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Displacement plays a crucial role in structural health monitoring (SHM) and damage detection of structural systems subjected to dynamic loads. However, due to the inconvenience associated with the direct measurement of displacement during dynamic loading and the high cost of displacement sensors, the use of displacement measurements often gets restricted. In recent years, indirect estimation of displacement from acceleration and strain data has gained popularity. Several researchers have developed data fusion techniques to estimate displacement from acceleration and strain data. However, existing data fusion techniques mostly rely on system properties like mode shapes or finite element models and require accurate knowledge about the system for successful implementation. Hence, they have the inherent limitation of their applicability being restricted to relatively simple structures where such information is easily available. In this article, B-spline basis functions have been used to formulate a Kalman filter-based algorithm for acceleration and strain data fusion using only elementary information about the system, such as the geometry and boundary conditions, which is the major advantage of this method. Also, the proposed algorithm enables us to monitor the full-field displacement of the system online with only a limited number of sensors. The method has been validated on a numerically generated dataset from the finite element model of a tapered beam subjected to dynamic excitation. Later, the proposed data fusion technique was applied to an experimental benchmark test of a wind turbine blade under dynamic load to estimate the displacement time history. In both cases, the reconstructed displacement from strain and acceleration was found to match well with the response from the FE model., Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures

The cervix is the narrow end of the uterus that connects to the vagina in the female reproductive system. Abnormal cell growth in the squamous epithelial lining of the cervix leads to cervical cancer in females. A Pap smear is a diagnostic procedure used to detect cervical cancer by gently collecting cells from the surface of the cervix with a small brush and analyzing their changes under a microscope. For population-based cervical cancer screening, visual inspection with acetic acid is a cost-effective method with high sensitivity. However, Pap smears are also suitable for mass screening due to their higher specificity. The current Pap smear analysis method is manual, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and prone to human error. Therefore, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based approach for automatic cell classification is needed. In this study, we aimed to classify cells in Pap smear images into five categories: superficial-intermediate, parabasal, koilocytes, dyskeratotic, and metaplastic. Various machine learning (ML) algorithms, including Gradient Boosting, Random Forest, Support Vector Machine, and k-Nearest Neighbor, as well as deep learning (DL) approaches like ResNet-50, were employed for this classification task. The ML models demonstrated high classification accuracy; however, ResNet-50 outperformed the others, achieving a classification accuracy of 93.06%. This study highlights the efficiency of DL models for cell-level classification and their potential to aid in the early diagnosis of cervical cancer from Pap smear images., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures

Machine learning for scientific discovery is increasingly becoming popular because of its ability to extract and recognize the nonlinear characteristics from the data. The black-box nature of deep learning methods poses difficulties in interpreting the identified model. There is a dire need to interpret the machine learning models to develop a physical understanding of dynamic systems. An interpretable form of neural network called Kolmogorov-Arnold networks (KAN) or Multiplicative KAN (MultKAN) offers critical features that help recognize the nonlinearities in the governing ordinary/partial differential equations (ODE/PDE) of various dynamic systems and find their equation structures. In this study, an equation discovery framework is proposed that includes i) sequentially regularized derivatives for denoising (SRDD) algorithm to denoise the measure data to obtain accurate derivatives, ii) KAN to identify the equation structure and suggest relevant nonlinear functions that are used to create a small overcomplete library of functions, and iii) physics-informed spline fitting (PISF) algorithm to filter the excess functions from the library and converge to the correct equation. The framework was tested on the forced Duffing oscillator, Van der Pol oscillator (stiff ODE), Burger's equation, and Bouc-Wen model (coupled ODE). The proposed method converged to the true equation for the first three systems. It provided an approximate model for the Bouc-Wen model that could acceptably capture the hysteresis response. Using KAN maintains low complexity, which helps the user interpret the results throughout the process and avoid the black-box-type nature of machine learning methods.

The holy grail of machine learning is to enable Continual Federated Learning (CFL) to enhance the efficiency, privacy, and scalability of AI systems while learning from streaming data. The primary challenge of a CFL system is to overcome global catastrophic forgetting, wherein the accuracy of the global model trained on new tasks declines on the old tasks. In this work, we propose Continual Federated Learning with Aggregated Gradients (C-FLAG), a novel replay-memory based federated strategy consisting of edge-based gradient updates on memory and aggregated gradients on the current data. We provide convergence analysis of the C-FLAG approach which addresses forgetting and bias while converging at a rate of $O(1/\sqrt{T})$ over $T$ communication rounds. We formulate an optimization sub-problem that minimizes catastrophic forgetting, translating CFL into an iterative algorithm with adaptive learning rates that ensure seamless learning across tasks. We empirically show that C-FLAG outperforms several state-of-the-art baselines on both task and class-incremental settings with respect to metrics such as accuracy and forgetting.

