Neural networks struggle with image classification when biases are learned and misleads correlations, affecting their generalization and performance. Previous methods require attribute labels (e.g. background, color) or utilizes Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to mitigate biases. We introduce DiffuBias, a novel pipeline for text-to-image generation that enhances classifier robustness by generating bias-conflict samples, without requiring training during the generation phase. Utilizing pretrained diffusion and image captioning models, DiffuBias generates images that challenge the biases of classifiers, using the top-$K$ losses from a biased classifier ($f_B$) to create more representative data samples. This method not only debiases effectively but also boosts classifier generalization capabilities. To the best of our knowledge, DiffuBias is the first approach leveraging a stable diffusion model to generate bias-conflict samples in debiasing tasks. Our comprehensive experimental evaluations demonstrate that DiffuBias achieves state-of-the-art performance on benchmark datasets. We also conduct a comparative analysis of various generative models in terms of carbon emissions and energy consumption to highlight the significance of computational efficiency.

Text-to-image (T2I) models have shown remarkable progress, but their potential to generate harmful content remains a critical concern in the ML community. While various safety mechanisms have been developed, the field lacks systematic tools for evaluating their effectiveness against real-world misuse scenarios. In this work, we propose ICER, a novel red-teaming framework that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) and a bandit optimization-based algorithm to generate interpretable and semantic meaningful problematic prompts by learning from past successful red-teaming attempts. Our ICER efficiently probes safety mechanisms across different T2I models without requiring internal access or additional training, making it broadly applicable to deployed systems. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that ICER significantly outperforms existing prompt attack methods in identifying model vulnerabilities while maintaining high semantic similarity with intended content. By uncovering that successful jailbreaking instances can systematically facilitate the discovery of new vulnerabilities, our work provides crucial insights for developing more robust safety mechanisms in T2I systems.

This work proposes a strategy for organising quadrotors around a payload to enable hovering without external stimuli, together with a MATLAB software for modelling the dynamics of a quadrotor-payload system. Based on geometric concepts, the proposed design keeps the payload and system centre of mass aligned. Hovering tests that are successful confirm the method's efficiency. Moreover, the algorithm is improved to take thrust capacities and propeller distances into account, calculating the minimum number of quadrotors needed for hovering. The algorithm's effectiveness is demonstrated by numerical examples, which reveal that larger quadrotors may require fewer units while smaller ones give greater flexibility. Our code can be found at: \href{https://github.com/Hosnooo/Swarm-Slung-Payload}{https://github.com/Hosnooo/Swarm-Slung-Payload}

Due to the dynamic nature of the semantic web, ontology version control is required to capture time-varying information, most importantly for widely-used ontologies. Despite the long-standing recognition of ontology versioning (OV) as a crucial component for efficient ontology management, the growing size of ontologies and accumulating errors caused by manual labour overwhelm current OV approaches. In this paper, we propose yet another approach to performing OV using existing ontology matching (OM) techniques and systems. We introduce a unified OM4OV pipeline. From an OM perspective, we reconstruct a new task formulation, measurement, and testbed for OV tasks. Reusing the prior alignment(s) from OM, we propose a pipeline optimisation method called cross-reference (CR) mechanism to improve overall OV performance. We experimentally validate the OM4OV pipeline and the cross-reference mechanism in modified Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative (OAEI) datasets. We also discuss the insights on OM used for OV tasks, where some false mappings detected by OV systems are not actually false.

In-Context Operator Networks (ICONs) are models that learn operators across different types of PDEs using a few-shot, in-context approach. Although they show successful generalization to various PDEs, existing methods treat each data point as a single token, and suffer from computational inefficiency when processing dense data, limiting their application in higher spatial dimensions. In this work, we propose Vision In-Context Operator Networks (VICON), incorporating a vision transformer architecture that efficiently processes 2D functions through patch-wise operations. We evaluated our method on three fluid dynamics datasets, demonstrating both superior performance (reducing scaled $L^2$ error by $40\%$ and $61.6\%$ for two benchmark datasets for compressible flows, respectively) and computational efficiency (requiring only one-third of the inference time per frame) in long-term rollout predictions compared to the current state-of-the-art sequence-to-sequence model with fixed timestep prediction: Multiple Physics Pretraining (MPP). Compared to MPP, our method preserves the benefits of in-context operator learning, enabling flexible context formation when dealing with insufficient frame counts or varying timestep values.

