Automatic Dataset Augmentation

Large scale image dataset and deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) are two primary driving forces for the rapid progress made in generic object recognition tasks in recent years. While lots of network architectures have been continuously designed to pursue lower error rates, few efforts are devoted to enlarge existing datasets due to high labeling cost and unfair comparison issues. In this paper, we aim to achieve lower error rate by augmenting existing datasets in an automatic manner. Our method leverages both Web and DCNN, where Web provides massive images with rich contextual information, and DCNN replaces human to automatically label images under guidance of Web contextual information. Experiments show our method can automatically scale up existing datasets significantly from billions web pages with high accuracy, and significantly improve the performance on object recognition tasks by using the automatically augmented datasets, which demonstrates that more supervisory information has been automatically gathered from the Web. Both the dataset and models trained on the dataset are made publicly available

Creation of Ghost Illusions Using Metamaterials in Wave Dynamics

The creation of wave-dynamic illusion functionality is of great interests to various scientific communities, which can potentially transform an actual perception into the pre-controlled perception, thus empowering unprecedented applications in the advanced-material science, camouflage, cloaking, optical and/or microwave cognition, and defense security, etc. By using the space transformation theory and engineering capability of metamaterials, we propose and realize a functional ghost illusion device, which is capable of creating wave-dynamic virtual ghost images off the original object's position under the illumination of electromagnetic waves. The scattering signature of the object is thus ghosted and perceived as multiple ghost targets with different geometries and compositions. The ghost-illusion material, being inhomogeneous and anisotropic, was realized by thousands of varying unit cells working at non-resonance. The experimental demonstration of the ghost illusion validates our theory of scattering metamorphosis and opens a novel avenue to the wave-dynamic illusion, cognitive deception, manipulate strange light or matter behaviors, and design novel optical and microwave devices.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure

Estimating the reciprocal of a binomial proportion

As a classic parameter from the binomial distribution, the binomial proportion has been well studied in the literature owing to its wide range of applications. In contrast, the reciprocal of the binomial proportion, also known as the inverse proportion, is often overlooked, even though it also plays an important role in various fields including clinical studies and random sampling. The maximum likelihood estimator of the inverse proportion suffers from the zero-event problem, and to overcome it, alternative methods have been developed in the literature. Nevertheless, there is little work addressing the optimality of the existing estimators, as well as their practical performance comparison. Inspired by this, we propose to further advance the literature by developing an optimal estimator for the inverse proportion in a family of shrinkage estimators. We further derive the explicit and approximate formulas for the optimal shrinkage parameter under different settings. Simulation studies show that the performance of our new estimator performs better than, or as well as, the existing competitors in most practical settings. Finally, to illustrate the usefulness of our new method, we also revisit a recent meta-analysis on COVID-19 data for assessing the relative risks of physical distancing on the infection of coronavirus, in which six out of seven studies encounter the zero-event problem

Solving eigenvalue PDEs of metastable diffusion processes using artificial neural networks

In this paper, we consider the eigenvalue PDE problem of the infinitesimal generators of metastable diffusion processes. We propose a numerical algorithm based on training artificial neural networks for solving the leading eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of such high-dimensional eigenvalue problem. The algorithm is able to find multiple leading eigenpairs by solving a single training task. It is useful in understanding the dynamical behaviors of metastable processes on large timescales. We demonstrate the capability of our algorithm on a high-dimensional model problem, and on the simple molecular system alanine dipeptide.Comment: revision with minor change

Placement and Resource Allocation of Wireless-Powered Multiantenna UAV for Energy-Efficient Multiuser NOMA

This paper investigates a new downlink nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system, where a multiantenna unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is powered by wireless power transfer (WPT) and serves as the base station for multiple pairs of ground users (GUs) running NOMA in each pair. An energy efficiency (EE) maximization problem is formulated to jointly optimize the WPT time and the placement for the UAV, and the allocation of the UAV's transmit power between different NOMA user pairs and within each pair. To efficiently solve this nonconvex problem, we decompose the problem into three subproblems using block coordinate descent. For the subproblem of intra-pair power allocation within each NOMA user pair, we construct a supermodular game with confirmed convergence to a Nash equilibrium. Given the intra-pair power allocation, successive convex approximation is applied to convexify and solve the subproblem of WPT time allocation and inter-pair power allocation between the user pairs. Finally, we solve the subproblem of UAV placement by using the Lagrange multiplier method. Simulations show that our approach can substantially outperform its alternatives that do not use NOMA and WPT techniques or that do not optimize the UAV location.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