This research introduces an innovative artificial intelligence-driven educational concept designed to optimize self-directed learning through personalized course delivery and automated teaching assistance. The system leverages fine-tuned AI models to create an adaptive learning environment that encompasses customized roadmaps, automated presentation generation, and three-dimensional modeling for complex concept visualization. By integrating real-time virtual assistance for doubt resolution, the platform addresses the immediate educational needs of learners while promoting autonomous learning practices. This study explores the psychological advantages of self-directed learning and demonstrates how AI automation can enhance educational outcomes through personalized content delivery and interactive support mechanisms. The research contributes to the growing field of educational technology by presenting a comprehensive framework that combines automated content generation, visual learning aids, and intelligent tutoring to create an efficient, scalable solution for modern educational needs. Preliminary findings suggest that this approach not only accommodates diverse learning styles but also strengthens student engagement and knowledge retention through its emphasis on self-paced, independent learning methodologies., Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, 12 references and 1 table

Gen-AI techniques are able to improve understanding of context and nuances in language modeling, translation between languages, handle large volumes of data, provide fast, low-latency responses and can be fine-tuned for various tasks and domains. In this manuscript, we present a comprehensive overview of the applications of Gen-AI techniques in the finance domain. In particular, we present the opportunities and challenges associated with the usage of Gen-AI techniques. We also illustrate the various methodologies which can be used to train Gen-AI techniques and present the various application areas of Gen-AI technologies in the finance ecosystem. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the most comprehensive summarization of Gen-AI techniques within the financial domain. The analysis is designed for a deep overview of areas marked for substantial advancement while simultaneously pin-point those warranting future prioritization. We also hope that this work would serve as a conduit between finance and other domains, thus fostering the cross-pollination of innovative concepts and practices.

Next-generation wireless systems, already widely deployed, are expected to become even more prevalent in the future, representing challenges in both environmental and economic terms. This paper focuses on improving the energy efficiency of intelligent and programmable Open Radio Access Network (RAN) systems through the near-real-time dynamic activation and deactivation of Base Station (BS) Radio Frequency (RF) frontends using Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms, i.e., Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) and Deep Q-Network (DQN). These algorithms run on the RAN Intelligent Controllers (RICs), part of the Open RAN architecture, and are designed to make optimal network-level decisions based on historical data without compromising stability and performance. We leverage a rich set of Key Performance Measurements (KPMs), serving as state for the DRL, to create a comprehensive representation of the RAN, alongside a set of actions that correspond to some control exercised on the RF frontend. We extend ns-O-RAN, an open-source, realistic simulator for 5G and Open RAN built on ns-3, to conduct an extensive data collection campaign. This enables us to train the agents offline with over 300,000 data points and subsequently evaluate the performance of the trained models. Results show that DRL agents improve energy efficiency by adapting to network conditions while minimally impacting the user experience. Additionally, we explore the trade-off between throughput and energy consumption offered by different DRL agent designs.

Smaller vision-language models (VLMs) are becoming increasingly important for privacy-focused, on-device applications due to their ability to run efficiently on consumer hardware for processing enterprise commercial documents and images. These models require strong language understanding and visual capabilities to enhance human-machine interaction. To address this need, we present H2OVL-Mississippi, a pair of small VLMs trained on 37 million image-text pairs using 240 hours of compute on 8 x H100 GPUs. H2OVL-Mississippi-0.8B is a tiny model with 0.8 billion parameters that specializes in text recognition, achieving state of the art performance on the Text Recognition portion of OCRBench and surpassing much larger models in this area. Additionally, we are releasing H2OVL-Mississippi-2B, a 2 billion parameter model for general use cases, exhibiting highly competitive metrics across various academic benchmarks. Both models build upon our prior work with H2O-Danube language models, extending their capabilities into the visual domain. We release them under the Apache 2.0 license, making VLMs accessible to everyone, democratizing document AI and visual LLMs.

How much does AI assistance impact developer productivity? To date, the software engineering literature has provided a range of answers, targeting a diversity of outcomes: from perceived productivity to speed on task and developer throughput. Our randomized controlled trial with 96 full-time Google software engineers contributes to this literature by sharing an estimate of the impact of three AI features on the time developers spent on a complex, enterprise-grade task. We found that AI significantly shortened the time developers spent on task. Our best estimate of the size of this effect, controlling for factors known to influence developer time on task, stands at about 21\%, although our confidence interval is large. We also found an interesting effect whereby developers who spend more hours on code-related activities per day were faster with AI. Product and future research considerations are discussed. In particular, we invite further research that explores the impact of AI at the ecosystem level and across multiple suites of AI-enhanced tools, since we cannot assume that the effect size obtained in our lab study will necessarily apply more broadly, or that the effect of AI found using internal Google tooling in the summer of 2024 will translate across tools and over time., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables

Trusted hardware's freshness guarantee ensures that an adversary cannot replay an old value in response to a memory read request. They rely on maintaining a version number for each cache block and ensuring their integrity using a Merkle tree. However, these existing solutions protect only a small amount of main memory (few MBs), as the extraneous memory accesses to the Merkle tree increase prohibitively with the protected memory size. We present Toleo, which uses trusted smart memory connected through a secure CXL IDE network to safely store version numbers. Toleo eliminates the need for an unscalable Merkle tree to protect the integrity of version numbers by instead using smart memory as the root of trust. Additionally, Toleo ensures version confidentiality which enables stealth versions that reduce the version storage overhead in half. Furthermore, in the absence of Merkle tree imposed constraints, we effectively exploit version locality at page granularity to compress version number by a factor of 240. These space optimizations make it feasible for one 168 GB Toleo smart memory device to provide freshness to a 28 TB CXL-expanded main memory pool in a rack server for a negligible performance overhead. We analyze the benefits of Toleo using several privacy-sensitive genomics, graph, generative AI, and database workloads.

