between each answer set of the encoding and each explanation for the original stable model.


Dynamic phasor measurement algorithm based on high-precision time synchronization

Abstract: Ensuring the swift and precise tracking of power system signal parameters, especially the frequency, is imperative for the secure and stable operation of power grids. In instances of faults within the distribution network, abrupt changes in frequency may occur, presenting a challenge for existing algorithms that struggle to effectively track such signal variations. Addressing the need for enhanced performance in the face of frequency mutations, this paper introduces an innovative approach—the Covariance Reconstruction Extended Kalman Filter (CREKF) algorithm. Initially, the dynamic signal model of electric power is meticulously analyzed, establishing a dynamic signal relationship based on high-precision time source sampling tailored to the signal model’s characteristics. Subsequently, the filter gain, covariance matrix, and variance iteration equation are determined based on the signal relationship among three sampling points. In a final step, recognizing the impact of the covariance matrix on algorithmic tracking ability, the paper proposes a covariance matrix reset mechanism utilizing hysteresis induced by output errors. Through extensive verification with simulated signals, the results conclusively demonstrate that the CREKF algorithm exhibits superior measurement accuracy and accelerated tracking speed when confronted with mutating signals.


On time-memory trade-offs for password hashing schemes

Abstract: A password hashing algorithm is a cryptographic method that transforms passwords into a secure and irreversible format. It is used not only for authentication purposes but also for key derivation mechanisms. The primary purpose of password hashing is to enhance the security of user credentials by preventing the exposure of plaintext passwords in the event of a data breach. As a key derivation function, password hashing aims to derive secret keys from a master key, password, or passphrase using a pseudorandom function. This review focuses on the design and analysis of time-memory trade-off (TMTO) attacks on recent password hashing algorithms. This review presents a comprehensive survey of TMTO attacks and recent studies on password hashing for authentication by examining the literature. The study provides valuable insights and strategies for safely navigating transitions, emphasizing the importance of a systematic approach and thorough testing to mitigate risk. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance to developers and administrators on how to update cryptographic practices in response to evolving security standards and threats.


Artificial intelligence: reflecting on the past and looking towards the next paradigm shift

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) has undergone major advances over the past decades, propelled by key innovations in machine learning and the availability of big data and computing power. This paper surveys the historical progress of AI from its origins in logic-based systems like the Logic Theorist to recent deep learning breakthroughs like Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), Generative Pretrained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) and Large Language Model Meta AI (LLaMA). The early rule-based systems using handcrafted expertise gave way to statistical learning techniques and neural networks trained on large datasets. Milestones like AlexNet and AlphaGo established deep learning as a dominant AI approach. Transfer learning enabled models pre-trained on diverse corpora to excel at specialised downstream tasks. The scope of AI expanded from niche applications like playing chess to multifaceted capabilities in computer vision, natural language processing and dialogue agents. However, current AI still needs to catch up to human intelligence in aspects like reasoning, creativity, and empathy. Addressing limitations around real-world knowledge, biases, and transparency remains vital for further progress and aligning AI with human values. This survey provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of AI and documents innovations that shaped its advancement over the past six decades.


Commonsense knowledge in cognitive robotics: a systematic literature review

Abstract: One of the big challenges in robotics is the generalization necessary for performing unknown tasks in unknown environments on unknown objects. For us humans, this challenge is simplified by the commonsense knowledge we can access. For cognitive robotics, representing and acquiring commonsense knowledge is a relevant problem, so we perform a systematic literature review to investigate the current state of commonsense knowledge exploitation in cognitive robotics. For this review, we combine a keyword search on six search engines with a snowballing search on six related reviews, resulting in 2,048 distinct publications. After applying pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, we analyse the remaining 52 publications. Our focus lies on the use cases and domains for which commonsense knowledge is employed, the commonsense aspects that are considered, the datasets/resources used as sources for commonsense knowledge and the methods for evaluating these approaches. Additionally, we discovered a divide in terminology between research from the knowledge representation and reasoning and the cognitive robotics community. This divide is investigated by looking at the extensive review performed by Zech et al. (The International Journal of Robotics Research, 2019, 38, 518–562), with whom we have no overlapping publications despite the similar goals.


Wind turbine fault detection and isolation robust against data imbalance using KNN

Abstract: Abstract Due to the difficulties of system modeling, nonlinearity effects, uncertainties, and the availability of Wind Turbines (WTs) SCADA system data, data‐driven Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) methods for WTs have received increasing attention. In this paper, using the wind turbine SCADA data, an effective FDI scheme is proposed using the K ‐Nearest Neighbors (KNN) classifier. The operational data set is labeled by the status and warning data sets, and the labeled operational data set, after eliminating invalid data, feature selection, and standardization, is used for training and validation of the FDI model. Data imbalance, which is common in real data sets, does not affect the performance of the proposed method, hence there is no need for data balancing methods in this algorithm and the performance is not deteriorated by occurring false alarms. Therefore, the proposed method has provided impressive performance in FDI compared with previous research on this data set. Also, many of the fault classes addressed in this paper were not considered in previous works on this data set.


