Yuntian Chen

LG
h-index25
43papers
2,305citations
Novelty52%
AI Score43

43 Papers

11.6CVDec 19, 2022Code
Discrete Point-wise Attack Is Not Enough: Generalized Manifold Adversarial Attack for Face Recognition

Qian Li, Yuxiao Hu, Ye Liu et al.

Classical adversarial attacks for Face Recognition (FR) models typically generate discrete examples for target identity with a single state image. However, such paradigm of point-wise attack exhibits poor generalization against numerous unknown states of identity and can be easily defended. In this paper, by rethinking the inherent relationship between the face of target identity and its variants, we introduce a new pipeline of Generalized Manifold Adversarial Attack (GMAA) to achieve a better attack performance by expanding the attack range. Specifically, this expansion lies on two aspects - GMAA not only expands the target to be attacked from one to many to encourage a good generalization ability for the generated adversarial examples, but it also expands the latter from discrete points to manifold by leveraging the domain knowledge that face expression change can be continuous, which enhances the attack effect as a data augmentation mechanism did. Moreover, we further design a dual supervision with local and global constraints as a minor contribution to improve the visual quality of the generated adversarial examples. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method based on extensive experiments, and reveal that GMAA promises a semantic continuous adversarial space with a higher generalization ability and visual quality

1.5CVJun 1, 2023Code
Reflection Invariance Learning for Few-shot Semantic Segmentation

Qinglong Cao, Yuntian Chen, Chao Ma et al.

Few-shot semantic segmentation (FSS) aims to segment objects of unseen classes in query images with only a few annotated support images. Existing FSS algorithms typically focus on mining category representations from the single-view support to match semantic objects of the single-view query. However, the limited annotated samples render the single-view matching struggle to perceive the reflection invariance of novel objects, which results in a restricted learning space for novel categories and further induces a biased segmentation with demoted parsing performance. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a fresh few-shot segmentation framework to mine the reflection invariance in a multi-view matching manner. Specifically, original and reflection support features from different perspectives with the same semantics are learnable fused to obtain the reflection invariance prototype with a stronger category representation ability. Simultaneously, aiming at providing better prior guidance, the Reflection Invariance Prior Mask Generation (RIPMG) module is proposed to integrate prior knowledge from different perspectives. Finally, segmentation predictions from varying views are complementarily merged in the Reflection Invariance Semantic Prediction (RISP) module to yield precise segmentation predictions. Extensive experiments on both PASCAL-$5^\textit{i}$ and COCO-$20^\textit{i}$ datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and show that our method could achieve state-of-the-art performance. Code is available at \url{https://anonymous.4open.science/r/RILFS-A4D1}

7.8LGMay 11, 2022Code
AutoKE: An automatic knowledge embedding framework for scientific machine learning

Mengge Du, Yuntian Chen, Dongxiao Zhang

Imposing physical constraints on neural networks as a method of knowledge embedding has achieved great progress in solving physical problems described by governing equations. However, for many engineering problems, governing equations often have complex forms, including complex partial derivatives or stochastic physical fields, which results in significant inconveniences from the perspective of implementation. In this paper, a scientific machine learning framework, called AutoKE, is proposed, and a reservoir flow problem is taken as an instance to demonstrate that this framework can effectively automate the process of embedding physical knowledge. In AutoKE, an emulator comprised of deep neural networks (DNNs) is built for predicting the physical variables of interest. An arbitrarily complex equation can be parsed and automatically converted into a computational graph through the equation parser module, and the fitness of the emulator to the governing equation is evaluated via automatic differentiation. Furthermore, the fixed weights in the loss function are substituted with adaptive weights by incorporating the Lagrangian dual method. Neural architecture search (NAS) is also introduced into the AutoKE to select an optimal network architecture of the emulator according to the specific problem. Finally, we apply transfer learning to enhance the scalability of the emulator. In experiments, the framework is verified by a series of physical problems in which it can automatically embed physical knowledge into an emulator without heavy hand-coding. The results demonstrate that the emulator can not only make accurate predictions, but also be applied to similar problems with high efficiency via transfer learning.

1.8LGJun 20, 2022
Interpretable machine learning optimization (InterOpt) for operational parameters: a case study of highly-efficient shale gas development

Yuntian Chen, Dongxiao Zhang, Qun Zhao et al.

An algorithm named InterOpt for optimizing operational parameters is proposed based on interpretable machine learning, and is demonstrated via optimization of shale gas development. InterOpt consists of three parts: a neural network is used to construct an emulator of the actual drilling and hydraulic fracturing process in the vector space (i.e., virtual environment); the Sharpley value method in interpretable machine learning is applied to analyzing the impact of geological and operational parameters in each well (i.e., single well feature impact analysis); and ensemble randomized maximum likelihood (EnRML) is conducted to optimize the operational parameters to comprehensively improve the efficiency of shale gas development and reduce the average cost. In the experiment, InterOpt provides different drilling and fracturing plans for each well according to its specific geological conditions, and finally achieved an average cost reduction of 9.7% for a case study with 104 wells.

3.3AO-PHSep 27, 2023
Interpretable AI-Driven Discovery of Terrain-Precipitation Relationships for Enhanced Climate Insights

Hao Xu, Yuntian Chen, Zhenzhong Zeng et al.

Despite the remarkable strides made by AI-driven models in modern precipitation forecasting, these black-box models cannot inherently deepen the comprehension of underlying mechanisms. To address this limitation, we propose an AI-driven knowledge discovery framework known as genetic algorithm-geographic weighted regression (GA-GWR). Our approach seeks to unveil the explicit equations that govern the intricate relationship between precipitation patterns and terrain characteristics in regions marked by complex terrain. Through this AI-driven knowledge discovery, we uncover previously undisclosed explicit equations that shed light on the connection between terrain features and precipitation patterns. These equations demonstrate remarkable accuracy when applied to precipitation data, outperforming conventional empirical models. Notably, our research reveals that the parameters within these equations are dynamic, adapting to evolving climate patterns. Ultimately, the unveiled equations have practical applications, particularly in fine-scale downscaling for precipitation predictions using low-resolution future climate data. This capability offers invaluable insights into the anticipated changes in precipitation patterns across diverse terrains under future climate scenarios, which enhances our ability to address the challenges posed by contemporary climate science.

1.4CVNov 20, 2022
Progressively Dual Prior Guided Few-shot Semantic Segmentation

Qinglong Cao, Yuntian Chen, Xiwen Yao et al.

