66.0AIMay 31
The Case for Model Science: Verify, Explore, Steer, RefinePrzemyslaw Biecek, Luca Longo, Jianlong Zhou et al.
We argue that the AI community is now ready to move beyond benchmarking and consolidate scattered efforts in model analysis into a systematic discipline, a direction we term Model Science. Complex AI models now serve billions of users, yet our understanding of how they work lags far behind our ability to deploy them. Decades of benchmark-driven research have delivered remarkable progress: extensive leaderboards, a wide range of performance metrics, tracking capability gains across diverse tasks; yet this success has also revealed the limits of benchmarks as they tell us whether models perform but not why they succeed or fail, they miss critical failure modes, such as hallucinations or shortcuts. Precedents from established sciences point the way forward: cognitive science shows that understanding complex systems requires complementary levels of analysis; neuroscience demonstrates that deep study of single cases reveals what population studies miss; medicine teaches that specialised training must develop alongside research practice; and agriculture models how shared infrastructure and principles enable cumulative progress. These lessons inform three foundations for Model Science. First, we propose to consolidate research around four functional perspectives: Verify, Explore, Steer, and Refine that address complementary questions about model behaviour. Second, we discuss the required infrastructure for cumulative knowledge: catalogues of datasets, models and findings. Third, we highlight the need for deep analysis of individual model instances, not just model families, because single cases can reveal what population studies miss.
CVAug 26, 2022Code
SFusion: Self-attention based N-to-One Multimodal Fusion BlockZecheng Liu, Jia Wei, Rui Li et al.
People perceive the world with different senses, such as sight, hearing, smell, and touch. Processing and fusing information from multiple modalities enables Artificial Intelligence to understand the world around us more easily. However, when there are missing modalities, the number of available modalities is different in diverse situations, which leads to an N-to-One fusion problem. To solve this problem, we propose a self-attention based fusion block called SFusion. Different from preset formulations or convolution based methods, the proposed block automatically learns to fuse available modalities without synthesizing or zero-padding missing ones. Specifically, the feature representations extracted from upstream processing model are projected as tokens and fed into self-attention module to generate latent multimodal correlations. Then, a modal attention mechanism is introduced to build a shared representation, which can be applied by the downstream decision model. The proposed SFusion can be easily integrated into existing multimodal analysis networks. In this work, we apply SFusion to different backbone networks for human activity recognition and brain tumor segmentation tasks. Extensive experimental results show that the SFusion block achieves better performance than the competing fusion strategies. Our code is available at https://github.com/scut-cszcl/SFusion.
LGJul 26, 2022
A Survey of Explainable Graph Neural Networks: Taxonomy and Evaluation MetricsYiqiao Li, Jianlong Zhou, Sunny Verma et al.
Graph neural networks (GNNs) have demonstrated a significant boost in prediction performance on graph data. At the same time, the predictions made by these models are often hard to interpret. In that regard, many efforts have been made to explain the prediction mechanisms of these models from perspectives such as GNNExplainer, XGNN and PGExplainer. Although such works present systematic frameworks to interpret GNNs, a holistic review for explainable GNNs is unavailable. In this survey, we present a comprehensive review of explainability techniques developed for GNNs. We focus on explainable graph neural networks and categorize them based on the use of explainable methods. We further provide the common performance metrics for GNNs explanations and point out several future research directions.
IVJul 13, 2023
Full-resolution Lung Nodule Segmentation from Chest X-ray Images using Residual Encoder-Decoder NetworksMichael James Horry, Subrata Chakraborty, Biswajeet Pradhan et al.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death and early diagnosis is associated with a positive prognosis. Chest X-ray (CXR) provides an inexpensive imaging mode for lung cancer diagnosis. Suspicious nodules are difficult to distinguish from vascular and bone structures using CXR. Computer vision has previously been proposed to assist human radiologists in this task, however, leading studies use down-sampled images and computationally expensive methods with unproven generalization. Instead, this study localizes lung nodules using efficient encoder-decoder neural networks that process full resolution images to avoid any signal loss resulting from down-sampling. Encoder-decoder networks are trained and tested using the JSRT lung nodule dataset. The networks are used to localize lung nodules from an independent external CXR dataset. Sensitivity and false positive rates are measured using an automated framework to eliminate any observer subjectivity. These experiments allow for the determination of the optimal network depth, image resolution and pre-processing pipeline for generalized lung nodule localization. We find that nodule localization is influenced by subtlety, with more subtle nodules being detected in earlier training epochs. Therefore, we propose a novel self-ensemble model from three consecutive epochs centered on the validation optimum. This ensemble achieved a sensitivity of 85% in 10-fold internal testing with false positives of 8 per image. A sensitivity of 81% is achieved at a false positive rate of 6 following morphological false positive reduction. This result is comparable to more computationally complex systems based on linear and spatial filtering, but with a sub-second inference time that is faster than other methods. The proposed algorithm achieved excellent generalization results against an external dataset with sensitivity of 77% at a false positive rate of 7.6.
