We develop constructions for exchangeable sequences of point processes that are rendered conditionally-i.i.d. negative binomial processes by a (possibly unknown) random measure called the base measure. Negative binomial processes are useful in Bayesian nonparametrics as models for random multisets, and in applications we are often interested in cases when the base measure itself is difficult to construct (for example when it has countably infinite support). While a finitary construction for an important case (corresponding to a beta process base measure) has appeared in the literature, our constructions generalize to any random base measure, requiring only an exchangeable sequence of Bernoulli processes rendered conditionally-i.i.d. by the same underlying random base measure. Because finitary constructions for such Bernoulli processes are known for several different classes of random base measures--including generalizations of the beta process and hierarchies thereof--our results immediately provide constructions for negative binomial processes with a random base measure from any member of these classes.

Traditional error detection approaches require user-defined parameters and rules. Thus, the user has to know both the error detection system and the data. However, we can also formulate error detection as a semi-supervised classification problem that only requires domain expertise. The challenges for such an approach are twofold: (1) to represent the data in a way that enables a classification model to identify various kinds of data errors, and (2) to pick the most promising data values for learning. In this paper, we address these challenges with ED2, our new example-driven error detection method. First, we present a new two-dimensional multi-classifier sampling strategy for active learning. Second, we propose novel multi-column features. The combined application of these techniques provides fast convergence of the classification task with high detection accuracy. On several real-world datasets, ED2 requires, on average, less than 1% labels to outperform existing error detection approaches. This report extends the peer-reviewed paper "ED2: A Case for Active Learning in Error Detection". All source code related to this project is available on GitHub.

-- Translation of fully automated deep learning based medical image segmentation technologies to clinical workflows face two main algorithmic challenges. The first, is the collection and archival of large quantities of manually annotated ground truth data for both training and validation. The second is the relative inability of the majority of deep learning based segmentation techniques to alert physicians to a likely segmentation failure. Here we propose a novel algorithm, named'Eigenrank' which addresses both of these challenges. Eigenrank can select for manual labeling, a subset of medical images from a large database, such that a U-Net trained on this subset is superior to one trained on a randomly selected subset of the same size. Eigenrank can also be used to pick out, cases in a large database, where deep learning segmentation will fail. We present our algorithm, followed by results and a discussion of how Eigenrank exploits the V on Neumann information to perform both data subset selection and failure prediction for medical image segmentation using deep learning. I. INTRODUCTION A. Significance Deep learning methods have become the mainstay of fully automatic medical image segmentation. These methods play a key role in the development of quantitative imaging biomarkers for a number of pathologies. However, training and deploying deep learning segmentation in practice is beset by a number of challenges. Failure Prediction (FP) - the ability to predict on which cases a deep learning based segmentation model will fail. Both problems are significant in medical image segmentation, more than natural image segmentation. This is because, availability of expert annotated data for training medical image segmentation models is severely constrained.

While pump-and-dump schemes have attracted the attention of cryptocurrency observers and regulators alike, this paper represents the first detailed empirical query of pump-and-dump activities in cryptocurrency markets. We present a case study of a recent pump-and-dump event, investigate 412 pump-and-dump activities organized in Telegram channels from June 17, 2018 to February 26, 2019, and discover patterns in crypto-markets associated with pump-and-dump schemes. We then build a model that predicts the pump likelihood of all coins listed in a crypto-exchange prior to a pump. The model exhibits high precision as well as robustness, and can be used to create a simple, yet very effective trading strategy, which we empirically demonstrate can generate a return as high as 60% on small retail investments within a span of two and half months. The study provides a proof of concept for strategic crypto-trading and sheds light on the application of machine learning for crime detection.

A good feature representation is a determinant factor to achieve high performance for many machine learning algorithms in terms of classification. This is especially true for techniques that do not build complex internal representations of data (e.g. decision trees, in contrast to deep neural networks). To transform the feature space, feature construction techniques build new high-level features from the original ones. Among these techniques, Genetic Programming is a good candidate to provide interpretable features required for data analysis in high energy physics. Classically, original features or higher-level features based on physics first principles are used as inputs for training. However, physicists would benefit from an automatic and interpretable feature construction for the classification of particle collision events. Our main contribution consists in combining different aspects of Genetic Programming and applying them to feature construction for experimental physics. In particular, to be applicable to physics, dimensional consistency is enforced using grammars. Results of experiments on three physics datasets show that the constructed features can bring a significant gain to the classification accuracy. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time a method is proposed for interpretable feature construction with units of measurement, and that experts in high-energy physics validate the overall approach as well as the interpretability of the built features.

