Exploring LLM-based Data Annotation Strategies for Medical Dialogue Preference Alignment

This research examines the use of Reinforcement Learning from AI Feedback (RLAIF) techniques to improve healthcare dialogue models, with the aim of tackling the challenges of preference-aligned data annotation while reducing the reliance on medical experts. We argue that the primary challenges in current RLAIF research for healthcare are the limitations of automated evaluation methods and the difficulties in accurately representing physician preferences. To address these challenges, we present a new evaluation framework based on standardized patient examinations. This framework is designed to objectively assess the effectiveness of large language models (LLMs) in guiding users and following instructions, enabling a comprehensive comparison across different models. Furthermore, our investigation of effective ways to express physician preferences using Constitutional AI algorithms highlighted the particular effectiveness of flowcharts. Utilizing this finding, we introduce an innovative agent-based approach for annotating preference data. This approach autonomously creates medical dialogue flows tailored to the patient's condition, demonstrates strong generalization abilities, and reduces the need for expert involvement. Our results show that the agent-based approach outperforms existing RLAIF annotation methods in standardized patient examinations and surpasses current open source medical dialogue LLMs in various test scenarios.

Metasurface-based Snapshot Shortwave-Infrared Hyperspectral Image Reconstruction with Inter and Intra Prior Learning Network

Shortwave-infrared(SWIR) spectral information,ranging from 1 {\mu}m to 2.5{\mu}m, breaks the limitations of traditional color cameras in acquiring scene information and has been used in many fields. However, conventional SWIR hyperspectral imaging systems face challenges due to their bulky setups and low acquisition speed. In this work, we introduce a snapshot SWIR hyperspectral imaging system based on a metasurface filter and a corresponding filter selection method to achieve the lowest correlation coefficient among these filters.This systemhas the advantages of small size and snapshot imaging. We propose a novel inter and intra prior learning unfolding framework proposed to achieve high-quality SWIR hyperspectral image reconstruction, which bridges the gap between prior learning and cross-stage information interaction. We also design an adaptive feature transfer mechanism to adaptively the transfer contextual correlation of multi-scale encoder features to prevent detailed information loss in the decoder. Experiment results demonstrate that our method can reconstruct HSI with high speed and superior performance over existing methods.

FOTS: A Fast Optical Tactile Simulator for Sim2Real Learning of Tactile-motor Robot Manipulation Skills

Simulation is a widely used tool in robotics to reduce hardware consumption and gather large-scale data. Despite previous efforts to simulate optical tactile sensors, there remain challenges in efficiently synthesizing images and replicating marker motion under different contact loads. In this work, we propose a fast optical tactile simulator, named FOTS, for simulating optical tactile sensors. We utilize multi-layer perceptron mapping and planar shadow generation to simulate the optical response, while employing marker distribution approximation to simulate the motion of surface markers caused by the elastomer deformation. Experimental results demonstrate that FOTS outperforms other methods in terms of image generation quality and rendering speed, achieving 28.6 fps for optical simulation and 326.1 fps for marker motion simulation on a single CPU without GPU acceleration. In addition, we integrate the FOTS simulation model with physical engines like MuJoCo, and the peg-in-hole task demonstrates the effectiveness of our method in achieving zero-shot Sim2Real learning of tactile-motor robot manipulation skills. Our code is available at https://github.com/Rancho-zhao/FOTS.

Integrating Physician Diagnostic Logic into Large Language Models: Preference Learning from Process Feedback

The use of large language models in medical dialogue generation has garnered significant attention, with a focus on improving response quality and fluency. While previous studies have made progress in optimizing model performance for single-round medical Q&A tasks, there is a need to enhance the model's capability for multi-round conversations to avoid logical inconsistencies. To address this, we propose an approach called preference learning from process feedback~(PLPF), which integrates the doctor's diagnostic logic into LLMs. PLPF involves rule modeling, preference data generation, and preference alignment to train the model to adhere to the diagnostic process. Experimental results using Standardized Patient Testing show that PLPF enhances the diagnostic accuracy of the baseline model in medical conversations by 17.6%, outperforming traditional reinforcement learning from human feedback. Additionally, PLPF demonstrates effectiveness in both multi-round and single-round dialogue tasks, showcasing its potential for improving medical dialogue generation.

Enhancing the Spatial Awareness Capability of Multi-Modal Large Language Model

The Multi-Modal Large Language Model (MLLM) refers to an extension of the Large Language Model (LLM) equipped with the capability to receive and infer multi-modal data. Spatial awareness stands as one of the crucial abilities of MLLM, encompassing diverse skills related to understanding spatial relationships among objects and between objects and the scene area. Industries such as autonomous driving, smart healthcare, robotics, virtual, and augmented reality heavily demand MLLM's spatial awareness capabilities. However, there exists a noticeable gap between the current spatial awareness capabilities of MLLM and the requirements set by human needs. To address this issue, this paper proposes using more precise spatial position information between objects to guide MLLM in providing more accurate responses to user-related inquiries. Specifically, for a particular multi-modal task, we utilize algorithms for acquiring geometric spatial information and scene graphs to obtain relevant geometric spatial information and scene details of objects involved in the query. Subsequently, based on this information, we direct MLLM to address spatial awareness-related queries posed by the user. Extensive experiments were conducted in benchmarks such as MME, MM-Vet, and other multi-modal large language models. The experimental results thoroughly confirm the efficacy of the proposed method in enhancing the spatial awareness tasks and associated tasks of MLLM.

