NOTABLE: Transferable Backdoor Attacks Against Prompt-based NLP Models

Prompt-based learning is vulnerable to backdoor attacks. Existing backdoor attacks against prompt-based models consider injecting backdoors into the entire embedding layers or word embedding vectors. Such attacks can be easily affected by retraining on downstream tasks and with different prompting strategies, limiting the transferability of backdoor attacks. In this work, we propose transferable backdoor attacks against prompt-based models, called NOTABLE, which is independent of downstream tasks and prompting strategies. Specifically, NOTABLE injects backdoors into the encoders of PLMs by utilizing an adaptive verbalizer to bind triggers to specific words (i.e., anchors). It activates the backdoor by pasting input with triggers to reach adversary-desired anchors, achieving independence from downstream tasks and prompting strategies. We conduct experiments on six NLP tasks, three popular models, and three prompting strategies. Empirical results show that NOTABLE achieves superior attack performance (i.e., attack success rate over 90% on all the datasets), and outperforms two state-of-the-art baselines. Evaluations on three defenses show the robustness of NOTABLE. Our code can be found at https://github.com/RU-System-Software-and-Security/Notable

Luminescent Polynuclear Zn- and Cd-Ln Square-Like Nanoclusters With a Flexible Long-Chain Schiff Base Ligand

Two series of Zn-Ln and Cd-Ln nanoclusters [Ln4Zn8L2(OAc)20(OH)4] [Ln = Nd (1), Yb (2), and Sm (3)] and [Ln2Cd2L2(OAc)2(OH)2(OCH3)2] [Ln = Nd (4), Yb (5), and Sm (6)] were prepared using a long-chain Schiff base ligand with a flexible (CH2)2O(CH2)2O(CH2)2 chain. All these clusters show square-like structures. The Schiff base ligands show “linear” configurations in the structures of 1-6, and the metric dimensions of Zn-Ln and Cd-Ln clusters measure ~8 × 14 × 21 and 8 × 12 × 12 Å, respectively. The study of luminescence properties shows that the Zn/L and Cd/L chromophores can effectively transfer energy to the lanthanide ions, and 1-6 show visible and NIR emissions

Robust Facial Expression Recognition via Compressive Sensing

Recently, compressive sensing (CS) has attracted increasing attention in the areas of signal processing, computer vision and pattern recognition. In this paper, a new method based on the CS theory is presented for robust facial expression recognition. The CS theory is used to construct a sparse representation classifier (SRC). The effectiveness and robustness of the SRC method is investigated on clean and occluded facial expression images. Three typical facial features, i.e., the raw pixels, Gabor wavelets representation and local binary patterns (LBP), are extracted to evaluate the performance of the SRC method. Compared with the nearest neighbor (NN), linear support vector machines (SVM) and the nearest subspace (NS), experimental results on the popular Cohn-Kanade facial expression database demonstrate that the SRC method obtains better performance and stronger robustness to corruption and occlusion on robust facial expression recognition tasks

Role of drugs used for chronic disease management on susceptibility and severity of COVID-19: A large case-control study

The study aimed to investigate whether specific medications used in the treatment chronic diseases affected either the development and/ or severity of COVID-19 in a cohort of 610 COVID-19 cases and 48,667 population-based controls from Zheijang, China. Using a cohort of 578 COVID-19 cases and 48,667 population-based controls from Zheijang, China we tested the role of usage of cardiovascular, antidiabetic and other medications on risk and severity of COVID 19. Analyses were adjusted for age, sex and BMI and for presence of relevant comorbidities. Individuals with hypertension taking calcium channel blockers had significantly increased risk [odds ratio (OR)= 1.73 (95% CI 1.2-2.3)] of manifesting symptoms of COVID-19 whereas those taking angiotensin receptor blockers and diuretics had significantly lower disease risk (OR=0.22; 95%CI 0.15-0.30 and OR=0.30; 95%CI 0.19-0.58 respectively). Among those with type 2 diabetes, dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (OR= 6.02; 95% CI 2.3- 15.5) and insulin (OR= 2.71; 95% CI 1.6-5.5) were more and glucosidase inhibitors were less prevalent (OR= 0.11; 95% CI 0.1-0.3) among with COVID-19 patients. Drugs used in the treatment of hypertension and diabetes influence the risk of development of COVID-19, but, not its severity

Anion-induced robust ferroelectricity in sulfurized pseudo-rhombohedral epitaxial BiFeO3 thin films via polarization rotation

