Named entity recognition and relation classification are key stages for extracting information from unstructured text. Several natural language processing applications utilize the two tasks, such as information retrieval, knowledge graph construction and completion, question answering and other domain-specific applications, such as biomedical data mining. We present a survey of recent approaches in the two tasks with focus on few-shot learning approaches. Our work compares the main approaches followed in the two paradigms. Additionally, we report the latest metric scores in the two tasks with a structured analysis that considers the results in the few-shot learning scope.

Audio fingerprinting is a well-established solution for song identification from short recording excerpts. Popular methods rely on the extraction of sparse representations, generally spectral peaks, and have proven to be accurate, fast, and scalable to large collections. However, real-world applications of audio identification often happen in noisy environments, which can cause these systems to fail. In this work, we tackle this problem by introducing and releasing a new audio augmentation pipeline that adds noise to music snippets in a realistic way, by stochastically mimicking real-world scenarios. We then propose and release a deep learning model that removes noisy components from spectrograms in order to improve peak-based fingerprinting systems' accuracy. We show that the addition of our model improves the identification performance of commonly used audio fingerprinting systems, even under noisy conditions.

Multi-robot Motion Planning (MRMP) is an active research field which has gained attention over the years. MRMP has significant roles to improve the efficiency and reliability of multi-robot system in a wide range of applications from delivery robots to collaborative assembly lines. This survey provides an overview of MRMP taxonomy, state-of-the-art algorithms, and approaches which have been developed for multi-robot systems. This study also discusses the strengths and limitations of each algorithm and their applications in various scenarios. Moreover, based on this, we can draw out open problems for future research.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) has emerged as a crucial technology for understanding and generating human language, playing an essential role in tasks such as machine translation, sentiment analysis, and more pertinently, question classification. As a subfield within NLP, question classification focuses on determining the type of information being sought, a fundamental step for downstream applications like question answering systems. This study presents an innovative ensemble approach for question classification, combining the strengths of Electra, GloVe, and LSTM models. Rigorously tested on the well-regarded TREC dataset, the model demonstrates how the integration of these disparate technologies can lead to superior results. Electra brings in its transformer-based capabilities for complex language understanding, GloVe offers global vector representations for capturing word-level semantics, and LSTM contributes its sequence learning abilities to model long-term dependencies. By fusing these elements strategically, our ensemble model delivers a robust and efficient solution for the complex task of question classification. Through rigorous comparisons with well-known models like BERT, RoBERTa, and DistilBERT, the ensemble approach verifies its effectiveness by attaining an 80% accuracy score on the test dataset.

This paper presents a comprehensive survey on deep learning-based image watermarking, a technique that entails the invisible embedding and extraction of watermarks within a cover image, aiming to offer a seamless blend of robustness and adaptability. We navigate the complex landscape of this interdisciplinary domain, linking historical foundations, current innovations, and prospective developments. Unlike existing literature, our study concentrates exclusively on image watermarking with deep learning, delivering an in-depth, yet brief analysis enriched by three fundamental contributions. First, we introduce a refined categorization, segmenting the field into Embedder-Extractor, Deep Networks as a Feature Transformation, and Hybrid Methods. This taxonomy, inspired by the varied roles of deep learning across studies, is designed to infuse clarity, offering readers technical insights and directional guidance. Second, our exploration dives into representative methodologies, encapsulating the diverse research directions and inherent challenges within each category to provide a consolidated perspective. Lastly, we venture beyond established boundaries to outline emerging frontiers, offering a detailed insight into prospective research avenues.

