In this paper, we propose FFCI, a framework for fine-grained summarization evaluation that comprises four elements: faithfulness (degree of factual consistency with the source), focus (precision of summary content relative to the reference), coverage (recall of summary content relative to the reference), and inter-sentential coherence (document fluency between adjacent sentences). We construct a novel dataset for focus, coverage, and inter-sentential coherence, and develop automatic methods for evaluating each of the four dimensions of FFCI based on cross-comparison of evaluation metrics and model-based evaluation methods, including question answering (QA) approaches, semantic textual similarity (STS), next-sentence prediction (NSP), and scores derived from 19 pre-trained language models. We then apply the developed metrics in evaluating a broad range of summarization models across two datasets, with some surprising findings.

State-of-the-art multilingual machine translation relies on a shared encoder-decoder. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach based on language-specific encoder-decoders, which can be easily extended to new languages by learning their corresponding modules. To establish a common interlingua representation, we simultaneously train N initial languages. Our experiments show that the proposed approach improves over the shared encoder-decoder for the initial languages and when adding new languages, without the need to retrain the remaining modules. All in all, our work closes the gap between shared and language-specific encoder-decoders, advancing toward modular multilingual machine translation systems that can be flexibly extended in lifelong learning settings.

In human-aware planning systems, a planning agent might need to explain its plan to a human user when that plan appears to be non-feasible or sub-optimal. A popular approach, called model reconciliation, has been proposed as a way to bring the model of the human user closer to the agent’s model. To do so, the agent provides an explanation that can be used to update the model of human such that the agent’s plan is feasible or optimal to the human user. Existing approaches to solve this problem have been based on automated planning methods and have been limited to classical planning problems only. In this paper, we approach the model reconciliation problem from a different perspective, that of knowledge representation and reasoning, and demonstrate that our approach can be applied not only to classical planning problems but also hybrid systems planning problems with durative actions and events/processes. In particular, we propose a logic-based framework for explanation generation, where given a knowledge base KBa (of an agent) and a knowledge base KBh (of a human user), each encoding their knowledge of a planning problem, and that KBa entails a query q (e.g., that a proposed plan of the agent is valid), the goal is to identify an explanation ε ⊆ KBa such that when it is used to update KBh, then the updated KBh also entails q. More specifically, we make the following contributions in this paper: (1) We formally define the notion of logic-based explanations in the context of model reconciliation problems; (2) We introduce a number of cost functions that can be used to reflect preferences between explanations; (3) We present algorithms to compute explanations for both classical planning and hybrid systems planning problems; and (4) We empirically evaluate their performance on such problems. Our empirical results demonstrate that, on classical planning problems, our approach is faster than the state of the art when the explanations are long or when the size of the knowledge base is small (e.g., the plans to be explained are short). They also demonstrate that our approach is efficient for hybrid systems planning problems. Finally, we evaluate the real-world efficacy of explanations generated by our algorithms through a controlled human user study, where we develop a proof-of-concept visualization system and use it as a medium for explanation communication.

Time-series data arises in many real-world applications (e.g., mobile health) and deep neural networks (DNNs) have shown great success in solving them. Despite their success, little is known about their robustness to adversarial attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel adversarial framework referred to as Time-Series Attacks via STATistical Features (TSA-STAT). To address the unique challenges of time-series domain, TSA-STAT employs constraints on statistical features of the time-series data to construct adversarial examples. Optimized polynomial transformations are used to create attacks that are more effective (in terms of successfully fooling DNNs) than those based on additive perturbations. We also provide certified bounds on the norm of the statistical features for constructing adversarial examples. Our experiments on diverse real-world benchmark datasets show the effectiveness of TSA-STAT in fooling DNNs for time-series domain and in improving their robustness.

This paper addresses modeling and simulating pedestrian trajectories when interacting with an autonomous vehicle in a shared space. Most pedestrian–vehicle interaction models are not suitable for predicting individual trajectories. Data-driven models yield accurate predictions but lack generalizability to new scenarios, usually do not run in real time and produce results that are poorly explainable. Current expert models do not deal with the diversity of possible pedestrian interactions with the vehicle in a shared space and lack microscopic validation. We propose an expert pedestrian model that combines the social force model and a new decision model for anticipating pedestrian–vehicle interactions. The proposed model integrates different observed pedestrian behaviors, as well as the behaviors of the social groups of pedestrians, in diverse interaction scenarios with a car. We calibrate the model by fitting the parameters values on a training set. We validate the model and evaluate its predictive potential through qualitative and quantitative comparisons with ground truth trajectories. The proposed model reproduces observed behaviors that have not been replicated by the social force model and outperforms the social force model at predicting pedestrian behavior around the vehicle on the used dataset. The model generates explainable and real-time trajectory predictions. Additional evaluation on a new dataset shows that the model generalizes well to new scenarios and can be applied to an autonomous vehicle embedded prediction.

