在许多重要的科学和工程应用中发现了卷数据。渲染此数据以高质量和交互速率为苛刻的应用程序（例如虚拟现实）的可视化化，即使使用专业级硬件也无法实现。我们介绍了Fovolnet - 一种可显着提高数量数据可视化的性能的方法。我们开发了一种具有成本效益的渲染管道，该管道稀疏地对焦点进行了量度，并使用深层神经网络重建了全帧。 FOVEATED渲染是一种优先考虑用户焦点渲染计算的技术。这种方法利用人类视觉系统的属性，从而在用户视野的外围呈现数据时节省了计算资源。我们的重建网络结合了直接和内核预测方法，以产生快速，稳定和感知令人信服的输出。凭借纤细的设计和量化的使用，我们的方法在端到端框架时间和视觉质量中都优于最先进的神经重建技术。我们对系统的渲染性能，推理速度和感知属性进行了广泛的评估，并提供了与竞争神经图像重建技术的比较。我们的测试结果表明，Fovolnet始终在保持感知质量的同时，在传统渲染上节省了大量时间。

机器学习和临床研究社区利用现实世界数据（RWD）的方法，包括电子健康记录中捕获的数据（EHR）截然不同。虽然临床研究人员谨慎使用RWD进行临床研究，但用于医疗团队的ML会消费公共数据集，并以最少的审查来开发新算法。这项研究通过开发和验证ML-DQA来弥合这一差距，ML-DQA是基于RWD最佳实践的数据质量保证框架。 ML-DQA框架适用于两个地理位置的五个ML项目，分别是不同的医疗状况和不同的人群。在这五个项目中，共收集了247,536名患者的RWD，共有2,999项质量检查和24份质量报告。出现了五种可推广的实践：所有项目都使用类似的方法来分组冗余数据元素表示；所有项目都使用自动实用程序来构建诊断和药物数据元素；所有项目都使用了一个共同的基于规则的转换库；所有项目都使用统一的方法将数据质量检查分配给数据元素；所有项目都使用类似的临床裁决方法。包括临床医生，数据科学家和受训者在内的平均有5.8个人参与每个项目实施ML-DQA，每个项目平均进行了23.4个数据元素。这项研究证明了ML-DQA在医疗项目中的重要性作用，并为团队提供了开展这些基本活动的框架。

神经网络在压缩体积数据以进行科学可视化方面表现出巨大的潜力。但是，由于训练和推断的高成本，此类体积神经表示仅应用于离线数据处理和非交互式渲染。在本文中，我们证明，通过同时利用现代的GPU张量核心，本地CUDA神经网络框架以及在线培训，我们可以使用体积神经表示来实现高性能和高效率交互式射线追踪。此外，我们的方法是完全概括的，可以适应时变的数据集。我们提出了三种用于在线培训的策略，每种策略都利用GPU，CPU和核心流程技术的不同组合。我们还开发了三个渲染实现，允许交互式射线跟踪与实时卷解码，示例流和幕后神经网络推断相结合。我们证明，我们的体积神经表示可以扩展到Terascale，以进行常规网格体积可视化，并可以轻松地支持不规则的数据结构，例如OpenVDB，非结构化，AMR和粒子体积数据。

灵巧的操纵仍然是机器人技术中的一个空缺问题。为了协调研究界为解决这个问题的努力，我们提出了共同的基准。我们设计和构建了机器人平台，该平台托管在MPI上供智能系统托管，可以远程访问。每个平台由三个能够敏捷物体操纵的机器人手指组成。用户能够通过提交自动执行的代码（类似于计算群集）来远程控制平台。使用此设置，i）我们举办机器人竞赛，来自世界任何地方的团队访问我们的平台以应对具有挑战性的任务ii）我们发布了在这些比赛中收集的数据集（包括数百个机器人小时），而我们为研究人员提供了访问自己项目的这些平台。

In this paper, we propose a novel technique, namely INVALIDATOR, to automatically assess the correctness of APR-generated patches via semantic and syntactic reasoning. INVALIDATOR reasons about program semantic via program invariants while it also captures program syntax via language semantic learned from large code corpus using the pre-trained language model. Given a buggy program and the developer-patched program, INVALIDATOR infers likely invariants on both programs. Then, INVALIDATOR determines that a APR-generated patch overfits if: (1) it violates correct specifications or (2) maintains errors behaviors of the original buggy program. In case our approach fails to determine an overfitting patch based on invariants, INVALIDATOR utilizes a trained model from labeled patches to assess patch correctness based on program syntax. The benefit of INVALIDATOR is three-fold. First, INVALIDATOR is able to leverage both semantic and syntactic reasoning to enhance its discriminant capability. Second, INVALIDATOR does not require new test cases to be generated but instead only relies on the current test suite and uses invariant inference to generalize the behaviors of a program. Third, INVALIDATOR is fully automated. We have conducted our experiments on a dataset of 885 patches generated on real-world programs in Defects4J. Experiment results show that INVALIDATOR correctly classified 79% overfitting patches, accounting for 23% more overfitting patches being detected by the best baseline. INVALIDATOR also substantially outperforms the best baselines by 14% and 19% in terms of Accuracy and F-Measure, respectively.