LGSep 29, 2023
ACGAN-GNNExplainer: Auxiliary Conditional Generative Explainer for Graph Neural NetworksYiqiao Li, Jianlong Zhou, Yifei Dong et al.
Graph neural networks (GNNs) have proven their efficacy in a variety of real-world applications, but their underlying mechanisms remain a mystery. To address this challenge and enable reliable decision-making, many GNN explainers have been proposed in recent years. However, these methods often encounter limitations, including their dependence on specific instances, lack of generalizability to unseen graphs, producing potentially invalid explanations, and yielding inadequate fidelity. To overcome these limitations, we, in this paper, introduce the Auxiliary Classifier Generative Adversarial Network (ACGAN) into the field of GNN explanation and propose a new GNN explainer dubbed~\emph{ACGAN-GNNExplainer}. Our approach leverages a generator to produce explanations for the original input graphs while incorporating a discriminator to oversee the generation process, ensuring explanation fidelity and improving accuracy. Experimental evaluations conducted on both synthetic and real-world graph datasets demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method compared to other existing GNN explainers.
LGDec 30, 2022
GANExplainer: GAN-based Graph Neural Networks ExplainerYiqiao Li, Jianlong Zhou, Boyuan Zheng et al.
With the rapid deployment of graph neural networks (GNNs) based techniques into a wide range of applications such as link prediction, node classification, and graph classification the explainability of GNNs has become an indispensable component for predictive and trustworthy decision-making. Thus, it is critical to explain why graph neural network (GNN) makes particular predictions for them to be believed in many applications. Some GNNs explainers have been proposed recently. However, they lack to generate accurate and real explanations. To mitigate these limitations, we propose GANExplainer, based on Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) architecture. GANExplainer is composed of a generator to create explanations and a discriminator to assist with the Generator development. We investigate the explanation accuracy of our models by comparing the performance of GANExplainer with other state-of-the-art methods. Our empirical results on synthetic datasets indicate that GANExplainer improves explanation accuracy by up to 35\% compared to its alternatives.
NEJan 3, 2023
Genetic Imitation Learning by Reward ExtrapolationBoyuan Zheng, Jianlong Zhou, Fang Chen
Imitation learning demonstrates remarkable performance in various domains. However, imitation learning is also constrained by many prerequisites. The research community has done intensive research to alleviate these constraints, such as adding the stochastic policy to avoid unseen states, eliminating the need for action labels, and learning from the suboptimal demonstrations. Inspired by the natural reproduction process, we proposed a method called GenIL that integrates the Genetic Algorithm with imitation learning. The involvement of the Genetic Algorithm improves the data efficiency by reproducing trajectories with various returns and assists the model in estimating more accurate and compact reward function parameters. We tested GenIL in both Atari and Mujoco domains, and the result shows that it successfully outperforms the previous extrapolation methods over extrapolation accuracy, robustness, and overall policy performance when input data is limited.
LGJan 3, 2023
Explaining Imitation Learning through FramesBoyuan Zheng, Jianlong Zhou, Chunjie Liu et al.