Multi-channel high-order network representation learning research

Abstract: The existing network representation learning algorithms mainly model the relationship between network nodes based on the structural features of the network, or use text features, hierarchical features and other external attributes to realize the network joint representation learning. Capturing global features of the network allows the obtained node vectors to retain more comprehensive feature information during training, thereby enhancing the quality of embeddings. In order to preserve the global structural features of the network in the training results, we employed a multi-channel learning approach to perform high-order feature modeling on the network. We proposed a novel algorithm for multi-channel high-order network representation learning, referred to as the Multi-Channel High-Order Network Representation (MHNR) algorithm. This algorithm initially constructs high-order network features from the original network structure, thereby transforming the single-channel network representation learning process into a multi-channel high-order network representation learning process. Then, for each single-channel network representation learning process, the novel graph assimilation mechanism is introduced in the algorithm, so as to realize the high-order network structure modeling mechanism in the single-channel network representation learning. Finally, the algorithm integrates the multi-channel and single-channel mechanism of high-order network structure joint modeling, realizing the efficient use of network structure features and sufficient modeling. Experimental results show that the node classification performance of the proposed MHNR algorithm reaches a good order on Citeseer, Cora, and DBLP data, and its node classification performance is better than that of the comparison algorithm used in this paper. In addition, when the vector length is optimized, the average classification accuracy of nodes of the proposed algorithm is up to 12.24% higher than that of the DeepWalk algorithm. Therefore, the node classification performance of the proposed algorithm can reach the current optimal order only based on the structural features of the network under the condition of no external feature supplementary modeling.


Validation of system usability scale as a usability metric to evaluate voice user interfaces

Abstract: In recent years, user experience (UX) has gained importance in the field of interactive systems. To ensure its success, interactive systems must be evaluated. As most of the standardized evaluation tools are dedicated to graphical user interfaces (GUIs), the evaluation of voice-based interactive systems or voice user interfaces is still in its infancy. With the help of a well-established evaluation scale, the System Usability Scale (SUS), two prominent, widely accepted voice assistants were evaluated. The evaluation, with SUS, was conducted with 16 participants who performed a set of tasks on Amazon Alexa Echo Dot and Google Nest Mini. We compared the SUS score of Amazon Alexa Echo Dot and Google Nest Mini. Furthermore, we derived the confidence interval for both voice assistants. To enhance understanding for usability practitioners, we analyzed the Adjective Rating Score of both interfaces to comprehend the experience of an interface’s usability through words rather than numbers. Additionally, we validated the correlation between the SUS score and the Adjective Rating Score. Finally, a paired sample t-test was conducted to compare the SUS score of Amazon Alexa Echo Dot and Google Nest Mini. This resulted in a huge difference in scores. Hence, in this study, we corroborate the utility of the SUS in voice user interfaces and conclude by encouraging researchers to use SUS as a usability metric to evaluate voice user interfaces.


National project «Education» of the Russian Federation in the conditions of the modern world

Abstract: The national project in the field of education at the present moment of time is being developed together with the projects aimed at the development of the health care system, housing construction and agriculture. Modern national projects are a tool that aims to achieve the most important goals of state development. The main purpose of writing this paper is to determine the main characteristics of the national project «Education» on the territory of the Russian Federation. The methodological basis of the study is analysis and synthesis, economic< statistical and graphical methods. The result of the study reflects the essence of the national project «Education» in the Russian Federation, defines its key areas and targets, expected results from the implementation. The education system is a unique social institution designed to improve human potential, create new ideas, goals, solve various levels of complexity of tasks — these positions form both the social future and the future of each individual and citizen. In the modern world every person should have humanity, justice, morality, kindness and courtesy, it is the education system that will help to realize and develop these functions. The National Project «Education» helps to form uniform conditions for education among all territorial subjects of the Russian Federation, helps to introduce new management mechanisms. The paper also analyzes the main results of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in the implementation of the national project, identifies problems and offers recommendations for their solution.


A bilingual benchmark for evaluating large language models

Abstract: This work introduces a new benchmark for the bilingual evaluation of large language models (LLMs) in English and Arabic. While LLMs have transformed various fields, their evaluation in Arabic remains limited. This work addresses this gap by proposing a novel evaluation method for LLMs in both Arabic and English, allowing for a direct comparison between the performance of the two languages. We build a new evaluation dataset based on the General Aptitude Test (GAT), a standardized test widely used for university admissions in the Arab world, that we utilize to measure the linguistic capabilities of LLMs. We conduct several experiments to examine the linguistic capabilities of ChatGPT and quantify how much better it is at English than Arabic. We also examine the effect of changing task descriptions from Arabic to English and vice-versa. In addition to that, we find that fastText can surpass ChatGPT in finding Arabic word analogies. We conclude by showing that GPT-4 Arabic linguistic capabilities are much better than ChatGPT's Arabic capabilities and are close to ChatGPT's English capabilities.


