Kewei Sha

Anuradha Chandrasekaran, Dimitrios Zikos, Mutlu Mete et al.

Clinical AI adoption is hindered by the black-box/grey-box nature of high-performing models, which lack the ontological grounding and narrative transparency required for professional-level explainability. We present NEURON, a neuro-symbolic system designed to enhance both predictive reliability and clinical interpretability. NEURON integrates SNOMED CT ontology-informed structural representations with machine learning models to bridge the gap between raw data and medical nomenclature. To facilitate human-aligned interaction, the system utilizes a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) grounded LLM layer to synthesize SHAP feature attributions and patient-specific clinical notes into coherent, natural-language explanations. Validated on the MIMIC-IV dataset for Acute Heart Failure mortality prediction, NEURON improved the AUC from 0.74-0.77 to 0.84-0.88 and significantly outperformed raw SHAP visualizations in human-aligned metrics (0.85 vs. 0.50). Our results demonstrate that NEURON offers a robust, scalable engineering solution for deploying trustworthy, human-centered connected health applications.

Yuhan Zhou, Mehri Sattari, Haihua Chen et al.

Next-generation autonomous vehicles (AVs) rely on large volumes of multisource and multimodal ($M^2$) data to support real-time decision-making. In practice, data quality (DQ) varies across sources and modalities due to environmental conditions and sensor limitations, yet AV research has largely prioritized algorithm design over DQ analysis. This work focuses on redundancy as a fundamental but underexplored DQ issue in AV datasets. Using the nuScenes and Argoverse 2 (AV2) datasets, we model and measure redundancy in multisource camera data and multimodal image-LiDAR data, and evaluate how removing redundant labels affects the YOLOv8 object detection task. Experimental results show that selectively removing redundant multisource image object labels from cameras with shared fields of view improves detection. In nuScenes, mAP${50}$ gains from $0.66$ to $0.70$, $0.64$ to $0.67$, and from $0.53$ to $0.55$, on three representative overlap regions, while detection on other overlapping camera pairs remains at the baseline even under stronger pruning. In AV2, $4.1$-$8.6\%$ of labels are removed, and mAP${50}$ stays near the $0.64$ baseline. Multimodal analysis also reveals substantial redundancy between image and LiDAR data. These findings demonstrate that redundancy is a measurable and actionable DQ factor with direct implications for AV performance. This work highlights the role of redundancy as a data quality factor in AV perception and motivates a data-centric perspective for evaluating and improving AV datasets. Code, data, and implementation details are publicly available at: https://github.com/yhZHOU515/RedundancyAD

Yuhan Zhou, Fengjiao Tu, Kewei Sha et al.

Machine learning (ML) technologies have become substantial in practically all aspects of our society, and data quality (DQ) is critical for the performance, fairness, robustness, safety, and scalability of ML models. With the large and complex data in data-centric AI, traditional methods like exploratory data analysis (EDA) and cross-validation (CV) face challenges, highlighting the importance of mastering DQ tools. In this survey, we review 17 DQ evaluation and improvement tools in the last 5 years. By introducing the DQ dimensions, metrics, and main functions embedded in these tools, we compare their strengths and limitations and propose a roadmap for developing open-source DQ tools for ML. Based on the discussions on the challenges and emerging trends, we further highlight the potential applications of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI in DQ evaluation and improvement for ML. We believe this comprehensive survey can enhance understanding of DQ in ML and could drive progress in data-centric AI. A complete list of the literature investigated in this survey is available on GitHub at: https://github.com/haihua0913/awesome-dq4ml.

Sina Montazeri, Yunhe Feng, Kewei Sha

Open data repositories hold potential for evidence-based decision-making, yet are inaccessible to non-experts lacking expertise in dataset discovery, schema mapping, and statistical analysis. Large language models show promise for individual tasks, but end-to-end analytical workflows expose fundamental limitations: attention dilutes across growing contexts, specialized reasoning patterns interfere, and errors propagate undetected. We present PublicAgent, a multi-agent framework that addresses these limitations through decomposition into specialized agents for intent clarification, dataset discovery, analysis, and reporting. This architecture maintains focused attention within agent contexts and enables validation at each stage. Evaluation across five models and 50 queries derives five design principles for multi-agent LLM systems. First, specialization provides value independent of model strength--even the strongest model shows 97.5% agent win rates, with benefits orthogonal to model scale. Second, agents divide into universal (discovery, analysis) and conditional (report, intent) categories. Universal agents show consistent effectiveness (std dev 12.4%) while conditional agents vary by model (std dev 20.5%). Third, agents mitigate distinct failure modes--removing discovery or analysis causes catastrophic failures (243-280 instances), while removing report or intent causes quality degradation. Fourth, architectural benefits persist across task complexity with stable win rates (86-92% analysis, 84-94% discovery), indicating workflow management value rather than reasoning enhancement. Fifth, wide variance in agent effectiveness across models (42-96% for analysis) requires model-aware architecture design. These principles guide when and why specialization is necessary for complex analytical workflows while enabling broader access to public data through natural language interfaces.