Few-shot semantic segmentation task aims at performing segmentation in query images with a few annotated support samples. Currently, few-shot segmentation methods mainly focus on leveraging foreground information without fully utilizing the rich background information, which could result in wrong activation of foreground-like background regions with the inadaptability to dramatic scene changes of support-query image pairs. Meanwhile, the lack of detail mining mechanism could cause coarse parsing results without some semantic components or edge areas since prototypes have limited ability to cope with large object appearance variance. To tackle these problems, we propose a progressively dual prior guided few-shot semantic segmentation network. Specifically, a dual prior mask generation (DPMG) module is firstly designed to suppress the wrong activation in foreground-background comparison manner by regarding background as assisted refinement information. With dual prior masks refining the location of foreground area, we further propose a progressive semantic detail enrichment (PSDE) module which forces the parsing model to capture the hidden semantic details by iteratively erasing the high-confidence foreground region and activating details in the rest region with a hierarchical structure. The collaboration of DPMG and PSDE formulates a novel few-shot segmentation network that can be learned in an end-to-end manner. Comprehensive experiments on PASCAL-5i and MS COCO powerfully demonstrate that our proposed algorithm achieves the great performance.

4.6LGOct 5, 2022
TgDLF2.0: Theory-guided deep-learning for electrical load forecasting via Transformer and transfer learning

Jiaxin Gao, Wenbo Hu, Dongxiao Zhang et al.

Electrical energy is essential in today's society. Accurate electrical load forecasting is beneficial for better scheduling of electricity generation and saving electrical energy. In this paper, we propose theory-guided deep-learning load forecasting 2.0 (TgDLF2.0) to solve this issue, which is an improved version of the theory-guided deep-learning framework for load forecasting via ensemble long short-term memory (TgDLF). TgDLF2.0 introduces the deep-learning model Transformer and transfer learning on the basis of dividing the electrical load into dimensionless trends and local fluctuations, which realizes the utilization of domain knowledge, captures the long-term dependency of the load series, and is more appropriate for realistic scenarios with scarce samples. Cross-validation experiments on different districts show that TgDLF2.0 is approximately 16% more accurate than TgDLF and saves more than half of the training time. TgDLF2.0 with 50% weather noise has the same accuracy as TgDLF without noise, which proves its robustness. We also preliminarily mine the interpretability of Transformer in TgDLF2.0, which may provide future potential for better theory guidance. Furthermore, experiments demonstrate that transfer learning can accelerate convergence of the model in half the number of training epochs and achieve better performance.

1.8LGApr 16, 2022
Semantic interpretation for convolutional neural networks: What makes a cat a cat?

Hao Xu, Yuntian Chen, Dongxiao Zhang

The interpretability of deep neural networks has attracted increasing attention in recent years, and several methods have been created to interpret the "black box" model. Fundamental limitations remain, however, that impede the pace of understanding the networks, especially the extraction of understandable semantic space. In this work, we introduce the framework of semantic explainable AI (S-XAI), which utilizes row-centered principal component analysis to obtain the common traits from the best combination of superpixels discovered by a genetic algorithm, and extracts understandable semantic spaces on the basis of discovered semantically sensitive neurons and visualization techniques. Statistical interpretation of the semantic space is also provided, and the concept of semantic probability is proposed for the first time. Our experimental results demonstrate that S-XAI is effective in providing a semantic interpretation for the CNN, and offers broad usage, including trustworthiness assessment and semantic sample searching.

4.6LGOct 4, 2022Code
DISCOVER: Deep identification of symbolically concise open-form PDEs via enhanced reinforcement-learning

Mengge Du, Yuntian Chen, Dongxiao Zhang

The working mechanisms of complex natural systems tend to abide by concise and profound partial differential equations (PDEs). Methods that directly mine equations from data are called PDE discovery, which reveals consistent physical laws and facilitates our adaptive interaction with the natural world. In this paper, an enhanced deep reinforcement-learning framework is proposed to uncover symbolically concise open-form PDEs with little prior knowledge. Particularly, based on a symbol library of basic operators and operands, a structure-aware recurrent neural network agent is designed and seamlessly combined with the sparse regression method to generate concise and open-form PDE expressions. All of the generated PDEs are evaluated by a meticulously designed reward function by balancing fitness to data and parsimony, and updated by the model-based reinforcement learning in an efficient way. Customized constraints and regulations are formulated to guarantee the rationality of PDEs in terms of physics and mathematics. The experiments demonstrate that our framework is capable of mining open-form governing equations of several dynamic systems, even with compound equation terms, fractional structure, and high-order derivatives, with excellent efficiency. Without the need for prior knowledge, this method shows great potential for knowledge discovery in more complicated circumstances with exceptional efficiency and scalability.

2.3MTRL-SCINov 13, 2025
Beyond empirical models: Discovering new constitutive laws in solids with graph-based equation discovery

Hao Xu, Yuntian Chen, Dongxiao Zhang

Constitutive models are fundamental to solid mechanics and materials science, underpinning the quantitative description and prediction of material responses under diverse loading conditions. Traditional phenomenological models, which are derived through empirical fitting, often lack generalizability and rely heavily on expert intuition and predefined functional forms. In this work, we propose a graph-based equation discovery framework for the automated discovery of constitutive laws directly from multisource experimental data. This framework expresses equations as directed graphs, where nodes represent operators and variables, edges denote computational relations, and edge features encode parametric dependencies. This enables the generation and optimization of free-form symbolic expressions with undetermined material-specific parameters. Through the proposed framework, we have discovered new constitutive models for strain-rate effects in alloy steel materials and the deformation behavior of lithium metal. Compared with conventional empirical models, these new models exhibit compact analytical structures and achieve higher accuracy. The proposed graph-based equation discovery framework provides a generalizable and interpretable approach for data-driven scientific modelling, particularly in contexts where traditional empirical formulations are inadequate for representing complex physical phenomena.

2.0LGJul 3, 2023Code
Worth of knowledge in deep learning

Hao Xu, Yuntian Chen, Dongxiao Zhang

Knowledge constitutes the accumulated understanding and experience that humans use to gain insight into the world. In deep learning, prior knowledge is essential for mitigating shortcomings of data-driven models, such as data dependence, generalization ability, and compliance with constraints. To enable efficient evaluation of the worth of knowledge, we present a framework inspired by interpretable machine learning. Through quantitative experiments, we assess the influence of data volume and estimation range on the worth of knowledge. Our findings elucidate the complex relationship between data and knowledge, including dependence, synergistic, and substitution effects. Our model-agnostic framework can be applied to a variety of common network architectures, providing a comprehensive understanding of the role of prior knowledge in deep learning models. It can also be used to improve the performance of informed machine learning, as well as distinguish improper prior knowledge.

