Government
Development of an Edge Resilient ML Ensemble to Tolerate ICS Adversarial Attacks
Yao, Likai, Shi, Qinxuan, Yang, Zhanglong, Shao, Sicong, Hariri, Salim
Deploying machine learning (ML) in dynamic data-driven applications systems (DDDAS) can improve the security of industrial control systems (ICS). However, ML-based DDDAS are vulnerable to adversarial attacks because adversaries can alter the input data slightly so that the ML models predict a different result. In this paper, our goal is to build a resilient edge machine learning (reML) architecture that is designed to withstand adversarial attacks by performing Data Air Gap Transformation (DAGT) to anonymize data feature spaces using deep neural networks and randomize the ML models used for predictions. The reML is based on the Resilient DDDAS paradigm, Moving Target Defense (MTD) theory, and TinyML and is applied to combat adversarial attacks on ICS. Furthermore, the proposed approach is power-efficient and privacy-preserving and, therefore, can be deployed on power-constrained devices to enhance ICS security. This approach enables resilient ML inference at the edge by shifting the computation from the computing-intensive platforms to the resource-constrained edge devices. The incorporation of TinyML with TensorFlow Lite ensures efficient resource utilization and, consequently, makes reML suitable for deployment in various industrial control environments. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of reML, facilitated by the resilient DDDAS development environment, allows for continuous adaptation and improvement in response to emerging threats. Lastly, we evaluate our approach on an ICS dataset and demonstrate that reML provides a viable and effective solution for resilient ML inference at the edge devices.
MALPOLON: A Framework for Deep Species Distribution Modeling
Larcher, Theo, Picek, Lukas, Deneu, Benjamin, Lorieul, Titouan, Servajean, Maximilien, Joly, Alexis
This paper describes a deep-SDM framework, MALPOLON. Written in Python and built upon the PyTorch library, this framework aims to facilitate training and inferences of deep species distribution models (deep-SDM) and sharing for users with only general Python language skills (e.g., modeling ecologists) who are interested in testing deep learning approaches to build new SDMs. More advanced users can also benefit from the framework's modularity to run more specific experiments by overriding existing classes while taking advantage of press-button examples to train neural networks on multiple classification tasks using custom or provided raw and pre-processed datasets. The framework is open-sourced on GitHub and PyPi along with extensive documentation and examples of use in various scenarios. MALPOLON offers straightforward installation, YAML-based configuration, parallel computing, multi-GPU utilization, baseline and foundational models for benchmarking, and extensive tutorials/documentation, aiming to enhance accessibility and performance scalability for ecologists and researchers.
Computing Voting Rules with Elicited Incomplete Votes
Halpern, Daniel, Hossain, Safwan, Tucker-Foltz, Jamie
Motivated by the difficulty of specifying complete ordinal preferences over a large set of $m$ candidates, we study voting rules that are computable by querying voters about $t < m$ candidates. Generalizing prior works that focused on specific instances of this problem, our paper fully characterizes the set of positional scoring rules that can be computed for any $1 \leq t < m$, which, notably, does not include plurality. We then extend this to show a similar impossibility result for single transferable vote (elimination voting). These negative results are information-theoretic and agnostic to the number of queries. Finally, for scoring rules that are computable with limited-sized queries, we give parameterized upper and lower bounds on the number of such queries a deterministic or randomized algorithm must make to determine the score-maximizing candidate. While there is no gap between our bounds for deterministic algorithms, identifying the exact query complexity for randomized algorithms is a challenging open problem, of which we solve one special case.
