Replacing pooling functions in Convolutional Neural Networks by linear combinations of increasing functions

Traditionally, Convolutional Neural Networks make use of the maximum or arithmetic mean in order to reduce the features extracted by convolutional layers in a downsampling process known as pooling. However, there is no strong argument to settle upon one of the two functions and, in practice, this selection turns to be problem dependent. Further, both of these options ignore possible dependencies among the data. We believe that a combination of both of these functions, as well as of additional ones which may retain different information, can benefit the feature extraction process. In this work, we replace traditional pooling by several alternative functions. In particular, we consider linear combinations of order statistics and generalizations of the Sugeno integral, extending the latter’s domain to the whole real line and setting the theoretical base for their application. We present an alternative pooling layer based on this strategy which we name ‘‘CombPool’’ layer. We replace the pooling layers of three different architectures of increasing complexity by CombPool layers, and empirically prove over multiple datasets that linear combinations outperform traditional pooling functions in most cases. Further, combinations with either the Sugeno integral or one of its generalizations usually yield the best results, proving a strong candidate to apply in most architectures.Tracasa Instrumental (iTRACASA), SpainGobierno de Navarra-Departamento de Universidad, Innovacion y Transformacion Digital, SpainSpanish Ministry of Science, Spain PID2019-108392GB-I00Andalusian Excellence project, Spain PID2019-108392GB-I00Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPQ) PC095-096Fundacao de Amparo a Ciencia e Tecnologia do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS) P18-FR-4961 301618/2019-4 19/2551-000 1279-

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI): What we know and what is left to attain Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2021R1A2C1011198) , (Institute for Information & communications Technology Planning & Evaluation) (IITP) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) under the ICT Creative Consilience Program (IITP-2021-2020-0-01821) , and AI Platform to Fully Adapt and Reflect Privacy-Policy Changes (No. 2022-0-00688).Artificial intelligence (AI) is currently being utilized in a wide range of sophisticated applications, but the outcomes of many AI models are challenging to comprehend and trust due to their black-box nature. Usually, it is essential to understand the reasoning behind an AI mode ľs decision-making. Thus, the need for eXplainable AI (XAI) methods for improving trust in AI models has arisen. XAI has become a popular research subject within the AI field in recent years. Existing survey papers have tackled the concepts of XAI, its general terms, and post-hoc explainability methods but there have not been any reviews that have looked at the assessment methods, available tools, XAI datasets, and other related aspects. Therefore, in this comprehensive study, we provide readers with an overview of the current research and trends in this rapidly emerging area with a case study example. The study starts by explaining the background of XAI, common definitions, and summarizing recently proposed techniques in XAI for supervised machine learning. The review divides XAI techniques into four axes using a hierarchical categorization system: (i) data explainability, (ii) model explainability, (iii) post-hoc explainability, and (iv) assessment of explanations. We also introduce available evaluation metrics as well as open-source packages and datasets with future research directions. Then, the significance of explainability in terms of legal demands, user viewpoints, and application orientation is outlined, termed as XAI concerns. This paper advocates for tailoring explanation content to specific user types. An examination of XAI techniques and evaluation was conducted by looking at 410 critical articles, published between January 2016 and October 2022, in reputed journals and using a wide range of research databases as a source of information. The article is aimed at XAI researchers who are interested in making their AI models more trustworthy, as well as towards researchers from other disciplines who are looking for effective XAI methods to complete tasks with confidence while communicating meaning from data.National Research Foundation of Korea Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning, Republic of Korea Ministry of Science & ICT (MSIT), Republic of Korea 2021R1A2C1011198Institute for Information amp; communications Technology Planning amp; Evaluation) (IITP) - Korea government (MSIT) under the ICT Creative Consilience Program IITP-2021-2020-0-01821AI Platform to Fully Adapt and Reflect Privacy-Policy Changes2022-0-0068

