DeepContext: A Context-aware, Cross-platform, and Cross-framework Tool for Performance Profiling and Analysis of Deep Learning Workloads

Effective performance profiling and analysis are essential for optimizing training and inference of deep learning models, especially given the growing complexity of heterogeneous computing environments. However, existing tools often lack the capability to provide comprehensive program context information and performance optimization insights for sophisticated interactions between CPUs and GPUs. This paper introduces DeepContext, a novel profiler that links program contexts across high-level Python code, deep learning frameworks, underlying libraries written in C/C++, as well as device code executed on GPUs. DeepContext incorporates measurements of both coarse- and fine-grained performance metrics for major deep learning frameworks, such as PyTorch and JAX, and is compatible with GPUs from both Nvidia and AMD, as well as various CPU architectures, including x86 and ARM. In addition, DeepContext integrates a novel GUI that allows users to quickly identify hotpots and an innovative automated performance analyzer that suggests users with potential optimizations based on performance metrics and program context. Through detailed use cases, we demonstrate how DeepContext can help users identify and analyze performance issues to enable quick and effective optimization of deep learning workloads. We believe Deep Context is a valuable tool for users seeking to optimize complex deep learning workflows across multiple compute environments.

Reliable and Compact Graph Fine-tuning via GraphSparse Prompting

Recently, graph prompt learning has garnered increasing attention in adapting pre-trained GNN models for downstream graph learning tasks. However, existing works generally conduct prompting over all graph elements (e.g., nodes, edges, node attributes, etc.), which is suboptimal and obviously redundant. To address this issue, we propose exploiting sparse representation theory for graph prompting and present Graph Sparse Prompting (GSP). GSP aims to adaptively and sparsely select the optimal elements (e.g., certain node attributes) to achieve compact prompting for downstream tasks. Specifically, we propose two kinds of GSP models, termed Graph Sparse Feature Prompting (GSFP) and Graph Sparse multi-Feature Prompting (GSmFP). Both GSFP and GSmFP provide a general scheme for tuning any specific pre-trained GNNs that can achieve attribute selection and compact prompt learning simultaneously. A simple yet effective algorithm has been designed for solving GSFP and GSmFP models. Experiments on 16 widely-used benchmark datasets validate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed GSFPs.

Multi-objective Optimization in CPU Design Space Exploration: Attention is All You Need

Design space exploration (DSE) enables architects to systematically evaluate various design options, guiding decisions on the most suitable configurations to meet specific objectives such as optimizing performance, power, and area. However, the growing complexity of modern CPUs has dramatically increased the number of micro-architectural parameters and expanded the overall design space, making DSE more challenging and time-consuming. Existing DSE frameworks struggle in large-scale design spaces due to inaccurate models and limited insights into parameter impact, hindering efficient identification of optimal micro-architectures within tight timeframes. In this work, we introduce AttentionDSE. Its key idea is to use the attention mechanism to establish a direct mapping of micro-architectural parameters to their contributions to predicted performance. This approach enhances both the prediction accuracy and interpretability of the performance model. Furthermore, the weights are dynamically adjusted, enabling the model to respond to design changes and effectively pinpoint the key micro-architectural parameters/components responsible for performance bottlenecks. Thus, AttentionDSE accurately, purposefully, and rapidly discovers optimal designs. Experiments on SPEC 2017 demonstrate that AttentionDSE significantly reduces exploration time by over 80\% and achieves 3.9\% improvement in Pareto Hypervolume compared to state-of-the-art DSE frameworks while maintaining superior prediction accuracy and efficiency with an increasing number of parameters.