15.0LGDec 12, 2024Code
Auto-Regressive Moving Diffusion Models for Time Series Forecasting

Jiaxin Gao, Qinglong Cao, Yuntian Chen

Time series forecasting (TSF) is essential in various domains, and recent advancements in diffusion-based TSF models have shown considerable promise. However, these models typically adopt traditional diffusion patterns, treating TSF as a noise-based conditional generation task. This approach neglects the inherent continuous sequential nature of time series, leading to a fundamental misalignment between diffusion mechanisms and the TSF objective, thereby severely impairing performance. To bridge this misalignment, and inspired by the classic Auto-Regressive Moving Average (ARMA) theory, which views time series as continuous sequential progressions evolving from previous data points, we propose a novel Auto-Regressive Moving Diffusion (ARMD) model to first achieve the continuous sequential diffusion-based TSF. Unlike previous methods that start from white Gaussian noise, our model employs chain-based diffusion with priors, accurately modeling the evolution of time series and leveraging intermediate state information to improve forecasting accuracy and stability. Specifically, our approach reinterprets the diffusion process by considering future series as the initial state and historical series as the final state, with intermediate series generated using a sliding-based technique during the forward process. This design aligns the diffusion model's sampling procedure with the forecasting objective, resulting in an unconditional, continuous sequential diffusion TSF model. Extensive experiments conducted on seven widely used datasets demonstrate that our model achieves state-of-the-art performance, significantly outperforming existing diffusion-based TSF models. Our code is available on GitHub: https://github.com/daxin007/ARMD.

11.3AIJul 7
ArtisanCAD: An Industrial-Level CAD Agent with Expert-Grounded Knowledge Distillation

Yunhan Xu, Qifeng Wu, Xunjin Li et al.

Computer-aided design (CAD) for industrial components requires long-horizon procedural modeling, robust feature dependencies, editable parametric geometry, and production-grade B-Rep execution. Existing text-to-CAD methods have made promising progress in generating CAD programs from natural-language descriptions, but they still struggle when user prompts are ambiguous, underspecified, or only describe high-level design intent. They also rarely exploit expert procedural knowledge naturally available in industrial workflows, such as CATIA operation recordings, macro logs, drawing notes, and engineering descriptions. We present \algname, a skill-guided industrial CAD agent with expert-grounded knowledge distillation. The core of \algname is CAD intermediate representation (CAD-IR), an executable procedural representation that encodes parameters, ordered operations, MCP tool bindings, dependencies, generated entities, and verification rules. CAD-IR plays two key roles: it first serves as the carrier for distilling expert CAD procedures into reusable parameterized skills; then it provides a procedural scaffold that turns vague or intermediate-level prompts into complete executable CAD operations. \algname retrieves expert-derived skills, instantiates and revises CAD-IR, executes the resulting procedure through a dedicated CATIA-MCP backend, and uses multi-view visual feedback for iterative refinement, and finally generates production-ready B-Rep models. On the Text2CAD benchmark, CAD-IR improves generation from intermediate prompts by reducing mean Chamfer Distance from $14.83$ to $9.88$, showing its ability to bridge ambiguous textual intent and executable CAD construction. On four complex automotive components, CAD-IR enables expert CATIA recordings to be distilled into reusable skills, allowing \algname to generate editable CATIA-native B-Rep models for new variant requests.

10.7LGMay 30, 2023Code
Client: Cross-variable Linear Integrated Enhanced Transformer for Multivariate Long-Term Time Series Forecasting

Jiaxin Gao, Wenbo Hu, Yuntian Chen

Long-term time series forecasting (LTSF) is a crucial aspect of modern society, playing a pivotal role in facilitating long-term planning and developing early warning systems. While many Transformer-based models have recently been introduced for LTSF, a doubt have been raised regarding the effectiveness of attention modules in capturing cross-time dependencies. In this study, we design a mask-series experiment to validate this assumption and subsequently propose the "Cross-variable Linear Integrated ENhanced Transformer for Multivariate Long-Term Time Series Forecasting" (Client), an advanced model that outperforms both traditional Transformer-based models and linear models. Client employs linear modules to learn trend information and attention modules to capture cross-variable dependencies. Meanwhile, it simplifies the embedding and position encoding layers and replaces the decoder module with a projection layer. Essentially, Client incorporates non-linearity and cross-variable dependencies, which sets it apart from conventional linear models and Transformer-based models. Extensive experiments with nine real-world datasets have confirmed the SOTA performance of Client with the least computation time and memory consumption compared with the previous Transformer-based models. Our code is available at https://github.com/daxin007/Client.

31.8LGJan 7, 2025
Context-Alignment: Activating and Enhancing LLM Capabilities in Time Series

Yuxiao Hu, Qian Li, Dongxiao Zhang et al.

Recently, leveraging pre-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) for time series (TS) tasks has gained increasing attention, which involves activating and enhancing LLMs' capabilities. Many methods aim to activate LLMs' capabilities based on token-level alignment but overlook LLMs' inherent strength on natural language processing -- their deep understanding of linguistic logic and structure rather than superficial embedding processing. We propose Context-Alignment, a new paradigm that aligns TS with a linguistic component in the language environments familiar to LLMs to enable LLMs to contextualize and comprehend TS data, thereby activating their capabilities. Specifically, such context-level alignment comprises structural alignment and logical alignment, which is achieved by a Dual-Scale Context-Alignment GNNs (DSCA-GNNs) applied to TS-language multimodal inputs. Structural alignment utilizes dual-scale nodes to describe hierarchical structure in TS-language, enabling LLMs treat long TS data as a whole linguistic component while preserving intrinsic token features. Logical alignment uses directed edges to guide logical relationships, ensuring coherence in the contextual semantics. Demonstration examples prompt are employed to construct Demonstration Examples based Context-Alignment (DECA) following DSCA-GNNs framework. DECA can be flexibly and repeatedly integrated into various layers of pre-trained LLMs to improve awareness of logic and structure, thereby enhancing performance. Extensive experiments show the effectiveness of DECA and the importance of Context-Alignment across tasks, particularly in few-shot and zero-shot forecasting, confirming that Context-Alignment provide powerful prior knowledge on context.

13.6CVDec 12, 2023
Domain Prompt Learning with Quaternion Networks

Qinglong Cao, Zhengqin Xu, Yuntian Chen et al.

Prompt learning has emerged as an effective and data-efficient technique in large Vision-Language Models (VLMs). However, when adapting VLMs to specialized domains such as remote sensing and medical imaging, domain prompt learning remains underexplored. While large-scale domain-specific foundation models can help tackle this challenge, their concentration on a single vision level makes it challenging to prompt both vision and language modalities. To overcome this, we propose to leverage domain-specific knowledge from domain-specific foundation models to transfer the robust recognition ability of VLMs from generalized to specialized domains, using quaternion networks. Specifically, the proposed method involves using domain-specific vision features from domain-specific foundation models to guide the transformation of generalized contextual embeddings from the language branch into a specialized space within the quaternion networks. Moreover, we present a hierarchical approach that generates vision prompt features by analyzing intermodal relationships between hierarchical language prompt features and domain-specific vision features. In this way, quaternion networks can effectively mine the intermodal relationships in the specific domain, facilitating domain-specific vision-language contrastive learning. Extensive experiments on domain-specific datasets show that our proposed method achieves new state-of-the-art results in prompt learning.

14.2LGMay 13, 2024Code
LLM4ED: Large Language Models for Automatic Equation Discovery

Mengge Du, Yuntian Chen, Zhongzheng Wang et al.