This study explores the effectiveness of multi-temporal satellite imagery for better functional field boundary delineation using deep learning semantic segmentation architecture on two distinct geographical and multi-scale farming systems of Netherlands and Pakistan. Multidate images of April, August and October 2022 were acquired for PlanetScope and Sentinel-2 in sub regions of Netherlands and November 2022, February and March 2023 for selected area of Dunyapur in Pakistan. For Netherlands, Basic registration crop parcels (BRP) vector layer was used as labeled training data. while self-crafted field boundary vector data were utilized for Pakistan. Four deep learning models with UNET architecture were evaluated using different combinations of multi-date images and NDVI stacks in the Netherlands subregions. A comparative analysis of IoU scores assessed the effectiveness of the proposed multi-date NDVI stack approach. These findings were then applied for transfer learning, using pre-trained models from the Netherlands on the selected area in Pakistan. Additionally, separate models were trained using self-crafted field boundary data for Pakistan, and combined models were developed using data from both the Netherlands and Pakistan. Results indicate that multi-date NDVI stacks provide additional temporal context, reflecting crop growth over different times of the season. The study underscores the critical role of multi-scale ground information from diverse geographical areas in developing robust and universally applicable models for field boundary delineation. The results also highlight the importance of fine spatial resolution for extraction of field boundaries in regions with small scale framing. The findings can be extended to multi-scale implementations for improved automatic field boundary delineation in heterogeneous agricultural environments.

Non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) focuses on disaggregating total household power consumption into appliance-specific usage. Many advanced NILM methods are based on neural networks that typically require substantial amounts of labeled appliance data, which can be challenging and costly to collect in real-world settings. We hypothesize that appliance data from all households does not uniformly contribute to NILM model improvements. Thus, we propose an active learning approach to selectively install appliance monitors in a limited number of houses. This work is the first to benchmark the use of active learning for strategically selecting appliance-level data to optimize NILM performance. We first develop uncertainty-aware neural networks for NILM and then install sensors in homes where disaggregation uncertainty is highest. Benchmarking our method on the publicly available Pecan Street Dataport dataset, we demonstrate that our approach significantly outperforms a standard random baseline and achieves performance comparable to models trained on the entire dataset. Using this approach, we achieve comparable NILM accuracy with approximately 30% of the data, and for a fixed number of sensors, we observe up to a 2x reduction in disaggregation errors compared to random sampling.

A signed distance function (SDF) is a useful representation for continuous-space geometry and many related operations, including rendering, collision checking, and mesh generation. Hence, reconstructing SDF from image observations accurately and efficiently is a fundamental problem. Recently, neural implicit SDF (SDF-NeRF) techniques, trained using volumetric rendering, have gained a lot of attention. Compared to earlier truncated SDF (TSDF) fusion algorithms that rely on depth maps and voxelize continuous space, SDF-NeRF enables continuous-space SDF reconstruction with better geometric and photometric accuracy. However, the accuracy and convergence speed of scene-level SDF reconstruction require further improvements for many applications. With the advent of 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) as an explicit representation with excellent rendering quality and speed, several works have focused on improving SDF-NeRF by introducing consistency losses on depth and surface normals between 3DGS and SDF-NeRF. However, loss-level connections alone lead to incremental improvements. We propose a novel neural implicit SDF called "SplatSDF" to fuse 3DGSandSDF-NeRF at an architecture level with significant boosts to geometric and photometric accuracy and convergence speed. Our SplatSDF relies on 3DGS as input only during training, and keeps the same complexity and efficiency as the original SDF-NeRF during inference. Our method outperforms state-of-the-art SDF-NeRF models on geometric and photometric evaluation by the time of submission.

Time series forecasting plays a critical role in various real-world applications, including energy consumption prediction, disease transmission monitoring, and weather forecasting. Although substantial progress has been made in time series forecasting, most existing methods rely on a centralized training paradigm, where large amounts of data are collected from distributed devices (e.g., sensors, wearables) to a central cloud server. However, this paradigm has overloaded communication networks and raised privacy concerns. Federated learning, a popular privacy-preserving technique, enables collaborative model training across distributed data sources. However, directly applying federated learning to time series forecasting often yields suboptimal results, as time series data generated by different devices are inherently heterogeneous. In this paper, we propose a novel framework, Fed-TREND, to address data heterogeneity by generating informative synthetic data as auxiliary knowledge carriers. Specifically, Fed-TREND generates two types of synthetic data. The first type of synthetic data captures the representative distribution information from clients' uploaded model updates and enhances clients' local training consensus. The second kind of synthetic data extracts long-term influence insights from global model update trajectories and is used to refine the global model after aggregation. Fed-TREND is compatible with most time series forecasting models and can be seamlessly integrated into existing federated learning frameworks to improve prediction performance. Extensive experiments on eight datasets, using several federated learning baselines and four popular time series forecasting models, demonstrate the effectiveness and generalizability of Fed-TREND.

When better to hold a conference on artificial intelligence and the countless ways it is advancing science than in those brief days between the first Nobel prizes being awarded in the field and the winners heading to Stockholm for the lavish white tie ceremony? It was fortuitous timing for Google DeepMind and the Royal Society who this week convened the AI for Science Forum in London. Last month, Google DeepMind bagged the Nobel prize in chemistry a day after AI took the physics prize. Scientists have worked with AI for years, but the latest generation of algorithms have brought us to brink of transformation, Demis Hassabis, the chief executive officer of Google DeepMind, told the meeting. "If we get it right, it should be an incredible new era of discovery and a new golden age, maybe even a kind of new renaissance," he said.