Multi-Carrier NOMA-Empowered Wireless Federated Learning with Optimal Power and Bandwidth Allocation

Wireless federated learning (WFL) undergoes a communication bottleneck in uplink, limiting the number of users that can upload their local models in each global aggregation round. This paper presents a new multi-carrier non-orthogonal multiple-access (MC-NOMA)-empowered WFL system under an adaptive learning setting of Flexible Aggregation. Since a WFL round accommodates both local model training and uploading for each user, the use of Flexible Aggregation allows the users to train different numbers of iterations per round, adapting to their channel conditions and computing resources. The key idea is to use MC-NOMA to concurrently upload the local models of the users, thereby extending the local model training times of the users and increasing participating users. A new metric, namely, Weighted Global Proportion of Trained Mini-batches (WGPTM), is analytically established to measure the convergence of the new system. Another important aspect is that we maximize the WGPTM to harness the convergence of the new system by jointly optimizing the transmit powers and subchannel bandwidths. This nonconvex problem is converted equivalently to a tractable convex problem and solved efficiently using variable substitution and Cauchy's inequality. As corroborated experimentally using a convolutional neural network and an 18-layer residential network, the proposed MC-NOMA WFL can efficiently reduce communication delay, increase local model training times, and accelerate the convergence by over 40%, compared to its existing alternative.Comment: 33 pages, 16 figure

Experimental simulation of the Parity-Time-symmetric dynamics using photonics qubits

The concept of parity-time (PT) symmetry originates from the framework of quantum mechanics, where if the Hamiltonian operator satisfies the commutation relation with the parity and time operators, it shows all real eigen-energy spectrum. Recently, PT symmetry was introduced into optics, electronic circuits, acoustics, and so many other classical fields to further study the dynamics of the Hamiltonian and the energy of the system. Focusing on the dynamical evolution of the quantum state under the action of PT symmetric Hamiltonian, here we experimentally demonstrated the general dynamical evolution of a two-level system under the PT symmetric Hamiltonian using single-photon system. By enlarging the system using ancillary qubits and encoding the subsystem under the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian with post-selection, the evolution of the state can be observed with a high fidelity when the successfully parity-time symmetrically evolved subspace is solely considered. Owing to the effectively operation of the dilation method, our work provides a route for further exploiting the exotic properties of PT symmetric Hamiltonian for quantum simulation and quantum information processing

Fast MPEG-CDVS Encoder with GPU-CPU Hybrid Computing

The compact descriptors for visual search (CDVS) standard from ISO/IEC moving pictures experts group (MPEG) has succeeded in enabling the interoperability for efficient and effective image retrieval by standardizing the bitstream syntax of compact feature descriptors. However, the intensive computation of CDVS encoder unfortunately hinders its widely deployment in industry for large-scale visual search. In this paper, we revisit the merits of low complexity design of CDVS core techniques and present a very fast CDVS encoder by leveraging the massive parallel execution resources of GPU. We elegantly shift the computation-intensive and parallel-friendly modules to the state-of-the-arts GPU platforms, in which the thread block allocation and the memory access are jointly optimized to eliminate performance loss. In addition, those operations with heavy data dependence are allocated to CPU to resolve the extra but non-necessary computation burden for GPU. Furthermore, we have demonstrated the proposed fast CDVS encoder can work well with those convolution neural network approaches which has harmoniously leveraged the advantages of GPU platforms, and yielded significant performance improvements. Comprehensive experimental results over benchmarks are evaluated, which has shown that the fast CDVS encoder using GPU-CPU hybrid computing is promising for scalable visual search

Analysis and Optimization of Service Delay for Multi-quality Videos in Multi-tier Heterogeneous Network with Random Caching

Aiming to minimize service delay, we propose a new random caching scheme in device-to-device (D2D)-assisted heterogeneous network. To support diversified viewing qualities of multimedia video services, each video file is encoded into a base layer (BL) and multiple enhancement layers (ELs) by scalable video coding (SVC). A super layer, including the BL and several ELs, is transmitted to every user. We define and quantify the service delay of multi-quality videos by deriving successful transmission probabilities when a user is served by a D2D helper, a small-cell base station (SBS) and a macro-cell base station (MBS). We formulate a delay minimization problem subject to the limited cache sizes of D2D helpers and SBSs. The structure of the optimal solutions to the problem is revealed, and then an improved standard gradient projection method is designed to effectively obtain the solutions. Both theoretical analysis and Monte-Carlo simulations validate the successful transmission probabilities. Compared with three benchmark caching policies, the proposed SVC-based random caching scheme is superior in terms of reducing the service delay.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, IEEE Systems Journal, Accepte