Federated learning faces significant challenges in scenarios with heterogeneous data distributions and adverse network conditions, such as delays, packet loss, and data poisoning attacks. This paper proposes a novel method based on the SCAFFOLD algorithm to improve the quality of local updates and enhance the robustness of the global model. The key idea is to form intermediary nodes by merging local models with high similarity, using the Pearson correlation coefficient as a similarity measure. The proposed merging algorithm reduces the number of local nodes while maintaining the accuracy of the global model, effectively addressing communication overhead and bandwidth consumption. Experimental results on the MNIST dataset under simulated federated learning scenarios demonstrate the method's effectiveness. After 10 rounds of training using a CNN model, the proposed approach achieved accuracies of 0.82, 0.73, and 0.66 under normal conditions, packet loss and data poisoning attacks, respectively, outperforming the baseline SCAFFOLD algorithm. These results highlight the potential of the proposed method to improve efficiency and resilience in federated learning systems.

This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Abstract--Autonomous racing provides a controlled environment for testing the software and hardware of autonomous vehicles operating at their performance limits. Competitive interactions between multiple autonomous racecars however introduce challenging and potentially dangerous scenarios. Accurate and consistent vehicle detection and tracking is crucial for overtaking maneuvers, and low-latency sensor processing is essential to respond quickly to hazardous situations. This paper presents the LiDAR-based perception algorithms deployed on Team PoliMOVE's autonomous racecar, which won multiple competitions in the Indy Autonomous Challenge series. Our Vehicle Detection and Tracking pipeline is composed of a novel fast Point Cloud Segmentation technique and a specific Vehicle Pose Estimation methodology, together with a variable-step Multi-Figure 1. Team PoliMOVE's Dallara AV21 "MinerVa" defending from an Dallara AV21 "MinerVa" which won first place in all three In this work, we build an online algorithm for reliable I. UTONOMOUS RACING allows for safe testing of an autonomous vehicle's full software and hardware stack fully observing the target's 2D pose, tracking its motion at the limits of its performance in a controlled environment. Point Cloud segmentation algorithm capable of processing in Providing this kind of testing environment is one of the main parallel the three LiDAR sensors mounted on the vehicle, a goals of the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC), the first multivehicle multi-hypothesis L-shape fitting technique for a racing vehicle competition series for level 4 autonomous racecars.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that impacts motor functions and speech characteristics This study focuses on differentiating individuals with Parkinson's disease from healthy controls through the extraction and classification of speech features. Patients were further divided into 2 groups. Med On represents the patient with medication, while Med Off represents the patient without medication. The dataset consisted of patients and healthy individuals who read a predefined text using the H1N Zoom microphone in a suitable recording environment at F{\i}rat University Neurology Department. Speech recordings from PD patients and healthy controls were analyzed, and 19 key features were extracted, including jitter, luminance, zero-crossing rate (ZCR), root mean square (RMS) energy, entropy, skewness, and kurtosis.These features were visualized in graphs and statistically evaluated to identify distinctive patterns in PD patients. Using MATLAB's Classification Learner toolbox, several machine learning classification algorithm models were applied to classify groups and significant accuracy rates were achieved. The accuracy of our 3-layer artificial neural network architecture was also compared with classical machine learning algorithms. This study highlights the potential of noninvasive voice analysis combined with machine learning for early detection and monitoring of PD patients. Future research can improve diagnostic accuracy by optimizing feature selection and exploring advanced classification techniques.

I should be acknowledged that it is significantly more complex that UCB1 for example. Indeed at each time step B bootstrap repetitions are needed to estimated the bootstrapped quantiles, and each of them require to drawn n_k random variables for each arm k (the values of w's). Also, this requires to store the past rewards obtained on all arms, which requires a lot a memory. This constraint is also needed for the empirical KL-UCB mentioned above, which is one more reason to compare the two algorithms that have similar complexity. From Theorem 2, I guess that the w's are Rademacher random variables, but it would be good to specify this in the statement of the algorithm.

The reviewers updated their scores after the rebuttal and discussion. Congratulations on a nice paper that had a consensus on acceptance! The reviewers has a couple of outstanding concerns (like relating B,T) that I would like the authors to explicitly discuss (including potentially mentioning open problems) in the camera-ready version.