Multi-granularity Backprojection Transformer for Remote Sensing Image Super-Resolution

Backprojection networks have achieved promising super-resolution performance for nature images but not well be explored in the remote sensing image super-resolution (RSISR) field due to the high computation costs. In this paper, we propose a Multi-granularity Backprojection Transformer termed MBT for RSISR. MBT incorporates the backprojection learning strategy into a Transformer framework. It consists of Scale-aware Backprojection-based Transformer Layers (SPTLs) for scale-aware low-resolution feature learning and Context-aware Backprojection-based Transformer Blocks (CPTBs) for hierarchical feature learning. A backprojection-based reconstruction module (PRM) is also introduced to enhance the hierarchical features for image reconstruction. MBT stands out by efficiently learning low-resolution features without excessive modules for high-resolution processing, resulting in lower computational resources. Experiment results on UCMerced and AID datasets demonstrate that MBT obtains state-of-the-art results compared to other leading methods.

Enhancing Subtask Performance of Multi-modal Large Language Model

Multi-modal Large Language Model (MLLM) refers to a model expanded from a Large Language Model (LLM) that possesses the capability to handle and infer multi-modal data. Current MLLMs typically begin by using LLMs to decompose tasks into multiple subtasks, then employing individual pre-trained models to complete specific subtasks, and ultimately utilizing LLMs to integrate the results of each subtasks to obtain the results of the task. In real-world scenarios, when dealing with large projects, it is common practice to break down the project into smaller sub-projects, with different teams providing corresponding solutions or results. The project owner then decides which solution or result to use, ensuring the best possible outcome for each subtask and, consequently, for the entire project. Inspired by this, this study considers selecting multiple pre-trained models to complete the same subtask. By combining the results from multiple pre-trained models, the optimal subtask result is obtained, enhancing the performance of the MLLM. Specifically, this study first selects multiple pre-trained models focused on the same subtask based on distinct evaluation approaches, and then invokes these models in parallel to process input data and generate corresponding subtask results. Finally, the results from multiple pre-trained models for the same subtask are compared using the LLM, and the best result is chosen as the outcome for that subtask. Extensive experiments are conducted in this study using GPT-4 annotated datasets and human-annotated datasets. The results of various evaluation metrics adequately demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in this paper.

CORE: Cooperative Reconstruction for Multi-Agent Perception

This paper presents CORE, a conceptually simple, effective and communication-efficient model for multi-agent cooperative perception. It addresses the task from a novel perspective of cooperative reconstruction, based on two key insights: 1) cooperating agents together provide a more holistic observation of the environment, and 2) the holistic observation can serve as valuable supervision to explicitly guide the model learning how to reconstruct the ideal observation based on collaboration. CORE instantiates the idea with three major components: a compressor for each agent to create more compact feature representation for efficient broadcasting, a lightweight attentive collaboration component for cross-agent message aggregation, and a reconstruction module to reconstruct the observation based on aggregated feature representations. This learning-to-reconstruct idea is task-agnostic, and offers clear and reasonable supervision to inspire more effective collaboration, eventually promoting perception tasks. We validate CORE on OPV2V, a large-scale multi-agent percetion dataset, in two tasks, i.e., 3D object detection and semantic segmentation. Results demonstrate that the model achieves state-of-the-art performance on both tasks, and is more communication-efficient.

Cross-Spatial Pixel Integration and Cross-Stage Feature Fusion Based Transformer Network for Remote Sensing Image Super-Resolution

Remote sensing image super-resolution (RSISR) plays a vital role in enhancing spatial detials and improving the quality of satellite imagery. Recently, Transformer-based models have shown competitive performance in RSISR. To mitigate the quadratic computational complexity resulting from global self-attention, various methods constrain attention to a local window, enhancing its efficiency. Consequently, the receptive fields in a single attention layer are inadequate, leading to insufficient context modeling. Furthermore, while most transform-based approaches reuse shallow features through skip connections, relying solely on these connections treats shallow and deep features equally, impeding the model's ability to characterize them. To address these issues, we propose a novel transformer architecture called Cross-Spatial Pixel Integration and Cross-Stage Feature Fusion Based Transformer Network (SPIFFNet) for RSISR. Our proposed model effectively enhances global cognition and understanding of the entire image, facilitating efficient integration of features cross-stages. The model incorporates cross-spatial pixel integration attention (CSPIA) to introduce contextual information into a local window, while cross-stage feature fusion attention (CSFFA) adaptively fuses features from the previous stage to improve feature expression in line with the requirements of the current stage. We conducted comprehensive experiments on multiple benchmark datasets, demonstrating the superior performance of our proposed SPIFFNet in terms of both quantitative metrics and visual quality when compared to state-of-the-art methods.

Unsupervised Spectral Demosaicing with Lightweight Spectral Attention Networks

This paper presents a deep learning-based spectral demosaicing technique trained in an unsupervised manner. Many existing deep learning-based techniques relying on supervised learning with synthetic images, often underperform on real-world images especially when the number of spectral bands increases. According to the characteristics of the spectral mosaic image, this paper proposes a mosaic loss function, the corresponding model structure, a transformation strategy, and an early stopping strategy, which form a complete unsupervised spectral demosaicing framework. A challenge in real-world spectral demosaicing is inconsistency between the model parameters and the computational resources of the imager. We reduce the complexity and parameters of the spectral attention module by dividing the spectral attention tensor into spectral attention matrices in the spatial dimension and spectral attention vector in the channel dimension, which is more suitable for unsupervised framework. This paper also presents Mosaic25, a real 25-band hyperspectral mosaic image dataset of various objects, illuminations, and materials for benchmarking. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms conventional unsupervised methods in terms of spatial distortion suppression, spectral fidelity, robustness, and computational cost.