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We develop an approach for calculating heavy quark effective theory (HQET) light-cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs) by employing a sequential effective theory methodology. The theoretical foundation of the framework is established, elucidating how the quasi distribution amplitudes (quasi DAs) with three scales can be utilized to compute HQET LCDAs. We provide theoretical support for this approach by demonstrating the rationale behind devising a hierarchical ordering for the three involved scales, discussing the factorization at each step, clarifying the underlying reason for obtaining HQET LCDAs in the final phase, and addressing potential theoretical challenges. The lattice QCD simulation aspect is explored in detail, and the computations of quasi DAs are presented. We employ three fitting strategies to handle contributions from excited states and extract the bare matrix elements. For renormalization purposes, we apply hybrid renormalization schemes at short and long distance separations. To mitigate long-distance perturbations, we perform an extrapolation in $\lambda= z\cdot P^z$ and assess the stability against various parameters. After two-step matching, our results for HQET LCDAs are found in agreement with existing model parametrizations. The potential phenomenological implications of the results are discussed, shedding light on how these findings could impact our understanding of the strong interaction dynamics and physics beyond the standard model. It should be noted, however, that systematic uncertainties have not been accounted for yet., Comment: 27 pages, 23 figures

With the rapid advancement of large language models (LLMs), aligning policy models with human preferences has become increasingly critical. Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) has emerged as a promising approach for alignment, acting as an RL-free alternative to Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF). Despite DPO's various advancements and inherent limitations, an in-depth review of these aspects is currently lacking in the literature. In this work, we present a comprehensive review of the challenges and opportunities in DPO, covering theoretical analyses, variants, relevant preference datasets, and applications. Specifically, we categorize recent studies on DPO based on key research questions to provide a thorough understanding of DPO's current landscape. Additionally, we propose several future research directions to offer insights on model alignment for the research community.

Parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) can bridge the gap between large language models (LLMs) and downstream tasks. However, PEFT has been proven vulnerable to malicious attacks. Research indicates that poisoned LLMs, even after PEFT, retain the capability to activate internalized backdoors when input samples contain predefined triggers. In this paper, we introduce a novel weak-to-strong unlearning algorithm to defend against backdoor attacks based on feature alignment knowledge distillation, named W2SDefense. Specifically, we first train a small-scale language model through full-parameter fine-tuning to serve as the clean teacher model. Then, this teacher model guides the large-scale poisoned student model in unlearning the backdoor, leveraging PEFT. Theoretical analysis suggests that W2SDefense has the potential to enhance the student model's ability to unlearn backdoor features, preventing the activation of the backdoor. We conduct experiments on text classification tasks involving three state-of-the-art language models and three different backdoor attack algorithms. Our empirical results demonstrate the outstanding performance of W2SDefense in defending against backdoor attacks without compromising model performance.

This paper presents a method to evaluate the alignment between the decision-making logic of Large Language Models (LLMs) and human cognition in a case study on legal LLMs. Unlike traditional evaluations on language generation results, we propose to evaluate the correctness of the detailed decision-making logic of an LLM behind its seemingly correct outputs, which represents the core challenge for an LLM to earn human trust. To this end, we quantify the interactions encoded by the LLM as primitive decision-making logic, because recent theoretical achievements have proven several mathematical guarantees of the faithfulness of the interaction-based explanation. We design a set of metrics to evaluate the detailed decision-making logic of LLMs. Experiments show that even when the language generation results appear correct, a significant portion of the internal inference logic contains notable issues.

Despite being widely applied due to their exceptional capabilities, Large Language Models (LLMs) have been proven to be vulnerable to backdoor attacks. These attacks introduce targeted vulnerabilities into LLMs by poisoning training samples and full-parameter fine-tuning. However, this kind of backdoor attack is limited since they require significant computational resources, especially as the size of LLMs increases. Besides, parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) offers an alternative but the restricted parameter updating may impede the alignment of triggers with target labels. In this study, we first verify that backdoor attacks with PEFT may encounter challenges in achieving feasible performance. To address these issues and improve the effectiveness of backdoor attacks with PEFT, we propose a novel backdoor attack algorithm from weak to strong based on feature alignment-enhanced knowledge distillation (W2SAttack). Specifically, we poison small-scale language models through full-parameter fine-tuning to serve as the teacher model. The teacher model then covertly transfers the backdoor to the large-scale student model through feature alignment-enhanced knowledge distillation, which employs PEFT. Theoretical analysis reveals that W2SAttack has the potential to augment the effectiveness of backdoor attacks. We demonstrate the superior performance of W2SAttack on classification tasks across four language models, four backdoor attack algorithms, and two different architectures of teacher models. Experimental results indicate success rates close to 100% for backdoor attacks targeting PEFT.

