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Solving optimization problems using variational algorithms stands out as a crucial application for noisy intermediate-scale devices. Instead of constructing gate-based quantum computers, our focus centers on designing variational quantum algorithms within the analog paradigm. This involves optimizing parameters that directly control pulses, driving quantum states towards target states without the necessity of compiling a quantum circuit. In this work, we introduce pulse-based variational quantum optimization (PBVQO) as a hardware-level framework. We illustrate the framework by optimizing external fluxes on superconducting quantum interference devices, effectively driving the wave function of this specific quantum architecture to the ground state of an encoded problem Hamiltonian. Given that the performance of variational algorithms heavily relies on appropriate initial parameters, we introduce a global optimizer as a meta-learning technique to tackle a simple problem. The synergy between PBVQO and meta-learning provides an advantage over conventional gate-based variational algorithms., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

Multi-label image classification datasets are often partially labeled where many labels are missing, posing a significant challenge to training accurate deep classifiers. However, the powerful Mixup sample-mixing data augmentation cannot be well utilized to address this challenge, as it cannot perform linear interpolation on the unknown labels to construct augmented samples. In this paper, we propose LogicMix, a Mixup variant designed for such partially labeled datasets. LogicMix mixes the sample labels by logical OR so that the unknown labels can be correctly mixed by utilizing OR's logical equivalences, including the domination and identity laws. Unlike Mixup, which mixes exactly two samples, LogicMix can mix multiple ($\geq2$) partially labeled samples, constructing visually more confused augmented samples to regularize training. LogicMix is more general and effective than other compared Mixup variants in the experiments on various partially labeled dataset scenarios. Moreover, it is plug-and-play and only requires minimal computation, hence it can be easily inserted into existing frameworks to collaborate with other methods to improve model performance with a negligible impact on training time, as demonstrated through extensive experiments. In particular, through the collaboration of LogicMix, RandAugment, Curriculum Labeling, and Category-wise Fine-Tuning, we attain state-of-the-art performance on MS-COCO, VG-200, and Pascal VOC 2007 benchmarking datasets. The remarkable generality, effectiveness, collaboration, and simplicity suggest that LogicMix promises to be a popular and vital data augmentation method.

Accurate classification of laryngeal vascular as benign or malignant is crucial for early detection of laryngeal cancer. However, organizations with limited access to laryngeal vascular images face challenges due to the lack of large and homogeneous public datasets for effective learning. Distinguished from the most familiar works, which directly transfer the ImageNet pre-trained models to the target domain for fine-tuning, this work pioneers exploring two-step heterogeneous transfer learning (THTL) for laryngeal lesion classification with nine deep-learning models, utilizing the diabetic retinopathy color fundus images, semantically non-identical yet vascular images, as the intermediate domain. Attention visualization technique, Layer Class Activate Map (LayerCAM), reveals a novel finding that yet the intermediate and the target domain both reflect vascular structure to a certain extent, the prevalent radial vascular pattern in the intermediate domain prevents learning the features of twisted and tangled vessels that distinguish the malignant class in the target domain, summarizes a vital rule for laryngeal lesion classification using THTL. To address this, we introduce an enhanced fine-tuning strategy in THTL called Step-Wise Fine-Tuning (SWFT) and apply it to the ResNet models. SWFT progressively refines model performance by accumulating fine-tuning layers from back to front, guided by the visualization results of LayerCAM. Comparison with the original THTL approach shows significant improvements. For ResNet18, the accuracy and malignant recall increases by 26.1% and 79.8%, respectively, while for ResNet50, these indicators improve by 20.4% and 62.2%, respectively.

Large-scale image datasets are often partially labeled, where only a few categories' labels are known for each image. Assigning pseudo-labels to unknown labels to gain additional training signals has become prevalent for training deep classification models. However, some pseudo-labels are inevitably incorrect, leading to a notable decline in the model classification performance. In this paper, we propose a novel method called Category-wise Fine-Tuning (CFT), aiming to reduce model inaccuracies caused by the wrong pseudo-labels. In particular, CFT employs known labels without pseudo-labels to fine-tune the logistic regressions of trained models individually to calibrate each category's model predictions. Genetic Algorithm, seldom used for training deep models, is also utilized in CFT to maximize the classification performance directly. CFT is applied to well-trained models, unlike most existing methods that train models from scratch. Hence, CFT is general and compatible with models trained with different methods and schemes, as demonstrated through extensive experiments. CFT requires only a few seconds for each category for calibration with consumer-grade GPUs. We achieve state-of-the-art results on three benchmarking datasets, including the CheXpert chest X-ray competition dataset (ensemble mAUC 93.33%, single model 91.82%), partially labeled MS-COCO (average mAP 83.69%), and Open Image V3 (mAP 85.31%), outperforming the previous bests by 0.28%, 2.21%, 2.50%, and 0.91%, respectively. The single model on CheXpert has been officially evaluated by the competition server, endorsing the correctness of the result. The outstanding results and generalizability indicate that CFT could be substantial and prevalent for classification model development. Code is available at: https://github.com/maxium0526/category-wise-fine-tuning.

