Machine Learning models capable of handling the large datasets collected in the financial world can often become black boxes expensive to run. The quantum computing paradigm suggests new optimization techniques, that combined with classical algorithms, may deliver competitive, faster and more interpretable models. In this work we propose a quantum-enhanced machine learning solution for the prediction of credit rating downgrades, also known as fallen-angels forecasting in the financial risk management field. We implement this solution on a neutral atom Quantum Processing Unit with up to 60 qubits on a real-life dataset. We report competitive performances against the state-of-the-art Random Forest benchmark whilst our model achieves better interpretability and comparable training times. We examine how to improve performance in the near-term validating our ideas with Tensor Networks-based numerical simulations.

Real-world datasets exhibit imbalances of varying types and degrees. Several techniques based on re-weighting and margin adjustment of loss are often used to enhance the performance of neural networks, particularly on minority classes. In this work, we analyze the class-imbalanced learning problem by examining the loss landscape of neural networks trained with re-weighting and margin-based techniques. Specifically, we examine the spectral density of Hessian of class-wise loss, through which we observe that the network weights converge to a saddle point in the loss landscapes of minority classes. Following this observation, we also find that optimization methods designed to escape from saddle points can be effectively used to improve generalization on minority classes. We further theoretically and empirically demonstrate that Sharpness-Aware Minimization (SAM), a recent technique that encourages convergence to a flat minima, can be effectively used to escape saddle points for minority classes. Using SAM results in a 6.2\% increase in accuracy on the minority classes over the state-of-the-art Vector Scaling Loss, leading to an overall average increase of 4\% across imbalanced datasets. The code is available at: https://github.com/val-iisc/Saddle-LongTail.

Machine learning (ML) models are nowadays used in complex applications in various domains, such as medicine, bioinformatics, and other sciences. Due to their black box nature, however, it may sometimes be hard to understand and trust the results they provide. This has increased the demand for reliable visualization tools related to enhancing trust in ML models, which has become a prominent topic of research in the visualization community over the past decades. To provide an overview and present the frontiers of current research on the topic, we present a State-of-the-Art Report (STAR) on enhancing trust in ML models with the use of interactive visualization. We define and describe the background of the topic, introduce a categorization for visualization techniques that aim to accomplish this goal, and discuss insights and opportunities for future research directions. Among our contributions is a categorization of trust against different facets of interactive ML, expanded and improved from previous research. Our results are investigated from different analytical perspectives: (a) providing a statistical overview, (b) summarizing key findings, (c) performing topic analyses, and (d) exploring the data sets used in the individual papers, all with the support of an interactive web-based survey browser. We intend this survey to be beneficial for visualization researchers whose interests involve making ML models more trustworthy, as well as researchers and practitioners from other disciplines in their search for effective visualization techniques suitable for solving their tasks with confidence and conveying meaning to their data.

Counterfactuals are often described as 'retrospective,' focusing on hypothetical alternatives to a realized past. This description relates to an often implicit assumption about the structure and stability of exogenous variables in the system being modeled -- an assumption that is reasonable in many settings where counterfactuals are used. In this work, we consider cases where we might reasonably make a different assumption about exogenous variables, namely, that the exogenous noise terms of each unit do exhibit some unit-specific structure and/or stability. This leads us to a different use of counterfactuals -- a 'forward-looking' rather than 'retrospective' counterfactual. We introduce "counterfactual treatment choice," a type of treatment choice problem that motivates using forward-looking counterfactuals. We then explore how mismatches between interventional versus forward-looking counterfactual approaches to treatment choice, consistent with different assumptions about exogenous noise, can lead to counterintuitive results.

诸如DALL-E 2之类的生成模型可以代表放射学中人工智能研究的图像生成，增强和操纵的有希望的未来工具，前提是这些模型具有足够的医疗领域知识。在这里，我们证明DALL-E 2在零拍的文本到图像生成方面，学习了具有有希望的功能的X射线图像的相关表示，将图像的延续超出其原始边界或删除元素，尽管病理产生或CT，MRI和超声图像仍然受到限制。因此，即使事先需要对这些模型进行进一步的微调和适应，也需要使用生成模型来增强和生成放射学数据似乎是可行的。

互动主义模型引入了一种动态的语言，交流和认知方法。在这项工作中，我们在对话对话系统（SDS）的对话建模的背景下探讨了这一基本理论。为了扩展这样的理论框架，我们提出了一组设计原则，这些设计原则遵守中央心理语言和交流理论，以实现SDS中的互动主义。通过这些，关键思想可以构成我们提出的设计原则的基础。