The dichotomous coordinate descent (DCD) algorithm has been successfully used for significant reduction in the complexity of recursive least squares (RLS) algorithms. In this work, we generalize the application of the DCD algorithm to RLS adaptive filtering in impulsive noise scenarios and derive a unified update formula. By employing different robust strategies against impulsive noise, we develop novel computationally efficient DCD-based robust recursive algorithms. Furthermore, to equip the proposed algorithms with the ability to track abrupt changes in unknown systems, a simple variable forgetting factor mechanism is also developed. Simulation results for channel identification scenarios in impulsive noise demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

Recent evidence suggests that deep neural networks (DNNs) are vulnerable to adversarial examples, which are crafted by adding human-imperceptible perturbations to legitimate examples. However, most of the existing adversarial attacks generate adversarial examples with weak transferability, making it difficult to evaluate the robustness of DNNs under the challenging black-box setting. To address this issue, we propose two methods: Nesterov momentum iterative fast gradient sign method (N-MI-FGSM) and scale-invariant attack method (SIM), to improve the transferability of adversarial examples. N-MI-FGSM tries a better optimizer by applying the idea of Nesterov accelerated gradient to gradient-based attack method. SIM leverages the scale-invariant property of DNNs and optimizes the generated adversarial example by a set of scaled images as the inputs. Further, the two methods can be naturally combined to form a strong attack and enhance existing gradient attack methods. Empirical results on ImageNet and NIPS 2017 adversarial competition show that the proposed methods can generate adversarial examples with higher transferability than existing competing baselines.

--Optimizing news headlines is important for publishers and media sites. A compelling headline will increase readership, user engagement and social shares. At Y ahoo Front Page, headline testing is carried out using a test-rollout strategy: we first allocate equal proportion of the traffic to each headline variation for a defined testing period, and then shift all future traffic to the best-performing variation. In this paper, we introduce a multi-armed bandit (MAB) approach with batched Thompson Sampling (bTS) to dynamically test headlines for news articles. This method is able to gradually allocate traffic towards optimal headlines while testing. We evaluate the bTS method based on empirical impressions/clicks data and simulated user responses. The result shows that the bTS method is robust, converges accurately and quickly to the optimal headline, and outperforms the test-rollout strategy by 3.69% in terms of clicks. Headline testing is important for publishers and media sites. At Y ahoo Front Page, we follow a test-rollout strategy for headline testing.

We introduce and characterise the performance of the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) inference method Prune Sampling for discrete and deterministic Bayesian networks (BNs). We developed a procedure to obtain the performance of a MCMC sampling method in the limit of infinite simulation time, extrapolated from relatively short simulations. This approach was used to conduct a study to compare the accuracy, rate of convergence and the time consumption of Prune Sampling with two conventional MCMC sampling methods: Gibbs- and Metropolis sampling. We show that Markov chains created by Prune Sampling always converge to the desired posterior distribution, also for networks where conventional Gibbs sampling fails. Beside this, we demonstrate that pruning outperforms Gibbs sampling, at least for a certain class of BNs. Though, this tempting feature comes at a price. In the first version of Prune Sampling, for large BNs the procedure to choose the next iteration step uniformly is rather time intensive. Our conclusion is that Prune Sampling is a competitive method for all types of small and medium sized BNs, but (for now) standard methods still perform better for all types of large BNs.

Learning embeddings of entities and relations existing in knowledge bases allows the discovery of hidden patterns in data. In this work, we examine the geometrical space's contribution to the task of knowledge base completion. We focus on the family of translational models, whose performance has been lagging, and propose a model, dubbed HyperKG, which exploits the hyperbolic space in order to better reflect the topological properties of knowledge bases. We investigate the type of regularities that our model can capture and we show that it is a prominent candidate for effectively representing a subset of Datalog rules. We empirically show, using a variety of link prediction datasets, that hyperbolic space allows to narrow down significantly the performance gap between translational and bilinear models.