Sparse system identification of nonlinear dynamic systems is still challenging, especially for stiff and high-order differential equations for noisy measurement data. The use of highly correlated functions makes distinguishing between true and false functions difficult, which limits the choice of functions. In this study, an equation discovery method has been proposed to tackle these problems. The key elements include a) use of B-splines for data fitting to get analytical derivatives superior to numerical derivatives, b) sequentially regularized derivatives for denoising (SRDD) algorithm, highly effective in removing noise from signal without system information loss, c) uncorrelated component analysis (UCA) algorithm that identifies and eliminates highly correlated functions while retaining the true functions, and d) physics-informed spline fitting (PISF) where the spline fitting is updated gradually while satisfying the governing equation with a dictionary of candidate functions to converge to the correct equation sequentially. The complete framework is built on a unified deep-learning architecture that eases the optimization process. The proposed method is demonstrated to discover various differential equations at various noise levels, including three-dimensional, fourth-order, and stiff equations. The parameter estimation converges accurately to the true values with a small coefficient of variation, suggesting robustness to the noise.

Tourism Recommender Systems (TRS) have traditionally focused on providing personalized travel suggestions, often prioritizing user preferences without considering broader sustainability goals. Integrating sustainability into TRS has become essential with the increasing need to balance environmental impact, local community interests, and visitor satisfaction. This paper proposes a novel approach to enhancing TRS for sustainable city trips using Large Language Models (LLMs) and a modified Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline. We enhance the traditional RAG system by incorporating a sustainability metric based on a city's popularity and seasonal demand during the prompt augmentation phase. This modification, called Sustainability Augmented Reranking (SAR), ensures the system's recommendations align with sustainability goals. Evaluations using popular open-source LLMs, such as Llama-3.1-Instruct-8B and Mistral-Instruct-7B, demonstrate that the SAR-enhanced approach consistently matches or outperforms the baseline (without SAR) across most metrics, highlighting the benefits of incorporating sustainability into TRS., Comment: Accepted at the RecSoGood 2024 Workshop co-located with the 18th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2024)

This paper uses topic modeling and bias measurement techniques to analyze and determine gender bias in English song lyrics. We utilize BERTopic to cluster 537,553 English songs into distinct topics and chart their development over time. Our analysis shows the thematic shift in song lyrics over the years, from themes of romance to the increasing sexualization of women in songs. We observe large amounts of profanity and misogynistic lyrics on various topics, especially in the overall biggest cluster. Furthermore, to analyze gender bias across topics and genres, we employ the Single Category Word Embedding Association Test (SC-WEAT) to compute bias scores for the word embeddings trained on the most popular topics as well as for each genre. We find that words related to intelligence and strength tend to show a male bias across genres, as opposed to appearance and weakness words, which are more female-biased; however, a closer look also reveals differences in biases across topics., Comment: Accepted and presented at the 17th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (see https://sbp-brims.org/2024/papers/working-papers/Chen_SBP-BRiMS2024_Final_31.pdf )

Frequency estimation from measurements corrupted by noise is a fundamental challenge across numerous engineering and scientific fields. Among the pivotal factors shaping the resolution capacity of any frequency estimation technique are noise levels and measurement count. Often constrained by practical limitations, the number of measurements tends to be limited. This work introduces a learning-driven approach focused on predicting forthcoming measurements based on available samples. Subsequently, we demonstrate that we can attain high-resolution frequency estimates by combining provided and predicted measurements. In particular, our findings indicate that using just one-third of the total measurements, the method achieves a performance akin to that obtained with the complete set. Unlike existing learning-based frequency estimators, our approach's output retains full interpretability. This work holds promise for developing energy-efficient systems with reduced sampling requirements, which will benefit various applications., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Low trust remains a significant barrier to Autonomous Vehicle (AV) adoption. To design trustworthy AVs, we need to better understand the individual traits, attitudes, and experiences that impact people's trust judgements. We use machine learning to understand the most important factors that contribute to young adult trust based on a comprehensive set of personal factors gathered via survey (n = 1457). Factors ranged from psychosocial and cognitive attributes to driving style, experiences, and perceived AV risks and benefits. Using the explainable AI technique SHAP, we found that perceptions of AV risks and benefits, attitudes toward feasibility and usability, institutional trust, prior experience, and a person's mental model are the most important predictors. Surprisingly, psychosocial and many technology- and driving-specific factors were not strong predictors. Results highlight the importance of individual differences for designing trustworthy AVs for diverse groups and lead to key implications for future design and research., Comment: 31 pages (including references and appendix), 7 figures, 7 tables

Pulse profile modelling (PPM) is a technique for inferring mass, radius and hotspot properties of millisecond pulsars. PPM is now regularly used for analysis of rotation-powered millisecond pulsars (RMPs) with data from the Neutron Star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER). Extending PPM to accreting millisecond pulsars (AMPs) is attractive, because they are a different source class featuring bright X-ray radiation from hotspots powered by accretion. In this paper, we present a modification of one of the PPM codes, X-PSI, so that it can be used for AMPs. In particular, we implement a model of an accretion disc and atmosphere model appropriate for the hotspots of AMPs, and improve the overall computational efficiency. We then test parameter recovery with synthetic NICER data in two scenarios with reasonable parameters for AMPs. We find in the first scenario, where the hotspot is large, that we are able to tightly and accurately constrain all parameters including mass and radius. In the second scenario, which is a high inclination system with a smaller hotspot, we find degeneracy between a subset of model parameters and a slight bias in the inferred mass and radius. This analysis of synthetic data lays the ground work for future analysis of AMPs with NICER data. Such an analysis could be complemented by future (joint) analysis of polarization data from the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables. Paper submitted to MNRAS