In safety-critical systems, timing accuracy is the key to achieving precise I/O control. To meet such strict timing requirements, dedicated hardware assistance has recently been investigated and developed. However, these solutions are often fragile, due to unforeseen timing defects. In this paper, we propose a robust and timing-accurate I/O co-processor, which manages I/O tasks using Execution Time Servers (ETSs) and a two-level scheduler. The ETSs limit the impact of timing defects between tasks, and the scheduler prioritises ETSs based on their importance, offering a robust and configurable scheduling infrastructure. Based on the hardware design, we present an ETS-based timing-accurate I/O schedule, with the ETS parameters configured to further enhance robustness against timing defects. Experiments show the proposed I/O control method outperforms the state-of-the-art method in terms of timing accuracy and robustness without introducing significant overhead., Comment: Accepted at the 2024 IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS)

We propose to investigate short-range correlations (SRCs) in nuclei by studying sub-threshold photoproduction of $\phi$ particles in an electron-positron collision experiment. We present a direct experimental signature for SRCs, which is deemed achievable using the Beijing Spectrometer III (BESIII). The cross sections for sub-threshold production, as well as the likelihood of detection by BESIII, are calculated. These results underscore the substantial potential of BESIII in elucidating the fundamental physics behind the nuclear modification of parton distribution functions. This proposed experimental analysis of photon-nucleon interactions in electron-positron collisions represents uncharted territory, promising fresh prospects for applications in both particle and nuclear physics., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Fully-partitioned fixed-priority scheduling (FP-FPS) multiprocessor systems are widely found in real-time applications, where spin-based protocols are often deployed to manage the mutually exclusive access of shared resources. Unfortunately, existing approaches either enforce rigid spin priority rules for resource accessing or carry significant pessimism in the schedulability analysis, imposing substantial blocking time regardless of task execution urgency or resource over-provisioning. This paper proposes FRAP, a spin-based flexible resource accessing protocol for FP-FPS systems. A task under FRAP can spin at any priority within a range for accessing a resource, allowing flexible and fine-grained resource control with predictable worst-case behaviour. Under flexible spinning, we demonstrate that the existing analysis techniques can lead to incorrect timing bounds and present a novel MCMF (minimum cost maximum flow)-based blocking analysis, providing predictability guarantee for FRAP. A spin priority assignment is reported that fully exploits flexible spinning to reduce the blocking time of tasks with high urgency, enhancing the performance of FRAP. Experimental results show that FRAP outperforms the existing spin-based protocols in schedulability by 15.20%-32.73% on average, up to 65.85%.

Recent advancements in generative AI, particularly Latent Diffusion Models (LDMs), have revolutionized image synthesis and manipulation. However, these generative techniques raises concerns about data misappropriation and intellectual property infringement. Adversarial attacks on machine learning models have been extensively studied, and a well-established body of research has extended these techniques as a benign metric to prevent the underlying misuse of generative AI. Current approaches to safeguarding images from manipulation by LDMs are limited by their reliance on model-specific knowledge and their inability to significantly degrade semantic quality of generated images. In response to these shortcomings, we propose the Posterior Collapse Attack (PCA) based on the observation that VAEs suffer from posterior collapse during training. Our method minimizes dependence on the white-box information of target models to get rid of the implicit reliance on model-specific knowledge. By accessing merely a small amount of LDM parameters, in specific merely the VAE encoder of LDMs, our method causes a substantial semantic collapse in generation quality, particularly in perceptual consistency, and demonstrates strong transferability across various model architectures. Experimental results show that PCA achieves superior perturbation effects on image generation of LDMs with lower runtime and VRAM. Our method outperforms existing techniques, offering a more robust and generalizable solution that is helpful in alleviating the socio-technical challenges posed by the rapidly evolving landscape of generative AI., Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, 10 tables