Sina Montazeri, Waltenegus Dargie, Yunhe Feng et al.

Human activity recognition is critical for applications such as early intervention and health analytics. Traditional activity recognition relies on inertial measurement units (IMUs), which are resource intensive and require calibration. Although electrocardiogram (ECG)-based methods have been explored, these have typically served as supplements to IMUs or have been limited to broad categorical classification such as fall detection or active vs. inactive in daily activities. In this paper, we advance the field by demonstrating, for the first time, robust recognition of activity only with ECG in six distinct activities, which is beyond the scope of previous work. We design and evaluate three new deep learning models, including a CNN classifier with Squeeze-and-Excitation blocks for channel-wise feature recalibration, a ResNet classifier with dilated convolutions for multiscale temporal dependency capture, and a novel CNNTransformer hybrid combining convolutional feature extraction with attention mechanisms for long-range temporal relationship modeling. Tested on data from 54 subjects for six activities, all three models achieve over 94% accuracy for seen subjects, while CNNTransformer hybrid reaching the best accuracy of 72% for unseen subjects, a result that can be further improved by increasing the training population. This study demonstrates the first successful ECG-only activity classification in multiple physical activities, offering significant potential for developing next-generation wearables capable of simultaneous cardiac monitoring and activity recognition without additional motion sensors.

Komala Subramanyam Cherukuri, Kewei Sha, Zhenhua Huang

Object detection is crucial for Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) to perceive their surroundings and make safe driving decisions. Centralized training of object detection models often achieves promising accuracy, fast convergence, and simplified training process, but it falls short in scalability, adaptability, and privacy-preservation. Federated learning (FL), by contrast, enables collaborative, privacy-preserving, and continuous training across naturally distributed CAV fleets. However, deploying FL in real-world CAVs remains challenging due to the substantial computational demands of training and inference, coupled with highly diverse operating conditions. Practical deployment must address three critical factors: (i) heterogeneity from non-IID data distributions, (ii) constrained onboard computing hardware, and (iii) environmental variability such as lighting and weather, alongside systematic evaluation to ensure reliable performance. This work introduces the first holistic deployment-oriented evaluation of FL-based object detection in CAVs, integrating model performance, system-level resource profiling, and environmental robustness. Using state-of-the-art detectors, YOLOv5, YOLOv8, YOLOv11, and Deformable DETR, evaluated on the KITTI, BDD100K, and nuScenes datasets, we analyze trade-offs between detection accuracy, computational cost, and resource usage under diverse resolutions, batch sizes, weather and lighting conditions, and dynamic client participation, paving the way for robust FL deployment in CAVs.

Yuhan Zhou, Haihua Chen, Kewei Sha

The next-generation autonomous vehicles (AVs), embedded with frequent real-time decision-making, will rely heavily on a large volume of multisource and multimodal data. In real-world settings, the data quality (DQ) of different sources and modalities usually varies due to unexpected environmental factors or sensor issues. However, both researchers and practitioners in the AV field overwhelmingly concentrate on models/algorithms while undervaluing the DQ. To fulfill the needs of the next-generation AVs with guarantees of functionality, efficiency, and trustworthiness, this paper proposes a novel task-centric and data quality vase framework which consists of five layers: data layer, DQ layer, task layer, application layer, and goal layer. The proposed framework aims to map DQ with task requirements and performance goals. To illustrate, a case study investigating redundancy on the nuScenes dataset proves that partially removing redundancy on multisource image data could improve YOLOv8 object detection task performance. Analysis on multimodal data of image and LiDAR further presents existing redundancy DQ issues. This paper opens up a range of critical but unexplored challenges at the intersection of DQ, task orchestration, and performance-oriented system development in AVs. It is expected to guide the AV community toward building more adaptive, explainable, and resilient AVs that respond intelligently to dynamic environments and heterogeneous data streams. Code, data, and implementation details are publicly available at: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/dq4av-framework/README.md.