The increasing popularity of Artificial Intelligence in recent years has led to a surge in interest in image classification, especially in the agricultural sector. With the help of Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning, the sector has undergone a significant transformation, leading to the development of new techniques for crop classification in the field. Despite the extensive research on various image classification techniques, most have limitations such as low accuracy, limited use of data, and a lack of reporting model size and prediction. The most significant limitation of all is the need for model explainability. This research evaluates four different approaches for crop classification, namely traditional ML with handcrafted feature extraction methods like SIFT, ORB, and Color Histogram; Custom Designed CNN and established DL architecture like AlexNet; transfer learning on five models pre-trained using ImageNet such as EfficientNetV2, ResNet152V2, Xception, Inception-ResNetV2, MobileNetV3; and cutting-edge foundation models like YOLOv8 and DINOv2, a self-supervised Vision Transformer Model. All models performed well, but Xception outperformed all of them in terms of generalization, achieving 98% accuracy on the test data, with a model size of 80.03 MB and a prediction time of 0.0633 seconds. A key aspect of this research was the application of Explainable AI to provide the explainability of all the models. This journal presents the explainability of Xception model with LIME, SHAP, and GradCAM, ensuring transparency and trustworthiness in the models' predictions. This study highlights the importance of selecting the right model according to task-specific needs. It also underscores the important role of explainability in deploying AI in agriculture, providing insightful information to help enhance AI-driven crop management strategies.

This paper presents a study on transforming a traditional human-operated vehicle into a fully autonomous device. By leveraging previous research and state-of-the-art technologies, the study addresses autonomy, safety, and operational efficiency in industrial environments. Motivated by the demand for automation in hazardous and complex industries, the autonomous system integrates sensors, actuators, advanced control algorithms, and communication systems to enhance safety, streamline processes, and improve productivity. The paper covers system requirements, hardware architecture, software framework and preliminary results. This research offers insights into designing and implementing autonomous capabilities in human-operated vehicles, with implications for improving safety and efficiency in various industrial sectors.

The proliferation of geospatial data in urban and territorial environments has significantly facilitated the development of geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) across various urban applications. Given the vast yet inherently sparse labeled nature of geospatial data, there is a critical need for techniques that can effectively leverage such data without heavy reliance on labeled datasets. This requirement aligns with the principles of self-supervised learning (SSL), which has attracted increasing attention for its adoption in geospatial data. This paper conducts a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of SSL techniques applied to or developed for three primary data (geometric) types prevalent in geospatial vector data: points, polylines, and polygons. We systematically categorize various SSL techniques into predictive and contrastive methods, discussing their application with respect to each data type in enhancing generalization across various downstream tasks. Furthermore, we review the emerging trends of SSL for GeoAI, and several task-specific SSL techniques. Finally, we discuss several key challenges in the current research and outline promising directions for future investigation. By presenting a structured analysis of relevant studies, this paper aims to inspire continued advancements in the integration of SSL with GeoAI, encouraging innovative methods to harnessing the power of geospatial data.

This review explores the intersection of bio-plausible artificial intelligence in the form of Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) with the analog In-Memory Computing (IMC) domain, highlighting their collective potential for low-power edge computing environments. Through detailed investigation at the device, circuit, and system levels, we highlight the pivotal synergies between SNNs and IMC architectures. Additionally, we emphasize the critical need for comprehensive system-level analyses, considering the inter-dependencies between algorithms, devices, circuit & system parameters, crucial for optimal performance. An in-depth analysis leads to identification of key system-level bottlenecks arising from device limitations which can be addressed using SNN-specific algorithm-hardware co-design techniques. This review underscores the imperative for holistic device to system design space co-exploration, highlighting the critical aspects of hardware and algorithm research endeavors for low-power neuromorphic solutions.

Large language models (LLMs) have exhibited remarkable capabilities in natural language generation, but they have also been observed to magnify societal biases, particularly those related to gender. In response to this issue, several benchmarks have been proposed to assess gender bias in LLMs. However, these benchmarks often lack practical flexibility or inadvertently introduce biases. To address these shortcomings, we introduce GenderCARE, a comprehensive framework that encompasses innovative Criteria, bias Assessment, Reduction techniques, and Evaluation metrics for quantifying and mitigating gender bias in LLMs. To begin, we establish pioneering criteria for gender equality benchmarks, spanning dimensions such as inclusivity, diversity, explainability, objectivity, robustness, and realisticity. Guided by these criteria, we construct GenderPair, a novel pair-based benchmark designed to assess gender bias in LLMs comprehensively. Our benchmark provides standardized and realistic evaluations, including previously overlooked gender groups such as transgender and non-binary individuals. Furthermore, we develop effective debiasing techniques that incorporate counterfactual data augmentation and specialized fine-tuning strategies to reduce gender bias in LLMs without compromising their overall performance. Extensive experiments demonstrate a significant reduction in various gender bias benchmarks, with reductions peaking at over 90% and averaging above 35% across 17 different LLMs. Importantly, these reductions come with minimal variability in mainstream language tasks, remaining below 2%. By offering a realistic assessment and tailored reduction of gender biases, we hope that our GenderCARE can represent a significant step towards achieving fairness and equity in LLMs. More details are available at https://github.com/kstanghere/GenderCARE-ccs24.