In this article, we propose a new method of generating single microwave photons in superconducting circuits. We theoretically show that pure single microwave photons can be generated on demand and tuned over a large frequency band by making use of Landau-Zener transitions under a rapid sweep of a control parameter. We devise a protocol that enables pulse-level control of the frequency of the emitted photon over two octaves, without requiring extensive calibration. Additionally, we make theoretical estimates of the generation efficiency, tunability, purity, and linewidth of the photons emitted using this method for both charge and flux qubit-based architectures. We also provide estimates of optimal device parameters for these architectures in order to realize the device., Comment: 7+7 pages, 12 figures, Comments welcome

Graph signals are functions of the underlying graph. When the edge-weight between a pair of nodes is high, the corresponding signals generally have a higher correlation. As a result, the signals can be represented in terms of a graph-based generative model. The question then arises whether measurements can be obtained on a few nodes and whether the correlation structure between the signals can be used to reconstruct the graph signal on the remaining nodes. We show that node subsampling is always possible for graph signals obtained through a generative model. Further, a method to determine the number of nodes to select is proposed based on the tolerable error. A correlation-based fast greedy algorithm is developed for selecting the nodes. Finally, we verify the proposed method on different deterministic and random graphs, and show that near-perfect reconstruction is possible with node subsampling.

Sampling and quantization are crucial in digital signal processing, but quantization introduces errors, particularly due to distribution mismatch between input signals and quantizers. Existing methods to reduce this error require precise knowledge of the input's distribution, which is often unavailable. To address this, we propose a blind and adaptive method that minimizes distribution mismatch without prior knowledge of the input distribution. Our approach uses a nonlinear transformation with amplification and modulo-folding, followed by a uniform quantizer. Theoretical analysis shows that sufficient amplification makes the output distribution of modulo-folding nearly uniform, reducing mismatch across various distributions, including Gaussian, exponential, and uniform. To recover the true quantized samples, we suggest using existing unfolding techniques, which, despite requiring significant oversampling, effectively reduce mismatch and quantization error, offering a favorable trade-off similar to predictive coding strategies., Comment: 22 pages,4 figures

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have made remarkable strides; however, they remain susceptible to vulnerabilities, particularly in the face of minor image perturbations that humans can easily recognize. This weakness, often termed as 'attacks', underscores the limited robustness of CNNs and the need for research into fortifying their resistance against such manipulations. This study introduces a novel Non-Uniform Illumination (NUI) attack technique, where images are subtly altered using varying NUI masks. Extensive experiments are conducted on widely-accepted datasets including CIFAR10, TinyImageNet, and CalTech256, focusing on image classification with 12 different NUI attack models. The resilience of VGG, ResNet, MobilenetV3-small and InceptionV3 models against NUI attacks are evaluated. Our results show a substantial decline in the CNN models' classification accuracy when subjected to NUI attacks, indicating their vulnerability under non-uniform illumination. To mitigate this, a defense strategy is proposed, including NUI-attacked images, generated through the new NUI transformation, into the training set. The results demonstrate a significant enhancement in CNN model performance when confronted with perturbed images affected by NUI attacks. This strategy seeks to bolster CNN models' resilience against NUI attacks.

Traffic roundabouts, as complex and critical road scenarios, pose significant safety challenges for autonomous vehicles. In particular, the encounter of a vehicle with a dilemma zone (DZ) at a roundabout intersection is a pivotal concern. This paper presents an automated system that leverages trajectory forecasting to predict DZ events, specifically at traffic roundabouts. Our system aims to enhance safety standards in both autonomous and manual transportation. The core of our approach is a modular, graph-structured recurrent model that forecasts the trajectories of diverse agents, taking into account agent dynamics and integrating heterogeneous data, such as semantic maps. This model, based on graph neural networks, aids in predicting DZ events and enhances traffic management decision-making. We evaluated our system using a real-world dataset of traffic roundabout intersections. Our experimental results demonstrate that our dilemma forecasting system achieves a high precision with a low false positive rate of 0.1. This research represents an advancement in roundabout DZ data mining and forecasting, contributing to the assurance of intersection safety in the era of autonomous vehicles.

Large Language Models have demonstrated exceptional proficiency on coding tasks, but it is challenging to precisely evaluate their code reasoning ability. Existing benchmarks are insufficient as they are unrealistic and conflate semantic reasoning ability with performance on software engineering tasks. We introduce CRQBench, a benchmark of 100 C++ code reasoning questions and answers derived from contextualized code review comments. To curate CRQBench, we use an LLM assistant alongside human inspection, reducing manual effort. We conduct an evaluation of GPT-4 on CRQBench and find that it produces correct responses grounded in the given context for 65 of the 100 questions.