La igualtat d'oportunitats a la universitat: les percepcions del PDI

L'article que presentem facilita els resultats principals de la recerca La igualtat d'oportunitats per raó de gènere a la Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Concretament, aquells que fan referència a l'anàlisi de les percepcions de gènere del col·lectiu del personal docent investigador en igualtat d'oportunitats, mitjançant les dades obtingudes dels índexs de funcionament paritari, d'igualtat formal, de sensibilització en gènere i el general de percepció de gènere, que aglutina els anteriors i que proporciona el posicionament dels col·lectius femení i masculí sobre el conjunt de mesures proposades d'acció positiva i de transversalitat. Seguidament, hem abordat la presència de la temàtica de gènere en els plans d'estudiEl artículo que presentamos facilita los principales resultados de la investigación La igualdad de oportunidades por razón de género en la Universidad Rovira i Virgili. Concretamente, aquellos que hacen referencia al análisis de las percepciones de género del colectivo del personal docente investigador en igualdad de oportunidades, mediante los datos obtenidos de los índices de funcionamiento paritario, de igualdad formal, de sensibilización de género y el general de percepción de género, que aglutina a los anteriores y proporciona el posicionamiento de los colectivos femenino y masculino sobre el conjunto de medidas propuestas de acción positiva y de transversalidad. Seguidamente, hemos abordado la presencia de la temática de género en los planes de estudioThe following article provides the main results of the research project Equality of opportunities related to gender at the University Rovira i Virgili. Especifically, it analyzes an analysis of the gender-related perceptions of equal opportunities by the Teaching and Research Staff based on data from the following indexes: Joint Functioning, Formal Equality, Gender Sensitizing, and General Gender Perception which agglutinates the previous ones and provides the positioning of feminine and masculine groups with respect to the set of proposed instruments or measures of positive action and mainstreaming. Finally, we have examined the presence of gender-related subjects within the degree program at the Universit

Dynamic Defense Against Byzantine Poisoning Attacks in Federated Learning

Federated learning, as a distributed learning that conducts the training on the local devices without accessing to the training data, is vulnerable to Byzatine poisoning adversarial attacks. We argue that the federated learning model has to avoid those kind of adversarial attacks through filtering out the adversarial clients by means of the federated aggregation operator. We propose a dynamic federated aggregation operator that dynamically discards those adversarial clients and allows to prevent the corruption of the global learning model. We assess it as a defense against adversarial attacks deploying a deep learning classification model in a federated learning setting on the Fed-EMNIST Digits, Fashion MNIST and CIFAR-10 image datasets. The results show that the dynamic selection of the clients to aggregate enhances the performance of the global learning model and discards the adversarial and poor (with low quality models) clients.R&D&I grants - MCIN/AEI, Spain PID-2020-119478GB-I00 PID2020-116118GA-I00 EQC2018-005-084-PERDF A way of making EuropeMCIN/AEI FPU18/04475 IJC2018-036092-

Special Issue on Genetic Fuzzy Systems and the Interpretability–Accuracy Trade-off

This special issue encompasses four papers devoted to the recent developments in the field of ‘‘Genetic fuzzy systems and the trade-off between interpretability and accuracy’’. The issue was originated from several contributions presented at the First International Workshop on Genetic Fuzzy Systems (GFS2005) that was held in Granada, Spain, March 17–19, 2005. Six conference papers were selected and the authors were asked to develop extended versions which were submitted to the special issue. Each of them was revised by at least three referees and finally four of them were accepted according to the reviewers’ evaluations

LA ARQUITECTURA UNA MIRADA DESDE LA CULTURA

Architecture as an artistic manifestation constitutes an essential antecedent for cultural development. This article deals in general aspects of the cultural policy of the country and the theoretical concepts of architecture and cultural development from the assessment and reflection of different authors, allowing to make a relations hip between both concepts, emphasizing how the architecture is put manifest the cultural development of the peoples and the preservation of it for the future.La arquitectura como manifestación artística constituye un antecedente esencial para el desarrollo cultural. El presente artículo aborda en sentido general aspectos relacionados con la política cultural del país y los conceptos teóricos de arquitectura y desarrollo cultural a partir de la valoración y reflexión de diferentes autores, permitiendo formalizar una relación entre ambos conceptos, enfatizando como mediante la arquitectura se pone de manifiesto el desarrollo cultural de los pueblos y la preservación de ella para el futuro

