The number of international benchmarking competitions is steadily increasing in various fields of machine learning (ML) research and practice. So far, however, little is known about the common practice as well as bottlenecks faced by the community in tackling the research questions posed. To shed light on the status quo of algorithm development in the specific field of biomedical imaging analysis, we designed an international survey that was issued to all participants of challenges conducted in conjunction with the IEEE ISBI 2021 and MICCAI 2021 conferences (80 competitions in total). The survey covered participants' expertise and working environments, their chosen strategies, as well as algorithm characteristics. A median of 72% challenge participants took part in the survey. According to our results, knowledge exchange was the primary incentive (70%) for participation, while the reception of prize money played only a minor role (16%). While a median of 80 working hours was spent on method development, a large portion of participants stated that they did not have enough time for method development (32%). 25% perceived the infrastructure to be a bottleneck. Overall, 94% of all solutions were deep learning-based. Of these, 84% were based on standard architectures. 43% of the respondents reported that the data samples (e.g., images) were too large to be processed at once. This was most commonly addressed by patch-based training (69%), downsampling (37%), and solving 3D analysis tasks as a series of 2D tasks. K-fold cross-validation on the training set was performed by only 37% of the participants and only 50% of the participants performed ensembling based on multiple identical models (61%) or heterogeneous models (39%). 48% of the respondents applied postprocessing steps.

We present SLATE, a sequence labeling approach for extracting tasks from free-form content such as digitally handwritten (or "inked") notes on a virtual whiteboard. Our approach allows us to create a single, low-latency model to simultaneously perform sentence segmentation and classification of these sentences into task/non-task sentences. SLATE greatly outperforms a baseline two-model (sentence segmentation followed by classification model) approach, achieving a task F1 score of 84.4\%, a sentence segmentation (boundary similarity) score of 88.4% and three times lower latency compared to the baseline. Furthermore, we provide insights into tackling challenges of performing NLP on the inking domain. We release both our code and dataset for this novel task.

相干显微镜技术提供了跨科学和技术领域的材料的无与伦比的多尺度视图，从结构材料到量子设备，从综合电路到生物细胞。在构造更明亮的来源和高速探测器的驱动下，连贯的X射线显微镜方法（如Ptychography）有望彻底改变纳米级材料的特征。但是，相关的数据和计算需求显着增加意味着，常规方法不再足以从高速相干成像实验实时恢复样品图像。在这里，我们演示了一个工作流程，该工作流利用边缘的人工智能和高性能计算，以实现直接从检测器直接从检测器流出的X射线ptychography数据实时反演。拟议的AI支持的工作流程消除了传统的Ptychography施加的采样约束，从而使用比传统方法所需的数据较少的数据级允许低剂量成像。

我们解决了动态环境中感知力的问题。在这个问题中，四足动物的机器人必须对环境混乱和移动的障碍物表现出强大而敏捷的步行行为。我们提出了一个名为Prelude的分层学习框架，该框架将感知力的问题分解为高级决策，以预测导航命令和低级步态生成以实现目标命令。在此框架中，我们通过在可进入手推车上收集的人类示范和使用加固学习（RL）的低级步态控制器（RL）上收集的人类示范中的模仿学习来训练高级导航控制器。因此，我们的方法可以从人类监督中获取复杂的导航行为，并从反复试验中发现多功能步态。我们证明了方法在模拟和硬件实验中的有效性。可以在https://ut-aut-autin-rpl.github.io/prelude上找到视频和代码。

语言模型既展示了定量的改进，又展示了新的定性功能，随着规模的增加。尽管它们具有潜在的变革性影响，但这些新能力的特征却很差。为了为未来的研究提供信息，为破坏性的新模型能力做准备，并改善社会有害的效果，至关重要的是，我们必须了解目前和近乎未来的能力和语言模型的局限性。为了应对这一挑战，我们介绍了超越模仿游戏基准（Big Bench）。 Big Bench目前由204个任务组成，由132家机构的442位作者贡献。任务主题是多样的，从语言学，儿童发展，数学，常识性推理，生物学，物理学，社会偏见，软件开发等等。 Big-Bench专注于被认为超出当前语言模型的功能的任务。我们评估了OpenAI的GPT型号，Google内部密集变压器体系结构和大型基础上的开关稀疏变压器的行为，跨越了数百万到数十亿个参数。此外，一个人类专家评估者团队执行了所有任务，以提供强大的基准。研究结果包括：模型性能和校准都随规模改善，但绝对的术语（以及与评估者的性能相比）；在模型类中的性能非常相似，尽管带有稀疏性。逐渐和预测的任务通常涉及大量知识或记忆成分，而在临界规模上表现出“突破性”行为的任务通常涉及多个步骤或组成部分或脆性指标；社交偏见通常会随着含糊不清的环境而随着规模而增加，但这可以通过提示来改善。

