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He Zhao

Publications and source records attributed to He Zhao.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

The Feasibility Study of the GeV-Energy Muon Source Based on HIAF

Generating a mono-energetic, high-energy muon beam using accelerator facilities can be very attractive for many purposes, for example, improving muon tomography currently limited by the low flux and wide energy spread of cosmic ray muons, and searching for muon related new physics beyond the Standard Model. One potential accelerator facility is the High Intensity Heavy-Ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF), which is currently under construction in Huizhou City, China. Considering the projectile energy and beamline length, a high-intensity and GeV-energy muon flux could be produced and delivered by the High Energy Fragment Separator beamline of the HIAF facility. In this paper, the flux intensity and purity of muon beam based on HIAF are discussed in detail. For the $μ^+$ beam, the highest muon yield reaches $8.2 \times 10^6 ~ μ$/s with the purity of approximately $2\%$ at a momentum of 3.5 GeV/c; meanwhile, for the $μ^-$ beam, the maximum muon yield is 4.2 $\times 10^6 ~ μ$/s with the purity of around $20\%$ at a momentum of 1.5 GeV/c. The results also indicate that, for muon beams with an energy of several GeV, by applying a suitable purification strategy, we can get a muon beam with a purity of 100\% and an intensity of the order of $10^5 ~ μ$/s.

physics.acc-ph↗

Are Spatial-Temporal Graph Convolution Networks for Human Action Recognition Over-Parameterized?

Spatial-temporal graph convolutional networks (ST-GCNs) showcase impressive performance in skeleton-based human action recognition (HAR). However, despite the development of numerous models, their recognition performance does not differ significantly after aligning the input settings. With this observation, we hypothesize that ST-GCNs are over-parameterized for HAR, a conjecture subsequently confirmed through experiments employing the lottery ticket hypothesis. Additionally, a novel sparse ST-GCNs generator is proposed, which trains a sparse architecture from a randomly initialized dense network while maintaining comparable performance levels to the dense components. Moreover, we generate multi-level sparsity ST-GCNs by integrating sparse structures at various sparsity levels and demonstrate that the assembled model yields a significant enhancement in HAR performance. Thorough experiments on four datasets, including NTU-RGB+D 60(120), Kinetics-400, and FineGYM, demonstrate that the proposed sparse ST-GCNs can achieve comparable performance to their dense components. Even with 95% fewer parameters, the sparse ST-GCNs exhibit a degradation of <1% in top-1 accuracy. Meanwhile, the multi-level sparsity ST-GCNs, which require only 66% of the parameters of the dense ST-GCNs, demonstrate an improvement of >1% in top-1 accuracy. The code is available at https://github.com/davelailai/Sparse-ST-GCN.

cs.CV↗

ADiff4TPP: Asynchronous Diffusion Models for Temporal Point Processes

This work introduces a novel approach to modeling temporal point processes using diffusion models with an asynchronous noise schedule. At each step of the diffusion process, the noise schedule injects noise of varying scales into different parts of the data. With a careful design of the noise schedules, earlier events are generated faster than later ones, thus providing stronger conditioning for forecasting the more distant future. We derive an objective to effectively train these models for a general family of noise schedules based on conditional flow matching. Our method models the joint distribution of the latent representations of events in a sequence and achieves state-of-the-art results in predicting both the next inter-event time and event type on benchmark datasets. Additionally, it flexibly accommodates varying lengths of observation and prediction windows in different forecasting settings by adjusting the starting and ending points of the generation process. Finally, our method shows superior performance in long-horizon prediction tasks, outperforming existing baseline methods.

cs.LG↗

Nearby open clusters with tidal features: golden sample selection and 3D structure

