The remarkable success of large language models (LLMs) across various multi-modality applications is well established. However, integrating large language models with humans, or brain dynamics, remains relatively unexplored. In this paper, we introduce BELT-2, a pioneering multi-task model designed to enhance both encoding and decoding performance from EEG signals. To bolster the quality of the EEG encoder, BELT-2 is the first work to innovatively 1) adopt byte-pair encoding (BPE)-level EEG-language alignment and 2) integrate multi-task training and decoding in the EEG domain. Inspired by the idea of \textbf{\textit{Bridging the Brain with GPT}}, we further connect the multi-task EEG encoder with LLMs by utilizing prefix-tuning on intermediary output from the EEG encoder. These innovative efforts make BELT-2 a pioneering breakthrough, making it the first work in the field capable of decoding coherent and readable sentences from non-invasive brain signals. Our experiments highlight significant advancements over prior techniques in both quantitative and qualitative measures, achieving a decoding performance with a BLEU-1 score of 52.2\% on the ZuCo dataset. Furthermore, BELT-2 shows a remarkable improvement ranging from 31\% to 162\% on other translation benchmarks. Codes can be accessed via the provided anonymous link~\footnote{https://anonymous.4open.science/r/BELT-2-0048}.

Machine learning (ML) classifiers serve as essential tools facilitating classification and prediction across various domains. The performance of these algorithms should be known to ensure their reliable application. In certain fields, receiver operating characteristic and precision-recall curves are frequently employed to assess machine learning algorithms without accounting for the impact of process parameters. However, it may be essential to evaluate the performance of these algorithms in relation to such parameters. As a performance evaluation metric capable of considering the effects of process parameters, this paper uses a modified probability of detection (POD) approach to assess the reliability of ML-based algorithms. As an example, the POD-based approach is employed to assess ML models used for predicting the lane changing behavior of a vehicle driver. The time remaining to the predicted (and therefore unknown) lane changing event is considered as process parameter. The hit/miss approach to POD is taken here and modified by considering the probability of lane changing derived from ML algorithms at each time step, and obtaining the final result of the analysis accordingly. This improves the reliability of results compared to the standard hit/miss approach, which considers the outcome of the classifiers as either 0 or 1, while also simplifying evaluation compared to the \^a versus a approach. Performance evaluation results of the proposed approach are compared with those obtained with the standard hit/miss approach and a pre-developed \^a versus a approach to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The comparison shows that this method provides an averaging conservative behavior with the advantage of enhancing the reliability of the hit/miss approach to POD while retaining its simplicity.

This thesis investigates three areas targeted at improving the reliability of machine learning; fairness in machine learning, strategic classification, and algorithmic robustness. Each of these domains has special properties or structure that can complicate learning. A theme throughout this thesis is thinking about ways in which a'plain' empirical risk minimization algorithm will be misleading or ineffective because of a mis-match between classical learning theory assumptions and specific properties of some data distribution in the wild. The overarching research goal for these related topics is to provide a crisp mathematical model for each learning scenario that exposes different failure modes and makes trade-offs between important metrics explicit in order to provide algorithmic advice or recommendations to practitioners and expose gaps for future research. By tuning our learning algorithms to be more distribution specific in these scenarios, the resulting learned system will exhibit higher utility and avoid catastrophic failure modes. This research is grounded in the theory of machine learning and is fundamentally mathematical in nature, with empirical support when appropriate. Theory is particularly important in these sensitive domains as it is unclear which poor behavior in deployed systems is a natural or benign consequence of a learning system with the underlying distribution,contrasting with problematic but correctable behavior caused by an error in algorithm design or implementation, how to mitigate these issues, or what a successful outcome even looks like in each problem. Theoretical understanding in each domain can help guide best practices and allow for the design of effective, reliable, and robust systems.

Current anomaly detection methods excel with benchmark industrial data but struggle with natural images and medical data due to varying definitions of 'normal' and 'abnormal.' This makes accurate identification of deviations in these fields particularly challenging. Especially for 3D brain MRI data, all the state-of-the-art models are reconstruction-based with 3D convolutional neural networks which are memory-intensive, time-consuming and producing noisy outputs that require further post-processing. We propose a framework called Simple Slice-based Network (SimpleSliceNet), which utilizes a model pre-trained on ImageNet and fine-tuned on a separate MRI dataset as a 2D slice feature extractor to reduce computational cost. We aggregate the extracted features to perform anomaly detection tasks on 3D brain MRI volumes. Our model integrates a conditional normalizing flow to calculate log likelihood of features and employs the Semi-Push-Pull Mechanism to enhance anomaly detection accuracy. The results indicate improved performance, showcasing our model's remarkable adaptability and effectiveness when addressing the challenges exists in brain MRI data. In addition, for the large-scale 3D brain volumes, our model SimpleSliceNet outperforms the state-of-the-art 2D and 3D models in terms of accuracy, memory usage and time consumption. Code is available at: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/SimpleSliceNet-8EA3.