Open-World Evaluation for Retrieving Diverse Perspectives
We study retrieving a set of documents that covers various perspectives on a complex and contentious question (e.g., will ChatGPT do more harm than good?). We curate a Benchmark for Retrieval Diversity for Subjective questions (BERDS), where each example consists of a question and diverse perspectives associated with the question, sourced from survey questions and debate websites. On this data, retrievers paired with a corpus are evaluated to surface a document set that contains diverse perspectives. Our framing diverges from most retrieval tasks in that document relevancy cannot be decided by simple string matches to references. Instead, we build a language model based automatic evaluator that decides whether each retrieved document contains a perspective. This allows us to evaluate the performance of three different types of corpus (Wikipedia, web snapshot, and corpus constructed on the fly with retrieved pages from the search engine) paired with retrievers. Retrieving diverse documents remains challenging, with the outputs from existing retrievers covering all perspectives on only 33.74% of the examples. We further study the impact of query expansion and diversity-focused reranking approaches and analyze retriever sycophancy. Together, we lay the foundation for future studies in retrieval diversity handling complex queries.
Find Rhinos without Finding Rhinos: Active Learning with Multimodal Imagery of South African Rhino Habitats
Gordon, Lucia, Behari, Nikhil, Collier, Samuel, Bondi-Kelly, Elizabeth, Killian, Jackson A., Ressijac, Catherine, Boucher, Peter, Davies, Andrew, Tambe, Milind
Much of Earth's charismatic megafauna is endangered by human activities, particularly the rhino, which is at risk of extinction due to the poaching crisis in Africa. Monitoring rhinos' movement is crucial to their protection but has unfortunately proven difficult because rhinos are elusive. Therefore, instead of tracking rhinos, we propose the novel approach of mapping communal defecation sites, called middens, which give information about rhinos' spatial behavior valuable to anti-poaching, management, and reintroduction efforts. This paper provides the first-ever mapping of rhino midden locations by building classifiers to detect them using remotely sensed thermal, RGB, and LiDAR imagery in passive and active learning settings. As existing active learning methods perform poorly due to the extreme class imbalance in our dataset, we design MultimodAL, an active learning system employing a ranking technique and multimodality to achieve competitive performance with passive learning models with 94% fewer labels. Our methods could therefore save over 76 hours in labeling time when used on a similarly-sized dataset. Unexpectedly, our midden map reveals that rhino middens are not randomly distributed throughout the landscape; rather, they are clustered. Consequently, rangers should be targeted at areas with high midden densities to strengthen anti-poaching efforts, in line with UN Target 15.7.
AI-Powered Augmented Reality for Satellite Assembly, Integration and Test
Patricio, Alvaro, Valente, Joao, Dehban, Atabak, Cadilha, Ines, Reis, Daniel, Ventura, Rodrigo
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) is set to transform satellite Assembly, Integration, and Testing (AIT) processes by enhancing precision, minimizing human error, and improving operational efficiency in cleanroom environments. This paper presents a technical description of the European Space Agency's (ESA) project "AI for AR in Satellite AIT," which combines real-time computer vision and AR systems to assist technicians during satellite assembly. Leveraging Microsoft HoloLens 2 as the AR interface, the system delivers context-aware instructions and real-time feedback, tackling the complexities of object recognition and 6D pose estimation in AIT workflows. All AI models demonstrated over 70% accuracy, with the detection model exceeding 95% accuracy, indicating a high level of performance and reliability. A key contribution of this work lies in the effective use of synthetic data for training AI models in AR applications, addressing the significant challenges of obtaining real-world datasets in highly dynamic satellite environments, as well as the creation of the Segmented Anything Model for Automatic Labelling (SAMAL), which facilitates the automatic annotation of real data, achieving speeds up to 20 times faster than manual human annotation. The findings demonstrate the efficacy of AI-driven AR systems in automating critical satellite assembly tasks, setting a foundation for future innovations in the space industry.
Role-RL: Online Long-Context Processing with Role Reinforcement Learning for Distinct LLMs in Their Optimal Roles
He, Lewei, Shi, Tianyu, Huang, Pengran, Chen, Bingzhi, Chen, Qianglong, Pan, Jiahui
Large language models (LLMs) with long-context processing are still challenging because of their implementation complexity, training efficiency and data sparsity. To address this issue, a new paradigm named Online Long-context Processing (OLP) is proposed when we process a document of unlimited length, which typically occurs in the information reception and organization of diverse streaming media such as automated news reporting, live e-commerce, and viral short videos. Moreover, a dilemma was often encountered when we tried to select the most suitable LLM from a large number of LLMs amidst explosive growth aiming for outstanding performance, affordable prices, and short response delays. In view of this, we also develop Role Reinforcement Learning (Role-RL) to automatically deploy different LLMs in their respective roles within the OLP pipeline according to their actual performance. Extensive experiments are conducted on our OLP-MINI dataset and it is found that OLP with Role-RL framework achieves OLP benchmark with an average recall rate of 93.2% and the LLM cost saved by 79.4%. The code and dataset are publicly available at: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/Role-RL.