Open clusters offer unique opportunities to study stellar dynamics and evolution under the influence of their internal gravity, the Milky Way's gravitational field, and the interactions with encounters. Using the Gaia DR3 data for a catalog of open clusters within 500 parsecs that exhibit tidal features reported by the literature, we apply a novel method based on 3D principal component analysis to select a ``golden sample'' of nearby open clusters with minimal line-of-sight distortions. This approach ensures a systematic comparison of 3D and 2D structural parameters for tidally perturbed clusters. The selected golden sample includes Blanco 1, Melotte 20, Melotte 22, NGC 2632, NGC 7092, NGC 1662, Roslund 6 and Melotte 111. We analyze these clusters by fitting both 2D and 3D King Profiles to their stellar density distributions. Our results reveal systematic discrepancies: most of the golden sample clusters exhibit larger 3D tidal radii compared to their 2D counterparts, demonstrating that the 2D projection effects bias the measured cluster size. Furthermore, the 3D density profiles show stronger deviations from King profiles at the tidal radii ($Δρ_{\rm 3D} > Δρ_{\rm 2D}$), highlighting enhanced sensitivity to tidal disturbances. Additionally, we investigate the spatial distribution of cluster members relative to their bulk motion in the Galactic plane. We find that some clusters exhibit tidal features oriented perpendicular to their direction of motion, which can be attributed to the fact that the current surveys only detect the curved inner regions of the tidal features. In conclusion, this work offers a golden sample of nearby open clusters that are most reliable for 3D structure analysis and underscores the necessity of 3D analysis in characterizing OC morphological asymmetries, determining cluster size, and identifying tidal features.

astro-ph.GA↗

Direct Advantage Regression: Aligning LLMs with Online AI Reward

Online AI Feedback (OAIF) presents a promising alternative to Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) by utilizing online AI preference in aligning language models (LLMs). However, the straightforward replacement of humans with AI deprives LLMs from learning more fine-grained AI supervision beyond binary signals. In this paper, we propose Direct Advantage Regression (DAR), a simple alignment algorithm using online AI reward to optimize policy improvement through weighted supervised fine-tuning. As an RL-free approach, DAR maintains theoretical consistency with online RLHF pipelines while significantly reducing implementation complexity and improving learning efficiency. Our empirical results underscore that AI reward is a better form of AI supervision consistently achieving higher human-AI agreement as opposed to AI preference. Additionally, evaluations using GPT-4-Turbo and MT-bench show that DAR outperforms both OAIF and online RLHF baselines.

cs.AI↗

Beyond Words: Augmenting Discriminative Richness via Diffusions in Unsupervised Prompt Learning

Fine-tuning vision-language models (VLMs) with large amounts of unlabeled data has recently garnered significant interest. However, a key challenge remains the lack of high-quality pseudo-labeled data. Current pseudo-labeling strategies often struggle with mismatches between semantic and visual information, leading to sub-optimal performance of unsupervised prompt learning (UPL) methods. In this paper, we introduce a simple yet effective approach called \textbf{A}ugmenting D\textbf{i}scriminative \textbf{R}ichness via Diffusions (AiR), toward learning a richer discriminating way to represent the class comprehensively and thus facilitate classification. Specifically, our approach includes a pseudo-label generation module that leverages high-fidelity synthetic samples to create an auxiliary classifier, which captures richer visual variation, bridging text-image-pair classification to a more robust image-image-pair classification. Additionally, we exploit the diversity of diffusion-based synthetic samples to enhance prompt learning, providing greater information for semantic-visual alignment. Extensive experiments on five public benchmarks, including RESISC45 and Flowers102, and across three learning paradigms-UL, SSL, and TRZSL-demonstrate that AiR achieves substantial and consistent performance improvements over state-of-the-art unsupervised prompt learning methods.