Research on the evaluation method of English textbook readability based on the TextCNN model and its application in teaching design

Abstract: English is a world language, and the ability to use English plays an important role in the improvement of college students’ comprehensive quality and career development. However, quite a lot of Chinese college students feel that English learning is difficult; it is difficult to understand the learning materials, and they cannot effectively improve their English ability. This study uses a convolutional neural network to evaluate the readability of English reading materials. It provides students with English reading materials of suitable difficulty based on their English reading ability so as to improve the effect of English learning. Aiming at the high dispersion of students’ English reading level, a text readability evaluation model for English reading textbooks based on deep learning is designed. First, the legibility dataset is constructed based on college English textbooks; second, the TextCNN text legibility evaluation model is constructed; finally, the model training is completed through parameter adjustment and optimization, and the evaluation accuracy rate on the self-built dataset reaches 90%. We use the text readability method based on TextCNN model to conduct experimental teaching, and divided the two groups into comparative experiments. The experimental results showed that the reading level and reading interest of students in the experimental group were significantly improved, which proved that the text readability evaluation method based on deep learning was scientific and effective. In addition, we will further expand the capacity of the English legibility dataset and invite more university classes and students to participate in comparative experiments to improve the generality of the model.


Enhancing medical text detection with vision-language pre-training and efficient segmentation

Abstract: Abstract Detecting text within medical images presents a formidable challenge in the domain of computer vision due to the intricate nature of textual backgrounds, the dense text concentration, and the possible existence of extreme aspect ratios. This paper introduces an effective and precise text detection system tailored to address these challenges. The system incorporates an optimized segmentation module, a trainable post-processing method, and leverages a vision-language pre-training model (oCLIP). Specifically, our segmentation head integrates three essential components: the Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) module, which combines a residual structure and channel attention mechanism; the Efficient Feature Enhancement Module (EFEM); and the Multi-Scale Feature Fusion with RSEConv (MSFM-RSE), designed specifically for multi-scale feature fusion based on RSEConv. By introducing a residual structure and channel attention mechanism into the FPN module, the convolutional layers are replaced with RSEConv layers that employ a channel attention mechanism, further augmenting the representational capacity of the feature maps. The EFEM, designed as a cascaded U-shaped module, incorporates a spatial attention mechanism to introduce multi-level information, thereby enhancing segmentation performance. Subsequently, the MSFM-RSE adeptly amalgamates features from various depths and scales of the EFEM to generate comprehensive final features tailored for segmentation purposes. Additionally, a post-processing module employs a differentiable binarization strategy, allowing the segmentation network to dynamically determine the binarization threshold. Building on the system’s improvement, we introduce a vision-language pre-training model that undergoes extensive training on various visual language understanding tasks. This pre-trained model acquires detailed visual and semantic representations, further reinforcing both the accuracy and robustness in text detection when integrated with the segmentation module. The performance of our proposed model was evaluated through experiments on medical text image datasets, demonstrating excellent results. Multiple benchmark experiments validate its superior performance in comparison to existing methods. Code is available at: https://github.com/csworkcode/VLDBNet .


A low-light image enhancement method for personnel safety monitoring in underground coal mines

Abstract: Abstract Intelligent monitoring technology plays an important role in promoting the development of coal mine safety management. Low illumination in the coal mine underground leads to difficult recognition of monitoring images and poor personnel detection accuracy. To alleviate this problem, a low illuminance image enhancement method proposed for personnel safety monitoring in underground coal mines. Specifically, the local enhancement module maps low illumination to normal illumination at pixel level preserving image details as much as possible. The transformer-based global adjustment module is applied to the locally enhanced images to avoid over-enhancement of bright areas and under-illumination of dark areas, and to prevent possible color deviations in the enhancement process. In addition, a feature similarity loss is proposed to constrain the similarity of target features to avoid the possible detrimental effect of enhancement on detection. Experimental results show that the proposed method improves the detection accuracy by 7.1% on the coal mine underground personal dataset, obtaining the highest accuracy compared to several other methods. The proposed method effectively improves the visualization and detection performance of low-light images, which contributes to the personnel safety monitoring in underground coal mines.


Leveraging pre-trained language models for code generation

Abstract: Abstract Code assistance refers to the utilization of various tools, techniques, and models to help developers in the process of software development. As coding tasks become increasingly complex, code assistant plays a pivotal role in enhancing developer productivity, reducing errors, and facilitating a more efficient coding workflow. This assistance can manifest in various forms, including code autocompletion, error detection and correction, code generation, documentation support, and context-aware suggestions. Language models have emerged as integral components of code assistance, offering developers the capability to receive intelligent suggestions, generate code snippets, and enhance overall coding proficiency. In this paper, we propose new hybrid models for code generation by leveraging pre-trained language models BERT, RoBERTa, ELECTRA, and LUKE with the Marian Causal Language Model. Selecting these models based on their strong performance in various natural language processing tasks. We evaluate the performance of these models on two datasets CoNaLa and DJANGO and compare them to existing state-of-the-art models. We aim to investigate the potential of pre-trained transformer language models to revolutionize code generation, offering improved precision and efficiency in navigating complex coding scenarios. Additionally, conducting error analysis and refining the generated code. Our results show that these models, when combined with the Marian Decoder, significantly improve code generation accuracy and efficiency. Notably, the RoBERTaMarian model achieved a maximum BLEU score of 35.74 and an exact match accuracy of 13.8% on CoNaLa, while LUKE-Marian attained a BLEU score of 89.34 and an exact match accuracy of 78.50% on DJANGO. Implementation of this work is available at https://github.com/AhmedSSoliman/Leveraging-Pretrained-Language-Models-for-Code-Generation .