Understanding urban mobility patterns and analyzing how people move around cities helps improve the overall quality of life and supports the development of more livable, efficient, and sustainable urban areas. A challenging aspect of this work is the collection of mobility data by means of user tracking or travel surveys, given the associated privacy concerns, noncompliance, and high cost. This work proposes an innovative AI-based approach for synthesizing travel surveys by prompting large language models (LLMs), aiming to leverage their vast amount of relevant background knowledge and text generation capabilities. Our study evaluates the effectiveness of this approach across various U.S. metropolitan areas by comparing the results against existing survey data at different granularity levels. These levels include (i) pattern level, which compares aggregated metrics like the average number of locations traveled and travel time, (ii) trip level, which focuses on comparing trips as whole units using transition probabilities, and (iii) activity chain level, which examines the sequence of locations visited by individuals. Our work covers several proprietary and open-source LLMs, revealing that open-source base models like Llama-2, when fine-tuned on even a limited amount of actual data, can generate synthetic data that closely mimics the actual travel survey data, and as such provides an argument for using such data in mobility studies.

The growing interest in Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) motivates promising studies of computing optimal Interpretable Machine Learning models, especially decision trees. Such models generally provide optimality in compact size or empirical accuracy. Recent works focus on improving efficiency due to the natural scalability issue. The application of such models to practical problems is quite limited. As an emerging problem in circuit design, Approximate Logic Synthesis (ALS) aims to reduce circuit complexity by sacrificing correctness. Recently, multiple heuristic machine learning methods have been applied in ALS, which learns approximated circuits from samples of input-output pairs. In this paper, we propose a new ALS methodology realizing the approximation via learning optimal decision trees in empirical accuracy. Compared to previous heuristic ALS methods, the guarantee of optimality achieves a more controllable trade-off between circuit complexity and accuracy. Experimental results show clear improvements in our methodology in the quality of approximated designs (circuit complexity and accuracy) compared to the state-of-the-art approaches.

Background: Data quality is vital in software analytics, particularly for machine learning (ML) applications like software defect prediction (SDP). Despite the widespread use of ML in software engineering, the effect of data quality antipatterns on these models remains underexplored. Objective: This study develops a taxonomy of ML-specific data quality antipatterns and assesses their impact on software analytics models' performance and interpretation. Methods: We identified eight types and 14 sub-types of ML-specific data quality antipatterns through a literature review. We conducted experiments to determine the prevalence of these antipatterns in SDP data (RQ1), assess how cleaning order affects model performance (RQ2), evaluate the impact of antipattern removal on performance (RQ3), and examine the consistency of interpretation from models built with different antipatterns (RQ4). Results: In our SDP case study, we identified nine antipatterns. Over 90% of these overlapped at both row and column levels, complicating cleaning prioritization and risking excessive data removal. The order of cleaning significantly impacts ML model performance, with neural networks being more resilient to cleaning order changes than simpler models like logistic regression. Antipatterns such as Tailed Distributions and Class Overlap show a statistically significant correlation with performance metrics when other antipatterns are cleaned. Models built with different antipatterns showed moderate consistency in interpretation results. Conclusion: The cleaning order of different antipatterns impacts ML model performance. Five antipatterns have a statistically significant correlation with model performance when others are cleaned. Additionally, model interpretation is moderately affected by different data quality antipatterns.

Recent technological advancements have enhanced our ability to collect and analyze rich multimodal data (e.g., speech, video, and eye gaze) to better inform learning and training experiences. While previous reviews have focused on parts of the multimodal pipeline (e.g., conceptual models and data fusion), a comprehensive literature review on the methods informing multimodal learning and training environments has not been conducted. This literature review provides an in-depth analysis of research methods in these environments, proposing a taxonomy and framework that encapsulates recent methodological advances in this field and characterizes the multimodal domain in terms of five modality groups: Natural Language, Video, Sensors, Human-Centered, and Environment Logs. We introduce a novel data fusion category -- mid fusion -- and a graph-based technique for refining literature reviews, termed citation graph pruning. Our analysis reveals that leveraging multiple modalities offers a more holistic understanding of the behaviors and outcomes of learners and trainees. Even when multimodality does not enhance predictive accuracy, it often uncovers patterns that contextualize and elucidate unimodal data, revealing subtleties that a single modality may miss. However, there remains a need for further research to bridge the divide between multimodal learning and training studies and foundational AI research.

The integration of generative AI in visual art has revolutionized not only how visual content is created but also how AI interacts with and reflects the underlying domain knowledge. This survey explores the emerging realm of diffusion-based visual art creation, examining its development from both artistic and technical perspectives. We structure the survey into three phases, data feature and framework identification, detailed analyses using a structured coding process, and open-ended prospective outlooks. Our findings reveal how artistic requirements are transformed into technical challenges and highlight the design and application of diffusion-based methods within visual art creation. We also provide insights into future directions from technical and synergistic perspectives, suggesting that the confluence of generative AI and art has shifted the creative paradigm and opened up new possibilities. By summarizing the development and trends of this emerging interdisciplinary area, we aim to shed light on the mechanisms through which AI systems emulate and possibly, enhance human capacities in artistic perception and creativity.