As one of the prevalent methods to achieve automation systems, Imitation Learning (IL) presents a promising performance in a wide range of domains. However, despite the considerable improvement in policy performance, the corresponding research on the explainability of IL models is still limited. Inspired by the recent approaches in explainable artificial intelligence methods, we proposed a model-agnostic explaining framework for IL models called R2RISE. R2RISE aims to explain the overall policy performance with respect to the frames in demonstrations. It iteratively retrains the black-box IL model from the randomized masked demonstrations and uses the conventional evaluation outcome environment returns as the coefficient to build an importance map. We also conducted experiments to investigate three major questions concerning frames' importance equality, the effectiveness of the importance map, and connections between importance maps from different IL models. The result shows that R2RISE successfully distinguishes important frames from the demonstrations.
LGAug 14, 2024
Enhancing Adversarial Attacks via Parameter Adaptive Adversarial AttackZhibo Jin, Jiayu Zhang, Zhiyu Zhu et al.
In recent times, the swift evolution of adversarial attacks has captured widespread attention, particularly concerning their transferability and other performance attributes. These techniques are primarily executed at the sample level, frequently overlooking the intrinsic parameters of models. Such neglect suggests that the perturbations introduced in adversarial samples might have the potential for further reduction. Given the essence of adversarial attacks is to impair model integrity with minimal noise on original samples, exploring avenues to maximize the utility of such perturbations is imperative. Against this backdrop, we have delved into the complexities of adversarial attack algorithms, dissecting the adversarial process into two critical phases: the Directional Supervision Process (DSP) and the Directional Optimization Process (DOP). While DSP determines the direction of updates based on the current samples and model parameters, it has been observed that existing model parameters may not always be conducive to adversarial attacks. The impact of models on adversarial efficacy is often overlooked in current research, leading to the neglect of DSP. We propose that under certain conditions, fine-tuning model parameters can significantly enhance the quality of DSP. For the first time, we propose that under certain conditions, fine-tuning model parameters can significantly improve the quality of the DSP. We provide, for the first time, rigorous mathematical definitions and proofs for these conditions, and introduce multiple methods for fine-tuning model parameters within DSP. Our extensive experiments substantiate the effectiveness of the proposed P3A method. Our code is accessible at: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/P3A-A12C/
AIAug 22, 2024
Enhancing Transferability of Adversarial Attacks with GE-AdvGAN+: A Comprehensive Framework for Gradient EditingZhibo Jin, Jiayu Zhang, Zhiyu Zhu et al.
Transferable adversarial attacks pose significant threats to deep neural networks, particularly in black-box scenarios where internal model information is inaccessible. Studying adversarial attack methods helps advance the performance of defense mechanisms and explore model vulnerabilities. These methods can uncover and exploit weaknesses in models, promoting the development of more robust architectures. However, current methods for transferable attacks often come with substantial computational costs, limiting their deployment and application, especially in edge computing scenarios. Adversarial generative models, such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), are characterized by their ability to generate samples without the need for retraining after an initial training phase. GE-AdvGAN, a recent method for transferable adversarial attacks, is based on this principle. In this paper, we propose a novel general framework for gradient editing-based transferable attacks, named GE-AdvGAN+, which integrates nearly all mainstream attack methods to enhance transferability while significantly reducing computational resource consumption. Our experiments demonstrate the compatibility and effectiveness of our framework. Compared to the baseline AdvGAN, our best-performing method, GE-AdvGAN++, achieves an average ASR improvement of 47.8. Additionally, it surpasses the latest competing algorithm, GE-AdvGAN, with an average ASR increase of 5.9. The framework also exhibits enhanced computational efficiency, achieving 2217.7 FPS, outperforming traditional methods such as BIM and MI-FGSM. The implementation code for our GE-AdvGAN+ framework is available at https://github.com/GEAdvGANP
CVFeb 16, 2025Code
Narrowing Information Bottleneck Theory for Multimodal Image-Text Representations InterpretabilityZhiyu Zhu, Zhibo Jin, Jiayu Zhang et al.