CL-BPUWM: continuous learning with Bayesian parameter updating and weight memory

Abstract: Abstract Catastrophic forgetting in neural networks is a common problem, in which neural networks lose information from previous tasks after training on new tasks. Although adopting a regularization method that preferentially retains the parameters important to the previous task to avoid catastrophic forgetting has a positive effect; existing regularization methods cause the gradient to be near zero because the loss is at the local minimum. To solve this problem, we propose a new continuous learning method with Bayesian parameter updating and weight memory (CL-BPUWM). First, a parameter updating method based on the Bayes criterion is proposed to allow the neural network to gradually obtain new knowledge. The diagonal of the Fisher information matrix is then introduced to significantly minimize computation and increase parameter updating efficiency. Second, we suggest calculating the importance weight by observing how changes in each network parameter affect the model prediction output. In the process of model parameter updating, the Fisher information matrix and the sensitivity of the network are used as the quadratic penalty terms of the loss function. Finally, we apply dropout regularization to reduce model overfitting during training and to improve model generalizability. CL-BPUWM performs very well in continuous learning for classification tasks on CIFAR-100 dataset, CIFAR-10 dataset, and MNIST dataset. On CIFAR-100 dataset, it is 0.8%, 1.03% and 0.75% higher than the best performing regularization method (EWC) in three task partitions. On CIFAR-10 dataset, it is 2.25% higher than the regularization method (EWC) and 0.7% higher than the scaled method (GR). It is 0.66% higher than the regularization method (EWC) on the MNIST dataset. When the CL-BPUWM method was combined with the brain-inspired replay model under the CIFAR-100 and CIFAR-10 datasets, the classification accuracy was 2.35% and 5.38% higher than that of the baseline method, BI-R + SI.


Eliminating bias: enhancing children’s book recommendation using a hybrid model of graph convolutional networks and neural matrix factorization

Abstract: Managing user bias in large-scale user review data is a significant challenge in optimizing children's book recommendation systems. To tackle this issue, this study introduces a novel hybrid model that combines graph convolutional networks (GCN) based on bipartite graphs and neural matrix factorization (NMF). This model aims to enhance the precision and efficiency of children's book recommendations by accurately capturing user biases. In this model, the complex interactions between users and books are modeled as a bipartite graph, with the users' book ratings serving as the weights of the edges. Through GCN and NMF, we can delve into the structure of the graph and the behavioral patterns of users, more accurately identify and address user biases, and predict their future behaviors. Compared to traditional recommendation systems, our hybrid model excels in handling large-scale user review data. Experimental results confirm that our model has significantly improved in terms of recommendation accuracy and scalability, positively contributing to the advancement of children's book recommendation systems.


A proposed reconstruction method of a 3D animation scene based on a fuzzy long and short-term memory algorithm

Abstract: With the development of computer technology leading to a broad range of virtual technology implementations, the construction of virtual tasks has become highly demanded and has increased rapidly, especially in animation scenes. Constructing three-dimensional (3D) animation characters utilizing properties of actual characters could provide users with immersive experiences. However, a 3D face reconstruction (3DFR) utilizing a single image is a very demanding operation in computer graphics and vision. In addition, limited 3D face data sets reduce the performance improvement of the proposed approaches, causing a lack of robustness. When datasets are large, face recognition, transformation, and animation implementations are relatively practical. However, some reconstruction methods only consider the one-to-one processes without considering the correlations or differences in the input images, resulting in models lacking information related to face identity or being overly sensitive to face pose. A face model composed of a convolutional neural network (CNN) regresses 3D deformable model coefficients for 3DFR and alignment tasks. The manuscript proposes a reconstruction method for 3D animation scenes employing fuzzy LSMT-CNN (FLSMT-CNN). Multiple collected images are employed to reconstruct 3D animation characters. First, the serialized images are processed by the proposed method to extract the features of face parameters and then improve the conventional deformable face modeling (3DFDM). Afterward, the 3DFDM is utilized to reconstruct animation characters, and finally, high-precision reconstructions of 3D faces are achieved. The FLSMT-CNN has enhanced both the precision and strength of the reconstructed 3D animation characters, which provides more opportunities to be applied to other animation scenes.


Efficient relation extraction via quantum reinforcement learning

Abstract: Abstract Most existing relation extraction methods only determine the relation type after identifying all entities, thus not fully modeling the interaction between relation-type recognition and entity mention detection. This article introduces a novel paradigm for relation extraction by treating relevant entities as parameters of relations and harnessing the strong expressive capabilities and acceleration advantages of quantum computing to address the relation extraction task. In this article, we develop a quantum hierarchical reinforcement learning approach to enhance the interaction between relation-type recognition and entity mention detection. The entire relation extraction process is broken down into a hierarchical structure of two layers of quantum reinforcement learning strategies dedicated to relation detection and entity extraction, demonstrating greater feasibility and expressiveness, especially when dealing with superimposed relations. Our proposed method outperforms existing approaches through experimental evaluations on commonly used public datasets, mainly showcasing its significant advantages in extracting superimposed relationships.