In this study, we implement a novel BERT architecture for multitask fine-tuning on three downstream tasks: sentiment classification, paraphrase detection, and semantic textual similarity prediction. Our model, Multitask BERT, incorporates layer sharing and a triplet architecture, custom sentence pair tokenization, loss pairing, and gradient surgery. Such optimizations yield a 0.516 sentiment classification accuracy, 0.886 paraphase detection accuracy, and 0.864 semantic textual similarity correlation on test data. We also apply generative adversarial learning to BERT, constructing a conditional generator model that maps from latent space to create fake embeddings in $\mathbb{R}^{768}$. These fake embeddings are concatenated with real BERT embeddings and passed into a discriminator model for auxiliary classification. Using this framework, which we refer to as AC-GAN-BERT, we conduct semi-supervised sensitivity analyses to investigate the effect of increasing amounts of unlabeled training data on AC-GAN-BERT's test accuracy. Overall, aside from implementing a high-performing multitask classification system, our novelty lies in the application of adversarial learning to construct a generator that mimics BERT. We find that the conditional generator successfully produces rich embeddings with clear spatial correlation with class labels, demonstrating avoidance of mode collapse. Our findings validate the GAN-BERT approach and point to future directions of generator-aided knowledge distillation.

We propose using natural language outlines as a novel modality and interaction surface for providing AI assistance to developers throughout the software development process. An NL outline for a code function comprises multiple statements written in concise prose, which partition the code and summarize its main ideas in the style of literate programming. Crucially, we find that modern LLMs can generate accurate and high-quality NL outlines in practice. Moreover, NL outlines enable a bidirectional sync between code and NL, allowing changes in one to be automatically reflected in the other. We discuss many use cases for NL outlines: they can accelerate understanding and navigation of code and diffs, simplify code maintenance, augment code search, steer code generation, and more. We then propose and compare multiple LLM prompting techniques for generating outlines and ask professional developers to judge outline quality. Finally, we present two case studies applying NL outlines toward code review and the difficult task of malware detection.

In this paper, we propose a novel construction for a symmetric encryption scheme, referred as SEBQ which is based on the structure of quasigroup. We utilize concepts of chaining like mode of operation and present a block cipher with in-built properties. We prove that SEBQ shows resistance against chosen plaintext attack (CPA) and by applying unbalanced Feistel transformation [19], it achieves security against chosen ciphertext attacks (CCA). Subsequently, we conduct an assessment of the randomness of the proposed scheme by running the NIST test suite and we analyze the impact of the initial vector, secret key and plaintext on ciphertext through an avalanche effect analysis. We also compare the results with existing schemes based on quasigroups [11,46]. Moreover, we analyze the computational complexity in terms of number of operations needed for encryption and decryption process.

Origami structures have been receiving a lot of attention from engineering and scientific researchers owing to their unique properties such as deployability, multi-stability, negative stiffness, etc. However, dynamic properties of origami structures have not been explored much due to a lack of validated analytical dynamic modeling approaches. Given the range of interesting properties and applications of origami structures, it is important to study the dynamic behavior of origami structures. In this study, a dynamic modeling approach for origami structures is presented considering distributed mass modeling, which has the potential to be a generalizable approach. In the proposed approach, stiffness is modeled using the bar and hinge modeling approach while the mass is modeled using the mass distribution approach. Various candidate mass distribution approaches were investigated by comparing their responses to the finite element method responses for various geometric conditions, loading and boundary conditions, and deformation modes. It was observed that a dynamic modeling approach with triangle circumcenter mass distribution was able to capture most of the dynamics satisfactorily consistently. Subsequently, a Miura-ori specimen was manufactured and its free vibration response was determined experimentally and then compared to the prediction of the analytical model. The comparison demonstrated that the analytical model was able to capture most of the dynamics in the longitudinal direction.

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems are powered by foundation models. This paper presents a new set of foundation models, called Llama 3. It is a herd of language models that natively support multilinguality, coding, reasoning, and tool usage. Our largest model is a dense Transformer with 405B parameters and a context window of up to 128K tokens. This paper presents an extensive empirical evaluation of Llama 3. We find that Llama 3 delivers comparable quality to leading language models such as GPT-4 on a plethora of tasks. We publicly release Llama 3, including pre-trained and post-trained versions of the 405B parameter language model and our Llama Guard 3 model for input and output safety. The paper also presents the results of experiments in which we integrate image, video, and speech capabilities into Llama 3 via a compositional approach. We observe this approach performs competitively with the state-of-the-art on image, video, and speech recognition tasks. The resulting models are not yet being broadly released as they are still under development.

