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HEROFILTER: Adaptive Spectral Graph Filter for Varying Heterophilic Relations

Neural Information Processing Systems

Graph heterophily, where connected nodes have different labels, has attracted significant interest recently. Most existing works adopt a simplified approach using low-pass filters for homophilic graphs and high-pass filters for heterophilic graphs. However, we discover that the relationship between graph heterophily and spectral filters is more complex - the optimal filter response varies across frequency components and does not follow a strict monotonic correlation with heterophily degree. This finding challenges conventional fixed filter designs and suggests the need for adaptive filtering to preserve expressiveness in graph embeddings. Formally, natural questions arise: Given a heterophilic graph G, how and to what extent will the varying heterophily degree of G affect the performance of GNNs? How can we design adaptive filters to fit those varying heterophilic connections? Our theoretical analysis reveals that the average frequency response of GNNs and graph heterophily degree do not follow a strict monotonic correlation, necessitating adaptive graph filters to guarantee good generalization performance. Hence, we propose HEROFILTER, a simple yet powerful GNN, which extracts information across the heterophily spectrum and combines salient representations through adaptive mixing. HEROFILTER's superior performance achieves up to 9.2% accuracy improvement over leading baselines across homophilic and heterophilic graphs.


Epistemic Uncertainty Estimation in Regression Ensemble Models with Pairwise Epistemic Estimators Lucas Berry, David Meger Department of Computer Science McGill University lucas.berry@mail.mcgill.ca

Neural Information Processing Systems

This work introduces a novel approach, Pairwise Epistemic Estimators (PairEpEsts), for epistemic uncertainty estimation in ensemble models for regression tasks using pairwise-distance estimators (PaiDEs). By utilizing the pairwise distances between model components, PaiDEs establish bounds on entropy. We leverage this capability to enhance the performance of Bayesian Active Learning by Disagreement (BALD). Notably, unlike sample-based Monte Carlo estimators, PairEpEsts can estimate epistemic uncertainty up to 100 times faster and demonstrate superior performance in higher dimensions. To validate our approach, we conducted a varied series of regression experiments on commonly used benchmarks: 1D sinusoidal data, Pendulum, Hopper, Ant, and Humanoid, demonstrating PairEpEsts' advantage over baselines in high-dimensional regression active learning.


scSplit: Bringing Severity Cognizance to Image Decomposition in Fluorescence Microscopy

Neural Information Processing Systems

Fluorescence microscopy, while being a key driver for progress in the life sciences, is also subject to technical limitations. To overcome them, computational multiplexing techniques have recently been proposed, which allow multiple cellular structures to be captured in a single image and later be unmixed. Existing image decomposition methods are trained on a set of superimposed input images and the respective unmixed target images. It is critical to note that the relative strength (mixing ratio) of the superimposed images for a given input is a priori unknown. However, existing methods are trained on a fixed intensity ratio of superimposed inputs, making them not cognizant of the range of relative intensities that can occur in fluorescence microscopy.


Universal Video Temporal Grounding with Generative Multi-modal Large Language Models

Neural Information Processing Systems

This paper presents a computational model for universal video temporal grounding, which accurately localizes temporal moments in videos based on natural language queries (e.g., questions or descriptions). Unlike existing methods that are often limited to specific video domains or durations, we propose UniTime, a robust and universal video grounding model leveraging the strong vision-language understanding capabilities of generative Multi-modal Large Language Models (MLLMs). Our model effectively handles videos of diverse views, genres, and lengths while comprehending complex language queries. The key contributions include: (i) We consider steering strong MLLMs for temporal grounding in videos. To enable precise timestamp outputs, we incorporate temporal information by interleaving timestamp tokens with video tokens.


Windows Media Player update still can't beat the old version

PCWorld

PCWorld examines the latest Windows Media Player update, comparing its functionality and performance against the classic legacy version that many users still prefer. The updated media player remains inferior to its predecessor, lacking key features and polish that made the original version reliable for audio and video playback. Despite Microsoft's efforts to modernize the application, users may find better value sticking with the older Windows Media Player for their multimedia needs. Windows Insider members have been given access to a new version of Windows Media Player. In taking a closer look at the new version, Windows Latest notes that it offers a number of improvements, not least in terms of stability and the handling of subtitles.


AI is making journalistic language more repetitive and predictable – and it's a problem for all of us

AIHub

AI is making journalistic language more repetitive and predictable - and it's a problem for all of us What happens to language when a growing amount of text published in the press, online and on social media is written by machines? This question is not just important for the profession of journalism - it also has an impact on the richness of the language we all use to comprehend, describe and discuss reality itself. Historically, the press has been a space where public language grows and becomes richer. It is not, of course, the only driver of linguistic change, but it is one of the fields where new or emerging words, turns of phrase and ways of describing facts begin to circulate within society. Studies on journalistic language and neologisms clearly demonstrate that newspapers are platforms for the creation and dissemination of new vocabulary, especially when it is needed to report on events, technology and social changes for a broad audience.


Self-Generated In-Context Examples Improve LLMAgents for Sequential Decision-Making Tasks

Neural Information Processing Systems

Improving Large Language Model (LLM) agents for sequential decision-making tasks typically requires extensive task-specific knowledge engineering--custom prompts, curated examples, and specialized observation/action spaces. We investigate a different approach where agents automatically improve by learning from their own successful experiences without human intervention. Our method constructs and refines a database of self-generated trajectories that serve as in-context examples for future tasks.


124 million passwords added to breach database. Yours may be in there, too

PCWorld

PCWorld reports that Have I Been Pwned added 56 million email addresses and 124 million passwords from infostealer malware targeting Windows PCs. These credentials were stolen directly from infected devices rather than corporate breaches, with users often unaware of the ongoing data theft. Immediate password changes, two-factor authentication, and unique passwords for each service are essential to protect against these prevalent cybercriminal tools. The data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) has added a large number of compromised login credentials to its database. In total, 56.3 million email addresses and 124 million passwords have been added. What makes this dataset notable is its origin. Unlike many previous entries, it does not stem from a single cyberattack on an online service. Instead, HIBP says the information was extracted directly from infected computers and devices.


Read the Full Text of the 14-Point Draft Agreement Between the U.S. and Iran

TIME - Tech

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Short-length Adversarial Training Helps LLMs Defend Long-length Jailbreak Attacks: Theoretical and Empirical Evidence

Neural Information Processing Systems

Jailbreak attacks against large language models (LLMs) aim to induce harmful behaviors in LLMs through carefully crafted adversarial prompts. To mitigate attacks, one way is to perform adversarial training (AT)-based alignment, i.e., training LLMs on some of the most adversarial prompts to help them learn how to behave safely under attacks. During AT, the length of adversarial prompts plays a critical role in the robustness of aligned LLMs. While long-length adversarial prompts during AT might lead to strong LLM robustness, their synthesis however is very resource-consuming, which may limit the application of LLMAT. This paper focuses on adversarial suffix jailbreak attacks and unveils that to defend against a jailbreak attack with an adversarial suffix of length Θ(M), it is enough to align LLMs on prompts with adversarial suffixes of length Θ( M).