Conformal Thresholded Intervals for Efficient Regression

This paper introduces Conformal Thresholded Intervals (CTI), a novel conformal regression method that aims to produce the smallest possible prediction set with guaranteed coverage. Unlike existing methods that rely on nested conformal framework and full conditional distribution estimation, CTI estimates the conditional probability density for a new response to fall into each interquantile interval using off-the-shelf multi-output quantile regression. CTI constructs prediction sets by thresholding the estimated conditional interquantile intervals based on their length, which is inversely proportional to the estimated probability density. The threshold is determined using a calibration set to ensure marginal coverage. Experimental results demonstrate that CTI achieves optimal performance across various datasets.

Weighted Aggregation of Conformity Scores for Classification

Conformal prediction is a powerful framework for constructing prediction sets with valid coverage guarantees in multi-class classification. However, existing methods often rely on a single score function, which can limit their efficiency and informativeness. We propose a novel approach that combines multiple score functions to improve the performance of conformal predictors by identifying optimal weights that minimize prediction set size. Our theoretical analysis establishes a connection between the weighted score functions and subgraph classes of functions studied in Vapnik-Chervonenkis theory, providing a rigorous mathematical basis for understanding the effectiveness of the proposed method. Experiments demonstrate that our approach consistently outperforms single-score conformal predictors while maintaining valid coverage, offering a principled and data-driven way to enhance the efficiency and practicality of conformal prediction in classification tasks.

Trustworthy Classification through Rank-Based Conformal Prediction Sets

Machine learning classification tasks often benefit from predicting a set of possible labels with confidence scores to capture uncertainty. However, existing methods struggle with the high-dimensional nature of the data and the lack of well-calibrated probabilities from modern classification models. We propose a novel conformal prediction method that employs a rank-based score function suitable for classification models that predict the order of labels correctly, even if not well-calibrated. Our approach constructs prediction sets that achieve the desired coverage rate while managing their size. We provide a theoretical analysis of the expected size of the conformal prediction sets based on the rank distribution of the underlying classifier. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that our method outperforms existing techniques on various datasets, providing reliable uncertainty quantification. Our contributions include a novel conformal prediction method, theoretical analysis, and empirical evaluation. This work advances the practical deployment of machine learning systems by enabling reliable uncertainty quantification.

Conformal Load Prediction with Transductive Graph Autoencoders

Predicting edge weights on graphs has various applications, from transportation systems to social networks. This paper describes a Graph Neural Network (GNN) approach for edge weight prediction with guaranteed coverage. We leverage conformal prediction to calibrate the GNN outputs and produce valid prediction intervals. We handle data heteroscedasticity through error reweighting and Conformalized Quantile Regression (CQR). We compare the performance of our method against baseline techniques on real-world transportation datasets. Our approach has better coverage and efficiency than all baselines and showcases robustness and adaptability.

User-customizable Shared Control for Fine Teleoperation via Virtual Reality

Shared control can ease and enhance a human operator's ability to teleoperate robots, particularly for intricate tasks demanding fine control over multiple degrees of freedom. However, the arbitration process dictating how much autonomous assistance to administer in shared control can confuse novice operators and impede their understanding of the robot's behavior. To overcome these adverse side-effects, we propose a novel formulation of shared control that enables operators to tailor the arbitration to their unique capabilities and preferences. Unlike prior approaches to customizable shared control where users could indirectly modify the latent parameters of the arbitration function by issuing a feedback command, we instead make these parameters observable and directly editable via a virtual reality (VR) interface. We present our user-customizable shared control method for a teleoperation task in SE(3), known as the buzz wire game. A user study is conducted with participants teleoperating a robotic arm in VR to complete the game. The experiment spanned two weeks per subject to investigate longitudinal trends. Our findings reveal that users allowed to interactively tune the arbitration parameters across trials generalize well to adaptations in the task, exhibiting improvements in precision and fluency over direct teleoperation and conventional shared control.

