Data Augmentation for Environmental Sound Classification Using Diffusion Probabilistic Model with Top-k Selection Discriminator

Despite consistent advancement in powerful deep learning techniques in recent years, large amounts of training data are still necessary for the models to avoid overfitting. Synthetic datasets using generative adversarial networks (GAN) have recently been generated to overcome this problem. Nevertheless, despite advancements, GAN-based methods are usually hard to train or fail to generate high-quality data samples. In this paper, we propose an environmental sound classification augmentation technique based on the diffusion probabilistic model with DPM-Solver$++$ for fast sampling. In addition, to ensure the quality of the generated spectrograms, we train a top-k selection discriminator on the dataset. According to the experiment results, the synthesized spectrograms have similar features to the original dataset and can significantly increase the classification accuracy of different state-of-the-art models compared with traditional data augmentation techniques. The public code is available on https://github.com/JNAIC/DPMs-for-Audio-Data-Augmentation.

Triadic Temporal Exponential Random Graph Models (TTERGM)

Temporal exponential random graph models (TERGM) are powerful statistical models that can be used to infer the temporal pattern of edge formation and elimination in complex networks (e.g., social networks). TERGMs can also be used in a generative capacity to predict longitudinal time series data in these evolving graphs. However, parameter estimation within this framework fails to capture many real-world properties of social networks, including: triadic relationships, small world characteristics, and social learning theories which could be used to constrain the probabilistic estimation of dyadic covariates. Here, we propose triadic temporal exponential random graph models (TTERGM) to fill this void, which includes these hierarchical network relationships within the graph model. We represent social network learning theory as an additional probability distribution that optimizes Markov chains in the graph vector space. The new parameters are then approximated via Monte Carlo maximum likelihood estimation. We show that our TTERGM model achieves improved fidelity and more accurate predictions compared to several benchmark methods on GitHub network data.

Tracking Fast Neural Adaptation by Globally Adaptive Point Process Estimation for Brain-Machine Interface

Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) help the disabled restore body functions by translating neural activity into digital commands to control external devices. Neural adaptation, where the brain signals change in response to external stimuli or movements, plays an important role in BMIs. When subjects purely use neural activity to brain-control a prosthesis, some neurons will actively explore a new tuning property to accomplish the movement task. The prediction of this neural tuning property can help subjects adapt more efficiently to brain control and maintain good decoding performance. Existing prediction methods track the slow change of the tuning property in the manual control, which is not suitable for the fast neural adaptation in brain control. In order to identify the active neurons in brain control and track their tuning property changes, we propose a globally adaptive point process method (GaPP) to estimate the neural modulation state from spike trains, decompose the states into the hyper preferred direction and reconstruct the kinematics in a dual-model framework. We implement the method on real data from rats performing a two-lever discrimination task under manual control and brain control. The results show our method successfully predicts the neural modulation state and identifies the neurons that become active in brain control. Compared to existing methods, ours tracks the fast changes of the hyper preferred direction from manual control to brain control more accurately and efficiently and reconstructs the kinematics better and faster.