The Lou Dataset -- Exploring the Impact of Gender-Fair Language in German Text Classification
Waldis, Andreas, Birrer, Joel, Lauscher, Anne, Gurevych, Iryna
Nevertheless, there is a significant lack of resources to assess the impact of this linguistic shift on classification using language models (LMs), which are probably not trained on such variations. To address this gap, we present Lou, the first dataset featuring high-quality reformulations for German text classification covering seven tasks, like stance detection and toxicity classification. Evaluating 16 mono-and multi-lingual LMs on Lou shows that genderfair language substantially impacts predictions by flipping labels, reducing certainty, and altering attention patterns. However, existing evaluations remain valid, as LM rankings of Figure 1: A German stance detection instance from the original and reformulated instances do not significantly Lou dataset. We reformulate the masculine formulation differ. While we offer initial insights Konsumenten (consumers) regarding six inclusive or on the effect on German text classification, the neutral strategies, highlighted in yellow. Translation: findings likely apply to other languages, as consistent Consumers must be well supported.
Why Companies "Democratise" Artificial Intelligence: The Case of Open Source Software Donations
Companies claim to "democratise" artificial intelligence (AI) when they donate AI open source software (OSS) to non-profit foundations or release AI models, among others, but what does this term mean and why do they do it? As the impact of AI on society and the economy grows, understanding the commercial incentives behind AI democratisation efforts is crucial for ensuring these efforts serve broader interests beyond commercial agendas. Towards this end, this study employs a mixed-methods approach to investigate commercial incentives for 43 AI OSS donations to the Linux Foundation. It makes contributions to both research and practice. It contributes a taxonomy of both individual and organisational social, economic, and technological incentives for AI democratisation. In particular, it highlights the role of democratising the governance and control rights of an OSS project (i.e., from one company to open governance) as a structural enabler for downstream goals, such as attracting external contributors, reducing development costs, and influencing industry standards, among others. Furthermore, OSS donations are often championed by individual developers within companies, highlighting the importance of the bottom-up incentives for AI democratisation. The taxonomy provides a framework and toolkit for discerning incentives for other AI democratisation efforts, such as the release of AI models. The paper concludes with a discussion of future research directions.
Implementing a Nordic-Baltic Federated Health Data Network: a case report
Chomutare, Taridzo, Babic, Aleksandar, Peltonen, Laura-Maria, Elunurm, Silja, Lundberg, Peter, Jönsson, Arne, Eneling, Emma, Gerstenberger, Ciprian-Virgil, Siggaard, Troels, Kolde, Raivo, Jerdhaf, Oskar, Hansson, Martin, Makhlysheva, Alexandra, Muzny, Miroslav, Ylipää, Erik, Brunak, Søren, Dalianis, Hercules
Background: Centralized collection and processing of healthcare data across national borders pose significant challenges, including privacy concerns, data heterogeneity and legal barriers. To address some of these challenges, we formed an interdisciplinary consortium to develop a feder-ated health data network, comprised of six institutions across five countries, to facilitate Nordic-Baltic cooperation on secondary use of health data. The objective of this report is to offer early insights into our experiences developing this network. Methods: We used a mixed-method ap-proach, combining both experimental design and implementation science to evaluate the factors affecting the implementation of our network. Results: Technically, our experiments indicate that the network functions without significant performance degradation compared to centralized simu-lation. Conclusion: While use of interdisciplinary approaches holds a potential to solve challeng-es associated with establishing such collaborative networks, our findings turn the spotlight on the uncertain regulatory landscape playing catch up and the significant operational costs.