Equation discovery is aimed at directly extracting physical laws from data and has emerged as a pivotal research domain. Previous methods based on symbolic mathematics have achieved substantial advancements, but often require the design of implementation of complex algorithms. In this paper, we introduce a new framework that utilizes natural language-based prompts to guide large language models (LLMs) in automatically mining governing equations from data. Specifically, we first utilize the generation capability of LLMs to generate diverse equations in string form, and then evaluate the generated equations based on observations. In the optimization phase, we propose two alternately iterated strategies to optimize generated equations collaboratively. The first strategy is to take LLMs as a black-box optimizer and achieve equation self-improvement based on historical samples and their performance. The second strategy is to instruct LLMs to perform evolutionary operators for global search. Experiments are extensively conducted on both partial differential equations and ordinary differential equations. Results demonstrate that our framework can discover effective equations to reveal the underlying physical laws under various nonlinear dynamic systems. Further comparisons are made with state-of-the-art models, demonstrating good stability and usability. Our framework substantially lowers the barriers to learning and applying equation discovery techniques, demonstrating the application potential of LLMs in the field of knowledge discovery.

4.3SPDec 4, 2023
MoE-AMC: Enhancing Automatic Modulation Classification Performance Using Mixture-of-Experts

Jiaxin Gao, Qinglong Cao, Yuntian Chen

Automatic Modulation Classification (AMC) plays a vital role in time series analysis, such as signal classification and identification within wireless communications. Deep learning-based AMC models have demonstrated significant potential in this domain. However, current AMC models inadequately consider the disparities in handling signals under conditions of low and high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), resulting in an unevenness in their performance. In this study, we propose MoE-AMC, a novel Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) based model specifically crafted to address AMC in a well-balanced manner across varying SNR conditions. Utilizing the MoE framework, MoE-AMC seamlessly combines the strengths of LSRM (a Transformer-based model) for handling low SNR signals and HSRM (a ResNet-based model) for high SNR signals. This integration empowers MoE-AMC to achieve leading performance in modulation classification, showcasing its efficacy in capturing distinctive signal features under diverse SNR scenarios. We conducted experiments using the RML2018.01a dataset, where MoE-AMC achieved an average classification accuracy of 71.76% across different SNR levels, surpassing the performance of previous SOTA models by nearly 10%. This study represents a pioneering application of MoE techniques in the realm of AMC, offering a promising avenue for elevating signal classification accuracy within wireless communication systems.

2.6LGApr 29, 2024
Bridging Data Barriers among Participants: Assessing the Potential of Geoenergy through Federated Learning

Weike Peng, Jiaxin Gao, Yuntian Chen et al.

Machine learning algorithms emerge as a promising approach in energy fields, but its practical is hindered by data barriers, stemming from high collection costs and privacy concerns. This study introduces a novel federated learning (FL) framework based on XGBoost models, enabling safe collaborative modeling with accessible yet concealed data from multiple parties. Hyperparameter tuning of the models is achieved through Bayesian Optimization. To ascertain the merits of the proposed FL-XGBoost method, a comparative analysis is conducted between separate and centralized models to address a classical binary classification problem in geoenergy sector. The results reveal that the proposed FL framework strikes an optimal balance between privacy and accuracy. FL models demonstrate superior accuracy and generalization capabilities compared to separate models, particularly for participants with limited data or low correlation features and offers significant privacy benefits compared to centralized model. The aggregated optimization approach within the FL agreement proves effective in tuning hyperparameters. This study opens new avenues for assessing unconventional reservoirs through collaborative and privacy-preserving FL techniques.

4.6LGDec 27, 2024Code
Revisiting PCA for time series reduction in temporal dimension

Jiaxin Gao, Wenbo Hu, Yuntian Chen

Revisiting PCA for Time Series Reduction in Temporal Dimension; Jiaxin Gao, Wenbo Hu, Yuntian Chen; Deep learning has significantly advanced time series analysis (TSA), enabling the extraction of complex patterns for tasks like classification, forecasting, and regression. Although dimensionality reduction has traditionally focused on the variable space-achieving notable success in minimizing data redundancy and computational complexity-less attention has been paid to reducing the temporal dimension. In this study, we revisit Principal Component Analysis (PCA), a classical dimensionality reduction technique, to explore its utility in temporal dimension reduction for time series data. It is generally thought that applying PCA to the temporal dimension would disrupt temporal dependencies, leading to limited exploration in this area. However, our theoretical analysis and extensive experiments demonstrate that applying PCA to sliding series windows not only maintains model performance, but also enhances computational efficiency. In auto-regressive forecasting, the temporal structure is partially preserved through windowing, and PCA is applied within these windows to denoise the time series while retaining their statistical information. By preprocessing time-series data with PCA, we reduce the temporal dimensionality before feeding it into TSA models such as Linear, Transformer, CNN, and RNN architectures. This approach accelerates training and inference and reduces resource consumption. Notably, PCA improves Informer training and inference speed by up to 40% and decreases GPU memory usage of TimesNet by 30%, without sacrificing model accuracy. Comparative analysis against other reduction methods further highlights the effectiveness of PCA in improving the efficiency of TSA models.

8.8LGDec 12, 2023
Focus on Hiders: Exploring Hidden Threats for Enhancing Adversarial Training

Qian Li, Yuxiao Hu, Yinpeng Dong et al.

Adversarial training is often formulated as a min-max problem, however, concentrating only on the worst adversarial examples causes alternating repetitive confusion of the model, i.e., previously defended or correctly classified samples are not defensible or accurately classifiable in subsequent adversarial training. We characterize such non-ignorable samples as "hiders", which reveal the hidden high-risk regions within the secure area obtained through adversarial training and prevent the model from finding the real worst cases. We demand the model to prevent hiders when defending against adversarial examples for improving accuracy and robustness simultaneously. By rethinking and redefining the min-max optimization problem for adversarial training, we propose a generalized adversarial training algorithm called Hider-Focused Adversarial Training (HFAT). HFAT introduces the iterative evolution optimization strategy to simplify the optimization problem and employs an auxiliary model to reveal hiders, effectively combining the optimization directions of standard adversarial training and prevention hiders. Furthermore, we introduce an adaptive weighting mechanism that facilitates the model in adaptively adjusting its focus between adversarial examples and hiders during different training periods. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method based on extensive experiments, and ensure that HFAT can provide higher robustness and accuracy.

2.6LGApr 16, 2024
A Phone-based Distributed Ambient Temperature Measurement System with An Efficient Label-free Automated Training Strategy

Dayin Chen, Xiaodan Shi, Haoran Zhang et al.

