Study evaluates the impact of academic support center's face-to-face assistance on student performance.
problem Underestimation of Academic Support Center's true impact due to group bias.
method Applied causal inference theory and T-learner to evaluate conditional average treatment effect (CATE) of F2F personal assistance.
result Developed a new CATE function that depends on the number of F2F sessions, predicting improved CATE performance.
Our focus is on realistically modeling and forecasting dynamic networks of face-to-face contacts among individuals. Important aspects of such data that lead to problems with current methods include the tendency of the contacts to move between periods of slow and rapid changes, and the dynamic heterogeneity in the actor…
Humor is a unique and creative communicative behavior displayed during social interactions. It is produced in a multimodal manner, through the usage of words (text), gestures (vision) and prosodic cues (acoustic). Understanding humor from these three modalities falls within boundaries of multimodal language; a recent r…
New AI assistant for power grid operators simplifies complex decision-making.
problem Complexity and uncertainty in power grid operations.
method Unified human-machine interface and AI integration.
result Development of a new assistant framework for power grid operators.
Framework allows organizations to collaborate on learning tasks securely.
problem Limited collaboration due to security constraints.
method Assisted Learning framework for supervised learning tasks.
result Near-oracle learning performance achieved without revealing sensitive information.
Improves survey sampling with unbiased machine learning methods.
problem Design-consistent model-assisted estimation lacks a general theory for machine learning.
method Proposes a subsampling Rao-Blackwell method for design-unbiased estimation.
result Yields efficiency gains over standard methods while ensuring valid estimation.
Humans prove theorems by relying on substantial high-level reasoning and problem-specific insights. Proof assistants offer a formalism that resembles human mathematical reasoning, representing theorems in higher-order logic and proofs as high-level tactics. However, human experts have to construct proofs manually by en…
Computer-assisted method finds new Einstein metrics on spheres.
problem Finding new Einstein metrics on spheres.
method Simple computer-assisted procedure to construct invariant cohomogeneity one Einstein metrics.
result New Einstein metrics on S11, S12, S13 and S7imesS3. Access to food assistance programs such as food pantries and food banks needs focus in order to mitigate food insecurity. Accessibility to the food assistance programs is impacted by demographics of the population and geography of the location. It hence becomes imperative to define and identify food assistance deserts …
Learning preferences implicit in the choices humans make is a well studied problem in both economics and computer science. However, most work makes the assumption that humans are acting (noisily) optimally with respect to their preferences. Such approaches can fail when people are themselves learning about what they wa…
Machine learning and data mining techniques have been used extensively in order to detect credit card frauds. However purchase behaviour and fraudster strategies may change over time. This phenomenon is named dataset shift or concept drift in the domain of fraud detection. In this paper, we present a method to quantify…
AI assistants often give convincing but incorrect responses to match user beliefs.
problem Sycophancy in AI assistants that use human feedback.
method Examined five AI assistants across four tasks, analyzed human preference data, and compared model outputs against preference models.
result Sycophancy is a general behavior of AI assistants, driven in part by human preference judgments.
Develops a two-layer model to design mortgage assistance products.
problem Designing effective mortgage assistance products to improve household resilience.
method Two-layer approach: simulation and optimization.
result Shows how the approach can design and evaluate mortgage assistance products.
Helps visually impaired users make better decisions by adjusting their observations.
problem Systematic biases in users' perception and processing of visual information.
method Synthesizes new observations based on true observations to correct user biases.
result Significant improvement in task performance for users with various biases.
Robust Bayes-Assisted Conformal Prediction improves prediction set sizes.
problem Misspecification of Bayesian working model and prior misalignment.
method RoBAS (Robust Bayes-Assisted Shrinkage) framework with two instantiations.
result Improves prediction set sizes in shifted settings.
Robust Bayes-Assisted Conformal Prediction improves prediction set sizes.
problem Misspecification of Bayesian working model and prior misalignment.
method RoBAS (Robust Bayes-Assisted Shrinkage) framework with two instantiations.
result Proposed scores adapt to prior quality, reducing interval widths in shifted settings.