cs.CV↗

Balancing Two Classifiers via A Simplex ETF Structure for Model Calibration

In recent years, deep neural networks (DNNs) have demonstrated state-of-the-art performance across various domains. However, despite their success, they often face calibration issues, particularly in safety-critical applications such as autonomous driving and healthcare, where unreliable predictions can have serious consequences. Recent research has started to improve model calibration from the view of the classifier. However, the exploration of designing the classifier to solve the model calibration problem is insufficient. Let alone most of the existing methods ignore the calibration errors arising from underconfidence. In this work, we propose a novel method by balancing learnable and ETF classifiers to solve the overconfidence or underconfidence problem for model Calibration named BalCAL. By introducing a confidence-tunable module and a dynamic adjustment method, we ensure better alignment between model confidence and its true accuracy. Extensive experimental validation shows that ours significantly improves model calibration performance while maintaining high predictive accuracy, outperforming existing techniques. This provides a novel solution to the calibration challenges commonly encountered in deep learning.

cs.LG↗

MCAT: Visual Query-Based Localization of Standard Anatomical Clips in Fetal Ultrasound Videos Using Multi-Tier Class-Aware Token Transformer

Accurate standard plane acquisition in fetal ultrasound (US) videos is crucial for fetal growth assessment, anomaly detection, and adherence to clinical guidelines. However, manually selecting standard frames is time-consuming and prone to intra- and inter-sonographer variability. Existing methods primarily rely on image-based approaches that capture standard frames and then classify the input frames across different anatomies. This ignores the dynamic nature of video acquisition and its interpretation. To address these challenges, we introduce Multi-Tier Class-Aware Token Transformer (MCAT), a visual query-based video clip localization (VQ-VCL) method, to assist sonographers by enabling them to capture a quick US sweep. By then providing a visual query of the anatomy they wish to analyze, MCAT returns the video clip containing the standard frames for that anatomy, facilitating thorough screening for potential anomalies. We evaluate MCAT on two ultrasound video datasets and a natural image VQ-VCL dataset based on Ego4D. Our model outperforms state-of-the-art methods by 10% and 13% mIoU on the ultrasound datasets and by 5.35% mIoU on the Ego4D dataset, using 96% fewer tokens. MCAT's efficiency and accuracy have significant potential implications for public health, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where it may enhance prenatal care by streamlining standard plane acquisition, simplifying US-based screening, diagnosis and allowing sonographers to examine more patients.

cs.CV↗

FedLWS: Federated Learning with Adaptive Layer-wise Weight Shrinking

In Federated Learning (FL), weighted aggregation of local models is conducted to generate a new global model, and the aggregation weights are typically normalized to 1. A recent study identifies the global weight shrinking effect in FL, indicating an enhancement in the global model's generalization when the sum of weights (i.e., the shrinking factor) is smaller than 1, where how to learn the shrinking factor becomes crucial. However, principled approaches to this solution have not been carefully studied from the adequate consideration of privacy concerns and layer-wise distinctions. To this end, we propose a novel model aggregation strategy, Federated Learning with Adaptive Layer-wise Weight Shrinking (FedLWS), which adaptively designs the shrinking factor in a layer-wise manner and avoids optimizing the shrinking factors on a proxy dataset. We initially explored the factors affecting the shrinking factor during the training process. Then we calculate the layer-wise shrinking factors by considering the distinctions among each layer of the global model. FedLWS can be easily incorporated with various existing methods due to its flexibility. Extensive experiments under diverse scenarios demonstrate the superiority of our method over several state-of-the-art approaches, providing a promising tool for enhancing the global model in FL.

cs.LG↗

FedAWA: Adaptive Optimization of Aggregation Weights in Federated Learning Using Client Vectors

Federated Learning (FL) has emerged as a promising framework for distributed machine learning, enabling collaborative model training without sharing local data, thereby preserving privacy and enhancing security. However, data heterogeneity resulting from differences across user behaviors, preferences, and device characteristics poses a significant challenge for federated learning. Most previous works overlook the adjustment of aggregation weights, relying solely on dataset size for weight assignment, which often leads to unstable convergence and reduced model performance. Recently, several studies have sought to refine aggregation strategies by incorporating dataset characteristics and model alignment. However, adaptively adjusting aggregation weights while ensuring data security-without requiring additional proxy data-remains a significant challenge. In this work, we propose Federated learning with Adaptive Weight Aggregation (FedAWA), a novel method that adaptively adjusts aggregation weights based on client vectors during the learning process. The client vector captures the direction of model updates, reflecting local data variations, and is used to optimize the aggregation weight without requiring additional datasets or violating privacy. By assigning higher aggregation weights to local models whose updates align closely with the global optimization direction, FedAWA enhances the stability and generalization of the global model. Extensive experiments under diverse scenarios demonstrate the superiority of our method, providing a promising solution to the challenges of data heterogeneity in federated learning.

