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At least 667 records · Page 37

Coarse-to-fine Task-driven Inpainting for Geoscience Images

The processing and recognition of geoscience images have wide applications. Most of existing researches focus on understanding the high-quality geoscience images by assuming that all the images are clear. However, in many real-world cases, the geoscience images might contain occlusions during the image acquisition. This problem actually implies the image inpainting problem in computer vision and multimedia. As far as we know, all the existing image inpainting algorithms learn to repair the occluded regions for a better visualization quality, they are excellent for natural images but not good enough for geoscience images, and they never consider the following geoscience task when developing inpainting methods. Here, this paper aims to repair the occluded regions for a better geoscience task performance and advanced visualization quality simultaneously, without changing the current deployed deep learning based geoscience models. Because of the complex context of geoscience images, we propose a coarse-to-fine encoder-decoder network with the help of designed coarse-to-fine adversarial context discriminators to reconstruct the occluded image regions. Due to the limited data of geoscience images, we propose a MaskMix based data augmentation method, which augments inpainting masks instead of augmenting original images, to exploit the limited geoscience image data. The experimental results on three public geoscience datasets for remote sensing scene recognition, cross-view geolocation and semantic segmentation tasks respectively show the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method. The code is available at: https://github.com/HMS97/Task-driven-Inpainting.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Automated Detection of Anomalous Shipping Manifests to Identify Illicit Trade

We describe an approach to analyzing trade data which uses clustering to detect similarities across shipping manifest records, classification to evaluate clustering results and categorize new unseen shipping data records, and visual analytics to provide to support situation awareness in dynamic decision making to monitor and warn against the movement of radiological threat materials through search, analysis and forecasting capabilities. The evaluation of clustering results through classification and systematic inspection of the clusters show the clusters have strong semantic cohesion and offer novel ways to detect transactions related to nuclear smuggling.

classification↗

Correlations Between Panoramic Imagery and Gamma-Ray Background in an Urban Area

When searching for radiological sources in an urban area, a vehicle-borne detector system will often measure complex, varying backgrounds primarily from natural gamma-ray sources. Much work has been focused on developing spectral algorithms that retain sensitivity and minimize the false-positive rate even in the presence of such spectral and temporal variability. However, information about the environment surrounding the detector system might also provide useful clues about the expected background, which if incorporated into an algorithm, could improve performance. Recent work has focused on extensive measuring and modeling of urban areas with the goal of understanding how these complex backgrounds arise. This work presents an analysis of panoramic video images and gamma-ray background data collected in Oakland, California, by the radiological multisensor analysis platform (RadMAP) vehicle. Features were extracted from the panoramic images by semantically labeling the images and then convolving the labeled regions with the detector response. A linear model was used to relate the image-derived features to gamma-ray spectral features obtained using nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) under different regularizations. Here we find some gamma-ray background features correlate strongly with image-derived features that measure the response-adjusted solid angle subtended by sky and buildings, and we discuss the implications for the development of future, contextually aware detection algorithms.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Formal Definitions and Performance Comparison of Consistency Models for Parallel File Systems

The semantics of HPC storage systems are defined by the consistency models to which they abide. Storage consistency models have been less studied than their counterparts in memory systems, with the exception of the POSIX standard and its strict consistency model. The use of POSIX consistency imposes a performance penalty that becomes more significant as the scale of parallel file systems increases and the access time to storage devices, such as node-local solid storage devices, decreases. While some efforts have been made to adopt relaxed storage consistency models, these models are often defined informally and ambiguously as by-products of a particular implementation. Here in this work, we establish a connection between memory consistency models and storage consistency models and revisit the key design choices of storage consistency models from a high-level perspective. Further, we propose a formal and unified framework for defining storage consistency models and a layered implementation that can be used to easily evaluate their relative performance for different I/O workloads. Finally, we conduct a comprehensive performance comparison of two relaxed consistency models on a range of commonly seen parallel I/O workloads, such as checkpoint/restart of scientific applications and random reads of deep learning applications. We demonstrate that for certain I/O scenarios, a weaker consistency model can significantly improve the I/O performance. For instance, in small random reads that are typically found in deep learning applications, session consistency achieved a 5x improvement in I/O bandwidth compared to commit consistency, even at small scales.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Mixed Initiative Visual Analytics Using Task-Driven Recommendations

