Data-Efficient CLIP-Powered Dual-Branch Networks for Source-Free Unsupervised Domain Adaptation

Source-Free Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (SF-UDA) aims to transfer a model's performance from a labeled source domain to an unlabeled target domain without direct access to source samples, addressing data privacy issues. However, most existing SF-UDA approaches assume the availability of abundant source domain samples, which is often impractical due to the high cost of data annotation. In this paper, we explore a more challenging scenario where direct access to source domain samples is restricted, and the source domain contains only a few samples. To tackle the dual challenges of limited source data and privacy concerns, we introduce a data-efficient, CLIP-powered dual-branch network (CDBN in short). We design a cross-modal dual-branch network that integrates source domain class semantics into the unsupervised fine-tuning of the target domain. It preserves the class information from the source domain while enhancing the model's generalization to the target domain. Additionally, we propose an unsupervised optimization strategy driven by accurate classification and diversity, which aims to retain the classification capability learned from the source domain while producing more confident and diverse predictions in the target domain. Extensive experiments across 31 transfer tasks on 7 public datasets demonstrate that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance compared to existing methods.

LCD-Net: A Lightweight Remote Sensing Change Detection Network Combining Feature Fusion and Gating Mechanism

Remote sensing image change detection (RSCD) is crucial for monitoring dynamic surface changes, with applications ranging from environmental monitoring to disaster assessment. While traditional CNN-based methods have improved detection accuracy, they often suffer from high computational complexity and large parameter counts, limiting their use in resource-constrained environments. To address these challenges, we propose a Lightweight remote sensing Change Detection Network (LCD-Net in short) that reduces model size and computational cost while maintaining high detection performance. LCD-Net employs MobileNetV2 as the encoder to efficiently extract features from bitemporal images. A Temporal Interaction and Fusion Module (TIF) enhances the interaction between bitemporal features, improving temporal context awareness. Additionally, the Feature Fusion Module (FFM) aggregates multiscale features to better capture subtle changes while suppressing background noise. The Gated Mechanism Module (GMM) in the decoder further enhances feature learning by dynamically adjusting channel weights, emphasizing key change regions. Experiments on LEVIR-CD+, SYSU, and S2Looking datasets show that LCD-Net achieves competitive performance with just 2.56M parameters and 4.45G FLOPs, making it well-suited for real-time applications in resource-limited settings. The code is available at https://github.com/WenyuLiu6/LCD-Net.

HC-GLAD: Dual Hyperbolic Contrastive Learning for Unsupervised Graph-Level Anomaly Detection

Unsupervised graph-level anomaly detection (UGAD) has garnered increasing attention in recent years due to its significance. However, most existing methods only rely on traditional graph neural networks to explore pairwise relationships but such kind of pairwise edges are not enough to describe multifaceted relationships involving anomaly. There is an emergency need to exploit node group information which plays a crucial role in UGAD. In addition, most previous works ignore the global underlying properties (e.g., hierarchy and power-law structure) which are common in real-world graph datasets and therefore are indispensable factors on UGAD task. In this paper, we propose a novel Dual Hyperbolic Contrastive Learning for Unsupervised Graph-Level Anomaly Detection (HC-GLAD in short). To exploit node group connections, we construct hypergraphs based on gold motifs and subsequently perform hypergraph convolution. Furthermore, to preserve the hierarchy of real-world graphs, we introduce hyperbolic geometry into this field and conduct both graph and hypergraph embedding learning in hyperbolic space with hyperboloid model. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to simultaneously apply hypergraph with node group connections and hyperbolic geometry into this field. Extensive experiments on several real world datasets of different fields demonstrate the superiority of HC-GLAD on UGAD task. The code is available at https://github.com/Yali-F/HC-GLAD.

