What it Thinks is Important is Important: Robustness Transfers through Input Gradients

Adversarial perturbations are imperceptible changes to input pixels that can change the prediction of deep learning models. Learned weights of models robust to such perturbations are previously found to be transferable across different tasks but this applies only if the model architecture for the source and target tasks is the same. Input gradients characterize how small changes at each input pixel affect the model output. Using only natural images, we show here that training a student model's input gradients to match those of a robust teacher model can gain robustness close to a strong baseline that is robustly trained from scratch. Through experiments in MNIST, CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100 and Tiny-ImageNet, we show that our proposed method, input gradient adversarial matching, can transfer robustness across different tasks and even across different model architectures. This demonstrates that directly targeting the semantics of input gradients is a feasible way towards adversarial robustness.Comment: Accepted as Oral in CVPR 2020, Camera-Ready Versio

The Role of Redress in B2C E-Business: An Exploratory Study of Consumer Perceptions

Redress provides a formalized recourse to consumers in lodging complaints against poor customer service. Its importance is heightened in the realm of B2C e-business where traditional means of establishing rapport with brick-and-mortar stores do not exist. However, redress has yet to be aptly understood and the study of its role in e-business has been sparse. This paper presents an exploration into the role of redress in online B2C transactions, through the perceptions of a selected group of online consumers, with key implications for online business practices and customer relationship management

Scaling of hysteresis dispersion in a model spin system

2001-2002 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Isolation, cloning and characterisation of new fragrance-related floral transcripts of Vanda Mimi Palmer

A subtracted cDNA library of open flower was constructed using the suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) technique, to identify fragrance-related transcripts of Vanda Mimi Palmer. In total, 107 transcripts up-regulated during blooming were identified and sequenced. Only 33 clones (4 singletons and 29 contigs) showed similarities to known sequences in the public database. Of these, thirty-two clones were transcripts encoding fragrance-related enzymes including sesquiterpene synthase, (±)-germacrene D synthase, tyrosine decarboxylase and putative acyltransferase. Two fragrance-related transcripts, VMPAAT encoding a putative alcohol acyltransferase and VMPSTS encoding a sesquiterpene synthase, were subjected to full-length cDNA isolation and characterization. The full length cDNA of VMPAAT has a 1343bp open reading frame (ORF) of 448 amino acid residues whereas VMPSTS is predicted to encode a polypeptide of 561 amino acid residues with 1682bp ORF. VMPAAT and VMPSTS show high homologies with plant alcohol acyltransferase and terpene synthase, respectively. Real time RT-PCR indicated that both transcripts were expressed preferentially in floral tissues, with high levels in blooming and full bloom flowers. VMPAAT and VMPSTS transcripts were expressed in a rhythmic pattern. The results presented in this study will be potentially useful in providing additional insights into the fragrance-related pathways of Orchidaceae members, which until today is still limited

Applicability of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network/Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer Guidelines for Prevention and Management of Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting in Southeast Asia: A Consensus Statement.

A meeting of regional experts was convened in Manila, Philippines, to develop a resource-stratified chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) management guideline. In patients treated with highly emetogenic chemotherapy in general clinical settings, triple therapy with a serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine-3 [5-HT3]) antagonist (preferably palonosetron), dexamethasone, and aprepitant is recommended for acute CINV prevention. In resource-restricted settings, triple therapy is still recommended, although a 5-HT3 antagonist other than palonosetron may be used. In both general and resource-restricted settings, dual therapy with dexamethasone (days 2 to 4) and aprepitant (days 2 to 3) is recommended to prevent delayed CINV. In patients treated with moderately emetogenic chemotherapy, dual therapy with a 5-HT3 antagonist, preferably palonosetron, and dexamethasone is recommended for acute CINV prevention in general settings; any 5-HT3 antagonist can be combined with dexamethasone in resource-restricted environments. In general settings, for the prevention of delayed CINV associated with moderately emetogenic chemotherapy, corticosteroid monotherapy on days 2 and 3 is recommended. If aprepitant is used on day 1, it should be continued on days 2 and 3. Prevention of delayed CINV with corticosteroids is preferred in resource-restricted settings. The expert panel also developed CINV management guidelines for anthracycline plus cyclophosphamide combination schedules, multiday cisplatin, and chemotherapy with low or minimal emetogenic potential, and its recommendations are detailed in this review. Overall, these regional guidelines provide definitive guidance for CINV management in general and resource-restricted settings. These consensus recommendations are anticipated to contribute to collaborative efforts to improve CINV management in Southeast Asia

Optimisation of Fine Pitch Contactor and Test Board for QFN Package

Fine pitch contactor describes a contactor with smaller air gap between the contact pins. It is used for testing small portable devices. This work presents the optimised way of designing the 0.4 mm pitch contactor and test board for QFN package. The signal integrity of fine pitch test contactor has become a concern due to the small air-gap between the pins that leads to signal crosstalk and impedance mismatch issues. The same challenge had been seen when designing the fine pitch test board because of the requirement to meet 0.4 mm pitch for typical hand-held devices. It restricts the trace routing with typical design rules at the contactor mounting area due to the limited spaces. This would bring to impedance discontinuity and crosstalk effect. Therefore, optimised design rules on the fine pitch contactor and test board are necessary. Full-wave modelling and system level simulation were demonstrated to study the fine pitch design rules. While the full-wave modelling was to construct the contactor and test board components, the system level simulation was intended to study the signal transmission when propagating from one component to another. Overall, designing the fine pitch contactor requires extra study on the signal integrity and layout design. This paper presents a method to study and design the fine pitch contactor design. It reports the test board to achieve minimum losses and distortion test system for functional testing. Our simulation results for finepitch contactor model show that the return loss is less than 12 dB at 4 GHz

Molecular characterization of a new 1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR) transcript from Vanda Mimi Palmer.

A 1-deoxy-d-xylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR) transcript was successfully isolated from the floral cDNA library of Vanda Mimi Palmer (VMPDXR). The full-length cDNA of clone VMPDXR was predicted to encode a polypeptide of 473 amino acid residues with 15 bp of 5′ UTR and 230 bp of 3′ UTR including a poly-A tail. VMPDXR was predicted to have a molecular mass of 51.4 kD and a pI value of 6.04. It has two conserved domains, an N-terminal NADPH binding site (GSTGSIG) and an N-terminal proline-rich region(PPPPAWPGR). It also contains two highly homologous regions, a 78–207 amino acids stretch at the N-terminal and a 221–304 amino acids stretch at the C-terminal domain. The putative plastid transit peptide is not found in VMPDXR and it is clustered into the plant DXRs in the phylogenetic tree. VMPDXR was differentially expressed in roots, leaves, sepals, petals and column. The VMPDXR transcript levels were preferentially high in blooming and fully bloomed flowers compared to the bud. The expression of VMPDXR at different times did not appear in a rhythmic manner and no drastic fluctuation was observed at night except at 2 pm during the day