Making Every Frame Matter: Continuous Video Understanding for Large Models via Adaptive State Modeling

Video understanding has become increasingly important with the rise of multi-modality applications. Understanding continuous video poses considerable challenges due to the fast expansion of streaming video, which contains multi-scale and untrimmed events. We introduce a novel system, C-VUE, to overcome these issues through adaptive state modeling. C-VUE has three key designs. The first is a long-range history modeling technique that uses a video-aware approach to retain historical video information. The second is a spatial redundancy reduction technique, which enhances the efficiency of history modeling based on temporal relations. The third is a parallel training structure that incorporates the frame-weighted loss to understand multi-scale events in long videos. Our C-VUE offers high accuracy and efficiency. It runs at speeds >30 FPS on typical edge devices and outperforms all baselines in accuracy. Moreover, applying C-VUE to a video foundation model as a video encoder in our case study resulted in a 0.46-point enhancement (on a 5-point scale) on the in-distribution dataset, and an improvement ranging from 1.19\% to 4\% on zero-shot datasets.

Learning Graph Quantized Tokenizers for Transformers

Transformers serve as the backbone architectures of Foundational Models, where a domain-specific tokenizer helps them adapt to various domains. Graph Transformers (GTs) have recently emerged as a leading model in geometric deep learning, outperforming Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) in various graph learning tasks. However, the development of tokenizers for graphs has lagged behind other modalities, with existing approaches relying on heuristics or GNNs co-trained with Transformers. To address this, we introduce GQT (\textbf{G}raph \textbf{Q}uantized \textbf{T}okenizer), which decouples tokenizer training from Transformer training by leveraging multi-task graph self-supervised learning, yielding robust and generalizable graph tokens. Furthermore, the GQT utilizes Residual Vector Quantization (RVQ) to learn hierarchical discrete tokens, resulting in significantly reduced memory requirements and improved generalization capabilities. By combining the GQT with token modulation, a Transformer encoder achieves state-of-the-art performance on 16 out of 18 benchmarks, including large-scale homophilic and heterophilic datasets. The code is available at: https://github.com/limei0307/graph-tokenizer

Diversified and Adaptive Negative Sampling on Knowledge Graphs

In knowledge graph embedding, aside from positive triplets (ie: facts in the knowledge graph), the negative triplets used for training also have a direct influence on the model performance. In reality, since knowledge graphs are sparse and incomplete, negative triplets often lack explicit labels, and thus they are often obtained from various sampling strategies (eg: randomly replacing an entity in a positive triplet). An ideal sampled negative triplet should be informative enough to help the model train better. However, existing methods often ignore diversity and adaptiveness in their sampling process, which harms the informativeness of negative triplets. As such, we propose a generative adversarial approach called Diversified and Adaptive Negative Sampling DANS on knowledge graphs. DANS is equipped with a two-way generator that generates more diverse negative triplets through two pathways, and an adaptive mechanism that produces more fine-grained examples by localizing the global generator for different entities and relations. On the one hand, the two-way generator increase the overall informativeness with more diverse negative examples; on the other hand, the adaptive mechanism increases the individual sample-wise informativeness with more fine-grained sampling. Finally, we evaluate the performance of DANS on three benchmark knowledge graphs to demonstrate its effectiveness through quantitative and qualitative experiments.

LayerKV: Optimizing Large Language Model Serving with Layer-wise KV Cache Management

The expanding context windows in large language models (LLMs) have greatly enhanced their capabilities in various applications, but they also introduce significant challenges in maintaining low latency, particularly in Time to First Token (TTFT). This paper identifies that the sharp rise in TTFT as context length increases is predominantly driven by queuing delays, which are caused by the growing demands for GPU Key-Value (KV) cache allocation clashing with the limited availability of KV cache blocks. To address this issue, we propose LayerKV, a simple yet effective plug-in method that effectively reduces TTFT without requiring additional hardware or compromising output performance, while seamlessly integrating with existing parallelism strategies and scheduling techniques. Specifically, LayerKV introduces layer-wise KV block allocation, management, and offloading for fine-grained control over system memory, coupled with an SLO-aware scheduler to optimize overall Service Level Objectives (SLOs). Comprehensive evaluations on representative models, ranging from 7B to 70B parameters, across various GPU configurations, demonstrate that LayerKV improves TTFT latency up to 11x and reduces SLO violation rates by 28.7\%, significantly enhancing the user experience

