Powerful foundation models, including large language models (LLMs), with Transformer architectures have ushered in a new era of Generative AI across various industries. Industry and research community have witnessed a large number of new applications, based on those foundation models. Such applications include question and answer, customer services, image and video generation, and code completions, among others. However, as the number of model parameters reaches to hundreds of billions, their deployment incurs prohibitive inference costs and high latency in real-world scenarios. As a result, the demand for cost-effective and fast inference using AI accelerators is ever more higher. To this end, our tutorial offers a comprehensive discussion on complementary inference optimization techniques using AI accelerators. Beginning with an overview of basic Transformer architectures and deep learning system frameworks, we deep dive into system optimization techniques for fast and memory-efficient attention computations and discuss how they can be implemented efficiently on AI accelerators. Next, we describe architectural elements that are key for fast transformer inference. Finally, we examine various model compression and fast decoding strategies in the same context.

We consider the problem of active learning for global sensitivity analysis of expensive black-box functions. Our aim is to efficiently learn the importance of different input variables, e.g., in vehicle safety experimentation, we study the impact of the thickness of various components on safety objectives. Since function evaluations are expensive, we use active learning to prioritize experimental resources where they yield the most value. We propose novel active learning acquisition functions that directly target key quantities of derivative-based global sensitivity measures (DGSMs) under Gaussian process surrogate models. We showcase the first application of active learning directly to DGSMs, and develop tractable uncertainty reduction and information gain acquisition functions for these measures. Through comprehensive evaluation on synthetic and real-world problems, our study demonstrates how these active learning acquisition strategies substantially enhance the sample efficiency of DGSM estimation, particularly with limited evaluation budgets. Our work paves the way for more efficient and accurate sensitivity analysis in various scientific and engineering applications.

This paper presents ARCO, an adaptive Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL)-based co-optimizing compilation framework designed to enhance the efficiency of mapping machine learning (ML) models - such as Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) - onto diverse hardware platforms. The framework incorporates three specialized actor-critic agents within MARL, each dedicated to a distinct aspect of compilation/optimization at an abstract level: one agent focuses on hardware, while two agents focus on software optimizations. This integration results in a collaborative hardware/software co-optimization strategy that improves the precision and speed of DNN deployments. Concentrating on high-confidence configurations simplifies the search space and delivers superior performance compared to current optimization methods. The ARCO framework surpasses existing leading frameworks, achieving a throughput increase of up to 37.95% while reducing the optimization time by up to 42.2% across various DNNs.

This article focuses on the trajectory tracking problem of mobile manipulators (MMs). Firstly, we construct a position and orientation model predictive tracking control (POMPTC) scheme for mobile manipulators. The proposed POMPTC scheme can simultaneously minimize the tracking error, joint velocity, and joint acceleration. Moreover, it can achieve synchronous control for the position and orientation of the end-effector. Secondly, a finite-time convergent neural dynamics (FTCND) model is constructed to find the optimal solution of the POMPTC scheme. Then, based on the proposed POMPTC scheme, a non-singular fast terminal sliding model (NFTSM) control method is presented, which considers the disturbances caused by the base motion on the manipulator at the dynamic level. It can achieve finite-time tracking performance and improve the anti-disturbances ability. Finally, simulation and experiments show that the proposed control method has the advantages of strong robustness, fast convergence, and high control accuracy.

Autonomous driving may be the most important application scenario of next generation, the development of wireless access technologies enabling reliable and low-latency vehicle communication becomes crucial. To address this, 3GPP has developed Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) specifications based on 5G New Radio (NR) technology, where Mode 2 Side-Link (SL) communication resembles Mode 4 in LTE-V2X, allowing direct communication between vehicles. This supplements SL communication in LTE-V2X and represents the latest advancement in cellular V2X (C-V2X) with improved performance of NR-V2X. However, in NR-V2X Mode 2, resource collisions still occur, and thus degrade the age of information (AOI). Therefore, a interference cancellation method is employed to mitigate this impact by combining NR-V2X with Non-Orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technology. In NR-V2X, when vehicles select smaller resource reservation interval (RRI), higher-frequency transmissions take ore energy to reduce AoI. Hence, it is important to jointly consider AoI and communication energy consumption based on NR-V2X communication. Then, we formulate such an optimization problem and employ the Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithm to compute the optimal transmission RRI and transmission power for each transmitting vehicle to reduce the energy consumption of each transmitting vehicle and the AoI of each receiving vehicle. Extensive simulations have demonstrated the performance of our proposed algorithm.