With the advent of the IoT, AI, ML, and DL algorithms, the landscape of data-driven medical applications has emerged as a promising avenue for designing robust and scalable diagnostic and prognostic models from medical data. This has gained a lot of attention from both academia and industry, leading to significant improvements in healthcare quality. However, the adoption of AI-driven medical applications still faces tough challenges, including meeting security, privacy, and quality of service (QoS) standards. Recent developments in \ac{FL} have made it possible to train complex machine-learned models in a distributed manner and have become an active research domain, particularly processing the medical data at the edge of the network in a decentralized way to preserve privacy and address security concerns. To this end, in this paper, we explore the present and future of FL technology in medical applications where data sharing is a significant challenge. We delve into the current research trends and their outcomes, unravelling the complexities of designing reliable and scalable \ac{FL} models. Our paper outlines the fundamental statistical issues in FL, tackles device-related problems, addresses security challenges, and navigates the complexity of privacy concerns, all while highlighting its transformative potential in the medical field. Our study primarily focuses on medical applications of \ac{FL}, particularly in the context of global cancer diagnosis. We highlight the potential of FL to enable computer-aided diagnosis tools that address this challenge with greater effectiveness than traditional data-driven methods. We hope that this comprehensive review will serve as a checkpoint for the field, summarizing the current state-of-the-art and identifying open problems and future research directions.

Machine learning has significantly enhanced the abilities of robots, enabling them to perform a wide range of tasks in human environments and adapt to our uncertain real world. Recent works in various machine learning domains have highlighted the importance of accounting for fairness to ensure that these algorithms do not reproduce human biases and consequently lead to discriminatory outcomes. With robot learning systems increasingly performing more and more tasks in our everyday lives, it is crucial to understand the influence of such biases to prevent unintended behavior toward certain groups of people. In this work, we present the first survey on fairness in robot learning from an interdisciplinary perspective spanning technical, ethical, and legal challenges. We propose a taxonomy for sources of bias and the resulting types of discrimination due to them. Using examples from different robot learning domains, we examine scenarios of unfair outcomes and strategies to mitigate them. We present early advances in the field by covering different fairness definitions, ethical and legal considerations, and methods for fair robot learning. With this work, we aim to pave the road for groundbreaking developments in fair robot learning.

We consider multilevel low rank (MLR) matrices, defined as a row and column permutation of a sum of matrices, each one a block diagonal refinement of the previous one, with all blocks low rank given in factored form. MLR matrices extend low rank matrices but share many of their properties, such as the total storage required and complexity of matrix-vector multiplication. We address three problems that arise in fitting a given matrix by an MLR matrix in the Frobenius norm. The first problem is factor fitting, where we adjust the factors of the MLR matrix. The second is rank allocation, where we choose the ranks of the blocks in each level, subject to the total rank having a given value, which preserves the total storage needed for the MLR matrix. The final problem is to choose the hierarchical partition of rows and columns, along with the ranks and factors. This paper is accompanied by an open source package that implements the proposed methods.

Agricultural price prediction is crucial for farmers, policymakers, and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector. However, it is a challenging task due to the complex and dynamic nature of agricultural markets. Machine learning algorithms have the potential to revolutionize agricultural price prediction by improving accuracy, real-time prediction, customization, and integration. This paper reviews recent research on machine learning algorithms for agricultural price prediction. We discuss the importance of agriculture in developing countries and the problems associated with crop price falls. We then identify the challenges of predicting agricultural prices and highlight how machine learning algorithms can support better prediction. Next, we present a comprehensive analysis of recent research, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of various machine learning techniques. We conclude that machine learning has the potential to revolutionize agricultural price prediction, but further research is essential to address the limitations and challenges associated with this approach.

The difficulty of identifying the physical model of complex systems has led to exploring methods that do not rely on such complex modeling of the systems. Deep reinforcement learning has been the pioneer for solving this problem without the need for relying on the physical model of complex systems by just interacting with it. However, it uses a black-box learning approach that makes it difficult to be applied within real-world and safety-critical systems without providing explanations of the actions derived by the model. Furthermore, an open research question in deep reinforcement learning is how to focus the policy learning of critical decisions within a sparse domain. This paper proposes a novel approach for the use of deep reinforcement learning in safety-critical systems. It combines the advantages of probabilistic modeling and reinforcement learning with the added benefits of interpretability and works in collaboration and synchronization with conventional decision-making strategies. The BC-SRLA is activated in specific situations which are identified autonomously through the fused information of probabilistic model and reinforcement learning, such as abnormal conditions or when the system is near-to-failure. Further, it is initialized with a baseline policy using policy cloning to allow minimum interactions with the environment to address the challenges associated with using RL in safety-critical industries. The effectiveness of the BC-SRLA is demonstrated through a case study in maintenance applied to turbofan engines, where it shows superior performance to the prior art and other baselines.