The task of identifying multimodal image-text representations has garnered increasing attention, particularly with models such as CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pretraining), which demonstrate exceptional performance in learning complex associations between images and text. Despite these advancements, ensuring the interpretability of such models is paramount for their safe deployment in real-world applications, such as healthcare. While numerous interpretability methods have been developed for unimodal tasks, these approaches often fail to transfer effectively to multimodal contexts due to inherent differences in the representation structures. Bottleneck methods, well-established in information theory, have been applied to enhance CLIP's interpretability. However, they are often hindered by strong assumptions or intrinsic randomness. To overcome these challenges, we propose the Narrowing Information Bottleneck Theory, a novel framework that fundamentally redefines the traditional bottleneck approach. This theory is specifically designed to satisfy contemporary attribution axioms, providing a more robust and reliable solution for improving the interpretability of multimodal models. In our experiments, compared to state-of-the-art methods, our approach enhances image interpretability by an average of 9%, text interpretability by an average of 58.83%, and accelerates processing speed by 63.95%. Our code is publicly accessible at https://github.com/LMBTough/NIB.
CVJan 8, 2025Code
DeFusion: An Effective Decoupling Fusion Network for Multi-Modal Pregnancy PredictionXueqiang Ouyang, Jia Wei, Wenjie Huo et al.
Temporal embryo images and parental fertility table indicators are both valuable for pregnancy prediction in \textbf{in vitro fertilization embryo transfer} (IVF-ET). However, current machine learning models cannot make full use of the complementary information between the two modalities to improve pregnancy prediction performance. In this paper, we propose a Decoupling Fusion Network called DeFusion to effectively integrate the multi-modal information for IVF-ET pregnancy prediction. Specifically, we propose a decoupling fusion module that decouples the information from the different modalities into related and unrelated information, thereby achieving a more delicate fusion. And we fuse temporal embryo images with a spatial-temporal position encoding, and extract fertility table indicator information with a table transformer. To evaluate the effectiveness of our model, we use a new dataset including 4046 cases collected from Southern Medical University. The experiments show that our model outperforms state-of-the-art methods. Meanwhile, the performance on the eye disease prediction dataset reflects the model's good generalization. Our code is available at https://github.com/Ou-Young-1999/DFNet.
LGMay 3, 2025Code
ABE: A Unified Framework for Robust and Faithful Attribution-Based ExplainabilityZhiyu Zhu, Jiayu Zhang, Zhibo Jin et al.
Attribution algorithms are essential for enhancing the interpretability and trustworthiness of deep learning models by identifying key features driving model decisions. Existing frameworks, such as InterpretDL and OmniXAI, integrate multiple attribution methods but suffer from scalability limitations, high coupling, theoretical constraints, and lack of user-friendly implementations, hindering neural network transparency and interoperability. To address these challenges, we propose Attribution-Based Explainability (ABE), a unified framework that formalizes Fundamental Attribution Methods and integrates state-of-the-art attribution algorithms while ensuring compliance with attribution axioms. ABE enables researchers to develop novel attribution techniques and enhances interpretability through four customizable modules: Robustness, Interpretability, Validation, and Data & Model. This framework provides a scalable, extensible foundation for advancing attribution-based explainability and fostering transparent AI systems. Our code is available at: https://github.com/LMBTough/ABE-XAI.
AIDec 27, 2024Code
Attribution for Enhanced Explanation with Transferable Adversarial eXplorationZhiyu Zhu, Jiayu Zhang, Zhibo Jin et al.
The interpretability of deep neural networks is crucial for understanding model decisions in various applications, including computer vision. AttEXplore++, an advanced framework built upon AttEXplore, enhances attribution by incorporating transferable adversarial attack methods such as MIG and GRA, significantly improving the accuracy and robustness of model explanations. We conduct extensive experiments on five models, including CNNs (Inception-v3, ResNet-50, VGG16) and vision transformers (MaxViT-T, ViT-B/16), using the ImageNet dataset. Our method achieves an average performance improvement of 7.57\% over AttEXplore and 32.62\% compared to other state-of-the-art interpretability algorithms. Using insertion and deletion scores as evaluation metrics, we show that adversarial transferability plays a vital role in enhancing attribution results. Furthermore, we explore the impact of randomness, perturbation rate, noise amplitude, and diversity probability on attribution performance, demonstrating that AttEXplore++ provides more stable and reliable explanations across various models. We release our code at: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/ATTEXPLOREP-8435/
CVDec 12, 2025
RcAE: Recursive Reconstruction Framework for Unsupervised Industrial Anomaly DetectionRongcheng Wu, Hao Zhu, Shiying Zhang et al.