Intelligent real-time prediction for shield machine position on the basis of BWO-LSTM-GRU

Abstract: Abstract Due to the complexity and variability of shield machine working environment, it is very important to accurately control and regulate the position trajectory of shield machine. For that reason, an intelligent real-time prediction model of shield machine position based on BWO-LSTM-GRU (Beluga whale optimization-Long Short-term Memory-Gated recurrent unit) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the real-time data of shield machine are processed based on Pearson correlation analysis, and the tunneling parameters presenting medium-strong correlation with the position parameters are filtered to obtain, which were used to be input variables for prediction models. Secondly, LSTM-GRU position prediction model was established separately for shield machine position parameters, and four hyperparameters of the model were optimized separately using BWO. Finally, BWO-LSTM-GRU position prediction models are used to realize the intelligent real-time prediction of the motion trajectories at four positions for shield machine. The simulation results indicate that the prediction deviation in the position prediction model is within 3 mm, and it can accurately complete the task of real-time prediction, providing real-time data support for shield machine drivers.


Research on New Electric Power System Risk Assessment Based on Cloud Model

Abstract: A large number of new energy power electronic equipment is connected to the new power system, and the high proportion of new energy brings huge volatility and randomness, so it is necessary to establish a systematic risk assessment system to adapt to the new power system. This paper has improved the neglect of environmental benefits and supply and demand balance in the existing indicator system and established an indicator system for the risk of the new power system from the five perspectives of safety, supply and demand, sufficiency, cleanliness, and flexibility through the analysis of the evaluation indicator system of the large power grid and the influencing factors of the new power system. The index weight of a new power system is established by means of the entropy weight–critic combination weighting method, and the comprehensive evaluation is carried out by combining it with the cloud model. Finally, the specific data of the new power system in Fujian Province from 2020 to 2022 are taken as an example to verify the feasibility of combining the combined weighting method and the cloud model, and it is concluded that the new power system in Fujian Province has been in a “low risk” operation state for the recent three years.


The Southern African Heat Low: Structure, Seasonal and Diurnal Variability, and Climatological Trends

Abstract: Abstract Heat lows are key features of subtropical climates and monsoon systems. In southern Africa, they are pivotal to understanding divergent climate change projections, in particular the veracity of future rainfall decline. Compared to other heat lows, including in West Africa and Australia, the southern African heat low remains poorly documented. Here, we analyze the diurnal cycle, seasonal variability and trends of the heat low in reanalysis data. In ERA5, 462 strong heat low days are detected between September and March from 1990-2019, equating to 7.3% of days sampled. These events feature ascent (exceeding -0.2 Pa/s) at low levels (strongest between 800-600 hPa) and subsidence aloft, generating low-level cyclonic flow with anticyclonic flow above. This flow exhibits strong diurnal variability, with peak windspeeds between 0600-0900 UTC and maximum ascent at ∼2300 UTC. Heat lows form preferentially over Angola in September (∼14°S) and October (15-20°S), and in Namibia from November to March (∼20-26°S). Strongest ascent occurs over areas of high elevation. Finally, we show a rapidly increasing frequency of strong heat low days, with a 175% increase between 1960-1989 and 1990-2019. The greatest increase (459%) has occurred in the early summer months of September and October, consistent with projections of delayed rainfall onset. Strikingly, more strong heat lows are detected in the most recent 5 years of analysis (2014-2019) than in the 30-year period from 1960-1989. These results suggest the heat low is an important feature in determining drying trends over southern Africa and is a vital indicator of climate model accuracy.


Segmentation, feature extraction and classification of leukocytes leveraging neural networks, a comparative study

Abstract: The gold standard of leukocyte differentiation is a manual examination of blood smears, which is not only time and labor intensive but also susceptible to human error. As to automatic classification, there is still no comparative study of cell segmentation, feature extraction, and cell classification, where a variety of machine and deep learning models are compared with home-developed approaches. In this study, both traditional machine learning of K-means clustering versus deep learning of U-Net, U-Net + ResNet18, and U-Net + ResNet34 were used for cell segmentation, producing segmentation accuracies of 94.36% versus 99.17% for the dataset of CellaVision and 93.20% versus 98.75% for the dataset of BCCD, confirming that deep learning produces higher performance than traditional machine learning in leukocyte classification. In addition, a series of deep-learning approaches, including AlexNet, VGG16, and ResNet18, was adopted to conduct feature extraction and cell classification of leukocytes, producing classification accuracies of 91.31%, 97.83%, and 100% of CellaVision as well as 81.18%, 91.64% and 97.82% of BCCD, confirming the capability of the increased deepness of neural networks in leukocyte classification. As to the demonstrations, this study further conducted cell-type classification of ALL-IDB2 and PCB-HBC datasets, producing high accuracies of 100% and 98.49% among all literature, validating the deep learning model used in this study.


Gamification in the Metaverse: Affordance, perceived value, flow state, and engagement

Abstract: Abstract This study aims to empirically validate a theoretical model for the engagement of the performance Metaverse platform with other rapidly developing Metaverse platforms around the world. It innovatively examines the relationship between gamification affordance, perceived value, and flow state in the context of the Metaverse concert platform and the relationship that improves engagement in the tourism and entertainment industries. The proposed model incorporates five stages: gamification, affordance, perceived value, flow state, and engagement. A total of 671 usable questionnaires were obtained, and the results were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis, discriminant validity analysis, and path analysis. Social gain and enjoyment have a positive effect on the personal flow state and are influenced by identity affordance, competition affordance, and self‐expression affordance. Furthermore, the flow state increases engagement. However, the relationship between perceived value (effectiveness, social gain, and enjoyment) and flow state differ according to gender.


