We present JaxSGMC, an application-agnostic library for stochastic gradient Markov chain Monte Carlo (SG-MCMC) in JAX. SG-MCMC schemes are uncertainty quantification (UQ) methods that scale to large datasets and high-dimensional models, enabling trustworthy neural network predictions via Bayesian deep learning. JaxSGMC implements several state-of-the-art SG-MCMC samplers to promote UQ in deep learning by reducing the barriers of entry for switching from stochastic optimization to SG-MCMC sampling. Additionally, JaxSGMC allows users to build custom samplers from standard SG-MCMC building blocks. Due to this modular structure, we anticipate that JaxSGMC will accelerate research into novel SG-MCMC schemes and facilitate their application across a broad range of domains.
Introduction: Timely identification of intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) subtypes on non-contrast computed tomography is critical for prognosis prediction and therapeutic decision-making, yet remains challenging due to low contrast and blurring boundaries. This study evaluates the performance of zero-shot multi-modal large language models (MLLMs) compared to traditional deep learning methods in ICH binary classification and subtyping. Methods: We utilized a dataset provided by RSNA, comprising 192 NCCT volumes. The study compares various MLLMs, including GPT-4o, Gemini 2.0 Flash, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet V2, with conventional deep learning models, including ResNet50 and Vision Transformer. Carefully crafted prompts were used to guide MLLMs in tasks such as ICH presence, subtype classification, localization, and volume estimation. Results: The results indicate that in the ICH binary classification task, traditional deep learning models outperform MLLMs comprehensively. For subtype classification, MLLMs also exhibit inferior performance compared to traditional deep learning models, with Gemini 2.0 Flash achieving an macro-averaged precision of 0.41 and a macro-averaged F1 score of 0.31. Conclusion: While MLLMs excel in interactive capabilities, their overall accuracy in ICH subtyping is inferior to deep networks. However, MLLMs enhance interpretability through language interactions, indicating potential in medical imaging analysis. Future efforts will focus on model refinement and developing more precise MLLMs to improve performance in three-dimensional medical image processing.
Medical image segmentation is a pivotal task within the realms of medical image analysis and computer vision. While current methods have shown promise in accurately segmenting major regions of interest, the precise segmentation of boundary areas remains challenging. In this study, we propose a novel network architecture named CTO, which combines Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Vision Transformer (ViT) models, and explicit edge detection operators to tackle this challenge. CTO surpasses existing methods in terms of segmentation accuracy and strikes a better balance between accuracy and efficiency, without the need for additional data inputs or label injections. Specifically, CTO adheres to the canonical encoder-decoder network paradigm, with a dual-stream encoder network comprising a mainstream CNN stream for capturing local features and an auxiliary StitchViT stream for integrating long-range dependencies. Furthermore, to enhance the model's ability to learn boundary areas, we introduce a boundary-guided decoder network that employs binary boundary masks generated by dedicated edge detection operators to provide explicit guidance during the decoding process. We validate the performance of CTO through extensive experiments conducted on seven challenging medical image segmentation datasets, namely ISIC 2016, PH2, ISIC 2018, CoNIC, LiTS17, and BTCV. Our experimental results unequivocally demonstrate that CTO achieves state-of-the-art accuracy on these datasets while maintaining competitive model complexity. The codes have been released at: https://github.com/xiaofang007/CTO.
Although deep learning models have demonstrated remarkable potential in weather prediction, most of them overlook either the \textbf{physics} of the underlying weather evolution or the \textbf{topology} of the Earth's surface. In light of these disadvantages, we develop PASSAT, a novel Physics-ASSisted And Topology-informed deep learning model for weather prediction. PASSAT attributes the weather evolution to two key factors: (i) the advection process that can be characterized by the advection equation and the Navier-Stokes equation; (ii) the Earth-atmosphere interaction that is difficult to both model and calculate. PASSAT also takes the topology of the Earth's surface into consideration, other than simply treating it as a plane. With these considerations, PASSAT numerically solves the advection equation and the Navier-Stokes equation on the spherical manifold, utilizes a spherical graph neural network to capture the Earth-atmosphere interaction, and generates the initial velocity fields that are critical to solving the advection equation from the same spherical graph neural network. In the $5.625^\circ$-resolution ERA5 data set, PASSAT outperforms both the state-of-the-art deep learning-based weather prediction models and the operational numerical weather prediction model IFS T42. Code and checkpoint are available at https://github.com/Yumenomae/PASSAT_5p625.
