The evaluation of generative or discriminative large language model (LLM)-based systems is often a complex multi-dimensional problem. Typically, a set of system configuration alternatives are evaluated on one or more benchmark datasets, each with one or more evaluation metrics, which may differ between datasets. We often want to evaluate -- with a statistical measure of significance -- whether systems perform differently either on a given dataset according to a single metric, on aggregate across metrics on a dataset, or across datasets. Such evaluations can be done to support decision-making, such as deciding whether a particular system component change (e.g., choice of LLM or hyperparameter values) significantly improves performance over the current system configuration, or, more generally, whether a fixed set of system configurations (e.g., a leaderboard list) have significantly different performances according to metrics of interest. We present a framework implementation that automatically performs the correct statistical tests, properly aggregates the statistical results across metrics and datasets (a nontrivial task), and can visualize the results. The framework is demonstrated on the multi-lingual code generation benchmark CrossCodeEval, for several state-of-the-art LLMs.

Improvements in large language models have led to increasing optimism that they can serve as reliable evaluators of natural language generation outputs. In this paper, we challenge this optimism by thoroughly re-evaluating five state-of-the-art factuality metrics on a collection of 11 datasets for summarization, retrieval-augmented generation, and question answering. We find that these evaluators are inconsistent with each other and often misestimate system-level performance, both of which can lead to a variety of pitfalls. We further show that these metrics exhibit biases against highly paraphrased outputs and outputs that draw upon faraway parts of the source documents. We urge users of these factuality metrics to proceed with caution and manually validate the reliability of these metrics in their domain of interest before proceeding.

Spurred by tremendous success in pattern matching and prediction tasks, researchers increasingly resort to machine learning to aid original scientific discovery. Given large amounts of observational data about a system, can we uncover the rules that govern its evolution? Solving this task holds the great promise of fully understanding the causal interactions and being able to make reliable predictions about the system's behavior under interventions. We take a step towards such system identification for time-series data generated from systems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) using flexible neural ODEs. Neural ODEs have proven successful in learning dynamical systems in terms of recovering observed trajectories. However, their efficacy in learning ground truth dynamics and making predictions under unseen interventions are still underexplored. We develop a simple regularization scheme for neural ODEs that helps in recovering the dynamics and causal structure from time-series data.

We explore a suite of generative modelling techniques to efficiently navigate and explore the complex landscapes of odor and the broader chemical space. Unlike traditional approaches, we not only generate molecules but also predict the odor likeliness with ROC AUC score of 0.97 and assign probable odor labels. We correlate odor likeliness with physicochemical features of molecules using machine learning techniques and leverage SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) to demonstrate the interpretability of the function. The whole process involves four key stages: molecule generation, stringent sanitization checks for molecular validity, fragrance likeliness screening and odor prediction of the generated molecules. By making our code and trained models publicly accessible, we aim to facilitate broader adoption of our research across applications in fragrance discovery and olfactory research.

--Machine learning (ML) codebases face unprecedented challenges in maintaining code quality and sustainability as their complexity grows exponentially. While traditional code smell detection tools exist, they fail to address ML-specific issues that can significantly impact model performance, reproducibility, and maintainability. This paper introduces MLScent, a novel static analysis tool that leverages sophisticated Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) analysis to detect anti-patterns and code smells specific to ML projects. MLScent implements 76 distinct detectors across major ML frameworks including T ensorFlow (13 detectors), PyT orch (12 detectors), Scikit-learn (9 detectors), and Hugging Face (10 detectors), along with data science libraries like Pandas and NumPy (8 detectors each). Our evaluation demonstrates MLScent's effectiveness through both quantitative classification metrics and qualitative assessment via user studies feedback with ML practitioners. Results show high accuracy in identifying framework-specific anti-patterns, data handling issues, and general ML code smells across real-world projects. The software development landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation with the integration of Machine Learning (ML). Recent statistics from Gartner highlight this shift, revealing a striking 270% increase in ML adoption within enterprise software projects over the last four years [1]. This rapid adoption, however, brings its own set of complexities. Traditional software development practices have had to evolve significantly to accommodate ML's unique requirements, including the need for extensive datasets, sophisticated algorithms, and iterative development cycles [3]. These fundamental differences have catalyzed a complete reimagining of software development methodologies, from initial design through testing and maintenance [4], [5] which is also highlighted by Tang et al. [6] in their empirical study of ML systems refactoring and technical debt. ML projects introduce distinct code quality challenges that set them apart from conventional software development. The complexity stems from their inherent characteristics: intricate mathematical operations, extensive data preprocessing requirements, and sophisticated model architectures that challenge traditional code maintenance approaches [7].