Fréchet Statistics Based Change Point Detection in Multivariate Hawkes Process

This paper proposes a new approach for change point detection in causal networks of multivariate Hawkes processes using Frechet statistics. Our method splits the point process into overlapping windows, estimates kernel matrices in each window, and reconstructs the signed Laplacians by treating the kernel matrices as the adjacency matrices of the causal network. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method through experiments on both simulated and real-world cryptocurrency datasets. Our results show that our method is capable of accurately detecting and characterizing changes in the causal structure of multivariate Hawkes processes, and may have potential applications in fields such as finance and neuroscience. The proposed method is an extension of previous work on Frechet statistics in point process settings and represents an important contribution to the field of change point detection in multivariate point processes.

Semantic Embedded Deep Neural Network: A Generic Approach to Boost Multi-Label Image Classification Performance

Fine-grained multi-label classification models have broad applications in Amazon production features, such as visual based label predictions ranging from fashion attribute detection to brand recognition. One challenge to achieve satisfactory performance for those classification tasks in real world is the wild visual background signal that contains irrelevant pixels which confuses model to focus onto the region of interest and make prediction upon the specific region. In this paper, we introduce a generic semantic-embedding deep neural network to apply the spatial awareness semantic feature incorporating a channel-wise attention based model to leverage the localization guidance to boost model performance for multi-label prediction. We observed an Avg.relative improvement of 15.27% in terms of AUC score across all labels compared to the baseline approach. Core experiment and ablation studies involve multi-label fashion attribute classification performed on Instagram fashion apparels' image. We compared the model performances among our approach, baseline approach, and 3 alternative approaches to leverage semantic features. Results show favorable performance for our approach.

Who You Play Affects How You Play: Predicting Sports Performance Using Graph Attention Networks With Temporal Convolution

This study presents a novel deep learning method, called GATv2-GCN, for predicting player performance in sports. To construct a dynamic player interaction graph, we leverage player statistics and their interactions during gameplay. We use a graph attention network to capture the attention that each player pays to each other, allowing for more accurate modeling of the dynamic player interactions. To handle the multivariate player statistics time series, we incorporate a temporal convolution layer, which provides the model with temporal predictive power. We evaluate the performance of our model using real-world sports data, demonstrating its effectiveness in predicting player performance. Furthermore, we explore the potential use of our model in a sports betting context, providing insights into profitable strategies that leverage our predictive power. The proposed method has the potential to advance the state-of-the-art in player performance prediction and to provide valuable insights for sports analytics and betting industries.

Fréchet Statistics Based Change Point Detection in Dynamic Social Networks

This paper proposes a method to detect change points in dynamic social networks using Fr\'echet statistics. We address two main questions: (1) what metric can quantify the distances between graph Laplacians in a dynamic network and enable efficient computation, and (2) how can the Fr\'echet statistics be extended to detect multiple change points while maintaining the significance level of the hypothesis test? Our solution defines a metric space for graph Laplacians using the Log-Euclidean metric, enabling a closed-form formula for Fr\'echet mean and variance. We present a framework for change point detection using Fr\'echet statistics and extend it to multiple change points with binary segmentation. The proposed algorithm uses incremental computation for Fr\'echet mean and variance to improve efficiency and is validated on simulated and two real-world datasets, namely the UCI message dataset and the Enron email dataset.

Team Northeastern's Approach to ANA XPRIZE Avatar Final Testing: A Holistic Approach to Telepresence and Lessons Learned

This paper reports on Team Northeastern's Avatar system for telepresence, and our holistic approach to meet the ANA Avatar XPRIZE Final testing task requirements. The system features a dual-arm configuration with hydraulically actuated glove-gripper pair for haptic force feedback. Our proposed Avatar system was evaluated in the ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals and completed all 10 tasks, scored 14.5 points out of 15.0, and received the 3rd Place Award. We provide the details of improvements over our first generation Avatar, covering manipulation, perception, locomotion, power, network, and controller design. We also extensively discuss the major lessons learned during our participation in the competition.