Polarization rotation caused by various strains, such as substrate and/or chemical strain, is essential to control the electronic structure and properties of ferroelectric materials. This study proposes anion-induced polarization rotation with chemical strain, which effectively improves ferroelectricity. A method for the sulfurization of BiFeO3 thin films by introducing sulfur anions is presented. The sulfurized films exhibited substantial enhancement in room-temperature ferroelectric polarization through polarization rotation and distortion, with a 170% increase in the remnant polarization from 58 to 100.7 μC cm−2. According to first-principles calculations and the results of X-ray absorption spectroscopy and high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy, this enhancement arose from the introduction of S atoms driving the re-distribution of the lone-pair electrons of Bi, resulting in the rotation of the polarization state from the [001] direction to the [110] or [111] one. The presented method of anion-driven polarization rotation might enable the improvement of the properties of oxide materials.This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0703700, 2017YFE0119700, 2021YFA1400300 and 2018YFA0305700), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21801013, 51774034, 22271309, 11721404, 11934017, 12261131499, and 51961135107), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (FRF-IDRY-19-007 and FRF-TP-19-055A2Z), the National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals, the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (2019-2021QNRC), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Z200007), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB33000000). This research used the resources of the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (1W1A and 4B9B beamlines) of the Chinese Academy of Science.Peer reviewe

Ferroelectricity in layered bismuth oxide down to 1 nanometer

Atomic-scale ferroelectrics are of great interest for high-density electronics, particularly field-effect transistors, low-power logic, and nonvolatile memories. We devised a film with a layered structure of bismuth oxide that can stabilize the ferroelectric state down to 1 nanometer through samarium bondage. This film can be grown on a variety of substrates with a cost-effective chemical solution deposition. We observed a standard ferroelectric hysteresis loop down to a thickness of ~1 nanometer. The thin films with thicknesses that range from 1 to 4.56 nanometers possess a relatively large remanent polarization from 17 to 50 microcoulombs per square centimeter. We verified the structure with first-principles calculations, which also pointed to the material being a lone pair-driven ferroelectric material. The structure design of the ultrathin ferroelectric films has great potential for the manufacturing of atomic-scale electronic devices.This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0703700, 2017YFE0119700, and 2020YFA0406202), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21801013, 51774034, 51961135107, 62104140, 12175235, 22090042, 12074016, 11704041, and 12274009), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (FRF-IDRY-19-007 and FRF-TP-19-055A2Z), the National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals, the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (2019-2021QNRC), and Lingang Laboratory Open Research Fund (grant LG-QS-202202-11). Use of the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (1W1A beamlines, China) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is acknowledged. Y.-W.F. acknowledges the support of Masaki Azuma’s group during his stay at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Y.L. acknowledges the support of the Beijing Innovation Team Building Program (grant no. IDHT20190503), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Z210016), the Research and Development Project from the Shanxi-Zheda Institute of Advanced Materials and Chemical Engineering (2022SX-TD001), and the General Program of Science and Technology Development Project of Beijing Municipal Education Commission (KM202110005003).Peer reviewe

Decomposition Analysis of Energy-Related CO2 Emissions and Decoupling Status in China’s Logistics Industry

The logistics industry is one of the major fossil energy consumers and CO2 emitters in China, which plays an important role in achieving sustainable development as well as China’s emission reduction targets. To identify the key influencing factors regarding the logistics of CO2 reductions and ensure that the development of China’s logistics industry becomes less dependent on CO2 emissions, this paper built an extended log-mean Divisia index model (LMDI) to decompose the logistics of CO2 changes between 1985 and 2015. Then, we introduced a decoupling model that combined the decomposition results to analyze the decoupling state and identify the main factors that influenced the decoupling relationship. The results show the following. (1) The urbanization effect was the decisive factor in CO2 emissions increases, followed by structural adjustment effects, while technological progress effects played a major role in inhibiting CO2 emissions. Particularly, the energy structure showed great potential for CO2 emissions reduction in China. (2) Highways appeared to have dominant promoting roles in increasing CO2 emissions regarding transportation structure effects; highways and aviation proved to have the largest impact on CO2 emission reduction. (3) There has been an increase in the number of expansive negative decoupling states between 2005 and 2015, which implies that the development of the logistics industry has become more dependent on CO2 emissions. Finally, this paper puts forward some policy implications for CO2 emission reductions in China’s logistics industry