Enhancing the energy efficiency of buildings significantly relies on monitoring indoor ambient temperature. The potential limitations of conventional temperature measurement techniques, together with the omnipresence of smartphones, have redirected researchers'attention towards the exploration of phone-based ambient temperature estimation methods. However, existing phone-based methods face challenges such as insufficient privacy protection, difficulty in adapting models to various phones, and hurdles in obtaining enough labeled training data. In this study, we propose a distributed phone-based ambient temperature estimation system which enables collaboration among multiple phones to accurately measure the ambient temperature in different areas of an indoor space. This system also provides an efficient, cost-effective approach with a few-shot meta-learning module and an automated label generation module. It shows that with just 5 new training data points, the temperature estimation model can adapt to a new phone and reach a good performance. Moreover, the system uses crowdsourcing to generate accurate labels for all newly collected training data, significantly reducing costs. Additionally, we highlight the potential of incorporating federated learning into our system to enhance privacy protection. We believe this study can advance the practical application of phone-based ambient temperature measurement, facilitating energy-saving efforts in buildings.

1.2COMP-PHDec 21, 2024Code
An explainable operator approximation framework under the guideline of Green's function

Jianghang Gu, Ling Wen, Yuntian Chen et al.

Traditional numerical methods, such as the finite element method and finite volume method, adress partial differential equations (PDEs) by discretizing them into algebraic equations and solving these iteratively. However, this process is often computationally expensive and time-consuming. An alternative approach involves transforming PDEs into integral equations and solving them using Green's functions, which provide analytical solutions. Nevertheless, deriving Green's functions analytically is a challenging and non-trivial task, particularly for complex systems. In this study, we introduce a novel framework, termed GreensONet, which is constructed based on the strucutre of deep operator networks (DeepONet) to learn embedded Green's functions and solve PDEs via Green's integral formulation. Specifically, the Trunk Net within GreensONet is designed to approximate the unknown Green's functions of the system, while the Branch Net are utilized to approximate the auxiliary gradients of the Green's function. These outputs are subsequently employed to perform surface integrals and volume integrals, incorporating user-defined boundary conditions and source terms, respectively. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is demonstrated on three types of PDEs in bounded domains: 3D heat conduction equations, reaction-diffusion equations, and Stokes equations. Comparative results in these cases demonstrate that GreenONet's accuracy and generalization ability surpass those of existing methods, including Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINN), DeepONet, Physics-Informed DeepONet (PI-DeepONet), and Fourier Neural Operators (FNO).

1.2COMP-PHDec 5, 2024
A Data-Driven Framework for Discovering Fractional Differential Equations in Complex Systems

Xiangnan Yu, Hao Xu, Zhiping Mao et al.

In complex physical systems, conventional differential equations often fall short in capturing non-local and memory effects, as they are limited to local dynamics and integer-order interactions. This study introduces a stepwise data-driven framework for discovering fractional differential equations (FDEs) directly from data. FDEs, known for their capacity to model non-local dynamics with fewer parameters than integer-order derivatives, can represent complex systems with long-range interactions. Our framework applies deep neural networks as surrogate models for denoising and reconstructing sparse and noisy observations while using Gaussian-Jacobi quadrature to handle the challenges posed by singularities in fractional derivatives. To optimize both the sparse coefficients and fractional order, we employ an alternating optimization approach that combines sparse regression with global optimization techniques. We validate the framework across various datasets, including synthetic anomalous diffusion data, experimental data on the creep behavior of frozen soils, and single-particle trajectories modeled by Lévy motion. Results demonstrate the framework's robustness in identifying the structure of FDEs across diverse noise levels and its capacity to capture integer-order dynamics, offering a flexible approach for modeling memory effects in complex systems.

3.7CVMay 14, 2024Code
Promoting AI Equity in Science: Generalized Domain Prompt Learning for Accessible VLM Research

Qinglong Cao, Yuntian Chen, Lu Lu et al.

Large-scale Vision-Language Models (VLMs) have demonstrated exceptional performance in natural vision tasks, motivating researchers across domains to explore domain-specific VLMs. However, the construction of powerful domain-specific VLMs demands vast amounts of annotated data, substantial electrical energy, and computing resources, primarily accessible to industry, yet hindering VLM research in academia. To address this challenge and foster sustainable and equitable VLM research, we present the Generalized Domain Prompt Learning (GDPL) framework. GDPL facilitates the transfer of VLMs' robust recognition capabilities from natural vision to specialized domains, without the need for extensive data or resources. By leveraging small-scale domain-specific foundation models and minimal prompt samples, GDPL empowers the language branch with domain knowledge through quaternion networks, uncovering cross-modal relationships between domain-specific vision features and natural vision-based contextual embeddings. Simultaneously, GDPL guides the vision branch into specific domains through hierarchical propagation of generated vision prompt features, grounded in well-matched vision-language relations. Furthermore, to fully harness the domain adaptation potential of VLMs, we introduce a novel low-rank adaptation approach. Extensive experiments across diverse domains like remote sensing, medical imaging, geology, Synthetic Aperture Radar, and fluid dynamics, validate the efficacy of GDPL, demonstrating its ability to achieve state-of-the-art domain recognition performance in a prompt learning paradigm. Our framework paves the way for sustainable and inclusive VLM research, transcending the barriers between academia and industry.

2.6LGDec 31, 2023
Multi-spatial Multi-temporal Air Quality Forecasting with Integrated Monitoring and Reanalysis Data

Yuxiao Hu, Qian Li, Xiaodan Shi et al.

Accurate air quality forecasting is crucial for public health, environmental monitoring and protection, and urban planning. However, existing methods fail to effectively utilize multi-scale information, both spatially and temporally. Spatially, there is a lack of integration between individual monitoring stations and city-wide scales. Temporally, the periodic nature of air quality variations is often overlooked or inadequately considered. To address these limitations, we present a novel Multi-spatial Multi-temporal air quality forecasting method based on Graph Convolutional Networks and Gated Recurrent Units (M2G2), bridging the gap in air quality forecasting across spatial and temporal scales. The proposed framework consists of two modules: Multi-scale Spatial GCN (MS-GCN) for spatial information fusion and Multi-scale Temporal GRU(MT-GRU) for temporal information integration. In the spatial dimension, the MS-GCN module employs a bidirectional learnable structure and a residual structure, enabling comprehensive information exchange between individual monitoring stations and the city-scale graph. Regarding the temporal dimension, the MT-GRU module adaptively combines information from different temporal scales through parallel hidden states. Leveraging meteorological indicators and four air quality indicators, we present comprehensive comparative analyses and ablation experiments, showcasing the higher accuracy of M2G2 in comparison to nine currently available advanced approaches across all aspects. The improvements of M2G2 over the second-best method on RMSE of the 24h/48h/72h are as follows: PM2.5: (7.72%, 6.67%, 10.45%); PM10: (6.43%, 5.68%, 7.73%); NO2: (5.07%, 7.76%, 16.60%); O3: (6.46%, 6.86%, 9.79%). Furthermore, we demonstrate the effectiveness of each module of M2G2 by ablation study.

2.6LGJun 7, 2024
When Swarm Learning meets energy series data: A decentralized collaborative learning design based on blockchain

Lei Xu, Yulong Chen, Yuntian Chen et al.