Digital data continues to grow, there has been a shift towards using effective regulatory mechanisms to safeguard personal information. The CCPA of California and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union are two of the most important privacy laws. The regulation is intended to safeguard consumer privacy, but it varies greatly in scope, definitions, and methods of enforcement. This paper presents a fresh approach to adaptive compliance, using machine learning and emphasizing natural language processing (NLP) as the primary focus of comparison between the GDPR and CCPA. Using NLP, this study compares various regulations to identify areas where they overlap or diverge. This includes the "right to be forgotten" provision in the GDPR and the "opt-out of sale" provision under CCPA. International companies can learn valuable lessons from this report, as it outlines strategies for better enforcement of laws across different nations. Additionally, the paper discusses the challenges of utilizing NLP in legal literature and proposes methods to enhance the model-ability of machine learning models for studying regulations. The study's objective is to "bridge the gap between legal knowledge and technical expertise" by developing regulatory compliance strategies that are more efficient in operation and more effective in data protection.

In the realm of online advertising, optimizing conversions is crucial for delivering relevant products to users and enhancing business outcomes. Predicting conversion events is challenging due to variable delays between user interactions, such as impressions or clicks, and the actual conversions. These delays differ significantly across various advertisers and products, necessitating distinct optimization time windows for targeted conversions. To address this, we introduce a novel approach named the \textit{Personalized Interpolation} method, which innovatively builds upon existing fixed conversion window models to estimate flexible conversion windows. This method allows for the accurate estimation of conversions across a variety of delay ranges, thus meeting the diverse needs of advertisers without increasing system complexity. To validate the efficacy of our proposed method, we conducted comprehensive experiments using ads conversion model. Our experiments demonstrate that this method not only achieves high prediction accuracy but also does so more efficiently than other existing solutions. This validation underscores the potential of our Personalized Interpolation method to significantly enhance conversion optimization in real-world online advertising systems, promising improved targeting and effectiveness in advertising strategies.

Missing feature values are a significant hurdle for downstream machine-learning tasks such as classification and regression. However, they are pervasive in multiple real-life use cases, for instance, in drug discovery research. Moreover, imputation methods might be time-consuming and offer few guarantees on the imputation quality, especially for not-missing-at-random mechanisms. We propose an imputation approach named F3I based on the iterative improvement of a K-nearest neighbor imputation that learns the weights for each neighbor of a data point, optimizing for the most likely distribution of points over data points. This algorithm can also be jointly trained with a downstream task on the imputed values. We provide a theoretical analysis of the imputation quality by F3I for several types of missing mechanisms. We also demonstrate the performance of F3I on both synthetic data sets and real-life drug repurposing and handwritten-digit recognition data.

Long-tailed classification is challenging due to its heavy imbalance in class probabilities. While existing methods often focus on overall accuracy or accuracy for tail classes, they overlook a critical aspect: certain types of errors can carry greater risks than others in real-world long-tailed problems. For example, misclassifying patients (a tail class) as healthy individuals (a head class) entails far more serious consequences than the reverse scenario. To address this critical issue, we introduce Making Reliable and Flexible Decisions in Long-tailed Classification (RF-DLC), a novel framework aimed at reliable predictions in long-tailed problems. Leveraging Bayesian Decision Theory, we introduce an integrated gain to seamlessly combine long-tailed data distributions and the decision-making procedure. We further propose an efficient variational optimization strategy for the decision risk objective. Our method adapts readily to diverse utility matrices, which can be designed for specific tasks, ensuring its flexibility for different problem settings. In empirical evaluation, we design a new metric, False Head Rate, to quantify tail-sensitivity risk, along with comprehensive experiments on multiple real-world tasks, including large-scale image classification and uncertainty quantification, to demonstrate the reliability and flexibility of our method.

Credit risk management within supply chains has emerged as a critical research area due to its significant implications for operational stability and financial sustainability. The intricate interdependencies among supply chain participants mean that credit risks can propagate across networks, with impacts varying by industry. This study explores the application of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to enhance credit risk identification in supply chains. GANs enable the generation of synthetic credit risk scenarios, addressing challenges related to data scarcity and imbalanced datasets. By leveraging GAN-generated data, the model improves predictive accuracy while effectively capturing dynamic and temporal dependencies in supply chain data. The research focuses on three representative industries-manufacturing (steel), distribution (pharmaceuticals), and services (e-commerce) to assess industry-specific credit risk contagion. Experimental results demonstrate that the GAN-based model outperforms traditional methods, including logistic regression, decision trees, and neural networks, achieving superior accuracy, recall, and F1 scores. The findings underscore the potential of GANs in proactive risk management, offering robust tools for mitigating financial disruptions in supply chains. Future research could expand the model by incorporating external market factors and supplier relationships to further enhance predictive capabilities. Keywords- Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs); Supply Chain Risk; Credit Risk Identification; Machine Learning; Data Augmentation