Training Robust Spiking Neural Networks on Neuromorphic Data with Spatiotemporal Fragments

Neuromorphic vision sensors (event cameras) are inherently suitable for spiking neural networks (SNNs) and provide novel neuromorphic vision data for this biomimetic model. Due to the spatiotemporal characteristics, novel data augmentations are required to process the unconventional visual signals of these cameras. In this paper, we propose a novel Event SpatioTemporal Fragments (ESTF) augmentation method. It preserves the continuity of neuromorphic data by drifting or inverting fragments of the spatiotemporal event stream to simulate the disturbance of brightness variations, leading to more robust spiking neural networks. Extensive experiments are performed on prevailing neuromorphic datasets. It turns out that ESTF provides substantial improvements over pure geometric transformations and outperforms other event data augmentation methods. It is worth noting that the SNNs with ESTF achieve the state-of-the-art accuracy of 83.9\% on the CIFAR10-DVS dataset.Comment: Accepted by ICASSP 202

Training Stronger Spiking Neural Networks with Biomimetic Adaptive Internal Association Neurons

As the third generation of neural networks, spiking neural networks (SNNs) are dedicated to exploring more insightful neural mechanisms to achieve near-biological intelligence. Intuitively, biomimetic mechanisms are crucial to understanding and improving SNNs. For example, the associative long-term potentiation (ALTP) phenomenon suggests that in addition to learning mechanisms between neurons, there are associative effects within neurons. However, most existing methods only focus on the former and lack exploration of the internal association effects. In this paper, we propose a novel Adaptive Internal Association~(AIA) neuron model to establish previously ignored influences within neurons. Consistent with the ALTP phenomenon, the AIA neuron model is adaptive to input stimuli, and internal associative learning occurs only when both dendrites are stimulated at the same time. In addition, we employ weighted weights to measure internal associations and introduce intermediate caches to reduce the volatility of associations. Extensive experiments on prevailing neuromorphic datasets show that the proposed method can potentiate or depress the firing of spikes more specifically, resulting in better performance with fewer spikes. It is worth noting that without adding any parameters at inference, the AIA model achieves state-of-the-art performance on DVS-CIFAR10~(83.9\%) and N-CARS~(95.64\%) datasets.Comment: Accepted by ICASSP 202

The rare complication of vascular malformations of the limb after sclerotherapy: a report of 3 cases and brief literature review

Abstract Background Vascular malformations are common but complicated types of disease in infants, with unclear causes and lack of effective prevention. The symptoms usually do not disappear and tend to progress without medical intervention. It is extremely necessary to choose correct treatment options for different types of vascular malformations. A large number of studies have confirmed that sclerotherapy has a tendency to become the first-line treatment in near future, but it is also associated with mild or severe complications. Furthermore, to our knowledge, the serious adverse event of progressive limb necrosis has not been systematically analyzed and reported in the literature. Case presentation Three cases (two females and one male) were presented who were all diagnosed as vascular malformations and were treated by several sessions of interventional sclerotherapy. Their previous medical records showed the use of several sclerosants in different sessions including Polidocanol and Bleomycin. The sign of limb necrosis did not occur during the first sclerotherapy, but after the second and third sessions. Furthermore, the short-term symptomatic treatment could improve the necrosis syndrome, but could not change the outcome of amputation. Conclusion Sclerotherapy undoubtedly tends to be the first-line treatment in near future, but the adverse reactions still remain major challenges. Awareness of progressive limb necrosis after sclerotherapy and timely management by experts in centers of experience of this complication can avoid amputation