We study the pairwise and mutual independence testing problem for multivariate functional data. Using a basis representation of functional data, we reduce this problem to testing the independence of multivariate data, which may be high-dimensional. For pairwise independence, we apply tests based on distance and Hilbert-Schmidt covariances as well as their marginal versions, which aggregate these covariances for coordinates of random processes. In the case of mutual independence, we study asymmetric and symmetric aggregating measures of pairwise dependence. A theoretical justification of the test procedures is established. In extensive simulation studies and examples based on a real economic data set, we investigate and compare the performance of the tests in terms of size control and power. An important finding is that tests based on distance and Hilbert-Schmidt covariances are usually more powerful than their marginal versions under linear dependence, while the reverse is true under non-linear dependence.

A multivariate Hawkes process enables self- and cross-excitations through a triggering matrix that behaves like an asymmetrical covariance structure, characterizing pairwise interactions between the event types. Full-rank estimation of all interactions is often infeasible in empirical settings. Models that specialize on a spatiotemporal application alleviate this obstacle by exploiting spatial locality, allowing the dyadic relationships between events to depend only on separation in time and relative distances in real Euclidean space. Here we generalize this framework to any multivariate Hawkes process, and harness it as a vessel for embedding arbitrary event types in a hidden metric space. Specifically, we propose a Hidden Hawkes Geometry (HHG) model to uncover the hidden geometry between event excitations in a multivariate point process. The low dimensionality of the embedding regularizes the structure of the inferred interactions. We develop a number of estimators and validate the model by conducting several experiments. In particular, we investigate regional infectivity dynamics of COVID-19 in an early South Korean record and recent Los Angeles confirmed cases. By additionally performing synthetic experiments on short records as well as explorations into options markets and the Ebola epidemic, we demonstrate that learning the embedding alongside a point process uncovers salient interactions in a broad range of applications.

Predicting the results of matches in sport is a challenging and interesting task. In this paper, we review a selection of studies from 1996 to 2019 that used machine learning for predicting match results in team sport. Considering both invasion sports and striking/fielding sports, we discuss commonly applied machine learning algorithms, as well as common approaches related to data and evaluation. Our study considers accuracies that have been achieved across different sports, and explores whether evidence exists to support the notion that outcomes of some sports may be inherently more difficult to predict. We also uncover common themes of future research directions and propose recommendations for future researchers. Although there remains a lack of benchmark datasets (apart from in soccer), and the differences between sports, datasets and features makes between-study comparisons difficult, as we discuss, it is possible to evaluate accuracy performance in other ways. Artificial Neural Networks were commonly applied in early studies, however, our findings suggest that a range of models should instead be compared. Selecting and engineering an appropriate feature set appears to be more important than having a large number of instances. For feature selection, we see potential for greater inter-disciplinary collaboration between sport performance analysis, a sub-discipline of sport science, and machine learning.

The influence maximization paradigm has been used by researchers in various fields in order to study how information spreads in social networks. While previously the attention was mostly on efficiency, more recently fairness issues have been taken into account in this scope. In the present paper, we propose to use randomization as a mean for achieving fairness. While this general idea is not new, it has not been applied in this area. Similar to previous works like Fish et al. (WWW ’19) and Tsang et al. (IJCAI ’19), we study the maximin criterion for (group) fairness. In contrast to their work however, we model the problem in such a way that, when choosing the seed sets, probabilistic strategies are possible rather than only deterministic ones. We introduce two different variants of this probabilistic problem, one that entails probabilistic strategies over nodes (node-based problem) and a second one that entails probabilistic strategies over sets of nodes (set-based problem). After analyzing the relation between the two probabilistic problems, we show that, while the original deterministic maximin problem was inapproximable, both probabilistic variants permit approximation algorithms that achieve a constant multiplicative factor of 1 − 1/e minus an additive arbitrarily small error that is due to the simulation of the information spread. For the node-based problem, the approximation is achieved by observing that a polynomial-sized linear program approximates the problem well. For the set-based problem, we show that a multiplicative-weight routine can yield the approximation result. For an experimental study, we provide implementations of multiplicative-weight routines for both the set-based and the node-based problems and compare the achieved fairness values to existing methods. Maybe non-surprisingly, we show that the ex-ante values, i.e., minimum expected value of an individual (or group) to obtain the information, of the computed probabilistic strategies are significantly larger than the (ex-post) fairness values of previous methods. This indicates that studying fairness via randomization is a worthwhile path to follow. Interestingly and maybe more surprisingly, we observe that even the ex-post fairness values, i.e., fairness values of sets sampled according to the probabilistic strategies computed by our routines, dominate over the fairness achieved by previous methods on many of the instances tested.

Practitioners often encounter challenging real-world problems that involve a simultaneous optimization of multiple objectives in a complex search space. To address these problems, we propose a practical multiobjective Bayesian optimization algorithm. It is an extension of the widely used Tree-structured Parzen Estimator (TPE) algorithm, called Multiobjective Tree-structured Parzen Estimator (MOTPE). We demonstrate that MOTPE approximates the Pareto fronts of a variety of benchmark problems and a convolutional neural network design problem better than existing methods through the numerical results. We also investigate how the configuration of MOTPE affects the behavior and the performance of the method and the effectiveness of asynchronous parallelization of the method based on the empirical results.