With the integration of loads such as pulse power loads, a new control challenge is presented in meeting their high ramp rate requirements. Existing onboard generators are ramp rate limited. The inability to meet the load power due to ramp rate limitation may lead to instability. The addition of energy storage elements in addition to the existing generators proves a viable solution in addressing the control challenges presented by high ramp rate loads. A distributed energy management strategy maximizing generator efficiency and minimizing energy storage degradation is developed that facilitates an optimal adaptive power split between generators and energy storage elements. The complex structure of the energy storage degradation model makes it tough for its direct integration into the optimization problem and is not practical for real-time implementation. A degradation heuristic to minimize absolute power extracted from the energy storage elements is proposed as a degradation heuristic measure. The designed strategy is tested through a numerical case study of a consolidated shipboard power system model consisting of a single generator, energy storage element, and load model. The results show the impact of the designed energy management strategy in effectively managing energy storage health., Comment: Accepted for Publication at MECC, Chicago, IL, 2024

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging is pivotal in diagnosing ophthalmic conditions by providing detailed cross-sectional images of the anterior and posterior segments of the eye. Nonetheless, speckle noise and other imaging artifacts inherent to OCT impede the accuracy of diagnosis significantly. In this study, we proposed an enhanced denoising model using a Residual U-Net architecture that effectively diminishes noise and improves image clarity across both Anterior Segment OCT (ASOCT) and polarization-sensitive OCT (PSOCT) images. Our approach demonstrated substantial improvements in image quality metrics: the Peak Signal Noise Ratio (PSNR) was 34.343 $\pm$ 1.113 for PSOCT images, and Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) values were 0.885 $\pm$ 0.030, indicating enhanced preservation of tissue integrity and textural details. For ASOCT images, we observed the PSNR to be 23.525 $\pm$ 0.872 dB and SSIM 0.407 $\pm$ 0.044, reflecting significant enhancements in visual quality and structural accuracy. These metrics substantiate the models efficacy in not only reducing noise but also in maintaining crucial anatomical features, thereby enabling more precise and efficient clinical evaluations. The dual functionality across both ASOCT and PSOCT modalities underscores the versatility and potential for broad application in clinical settings, optimizing diagnostic processes and reducing the necessity for prolonged imaging sessions.

Microservice architecture has transformed traditional monolithic applications into lightweight components. Scaling these lightweight microservices is more efficient than scaling servers. However, scaling microservices still faces the challenges resulted from the unexpected spikes or bursts of requests, which are difficult to detect and can degrade performance instantaneously. To address this challenge and ensure the performance of microservice-based applications, we propose a status-aware and elastic scaling framework called StatuScale, which is based on load status detector that can select appropriate elastic scaling strategies for differentiated resource scheduling in vertical scaling. Additionally, StatuScale employs a horizontal scaling controller that utilizes comprehensive evaluation and resource reduction to manage the number of replicas for each microservice. We also present a novel metric named correlation factor to evaluate the resource usage efficiency. Finally, we use Kubernetes, an open-source container orchestration and management platform, and realistic traces from Alibaba to validate our approach. The experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed framework can reduce the average response time in the Sock-Shop application by 8.59% to 12.34%, and in the Hotel-Reservation application by 7.30% to 11.97%, decrease service level objective violations, and offer better performance in resource usage compared to baselines., Comment: 26 pages

We present H2O-Danube3, a series of small language models consisting of H2O-Danube3-4B, trained on 6T tokens and H2O-Danube3-500M, trained on 4T tokens. Our models are pre-trained on high quality Web data consisting of primarily English tokens in three stages with different data mixes before final supervised tuning for chat version. The models exhibit highly competitive metrics across a multitude of academic, chat, and fine-tuning benchmarks. Thanks to its compact architecture, H2O-Danube3 can be efficiently run on a modern smartphone, enabling local inference and rapid processing capabilities even on mobile devices. We make all models openly available under Apache 2.0 license further democratizing LLMs to a wider audience economically.

To address the increased latency, network load and compromised privacy issues associated with the Cloud-centric IoT applications, fog computing has emerged. Fog computing utilizes the proximal computational and storage devices, for sensor data analytics. The edge-fog-cloud continuum thus provides significant edge analytics capabilities for realizing interesting IoT applications. While edge analytics tasks are usually performed on a single node, distributed edge analytics proposes utilizing multiple nodes from the continuum, concurrently. This paper discusses and demonstrates distributed edge analytics from three different perspectives; serverless data pipelines (SDP), distributed computing and edge analytics, and federated learning, with our frameworks, MQTT based SDP, CANTO and FIDEL, respectively. The results produced in the paper, through different case studies, show the feasibility of performing distributed edge analytics following the three approaches, across the continuum.

This paper presents an improved droop control method to ensure effective power sharing, voltage regulation, and frequency stabilization of inverter-based resources (IBRs) connected in parallel in an islanded AC microgrid. In the contemporary droop control algorithm, the distance between connected inverters affects the effectiveness of the active power-frequency and the reactive power-voltage droop characteristics which results in poor power sharing at the primary level of the microgrid. That is, high impedance emanating from long transmission lines results in instability, poor voltage tracking, and ineffective frequency regulation. Hence, in this work, we use a finite-control-set model predictive controller (FCS-MPC) in the inner loop, which gives efficient voltage tracking, good frequency regulation, and faster performance response. FCS-MPC is easy to implement in fast switching converters and does not suffer from computational burden unlike the continuous-set MPC and is also devoid of issues of multiple-loop, parameter variation, and slow response associated with conventional droop control methods. We derived the condition for bounded stability for the FCS-MPC and the proposed method is tested via a numerical simulation on three IBRs. The results show effective power sharing, capacitor voltage tracking, and efficient frequency regulation with reduced oscillations to changes in load., Comment: Accepted for Publication at MECC 2024, Chicago, IL

In protein secondary structure prediction, each amino acid in sequence is typically treated as a distinct category and represented by a one-hot vector. In this study, we developed two novel chemical representations for amino acids utilizing molecular fingerprints and the dimensionality reduction algorithm FastMap. We demonstrate that the two new chemical encodings can provide additional information about the interactions of amino acids in sequences that an LSTM-based model cannot capture with one-hot encoding alone. Compared to the latest LSTM-based model used in the single-sequence-based method SPOT-1D-Single, our ensemble model utilizing one-hot and chemical encodings achieves better accuracy across most test sets while requiring approximately nine times fewer trainable parameters for each encoding model. Our single-sequence-based method is valuable for its simplicity, lower resource requirements, and independence from external sequence data. It is beneficial when quick or preliminary predictions are needed or when data on homologous sequences is scarce.