Visual data analysis is composed of a collection of cognitive actions and tasks to decompose, internalize, and recombine data to produce knowledge and insight. Visual analytic tools provide interactive visual interfaces to data to support tasks involved in discovery and sensemaking, including forming hypotheses, asking questions, and evaluating and organizing evidence. Myriad analytic models can be incorporated into visual analytic systems, at the cost of increasing complexity in the analytic discourse between user and system. Techniques exist to increase the usability of interacting with such analytic models, such as inferring data models from user interactions to steer the underlying models of the system via semantic interaction, shielding users from having to do so explicitly. Such approaches are often also referred to as mixed-initiative systems. Researchers studying the sensemaking process have called for development of tools that facilitate analytic sensemaking through a combination of human and automated activities. However, design guidelines do not exist for mixed-initiative visual analytic systems to support iterative sensemaking. In this paper, we present a candidate set of design guidelines and introduce the Active Data Environment (ADE) prototype, a spatial workspace supporting the analytic process via task recommendations invoked by inferences on user interactions within the workspace. ADE recommends data and relationships based on a task model, enabling users to co-reason with the system about their data in a single, spatial workspace. This paper provides an illustrative use case, a technical description of ADE, and a discussion of the strengths and limitations of the approach.

active data↗

Concurrent conversation modeling and parallel simulation of the naming game in social networks

The Naming Game is an effective self-organization model to understand the emergence of linguistic consensus and to investigate the system dynamics in a variety of phenomena over social networks of autonomous agents. The Naming Game is an effective description for the evolution of consensus despite the absence of any central coordination or specialized initialization even in large-scale networks. While the classical game is effective in description, it was defined with inherently sequential evaluation semantics over the entire network. Here, we develop a new concurrent model as a relaxation of the classical formulation and express it in a discrete event style of evaluation. Further, with the uncovered concurrency that was absent in the classical algorithm, we map the concurrent model to parallel discrete event simulation. Using a prototype implementation, we present an initial parallel performance study on networks containing hundreds of thousands of individuals, with a decrease in simulation time in the best-observed case from 4800 seconds down to 1400 seconds.

Perumalla, Kalyan↗

Different CT slice thickness and contrast‐enhancement phase in radiomics models on the differential performance of lung adenocarcinoma

Abstract Background To investigate the effects of computed tomography (CT) reconstruction slice thickness and contrast‐enhancement phase on the differential diagnosis performance of radiomic signature in lung adenocarcinoma. Methods A total of 187 patients who had been pathologically confirmed with lung adenocarcinoma and nonadenocarcinoma were divided into a training cohort ( n = 149) and validation cohort ( n = 38). All the patients underwent contrast‐enhanced CT and the images were reconstructed with different slice thickness. The radiomic features were extracted from different slice thickness and scan phase. The logistic regression (LR) algorithm was used to build a machine learning model for each group. The area under the curve (AUC) obtained from the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and DeLong test was used to evaluate its discriminating performance. Results Finally, 34 image features and five semantic features were selected to establish a radiomics model. Based on the three contrast‐enhanced CT phases and four reconstruction slice thickness, 12 groups of radiomics models showed good discrimination ability with the AUCs range from 0.9287 to 0.9631, sensitivity range from 0.8349 to 0.9083, specificity range from 0.825 to 0.925 in the training group. Similar results were observed in the validation group. However, there was no statistical significance between the different CT scan phase groups and different slice thickness ( p > 0.05). Conclusions The radiomic analysis of contrast‐enhanced CT can be used for the differential diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma. Moreover, different slice thickness and contrast‐enhanced scan phase did not affect the discriminating ability in the radiomics models.

Wang, Yang↗

Time will tell: A longitudinal investigation of brain-behavior relationships during reading development

ERPs are a powerful tool for the study of reading, as they are both temporally precise and functionally specific. These are essential characteristics for studying a process that unfolds rapidly and consists of multiple, interactive subprocesses. In work with adults, clear, specific models exist linking components of the ERP with individual subprocesses of reading including orthographic decoding, phonological processing, and semantic access (e.g., Grainger & Holcomb, 2009). The relationships between ERP components and reading subprocesses are less clear in development; here, we address two questions regarding these relationships. First, we ask whether there are ERP markers that predict future reading behaviors across a longitudinal year. Second, we ask whether any relationships observed between ERP components and reading behavior across time map onto the better-established relationships between ERPs and reading subprocesses in adults. To address these questions, we acquired ERPs from children engaging in a silent reading task and then, a year later, collected behavioral assessments of their reading ability. Finally, we find that ERPs collected in Year 1 do predict reading behaviors a year later. Further, we find that these relationships do conform, at least to some extent, to relationships between ERP components and reading subprocesses observed in adults, with, for example, N250 amplitude in Year 1 predicting phonological awareness in Year 2, and N400 amplitude in Year 1 predicting vocabulary in Year 2.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