Unsupervised industrial anomaly detection requires accurately identifying defects without labeled data. Traditional autoencoder-based methods often struggle with incomplete anomaly suppression and loss of fine details, as their single-pass decoding fails to effectively handle anomalies with varying severity and scale. We propose a recursive architecture for autoencoder (RcAE), which performs reconstruction iteratively to progressively suppress anomalies while refining normal structures. Unlike traditional single-pass models, this recursive design naturally produces a sequence of reconstructions, progressively exposing suppressed abnormal patterns. To leverage this reconstruction dynamics, we introduce a Cross Recursion Detection (CRD) module that tracks inconsistencies across recursion steps, enhancing detection of both subtle and large-scale anomalies. Additionally, we incorporate a Detail Preservation Network (DPN) to recover high-frequency textures typically lost during reconstruction. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms existing non-diffusion methods, and achieves performance on par with recent diffusion models with only 10% of their parameters and offering substantially faster inference. These results highlight the practicality and efficiency of our approach for real-world applications.
CRFeb 12, 2025
Linking Cryptoasset Attribution Tags to Knowledge Graph Entities: An LLM-based ApproachRégnier Avice, Bernhard Haslhofer, Zhidong Li et al.
Attribution tags form the foundation of modern cryptoasset forensics. However, inconsistent or incorrect tags can mislead investigations and even result in false accusations. To address this issue, we propose a novel computational method based on Large Language Models (LLMs) to link attribution tags with well-defined knowledge graph concepts. We implemented this method in an end-to-end pipeline and conducted experiments showing that our approach outperforms baseline methods by up to 37.4% in F1-score across three publicly available attribution tag datasets. By integrating concept filtering and blocking procedures, we generate candidate sets containing five knowledge graph entities, achieving a recall of 93% without the need for labeled data. Additionally, we demonstrate that local LLM models can achieve F1-scores of 90%, comparable to remote models which achieve 94%. We also analyze the cost-performance trade-offs of various LLMs and prompt templates, showing that selecting the most cost-effective configuration can reduce costs by 90%, with only a 1% decrease in performance. Our method not only enhances attribution tag quality but also serves as a blueprint for fostering more reliable forensic evidence.
HCFeb 28, 2025
Can LLM Assist in the Evaluation of the Quality of Machine Learning Explanations?Bo Wang, Yiqiao Li, Jianlong Zhou et al.
EXplainable machine learning (XML) has recently emerged to address the mystery mechanisms of machine learning (ML) systems by interpreting their 'black box' results. Despite the development of various explanation methods, determining the most suitable XML method for specific ML contexts remains unclear, highlighting the need for effective evaluation of explanations. The evaluating capabilities of the Transformer-based large language model (LLM) present an opportunity to adopt LLM-as-a-Judge for assessing explanations. In this paper, we propose a workflow that integrates both LLM-based and human judges for evaluating explanations. We examine how LLM-based judges evaluate the quality of various explanation methods and compare their evaluation capabilities to those of human judges within an iris classification scenario, employing both subjective and objective metrics. We conclude that while LLM-based judges effectively assess the quality of explanations using subjective metrics, they are not yet sufficiently developed to replace human judges in this role.
LGSep 10, 2025
A Survey of TinyML Applications in Beekeeping for Hive Monitoring and ManagementWilly Sucipto, Jianlong Zhou, Ray Seung Min Kwon et al.
Honey bee colonies are essential for global food security and ecosystem stability, yet they face escalating threats from pests, diseases, and environmental stressors. Traditional hive inspections are labor-intensive and disruptive, while cloud-based monitoring solutions remain impractical for remote or resource-limited apiaries. Recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT) and Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) enable low-power, real-time monitoring directly on edge devices, offering scalable and non-invasive alternatives. This survey synthesizes current innovations at the intersection of TinyML and apiculture, organized around four key functional areas: monitoring hive conditions, recognizing bee behaviors, detecting pests and diseases, and forecasting swarming events. We further examine supporting resources, including publicly available datasets, lightweight model architectures optimized for embedded deployment, and benchmarking strategies tailored to field constraints. Critical limitations such as data scarcity, generalization challenges, and deployment barriers in off-grid environments are highlighted, alongside emerging opportunities in ultra-efficient inference pipelines, adaptive edge learning, and dataset standardization. By consolidating research and engineering practices, this work provides a foundation for scalable, AI-driven, and ecologically informed monitoring systems to support sustainable pollinator management.
