Recent Newton-type federated learning algorithms have demonstrated linear convergence with respect to the communication rounds. However, communicating Hessian matrices is often unfeasible due to their quadratic communication complexity. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to tackle this issue while still achieving fast convergence rates. Our proposed method, named as Federated Newton Sketch methods (FedNS), approximates the centralized Newton's method by communicating the sketched square-root Hessian instead of the exact Hessian. To enhance communication efficiency, we reduce the sketch size to match the effective dimension of the Hessian matrix. We provide convergence analysis based on statistical learning for the federated Newton sketch approaches. Specifically, our approaches reach super-linear convergence rates w.r.t. the communication rounds for the first time. We validate the effectiveness of our algorithms through various experiments, which coincide with our theoretical findings.

We introduce a new framework of adversarial attacks, named calibration attacks, in which the attacks are generated and organized to trap victim models to be miscalibrated without altering their original accuracy, hence seriously endangering the trustworthiness of the models and any decision-making based on their confidence scores. Specifically, we identify four novel forms of calibration attacks: underconfidence attacks, overconfidence attacks, maximum miscalibration attacks, and random confidence attacks, in both the black-box and white-box setups. We then test these new attacks on typical victim models with comprehensive datasets, demonstrating that even with a relatively low number of queries, the attacks can create significant calibration mistakes. We further provide detailed analyses to understand different aspects of calibration attacks. Building on that, we investigate the effectiveness of widely used adversarial defences and calibration methods against these types of attacks, which then inspires us to devise two novel defences against such calibration attacks.

This work introduces a benchmark assessing the performance of clustering German text embeddings in different domains. This benchmark is driven by the increasing use of clustering neural text embeddings in tasks that require the grouping of texts (such as topic modeling) and the need for German resources in existing benchmarks. We provide an initial analysis for a range of pre-trained mono- and multilingual models evaluated on the outcome of different clustering algorithms. Results include strong performing mono- and multilingual models. Reducing the dimensions of embeddings can further improve clustering. Additionally, we conduct experiments with continued pre-training for German BERT models to estimate the benefits of this additional training. Our experiments suggest that significant performance improvements are possible for short text. All code and datasets are publicly available.

Recently there is a growing focus on graph data, and multi-view graph clustering has become a popular area of research interest. Most of the existing methods are only applicable to homophilous graphs, yet the extensive real-world graph data can hardly fulfill the homophily assumption, where the connected nodes tend to belong to the same class. Several studies have pointed out that the poor performance on heterophilous graphs is actually due to the fact that conventional graph neural networks (GNNs), which are essentially low-pass filters, discard information other than the low-frequency information on the graph. Nevertheless, on certain graphs, particularly heterophilous ones, neglecting high-frequency information and focusing solely on low-frequency information impedes the learning of node representations. To break this limitation, our motivation is to perform graph filtering that is closely related to the homophily degree of the given graph, with the aim of fully leveraging both low-frequency and high-frequency signals to learn distinguishable node embedding. In this work, we propose Adaptive Hybrid Graph Filter for Multi-View Graph Clustering (AHGFC). Specifically, a graph joint process and graph joint aggregation matrix are first designed by using the intrinsic node features and adjacency relationship, which makes the low and high-frequency signals on the graph more distinguishable. Then we design an adaptive hybrid graph filter that is related to the homophily degree, which learns the node embedding based on the graph joint aggregation matrix. After that, the node embedding of each view is weighted and fused into a consensus embedding for the downstream task. Experimental results show that our proposed model performs well on six datasets containing homophilous and heterophilous graphs.

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a prevalent chronic disease with a significant risk of serious health complications and negative impacts on the quality of life. Given the impact of individual characteristics and lifestyle on the treatment plan and patient outcomes, it is crucial to develop precise and personalized management strategies. Artificial intelligence (AI) provides great promise in combining patterns from various data sources with nurses' expertise to achieve optimal care. Methods: This is a 6-month ancillary study among T2D patients (n = 20, age = 57 +- 10). Participants were randomly assigned to an intervention (AI, n=10) group to receive daily AI-generated individualized feedback or a control group without receiving the daily feedback (non-AI, n=10) in the last three months. The study developed an online nurse-in-the-loop predictive control (ONLC) model that utilizes a predictive digital twin (PDT). The PDT was developed using a transfer-learning-based Artificial Neural Network. The PDT was trained on participants self-monitoring data (weight, food logs, physical activity, glucose) from the first three months, and the online control algorithm applied particle swarm optimization to identify impactful behavioral changes for maintaining the patient's glucose and weight levels for the next three months. The ONLC provided the intervention group with individualized feedback and recommendations via text messages. The PDT was re-trained weekly to improve its performance. Findings: The trained ONLC model achieved >=80% prediction accuracy across all patients while the model was tuned online. Participants in the intervention group exhibited a trend of improved daily steps and stable or improved total caloric and total carb intake as recommended.