We develop a novel algorithm to construct a congestion-approximator with polylogarithmic quality on a capacitated, undirected graph in nearly-linear time. Our approach is the first *bottom-up* hierarchical construction, in contrast to previous *top-down* approaches including that of Racke, Shah, and Taubig (SODA 2014), the only other construction achieving polylogarithmic quality that is implementable in nearly-linear time (Peng, SODA 2016). Similar to Racke, Shah, and Taubig, our construction at each hierarchical level requires calls to an approximate max-flow/min-cut subroutine. However, the main advantage to our bottom-up approach is that these max-flow calls can be implemented directly *without recursion*. More precisely, the previously computed levels of the hierarchy can be converted into a *pseudo-congestion-approximator*, which then translates to a max-flow algorithm that is sufficient for the particular max-flow calls used in the construction of the next hierarchical level. As a result, we obtain the first non-recursive algorithms for congestion-approximator and approximate max-flow that run in nearly-linear time, a conceptual improvement to the aforementioned algorithms that recursively alternate between the two problems., Comment: SODA 2025, 46 pages

Integration of Inverter Based Resources (IBRs) which lack the intrinsic characteristics such as the inertial response of the traditional synchronous-generator (SG) based sources presents a new challenge in the form of analyzing the grid stability under their presence. While the dynamic composition of IBRs differs from that of the SGs, the control objective remains similar in terms of tracking the desired active power. This letter presents a decentralized primal-dual-based fault-tolerant control framework for the power allocation in IBRs. Overall, a hierarchical control algorithm is developed with a lower level addressing the current control and the parameter estimation for the IBRs and the higher level acting as the reference power generator to the low level based on the desired active power profile. The decentralized network-based algorithm adaptively splits the desired power between the IBRs taking into consideration the health of the IBRs transmission lines. The proposed framework is tested through a simulation on the network of IBRs and the high-level controller performance is compared against the existing framework in the literature. The proposed algorithm shows significant performance improvement in the magnitude of power deviation and settling time to the nominal value under faulty conditions as compared to the algorithm in the literature., Comment: Accepted for Joint Submission MECC-ASME Letters in Dynamic Systems and Control

Wind energy conversion system (WECS) is stochastic in nature and has low inertia to grid voltage instability, poor reactive power compensation and most importantly fault susceptibility. Variable speed WECS such as a doubly-fed induction generators (DFIG) are well known to reach steady state quickly after fault occurrence without the need for an external reactive power source because of the presence of a back-to-back converter that provides independent control of the active and reactive power unlike in the fixed-speed squirrel cage induction generator (SCIG) counterpart that cant be stabilized unless ab external source of reactive power support is present. However, controlling DFIG is complicated and costly due to complete tripping unlike the fixed-speed generators which doesnt trip completely when fault occurs. Hence, in this work, a 48-pulse, 3-phase static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) is used to ensure reactive power compensation and fault-ride through (FRT) control of the SCIG against over-voltage emanating from fault occurrence in a grid-connected power system. The goal here is to guarantee voltage stability and fault-ride through control against injected faults within certain time ranges at the point of common coupling (PCC) between the AC sources, the load, and the fixed-speed WECS., Comment: Accepted for Publication at IEEE IECON-2024

Implicit bias can impede patient-provider interactions and lead to inequities in care. Raising awareness is key to reducing such bias, but its manifestations in the social dynamics of patient-provider communication are difficult to detect. In this study, we used automated speech recognition (ASR) and natural language processing (NLP) to identify social signals in patient-provider interactions. We built an automated pipeline to predict social signals from audio recordings of 782 primary care visits that achieved 90.1% average accuracy across codes, and exhibited fairness in its predictions for white and non-white patients. Applying this pipeline, we identified statistically significant differences in provider communication behavior toward white versus non-white patients. In particular, providers expressed more patient-centered behaviors towards white patients including more warmth, engagement, and attentiveness. Our study underscores the potential of automated tools in identifying subtle communication signals that may be linked with bias and impact healthcare quality and equity., Comment: Accepted by AMIA 2024 Annual Symposium

Motivated by recent interest in the search for generating potentials for which the underlying Schr\"{o}dinger equation is solvable, we report in the recent work several situations when a zero-energy state becomes bound depending on certain restrictions on the coupling constants that define the potential. In this regard, we present evidence of the existence of regular zero-energy normalizable solutions for a system of quasi-exactly solvable (QES) potentials that correspond to the rationally extended many-body truncated Calogero-Sutherland (TCS) model. Our procedure is based upon the use of the standard potential group approach with an underlying $so(2, 1)$ structure that utilizes a point canonical transformation with three distinct types of potentials emerging having the same eigenvalues while their common properties are subjected to the evaluation of the relevant wave functions. These cases are treated individually by suitably restricting the coupling parameters., Comment: 12 Pages, 4 Figs, Minor changes, Version to appear in Annals of Physics