StreamWorks - A system for Dynamic Graph Search

Acting on time-critical events by processing ever growing social media, news or cyber data streams is a major technical challenge. Many of these data sources can be modeled as multi-relational graphs. Mining and searching for subgraph patterns in a continuous setting requires an efficient approach to incremental graph search. The goal of our work is to enable real-time search capabilities for graph databases. This demonstration will present a dynamic graph query system that leverages the structural and semantic characteristics of the underlying multi-relational graph.

graph search, graph query↗

Fast Search for Dynamic Multi-Relational Graphs

Acting on time-critical events by processing ever growing social media or news streams is a major technical challenge. Many of these data sources can be modeled as multi-relational graphs. Continuous queries or techniques to search for rare events that typically arise in monitoring applications have been studied extensively for relational databases. This work is dedicated to answer the question that emerges naturally: how can we efficiently execute a continuous query on a dynamic graph? This paper presents an exact subgraph search algorithm that exploits the temporal characteristics of representative queries for online news or social media monitoring. The algorithm is based on a novel data structure called the that leverages the structural and semantic characteristics of the underlying multi-relational graph. The paper concludes with extensive experimentation on several real-world datasets that demonstrates the validity of this approach.

Choudhury, Sutanay↗

Palm: Easing the Burden of Analytical Performance Modeling

Analytical (predictive) application performance models are critical for diagnosing performance-limiting resources, optimizing systems, and designing machines. Creating models, however, is difficult because they must be both accurate and concise. To ease the burden of performance modeling, we developed Palm, a modeling tool that combines top-down (human-provided) semantic insight with bottom-up static and dynamic analysis. To express insight, Palm defines a source code modeling annotation language. By coordinating models and source code, Palm's models are `first-class' and reproducible. Unlike prior work, Palm formally links models, functions, and measurements. As a result, Palm (a) uses functions to either abstract or express complexity (b) generates hierarchical models (representing an application's static and dynamic structure); and (c) automatically incorporates measurements to focus attention, represent constant behavior, and validate models. We discuss generating models for three different applications.

annotation languages↗

Predicting and Detecting Emerging Cyberattack Patterns Using StreamWorks

The number and sophistication of cyberattacks on industries and governments have dramatically grown in recent years. To counter this movement, new advanced tools and techniques are needed to detect cyberattacks in their early stages such that defensive actions may be taken to avert or mitigate potential damage. From a cybersecurity analysis perspective, detecting cyberattacks may be cast as a problem of identifying patterns in computer network traffic. Logically and intuitively, these patterns may take on the form of a directed graph that conveys how an attack or intrusion propagates through the computers of a network. Such cyberattack graphs could provide cybersecurity analysts with powerful conceptual representations that are natural to express and analyze. We have been researching and developing graph-centric approaches and algorithms for dynamic cyberattack detection. The advanced dynamic graph algorithms we are developing will be packaged into a streaming network analysis framework known as StreamWorks. With StreamWorks, a scientist or analyst may detect and identify precursor events and patterns as they emerge in complex networks. This analysis framework is intended to be used in a dynamic environment where network data is streamed in and is appended to a large-scale dynamic graph. Specific graphical query patterns are decomposed and collected into a graph query library. The individual decomposed subpatterns in the library are continuously and efficiently matched against the dynamic graph as it evolves to identify and detect early, partial subgraph patterns. The scalable emerging subgraph pattern algorithms will match on both structural and semantic network properties.

Chin, George↗

OpenSHMEM Reference Implementation using UCCS-uGNI Transport Layer. In: PGAS '14 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Partitioned Global Address Space Programming Models, Article No. 18

OpenSHMEM is a library interface implementation and specification that enables the implementation of the Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) model. It exports modern RDMA network functionality and communication semantics to applications very efficiently. There are many closed source implementations of OpenSHMEM for modern RDMA interconnects such as InfiniBand and Cray's Gemini and Aries. Given the important role that Cray systems play in HPC, in this paper, we present an open source implementation of OpenSHMEM for Cray XE/XK/XC systems. To implement OpenSHMEM, we use the uGNI interface. uGNI is a generic interface that is designed for multiple programming models. The interface fits well the goal of UCCS. Having OpenSHMEM with UCCS-uGNI allows usage of the same implementation over multiple interconnects. This also translates into many advantages that come with common code such as resource sharing, increasing productivity because of less code maintenance, etc. Preliminary results show that OpenSHMEM-UCCS performs comparable to state-of-the-art Cray SHMEM for Put, Get, and AMO operations.