Man and the Machine: Effects of AI-assisted Human Labeling on Interactive Annotation of Real-Time Video Streams

Abstract: AI-assisted interactive annotation is a powerful way to facilitate data annotation – a prerequisite for constructing robust AI models. While AI-assisted interactive annotation has been extensively studied in static settings, less is known about its usage in dynamic scenarios where the annotators operate under time and cognitive constraints, e.g., while detecting suspicious or dangerous activities from real-time surveillance feeds. Understanding how AI can assist annotators in these tasks and facilitate consistent annotation is paramount to ensure high performance for AI models trained on these data. We address this gap in interactive machine learning (IML) research, contributing an extensive investigation of the benefits, limitations, and challenges of AI-assisted annotation in dynamic application use cases. We address both the effects of AI on annotators and the effects of (AI) annotations on the performance of AI models trained on annotated data in real-time video annotations. We conduct extensive experiments that compare annotation performance at two annotator levels (expert and non-expert) and two interactive labelling techniques (with and without AI-assistance). In a controlled study with N = 34 annotators and a follow up study with 51963 images and their annotation labels being input to the AI model, we demonstrate that the benefits of AI-assisted models are greatest for non-expert users and for cases where targets are only partially or briefly visible. The expert users tend to outperform or achieve similar performance as AI model. Labels combining AI and expert annotations result in the best overall performance as the AI reduces overflow and latency in the expert annotations. We derive guidelines for the use of AI-assisted human annotation in real-time dynamic use cases.


“Face Log” (Attendance Management System using Face Recognition)

Abstract: The purpose of this project is to build attendance management system based on face recognition; Face recognition is an important operation of Image processing owing to its use in numerous fields. Identification of candidate in an organization, college or school for the purpose of attendance is a use of face recognition. The Face recognition system basically consists of two phases such as namely face detection and face recognition. This Attendance Management System can do the daily activities of attendance marking and analysis with reduced human interactions. User does not wait in queue as attendance of multiple people can be recorded at once by simultaneous recognition of faces of multiple people at a time. According to current situation of covid- 19 we proposed this system for precluding infection due to contact and to maintain social distancing. In this project, by using OpenCV library facial recognition-based attendance management system developed the attendance results will be stored in the database


Break Out of a Pigeonhole: A Unified Framework for Examining Miscalibration, Bias, and Stereotype in Recommender Systems

Abstract: Despite the benefits of personalizing items and information tailored to users’ needs, it has been found that recommender systems tend to introduce biases that favor popular items or certain categories of items, and dominant user groups. In this study, we aim to characterize the systematic errors of a recommendation system and how they manifest in various accountability issues, such as stereotypes, biases, and miscalibration. We propose a unified framework that distinguishes the sources of prediction errors into a set of key measures that quantify the various types of system-induced effects, both at the individual and collective levels. Based on our measuring framework, we examine the most widely adopted algorithms in the context of movie recommendation. Our research reveals three important findings: (1) Differences between algorithms: recommendations generated by simpler algorithms tend to be more stereotypical but less biased than those generated by more complex algorithms. (2) Disparate impact on groups and individuals: system-induced biases and stereotypes have a disproportionate effect on atypical users and minority groups (e.g., women and older users). (3) Mitigation opportunity: using structural equation modeling, we identify the interactions between user characteristics (typicality and diversity), system-induced effects, and miscalibration. We further investigate the possibility of mitigating system-induced effects by oversampling underrepresented groups and individuals, which was found to be effective in reducing stereotypes and improving recommendation quality. Our research is the first systematic examination of not only system-induced effects and miscalibration but also the stereotyping issue in recommender systems.


Exploring the Facets of the Multiplayer VR Gaming Experience

Abstract: While the topic of investigating user experience with immersive services, such as Social Virtual Reality (VR), is starting to gain traction in the research community, the unique case of multiplayer VR games requires a more specific approach. Attempts to investigate user experiences with this complex, multidimensional service are hindered by the absence of specific standards and guidelines going beyond what we know about non-immersive gaming. In this article, we present the results of a user study (N = 32) exploring participants’ experience of playing two competitive VR games of different genres (shooter, sports game), as we focus on three distinct facets of multiplayer VR gaming — network, interpersonal competitiveness, and social interaction. Furthermore, approaching the issue from the perspective of Quality of Experience researchers looking to conduct future user studies on the topic, we also present our findings as a way to shed light on factors that need further consideration, especially in the context of participant recruitment and methodology design, such as the choice of access network to be used for testing, and the issue of matchmaking study participants based on skill and prior relationship.