AI-assisted interviews allow respondents to describe experiences naturally, but mapping those accounts into structured survey variables is fallible.
problem Mapping AI-assisted interview responses into structured survey variables is fallible.
method Adaptive Matrix Validation (AMV) is proposed, which involves mapping responses into tabular data and using a small set of structured questions for statistical adjustment.
result The estimator calibrates mapped values using validation answers from other respondents and corrects remaining error with validation answers observed for the target respondent.
Paper improves voice trigger detection for privacy-centric smart assistants.
problem Mitigating false triggers in voice-activated smart assistants.
method Analyzing ASR lattices using graph neural networks (GNN).
result GNNs effectively reduce false triggers by ~87% at 99% true positive rate.
We study data-driven assistants that provide congestion forecasts to users of shared facilities (roads, cafeterias, etc.), to support coordination between them, and increase efficiency of such collective systems. Key questions are: (1) when and how much can (accurate) predictions help for coordination, and (2) which as…
Generative AI boosts productivity and improves customer service quality.
problem Productivity and quality of customer support agents.
method Staggered introduction of a generative AI-based conversational assistant in customer support.
result AI increases productivity by 15% on average, with significant heterogeneity across workers.
A green simulation-assisted reinforcement learning method for biomanufacturing.
problem Complexity, high variability, lead time, and limited historical data in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
method Quantifies model risk, uses posterior distribution, and selectively reuses simulation data.
result Demonstrates promising performance in online learning and decision making.
This paper presents a self-supervised method for visual detection of the active speaker in a multi-person spoken interaction scenario. Active speaker detection is a fundamental prerequisite for any artificial cognitive system attempting to acquire language in social settings. The proposed method is intended to compleme…
We describe a method for selecting relevant new training data for the LSTM-based domain selection component of our personal assistant system. Adding more annotated training data for any ML system typically improves accuracy, but only if it provides examples not already adequately covered in the existing data. However, …
We provide a computer-assisted proof of the holomorphy of the quartic and the octic meromorphic differentials arising in the main Theorem 4.11 of our paper 'The Classification of Branched Willmore spheres in the 3-Sphere and the 4-Sphere' (arXiv:1706.01405), using the free mathematical software Sage.
New method combines randomization tests and flexible models for valid inference without splitting data.
problem Valid inference in randomized panel experiments with complex effect heterogeneity.
method Model-assisted randomization tests that estimate unsigned CATE from residualized outcomes.
result CATE-assisted tests control Type I error and achieve higher power than alternatives.
A new method uses MCMC-assisted normalizing flows for efficient Bayesian sampling.
problem Sampling from complex posterior distributions in Bayesian statistics.
method Training a normalizing flow using direct KL divergence and MCMC assistance.
result The method improves sampling efficiency for complicated posterior distributions.
Proposes a new method to control FDR using frequentist-assisted horseshoe for high-dimensional testing.
problem Designing tests with frequentist false discovery rate control using horseshoe prior.
method Frequentist-assisted horseshoe procedure for high-dimensional normal means testing.
result Consistently achieves robust finite-sample FDR control in various sparse cases.
Designs algorithms to assist humans without affecting their decisions.
problem Algorithms often fail to improve human decisions.
method Formalizes algorithm design using potential outcomes framework and monotonicity assumption.
result Derives minimax optimal recommendation algorithms for limited data.
Due to the need for robust uncertainty quantification, Bayesian neural learning has gained attention in the era of deep learning and big data. Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) methods typically implement Bayesian inference which faces several challenges given a large number of parameters, complex and multimodal posterio…
Neural Assistant integrates knowledge reasoning and dialogue generation in a single model.
problem Challenges in task-oriented dialog systems, including multi-turn language understanding and generation, knowledge retrieval and reasoning, and action prediction.
method Develops a single neural network model that jointly predicts text responses and actions from conversation history and external knowledge.
result The model learns to reason on external knowledge with weak supervision, improving factual accuracy and language generation performance.
The paper enhances a virtual assistant's humor to improve user satisfaction.
problem Improving a virtual assistant's ability to deliver humorous responses.
method Combines traditional NLP techniques with self-attentional networks and multi-task learning, using implicit feedback for labeling.
result Deep-learning models outperform heuristic methods in real-world user satisfaction.
Improved speech recognition for voice assistants by analyzing speech data.
problem Reducing false triggers in speech-enabled assistants.
method Post-processing LVCSR hypothesis lattice with a Bidirectional Lattice Recurrent Neural Network (LatticeRNN).
result LatticeRNN significantly improves detection accuracy over traditional methods.