Deep Learning models have achieved state-of-the-art performance in medium-range weather prediction but often fail to maintain physically consistent rollouts beyond 14 days. In contrast, a few atmospheric models demonstrate stability over decades, though the key design choices enabling this remain unclear. This study quantitatively compares the long-term stability of three prominent DL-MWP architectures - FourCastNet, SFNO, and ClimaX - trained on ERA5 reanalysis data at 5.625{\deg} resolution. We systematically assess the impact of autoregressive training steps, model capacity, and choice of prognostic variables, identifying configurations that enable stable 10-year rollouts while preserving the statistical properties of the reference dataset. Notably, rollouts with SFNO exhibit the greatest robustness to hyperparameter choices, yet all models can experience instability depending on the random seed and the set of prognostic variables
With the recent development of new geometric and angular-radial frameworks for multivariate extremes, reliably simulating from angular variables in moderate-to-high dimensions is of increasing importance. Empirical approaches have the benefit of simplicity, and work reasonably well in low dimensions, but as the number of variables increases, they can lack the required flexibility and scalability. Classical parametric models for angular variables, such as the von Mises-Fisher (vMF) distribution, provide an alternative. Exploiting mixtures of vMF distributions increases their flexibility, but there are cases where even this is not sufficient to capture the intricate features that can arise in data. Owing to their flexibility, generative deep learning methods are able to capture complex data structures; they therefore have the potential to be useful in the simulation of angular variables. In this paper, we explore a range of deep learning approaches for this task, including generative adversarial networks, normalizing flows and flow matching. We assess their performance via a range of metrics and make comparisons to the more classical approach of using a mixture of vMF distributions. The methods are also applied to a metocean data set, demonstrating their applicability to real-world, complex data structures.
In the context of multivariate nonparametric regression with missing covariates, we propose Pattern Embedded Neural Networks (PENNs), which can be applied in conjunction with any existing imputation technique. In addition to a neural network trained on the imputed data, PENNs pass the vectors of observation indicators through a second neural network to provide a compact representation. The outputs are then combined in a third neural network to produce final predictions. Our main theoretical result exploits an assumption that the observation patterns can be partitioned into cells on which the Bayes regression function behaves similarly, and belongs to a compositional H\"older class. It provides a finite-sample excess risk bound that holds for an arbitrary missingness mechanism, and in combination with a complementary minimax lower bound, demonstrates that our PENN estimator attains in typical cases the minimax rate of convergence as if the cells of the partition were known in advance, up to a poly-logarithmic factor in the sample size. Numerical experiments on simulated, semi-synthetic and real data confirm that the PENN estimator consistently improves, often dramatically, on standard neural networks without pattern embedding. Code to reproduce our experiments, as well as a tutorial on how to apply our method, is publicly available.
The field of deep learning has witnessed significant breakthroughs, spanning various applications, and fundamentally transforming current software capabilities. However, alongside these advancements, there have been increasing concerns about reproducing the results of these deep learning methods. This is significant because reproducibility is the foundation of reliability and validity in software development, particularly in the rapidly evolving domain of deep learning. The difficulty of reproducibility may arise due to several reasons, including having differences from the original execution environment, incompatible software libraries, proprietary data and source code, lack of transparency, and the stochastic nature in some software. A study conducted by the Nature journal reveals that more than 70% of researchers failed to reproduce other researchers experiments and over 50% failed to reproduce their own experiments. Irreproducibility of deep learning poses significant challenges for researchers and practitioners. To address these concerns, this paper presents a systematic approach at analyzing and improving the reproducibility of deep learning models by demonstrating these guidelines using a case study. We illustrate the patterns and anti-patterns involved with these guidelines for improving the reproducibility of deep learning models. These guidelines encompass establishing a methodology to replicate the original software environment, implementing end-to-end training and testing algorithms, disclosing architectural designs, and enhancing transparency in data processing and training pipelines. We also conduct a sensitivity analysis to understand the model performance across diverse conditions. By implementing these strategies, we aim to bridge the gap between research and practice, so that innovations in deep learning can be effectively reproduced and deployed within software.