This is the second manuscript in a two-part series that uses diagnostic testing to understand the connection between prevalence (i.e. number of elements in a class), uncertainty quantification (UQ), and classification theory. Part I considered the context of supervised machine learning (ML) and established a duality between prevalence and the concept of relative conditional probability. The key idea of that analysis was to train a family of discriminative classifiers by minimizing a sum of prevalence-weighted empirical risk functions. The resulting outputs can be interpreted as relative probability level-sets, which thereby yield uncertainty estimates in the class labels. This procedure also demonstrated that certain discriminative and generative ML models are equivalent. Part II considers the extent to which these results can be extended to tasks in unsupervised learning through recourse to ideas in linear algebra. We first observe that the distribution of an impure population, for which the class of a corresponding sample is unknown, can be parameterized in terms of a prevalence. This motivates us to introduce the concept of linearly independent populations, which have different but unknown prevalence values. Using this, we identify an isomorphism between classifiers defined in terms of impure and pure populations. In certain cases, this also leads to a nonlinear system of equations whose solution yields the prevalence values of the linearly independent populations, fully realizing unsupervised learning as a generalization of supervised learning. We illustrate our methods in the context of synthetic data and a research-use-only SARS-CoV-2 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

The Word Error Rate (WER) is the common measure of accuracy for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). Transcripts are usually pre-processed by substituting specific characters to account for non-semantic differences. As a result of this normalisation, information on the accuracy of punctuation or capitalisation is lost. We present a non-destructive, token-based approach using an extended Levenshtein distance algorithm to compute a robust WER and additional orthographic metrics. Transcription errors are also classified more granularly by existing string similarity and phonetic algorithms. An evaluation on several datasets demonstrates the practical equivalence of our approach compared to common WER computations. We also provide an exemplary analysis of derived use cases, such as a punctuation error rate, and a web application for interactive use and visualisation of our implementation. The code is available open-source.

The exponential growth of scientific literature necessitates advanced tools for effective knowledge exploration. We present Knowledge Navigator, a system designed to enhance exploratory search abilities by organizing and structuring the retrieved documents from broad topical queries into a navigable, two-level hierarchy of named and descriptive scientific topics and subtopics. This structured organization provides an overall view of the research themes in a domain, while also enabling iterative search and deeper knowledge discovery within specific subtopics by allowing users to refine their focus and retrieve additional relevant documents. Knowledge Navigator combines LLM capabilities with cluster-based methods to enable an effective browsing method. We demonstrate our approach's effectiveness through automatic and manual evaluations on two novel benchmarks, CLUSTREC-COVID and SCITOC. Our code, prompts, and benchmarks are made publicly available.

In this paper we introduce the so-called Generalized Naive Bayes structure as an extension of the Naive Bayes structure. We give a new greedy algorithm that finds a good fitting Generalized Naive Bayes (GNB) probability distribution. We prove that this fits the data at least as well as the probability distribution determined by the classical Naive Bayes (NB). Then, under a not very restrictive condition, we give a second algorithm for which we can prove that it finds the optimal GNB probability distribution, i.e. best fitting structure in the sense of KL divergence. Both algorithms are constructed to maximize the information content and aim to minimize redundancy. Based on these algorithms, new methods for feature selection are introduced. We discuss the similarities and differences to other related algorithms in terms of structure, methodology, and complexity. Experimental results show, that the algorithms introduced outperform the related algorithms in many cases.

We propose a novel machine learning approach for inferring causal variables of a target variable from observations. Our goal is to identify both direct and indirect causes within a system, thereby efficiently regulating the target variable when the difficulty and cost of intervening on each causal variable vary. Our method employs a neural network trained to identify causality through supervised learning on simulated data. By implementing a local-inference strategy, we achieve linear complexity with respect to the number of variables, efficiently scaling up to thousands of variables. Empirical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in identifying causal relationships within large-scale gene regulatory networks, outperforming existing causal discovery methods that primarily focus on direct causality.

Early-stage detection is critical, as it significantly improves the five-year survival rate from a dismal 5% in late-stage diagnoses to over 50% [2]. The advent of advanced screening technologies promises to substantially improve patient prognoses. The field of medical imaging has been revolutionized by recent strides in deep learning, yielding significant enhancements in the detection and classification of lung cancer from CT images. Innovations such as the 3D Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) approach by Diviya et al. (2024) and the LCD-Capsule Network by Bushara et al. (2023) have demonstrated the potential of these models to transform early detection and diagnosis [3, 4]. X-ray and computed tomography (CT) scans are pivotal in lung cancer diagnostics, offering high-resolution imagery that outperforms traditional radiography in detecting small and low-contrast pulmonary nodules [5, 6, 7].