FANFOLD: Graph Normalizing Flows-driven Asymmetric Network for Unsupervised Graph-Level Anomaly Detection

Unsupervised graph-level anomaly detection (UGAD) has attracted increasing interest due to its widespread application. In recent studies, knowledge distillation-based methods have been widely used in unsupervised anomaly detection to improve model efficiency and generalization. However, the inherent symmetry between the source (teacher) and target (student) networks typically results in consistent outputs across both architectures, making it difficult to distinguish abnormal graphs from normal graphs. Also, existing methods mainly rely on graph features to distinguish anomalies, which may be unstable with complex and diverse data and fail to capture the essence that differentiates normal graphs from abnormal ones. In this work, we propose a Graph Normalizing Flows-driven Asymmetric Network For Unsupervised Graph-Level Anomaly Detection (FANFOLD in short). We introduce normalizing flows to unsupervised graph-level anomaly detection due to their successful application and superior quality in learning the underlying distribution of samples. Specifically, we adopt the knowledge distillation technique and apply normalizing flows on the source network, achieving the asymmetric network. In the training stage, FANFOLD transforms the original distribution of normal graphs to a standard normal distribution. During inference, FANFOLD computes the anomaly score using the source-target loss to discriminate between normal and anomalous graphs. We conduct extensive experiments on 15 datasets of different fields with 9 baseline methods to validate the superiority of FANFOLD.

CVTGAD: Simplified Transformer with Cross-View Attention for Unsupervised Graph-level Anomaly Detection

Unsupervised graph-level anomaly detection (UGAD) has received remarkable performance in various critical disciplines, such as chemistry analysis and bioinformatics. Existing UGAD paradigms often adopt data augmentation techniques to construct multiple views, and then employ different strategies to obtain representations from different views for jointly conducting UGAD. However, most previous works only considered the relationship between nodes/graphs from a limited receptive field, resulting in some key structure patterns and feature information being neglected. In addition, most existing methods consider different views separately in a parallel manner, which is not able to explore the inter-relationship across different views directly. Thus, a method with a larger receptive field that can explore the inter-relationship across different views directly is in need. In this paper, we propose a novel Simplified Transformer with Cross-View Attention for Unsupervised Graph-level Anomaly Detection, namely, CVTGAD. To increase the receptive field, we construct a simplified transformer-based module, exploiting the relationship between nodes/graphs from both intra-graph and inter-graph perspectives. Furthermore, we design a cross-view attention mechanism to directly exploit the view co-occurrence between different views, bridging the inter-view gap at node level and graph level. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to apply transformer and cross attention to UGAD, which realizes graph neural network and transformer working collaboratively. Extensive experiments on 15 real-world datasets of 3 fields demonstrate the superiority of CVTGAD on the UGAD task. The code is available at \url{https://github.com/jindongli-Ai/CVTGAD}.

ScreenAgent: A Vision Language Model-driven Computer Control Agent

Existing Large Language Models (LLM) can invoke a variety of tools and APIs to complete complex tasks. The computer, as the most powerful and universal tool, could potentially be controlled directly by a trained LLM agent. Powered by the computer, we can hopefully build a more generalized agent to assist humans in various daily digital works. In this paper, we construct an environment for a Vision Language Model (VLM) agent to interact with a real computer screen. Within this environment, the agent can observe screenshots and manipulate the Graphics User Interface (GUI) by outputting mouse and keyboard actions. We also design an automated control pipeline that includes planning, acting, and reflecting phases, guiding the agent to continuously interact with the environment and complete multi-step tasks. Additionally, we construct the ScreenAgent Dataset, which collects screenshots and action sequences when completing a variety of daily computer tasks. Finally, we trained a model, ScreenAgent, which achieved computer control capabilities comparable to GPT-4V and demonstrated more precise UI positioning capabilities. Our attempts could inspire further research on building a generalist LLM agent. The code is available at \url{https://github.com/niuzaisheng/ScreenAgent}.