cs.LG↗

The Multi-wavelength Extinction Law and its Variation in the Coalsack Molecular Cloud Based on the Gaia, APASS, SMSS, 2MASS, GLIMPSE, and WISE Surveys

Accurate interpretation of observations relies on the interstellar dust extinction law, which also serves as a powerful diagnostic for probing dust properties. In this study, we investigate the multi-wavelength extinction law of the quiescent, starless molecular cloud Coalsack and explore its potential variation across different interstellar environments: the surrounding region, the nearby high Galactic latitude region, the inner dense region, and the inner diffuse region. Using a sample of 368,524 dwarf stars selected from Gaia DR3 as tracers, we establish the effective temperature Teff-intrinsic color relations to derive the intrinsic color indices and optical-mid-infrared (MIR) color excess (CE) for 20 bands. Linear fits to the CE-CE diagrams provide color excess ratios (CERs), which are subsequently converted into relative extinction. The resulting extinction curves for different environments exhibit steep slopes in the near-infrared (NIR) and flat profiles in the MIR. In the optical-NIR range, the Coalsack extinction law is consistent with R_V = 3.1 while in the MIR it follows R_V= 5.5 similar to the results of active star-forming clouds. At an angular resolution of 1.3', our extinction map reveals fine cloud structures. No correlation is found between R_V and E(B-V) for E(B-V) > 0.3 mag, implying a uniform optical extinction law in the Coalsack cloud. The derived average R_V value is 3.24.

astro-ph.GA↗

LLM Reading Tea Leaves: Automatically Evaluating Topic Models with Large Language Models

Topic modeling has been a widely used tool for unsupervised text analysis. However, comprehensive evaluations of a topic model remain challenging. Existing evaluation methods are either less comparable across different models (e.g., perplexity) or focus on only one specific aspect of a model (e.g., topic quality or document representation quality) at a time, which is insufficient to reflect the overall model performance. In this paper, we propose WALM (Word Agreement with Language Model), a new evaluation method for topic modeling that considers the semantic quality of document representations and topics in a joint manner, leveraging the power of Large Language Models (LLMs). With extensive experiments involving different types of topic models, WALM is shown to align with human judgment and can serve as a complementary evaluation method to the existing ones, bringing a new perspective to topic modeling. Our software package is available at https://github.com/Xiaohao-Yang/Topic_Model_Evaluation.

cs.CL↗

Searching for Galactic Red Supergiants with Gaia RVS Spectra

Red supergiants (RSGs) are essential to understanding the evolution and the contribution to the interstellar medium of massive stars. However, the number of identified RSGs within the Milky Way is still limited mainly due to the difficulty of measuring stellar extinction and distance. The release of approximately one million RVS spectra in Gaia DR3 presents new opportunity for identifying Galactic RSGs, because the equivalent width of the calcium triplet lines (EW(CaT)) in the spectra is an excellent indicator of stellar surface gravity. This work uses the RVS spectra with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) greater than 100 to search for the Galactic RSGs. The dwarf stars and red giants are removed and the RSG candidates are selected by the location in the EW(CaT) vs. BP-RP diagram. The early-type RSG candidates (K0-M2) are then identified by BP-RP > 1.584 and EW(CaT) > 1.1 nm. To identify late-type RSG candidates (after M2), the criteria of the average equivalent widths of TiO in the XP spectra (EW(TiO)) > 10 nm, the color index K-W3 < 0.5 and the period-amplitude sequence from Gaia DR3 LPV catalog are further applied to reduce the contamination of late-type red giants and asymptotic giant branch stars. This method yields 30 early-type (K0-M2) and 6196 late-type (after M2) RSG candidates, which is a significant increase to the present Galactic RSG sample. The application of this approach to the spectra with SNR > 50 results in 48 early-type and 11,491 late-type RSG candidates. This preliminary analysis paves the way for more extensive research with Gaia DR4 when larger spectral datasets are expected to significantly enhance our understanding of Galactic RSG populations.