The increase in available computing power and the Deep Learning revolution have allowed the exploration of new topics and frontiers in Artificial Intelligence research. A new field called Embodied Artificial Intelligence, which places at the intersection of Computer Vision, Robotics, and Decision Making, has been gaining importance during the last few years, as it aims to foster the development of smart autonomous robots and their deployment in society. The recent availability of large collections of 3D models for photorealistic robotic simulation has allowed faster and safe training of learning-based agents for millions of frames and a careful evaluation of their behavior before deploying the models on real robotic platforms. These intelligent agents are intended to perform a certain task in a possibly unknown environment. To this end, during the training in simulation, the agents learn to perform continuous interactions with the surroundings, such as gathering information from the environment, encoding and extracting useful cues for the task, and performing actions towards the final goal; where every action of the agent influences the interactions. This dissertation follows the complete creation process of embodied agents for indoor environments, from their concept to their implementation and deployment. We aim to contribute to research in Embodied AI and autonomous agents, in order to foster future work in this field. We present a detailed analysis of the procedure behind implementing an intelligent embodied agent, comprehending a thorough description of the current state-of-the-art in literature, technical explanations of the proposed methods, and accurate experimental studies on relevant robotic tasks.
Wide & Deep, a simple yet effective learning architecture for recommendation systems developed by Google, has had a significant impact in both academia and industry due to its combination of the memorization ability of generalized linear models and the generalization ability of deep models. Graph convolutional networks (GCNs) remain dominant in node classification tasks; however, recent studies have highlighted issues such as heterophily and expressiveness, which focus on graph structure while seemingly neglecting the potential role of node features. In this paper, we propose a flexible framework GCNIII, which leverages the Wide & Deep architecture and incorporates three techniques: Intersect memory, Initial residual and Identity mapping. We provide comprehensive empirical evidence showing that GCNIII can more effectively balance the trade-off between over-fitting and over-generalization on various semi- and full- supervised tasks. Additionally, we explore the use of large language models (LLMs) for node feature engineering to enhance the performance of GCNIII in cross-domain node classification tasks. Our implementation is available at https://github.com/CYCUCAS/GCNIII.
Aiming at the problems of poor quality of steganographic images and slow network convergence of image steganography models based on deep learning, this paper proposes a Steganography Curriculum Learning training strategy (STCL) for deep learning image steganography models. So that only easy images are selected for training when the model has poor fitting ability at the initial stage, and gradually expand to more difficult images, the strategy includes a difficulty evaluation strategy based on the teacher model and an knee point-based training scheduling strategy. Firstly, multiple teacher models are trained, and the consistency of the quality of steganographic images under multiple teacher models is used as the difficulty score to construct the training subsets from easy to difficult. Secondly, a training control strategy based on knee points is proposed to reduce the possibility of overfitting on small training sets and accelerate the training process. Experimental results on three large public datasets, ALASKA2, VOC2012 and ImageNet, show that the proposed image steganography scheme is able to improve the model performance under multiple algorithmic frameworks, which not only has a high PSNR, SSIM score, and decoding accuracy, but also the steganographic images generated by the model under the training of the STCL strategy have a low steganography analysis scores. You can find our code at \href{https://github.com/chaos-boops/STCL}{https://github.com/chaos-boops/STCL}.
This paper presents a novel approach to geolocating images captured from the International Space Station (ISS) using advanced machine learning algorithms. Despite having precise ISS coordinates, the specific Earth locations depicted in astronaut-taken photographs often remain unidentified. Our research addresses this gap by employing three distinct image processing pipelines: a Neural Network based approach, a SIFT based method, and GPT-4 model. Each pipeline is tailored to process high-resolution ISS imagery, identifying both natural and man-made geographical features. Through extensive evaluation on a diverse dataset of over 140 ISS images, our methods demonstrate significant promise in automated geolocation with varied levels of success. The NN approach showed a high success rate in accurately matching geographical features, while the SIFT pipeline excelled in processing zoomed-in images. GPT-4 model provided enriched geographical descriptions alongside location predictions. This research contributes to the fields of remote sensing and Earth observation by enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of geolocating space-based imagery, thereby aiding environmental monitoring and global mapping efforts.
