Linh V. Nguyen

Markus Haltmeier, Linh V. Nguyen

Inverse problems arise in a variety of imaging applications including computed tomography, non-destructive testing, and remote sensing. The characteristic features of inverse problems are the non-uniqueness and instability of their solutions. Therefore, any reasonable solution method requires the use of regularization tools that select specific solutions and at the same time stabilize the inversion process. Recently, data-driven methods using deep learning techniques and neural networks demonstrated to significantly outperform classical solution methods for inverse problems. In this chapter, we give an overview of inverse problems and demonstrate the necessity of regularization concepts for their solution. We show that neural networks can be used for the data-driven solution of inverse problems and review existing deep learning methods for inverse problems. In particular, we view these deep learning methods from the perspective of regularization theory, the mathematical foundation of stable solution methods for inverse problems. This chapter is more than just a review as many of the presented theoretical results extend existing ones.

Daniel Obmann, Linh Nguyen, Johannes Schwab et al.

We propose a sparse reconstruction framework (aNETT) for solving inverse problems. Opposed to existing sparse reconstruction techniques that are based on linear sparsifying transforms, we train an autoencoder network $D \circ E$ with $E$ acting as a nonlinear sparsifying transform and minimize a Tikhonov functional with learned regularizer formed by the $\ell^q$-norm of the encoder coefficients and a penalty for the distance to the data manifold. We propose a strategy for training an autoencoder based on a sample set of the underlying image class such that the autoencoder is independent of the forward operator and is subsequently adapted to the specific forward model. Numerical results are presented for sparse view CT, which clearly demonstrate the feasibility, robustness and the improved generalization capability and stability of aNETT over post-processing networks.

Suong N. Hoang, Linh V. Nguyen, Tai Huynh et al.

In the past few years, the growth of e-commerce and digital marketing in Vietnam has generated a huge volume of opinionated data. Analyzing those data would provide enterprises with insight for better business decisions. In this work, as part of the Advosights project, we study sentiment analysis of product reviews in Vietnamese. The final solution is based on Self-attention neural networks, a flexible architecture for text classification task with about 90.16% of accuracy in 0.0124 second, a very fast inference time.

Daniel Obmann, Linh Nguyen, Johannes Schwab et al.

We propose aNETT (augmented NETwork Tikhonov) regularization as a novel data-driven reconstruction framework for solving inverse problems. An encoder-decoder type network defines a regularizer consisting of a penalty term that enforces regularity in the encoder domain, augmented by a penalty that penalizes the distance to the data manifold. We present a rigorous convergence analysis including stability estimates and convergence rates. For that purpose, we prove the coercivity of the regularizer used without requiring explicit coercivity assumptions for the networks involved. We propose a possible realization together with a network architecture and a modular training strategy. Applications to sparse-view and low-dose CT show that aNETT achieves results comparable to state-of-the-art deep-learning-based reconstruction methods. Unlike learned iterative methods, aNETT does not require repeated application of the forward and adjoint models, which enables the use of aNETT for inverse problems with numerically expensive forward models. Furthermore, we show that aNETT trained on coarsely sampled data can leverage an increased sampling rate without the need for retraining.

Linh Nguyen, Sky Wang, Arunesh Sinha

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have been shown to be vulnerable against adversarial examples, which are data points cleverly constructed to fool the classifier. Such attacks can be devastating in practice, especially as DNNs are being applied to ever increasing critical tasks like image recognition in autonomous driving. In this paper, we introduce a new perspective on the problem. We do so by first defining robustness of a classifier to adversarial exploitation. Next, we show that the problem of adversarial example generation can be posed as learning problem. We also categorize attacks in literature into high and low perturbation attacks; well-known attacks like fast-gradient sign method (FGSM) and our attack produce higher perturbation adversarial examples while the more potent but computationally inefficient Carlini-Wagner (CW) attack is low perturbation. Next, we show that the dual approach of the attack learning problem can be used as a defensive technique that is effective against high perturbation attacks. Finally, we show that a classifier masking method achieved by adding noise to the a neural network's logit output protects against low distortion attacks such as the CW attack. We also show that both our learning and masking defense can work simultaneously to protect against multiple attacks. We demonstrate the efficacy of our techniques by experimenting with the MNIST and CIFAR-10 datasets.