The Portable Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation (PETSc) library provides scalable solvers for nonlinear time-dependent differential and algebraic equations and for numerical optimization via the Toolkit for Advanced Optimization (TAO). PETSc is used in dozens of scientific fields and is an important building block for many simulation codes. During the U.S. Department of Energy's Exascale Computing Project, the PETSc team has made substantial efforts to enable efficient utilization of the massive fine-grain parallelism present within exascale compute nodes and to enable performance portability across exascale architectures. We recap some of the challenges that designers of numerical libraries face in such an endeavor, and then discuss the many developments we have made, which include the addition of new GPU backends, features supporting efficient on-device matrix assembly, better support for asynchronicity and GPU kernel concurrency, and new communication infrastructure. We evaluate the performance of these developments on some pre-exascale systems as well the early exascale systems Frontier and Aurora, using compute kernel, communication layer, solver, and mini-application benchmark studies, and then close with a few observations drawn from our experiences on the tension between portable performance and other goals of numerical libraries., Comment: 17 pages

Two protocols are proposed for two closely linked but different variants of remote implementation of quantum operators of specific forms. The first protocol is designed for the remote implementation of the single qubit hidden quantum operator, whereas the second one is designed for the remote implementation of the partially unknown single qubit quantum operator. In both cases two-qubit maximally entangled state, which is entangled in the spatial degree of freedom is used. The quantum resources used here are optimal and easy to realize and maintain in comparison to the multi-partite or multi-mode entangled states used in earlier works. The impact of photon loss due to interaction with the environment is analyzed for both the schemes. The proposed protocols are also generalized to their controlled, bidirectional, cyclic, controlled cyclic, and controlled bidirectional versions and it is shown that either Bell state alone or products of Bell states will be sufficient to perform these tasks with some additional classical communications in the controlled cases only. This is in sharp contrast to the earlier proposals that require large entangled states. In addition, it's noted that remote implementation of hidden or partially unknown operators involving multiple controllers and/or multiple players who jointly apply the desired operator(s) would require quantum channels more complex than the Bell states and their products. Explicit forms of such quantum channels are also provided., Comment: It's shown that remote implementation of hidden or partially unknown operators can be done with optimal amount of quantum resources

Spiral structures and cold fronts in X-rays are frequently observed in cool core galaxy clusters. However, studies on radio mini-haloes associated with such spirals and their physical connections are rare. Here, we present the detection of an extended diffuse radio emission entrained in the X-ray spiral structure in a known cool core cluster Abell 795 (A795). Though the cool core is a sign of the relaxed nature of the clusters, our re-analysed 30 ks Chandra X-ray data of cluster A795 confirms the presence of an interesting log spiral structure of X-ray deficit region complemented by an X-ray excess counter spiral in the residual map, exposing its dynamical activity. Our new analysis of 150 $\&$ 325 MHz GMRT archival data of the cluster confirms the detection of a $\sim180$ kpc ultra-steep ($\alpha\sim-2.7$) diffuse radio structure which was previously reported as a candidate radio mini halo from low sensitive survey maps. This radio emission spans the entire spiral structure ($\sim186$ kpc), enclosed by two previously reported cold fronts. Furthermore, SDSS DR13 optical spectra, as well as GALEX's FUV data, show a considerably low total star formation rate of 2.52 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ and having no significant variation in metallicity distribution. We argued that the two-phase (hot and cold) plasma at the cluster core with differential velocity has probably caused the spiral formation and has redistributed the secondary electrons from the central BCG or the pre-accelerated electrons which have been (re-)accelerated by the sloshing turbulence to form the observed candidate radio mini-halo structure. This has been supported by a few previous studies that indicate spiral formation and sloshing turbulence may quench star formation and facilitate smooth metallicity distribution by mixing the gas in the core., Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

The presence of Pulse Power Loads (PPLs) in the Notional Shipboard Power System (SPS) presents a challenge in the form of meeting their high ramp rate requirements. Considering the ramp rate limitations on the generators, this might hinder the power flow in the grid. Failure to meet the ramp rate requirements might cause instability. Aggregating generators with energy storage elements usually addresses the ramp requirements while ensuring the power demand is achieved. This paper proposes an energy management strategy that adaptively splits the power demand between the generators and the batteries while simultaneously considering the battery degradation and the generator's efficient operation. Since it is challenging to incorporate the battery degradation model directly into the optimization problem due to its complex structure and the degradation time scale which is not practical for real-time implementation, two reasonable heuristics in terms of minimizing the absolute battery power and minimizing the battery state of charge are proposed and compared to manage the battery degradation. A model predictive energy management strategy is then developed to coordinate the power split considering the generator efficiency and minimizing the battery degradation based on the two heuristic approaches. The designed strategy is tested via a simulation of a lumped notional shipboard power system. The results show the impact of the battery degradation heuristics for energy management strategy in mitigating battery degradation and its health management., Comment: Accepted for publication at IECON 2024 - 50th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, Chicago, IL