CYFeb 6, 2025
E-LENS: User Requirements-Oriented AI Ethics AssuranceJianlong Zhou, Fang Chen
Despite the much proliferation of AI ethical principles in recent years, there is a challenge of assuring AI ethics with current AI ethics frameworks in real-world applications. While system safety has emerged as a distinct discipline for a long time, originated from safety concerns in early aircraft manufacturing. The safety assurance is now an indispensable component in safety critical domains. Motivated by the assurance approaches for safety-critical systems such as aviation, this paper introduces the concept of AI ethics assurance cases into the AI ethics assurance. Three pillars of user requirements, evidence, and validation are proposed as key components and integrated into AI ethics assurance cases for a new approach of user requirements-oriented AI ethics assurance. The user requirements-oriented AI ethics assurance case is set up based on three pillars and hazard analysis methods used in the safety assurance of safety-critical systems. This paper also proposes a platform named Ethical-Lens (E-LENS) to implement the user requirements-oriented AI ethics assurance approach. The proposed user requirements-based E-LENS platform is then applied to assure AI ethics of an AI-driven human resource shortlisting system as a case study to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
AIMay 18, 2023
Ethical ChatGPT: Concerns, Challenges, and CommandmentsJianlong Zhou, Heimo Müller, Andreas Holzinger et al.
Large language models, e.g. ChatGPT are currently contributing enormously to make artificial intelligence even more popular, especially among the general population. However, such chatbot models were developed as tools to support natural language communication between humans. Problematically, it is very much a ``statistical correlation machine" (correlation instead of causality) and there are indeed ethical concerns associated with the use of AI language models such as ChatGPT, such as Bias, Privacy, and Abuse. This paper highlights specific ethical concerns on ChatGPT and articulates key challenges when ChatGPT is used in various applications. Practical commandments for different stakeholders of ChatGPT are also proposed that can serve as checklist guidelines for those applying ChatGPT in their applications. These commandment examples are expected to motivate the ethical use of ChatGPT.
CYSep 29, 2021
Understanding Relations Between Perception of Fairness and Trust in Algorithmic Decision MakingJianlong Zhou, Sunny Verma, Mudit Mittal et al.
Algorithmic processes are increasingly employed to perform managerial decision making, especially after the tremendous success in Artificial Intelligence (AI). This paradigm shift is occurring because these sophisticated AI techniques are guaranteeing the optimality of performance metrics. However, this adoption is currently under scrutiny due to various concerns such as fairness, and how does the fairness of an AI algorithm affects user's trust is much legitimate to pursue. In this regard, we aim to understand the relationship between induced algorithmic fairness and its perception in humans. In particular, we are interested in whether these two are positively correlated and reflect substantive fairness. Furthermore, we also study how does induced algorithmic fairness affects user trust in algorithmic decision making. To understand this, we perform a user study to simulate candidate shortlisting by introduced (manipulating mathematical) fairness in a human resource recruitment setting. Our experimental results demonstrate that different levels of introduced fairness are positively related to human perception of fairness, and simultaneously it is also positively related to user trust in algorithmic decision making. Interestingly, we also found that users are more sensitive to the higher levels of introduced fairness than the lower levels of introduced fairness. Besides, we summarize the theoretical and practical implications of this research with a discussion on perception of fairness.
LGJun 23, 2021
Imitation Learning: Progress, Taxonomies and ChallengesBoyuan Zheng, Sunny Verma, Jianlong Zhou et al.
Imitation learning aims to extract knowledge from human experts' demonstrations or artificially created agents in order to replicate their behaviors. Its success has been demonstrated in areas such as video games, autonomous driving, robotic simulations and object manipulation. However, this replicating process could be problematic, such as the performance is highly dependent on the demonstration quality, and most trained agents are limited to perform well in task-specific environments. In this survey, we provide a systematic review on imitation learning. We first introduce the background knowledge from development history and preliminaries, followed by presenting different taxonomies within Imitation Learning and key milestones of the field. We then detail challenges in learning strategies and present research opportunities with learning policy from suboptimal demonstration, voice instructions and other associated optimization schemes.