开发有效的自动分类器将真实来源与工件分开，对于宽场光学调查的瞬时随访至关重要。在图像差异过程之后，从减法伪像的瞬态检测鉴定是此类分类器的关键步骤，称为真实 - 博格斯分类问题。我们将自我监督的机器学习模型，深入的自组织地图（DESOM）应用于这个“真实的模拟”分类问题。 DESOM结合了自动编码器和一个自组织图以执行聚类，以根据其维度降低的表示形式来区分真实和虚假的检测。我们使用32x32归一化检测缩略图作为底部的输入。我们展示了不同的模型训练方法，并发现我们的最佳DESOM分类器显示出6.6％的检测率，假阳性率为1.5％。 Desom提供了一种更细微的方法来微调决策边界，以确定与其他类型的分类器（例如在神经网络或决策树上构建的）结合使用时可能进行的实际检测。我们还讨论了DESOM及其局限性的其他潜在用法。

现有的数据驱动和反馈流量控制策略不考虑实时数据测量的异质性。此外，对于缺乏数据效率，传统的加固学习方法（RL）方法通常会缓慢收敛。此外，常规的最佳外围控制方案需要对系统动力学的精确了解，因此对内源性不确定性会很脆弱。为了应对这些挑战，这项工作提出了一种基于不可或缺的增强学习（IRL）的方法来学习宏观交通动态，以进行自适应最佳周边控制。这项工作为运输文献做出了以下主要贡献：（a）开发连续的时间控制，并具有离散增益更新以适应离散时间传感器数据。 （b）为了降低采样复杂性并更有效地使用可用数据，将体验重播（ER）技术引入IRL算法。 （c）所提出的方法以“无模型”方式放松模型校准的要求，该方式可以稳健地进行建模不确定性，并通过数据驱动的RL算法增强实时性能。 （d）通过Lyapunov理论证明了基于IRL的算法和受控交通动力学的稳定性的收敛性。最佳控制定律被参数化，然后通过神经网络（NN）近似，从而缓解计算复杂性。在不需要模型线性化的同时，考虑了状态和输入约束。提出了数值示例和仿真实验，以验证所提出方法的有效性和效率。

最近的研究表明，犯罪网络具有复杂的组织结构，但是是否可以用来预测犯罪网络的静态和动态特性。在这里，通过结合图表学习和机器学习方法，我们表明，可以使用政治腐败，警察情报和洗钱网络的结构性特性来恢复缺失的犯罪伙伴关系，区分不同类型的犯罪和法律协会以及预测犯罪分子之间交换的总金额，所有这些都具有出色的准确性。我们还表明，我们的方法可以预期在腐败网络的动态增长过程中，其准确性很高。因此，与在犯罪现场发现的证据类似，我们得出结论，犯罪网络的结构模式具有有关非法活动的重要信息，这使机器学习方法可以预测缺失的信息，甚至预测未来的犯罪行为。

ICECUBE是一种用于检测1 GEV和1 PEV之间大气和天体中微子的光学传感器的立方公斤阵列，该阵列已部署1.45 km至2.45 km的南极的冰盖表面以下1.45 km至2.45 km。来自ICE探测器的事件的分类和重建在ICeCube数据分析中起着核心作用。重建和分类事件是一个挑战，这是由于探测器的几何形状，不均匀的散射和冰中光的吸收，并且低于100 GEV的光，每个事件产生的信号光子数量相对较少。为了应对这一挑战，可以将ICECUBE事件表示为点云图形，并将图形神经网络（GNN）作为分类和重建方法。 GNN能够将中微子事件与宇宙射线背景区分开，对不同的中微子事件类型进行分类，并重建沉积的能量，方向和相互作用顶点。基于仿真，我们提供了1-100 GEV能量范围的比较与当前ICECUBE分析中使用的当前最新最大似然技术，包括已知系统不确定性的影响。对于中微子事件分类，与当前的IceCube方法相比，GNN以固定的假阳性速率（FPR）提高了信号效率的18％。另外，GNN在固定信号效率下将FPR的降低超过8（低于半百分比）。对于能源，方向和相互作用顶点的重建，与当前最大似然技术相比，分辨率平均提高了13％-20％。当在GPU上运行时，GNN能够以几乎是2.7 kHz的中位数ICECUBE触发速率的速率处理ICECUBE事件，这打开了在在线搜索瞬态事件中使用低能量中微子的可能性。