Astrocyte-Enabled Advancements in Spiking Neural Networks for Large Language Modeling

Within the complex neuroarchitecture of the brain, astrocytes play crucial roles in development, structure, and metabolism. These cells regulate neural activity through tripartite synapses, directly impacting cognitive processes such as learning and memory. Despite the growing recognition of astrocytes' significance, traditional Spiking Neural Network (SNN) models remain predominantly neuron-centric, overlooking the profound influence of astrocytes on neural dynamics. Inspired by these biological insights, we have developed an Astrocyte-Modulated Spiking Unit (AM-SU), an innovative framework that integrates neuron-astrocyte interactions into the computational paradigm, demonstrating wide applicability across various hardware platforms. Our Astrocyte-Modulated Spiking Neural Network (AstroSNN) exhibits exceptional performance in tasks involving memory retention and natural language generation, particularly in handling long-term dependencies and complex linguistic structures. The design of AstroSNN not only enhances its biological authenticity but also introduces novel computational dynamics, enabling more effective processing of complex temporal dependencies. Furthermore, AstroSNN shows low latency, high throughput, and reduced memory usage in practical applications, making it highly suitable for resource-constrained environments. By successfully integrating astrocytic dynamics into intelligent neural networks, our work narrows the gap between biological plausibility and neural modeling, laying the groundwork for future biologically-inspired neural computing research that includes both neurons and astrocytes.

Is Conventional SNN Really Efficient? A Perspective from Network Quantization

Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) have been widely praised for their high energy efficiency and immense potential. However, comprehensive research that critically contrasts and correlates SNNs with quantized Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) remains scant, often leading to skewed comparisons lacking fairness towards ANNs. This paper introduces a unified perspective, illustrating that the time steps in SNNs and quantized bit-widths of activation values present analogous representations. Building on this, we present a more pragmatic and rational approach to estimating the energy consumption of SNNs. Diverging from the conventional Synaptic Operations (SynOps), we champion the "Bit Budget" concept. This notion permits an intricate discourse on strategically allocating computational and storage resources between weights, activation values, and temporal steps under stringent hardware constraints. Guided by the Bit Budget paradigm, we discern that pivoting efforts towards spike patterns and weight quantization, rather than temporal attributes, elicits profound implications for model performance. Utilizing the Bit Budget for holistic design consideration of SNNs elevates model performance across diverse data types, encompassing static imagery and neuromorphic datasets. Our revelations bridge the theoretical chasm between SNNs and quantized ANNs and illuminate a pragmatic trajectory for future endeavors in energy-efficient neural computations.

FireFly v2: Advancing Hardware Support for High-Performance Spiking Neural Network with a Spatiotemporal FPGA Accelerator

Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are expected to be a promising alternative to Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) due to their strong biological interpretability and high energy efficiency. Specialized SNN hardware offers clear advantages over general-purpose devices in terms of power and performance. However, there's still room to advance hardware support for state-of-the-art (SOTA) SNN algorithms and improve computation and memory efficiency. As a further step in supporting high-performance SNNs on specialized hardware, we introduce FireFly v2, an FPGA SNN accelerator that can address the issue of non-spike operation in current SOTA SNN algorithms, which presents an obstacle in the end-to-end deployment onto existing SNN hardware. To more effectively align with the SNN characteristics, we design a spatiotemporal dataflow that allows four dimensions of parallelism and eliminates the need for membrane potential storage, enabling on-the-fly spike processing and spike generation. To further improve hardware acceleration performance, we develop a high-performance spike computing engine as a backend based on a systolic array operating at 500-600MHz. To the best of our knowledge, FireFly v2 achieves the highest clock frequency among all FPGA-based implementations. Furthermore, it stands as the first SNN accelerator capable of supporting non-spike operations, which are commonly used in advanced SNN algorithms. FireFly v2 has doubled the throughput and DSP efficiency when compared to our previous version of FireFly and it exhibits 1.33 times the DSP efficiency and 1.42 times the power efficiency compared to the current most advanced FPGA accelerators.

Multi-Task Sub-Band Network For Deep Residual Echo Suppression

This paper introduces the SWANT team entry to the ICASSP 2023 AEC Challenge. We submit a system that cascades a linear filter with a neural post-filter. Particularly, we adopt sub-band processing to handle full-band signals and shape the network with multi-task learning, where dual signal voice activity detection (DSVAD) and echo estimation are adopted as auxiliary tasks. Moreover, we particularly improve the time frequency convolution module (TFCM) to increase the receptive field using small convolution kernels. Finally, our system has ranked 4th in ICASSP 2023 AEC Challenge Non-personalized track.