Existing research has demonstrated that refining large language models (LLMs) through the utilization of machine-generated instruction-following data empowers these models to exhibit impressive zero-shot capabilities for novel tasks, without requiring human-authored instructions. In this paper, we systematically investigate, preprocess, and integrate three Chinese instruction-following datasets with the aim of enhancing the Chinese conversational capabilities of Mixtral-8x7B sparse Mixture-of-Experts model. Through instruction fine-tuning on this carefully processed dataset, we successfully construct the Mixtral-8x7B sparse Mixture-of-Experts model named "Aurora." To assess the performance of Aurora, we utilize three widely recognized benchmark tests: C-Eval, MMLU, and CMMLU. Empirical studies validate the effectiveness of instruction fine-tuning applied to Mixtral-8x7B sparse Mixture-of-Experts model. This work is pioneering in the execution of instruction fine-tuning on a sparse expert-mixed model, marking a significant breakthrough in enhancing the capabilities of this model architecture. Our code, data and model are publicly available at https://github.com/WangRongsheng/Aurora, Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures

Mobile edge computing (MEC) enables low-latency and high-bandwidth applications by bringing computation and data storage closer to end-users. Intelligent computing is an important application of MEC, where computing resources are used to solve intelligent task-related problems based on task requirements. However, efficiently offloading computing and allocating resources for intelligent tasks in MEC systems is a challenging problem due to complex interactions between task requirements and MEC resources. To address this challenge, we investigate joint computing offloading and resource allocation for intelligent tasks in MEC systems. Our goal is to optimize system utility by jointly considering computing accuracy and task delay to achieve maximum system performance. We focus on classification intelligence tasks and formulate an optimization problem that considers both the accuracy requirements of tasks and the parallel computing capabilities of MEC systems. To solve the optimization problem, we decompose it into three subproblems: subcarrier allocation, computing capacity allocation, and compression offloading. We use convex optimization and successive convex approximation to derive closed-form expressions for the subcarrier allocation, offloading decisions, computing capacity, and compressed ratio. Based on our solutions, we design an efficient computing offloading and resource allocation algorithm for intelligent tasks in MEC systems. Our simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm significantly improves the performance of intelligent tasks in MEC systems and achieves a flexible trade-off between system revenue and cost considering intelligent tasks compared with the benchmarks., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2307.02747

This paper investigates the intelligent computing task-oriented computing offloading and semantic compression in mobile edge computing (MEC) systems. With the popularity of intelligent applications in various industries, terminals increasingly need to offload intelligent computing tasks with complex demands to MEC servers for computing, which is a great challenge for bandwidth and computing capacity allocation in MEC systems. Considering the accuracy requirement of intelligent computing tasks, we formulate an optimization problem of computing offloading and semantic compression. We jointly optimize the system utility which are represented as computing accuracy and task delay respectively to acquire the optimized system utility. To solve the proposed optimization problem, we decompose it into computing capacity allocation subproblem and compression offloading subproblem and obtain solutions through convex optimization and successive convex approximation. After that, the offloading decisions, computing capacity and compressed ratio are obtained in closed forms. We design the computing offloading and semantic compression algorithm for intelligent computing tasks in MEC systems then. Simulation results represent that our algorithm converges quickly and acquires better performance and resource utilization efficiency through the trend with total number of users and computing capacity compared with benchmarks.

Classification on smartphone-captured chest X-ray (CXR) photos to detect pathologies is challenging due to the projective transformation caused by the non-ideal camera position. Recently, various rectification methods have been proposed for different photo rectification tasks such as document photos, license plate photos, etc. Unfortunately, we found that none of them is suitable for CXR photos, due to their specific transformation type, image appearance, annotation type, etc. In this paper, we propose an innovative deep learning-based Projective Transformation Rectification Network (PTRN) to automatically rectify CXR photos by predicting the projective transformation matrix. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first work to predict the projective transformation matrix as the learning goal for photo rectification. Additionally, to avoid the expensive collection of natural data, synthetic CXR photos are generated under the consideration of natural perturbations, extra screens, etc. We evaluate the proposed approach in the CheXphoto smartphone-captured CXR photos classification competition hosted by the Stanford University Machine Learning Group, our approach won first place with a huge performance improvement (ours 0.850, second-best 0.762, in AUC). A deeper study demonstrates that the use of PTRN successfully achieves the classification performance on the spatially transformed CXR photos to the same level as on the high-quality digital CXR images, indicating PTRN can eliminate all negative impacts of projective transformation on the CXR photos.