Causal Deciphering and Inpainting in Spatio-Temporal Dynamics via Diffusion Model

Spatio-temporal (ST) prediction has garnered a De facto attention in earth sciences, such as meteorological prediction, human mobility perception. However, the scarcity of data coupled with the high expenses involved in sensor deployment results in notable data imbalances. Furthermore, models that are excessively customized and devoid of causal connections further undermine the generalizability and interpretability. To this end, we establish a causal framework for ST predictions, termed CaPaint, which targets to identify causal regions in data and endow model with causal reasoning ability in a two-stage process. Going beyond this process, we utilize the back-door adjustment to specifically address the sub-regions identified as non-causal in the upstream phase. Specifically, we employ a novel image inpainting technique. By using a fine-tuned unconditional Diffusion Probabilistic Model (DDPM) as the generative prior, we in-fill the masks defined as environmental parts, offering the possibility of reliable extrapolation for potential data distributions. CaPaint overcomes the high complexity dilemma of optimal ST causal discovery models by reducing the data generation complexity from exponential to quasi-linear levels. Extensive experiments conducted on five real-world ST benchmarks demonstrate that integrating the CaPaint concept allows models to achieve improvements ranging from 4.3% to 77.3%. Moreover, compared to traditional mainstream ST augmenters, CaPaint underscores the potential of diffusion models in ST enhancement, offering a novel paradigm for this field. Our project is available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/12345-DFCC.

Training Data Attribution: Was Your Model Secretly Trained On Data Created By Mine?

The emergence of text-to-image models has recently sparked significant interest, but the attendant is a looming shadow of potential infringement by violating the user terms. Specifically, an adversary may exploit data created by a commercial model to train their own without proper authorization. To address such risk, it is crucial to investigate the attribution of a suspicious model's training data by determining whether its training data originates, wholly or partially, from a specific source model. To trace the generated data, existing methods require applying extra watermarks during either the training or inference phases of the source model. However, these methods are impractical for pre-trained models that have been released, especially when model owners lack security expertise. To tackle this challenge, we propose an injection-free training data attribution method for text-to-image models. It can identify whether a suspicious model's training data stems from a source model, without additional modifications on the source model. The crux of our method lies in the inherent memorization characteristic of text-to-image models. Our core insight is that the memorization of the training dataset is passed down through the data generated by the source model to the model trained on that data, making the source model and the infringing model exhibit consistent behaviors on specific samples. Therefore, our approach involves developing algorithms to uncover these distinct samples and using them as inherent watermarks to verify if a suspicious model originates from the source model. Our experiments demonstrate that our method achieves an accuracy of over 80\% in identifying the source of a suspicious model's training data, without interfering the original training or generation process of the source model.

CoAst: Validation-Free Contribution Assessment for Federated Learning based on Cross-Round Valuation

In the federated learning (FL) process, since the data held by each participant is different, it is necessary to figure out which participant has a higher contribution to the model performance. Effective contribution assessment can help motivate data owners to participate in the FL training. Research works in this field can be divided into two directions based on whether a validation dataset is required. Validation-based methods need to use representative validation data to measure the model accuracy, which is difficult to obtain in practical FL scenarios. Existing validation-free methods assess the contribution based on the parameters and gradients of local models and the global model in a single training round, which is easily compromised by the stochasticity of model training. In this work, we propose CoAst, a practical method to assess the FL participants' contribution without access to any validation data. The core idea of CoAst involves two aspects: one is to only count the most important part of model parameters through a weights quantization, and the other is a cross-round valuation based on the similarity between the current local parameters and the global parameter updates in several subsequent communication rounds. Extensive experiments show that CoAst has comparable assessment reliability to existing validation-based methods and outperforms existing validation-free methods.