Machine learning models offer the capability to forecast future energy production or consumption and infer essential unknown variables from existing data. However, legal and policy constraints within specific energy sectors render the data sensitive, presenting technical hurdles in utilizing data from diverse sources. Therefore, we propose adopting a Swarm Learning (SL) scheme, which replaces the centralized server with a blockchain-based distributed network to address the security and privacy issues inherent in Federated Learning (FL)'s centralized architecture. Within this distributed Collaborative Learning framework, each participating organization governs nodes for inter-organizational communication. Devices from various organizations utilize smart contracts for parameter uploading and retrieval. Consensus mechanism ensures distributed consistency throughout the learning process, guarantees the transparent trustworthiness and immutability of parameters on-chain. The efficacy of the proposed framework is substantiated across three real-world energy series modeling scenarios with superior performance compared to Local Learning approaches, simultaneously emphasizing enhanced data security and privacy over Centralized Learning and FL method. Notably, as the number of data volume and the count of local epochs increases within a threshold, there is an improvement in model performance accompanied by a reduction in the variance of performance errors. Consequently, this leads to an increased stability and reliability in the outcomes produced by the model.

2.6LGJun 7, 2024
Optimization of geological carbon storage operations with multimodal latent dynamic model and deep reinforcement learning

Zhongzheng Wang, Yuntian Chen, Guodong Chen et al.

Maximizing storage performance in geological carbon storage (GCS) is crucial for commercial deployment, but traditional optimization demands resource-intensive simulations, posing computational challenges. This study introduces the multimodal latent dynamic (MLD) model, a deep learning framework for fast flow prediction and well control optimization in GCS. The MLD model includes a representation module for compressed latent representations, a transition module for system state evolution, and a prediction module for flow responses. A novel training strategy combining regression loss and joint-embedding consistency loss enhances temporal consistency and multi-step prediction accuracy. Unlike existing models, the MLD supports diverse input modalities, allowing comprehensive data interactions. The MLD model, resembling a Markov decision process (MDP), can train deep reinforcement learning agents, specifically using the soft actor-critic (SAC) algorithm, to maximize net present value (NPV) through continuous interactions. The approach outperforms traditional methods, achieving the highest NPV while reducing computational resources by over 60%. It also demonstrates strong generalization performance, providing improved decisions for new scenarios based on knowledge from previous ones.

2.6LGJun 6, 2024
A Noise-robust Multi-head Attention Mechanism for Formation Resistivity Prediction: Frequency Aware LSTM

Yongan Zhang, Junfeng Zhao, Jian Li et al.

The prediction of formation resistivity plays a crucial role in the evaluation of oil and gas reservoirs, identification and assessment of geothermal energy resources, groundwater detection and monitoring, and carbon capture and storage. However, traditional well logging techniques fail to measure accurate resistivity in cased boreholes, and the transient electromagnetic method for cased borehole resistivity logging encounters challenges of high-frequency disaster (the problem of inadequate learning by neural networks in high-frequency features) and noise interference, badly affecting accuracy. To address these challenges, frequency-aware framework and temporal anti-noise block are proposed to build frequency aware LSTM (FAL). The frequency-aware framework implements a dual-stream structure through wavelet transformation, allowing the neural network to simultaneously handle high-frequency and low-frequency flows of time-series data, thus avoiding high-frequency disaster. The temporal anti-noise block integrates multiple attention mechanisms and soft-threshold attention mechanisms, enabling the model to better distinguish noise from redundant features. Ablation experiments demonstrate that the frequency-aware framework and temporal anti-noise block contribute significantly to performance improvement. FAL achieves a 24.3% improvement in R2 over LSTM, reaching the highest value of 0.91 among all models. In robustness experiments, the impact of noise on FAL is approximately 1/8 of the baseline, confirming the noise resistance of FAL. The proposed FAL effectively reduces noise interference in predicting formation resistivity from cased transient electromagnetic well logging curves, better learns high-frequency features, and thereby enhances the prediction accuracy and noise resistance of the neural network model.

2.6LGJun 6, 2024
Cross-variable Linear Integrated ENhanced Transformer for Photovoltaic power forecasting

Jiaxin Gao, Qinglong Cao, Yuntian Chen et al.

Photovoltaic (PV) power forecasting plays a crucial role in optimizing the operation and planning of PV systems, thereby enabling efficient energy management and grid integration. However, un certainties caused by fluctuating weather conditions and complex interactions between different variables pose significant challenges to accurate PV power forecasting. In this study, we propose PV-Client (Cross-variable Linear Integrated ENhanced Transformer for Photovoltaic power forecasting) to address these challenges and enhance PV power forecasting accuracy. PV-Client employs an ENhanced Transformer module to capture complex interactions of various features in PV systems, and utilizes a linear module to learn trend information in PV power. Diverging from conventional time series-based Transformer models that use cross-time Attention to learn dependencies between different time steps, the Enhanced Transformer module integrates cross-variable Attention to capture dependencies between PV power and weather factors. Furthermore, PV-Client streamlines the embedding and position encoding layers by replacing the Decoder module with a projection layer. Experimental results on three real-world PV power datasets affirm PV-Client's state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance in PV power forecasting. Specifically, PV-Client surpasses the second-best model GRU by 5.3% in MSE metrics and 0.9% in accuracy metrics at the Jingang Station. Similarly, PV-Client outperforms the second-best model SVR by 10.1% in MSE metrics and 0.2% in accuracy metrics at the Xinqingnian Station, and PV-Client exhibits superior performance compared to the second-best model SVR with enhancements of 3.4% in MSE metrics and 0.9% in accuracy metrics at the Hongxing Station.

2.6LGApr 29, 2024
CVTN: Cross Variable and Temporal Integration for Time Series Forecasting

Han Zhou, Yuntian Chen

In multivariate time series forecasting, the Transformer architecture encounters two significant challenges: effectively mining features from historical sequences and avoiding overfitting during the learning of temporal dependencies. To tackle these challenges, this paper deconstructs time series forecasting into the learning of historical sequences and prediction sequences, introducing the Cross-Variable and Time Network (CVTN). This unique method divides multivariate time series forecasting into two phases: cross-variable learning for effectively mining fea tures from historical sequences, and cross-time learning to capture the temporal dependencies of prediction sequences. Separating these two phases helps avoid the impact of overfitting in cross-time learning on cross-variable learning. Exten sive experiments on various real-world datasets have confirmed its state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance. CVTN emphasizes three key dimensions in time series fore casting: the short-term and long-term nature of time series (locality and longevity), feature mining from both historical and prediction sequences, and the integration of cross-variable and cross-time learning. This approach not only advances the current state of time series forecasting but also provides a more comprehensive framework for future research in this field.

6.3IVJan 29, 2024
Vision-Informed Flow Image Super-Resolution with Quaternion Spatial Modeling and Dynamic Flow Convolution

Qinglong Cao, Zhengqin Xu, Chao Ma et al.