A plethora of networks is being collected in a growing number of fields, including disease transmission, international relations, social interactions, and others. As data streams continue to grow, the complexity associated with these highly multidimensional connectivity data presents novel challenges. In this paper, we…
Recent variants improve knowledge distillation performance.
problem Improving the performance of knowledge distillation.
method Introducing additional components or changing the learning process.
result These variants have shown promising results.
Measures policy-violating content prevalence with ML-assisted sampling and LLM labeling.
problem Accurate measurement of content violations that are often rare and costly to label.
method Design-based measurement system using ML-assisted probability sampling and LLM labeling.
result Produces unbiased prevalence estimates with confidence intervals and dashboard drilldowns.
GALA framework learns invariant graph representations via environment augmentation with minimal assumptions.
problem Learning invariant graph representations from different environments without additional assumptions.
method Developed GALA framework with minimal assumptions of variation sufficiency and consistency. Uses an assistant model to differentiate graph environment changes.
result Extracting maximally invariant subgraphs to proxy predictions identifies underlying invariant subgraphs for successful out-of-distribution generalization.
In recent years, deep learning methods applying unsupervised learning to train deep layers of neural networks have achieved remarkable results in numerous fields. In the past, many genetic algorithms based methods have been successfully applied to training neural networks. In this paper, we extend previous work and pro…
Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPAs) have become widely popular in recent times. Most of the commercial IPAs today support a wide range of skills including Alarms, Reminders, Weather Updates, Music, News, Factual Questioning-Answering, etc. The list grows every day, making it difficult to remember the command structu…
Model improves email-based conversational agents' ability to extract relevant information.
problem Asynchronous email communication makes it hard for agents to detect intents and extract relevant entities.
method Neural model for scoping relevant information from large queries.
result Improves performance of intent detection and entity extraction tasks by 35% in precision.
Despite the advantages of all-weather and all-day high-resolution imaging, SAR remote sensing images are much less viewed and used by general people because human vision is not adapted to microwave scattering phenomenon. However, expert interpreters can be trained by compare side-by-side SAR and optical images to learn…
Our usage of language is not solely reliant on cognition but is arguably determined by myriad external factors leading to a global variability of linguistic patterns. This issue, which lies at the core of sociolinguistics and is backed by many small-scale studies on face-to-face communication, is addressed here by cons…
Formalizes synthetic differential geometry in Lean.
problem Formalizing synthetic differential geometry in a proof assistant.
method Formalization of synthetic differential geometry with Lean and mathlib.
result Proves a Taylor theorem for functions of several variables.
Study shows human advisors use context to improve student outcomes in algorithm-assisted advising.
problem How human advisors use context to guide interventions in algorithm-assisted advising.
method Mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative data from a randomized controlled trial.
result 2 out of 3 interventions by advisors were plausibly 'expertly targeted' to students using non-algorithmic context.
New model improves prediction accuracy and interpretability for network-connected data.
problem Reduced effective sample size and poor prediction performance in network-connected data.
method Network-assisted Random Forest+ (RF+) with interpretable feature importance measures.
result Highly competitive prediction accuracy and interpretable feature importance.
Proposes a new NMF method incorporating neighborhood structure for better anomaly detection.
problem NMF's inability to incorporate neighborhood structure information limits its performance in nonlinear manifold structures.
method Integrates neighborhood structure information using Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) within NMF framework.
result Empirical results show superior performance in anomaly detection using the proposed method.
Two-stage architecture helps learners collaborate on data with privacy and transmission constraints.
problem Collaboration between learners with distinct datasets and privacy/transmission constraints.
method Privacy-aware hypothesis testing screening and synergistic iterative model training.
result Achieves oracle performance with limited transmissions of summary statistics.
SimVAE trains interpretable VAEs using simulators.
problem Training interpretable generative models.
method Two-step process: train decoder to approximate simulator, then train encoder to invert it.
result Disentangled and interpretable latent space achieved.
SCIENCE improves prediction intervals for individual causal effects.
problem Wide prediction intervals limit practical utility of causal inference.
method Surrogate-assisted conformal inference for efficient individual causal effects.
result SCIENCE produces more efficient prediction intervals for individual causal effects.