Scene text recognition (STR) pre-training methods have achieved remarkable progress, primarily relying on synthetic datasets. However, the domain gap between synthetic and real images poses a challenge in acquiring feature representations that align well with images on real scenes, thereby limiting the performance of these methods. We note that vision-language models like CLIP, pre-trained on extensive real image-text pairs, effectively align images and text in a unified embedding space, suggesting the potential to derive the representations of real images from text alone. Building upon this premise, we introduce a novel method named Decoder Pre-training with only text for STR (DPTR). DPTR treats text embeddings produced by the CLIP text encoder as pseudo visual embeddings and uses them to pre-train the decoder. An Offline Randomized Perturbation (ORP) strategy is introduced. It enriches the diversity of text embeddings by incorporating natural image embeddings extracted from the CLIP image encoder, effectively directing the decoder to acquire the potential representations of real images. In addition, we introduce a Feature Merge Unit (FMU) that guides the extracted visual embeddings focusing on the character foreground within the text image, thereby enabling the pre-trained decoder to work more efficiently and accurately. Extensive experiments across various STR decoders and language recognition tasks underscore the broad applicability and remarkable performance of DPTR, providing a novel insight for STR pre-training. Code is available at https://github.com/Topdu/OpenOCR, Comment: Accepted by ACM MM 2024

Large Language Models (LLMs), which bridge the gap between human language understanding and complex problem-solving, achieve state-of-the-art performance on several NLP tasks, particularly in few-shot and zero-shot settings. Despite the demonstrable efficacy of LLMs, due to constraints on computational resources, users have to engage with open-source language models or outsource the entire training process to third-party platforms. However, research has demonstrated that language models are susceptible to potential security vulnerabilities, particularly in backdoor attacks. Backdoor attacks are designed to introduce targeted vulnerabilities into language models by poisoning training samples or model weights, allowing attackers to manipulate model responses through malicious triggers. While existing surveys on backdoor attacks provide a comprehensive overview, they lack an in-depth examination of backdoor attacks specifically targeting LLMs. To bridge this gap and grasp the latest trends in the field, this paper presents a novel perspective on backdoor attacks for LLMs by focusing on fine-tuning methods. Specifically, we systematically classify backdoor attacks into three categories: full-parameter fine-tuning, parameter-efficient fine-tuning, and no fine-tuning Based on insights from a substantial review, we also discuss crucial issues for future research on backdoor attacks, such as further exploring attack algorithms that do not require fine-tuning, or developing more covert attack algorithms.

Graph Convolution Networks (GCNs) have significantly succeeded in learning user and item representations for recommendation systems. The core of their efficacy is the ability to explicitly exploit the collaborative signals from both the first- and high-order neighboring nodes. However, most existing GCN-based methods overlook the multiple interests of users while performing high-order graph convolution. Thus, the noisy information from unreliable neighbor nodes (e.g., users with dissimilar interests) negatively impacts the representation learning of the target node. Additionally, conducting graph convolution operations without differentiating high-order neighbors suffers the over-smoothing issue when stacking more layers, resulting in performance degradation. In this paper, we aim to capture more valuable information from high-order neighboring nodes while avoiding noise for better representation learning of the target node. To achieve this goal, we propose a novel GCN-based recommendation model, termed Cluster-based Graph Collaborative Filtering (ClusterGCF). This model performs high-order graph convolution on cluster-specific graphs, which are constructed by capturing the multiple interests of users and identifying the common interests among them. Specifically, we design an unsupervised and optimizable soft node clustering approach to classify user and item nodes into multiple clusters. Based on the soft node clustering results and the topology of the user-item interaction graph, we assign the nodes with probabilities for different clusters to construct the cluster-specific graphs. To evaluate the effectiveness of ClusterGCF, we conducted extensive experiments on four publicly available datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that our model can significantly improve recommendation performance., Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures

We present a method to compute lightcone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs) of heavy meson within heavy quark effective theory (HQET). Our method utilizes quasi distribution amplitudes (quasi-DAs) with a large momentum component $P^z$. We point out that by sequentially integrating out $P^z$ and $m_H$, one can disentangle different dynamical scales. Integrating out $P^z$ allows to connect quasi-DAs to QCD LCDAs, and then integrating out $m_H$ enables to relate QCD LCDAs to HQET LCDAs. To verify this proposal, we make use of lattice QCD simulation on a lattice ensemble with spacing $a = 0.05187$\,fm. The preliminary findings for HQET LCDAs qualitatively align with phenomenological models. Using a recent model for HQET LCDAs, we also fit the first inverse moment $\lambda_B^{-1}$ and the result is consistent with the experimentally constrain from $B \to \gamma \ell\nu_\ell$. This agreement demonstrates the promise of our method in providing first-principle predictions for heavy meson LCDAs., Comment: 6.5 +1.5 pages, 4 +2 figures

A major public concern regarding the training of large language models (LLMs) is whether they abusing copyrighted online text. Previous membership inference methods may be misled by similar examples in vast amounts of training data. Additionally, these methods are often too complex for general users to understand and use, making them centralized, lacking transparency, and trustworthiness. To address these issues, we propose an alternative \textit{insert-and-detection} methodology, advocating that web users and content platforms employ \textbf{\textit{unique identifiers}} for reliable and independent membership inference. Users and platforms can create their own identifiers, embed them in copyrighted text, and independently detect them in future LLMs. As an initial demonstration, we introduce \textit{ghost sentences}, a primitive form of unique identifiers, consisting primarily of passphrases made up of random words. By embedding one ghost sentences in a few copyrighted texts, users can detect its membership using a perplexity test and a \textit{user-friendly} last-$k$ words test. The perplexity test is based on the fact that LLMs trained on natural language should exhibit high perplexity when encountering unnatural passphrases. As the repetition increases, users can leverage the verbatim memorization ability of LLMs to perform a last-$k$ words test by chatting with LLMs without writing any code. Both tests offer rigorous statistical guarantees for membership inference. For LLaMA-13B, a perplexity test on 30 ghost sentences with an average of 7 repetitions in 148K examples yields a 0.891 ROC AUC. For the last-$k$ words test with OpenLLaMA-3B, 11 out of 16 users, with an average of 24 examples each, successfully identify their data from 1.8M examples., Comment: Preprint, work in progress

This paper proposes PE-GPT, a custom-tailored large language model uniquely adapted for power converter modulation design. By harnessing in-context learning and specialized tiered physics-informed neural networks, PE-GPT guides users through text-based dialogues, recommending actionable modulation parameters. The effectiveness of PE-GPT is validated through a practical design case involving dual active bridge converters, supported by hardware experimentation. This research underscores the transformative potential of large language models in power converter modulation design, offering enhanced accessibility, explainability, and efficiency, thereby setting a new paradigm in the field.

Local unitary equivalence is an important ingredient for quantifying and classifying entanglement. Verifying whether or not two quantum states are local unitary equivalent is a crucial problem, where only the case of multipartite pure states is solved. For mixed states, however, the verification of local unitary equivalence is still a challenging problem. In this paper, based on the coefficient matrices of generalized Bloch representations of quantum states, we find a variety of local unitary invariants for arbitrary-dimensional bipartite quantum states. These invariants are operational and can be used as necessary conditions for verifying the local unitary equivalence of two quantum states. Furthermore, we extend the construction to the arbitrary-dimensional multipartite case. We finally apply these invariants to estimate concurrence, a vital entanglement measure, showing the practicability of local unitary invariants in characterizing entanglement.

Recently, various parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) strategies for application to language models have been proposed and successfully implemented. However, this raises the question of whether PEFT, which only updates a limited set of model parameters, constitutes security vulnerabilities when confronted with weight-poisoning backdoor attacks. In this study, we show that PEFT is more susceptible to weight-poisoning backdoor attacks compared to the full-parameter fine-tuning method, with pre-defined triggers remaining exploitable and pre-defined targets maintaining high confidence, even after fine-tuning. Motivated by this insight, we developed a Poisoned Sample Identification Module (PSIM) leveraging PEFT, which identifies poisoned samples through confidence, providing robust defense against weight-poisoning backdoor attacks. Specifically, we leverage PEFT to train the PSIM with randomly reset sample labels. During the inference process, extreme confidence serves as an indicator for poisoned samples, while others are clean. We conduct experiments on text classification tasks, five fine-tuning strategies, and three weight-poisoning backdoor attack methods. Experiments show near 100% success rates for weight-poisoning backdoor attacks when utilizing PEFT. Furthermore, our defensive approach exhibits overall competitive performance in mitigating weight-poisoning backdoor attacks., Comment: NAACL Findings 2024

