One-shot Neural Backdoor Erasing via Adversarial Weight Masking

Recent studies show that despite achieving high accuracy on a number of real-world applications, deep neural networks (DNNs) can be backdoored: by injecting triggered data samples into the training dataset, the adversary can mislead the trained model into classifying any test data to the target class as long as the trigger pattern is presented. To nullify such backdoor threats, various methods have been proposed. Particularly, a line of research aims to purify the potentially compromised model. However, one major limitation of this line of work is the requirement to access sufficient original training data: the purifying performance is a lot worse when the available training data is limited. In this work, we propose Adversarial Weight Masking (AWM), a novel method capable of erasing the neural backdoors even in the one-shot setting. The key idea behind our method is to formulate this into a min-max optimization problem: first, adversarially recover the trigger patterns and then (soft) mask the network weights that are sensitive to the recovered patterns. Comprehensive evaluations of several benchmark datasets suggest that AWM can largely improve the purifying effects over other state-of-the-art methods on various available training dataset sizes.Comment: Accepted by NeurIPS 2022 (19 pages, 6 figures, 10 tables

The Effect of National Characteristics on Corporate Disclosure Practices: A Case of ASEAN

This paper aims to extend existing literature by indicating the linkage between national institutions and disclosure practices based on a perspective of a group of developing countries, namely ASEAN. Using a sample of 111 non-financial listed companies in five ASEAN countries, covering Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, from 2011 to 2015, the empirical result reveals that the extent of corporate disclosure in ASEAN is positively related to the level of regulation quality at 99% confidence levels and positively associated with the level of rule of law at 95% confidence levels, meaning that businesses tend to disclose more information when government agencies provide suitable policies that help to facilitate business growth and serious concern about the quality of contract enforcement. On the other hands, the finding also demonstrates that the level of corporate is negatively connected with the level of political stability and absence of violence, the level of government effectiveness, and the level of control of corruption, meaning that the level of corporate disclosure in ASEAN would be increased when the national environment is unstable and improper for investing in new projects, the government lacks capabilities to promote economic development, and the country has a high rate of corruption. The paper contributes to international disclosure literature by extending an understanding of the effects of national factors on disclosure practices. Distinct from the mainstream of disclosure literature, the obtained results could provide empirical evidence not only for regulators who want to reinforce the regional regulations. Keywords: National Characteristics, Corporate Disclosure, ASEAN, Panel Data Analysis, Listed Compan

Demand for e-Government Adoption in Pakistan

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the demands of citizens of Pakistan from its government to adopt and implement e-Government services in developing countries. A truly, e-Government service can empower citizen adoption of e-Government driven organizations, where these offices are at a simple stage in Pakistan. It is an essential topic, as the utilization of e-Government has turned into an integral part of administration. Findings and Practical Implications. E-Government advancement obliges a decent learning of both clients' desires and all the variables that may quality clients' appropriation of the innovation. A few variables could go about as forerunners of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model's parts in the connection of obligatory utilization situations. The present examination addresses the legitimacy of such forerunners when one is managing a free utilize environment rather that with a necessary one. This work shows and examines the difficulties forced by the utilization of data and correspondence advancements by the Pakistani state, emphasizing the activities performed by the electronic government. with emphasis to the complementarities, from which positive aspects coming from the adoption of these new technologies are highlighted, such as opening new channels of communication and participation between the citizen and the public manager, as well as the benefits of easy and fast access to public numberless services available via the internet. Research Problem. Citizens of Pakistan demands from its government to adopt e-Government research is based on that how government can adopt e-Government and what factors should be focused to implement the e-Government successfully in Pakistan. Research Design and Methodology. The methodology is based on building up a structural comparison demonstrate by method for the up close and personal meeting and review strategy. Our discoveries demonstrate that the desires about the outcome to be acquired and the exertion desires held by the client influence fundamentally the proposition of utilization of the e-Government stage of Pakistan. Thusly, the plan of utilization and the encouraging conditions have an impact on real utilization of the stage. Besides, we found that accommodation, help, trust and shirking of individual communication assume imperative parts as far as UTAUT model's predecessors.. Keywords: Demand, e-Government adoption, UTAUT model, factors, Pakistan

The Research on Shadow Banking System in China

The shadow banking system has grown stronger in the process of evading supervision. Together with traditional commercial banks, it has become an important participant in the financial system, which has caused a fundamental change in the structure of the global financial system. As an exogenous reform force in China’s special period, Shadow Bank has become an important channel for financial resources to “disconnect from reality”. Despite the lack of substantial securitization, China’s shadow banking system has developed rapidly. This paper analyzes the development motivation.This paper believes that the scope of China’s shadow banking system can be defined according to the nature of the fund supply side

On Finite Difference Jacobian Computation in Deformable Image Registration

Producing spatial transformations that are diffeomorphic has been a central problem in deformable image registration. As a diffeomorphic transformation should have positive Jacobian determinant $|J|$ everywhere, the number of voxels with $|J|<0$ has been used to test for diffeomorphism and also to measure the irregularity of the transformation. For digital transformations, $|J|$ is commonly approximated using central difference, but this strategy can yield positive $|J|$'s for transformations that are clearly not diffeomorphic -- even at the voxel resolution level. To show this, we first investigate the geometric meaning of different finite difference approximations of $|J|$. We show that to determine diffeomorphism for digital images, use of any individual finite difference approximations of $|J|$ is insufficient. We show that for a 2D transformation, four unique finite difference approximations of $|J|$'s must be positive to ensure the entire domain is invertible and free of folding at the pixel level. We also show that in 3D, ten unique finite differences approximations of $|J|$'s are required to be positive. Our proposed digital diffeomorphism criteria solves several errors inherent in the central difference approximation of $|J|$ and accurately detects non-diffeomorphic digital transformations

Research on Conceptual Metaphors of Sense of national Community in China Daily English Reports

This paper takes the English reports on the sense of national community in China Daily, the mainstream media of China, from 2018 to 2022 as the research object. Based on conceptual metaphor, this article analyses the types, distribution characteristics and role of metaphors in the reports of “sense of national community”. Study finds out that eight different types of metaphors were used in English news reports, and that the frequency of different metaphor types was very unevenly distributed. There is an inappropriate use of religious metaphor in the report. This study has implications for Chinese mainstream media in delivering a sense of national community, spreading Chinese culture and enhancing national cultural confidence