GUILLERMO VIDAL: GENUINO EXPONENTE DE LAS LETRAS EN CUBA

The present article exposes that Guillermo Vidal has had antecedents to figures of the universal narrative, Latin American and Cuban, whose contributions from the technical, structural and formal point of view have influenced his work, becoming an outstanding exponent of the letters in Cuba , for the high degree of formal experimentation achieved in his novels and stories, which impact readers for their new themes, treatment of spatio-temporal planes, inclusion of orality in their language, insertion of island social processes in their narrative, work with the narrator types: omniscient, equiscient and deficient, presence of the monologue within his masterly novels. The work includes an analysis of some of her stories and criteria about the novels The Fifth Sun, The Crows and She is as dirty as her eyes, related to the children's universe and the awakening of Eros, the love relationships between lovers, the exhibition of everyday life and social reality, the shortcomings, the existential motivations that compose the characters, the universe of the human psyche and concludes with a quote about the unavoidable and unquestionable Cubanness of this author. The article supports the analysis of the texts of Guillermo Vidal in the criteria of the scholars Juan Ramón Montaño Calcines and Miklós Szabolcsi, who support valuations and models of study for the analysis of the literary work and how much it can contribute from the point of Semiological, structural, formal and thematic view.El presente artículo expone que Guillermo Vidal ha tenido como antecedentes a figuras de la narrativa universal, latinoamericana y cubana, cuyos aportes desde el punto de vista técnico, estructural y formal han influido en su obra, convirtiéndose en un insigne exponente de las letras en Cuba. Por el alto grado de experimentación formal que logra en sus novelas y cuentos, que impactan a los lectores por sus nuevas temáticas, tratamiento de los planos espacio-temporales, inclusión de la oralidad en su lenguaje, inserción de los procesos sociales isleños en su narrativa, trabajo con los tipos de narrador: omnisciente, equisciente y deficiente, presencia del monólogo dentro de sus novelas. Incluye un análisis de algunos de sus cuentos y criterios sobre las novelas El quinto sol, Los cuervos y Ella es tan sucia como sus ojos, relacionado con el universo infantil y el despertar del eros, las relaciones amorosas entre los amantes, la exposición de la vida cotidiana y de la realidad social, las carencias, las motivaciones existenciales que compulsan a los personajes, el universo de la siquis humana y concluye con una cita acerca de la insoslayable e indudable cubanía de este autor. El artículo se apoya para el análisis de los textos de Guillermo en los criterios de los estudiosos Juan Ramón Montaño Calcines y Miklós Szabolcsi, quienes sustentan valoraciones y modelos de estudio para el análisis de la obra literaria y cuanto nos puede aportar desde el punto de vista semiológico, estructural, formal y temático

LA ARQUITECTURA UNA MIRADA DESDE LA CULTURA

Architecture as an artistic manifestation constitutes an essential antecedent for cultural development. This article deals in general aspects of the cultural policy of the country and the theoretical concepts of architecture and cultural development from the assessment and reflection of different authors, allowing to make a relations hip between both concepts, emphasizing how the architecture is put manifest the cultural development of the peoples and the preservation of it for the future.La arquitectura como manifestación artística constituye un antecedente esencial para el desarrollo cultural. El presente artículo aborda en sentido general aspectos relacionados con la política cultural del país y los conceptos teóricos de arquitectura y desarrollo cultural a partir de la valoración y reflexión de diferentes autores, permitiendo formalizar una relación entre ambos conceptos, enfatizando como mediante la arquitectura se pone de manifiesto el desarrollo cultural de los pueblos y la preservación de ella para el futuro

SOUL: Scala Oversampling and Undersampling Library for imbalance classification

This work has been supported by the research project TIN2017-89517-P, by the UGR research contract OTRI 3940 and by a research scholarship, given to the authors Nestor Rodriguez and David Lopez by the University of Granada, Spain.The improvements in technology and computation have promoted a global adoption of Data Science. It is devoted to extracting significant knowledge from high amounts of information by means of the application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools. Among the different tasks within Data Science, classification is probably the most widespread overall. Focusing on the classification scenario, we often face some datasets in which the number of instances for one of the classes is much lower than that of the remaining ones. This issue is known as the imbalanced classification problem, and it is mainly related to the need for boosting the recognition of the minority class examples. In spite of a large number of solutions that were proposed in the specialized literature to address imbalanced classification, there is a lack of open-source software that compiles the most relevant ones in an easy-to-use and scalable way. In this paper, we present a novel software approach named as SOUL, which stands for Scala Oversampling and Undersampling Library for imbalanced classification. The main capabilities of this new library include a large number of different data preprocessing techniques, efficient execution of these approaches, and a graphical environment to contrast the output for the different preprocessing solutions.UGR research contract OTRI 3940University of Granada, SpainTIN2017-89517-