In practical scenarios, processes such as sensor design, manufacturing, and installation will introduce certain errors. Furthermore, mutual interference occurs when the sensors receive signals. These defects in array systems are referred to as array imperfections, which can significantly degrade the performance of Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation. In this study, we propose a deep-learning based transfer learning approach, which effectively mitigates the degradation of deep-learning based DOA estimation performance caused by array imperfections. In the proposed approach, we highlight three major contributions. First, we propose a Vision Transformer (ViT) based method for DOA estimation, which achieves excellent performance in scenarios with low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) and limited snapshots. Second, we introduce a transfer learning framework that extends deep learning models from ideal simulation scenarios to complex real-world scenarios with array imperfections. By leveraging prior knowledge from ideal simulation data, the proposed transfer learning framework significantly improves deep learning-based DOA estimation performance in the presence of array imperfections, without the need for extensive real-world data. Finally, we incorporate visualization and evaluation metrics to assess the performance of DOA estimation algorithms, which allow for a more thorough evaluation of algorithms and further validate the proposed method. Our code can be accessed at https://github.com/zzb-nice/DOA_est_Master.
Spiking neural networks (SNNs) present a promising computing paradigm for neuromorphic processing of event-based sensor data. The resonate-and-fire (RF) neuron, in particular, appeals through its biological plausibility, complex dynamics, yet computational simplicity. Despite theoretically predicted benefits, challenges in parameter initialization and efficient learning inhibited the implementation of RF networks, constraining their use to a single layer. In this paper, we address these shortcomings by deriving the RF neuron as a structured state space model (SSM) from the HiPPO framework. We introduce S5-RF, a new SSM layer comprised of RF neurons based on the S5 model, that features a generic initialization scheme and fast training within a deep architecture. S5-RF scales for the first time a RF network to a deep SNN with up to four layers and achieves with 78.8% a new state-of-the-art result for recurrent SNNs on the Spiking Speech Commands dataset in under three hours of training time. Moreover, compared to the reference SNNs that solve our benchmarking tasks, it achieves similar performance with much fewer spiking operations. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/ThomasEHuber/s5-rf.
High-level 3D scene understanding is essential in many applications. However, the challenges of generating accurate 3D annotations make development of deep learning models difficult. We turn to recent advancements in automatic retrieval of synthetic CAD models, and show that data generated by such methods can be used as high-quality ground truth for training supervised deep learning models. More exactly, we employ a pipeline akin to the one previously used to automatically annotate objects in ScanNet scenes with their 9D poses and CAD models. This time, we apply it to the recent ScanNet++ v1 dataset, which previously lacked such annotations. Our findings demonstrate that it is not only possible to train deep learning models on these automatically-obtained annotations but that the resulting models outperform those trained on manually annotated data. We validate this on two distinct tasks: point cloud completion and single-view CAD model retrieval and alignment. Our results underscore the potential of automatic 3D annotations to enhance model performance while significantly reducing annotation costs. To support future research in 3D scene understanding, we will release our annotations, which we call SCANnotate++, along with our trained models.
Creating responsible artificial intelligence (AI) systems is an important issue in contemporary research and development of works on AI. One of the characteristics of responsible AI systems is their explainability. In the paper, we are interested in explainable deep learning (XDL) systems. On the basis of the creation of digital twins of physical objects, we introduce the idea of creating readable twins (in the form of imprecise information flow models) for unreadable deep learning models. The complete procedure for switching from the deep learning model (DLM) to the imprecise information flow model (IIFM) is presented. The proposed approach is illustrated with an example of a deep learning classification model for image recognition of handwritten digits from the MNIST data set.