astro-ph.SR↗

The Flattest Infrared Extinction Curve in Four Isolated Dense Molecular Cloud Cores

The extinction curve of interstellar dust in the dense molecular cloud cores is crucial for understanding dust properties, particularly size distribution and composition. We investigate the infrared extinction law in four nearby isolated molecular cloud cores, L429, L483, L673, and L1165, across the 1.2 - 8.0 $μ$m wavelength range, using deep near-infrared (NIR) and mid-infrared (MIR) photometric data from UKIDSS and Spitzer Space Telescope. These observations probe an unprecedented extinction depth, reaching $A_V\sim$ 40-60 mag in these dense cloud cores. We derive color-excess ratios $E(K-λ)/E(H-K)$ by fitting color-color diagrams of $(K-λ)$ versus $(H-K)$, which are subsequently used to calculate the extinction law $A_λ/A_K$. Our analysis reveals remarkably similar and exceptionally flat infrared extinction curves for all four cloud cores, exhibiting the most pronounced flattening reported in the literature to date. This flatness is consistent with the presence of large dust grains, suggesting significant grain growth in dense environments. Intriguingly, our findings align closely with the Astrodust model for a diffuse interstellar environment proposed by Hensley \& Draine. This agreement between dense core observations and a diffuse medium model highlights the complexity of dust evolution and the need for further investigation into the processes governing dust properties in different interstellar environments.

astro-ph.GA↗

Measuring the Diffuse Interstellar Bands at 5780, 5797, and 6614 Å in Low-Resolution Spectra of Cool Stars from LAMOST

We attempt to measure the DIBs $λ$5780, $λ$5797 and $λ$6614 in over two million low-resolution spectra of cool stars from LAMOST. Based on the DIB measurements, the correlation between DIBs and extinction, the kinematics of DIBs, and the Galactic distribution of DIBs are reviewed and investigated from the perspective of statistics. A pipeline is developed to measure the DIBs $λ$5780, $λ$5797 and $λ$6614 in the LAMOST low-resolution spectra. We obtain the DIB measurements of spectra of late-type stars from LAMOST, and screen out 176,831, 13,473 and 110,152 high-quality (HQ) measurements of the DIBs $λ$5780, $λ$5797 and $λ$6614, respectively, corresponding to 142,074, 11,480 and 85,301 unique sources. Utilizing these HQ measurements, we present the Galactic maps of the DIBs $λ$5780 and $λ$6614 in the northern sky for the first time. The central wavelengths of the DIBs $λ$5780, $λ$5797 and $λ$6614 in air are determined to be 5780.48 $\pm$ 0.01, 5796.94 $\pm$ 0.02 and 6613.64 $\pm$ 0.01 Å, respectively, based on their kinematics. The equivalent widths of these three DIBs per unit extinction are statistically fitted to be 0.565, 0.176 and 0.256 Å/mag. As a part of our work, three catalogs of the HQ measurements for the DIBs $λ$5780, $λ$5797 and $λ$6614 are provided online. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest number of measurements of these three DIBs to date. It is also the first time that the Galactic maps of the DIBs $λ$5780 and $λ$6614 in the northern hemisphere are presented, and the central wavelengths of the DIBs $λ$5780, $λ$5797 and $λ$6614 are estimated from the kinematics.

astro-ph.GA↗

MED-VT++: Unifying Multimodal Learning with a Multiscale Encoder-Decoder Video Transformer