LGApr 15, 2021
Facilitating Machine Learning Model Comparison and Explanation Through A Radial VisualisationJianlong Zhou, Weidong Huang, Fang Chen
Building an effective Machine Learning (ML) model for a data set is a difficult task involving various steps. One of the most important steps is to compare generated substantial amounts of ML models to find the optimal one for the deployment. It is challenging to compare such models with dynamic number of features. Comparison is more than just finding differences of ML model performance, users are also interested in the relations between features and model performance such as feature importance for ML explanations. This paper proposes RadialNet Chart, a novel visualisation approach to compare ML models trained with a different number of features of a given data set while revealing implicit dependent relations. In RadialNet Chart, ML models and features are represented by lines and arcs respectively. These lines are generated effectively using a recursive function. The dependence of ML models with dynamic number of features is encoded into the structure of visualisation, where ML models and their dependent features are directly revealed from related line connections. ML model performance information is encoded with colour and line width in RadialNet Chart. Together with the structure of visualisation, feature importance can be directly discerned in RadialNet Chart for ML explanations.
SIJun 22, 2020
Examination of Community Sentiment Dynamics due to COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study from A State in AustraliaJianlong Zhou, Shuiqiao Yang, Chun Xiao et al.
The outbreak of the novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused unprecedented impacts to people's daily life around the world. Various measures and policies such as lockdown and social-distancing are implemented by governments to combat the disease during the pandemic period. These measures and policies as well as virus itself may cause different mental health issues to people such as depression, anxiety, sadness, etc. In this paper, we exploit the massive text data posted by Twitter users to analyse the sentiment dynamics of people living in the state of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia during the pandemic period. Different from the existing work that mostly focuses the country-level and static sentiment analysis, we analyse the sentiment dynamics at the fine-grained local government areas (LGAs). Based on the analysis of around 94 million tweets that posted by around 183 thousand users located at different LGAs in NSW in five months, we found that people in NSW showed an overall positive sentimental polarity and the COVID-19 pandemic decreased the overall positive sentimental polarity during the pandemic period. The fine-grained analysis of sentiment in LGAs found that despite the dominant positive sentiment most of days during the study period, some LGAs experienced significant sentiment changes from positive to negative. This study also analysed the sentimental dynamics delivered by the hot topics in Twitter such as government policies (e.g. the Australia's JobKeeper program, lockdown, social-distancing) as well as the focused social events (e.g. the Ruby Princess Cruise). The results showed that the policies and events did affect people's overall sentiment, and they affected people's overall sentiment differently at different stages.
CVJul 9, 2017
Visual Analytics of Movement Pattern Based on Time-Spatial Data: A Neural Net ApproachZhenghao Chen, Jianlong Zhou, Xiuying Wang
Time-Spatial data plays a crucial role for different fields such as traffic management. These data can be collected via devices such as surveillance sensors or tracking systems. However, how to efficiently an- alyze and visualize these data to capture essential embedded pattern information is becoming a big challenge today. Classic visualization ap- proaches focus on revealing 2D and 3D spatial information and modeling statistical test. Those methods would easily fail when data become mas- sive. Recent attempts concern on how to simply cluster data and perform prediction with time-oriented information. However, those approaches could still be further enhanced as they also have limitations for han- dling massive clusters and labels. In this paper, we propose a visualiza- tion methodology for mobility data using artificial neural net techniques. This method aggregates three main parts that are Back-end Data Model, Neural Net Algorithm including clustering method Self-Organizing Map (SOM) and prediction approach Recurrent Neural Net (RNN) for ex- tracting the features and lastly a solid front-end that displays the results to users with an interactive system. SOM is able to cluster the visiting patterns and detect the abnormal pattern. RNN can perform the predic- tion for time series analysis using its dynamic architecture. Furthermore, an interactive system will enable user to interpret the result with graph- ics, animation and 3D model for a close-loop feedback. This method can be particularly applied in two tasks that Commercial-based Promotion and abnormal traffic patterns detection.