Language Proficiency and F0 Entrainment: A Study of L2 English Imitation in Italian, French, and Slovak Speakers

This study explores F0 entrainment in second language (L2) English speech imitation during an Alternating Reading Task (ART). Participants with Italian, French, and Slovak native languages imitated English utterances, and their F0 entrainment was quantified using the Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) distance between the parameterized F0 contours of the imitated utterances and those of the model utterances. Results indicate a nuanced relationship between L2 English proficiency and entrainment: speakers with higher proficiency generally exhibit less entrainment in pitch variation and declination. However, within dyads, the more proficient speakers demonstrate a greater ability to mimic pitch range, leading to increased entrainment. This suggests that proficiency influences entrainment differently at individual and dyadic levels, highlighting the complex interplay between language skill and prosodic adaptation.

Classification of Prostate Cancer in 3D Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data based on Convolutional Neural Networks

Prostate cancer is a commonly diagnosed cancerous disease among men world-wide. Even with modern technology such as multi-parametric magnetic resonance tomography and guided biopsies, the process for diagnosing prostate cancer remains time consuming and requires highly trained professionals. In this paper, different convolutional neural networks (CNN) are evaluated on their abilities to reliably classify whether an MRI sequence contains malignant lesions. Implementations of a ResNet, a ConvNet and a ConvNeXt for 3D image data are trained and evaluated. The models are trained using different data augmentation techniques, learning rates, and optimizers. The data is taken from a private dataset, provided by Cantonal Hospital Aarau. The best result was achieved by a ResNet3D, yielding an average precision score of 0.4583 and AUC ROC score of 0.6214.

From a Lossless (~1.5:1) Compression Algorithm for Llama2 7B Weights to Variable Precision, Variable Range, Compressed Numeric Data Types for CNNs and LLMs

This paper starts with a simple lossless ~1.5:1 compression algorithm for the weights of the Large Language Model (LLM) Llama2 7B [1] that can be implemented in ~200 LUTs in AMD FPGAs, processing over 800 million bfloat16 numbers per second. This framework is then extended to variable precision, variable range, compressed numerical data types that are a user defined super set of both floats and posits [2]. The paper then discusses a simple hardware implementation of such format based on ANS (Asymmetrical Numeral Systems) [3] that acts as a bridge between this flexible data format and a computational engine while, at the same time, achieving bandwidth reduction. An example of a token factory using weight compression and sharing is also given.

Test-Time Model Adaptation with Only Forward Passes

Test-time adaptation has proven effective in adapting a given trained model to unseen test samples with potential distribution shifts. However, in real-world scenarios, models are usually deployed on resource-limited devices, e.g., FPGAs, and are often quantized and hard-coded with non-modifiable parameters for acceleration. In light of this, existing methods are often infeasible since they heavily depend on computation-intensive backpropagation for model updating that may be not supported. To address this, we propose a test-time Forward-Only Adaptation (FOA) method. In FOA, we seek to solely learn a newly added prompt (as model's input) via a derivative-free covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy. To make this strategy work stably under our online unsupervised setting, we devise a novel fitness function by measuring test-training statistic discrepancy and model prediction entropy. Moreover, we design an activation shifting scheme that directly tunes the model activations for shifted test samples, making them align with the source training domain, thereby further enhancing adaptation performance. Without using any backpropagation and altering model weights, FOA runs on quantized 8-bit ViT outperforms gradient-based TENT on full-precision 32-bit ViT, while achieving an up to 24-fold memory reduction on ImageNet-C. The source code will be released.

LiDAR4D: Dynamic Neural Fields for Novel Space-time View LiDAR Synthesis

Although neural radiance fields (NeRFs) have achieved triumphs in image novel view synthesis (NVS), LiDAR NVS remains largely unexplored. Previous LiDAR NVS methods employ a simple shift from image NVS methods while ignoring the dynamic nature and the large-scale reconstruction problem of LiDAR point clouds. In light of this, we propose LiDAR4D, a differentiable LiDAR-only framework for novel space-time LiDAR view synthesis. In consideration of the sparsity and large-scale characteristics, we design a 4D hybrid representation combined with multi-planar and grid features to achieve effective reconstruction in a coarse-to-fine manner. Furthermore, we introduce geometric constraints derived from point clouds to improve temporal consistency. For the realistic synthesis of LiDAR point clouds, we incorporate the global optimization of ray-drop probability to preserve cross-region patterns. Extensive experiments on KITTI-360 and NuScenes datasets demonstrate the superiority of our method in accomplishing geometry-aware and time-consistent dynamic reconstruction. Codes are available at https://github.com/ispc-lab/LiDAR4D.

A Plausibility Study of Using Augmented Reality in the Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt Operations

The field of augmented reality (AR) has undergone substantial growth, finding diverse applications in the medical industry. This paper delves into various techniques employed in medical surgeries, scrutinizing factors such as cost, implementation, and accessibility. The focus of this exploration is on AR-based solutions, with a particular emphasis on addressing challenges and proposing an innovative solution for ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VP) operations. The proposed solution introduces a novel flow in the pre-surgery phase, aiming to substantially reduce setup time and operation duration by creating 3D models of the skull and ventricles. Experiments are conducted where the models are visualized on a 3D- printed skull through an AR device, specifically the Microsoft HoloLens 2. The paper then conducts an in-depth analysis of this proposed solution, discussing its feasibility, advantages, limitations,and future implications.