Agriculture Equipment Rental and Product Selling System

Abstract: Farmers are facing lot of problems, They will cultivate crops and other agricultural products (fruits, flowers, vegetables),They want to sell their products according to the market price but lack of knowledge they will sell their huge amount of products for small amount of money to the brokers available in the local and customers will directly approach to the brokers because of this formers are losing lot of money, they are getting cheated ,Farmers know that they are selling products to broker for small amount of money, but lack of knowledge to the farmer we thought of doing an application that can help farmers can directly sell their own products to customer with no brokers. Customers can directly contact to farmers , Farmers can sell their own products retail or wholesale according to their quantity of production in the farming to the customer directly, To get aware of all these problems and to get knowledge to the farmers this application is needed and, To bring the choice to any kind of farmer to create an environment that will let them buy or sell their agricultural products, Languages used Java, Language available Hindi, English, Technologies using Android Application. Mobile internet will help the farmers to sell their products directly to consumer. This paper provides market information to a farmer using its easy interface on the mobile application. The mobile application is intended to be used for fast and updated information delivering system for farmers. Also, it has native language support to make the transaction easy for farmers. The mobile application treats farmers as a seller and a buyer. The intention behind this paper is to help farmers so they buy or sell their agriculture goods and products. Market prices provided by data.gov.in lets the system to keep the selling and buying prices in control. As the products are to be browsed and there may be plenty of products for the user. To make browsing easy many filters can provide. Farmers face many problems while selling their goods and products, this system promises to provide an easy and recreational way to sell the products. The system lets the farmers to sell goods at a reasonable price and makes business even fair and transparent. Consumers are the opposite side of the same coin. This system lets consumer to choose from a wide variety of products, select the product as per their requirement and also to apply price filters. Location is a one of parameter for consumer and producer while selling or buying their product it will helps the user to get the product nearby their location. The basic Agriculture Equipment Rental & Product Selling System objective of the system is to considers every one need and full fills their requirement with fair and transparent agriculture business


A Liquidity Analysis System for Large-Scale Video Streams in the Oilfield

Abstract: This article introduces LinkStream, a liquidity analysis system based on multiple video streams designed and implemented for oilfield. LinkStream combines a variety of technologies to solve several problems in computing power and network latency. First, the system adopts an edge-central architecture and tailoring based on spatio-temporal correlation, which greatly reduces computing power requirements and network costs, and enables real-time analysis of large-scale video stream on limited edge devices. Second, it designed a set of liquidity information to describe the liquidity status in the oilfield. Finally, it uses object tracking technology to design a counting algorithm for the unique tubing object in the oilfield. We have deployed LinkStream in an oilfield in Iraq. LinkStream can perform realtime inference on over 200 video streams with acceptable resource overhead.


Tapestry of Time and Actions: Modeling Human Activity Sequences using Temporal Point Process Flows

Abstract: Human beings always engage in a vast range of activities and tasks that demonstrate their ability to adapt to different scenarios. These activities can range from the simplest daily routines, like walking and sitting, to multi-level complex endeavors such as cooking a four-course meal. Any human activity can be represented as a temporal sequence of actions performed to achieve a certain goal. Unlike the time series datasets extracted from electronics or machines, these action sequences are highly disparate in their nature – the time to finish a sequence of actions can vary between different persons. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of these sequences is essential for many downstream tasks such as activity length prediction, goal prediction, next-action recommendation, etc. Existing neural network-based approaches that learn a continuous-time activity sequence (or CTAS) are limited to the presence of only visual data or are designed specifically for a particular task, i.e. , limited to next action or goal prediction. In this paper, we present ProActive , a neural marked temporal point process (MTPP) framework for modeling the continuous-time distribution of actions in an activity sequence while simultaneously addressing three high-impact problems – next action prediction, sequence-goal prediction, and end-to-end sequence generation. Specifically, we utilize a self-attention module with temporal normalizing flows to model the influence and the inter-arrival times between actions in a sequence. Moreover, for time-sensitive prediction, we perform an early detection of sequence goal via a constrained margin-based optimization procedure. This in-turn allows ProActive to predict the sequence goal using a limited number of actions. In addition, we propose a novel addition over the ProActive model, called ProActive++ , that can handle variations in the order of actions, i.e. , different methods of achieving a given goal. We demonstrate that this variant can learn the order in which the person or actor prefers to do their actions. Extensive experiments on sequences derived from three activity recognition datasets show the significant accuracy boost of our ProActive and ProActive++ over the state-of-the-art in terms of action and goal prediction, and the first-ever application of end-to-end action sequence generation.


Bystanders’ collective responses set the norm against hate speech

Abstract: Abstract Hate speech incidents often occur in social settings, from public transport to football stadiums. To counteract a prevailing passive attitude towards them, governmental authorities, sociologists, and philosophers stress bystanders’ responsibility to oppose or block hate speech. Here, across two online experiments with UK participants using custom visual vignettes, we provide empirical evidence that bystanders’ expression of opposition can affect how harmful these incidents are perceived, but only as part of a collective response: one expressed by a majority of bystanders present. Experiment 1 ( N = 329) shows that the silence or intervention of three bystanders affects the harm caused by hate speech, but one bystander does not. Experiment 2 ( N = 269) shows this is not simply a matter of numbers but rather one of norms: only unanimous opposition reduces the public perception of the damage created by the incident. Based on our results, we advance an empirical norm account: group responses to hate speech modulate its harm by indicating either a permissive or a disapproving social norm. Our account and results, showing the need to consider responses to hate speech at a collective level, have direct implications for social psychology, the philosophy of language and public policies.