Deep learning (DL)-based image classification models are essential for autonomous vehicle (AV) perception modules since incorrect categorization might have severe repercussions. Adversarial attacks are widely studied cyberattacks that can lead DL models to predict inaccurate output, such as incorrectly classified traffic signs by the perception module of an autonomous vehicle. In this study, we create and compare hybrid classical-quantum deep learning (HCQ-DL) models with classical deep learning (C-DL) models to demonstrate robustness against adversarial attacks for perception modules. Before feeding them into the quantum system, we used transfer learning models, alexnet and vgg-16, as feature extractors. We tested over 1000 quantum circuits in our HCQ-DL models for projected gradient descent (PGD), fast gradient sign attack (FGSA), and gradient attack (GA), which are three well-known untargeted adversarial approaches. We evaluated the performance of all models during adversarial attacks and no-attack scenarios. Our HCQ-DL models maintain accuracy above 95\% during a no-attack scenario and above 91\% for GA and FGSA attacks, which is higher than C-DL models. During the PGD attack, our alexnet-based HCQ-DL model maintained an accuracy of 85\% compared to C-DL models that achieved accuracies below 21\%. Our results highlight that the HCQ-DL models provide improved accuracy for traffic sign classification under adversarial settings compared to their classical counterparts.
Deep learning is developing rapidly and handling common computer vision tasks well. It is time to pay attention to more complex vision tasks, as model size, knowledge, and reasoning capabilities continue to improve. In this paper, we introduce and review a family of complex tasks, termed Concealed Dense Prediction (CDP), which has great value in agriculture, industry, etc. CDP's intrinsic trait is that the targets are concealed in their surroundings, thus fully perceiving them requires fine-grained representations, prior knowledge, auxiliary reasoning, etc. The contributions of this review are three-fold: (i) We introduce the scope, characteristics, and challenges specific to CDP tasks and emphasize their essential differences from generic vision tasks. (ii) We develop a taxonomy based on concealment counteracting to summarize deep learning efforts in CDP through experiments on three tasks. We compare 25 state-of-the-art methods across 12 widely used concealed datasets. (iii) We discuss the potential applications of CDP in the large model era and summarize 6 potential research directions. We offer perspectives for the future development of CDP by constructing a large-scale multimodal instruction fine-tuning dataset, CvpINST, and a concealed visual perception agent, CvpAgent.
Deep learning-based electrocardiogram (ECG) classification has shown impressive performance but clinical adoption has been slowed by the lack of transparent and faithful explanations. Post hoc methods such as saliency maps may fail to reflect a model's true decision process. Prototype-based reasoning offers a more transparent alternative by grounding decisions in similarity to learned representations of real ECG segments, enabling faithful, case-based explanations. We introduce ProtoECGNet, a prototype-based deep learning model for interpretable, multi-label ECG classification. ProtoECGNet employs a structured, multi-branch architecture that reflects clinical interpretation workflows: it integrates a 1D CNN with global prototypes for rhythm classification, a 2D CNN with time-localized prototypes for morphology-based reasoning, and a 2D CNN with global prototypes for diffuse abnormalities. Each branch is trained with a prototype loss designed for multi-label learning, combining clustering, separation, diversity, and a novel contrastive loss that encourages appropriate separation between prototypes of unrelated classes while allowing clustering for frequently co-occurring diagnoses. We evaluate ProtoECGNet on all 71 diagnostic labels from the PTB-XL dataset, demonstrating competitive performance relative to state-of-the-art black-box models while providing structured, case-based explanations. To assess prototype quality, we conduct a structured clinician review of the final model's projected prototypes, finding that they are rated as representative and clear. ProtoECGNet shows that prototype learning can be effectively scaled to complex, multi-label time-series classification, offering a practical path toward transparent and trustworthy deep learning models for clinical decision support.
One of the key safety considerations of battery manufacturing is thermal runaway, the uncontrolled increase in temperature which can lead to fires, explosions, and emissions of toxic gasses. As such, development of automated systems capable of detecting such events is of considerable importance in both academic and industrial contexts. In this work, we investigate the use of deep learning for detecting thermal runaway in the battery production line of VDL Nedcar, a Dutch automobile manufacturer. Specifically, we collect data from the production line to represent both baseline (non thermal runaway) and thermal runaway conditions. Thermal runaway was simulated through the use of external heat and smoke sources. The data consisted of both optical and thermal images which were then preprocessed and fused before serving as input to our models. In this regard, we evaluated three deep-learning models widely used in computer vision including shallow convolutional neural networks, residual neural networks, and vision transformers on two performance metrics. Furthermore, we evaluated these models using explainability methods to gain insight into their ability to capture the relevant feature information from their inputs. The obtained results indicate that the use of deep learning is a viable approach to thermal runaway detection in battery production lines.