Chen Liu

Xingzhi Sun, Danqi Liao, Kincaid MacDonald et al.

Rapid growth of high-dimensional datasets in fields such as single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial genomics has led to unprecedented opportunities for scientific discovery, but it also presents unique computational and statistical challenges. Traditional methods struggle with geometry-aware data generation, interpolation along meaningful trajectories, and transporting populations via feasible paths. To address these issues, we introduce Geometry-Aware Generative Autoencoder (GAGA), a novel framework that combines extensible manifold learning with generative modeling. GAGA constructs a neural network embedding space that respects the intrinsic geometries discovered by manifold learning and learns a novel warped Riemannian metric on the data space. This warped metric is derived from both the points on the data manifold and negative samples off the manifold, allowing it to characterize a meaningful geometry across the entire latent space. Using this metric, GAGA can uniformly sample points on the manifold, generate points along geodesics, and interpolate between populations across the learned manifold using geodesic-guided flows. GAGA shows competitive performance in simulated and real-world datasets, including a 30% improvement over the state-of-the-art methods in single-cell population-level trajectory inference.

Jie Tang, Shaoshan Liu, Songwen Pei et al.

Autonomous driving is not one single technology but rather a complex system integrating many technologies, which means that teaching autonomous driving is a challenging task. Indeed, most existing autonomous driving classes focus on one of the technologies involved. This not only fails to provide a comprehensive coverage, but also sets a high entry barrier for students with different technology backgrounds. In this paper, we present a modular, integrated approach to teaching autonomous driving. Specifically, we organize the technologies used in autonomous driving into modules. This is described in the textbook we have developed as well as a series of multimedia online lectures designed to provide technical overview for each module. Then, once the students have understood these modules, the experimental platforms for integration we have developed allow the students to fully understand how the modules interact with each other. To verify this teaching approach, we present three case studies: an introductory class on autonomous driving for students with only a basic technology background; a new session in an existing embedded systems class to demonstrate how embedded system technologies can be applied to autonomous driving; and an industry professional training session to quickly bring up experienced engineers to work in autonomous driving. The results show that students can maintain a high interest level and make great progress by starting with familiar concepts before moving onto other modules.