数据增强是自然语言处理（NLP）模型的鲁棒性评估的重要组成部分，以及增强他们培训的数据的多样性。在本文中，我们呈现NL-Cogmenter，这是一种新的参与式Python的自然语言增强框架，它支持创建两个转换（对数据的修改）和过滤器（根据特定功能的数据拆分）。我们描述了框架和初始的117个变换和23个过滤器，用于各种自然语言任务。我们通过使用其几个转换来分析流行自然语言模型的鲁棒性来证明NL-Upmenter的功效。基础架构，Datacards和稳健性分析结果在NL-Augmenter存储库上公开可用（\ url {https://github.com/gem-benchmark/nl-augmenter}）。

人类在感知幻觉纲要方面非常出色。我们随时能够在提供包含连接外观的破碎碎片的图像时完成轮廓，形状，场景，甚至不均匀的对象。在视觉科学中，这种能力在很大程度上通过感知分组解释：人类视觉中的基础集进程，描述了如何分组分离的元素。在本文中，我们重新审视了一种称为随机完成领域（SCFS）的算法，该算法机械化一套这样的工艺 - 良好的连续性，闭合和接近 - 通过轮廓完成。本文实现了SCF算法的现代化模型，并在图像编辑框架中使用它提出了新的方法来完成碎片的轮廓。我们展示了SCF算法如何合理地模仿人类感知。我们使用SCF完成的轮廓作为染色的指南，并表明我们的指南提高了最先进的模型的性能。此外，我们表明SCF有助于在高噪声环境中找到边缘。总体而言，我们所描述的算法类似于人类视觉系统中的一个重要机制，并提供了一种新颖的计算机视觉模型可以从中受益的新框架。

Existing federated classification algorithms typically assume the local annotations at every client cover the same set of classes. In this paper, we aim to lift such an assumption and focus on a more general yet practical non-IID setting where every client can work on non-identical and even disjoint sets of classes (i.e., client-exclusive classes), and the clients have a common goal which is to build a global classification model to identify the union of these classes. Such heterogeneity in client class sets poses a new challenge: how to ensure different clients are operating in the same latent space so as to avoid the drift after aggregation? We observe that the classes can be described in natural languages (i.e., class names) and these names are typically safe to share with all parties. Thus, we formulate the classification problem as a matching process between data representations and class representations and break the classification model into a data encoder and a label encoder. We leverage the natural-language class names as the common ground to anchor the class representations in the label encoder. In each iteration, the label encoder updates the class representations and regulates the data representations through matching. We further use the updated class representations at each round to annotate data samples for locally-unaware classes according to similarity and distill knowledge to local models. Extensive experiments on four real-world datasets show that the proposed method can outperform various classical and state-of-the-art federated learning methods designed for learning with non-IID data.

The rise in data has led to the need for dimension reduction techniques, especially in the area of non-scalar variables, including time series, natural language processing, and computer vision. In this paper, we specifically investigate dimension reduction for time series through functional data analysis. Current methods for dimension reduction in functional data are functional principal component analysis and functional autoencoders, which are limited to linear mappings or scalar representations for the time series, which is inefficient. In real data applications, the nature of the data is much more complex. We propose a non-linear function-on-function approach, which consists of a functional encoder and a functional decoder, that uses continuous hidden layers consisting of continuous neurons to learn the structure inherent in functional data, which addresses the aforementioned concerns in the existing approaches. Our approach gives a low dimension latent representation by reducing the number of functional features as well as the timepoints at which the functions are observed. The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated through multiple simulations and real data examples.

Landing an unmanned aerial vehicle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on top of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) in harsh open waters is a challenging problem, owing to forces that can damage the UAV due to a severe roll and/or pitch angle of the USV during touchdown. To tackle this, we propose a novel model predictive control (MPC) approach enabling a UAV to land autonomously on a USV in these harsh conditions. The MPC employs a novel objective function and an online decomposition of the oscillatory motion of the vessel to predict, attempt, and accomplish the landing during near-zero tilt of the landing platform. The nonlinear prediction of the motion of the vessel is performed using visual data from an onboard camera. Therefore, the system does not require any communication with the USV or a control station. The proposed method was analyzed in numerous robotics simulations in harsh and extreme conditions and further validated in various real-world scenarios.