Xiangrong Zeng

Bingning Wang, Haizhou Zhao, Huozhi Zhou et al.

The current generation of large language models (LLMs) is typically designed for broad, general-purpose applications, while domain-specific LLMs, especially in vertical fields like medicine, remain relatively scarce. In particular, the development of highly efficient and practical LLMs for the medical domain is challenging due to the complexity of medical knowledge and the limited availability of high-quality data. To bridge this gap, we introduce Baichuan-M1, a series of large language models specifically optimized for medical applications. Unlike traditional approaches that simply continue pretraining on existing models or apply post-training to a general base model, Baichuan-M1 is trained from scratch with a dedicated focus on enhancing medical capabilities. Our model is trained on 20 trillion tokens and incorporates a range of effective training methods that strike a balance between general capabilities and medical expertise. As a result, Baichuan-M1 not only performs strongly across general domains such as mathematics and coding but also excels in specialized medical fields. We have open-sourced Baichuan-M1-14B, a mini version of our model, which can be accessed through the following links.

Xiangrong Zeng, Mário A. T. Figueiredo

We consider a new family of regularizers, termed {\it weighted sorted $\ell_1$ norms} (WSL1), which generalizes the recently introduced {\it octagonal shrinkage and clustering algorithm for regression} (OSCAR) and also contains the $\ell_1$ and $\ell_{\infty}$ norms as particular instances. We focus on a special case of the WSL1, the {\sl decreasing WSL1} (DWSL1), where the elements of the argument vector are sorted in non-increasing order and the weights are also non-increasing. In this paper, after showing that the DWSL1 is indeed a norm, we derive two key tools for its use as a regularizer: the dual norm and the Moreau proximity operator.

Xiangrong Zeng, Mário A. T. Figueiredo

We apply the OSCAR (octagonal selection and clustering algorithms for regression) in recovering group-sparse matrices (two-dimensional---2D---arrays) from compressive measurements. We propose a 2D version of OSCAR (2OSCAR) consisting of the $\ell_1$ norm and the pair-wise $\ell_{\infty}$ norm, which is convex but non-differentiable. We show that the proximity operator of 2OSCAR can be computed based on that of OSCAR. The 2OSCAR problem can thus be efficiently solved by state-of-the-art proximal splitting algorithms. Experiments on group-sparse 2D array recovery show that 2OSCAR regularization solved by the SpaRSA algorithm is the fastest choice, while the PADMM algorithm (with debiasing) yields the most accurate results.

Xiangrong Zeng, Mário A. T. Figueiredo

We propose a new method, {\it robust binary fused compressive sensing} (RoBFCS), to recover sparse piece-wise smooth signals from 1-bit compressive measurements. The proposed method is a modification of our previous {\it binary fused compressive sensing} (BFCS) algorithm, which is based on the {\it binary iterative hard thresholding} (BIHT) algorithm. As in BIHT, the data term of the objective function is a one-sided $\ell_1$ (or $\ell_2$) norm. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm is able to take advantage of the piece-wise smoothness of the original signal and detect sign flips and correct them, achieving more accurate recovery than BFCS and BIHT.

Xiangrong Zeng, Mário A. T. Figueiredo

We propose a new method, {\it binary fused compressive sensing} (BFCS), to recover sparse piece-wise smooth signals from 1-bit compressive measurements. The proposed algorithm is a modification of the previous {\it binary iterative hard thresholding} (BIHT) algorithm, where, in addition to the sparsity constraint, the total-variation of the recovered signal is upper constrained. As in BIHT, the data term of the objective function is an one-sided $\ell_1$ (or $\ell_2$) norm. Experiments on the recovery of sparse piece-wise smooth signals show that the proposed algorithm is able to take advantage of the piece-wise smoothness of the original signal, achieving more accurate recovery than BIHT.

Xiangrong Zeng, Mário A. T. Figueiredo

We propose a new approach, {\it two-dimensional fused binary compressive sensing} (2DFBCS) to recover 2D sparse piece-wise signals from 1-bit measurements, exploiting 2D group sparsity for 1-bit compressive sensing recovery. The proposed method is a modified 2D version of the previous {\it binary iterative hard thresholding} (2DBIHT) algorithm, where the objective function includes a 2D one-sided $\ell_1$ (or $\ell_2$) penalty function encouraging agreement with the observed data, an indicator function of $K$-sparsity, and a total variation (TV) or modified TV (MTV) constraint. The subgradient of the 2D one-sided $\ell_1$ (or $\ell_2$) penalty and the projection onto the $K$-sparsity and TV or MTV constraint can be computed efficiently, allowing the appliaction of algorithms of the {\it forward-backward splitting} (a.k.a. {\it iterative shrinkage-thresholding}) family. Experiments on the recovery of 2D sparse piece-wise smooth signals show that the proposed approach is able to take advantage of the piece-wise smoothness of the original signal, achieving more accurate recovery than 2DBIHT. More specifically, 2DFBCS with the MTV and the $\ell_2$ penalty performs best amongst the algorithms tested.

Xiangrong Zeng, Mário A. T. Figueiredo

We propose a novel SPARsity and Clustering (SPARC) regularizer, which is a modified version of the previous octagonal shrinkage and clustering algorithm for regression (OSCAR), where, the proposed regularizer consists of a $K$-sparse constraint and a pair-wise $\ell_{\infty}$ norm restricted on the $K$ largest components in magnitude. The proposed regularizer is able to separably enforce $K$-sparsity and encourage the non-zeros to be equal in magnitude. Moreover, it can accurately group the features without shrinking their magnitude. In fact, SPARC is closely related to OSCAR, so that the proximity operator of the former can be efficiently computed based on that of the latter, allowing using proximal splitting algorithms to solve problems with SPARC regularization. Experiments on synthetic data and with benchmark breast cancer data show that SPARC is a competitive group-sparsity inducing regularizer for regression and classification.

Xiangrong Zeng, Mário A. T. Figueiredo

The OSCAR (octagonal selection and clustering algorithm for regression) regularizer consists of a L_1 norm plus a pair-wise L_inf norm (responsible for its grouping behavior) and was proposed to encourage group sparsity in scenarios where the groups are a priori unknown. The OSCAR regularizer has a non-trivial proximity operator, which limits its applicability. We reformulate this regularizer as a weighted sorted L_1 norm, and propose its grouping proximity operator (GPO) and approximate proximity operator (APO), thus making state-of-the-art proximal splitting algorithms (PSAs) available to solve inverse problems with OSCAR regularization. The GPO is in fact the APO followed by additional grouping and averaging operations, which are costly in time and storage, explaining the reason why algorithms with APO are much faster than that with GPO. The convergences of PSAs with GPO are guaranteed since GPO is an exact proximity operator. Although convergence of PSAs with APO is may not be guaranteed, we have experimentally found that APO behaves similarly to GPO when the regularization parameter of the pair-wise L_inf norm is set to an appropriately small value. Experiments on recovery of group-sparse signals (with unknown groups) show that PSAs with APO are very fast and accurate.