We explore the EMC effects of gluons through heavy quark production in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) and short range correlation (SRC) from sub-threshold photoproduction of the $J/\psi$. We perform an effective field theory analysis of gluon parton distribution functions in nuclei, and derive a linear relation between the slope of reduced cross section, which reflects the magnitude of gluon EMC effect, and the $J/\psi$ production cross section at the photon energy $E_\gamma = 7.0\,\textrm{GeV}$ in the nucleus rest frame which characterizes the SRC. This finding is confirmed by a numerical calculation using the available phenomenological results for gluon parton distribution functions. Examining this linear relation by the forthcoming experimental data on electron-ion collider allows to decipher nuclear effects of gluon distributions and gain a better understanding of the substructure in bound nuclei., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures and 1 table

In-context learning, a paradigm bridging the gap between pre-training and fine-tuning, has demonstrated high efficacy in several NLP tasks, especially in few-shot settings. Despite being widely applied, in-context learning is vulnerable to malicious attacks. In this work, we raise security concerns regarding this paradigm. Our studies demonstrate that an attacker can manipulate the behavior of large language models by poisoning the demonstration context, without the need for fine-tuning the model. Specifically, we design a new backdoor attack method, named ICLAttack, to target large language models based on in-context learning. Our method encompasses two types of attacks: poisoning demonstration examples and poisoning demonstration prompts, which can make models behave in alignment with predefined intentions. ICLAttack does not require additional fine-tuning to implant a backdoor, thus preserving the model's generality. Furthermore, the poisoned examples are correctly labeled, enhancing the natural stealth of our attack method. Extensive experimental results across several language models, ranging in size from 1.3B to 180B parameters, demonstrate the effectiveness of our attack method, exemplified by a high average attack success rate of 95.0% across the three datasets on OPT models.

True muonium (TM) -- the bound state of $\mu^+\mu^-$ -- has not been discovered yet. It was demonstrated that searching for TM via $\gamma\gamma$ fusions in heavy ion collisions is feasible due to the enhancement of the atom number. We study the production of the true para-muonium (pTM) in the collisions of linearly polarized photons in the experiments of heavy-ion collisions, calculate the production rate as well as the transverse spectrum of pTM, and explore the discovery potential in nuclear experiments. Our results show that there is a significant correlation between the linearly polarized photon distribution and the transverse momentum distribution of pTM. The optimal kinematic region of the generated pTM is identified, which can provide a theoretical guide to the detection of pTM in experiments., Comment: 7 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D

It was demonstrated that the lattice simulation of $B$-meson light-cone distribution amplitude (LCDA) is feasible via the quasi-distribution amplitude (quasi-DA) in large momentum effective theory (LaMET). The structures of logarithmic moments (LMs) of $B$-meson quasi-DA is explored in this work. The one-loop results indicate mixing in the matching: the $n$-th LM would be not only factorized into the $n$-th LM of LCDA, but also other moments with different power, accompanied by short distance coefficients. These results supply the understanding of the matching in LaMET and may provide guidance to the lattice study of LMs or other parameters of $B$-meson LCDA., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table

Bell's theorem states that quantum mechanical description on physical quantity cannot be fully explained by local realistic theories, and lays solid basis for various quantum information applications. Hardy's paradox is celebrated to be the simplest form of Bell's theorem concerning its "All versus Nothing" way to test local realism. However, due to experimental imperfections, existing tests of Hardy's paradox require additional assumptions of experimental systems, which constitute potential loopholes for faithfully testing local realistic theories. Here, we experimentally demonstrate Hardy's nonlocality through a photonic entanglement source. By achieving a detection efficiency of $82.2\%$, a quantum state fidelity of $99.10\%$ and applying high speed quantum random number generators for measurement setting switching, the experiment is implemented in a loophole-free manner. During $6$ hours of running, a strong violation of $P_{\text{Hardy}}=4.646\times 10^{-4}$ up to $5$ standard deviations is observed with $4.32\times 10^{9}$ trials. A null hypothesis test shows that the results can be explained by local realistic theories with an upper bound probability of $10^{-16348}$. These testing results present affirmative evidence against local realism, and provide an advancing benchmark for quantum information applications based on Hardy's paradox.