Spatial-spectral graph convolutional extreme learning machine for hyperspectral image classification

Abstract: Hyperspectral image has excellent spectral information and abundant spatial information, and its feature quality is one of the key factors affecting the classification performance. Extreme learning machine (ELM) is widely used in hyperspectral classification problems. However, traditional ELM is usually based on regular Euclidean data, ignoring the inherent structured information between hyperspectral pixels, resulting in poor robustness. In this paper, we propose a new supervised extreme learning machine framework, termed spatial-spectral graph convolutional ELM (SSG-ELM), based on using graph convolution to extend ELM into the non-Euclidean domain. The method inherits all the advantages from ELM, and consists of a random graph convolutional layer followed by a graph convolutional regression layer, enabling it to model complex intra class variations. Otherwise, a local spectral-spatial context integration and reshaping mechanism is incorporated into the hidden layer feature representation by using a context-aware bilateral filtering procedure. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm obtains a competitive performance and outperforms other state-of-the-art ELM-based methods.


Digital Skills of the Members of Educational Sommunity as a Factor of Successful Internet Communication: Response to the Book by K.A. Milovanov “IT Training for Teachers” (M.:Publishing books com, 2020. 192 p.)

Abstract: The digital transformation of the science and higher education field is one of the priority tasks implemented by the Government of the Russian Federation. However, at this stage, there are a number of problems, including inequality of digital skills among members of the educational community, which leads to communication failures in the online space. The peer-reviewed educational publication “IT Training for Teachers” by K.A. Milovanov sets the goal of tamping down inequality in digital competences, knowledge and skills among participants in the educational process. The manual analyzes the issues of distance learning, choosing an online platform for conducting lectures and classes, data backup, and provides recommendations for the use of equipment and special applications for recording videos, making presentations and organizing interactive teaching activities, etc.


College Placement Recruitment system using Android App

Abstract: The purpose of the "College Placement Recruitment Management System" is to improve and expedite the placement procedure in educational establishments. This project aims to design a complete system that automates and streamlines the recruiting workflow in response to the increasing complexity of handling placement activities. The technology makes it easier for students, recruiters, and administrators to communicate with each other in a smooth and user-friendly manner. The College Placement Recruitment Management System's methodical study, design, and implementation are described in this project report. With capabilities like user registration, job posting, application submission, interview scheduling, and result administration, the system meets the varied needs of its users


A Multi-Path Semantic Segmentation Network Based on Convolutional Attention Guidance

Abstract: Due to the efficiency of self-attention mechanisms in encoding spatial information, Transformer-based models have recently taken a dominant position among semantic segmentation methods. However, Transformer-based models have the disadvantages of requiring a large amount of computation and lacking attention to detail, so we look back to the CNN model. In this paper, we propose a multi-path semantic segmentation network with convolutional attention guidance (dubbed MCAG). It has a multi-path architecture, and feature guidance from the main path is used in other paths, which forces the model to focus on the object’s boundaries and details. It also explores multi-scale convolutional features through spatial attention. Finally, it captures both local and global contexts in spatial and channel dimensions in an adaptive manner. Extensive experiments were conducted on popular benchmarks, and it was found that MCAG surpasses other SOTA methods by achieving 47.7%, 82.51% and 43.6% mIoU on ADE20K, Cityscapes and COCO-Stuff, respectively. Specifically, the experimental results prove that the proposed model has high segmentation precision for small objects, which demonstrates the effectiveness of convolutional attention mechanisms and multi-path strategies. The results show that the CNN model can achieve good segmentation effects with a lower amount of calculation.


MoMENt: Marked Point Processes with Memory-Enhanced Neural Networks for User Activity Modeling

Abstract: Marked temporal point process models (MTPPs) aim to model event sequences and event markers (associated features) in continuous time. These models have been applied to various application domains where capturing event dynamics in continuous time is beneficial, such as education systems, social networks, and recommender systems. However, current MTPPs suffer from two major limitations, i.e., inefficient representation of event dynamic’s influence on marker distribution and losing fine-grained representation of historical marker distributions in the modeling. Motivated by these limitations, we propose a novel model called M arked P o int Processes with M emory- E nhanced N eural Ne t works (MoMENt) that can capture the bidirectional interrelations between markers and event dynamics while providing fine-grained marker representations. Specifically, MoMENt is constructed of two concurrent networks: Recurrent Activity Updater (RAU) to capture model event dynamics and Memory-Enhanced Marker Updater (MEMU) to represent markers. Both RAU and MEMU components are designed to update each other at every step to model the bidirectional influence of markers and event dynamics. To obtain a fine-grained representation of maker distributions, MEMU is devised with external memories that model detailed marker-level features with latent component vectors. Our extensive experiments on six real-world user interaction datasets demonstrate that MoMENt can accurately represent users’ activity dynamics, boosting time, type, and marker predictions, as well as recommendation performance up to \(76.5\% \) , \(65.6\% \) , \(77.2\% \) , and \(57.7\% \) , respectively, compared to baseline approaches. Furthermore, our case studies show the effectiveness of MoMENt in providing meaningful and fine-grained interpretations of user-system relations over time, e.g., how user choices influence their future preferences in the recommendation domain.