Traditionally, pathological analysis and diagnosis are performed by manually eyeballing glass slide specimens under a microscope by an expert. The whole slide image is the digital specimen produced from the glass slide. Whole slide image enabled specimens to be observed on a computer screen and led to computational pathology where computer vision and artificial intelligence are utilized for automated analysis and diagnosis. With the current computational advancement, the entire whole slide image can be analyzed autonomously without human supervision. However, the analysis could fail or lead to wrong diagnosis if the whole slide image is affected by tissue artifacts such as tissue fold or air bubbles depending on the severity. Existing artifact detection methods rely on experts for severity assessment to eliminate artifact affected regions from the analysis. This process is time consuming, exhausting and undermines the goal of automated analysis or removal of artifacts without evaluating their severity, which could result in the loss of diagnostically important data. Therefore, it is necessary to detect artifacts and then assess their severity automatically. In this paper, we propose a system that incorporates severity evaluation with artifact detection utilizing convolutional neural networks. The proposed system uses DoubleUNet to segment artifacts and an ensemble network of six fine tuned convolutional neural network models to determine severity. This method outperformed current state of the art in accuracy by 9 percent for artifact segmentation and achieved a strong correlation of 97 percent with the evaluation of pathologists for severity assessment. The robustness of the system was demonstrated using our proposed heterogeneous dataset and practical usability was ensured by integrating it with an automated analysis system.

Abstract: As a pivotal approach in machine learning and data science, manifold learning aims to uncover the intrinsic low-dimensional structure within complex nonlinear manifolds in highdimensional space. By exploiting the manifold hypothesis, various techniques for nonlinear dimension reduction have been developed to facilitate visualization, classification, clustering, and gaining key insights. Although existing manifold learning methods have achieved remarkable successes, they still suffer from extensive distortions incurred in the global structure, which hinders the understanding of underlying patterns. Scalability issues also limit their applicability for handling large-scale data. Here, we propose a scalable manifold learning (scML) method that can manipulate large-scale and high-dimensional data in an efficient manner. It starts by seeking a set of landmarks to construct the low-dimensional skeleton of the entire data, and then incorporates the nonlandmarks into the learned space based on the constrained locally linear embedding (CLLE). We empirically validated the effectiveness of scML on synthetic datasets and real-world benchmarks of different types, and applied it to analyze the single-cell transcriptomics and detect anomalies in electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. The experiments demonstrate notable robustness in embedding quality as the sample rate decreases. Dimension reduction plays an indispensable role in both preprocessing for machine learning tasks and visualization for high-dimensional data [1, 2]. It is often applied to address the curse of dimensionality in data science, which refers to the phenomenon where the amount of data required to achieve a certain level of accuracy increases exponentially as the number of dimensions increases [3]. This makes models difficult to represent the features comprehensively and may lead to an overfitting problem [4].

In this paper we show how tensor networks help in developing explainability of machine learning algorithms. Specifically, we develop an unsupervised clustering algorithm based on Matrix Product States (MPS) and apply it in the context of a real use-case of adversary-generated threat intelligence. Our investigation proves that MPS rival traditional deep learning models such as autoencoders and GANs in terms of performance, while providing much richer model interpretability. Our approach naturally facilitates the extraction of feature-wise probabilities, Von Neumann Entropy, and mutual information, offering a compelling narrative for classification of anomalies and fostering an unprecedented level of transparency and interpretability, something fundamental to understand the rationale behind artificial intelligence decisions.

Although this method has demonstrated its efficacy in numerous scenarios and remains relevant, there is an undeniable shift towards emphasizing autonomy and broader applicability in open scenarios. Consequently, there is a fervent quest for the emergence of a new era of Machine Learning (ML) models characterized by enhanced autonomy and generalization to perform a wide variety of tasks. But most formulations of such tasks still assume a so-called closed set scenario: all samples (or instances) at inference time belong to at least one of the classes existing in the training data from which the ML model was learned. Unfortunately, in many real-world circumstances, this closed set assumption may not necessarily hold, giving rise to open set environments where Unknown Classes (UC) can emerge at testing time. When this occurs, the model must detect the emergence of UC; otherwise, ML models designed under the open set assumption will incorrectly classify instances belonging to UC as any of the known classes (KC), often with a high confidence in their predictions. In this context, the Open Set Recognition (OSR) field has emerged [1] to address this problem by endowing ML models with the capacity to detect (and adapt) their knowledge to the appearance of new classes.

Model selection is a necessary step in unsupervised machine learning. Despite numerous criteria and metrics, model selection remains subjective. A high degree of subjectivity may lead to questions about repeatability and reproducibility of various machine learning studies and doubts about the robustness of models deployed in the real world. Yet, the impact of modelers' preferences on model selection outcomes remains largely unexplored. This study uses the Hidden Markov Model as an example to investigate the subjectivity involved in model selection. We asked 33 participants and three Large Language Models (LLMs) to make model selections in three scenarios. Results revealed variability and inconsistencies in both the participants' and the LLMs' choices, especially when different criteria and metrics disagree. Sources of subjectivity include varying opinions on the importance of different criteria and metrics, differing views on how parsimonious a model should be, and how the size of a dataset should influence model selection. The results underscore the importance of developing a more standardized way to document subjective choices made in model selection processes.