The Isolation Forest (iForest), proposed by Liu, Ting, and Zhou at TKDE 2012, has become a prominent tool for unsupervised anomaly detection. However, recent research by Hariri, Kind, and Brunner, published in TKDE 2021, has revealed issues with iForest. They identified the presence of axis-aligned ghost clusters that can be misidentified as normal clusters, leading to biased anomaly scores and inaccurate predictions. In response, they developed the Extended Isolation Forest (EIF), which effectively solves these issues by eliminating the ghost clusters introduced by iForest. This enhancement results in improved consistency of anomaly scores and superior performance. We reveal a previously overlooked problem in the Extended Isolation Forest (EIF), showing that it is vulnerable to ghost inter-clusters between normal clusters of data points. In this paper, we introduce the Rotated Isolation Forest (RIF) algorithm which effectively addresses both the axis-aligned ghost clusters observed in iForest and the ghost inter-clusters seen in EIF. RIF accomplishes this by randomly rotating the dataset (using random rotation matrices and QR decomposition) before feeding it into the iForest construction, thereby increasing dataset variation and eliminating ghost clusters. Our experiments conclusively demonstrate that the RIF algorithm outperforms iForest and EIF, as evidenced by the results obtained from both synthetic datasets and real-world datasets.

Traditional remote spirometry lacks the precision required for effective pulmonary monitoring. We present a novel, non-invasive approach using multimodal predictive models that integrate RGB or thermal video data with patient metadata. Our method leverages energy-efficient Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) for the regression of Peak Expiratory Flow (PEF) and classification of Forced Expiratory Volume (FEV1) and Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), using lightweight CNNs to overcome SNN limitations in regression tasks. Multimodal data integration is improved with a Multi-Head Attention Layer, and we employ K-Fold validation and ensemble learning to boost robustness. Using thermal data, our SNN models achieve 92% accuracy on a breathing-cycle basis and 99.5% patient-wise. PEF regression models attain Relative RMSEs of 0.11 (thermal) and 0.26 (RGB), with an MAE of 4.52% for FEV1/FVC predictions, establishing state-of-the-art performance. Code and dataset can be found on https://github.com/ahmed-sharshar/RespiroDynamics.git

Humans excel in analogical learning and knowledge transfer and, more importantly, possess a unique understanding of identifying appropriate sources of knowledge. From a model's perspective, this presents an interesting challenge. If models could autonomously retrieve knowledge useful for transfer or decision-making to solve problems, they would transition from passively acquiring to actively accessing and learning from knowledge. However, filling models with knowledge is relatively straightforward -- it simply requires more training and accessible knowledge bases. The more complex task is teaching models about which knowledge can be analogized and transferred. Therefore, we design a knowledge augmentation method LEKA for knowledge transfer that actively searches for suitable knowledge sources that can enrich the target domain's knowledge. This LEKA method extracts key information from textual information from the target domain, retrieves pertinent data from external data libraries, and harmonizes retrieved data with the target domain data in feature space and marginal probability measures. We validate the effectiveness of our approach through extensive experiments across various domains and demonstrate significant improvements over traditional methods in reducing computational costs, automating data alignment, and optimizing transfer learning outcomes.

The rapid evolution of cyber threats has outpaced traditional detection methodologies, necessitating innovative approaches capable of addressing the adaptive and complex behaviors of modern adversaries. A novel framework was introduced, leveraging Temporal-Correlation Graphs to model the intricate relationships and temporal patterns inherent in malicious operations. The approach dynamically captured behavioral anomalies, offering a robust mechanism for distinguishing between benign and malicious activities in real-time scenarios. Extensive experiments demonstrated the framework's effectiveness across diverse ransomware families, with consistently high precision, recall, and overall detection accuracy. Comparative evaluations highlighted its better performance over traditional signature-based and heuristic methods, particularly in handling polymorphic and previously unseen ransomware variants. The architecture was designed with scalability and modularity in mind, ensuring compatibility with enterprise-scale environments while maintaining resource efficiency. Analysis of encryption speeds, anomaly patterns, and temporal correlations provided deeper insights into the operational strategies of ransomware, validating the framework's adaptability to evolving threats. The research contributes to advancing cybersecurity technologies by integrating dynamic graph analytics and machine learning for future innovations in threat detection. Results from this study underline the potential for transforming the way organizations detect and mitigate complex cyberattacks.

Sparse autoencoders (SAEs) are an increasingly popular technique for interpreting the internal representations of transformers. In this paper, we apply SAEs to 'interpret' random transformers, i.e., transformers where the parameters are sampled IID from a Gaussian rather than trained on text data. We find that random and trained transformers produce similarly interpretable SAE latents, and we confirm this finding quantitatively using an open-source auto-interpretability pipeline. Further, we find that SAE quality metrics are broadly similar for random and trained transformers. We find that these results hold across model sizes and layers. We discuss a number of number interesting questions that this work raises for the use of SAEs and auto-interpretability in the context of mechanistic interpretability.