AKGNet: Attribute Knowledge-Guided Unsupervised Lung-Infected Area Segmentation

Lung-infected area segmentation is crucial for assessing the severity of lung diseases. However, existing image-text multi-modal methods typically rely on labour-intensive annotations for model training, posing challenges regarding time and expertise. To address this issue, we propose a novel attribute knowledge-guided framework for unsupervised lung-infected area segmentation (AKGNet), which achieves segmentation solely based on image-text data without any mask annotation. AKGNet facilitates text attribute knowledge learning, attribute-image cross-attention fusion, and high-confidence-based pseudo-label exploration simultaneously. It can learn statistical information and capture spatial correlations between image and text attributes in the embedding space, iteratively refining the mask to enhance segmentation. Specifically, we introduce a text attribute knowledge learning module by extracting attribute knowledge and incorporating it into feature representations, enabling the model to learn statistical information and adapt to different attributes. Moreover, we devise an attribute-image cross-attention module by calculating the correlation between attributes and images in the embedding space to capture spatial dependency information, thus selectively focusing on relevant regions while filtering irrelevant areas. Finally, a self-training mask improvement process is employed by generating pseudo-labels using high-confidence predictions to iteratively enhance the mask and segmentation. Experimental results on a benchmark medical image dataset demonstrate the superior performance of our method compared to state-of-the-art segmentation techniques in unsupervised scenarios.

Machine-Learning-Enhanced Soft Robotic System Inspired by Rectal Functions for Investigating Fecal incontinence

Fecal incontinence, arising from a myriad of pathogenic mechanisms, has attracted considerable global attention. Despite its significance, the replication of the defecatory system for studying fecal incontinence mechanisms remains limited largely due to social stigma and taboos. Inspired by the rectum's functionalities, we have developed a soft robotic system, encompassing a power supply, pressure sensing, data acquisition systems, a flushing mechanism, a stage, and a rectal module. The innovative soft rectal module includes actuators inspired by sphincter muscles, both soft and rigid covers, and soft rectum mold. The rectal mold, fabricated from materials that closely mimic human rectal tissue, is produced using the mold replication fabrication method. Both the soft and rigid components of the mold are realized through the application of 3D-printing technology. The sphincter muscles-inspired actuators featuring double-layer pouch structures are modeled and optimized based on multilayer perceptron methods aiming to obtain high contractions ratios (100%), high generated pressure (9.8 kPa), and small recovery time (3 s). Upon assembly, this defecation robot is capable of smoothly expelling liquid faeces, performing controlled solid fecal cutting, and defecating extremely solid long faeces, thus closely replicating the human rectum and anal canal's functions. This defecation robot has the potential to assist humans in understanding the complex defecation system and contribute to the development of well-being devices related to defecation.

Sky-GVIO: an enhanced GNSS/INS/Vision navigation with FCN-based sky-segmentation in urban canyon

Accurate, continuous, and reliable positioning is a critical component of achieving autonomous driving. However, in complex urban canyon environments, the vulnerability of a stand-alone sensor and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) caused by high buildings, trees, and elevated structures seriously affect positioning results. To address these challenges, a sky-view images segmentation algorithm based on Fully Convolutional Network (FCN) is proposed for GNSS NLOS detection. Building upon this, a novel NLOS detection and mitigation algorithm (named S-NDM) is extended to the tightly coupled Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), and visual feature system which is called Sky-GVIO, with the aim of achieving continuous and accurate positioning in urban canyon environments. Furthermore, the system harmonizes Single Point Positioning (SPP) with Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) methodologies to bolster its operational versatility and resilience. In urban canyon environments, the positioning performance of S-NDM algorithm proposed in this paper is evaluated under different tightly coupled SPP-related and RTK-related models. The results exhibit that Sky-GVIO system achieves meter-level accuracy under SPP mode and sub-decimeter precision with RTK, surpassing the performance of GNSS/INS/Vision frameworks devoid of S-NDM. Additionally, the sky-view image dataset, inclusive of training and evaluation subsets, has been made publicly accessible for scholarly exploration at https://github.com/whuwangjr/sky-view-images .

Autonomous aerial perching and unperching using omnidirectional tiltrotor and switching controller

Aerial unperching of multirotors has received little attention as opposed to perching that has been investigated to elongate operation time. This study presents a new aerial robot capable of both perching and unperching autonomously on/from a ferromagnetic surface during flight, and a switching controller to avoid rotor saturation and mitigate overshoot during transition between free-flight and perching. To enable stable perching and unperching maneuvers on/from a vertical surface, a lightweight ($\approx$ $1$ \si{kg}), fully actuated tiltrotor that can hover at $90^\circ$ pitch angle is first developed. We design a perching/unperching module composed of a single servomotor and a magnet, which is then mounted on the tiltrotor. A switching controller including exclusive control modes for transitions between free-flight and perching is proposed. Lastly, we propose a simple yet effective strategy to ensure robust perching in the presence of measurement and control errors and avoid collisions with the perching site immediately after unperching. We validate the proposed framework in experiments where the tiltrotor successfully performs perching and unperching on/from a vertical surface during flight. We further show effectiveness of the proposed transition mode in the switching controller by ablation studies where large overshoot and even collision with a perching site occur. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this work presents the first autonomous aerial unperching framework using a fully actuated tiltrotor.