Flow image super-resolution (FISR) aims at recovering high-resolution turbulent velocity fields from low-resolution flow images. Existing FISR methods mainly process the flow images in natural image patterns, while the critical and distinct flow visual properties are rarely considered. This negligence would cause the significant domain gap between flow and natural images to severely hamper the accurate perception of flow turbulence, thereby undermining super-resolution performance. To tackle this dilemma, we comprehensively consider the flow visual properties, including the unique flow imaging principle and morphological information, and propose the first flow visual property-informed FISR algorithm. Particularly, different from natural images that are constructed by independent RGB channels in the light field, flow images build on the orthogonal UVW velocities in the flow field. To empower the FISR network with an awareness of the flow imaging principle, we propose quaternion spatial modeling to model this orthogonal spatial relationship for improved FISR. Moreover, due to viscosity and surface tension characteristics, fluids often exhibit a droplet-like morphology in flow images. Inspired by this morphological property, we design the dynamic flow convolution to effectively mine the morphological information to enhance FISR. Extensive experiments on the newly acquired flow image datasets demonstrate the state-of-the-art performance of our method. Code and data will be made available.

4.6LGJan 25, 2024Code
Empowering Machines to Think Like Chemists: Unveiling Molecular Structure-Polarity Relationships with Hierarchical Symbolic Regression

Siyu Lou, Chengchun Liu, Yuntian Chen et al.

Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) is a crucial technique in molecular polarity analysis. Despite its importance, the interpretability of predictive models for TLC, especially those driven by artificial intelligence, remains a challenge. Current approaches, utilizing either high-dimensional molecular fingerprints or domain-knowledge-driven feature engineering, often face a dilemma between expressiveness and interpretability. To bridge this gap, we introduce Unsupervised Hierarchical Symbolic Regression (UHiSR), combining hierarchical neural networks and symbolic regression. UHiSR automatically distills chemical-intuitive polarity indices, and discovers interpretable equations that link molecular structure to chromatographic behavior.

2.0LGDec 10, 2023
CLeaRForecast: Contrastive Learning of High-Purity Representations for Time Series Forecasting

Jiaxin Gao, Yuxiao Hu, Qinglong Cao et al.

Time series forecasting (TSF) holds significant importance in modern society, spanning numerous domains. Previous representation learning-based TSF algorithms typically embrace a contrastive learning paradigm featuring segregated trend-periodicity representations. Yet, these methodologies disregard the inherent high-impact noise embedded within time series data, resulting in representation inaccuracies and seriously demoting the forecasting performance. To address this issue, we propose CLeaRForecast, a novel contrastive learning framework to learn high-purity time series representations with proposed sample, feature, and architecture purifying methods. More specifically, to avoid more noise adding caused by the transformations of original samples (series), transformations are respectively applied for trendy and periodic parts to provide better positive samples with obviously less noise. Moreover, we introduce a channel independent training manner to mitigate noise originating from unrelated variables in the multivariate series. By employing a streamlined deep-learning backbone and a comprehensive global contrastive loss function, we prevent noise introduction due to redundant or uneven learning of periodicity and trend. Experimental results show the superior performance of CLeaRForecast in various downstream TSF tasks.

7.6CVMay 29, 2023Code
Few-Shot Rotation-Invariant Aerial Image Semantic Segmentation

Qinglong Cao, Yuntian Chen, Chao Ma et al.

Few-shot aerial image segmentation is a challenging task that involves precisely parsing objects in query aerial images with limited annotated support. Conventional matching methods without consideration of varying object orientations can fail to activate same-category objects with different orientations. Moreover, conventional algorithms can lead to false recognition of lower-scored rotated semantic objects. In response to these challenges, the authors propose a novel few-shot rotation-invariant aerial semantic segmentation network (FRINet). FRINet matches each query feature rotation-adaptively with orientation-varying yet category-consistent support information. The segmentation predictions from different orientations are supervised by the same label, and the backbones are pre-trained in the base category to boost segmentation performance. Experimental results demonstrate that FRINet achieves state-of-the-art performance in few-shot aerial semantic segmentation benchmark.

15.4AIFeb 15, 2022
Integration of knowledge and data in machine learning

Yuntian Chen, Dongxiao Zhang

Scientific research's mandate is to comprehend and explore the world, as well as to improve it based on experience and knowledge. Knowledge embedding and knowledge discovery are two significant methods of integrating knowledge and data. Through knowledge embedding, the barriers between knowledge and data can be eliminated, and machine learning models with physical common sense can be established. Meanwhile, humans' understanding of the world is always limited, and knowledge discovery takes advantage of machine learning to extract new knowledge from observations. Knowledge discovery can not only assist researchers to better grasp the nature of physics, but it can also support them in conducting knowledge embedding research. A closed loop of knowledge generation and usage are formed by combining knowledge embedding with knowledge discovery, which can improve the robustness and accuracy of models and uncover previously unknown scientific principles. This study summarizes and analyzes extant literature, as well as identifies research gaps and future opportunities.

4.3CHEM-PHFeb 12, 2022
High-throughput discovery of chemical structure-polarity relationships combining automation and machine learning techniques

Hao Xu, Jinglong Lin, Qianyi Liu et al.

As an essential attribute of organic compounds, polarity has a profound influence on many molecular properties such as solubility and phase transition temperature. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) represents a commonly used technique for polarity measurement. However, current TLC analysis presents several problems, including the need for a large number of attempts to obtain suitable conditions, as well as irreproducibility due to non-standardization. Herein, we describe an automated experiment system for TLC analysis. This system is designed to conduct TLC analysis automatically, facilitating high-throughput experimentation by collecting large experimental data under standardized conditions. Using these datasets, machine learning (ML) methods are employed to construct surrogate models correlating organic compounds' structures and their polarity using retardation factor (Rf). The trained ML models are able to predict the Rf value curve of organic compounds with high accuracy. Furthermore, the constitutive relationship between the compound and its polarity can also be discovered through these modeling methods, and the underlying mechanism is rationalized through adsorption theories. The trained ML models not only reduce the need for empirical optimization currently required for TLC analysis, but also provide general guidelines for the selection of conditions, making TLC an easily accessible tool for the broad scientific community.

5.5LGJun 2, 2021Code
Physics-Guided Discovery of Highly Nonlinear Parametric Partial Differential Equations

Yingtao Luo, Qiang Liu, Yuntian Chen et al.

Partial differential equations (PDEs) that fit scientific data can represent physical laws with explainable mechanisms for various mathematically-oriented subjects, such as physics and finance. The data-driven discovery of PDEs from scientific data thrives as a new attempt to model complex phenomena in nature, but the effectiveness of current practice is typically limited by the scarcity of data and the complexity of phenomena. Especially, the discovery of PDEs with highly nonlinear coefficients from low-quality data remains largely under-addressed. To deal with this challenge, we propose a novel physics-guided learning method, which can not only encode observation knowledge such as initial and boundary conditions but also incorporate the basic physical principles and laws to guide the model optimization. We theoretically show that our proposed method strictly reduces the coefficient estimation error of existing baselines, and is also robust against noise. Extensive experiments show that the proposed method is more robust against data noise, and can reduce the estimation error by a large margin. Moreover, all the PDEs in the experiments are correctly discovered, and for the first time we are able to discover three-dimensional PDEs with highly nonlinear coefficients.