The field of evolutionary many-task optimization (EMaTO) is increasingly recognized for its ability to streamline the resolution of optimization challenges with repetitive characteristics, thereby conserving computational resources. This paper tackles the challenge of crafting efficient knowledge transfer mechanisms within EMaTO, a task complicated by the computational demands of individual task evaluations. We introduce a novel framework that employs a complex network to comprehensively analyze the dynamics of knowledge transfer between tasks within EMaTO. By extracting and scrutinizing the knowledge transfer network from existing EMaTO algorithms, we evaluate the influence of network modifications on overall algorithmic efficacy. Our findings indicate that these networks are diverse, displaying community-structured directed graph characteristics, with their network density adapting to different task sets. This research underscores the viability of integrating complex network concepts into EMaTO to refine knowledge transfer processes, paving the way for future advancements in the domain.

This research addresses the challenge of integrating forecasting and optimization in energy management systems, focusing on the impacts of switching costs, forecast accuracy, and stability. It proposes a novel framework for analyzing online optimization problems with switching costs and enabled by deterministic and probabilistic forecasts. Through empirical evaluation and theoretical analysis, the research reveals the balance between forecast accuracy, stability, and switching costs in shaping policy performance. Conducted in the context of battery scheduling within energy management applications, it introduces a metric for evaluating probabilistic forecast stability and examines the effects of forecast accuracy and stability on optimization outcomes using the real-world case of the Citylearn 2022 competition. Findings indicate that switching costs significantly influence the trade-off between forecast accuracy and stability, highlighting the importance of integrated systems that enable collaboration between forecasting and operational units for improved decision-making. The study shows that committing to a policy for longer periods can be advantageous over frequent updates. Results also show a correlation between forecast stability and policy performance, suggesting that stable forecasts can mitigate switching costs. The proposed framework provides valuable insights for energy sector decision-makers and forecast practitioners when designing the operation of an energy management system.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) aims at identifying the underlying causes of system faults by uncovering and analyzing the causal structure from complex systems. It has been widely used in many application domains. Reliable diagnostic conclusions are of great importance in mitigating system failures and financial losses. However, previous studies implicitly assume a full observation of the system, which neglect the effect of partial observation (i.e., missing nodes and latent malfunction). As a result, they fail in deriving reliable RCA results. In this paper, we unveil the issues of unobserved confounders and heterogeneity in partial observation and come up with a new problem of root cause analysis with partially observed data. To achieve this, we propose PORCA, a novel RCA framework which can explore reliable root causes under both unobserved confounders and unobserved heterogeneity. PORCA leverages magnified score-based causal discovery to efficiently optimize acyclic directed mixed graph under unobserved confounders. In addition, we also develop a heterogeneity-aware scheduling strategy to provide adaptive sample weights. Extensive experimental results on one synthetic and two real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed framework.

The main goal of diversity optimization is to find a diverse set of solutions which satisfy some lower bound on their fitness. Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are often used for such tasks, since they are naturally designed to optimize populations of solutions. This approach to diversity optimization, called EDO, has been previously studied from theoretical perspective, but most studies considered only EAs with a trivial offspring population such as the $(\mu + 1)$ EA. In this paper we give an example instance of a $k$-vertex cover problem, which highlights a critical difference of the diversity optimization from the regular single-objective optimization, namely that there might be a locally optimal population from which we can escape only by replacing at least two individuals at once, which the $(\mu + 1)$ algorithms cannot do. We also show that the $(\mu + \lambda)$ EA with $\lambda \ge \mu$ can effectively find a diverse population on $k$-vertex cover, if using a mutation operator inspired by Branson and Sutton (TCS 2023). To avoid the problem of subset selection which arises in the $(\mu + \lambda)$ EA when it optimizes diversity, we also propose the $(1_\mu + 1_\mu)$ EA$_D$, which is an analogue of the $(1 + 1)$ EA for populations, and which is also efficient at optimizing diversity on the $k$-vertex cover problem.

Federated Learning (FL) offers innovative solutions for privacy-preserving collaborative machine learning (ML). Despite its promising potential, FL is vulnerable to various attacks due to its distributed nature, affecting the entire life cycle of FL services. These threats can harm the model's utility or compromise participants' privacy, either directly or indirectly. In response, numerous defense frameworks have been proposed, demonstrating effectiveness in specific settings and scenarios. To provide a clear understanding of the current research landscape, this paper reviews the most representative and state-of-the-art threats and defense frameworks throughout the FL service life cycle. We start by identifying FL threats that harm utility and privacy, including those with potential or direct impacts. Then, we dive into the defense frameworks, analyze the relationship between threats and defenses, and compare the trade-offs among different defense strategies. Finally, we summarize current research bottlenecks and offer insights into future research directions to conclude this survey. We hope this survey sheds light on trustworthy FL research and contributes to the FL community.