In this paper, we present an end-to-end trainable unified multiscale encoder-decoder transformer that is focused on dense prediction tasks in video. The presented Multiscale Encoder-Decoder Video Transformer (MED-VT) uses multiscale representation throughout and employs an optional input beyond video (e.g., audio), when available, for multimodal processing (MED-VT++). Multiscale representation at both encoder and decoder yields three key benefits: (i) implicit extraction of spatiotemporal features at different levels of abstraction for capturing dynamics without reliance on input optical flow, (ii) temporal consistency at encoding and (iii) coarse-to-fine detection for high-level (e.g., object) semantics to guide precise localization at decoding. Moreover, we present a transductive learning scheme through many-to-many label propagation to provide temporally consistent video predictions. We showcase MED-VT/MED-VT++ on three unimodal video segmentation tasks (Automatic Video Object Segmentation (AVOS), actor-action segmentation and Video Semantic Segmentation (VSS)) as well as a multimodal segmentation task (Audio-Visual Segmentation (AVS)). Results show that the proposed architecture outperforms alternative state-of-the-art approaches on multiple benchmarks using only video (and optional audio) as input, without reliance on optical flow. Finally, to document details of the model's internal learned representations, we present a detailed interpretability study, encompassing both quantitative and qualitative analyses.

cs.CV↗

Performance and tolerance study of the rectilinear cooling channel for a muon collider

The muon collider has the potential to be a powerful tool for the exploration of frontiers in particle physics. In order to reach high luminosity, the 6D emittance of the muon beam needs to be reduced by several orders of magnitude. The cooling process for a muon collider involves two parts; initial six-dimensional cooling and final transverse cooling. This paper focuses on the former and proposes a conceptual design of the rectilinear cooling channel with additional dipole magnets. In this paper, we first introduce a general method for designing the rectilinear cooling channel. Subsequently, we apply this method to develop two rectilinear cooling channels before and after a bunch merging system. Furthermore, we investigate the impact on cooling performance by employing $π$-mode RF cavities and considering the effect of errors in the magnetic and RF fields.

physics.acc-ph↗

Data-driven stellar intrinsic colors and dust reddenings for spectro-photometric data: From the blue-edge method to a machine-learning approach

Intrinsic colors (ICs) of stars are essential for the studies on both stellar physics and dust reddening. In this work, we developed an XGBoost model to predict the ICs with the atmospheric parameters $T_{\rm eff}$, ${\rm log}\,g$, and $\rm [M/H]$. The model was trained and tested for three colors at Gaia and 2MASS bands with 1,040,446 low-reddening sources. The atmospheric parameters were determined by the Gaia DR3 GSP-phot module and were validated by comparing with APOGEE and LAMOST. We further confirmed that the biases in GSP-phot parameters, especially for $\rm [M/H]$, do not present a significant impact on the IC prediction. The generalization error of the model estimated by the test set is 0.014 mag for $(G_{\rm BP}\,{-}\,G_{\rm RP})_0$, 0.050 mag for $(G_{\rm BP}\,{-}\,K_{\rm S})_0$, and 0.040 mag for $(J\,{-}\,K_{\rm S})_0$. The model was applied to a sample containing 5,714,528 reddened stars with stellar parameters from Andrae et al. (2023) to calculate ICs and reddenings. The high consistency in the comparison of $E(J\,{-}\,K_{\rm S})$ between our results and literature values further validates the accuracy of the XGBoost model. The variation of $E(G_{\rm BP}\,{-}\,K_{\rm S})/E(G_{\rm BP}\,{-}\,G_{\rm RP})$, a representation of the extinction law, with Galactic longitude is found on large scales. This work preliminarily presents the feasibility and the accuracy of the machine-learning approach for IC and dust reddening calculation, whose products could be widely applied to spectro-photometric data. The data sets and trained model can be accessed via \url{https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12787594}. The models for more bands will be completed in the following works.

astro-ph.SR↗