Quantum Machine Learning (QML) is an emerging field at the intersection of quantum computing and machine learning, aiming to enhance classical machine learning methods by leveraging quantum mechanics principles such as entanglement and superposition. However, skepticism persists regarding the practical advantages of QML, mainly due to the current limitations of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. This study addresses these concerns by extensively assessing Quantum Neural Networks (QNNs)-quantum-inspired counterparts of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), demonstrating their effectiveness compared to classical methods. We systematically construct and evaluate twelve distinct QNN configurations, utilizing two unique quantum feature maps combined with six different entanglement strategies for ansatz design. Experiments conducted on a wind energy dataset reveal that QNNs employing the Z feature map achieve up to 93% prediction accuracy when forecasting wind power output using only four input parameters. Our findings show that QNNs outperform classical methods in predictive tasks, underscoring the potential of QML in real-world applications.

Quantum Neural Networks (QNNs), a prominent approach in Quantum Machine Learning (QML), are emerging as a powerful alternative to classical machine learning methods. Recent studies have focused on the applicability of QNNs to various tasks, such as time-series forecasting, prediction, and classification, across a wide range of applications, including cybersecurity and medical imaging. With the increased use of smart grids driven by the integration of renewable energy systems, machine learning plays an important role in predicting power demand and detecting system disturbances. This study provides an in-depth investigation of QNNs for predicting the power output of a wind turbine. We assess the predictive performance and simulation time of six QNN configurations that are based on the Z Feature Map for data encoding and varying ansatz structures. Through detailed cross-validation experiments and tests on an unseen hold-out dataset, we experimentally demonstrate that QNNs can achieve predictive performance that is competitive with, and in some cases marginally better than, the benchmarked classical approaches. Our results also reveal the effects of dataset size and circuit complexity on predictive performance and simulation time. We believe our findings will offer valuable insights for researchers in the energy domain who wish to incorporate quantum machine learning into their work.

Neural Ordinary Differential Equations (Neural ODEs) represent a significant breakthrough in deep learning, promising to bridge the gap between machine learning and the rich theoretical frameworks developed in various mathematical fields over centuries. In this work, we propose a novel approach that leverages adaptive feedforward gradient estimation to improve the efficiency, consistency, and interpretability of Neural ODEs. Our method eliminates the need for backpropagation and the adjoint method, reducing computational overhead and memory usage while maintaining accuracy. The proposed approach has been validated through practical applications, and showed good performance relative to Neural ODEs state of the art methods.

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence, particularly deep neural networks, have pushed the boundaries of what is achievable in complex tasks. Traditional methods for training neural networks in classification problems often rely on static target outputs, such as one-hot encoded vectors, which can lead to unstable optimization and difficulties in handling non-linearities within data. In this paper, we propose a novel training methodology that progressively evolves the target outputs from a null vector to one-hot encoded vectors throughout the training process. This gradual transition allows the network to adapt more smoothly to the increasing complexity of the classification task, maintaining an equilibrium state that reduces the risk of overfitting and enhances generalization. Our approach, inspired by concepts from structural equilibrium in finite element analysis, has been validated through extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets. The results demonstrate that our method achieves faster convergence, improved accuracy, and better generalization, especially in scenarios with high data complexity and noise. This progressive training framework offers a robust alternative to classical methods, opening new perspectives for more efficient and stable neural network training.

While deep learning approaches represent the state-of-the-art of natural language processing (NLP) today, classical algorithms and approaches still find a place in NLP textbooks and courses of recent years. This paper discusses the perspectives of conveners of two introductory NLP courses taught in Australia and India, and examines how classical and deep learning approaches can be balanced within the lecture plan and assessments of the courses. We also draw parallels with the objects-first and objects-later debate in CS1 education. We observe that teaching classical approaches adds value to student learning by building an intuitive understanding of NLP problems, potential solutions, and even deep learning models themselves. Despite classical approaches not being state-of-the-art, the paper makes a case for their inclusion in NLP courses today.

Accurate evaluation of forecasting models is essential for ensuring reliable predictions. Current practices for evaluating and comparing forecasting models focus on summarising performance into a single score, using metrics such as SMAPE. We hypothesize that averaging performance over all samples dilutes relevant information about the relative performance of models. Particularly, conditions in which this relative performance is different than the overall accuracy. We address this limitation by proposing a novel framework for evaluating univariate time series forecasting models from multiple perspectives, such as one-step ahead forecasting versus multi-step ahead forecasting. We show the advantages of this framework by comparing a state-of-the-art deep learning approach with classical forecasting techniques. While classical methods (e.g. ARIMA) are long-standing approaches to forecasting, deep neural networks (e.g. NHITS) have recently shown state-of-the-art forecasting performance in benchmark datasets. We conducted extensive experiments that show NHITS generally performs best, but its superiority varies with forecasting conditions. For instance, concerning the forecasting horizon, NHITS only outperforms classical approaches for multi-step ahead forecasting. Another relevant insight is that, when dealing with anomalies, NHITS is outperformed by methods such as Theta. These findings highlight the importance of aspect-based model evaluation.

The evaluation of machine learning models using human-labeled validation data can be expensive and time-consuming. AI-labeled synthetic data can be used to decrease the number of human annotations required for this purpose in a process called autoevaluation. We suggest efficient and statistically principled algorithms for this purpose that improve sample efficiency while remaining unbiased. These algorithms increase the effective human-labeled sample size by up to 50% on experiments with GPT-4.

Early detection of network intrusions and cyber threats is one of the main pillars of cybersecurity. One of the most effective approaches for this purpose is to analyze network traffic with the help of artificial intelligence algorithms, with the aim of detecting the possible presence of an attacker by distinguishing it from a legitimate user. This is commonly done by collecting the traffic exchanged between terminals in a network and analyzing it on a per-packet or per-connection basis. In this paper, we propose instead to perform pre-processing of network traffic under analysis with the aim of extracting some new metrics on which we can perform more efficient detection and overcome some limitations of classical approaches. These new metrics are based on graph theory, and consider the network as a whole, rather than focusing on individual packets or connections. Our approach is validated through experiments performed on publicly available data sets, from which it results that it can not only overcome some of the limitations of classical approaches, but also achieve a better detection capability of cyber threats.

Adiabatic quantum computers can solve difficult optimization problems (e.g., the quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problem), and they seem well suited to train machine learning models. In this paper, we describe an adiabatic quantum approach for training support vector machines. We show that the time complexity of our quantum approach is an order of magnitude better than the classical approach. Next, we compare the test accuracy of our quantum approach against a classical approach that uses the Scikit-learn library in Python across five benchmark datasets (Iris, Wisconsin Breast Cancer (WBC), Wine, Digits, and Lambeq). We show that our quantum approach obtains accuracies on par with the classical approach. Finally, we perform a scalability study in which we compute the total training times of the quantum approach and the classical approach with increasing number of features and number of data points in the training dataset. Our scalability results show that the quantum approach obtains a 3.5--4.5 times speedup over the classical approach on datasets with many (millions of) features.

Prediction-powered inference is a framework for performing valid statistical inference when an experimental dataset is supplemented with predictions from a machine-learning system. The framework yields simple algorithms for computing provably valid confidence intervals for quantities such as means, quantiles, and linear and logistic regression coefficients, without making any assumptions on the machine-learning algorithm that supplies the predictions. Furthermore, more accurate predictions translate to smaller confidence intervals. Prediction-powered inference could enable researchers to draw valid and more data-efficient conclusions using machine learning. The benefits of prediction-powered inference are demonstrated with datasets from proteomics, astronomy, genomics, remote sensing, census analysis, and ecology.