Deep learning-based approaches for content-based image retrieval (CBIR) of CT liver images is an active field of research, but suffers from some critical limitations. First, they are heavily reliant on labeled data, which can be challenging and costly to acquire. Second, they lack transparency and explainability, which limits the trustworthiness of deep CBIR systems. We address these limitations by (1) proposing a self-supervised learning framework that incorporates domain-knowledge into the training procedure and (2) providing the first representation learning explainability analysis in the context of CBIR of CT liver images. Results demonstrate improved performance compared to the standard self-supervised approach across several metrics, as well as improved generalisation across datasets. Further, we conduct the first representation learning explainability analysis in the context of CBIR, which reveals new insights into the feature extraction process. Lastly, we perform a case study with cross-examination CBIR that demonstrates the usability of our proposed framework. We believe that our proposed framework could play a vital role in creating trustworthy deep CBIR systems that can successfully take advantage of unlabeled data.

Current pre-trained language models (PLM) are typically trained with static data, ignoring that in real-world scenarios, streaming data of various sources may continuously grow. This requires PLMs to integrate the information from all the sources in a lifelong manner. Although this goal could be achieved by exhaustive pre-training on all the existing data, such a process is known to be computationally expensive. To this end, we propose ELLE, aiming at efficient lifelong pre-training for emerging data. Specifically, ELLE consists of (1) function preserved model expansion, which flexibly expands an existing PLM's width and depth to improve the efficiency of knowledge acquisition; and (2) pre-trained domain prompts, which disentangle the versatile knowledge learned during pre-training and stimulate the proper knowledge for downstream tasks. We experiment ELLE with streaming data from 5 domains on BERT and GPT. The results show the superiority of ELLE over various lifelong learning baselines in both pre-training efficiency and downstream performances. The codes are publicly available at https://github.com/thunlp/ELLE.

Symbolic regression (SR) is the task of learning a model of data in the form of a mathematical expression. By their nature, SR models have the potential to be accurate and human-interpretable at the same time. Unfortunately, finding such models, i.e., performing SR, appears to be a computationally intensive task. Historically, SR has been tackled with heuristics such as greedy or genetic algorithms and, while some works have hinted at the possible hardness of SR, no proof has yet been given that SR is, in fact, NP-hard. This begs the question: Is there an exact polynomial-time algorithm to compute SR models? We provide evidence suggesting that the answer is probably negative by showing that SR is NP-hard.

The common research goal of self-supervised learning is to extract a general representation which an arbitrary downstream task would benefit from. In this work, we investigate music audio representation learned from different contrastive self-supervised learning schemes and empirically evaluate the embedded vectors on various music information retrieval (MIR) tasks where different levels of the music perception are concerned. We analyze the results to discuss the proper direction of contrastive learning strategies for different MIR tasks. We show that these representations convey a comprehensive information about the auditory characteristics of music in general, although each of the self-supervision strategies has its own effectiveness in certain aspect of information.

A popular approach for sequential decision-making is to perform simulator-based search guided with Machine Learning (ML) methods like policy learning. On the other hand, model-relaxation heuristics can guide the search effectively if a full declarative model is available. In this work, we consider how a practitioner can improve ML-based black-box planning on settings where a complete symbolic model is not available. We show that specifying an incomplete STRIPS model that describes only part of the problem enables the use of relaxation heuristics. Our findings on several planning domains suggest that this is an effective way to improve ML-based black-box planning beyond collecting more data or tuning ML architectures.

Both in the domains of Feature Selection and Interpretable AI, there exists a desire to `rank' features based on their importance. Such feature importance rankings can then be used to either: (1) reduce the dataset size or (2) interpret the Machine Learning model. In the literature, however, such Feature Rankers are not evaluated in a systematic, consistent way. Many papers have a different way of arguing which feature importance ranker works best. This paper fills this gap, by proposing a new evaluation methodology. By making use of synthetic datasets, feature importance scores can be known beforehand, allowing more systematic evaluation. To facilitate large-scale experimentation using the new methodology, a benchmarking framework was built in Python, called fseval. The framework allows running experiments in parallel and distributed over machines on HPC systems. By integrating with an online platform called Weights and Biases, charts can be interactively explored on a live dashboard. The software was released as open-source software, and is published as a package on the PyPi platform. The research concludes by exploring one such large-scale experiment, to find the strengths and weaknesses of the participating algorithms, on many fronts.

We propose a novel method for building fuzzy clusters of large data sets, using a smoothing numerical approach. The usual sum-of-squares criterion is relaxed so the search for good fuzzy partitions is made on a continuous space, rather than a combinatorial space as in classical methods \cite{Hartigan}. The smoothing allows a conversion from a strongly non-differentiable problem into differentiable subproblems of optimization without constraints of low dimension, by using a differentiable function of infinite class. For the implementation of the algorithm we used the statistical software $R$ and the results obtained were compared to the traditional fuzzy $C$--means method, proposed by Bezdek.

Neural networks are essential components of learning-based software systems. However, their high compute, memory, and power requirements make using them in low resources domains challenging. For this reason, neural networks are often quantized before deployment. Existing quantization techniques tend to degrade the network accuracy. We propose Counter-Example Guided Neural Network Quantization Refinement (CEG4N). This technique combines search-based quantization and equivalence verification: the former minimizes the computational requirements, while the latter guarantees that the network's output does not change after quantization. We evaluate CEG4N on a diverse set of benchmarks, including large and small networks.

This work compares supervised machine learning methods using reliable data from constructive simulations to estimate the most effective moment for launching missiles during air combat. We employed resampling techniques to improve the predictive model, analyzing accuracy, precision, recall, and f1-score. Indeed, we could identify the remarkable performance of the models based on decision trees and the significant sensitivity of other algorithms to resampling techniques. The models with the best f1-score brought values of 0.379 and 0.465 without and with the resampling technique, respectively, which is an increase of 22.69%. Thus, if desirable, resampling techniques can improve the model's recall and f1-score with a slight decline in accuracy and precision. Therefore, through data obtained through constructive simulations, it is possible to develop decision support tools based on machine learning models, which may improve the flight quality in BVR air combat, increasing the effectiveness of offensive missions to hit a particular target.

NASA has issued a fierce condemnation of the Russian space agency after three cosmonauts displayed anti-Ukraine propaganda aboard the International Space Station. The trio were seen holding flags of the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic -- two Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine that are only recognised as independent states by Moscow and Syria. They also said the capture of the region was'a liberation day to celebrate both on Earth and in space.' In response to the pictures, posted by Russia's state space corporation Roscosmos, NASA said it'strongly rebukes Russia using the International Space Station for political purposes to support its war against Ukraine.' Press secretary Jackie McGuinness added that it was'fundamentally inconsistent with the station's primary function among the 15 international participating countries to advance science and develop technology for peaceful purposes.' Rebuked: NASA has condemned the Russian space agency after three cosmonauts displayed anti-Ukraine propaganda on the International Space Station.