4.3COMP-PHMay 31, 2021
Deep-Learning Discovers Macroscopic Governing Equations for Viscous Gravity Currents from Microscopic Simulation Data

Junsheng Zeng, Hao Xu, Yuntian Chen et al.

Although deep-learning has been successfully applied in a variety of science and engineering problems owing to its strong high-dimensional nonlinear mapping capability, it is of limited use in scientific knowledge discovery. In this work, we propose a deep-learning based framework to discover the macroscopic governing equation of viscous gravity current based on high-resolution microscopic simulation data without the need for prior knowledge of underlying terms. For two typical scenarios with different viscosity ratios, the deep-learning based equations exactly capture the same dominated terms as the theoretically derived equations for describing long-term asymptotic behaviors, which validates the proposed framework. Unknown macroscopic equations are then obtained for describing short-term behaviors, and additional deep-learned compensation terms are eventually discovered. Comparison of posterior tests shows that the deep-learning based PDEs actually perform better than the theoretically derived PDEs in predicting evolving viscous gravity currents for both long-term and short-term regimes. Moreover, the proposed framework is proven to be very robust against non-biased data noise for training, which is up to 20%. Consequently, the presented deep-learning framework shows considerable potential for discovering unrevealed intrinsic laws in scientific semantic space from raw experimental or simulation results in data space.

3.1LGFeb 24, 2021
DNN2LR: Automatic Feature Crossing for Credit Scoring

Qiang Liu, Zhaocheng Liu, Haoli Zhang et al.

Credit scoring is a major application of machine learning for financial institutions to decide whether to approve or reject a credit loan. For sake of reliability, it is necessary for credit scoring models to be both accurate and globally interpretable. Simple classifiers, e.g., Logistic Regression (LR), are white-box models, but not powerful enough to model complex nonlinear interactions among features. Fortunately, automatic feature crossing is a promising way to find cross features to make simple classifiers to be more accurate without heavy handcrafted feature engineering. However, credit scoring is usually based on different aspects of users, and the data usually contains hundreds of feature fields. This makes existing automatic feature crossing methods not efficient for credit scoring. In this work, we find local piece-wise interpretations in Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) of a specific feature are usually inconsistent in different samples, which is caused by feature interactions in the hidden layers. Accordingly, we can design an automatic feature crossing method to find feature interactions in DNN, and use them as cross features in LR. We give definition of the interpretation inconsistency in DNN, based on which a novel feature crossing method for credit scoring prediction called DNN2LR is proposed. Apparently, the final model, i.e., a LR model empowered with cross features, generated by DNN2LR is a white-box model. Extensive experiments have been conducted on both public and business datasets from real-world credit scoring applications. Experimental shows that, DNN2LR can outperform the DNN model, as well as several feature crossing methods. Moreover, comparing with the state-of-the-art feature crossing methods, i.e., AutoCross, DNN2LR can accelerate the speed for feature crossing by about 10 to 40 times on datasets with large numbers of feature fields.

16.2LGDec 11, 2020Code
Theory-guided hard constraint projection (HCP): a knowledge-based data-driven scientific machine learning method

Yuntian Chen, Dou Huang, Dongxiao Zhang et al.

Machine learning models have been successfully used in many scientific and engineering fields. However, it remains difficult for a model to simultaneously utilize domain knowledge and experimental observation data. The application of knowledge-based symbolic AI represented by an expert system is limited by the expressive ability of the model, and data-driven connectionism AI represented by neural networks is prone to produce predictions that violate physical mechanisms. In order to fully integrate domain knowledge with observations, and make full use of the prior information and the strong fitting ability of neural networks, this study proposes theory-guided hard constraint projection (HCP). This model converts physical constraints, such as governing equations, into a form that is easy to handle through discretization, and then implements hard constraint optimization through projection. Based on rigorous mathematical proofs, theory-guided HCP can ensure that model predictions strictly conform to physical mechanisms in the constraint patch. The performance of the theory-guided HCP is verified by experiments based on the heterogeneous subsurface flow problem. Due to the application of hard constraints, compared with fully connected neural networks and soft constraint models, such as theory-guided neural networks and physics-informed neural networks, theory-guided HCP requires fewer data, and achieves higher prediction accuracy and stronger robustness to noisy observations.

10.1LGAug 22, 2020
DNN2LR: Interpretation-inspired Feature Crossing for Real-world Tabular Data

Zhaocheng Liu, Qiang Liu, Haoli Zhang et al.

For sake of reliability, it is necessary for models in real-world applications to be both powerful and globally interpretable. Simple classifiers, e.g., Logistic Regression (LR), are globally interpretable, but not powerful enough to model complex nonlinear interactions among features in tabular data. Meanwhile, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have shown great effectiveness for modeling tabular data, but is not globally interpretable. In this work, we find local piece-wise interpretations in DNN of a specific feature are usually inconsistent in different samples, which is caused by feature interactions in the hidden layers. Accordingly, we can design an automatic feature crossing method to find feature interactions in DNN, and use them as cross features in LR. We give definition of the interpretation inconsistency in DNN, based on which a novel feature crossing method called DNN2LR is proposed. Extensive experiments have been conducted on four public datasets and two real-world datasets. The final model, i.e., a LR model empowered with cross features, generated by DNN2LR can outperform the complex DNN model, as well as several state-of-the-art feature crossing methods. The experimental results strongly verify the effectiveness and efficiency of DNN2LR, especially on real-world datasets with large numbers of feature fields.

7.7MLAug 3, 2019
Ensemble Neural Networks (ENN): A gradient-free stochastic method

Yuntian Chen, Haibin Chang, Meng Jin et al.

In this study, an efficient stochastic gradient-free method, the ensemble neural networks (ENN), is developed. In the ENN, the optimization process relies on covariance matrices rather than derivatives. The covariance matrices are calculated by the ensemble randomized maximum likelihood algorithm (EnRML), which is an inverse modeling method. The ENN is able to simultaneously provide estimations and perform uncertainty quantification since it is built under the Bayesian framework. The ENN is also robust to small training data size because the ensemble of stochastic realizations essentially enlarges the training dataset. This constitutes a desirable characteristic, especially for real-world engineering applications. In addition, the ENN does not require the calculation of gradients, which enables the use of complicated neuron models and loss functions in neural networks. We experimentally demonstrate benefits of the proposed model, in particular showing that the ENN performs much better than the traditional Bayesian neural networks (BNN). The EnRML in ENN is a substitution of gradient-based optimization algorithms, which means that it can be directly combined with the feed-forward process in other existing (deep) neural networks, such as convolutional neural networks (CNN) and recurrent neural networks (RNN), broadening future applications of the ENN.