Split Learning in 6G Edge Networks

With the proliferation of distributed edge computing resources, the 6G mobile network will evolve into a network for connected intelligence. Along this line, the proposal to incorporate federated learning into the mobile edge has gained considerable interest in recent years. However, the deployment of federated learning faces substantial challenges as massive resource-limited IoT devices can hardly support on-device model training. This leads to the emergence of split learning (SL) which enables servers to handle the major training workload while still enhancing data privacy. In this article, we offer a brief overview of key advancements in SL and articulate its seamless integration with wireless edge networks. We begin by illustrating the tailored 6G architecture to support edge SL. Then, we examine the critical design issues for edge SL, including innovative resource-efficient learning frameworks and resource management strategies under a single edge server. Additionally, we expand the scope to multi-edge scenarios, exploring multi-edge collaboration and mobility management from a networking perspective. Finally, we discuss open problems for edge SL, including convergence analysis, asynchronous SL and U-shaped SL.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Pushing Large Language Models to the 6G Edge: Vision, Challenges, and Opportunities

Large language models (LLMs), which have shown remarkable capabilities, are revolutionizing AI development and potentially shaping our future. However, given their multimodality, the status quo cloud-based deployment faces some critical challenges: 1) long response time; 2) high bandwidth costs; and 3) the violation of data privacy. 6G mobile edge computing (MEC) systems may resolve these pressing issues. In this article, we explore the potential of deploying LLMs at the 6G edge. We start by introducing killer applications powered by multimodal LLMs, including robotics and healthcare, to highlight the need for deploying LLMs in the vicinity of end users. Then, we identify the critical challenges for LLM deployment at the edge and envision the 6G MEC architecture for LLMs. Furthermore, we delve into two design aspects, i.e., edge training and edge inference for LLMs. In both aspects, considering the inherent resource limitations at the edge, we discuss various cutting-edge techniques, including split learning/inference, parameter-efficient fine-tuning, quantization, and parameter-sharing inference, to facilitate the efficient deployment of LLMs. This article serves as a position paper for thoroughly identifying the motivation, challenges, and pathway for empowering LLMs at the 6G edge.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Towards Full-scene Domain Generalization in Multi-agent Collaborative Bird's Eye View Segmentation for Connected and Autonomous Driving

Collaborative perception has recently gained significant attention in autonomous driving, improving perception quality by enabling the exchange of additional information among vehicles. However, deploying collaborative perception systems can lead to domain shifts due to diverse environmental conditions and data heterogeneity among connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). To address these challenges, we propose a unified domain generalization framework applicable in both training and inference stages of collaborative perception. In the training phase, we introduce an Amplitude Augmentation (AmpAug) method to augment low-frequency image variations, broadening the model's ability to learn across various domains. We also employ a meta-consistency training scheme to simulate domain shifts, optimizing the model with a carefully designed consistency loss to encourage domain-invariant representations. In the inference phase, we introduce an intra-system domain alignment mechanism to reduce or potentially eliminate the domain discrepancy among CAVs prior to inference. Comprehensive experiments substantiate the effectiveness of our method in comparison with the existing state-of-the-art works. Code will be released at https://github.com/DG-CAVs/DG-CoPerception.git

Optimal Resource Allocation for U-Shaped Parallel Split Learning

Split learning (SL) has emerged as a promising approach for model training without revealing the raw data samples from the data owners. However, traditional SL inevitably leaks label privacy as the tail model (with the last layers) should be placed on the server. To overcome this limitation, one promising solution is to utilize U-shaped architecture to leave both early layers and last layers on the user side. In this paper, we develop a novel parallel U-shaped split learning and devise the optimal resource optimization scheme to improve the performance of edge networks. In the proposed framework, multiple users communicate with an edge server for SL. We analyze the end-to-end delay of each client during the training process and design an efficient resource allocation algorithm, called LSCRA, which finds the optimal computing resource allocation and split layers. Our experimental results show the effectiveness of LSCRA and that U-shaped PSL can achieve a similar performance with other SL baselines while preserving label privacy. Index Terms: U-shaped network, split learning, label privacy, resource allocation, 5G/6G edge networks.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Sequence Dependent Repair of 1,N6-Ethenoadenine by DNA Repair Enzymes ALKBH2, ALKBH3, and AlkB