The recent increase in public and academic interest in preserving biodiversity has led to the growth of the field of conservation technology. This field involves designing and constructing tools that utilize technology to aid in the conservation of wildlife. In this article, we will use case studies to demonstrate the importance of designing conservation tools with human-wildlife interaction in mind and provide a framework for creating successful tools. These case studies include a range of complexities, from simple cat collars to machine learning and game theory methodologies. Our goal is to introduce and inform current and future researchers in the field of conservation technology and provide references for educating the next generation of conservation technologists. Conservation technology not only has the potential to benefit biodiversity but also has broader impacts on fields such as sustainability and environmental protection. By using innovative technologies to address conservation challenges, we can find more effective and efficient solutions to protect and preserve our planet's resources.

Variational autoencoders model high-dimensional data by positing low-dimensional latent variables that are mapped through a flexible distribution parametrized by a neural network. Unfortunately, variational autoencoders often suffer from posterior collapse: the posterior of the latent variables is equal to its prior, rendering the variational autoencoder useless as a means to produce meaningful representations. Existing approaches to posterior collapse often attribute it to the use of neural networks or optimization issues due to variational approximation. In this paper, we consider posterior collapse as a problem of latent variable non-identifiability. We prove that the posterior collapses if and only if the latent variables are non-identifiable in the generative model. This fact implies that posterior collapse is not a phenomenon specific to the use of flexible distributions or approximate inference. Rather, it can occur in classical probabilistic models even with exact inference, which we also demonstrate. Based on these results, we propose a class of latent-identifiable variational autoencoders, deep generative models which enforce identifiability without sacrificing flexibility. This model class resolves the problem of latent variable non-identifiability by leveraging bijective Brenier maps and parameterizing them with input convex neural networks, without special variational inference objectives or optimization tricks. Across synthetic and real datasets, latent-identifiable variational autoencoders outperform existing methods in mitigating posterior collapse and providing meaningful representations of the data.

Cashews are grown by over 3 million smallholders in more than 40 countries worldwide as a principal source of income. As the third largest cashew producer in Africa, Benin has nearly 200,000 smallholder cashew growers contributing 15% of the country's national export earnings. However, a lack of information on where and how cashew trees grow across the country hinders decision-making that could support increased cashew production and poverty alleviation. By leveraging 2.4-m Planet Basemaps and 0.5-m aerial imagery, newly developed deep learning algorithms, and large-scale ground truth datasets, we successfully produced the first national map of cashew in Benin and characterized the expansion of cashew plantations between 2015 and 2021. In particular, we developed a SpatioTemporal Classification with Attention (STCA) model to map the distribution of cashew plantations, which can fully capture texture information from discriminative time steps during a growing season. We further developed a Clustering Augmented Self-supervised Temporal Classification (CASTC) model to distinguish high-density versus low-density cashew plantations by automatic feature extraction and optimized clustering. Results show that the STCA model has an overall accuracy of 80% and the CASTC model achieved an overall accuracy of 77.9%. We found that the cashew area in Benin has doubled from 2015 to 2021 with 60% of new plantation development coming from cropland or fallow land, while encroachment of cashew plantations into protected areas has increased by 70%. Only half of cashew plantations were high-density in 2021, suggesting high potential for intensification. Our study illustrates the power of combining high-resolution remote sensing imagery and state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms to better understand tree crops in the heterogeneous smallholder landscape.

Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography (CCTA) provides information on the presence, extent, and severity of obstructive coronary artery disease. Large-scale clinical studies analyzing CCTA-derived metrics typically require ground-truth validation in the form of high-fidelity 3D intravascular imaging. However, manual rigid alignment of intravascular images to corresponding CCTA images is both time consuming and user-dependent. Moreover, intravascular modalities suffer from several non-rigid motion-induced distortions arising from distortions in the imaging catheter path. To address these issues, we here present a semi-automatic segmentation-based framework for both rigid and non-rigid matching of intravascular images to CCTA images. We formulate the problem in terms of finding the optimal \emph{virtual catheter path} that samples the CCTA data to recapitulate the coronary artery morphology found in the intravascular image. We validate our co-registration framework on a cohort of $n=40$ patients using bifurcation landmarks as ground truth for longitudinal and rotational registration. Our results indicate that our non-rigid registration significantly outperforms other co-registration approaches for luminal bifurcation alignment in both longitudinal (mean mismatch: 3.3 frames) and rotational directions (mean mismatch: 28.6 degrees). By providing a differentiable framework for automatic multi-modal intravascular data fusion, our developed co-registration modules significantly reduces the manual effort required to conduct large-scale multi-modal clinical studies while also providing a solid foundation for the development of machine learning-based co-registration approaches.

Springs are efficient in storing and returning elastic potential energy but are unable to hold the energy they store in the absence of an external load. Lockable springs use clutches to hold elastic potential energy in the absence of an external load but have not yet been widely adopted in applications, partly because clutches introduce design complexity, reduce energy efficiency, and typically do not afford high-fidelity control over the energy stored by the spring. Here, we present the design of a novel lockable compression spring that uses a small capstan clutch to passively lock a mechanical spring. The capstan clutch can lock up to 1000 N force at any arbitrary deflection, unlock the spring in less than 10 ms with a control force less than 1 % of the maximal spring force, and provide an 80 % energy storage and return efficiency (comparable to a highly efficient electric motor operated at constant nominal speed). By retaining the form factor of a regular spring while providing high-fidelity locking capability even under large spring forces, the proposed design could facilitate the development of energy-efficient spring-based actuators and robots.