Janjusic, Tomislav↗

Compiler verification meets cross-language linking via data abstraction

Many real programs are written in multiple different programming languages, and supporting this pattern creates challenges for formal compiler verification. We describe our Coq verification of a compiler for a high-level language, such that the compiler correctness theorem allows us to derive partial-correctness Hoare-logic theorems for programs built by linking the assembly code output by our compiler and assembly code produced by other means. Our compiler supports such tricky features as storable cross-language function pointers, without giving up the usual benefits of being able to verify different compiler phases (including, in our case, two classic optimizations) independently. Here, the key technical innovation is a mixed operational and axiomatic semantics for the source language, with a built-in notion of abstract data types, such that compiled code interfaces with other languages only through axiomatically specified methods that mutate encapsulated private data, represented in whatever formats are most natural for those languages.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Controlling Combinatorial Complexity in Software and Malware Behavior Computation

Virtually all software is out of intellectual control in that no one knows its full behavior. Software Behavior Computation (SBC) is a new technology for understanding everything software does. SBC applies the mathematics of denotational semantics implemented by function composition in Functional Trace Tables (FTTs) to compute the behavior of programs, expressed as disjoint cases of conditional concurrent assignments. In some circumstances, combinatorial explosions in the number of cases can occur when calculating the behavior of sequences of multiple branching structures. This paper describes computational methods that avoid combinatorial explosions. The predicates that control branching structures such as ifthenelses can be organized into three categories: 1) Independent, resulting in no behavior case explosion, 2) Coordinated, resulting in two behavior cases, or 3) Goaloriented, with potential exponential growth in the number of cases. Traditional FTT-based behavior computation can be augmented by two additional computational methods, namely, Single-Value Function Abstractions (SVFAs) and, introduced in this paper, Relational Trace Tables (RTTs). These methods can be applied to the three predicate categories to avoid combinatorial growth in behavior cases while maintaining mathematical correctness.

Hyperion system↗

ShapeShop: Towards Understanding Deep Learning Representations via Interactive Experimentation

Deep learning is the driving force behind many recent technologies; however, deep neural networks are often viewed as “black-boxes” due to their internal complexity that is hard to understand. Little research focuses on helping people explore and understand the relationship between a user’s data and the learned representations in deep learning models. We present our ongoing work, ShapeShop, an interactive system for visualizing and understanding what semantics a neural network model has learned. Built using standard web technologies, ShapeShop allows users to experiment with and compare deep learning models to help explore the robustness of image classifiers.

Hohman, Frederick M.↗

How Good is Good Enough?: Quantifying the Effects of Training Set Quality

There is a general consensus in the neural network community that noise in training data has a negative impact on model output; however, efforts to quantify the impact of varying levels have been limited, particularly for semantic segmentation tasks. This is a question of particular importance for remote sensing applications where the cost of producing a large training set can lead to reliance on publicly available data with varying degrees of noise. This work explores the effects of different degrees and types of training label noise on a pre-trained building extraction deep learner. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations of these effects can help inform decisions about trade-offs between the cost of producing training data and the quality of model outputs. We found that, relative to the base model, models trained with small amounts of noise showed little change in precision but achieved considerable increases in recall. Conversely, as noise levels increased, both precision and recall decreased. Precision and recall both lagged behind a model trained with pristine data. These exploratory results indicate the importance of quality control for training and, more broadly, that the relationship between degrees and types of training data noise and model performance is more complex than trade-offs between precision and recall.

Swan, Benjamin↗

Evaluation of the Need for and Design of a City Energy Operations System

There is growing interest in city and community scale energy efficiency goals across the US and around the world [1]. Forward thinking developers are expressing interest in developing methods to track the actual operations of new urban developments and campuses. Local governments and developers are exploring how to ensure that the built infrastructure, including buildings, transportation, energy generation and storage assets, is not only designed for energy efficiency, but operates efficiently as well. There is a need for city and district scale tools to support energy analysis from design through operations. Smart city data analytics is a growing area of interest in the smart city technology space. However, while there is enthusiasm for the concept of smart city energy analytics, there is a lack of common semantic data models, interoperable systems, and methods to collect data and support decision-making for operating multi-building city- and district-scale energy systems. Urban developers are asking broad questions about how such a system might be designed, built, valued, maintained, and optimized. This paper describes ongoing research to explore and define a City or District Energy Operations System (CityEOS).

Piette, Mary Ann↗