Mutation patterns of DNA adducts, such as mutational spectra and signatures, are useful tools for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. Mutational spectra of carcinogens derive from three sources: adduct formation, replication bypass, and repair. Here, we consider the repair aspect of 1,N6-ethenoadenine (εA) by the 2-oxoglutarate/Fe(II)-dependent AlkB family enzymes. Specifically, we investigated εA repair across 16 possible sequence contexts (5′/3′ flanking base to εA varied as G/A/T/C). The results revealed that repair efficiency is altered according to sequence, enzyme, and strand context (ss- versus ds-DNA). The methods can be used to study other aspects of mutational spectra or other pathways of repair

Vehicle as a Service (VaaS): Leverage Vehicles to Build Service Networks and Capabilities for Smart Cities

Smart cities demand resources for rich immersive sensing, ubiquitous communications, powerful computing, large storage, and high intelligence (SCCSI) to support various kinds of applications, such as public safety, connected and autonomous driving, smart and connected health, and smart living. At the same time, it is widely recognized that vehicles such as autonomous cars, equipped with significantly powerful SCCSI capabilities, will become ubiquitous in future smart cities. By observing the convergence of these two trends, this article advocates the use of vehicles to build a cost-effective service network, called the Vehicle as a Service (VaaS) paradigm, where vehicles empowered with SCCSI capability form a web of mobile servers and communicators to provide SCCSI services in smart cities. Towards this direction, we first examine the potential use cases in smart cities and possible upgrades required for the transition from traditional vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) to VaaS. Then, we will introduce the system architecture of the VaaS paradigm and discuss how it can provide SCCSI services in future smart cities, respectively. At last, we identify the open problems of this paradigm and future research directions, including architectural design, service provisioning, incentive design, and security & privacy. We expect that this paper paves the way towards developing a cost-effective and sustainable approach for building smart cities.Comment: 32 pages, 11 figure

Adaptive Communications in Collaborative Perception with Domain Alignment for Autonomous Driving

Collaborative perception among multiple connected and autonomous vehicles can greatly enhance perceptive capabilities by allowing vehicles to exchange supplementary information via communications. Despite advances in previous approaches, challenges still remain due to channel variations and data heterogeneity among collaborative vehicles. To address these issues, we propose ACC-DA, a channel-aware collaborative perception framework to dynamically adjust the communication graph and minimize the average transmission delay while mitigating the side effects from the data heterogeneity. Our novelties lie in three aspects. We first design a transmission delay minimization method, which can construct the communication graph and minimize the transmission delay according to different channel information state. We then propose an adaptive data reconstruction mechanism, which can dynamically adjust the rate-distortion trade-off to enhance perception efficiency. Moreover, it minimizes the temporal redundancy during data transmissions. Finally, we conceive a domain alignment scheme to align the data distribution from different vehicles, which can mitigate the domain gap between different vehicles and improve the performance of the target task. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in comparison to the existing state-of-the-art works.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Efficient Parallel Split Learning over Resource-constrained Wireless Edge Networks

The increasingly deeper neural networks hinder the democratization of privacy-enhancing distributed learning, such as federated learning (FL), to resource-constrained devices. To overcome this challenge, in this paper, we advocate the integration of edge computing paradigm and parallel split learning (PSL), allowing multiple client devices to offload substantial training workloads to an edge server via layer-wise model split. By observing that existing PSL schemes incur excessive training latency and large volume of data transmissions, we propose an innovative PSL framework, namely, efficient parallel split learning (EPSL), to accelerate model training. To be specific, EPSL parallelizes client-side model training and reduces the dimension of local gradients for back propagation (BP) via last-layer gradient aggregation, leading to a significant reduction in server-side training and communication latency. Moreover, by considering the heterogeneous channel conditions and computing capabilities at client devices, we jointly optimize subchannel allocation, power control, and cut layer selection to minimize the per-round latency. Simulation results show that the proposed EPSL framework significantly decreases the training latency needed to achieve a target accuracy compared with the state-of-the-art benchmarks, and the tailored resource management and layer split strategy can considerably reduce latency than the counterpart without optimization.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figure