Ruochen Wu

Ruochen Wu, Xu Du, Karl H. Johansson et al.

In modern large-scale networked systems, rapidly solving optimization problems while utilizing communication resources efficiently is critical for addressing complex tasks. In this paper, we consider an unconstrained distributed optimization problem in which information exchange among nodes is governed by a directed communication graph. In our setup we focus on two key challenges. The first is the zigzag phenomenon caused by the objective functions of individual nodes having significantly different curvature along different directions. The second is that the communication channels among nodes are subject to limited bandwidth, which motivates the use of compressed (quantized) messages. To address both challenges simultaneously, we propose QANM, a distributed optimization algorithm that combines Nesterov-accelerated gradient descent with a distributed finite-time quantized consensus protocol, enabling accelerated convergence. Under strong convexity and smoothness assumptions, we show that our proposed algorithm converges linearly to a neighborhood of the optimal solution. Finally, we validate our algorithm on a distributed sensor fusion application for multi-dimensional target parameter estimation, where simulations across two distinct scenarios confirm the convergence guarantees and demonstrate clear acceleration benefits over non-momentum baselines.

Keyang Xuan, Li Yi, Fan Yang et al.

The rise of multimodal misinformation on social platforms poses significant challenges for individuals and societies. Its increased credibility and broader impact compared to textual misinformation make detection complex, requiring robust reasoning across diverse media types and profound knowledge for accurate verification. The emergence of Large Vision Language Model (LVLM) offers a potential solution to this problem. Leveraging their proficiency in processing visual and textual information, LVLM demonstrates promising capabilities in recognizing complex information and exhibiting strong reasoning skills. In this paper, we first investigate the potential of LVLM on multimodal misinformation detection. We find that even though LVLM has a superior performance compared to LLMs, its profound reasoning may present limited power with a lack of evidence. Based on these observations, we propose LEMMA: LVLM-Enhanced Multimodal Misinformation Detection with External Knowledge Augmentation. LEMMA leverages LVLM intuition and reasoning capabilities while augmenting them with external knowledge to enhance the accuracy of misinformation detection. Our method improves the accuracy over the top baseline LVLM by 7% and 13% on Twitter and Fakeddit datasets respectively.