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Qin Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Qin Wang.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

TDML -- A Trustworthy Distributed Machine Learning Framework

Recent years have witnessed a surge in deep learning research, marked by the introduction of expansive generative models like OpenAI's SORA and GPT, Meta AI's LLAMA series, and Google's FLAN, BART, and Gemini models. However, the rapid advancement of large models (LM) has intensified the demand for computing resources, particularly GPUs, which are crucial for their parallel processing capabilities. This demand is exacerbated by limited GPU availability due to supply chain delays and monopolistic acquisition by major tech firms. Distributed Machine Learning (DML) methods, such as Federated Learning (FL), mitigate these challenges by partitioning data and models across multiple servers, though implementing optimizations like tensor and pipeline parallelism remains complex. Blockchain technology emerges as a promising solution, ensuring data integrity, scalability, and trust in distributed computing environments, but still lacks guidance on building practical DML systems. In this paper, we propose a \textit{trustworthy distributed machine learning} (TDML) framework that leverages blockchain to coordinate remote trainers and validate workloads, achieving privacy, transparency, and efficient model training across public remote computing resources. Experimental validation demonstrates TDML's efficacy in overcoming performance limitations and malicious node detection, positioning it as a robust solution for scalable and secure distributed machine learning.

cs.CR↗

Bridging BRC-20 to Ethereum

In this paper, we design, implement, and (partially-) evaluate a lightweight bridge (as a type of middleware) to connect the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks that were heterogeneously uncontactable before. Inspired by the recently introduced Bitcoin Request Comment (BRC-20) standard, we leverage the flexibility of Bitcoin inscriptions by embedding editable operations within each satoshi and mapping them to programmable Ethereum smart contracts. A user can initialize his/her requests from the Bitcoin network, subsequently triggering corresponding actions on the Ethereum network. We validate the lightweight nature of our solution and its ability to facilitate secure and seamless interactions between two heterogeneous ecosystems.

cs.CR↗

Maximizing NFT Incentives: References Make You Rich

In this paper, we study how to optimize existing Non-Fungible Token (NFT) incentives. Upon exploring a large number of NFT-related standards and real-world projects, we come across an unexpected finding. That is, the current NFT incentive mechanisms, often organized in an isolated and one-time-use fashion, tend to overlook their potential for scalable organizational structures. We propose, analyze, and implement a novel reference incentive model, which is inherently structured as a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)-based NFT network. This model aims to maximize connections (or references) between NFTs, enabling each isolated NFT to expand its network and accumulate rewards derived from subsequent or subscribed ones. We conduct both theoretical and practical analyses of the model, demonstrating its optimal utility.

cs.GT↗

Bitcoin Inscriptions: Foundations and Beyond

Bitcoin inscription marks a pivotal moment in blockchain technology. This report presents a primary exploration of Bitcoin inscriptions. We dive into the technological underpinnings and offer a detailed comparative analysis between Bitcoin inscriptions and NFTs on other blockchains. Further, we explore a wide range of use cases and significant opportunities for future innovation, including inscription derivative protocols, Bitcoin Layer2 solutions, and interoperability techniques.

cs.CR↗

From Beginner to Expert: Modeling Medical Knowledge into General LLMs

Recently, large language model (LLM) based artificial intelligence (AI) systems have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in natural language understanding and generation. However, these models face a significant challenge when it comes to sensitive applications, such as reasoning over medical knowledge and answering medical questions in a physician-like manner. Prior studies attempted to overcome this challenge by increasing the model size (>100B) to learn more general medical knowledge, while there is still room for improvement in LLMs with smaller-scale model sizes (<100B). In this work, we start from a pre-trained general LLM model (AntGLM-10B) and fine-tune it from a medical beginner towards a medical expert (called AntGLM-Med-10B), which leverages a 3-stage optimization procedure, i.e., general medical knowledge injection, medical domain instruction tuning, and specific medical task adaptation. Our contributions are threefold: (1) We specifically investigate how to adapt a pre-trained general LLM in medical domain, especially for a specific medical task. (2) We collect and construct large-scale medical datasets for each stage of the optimization process. These datasets encompass various data types and tasks, such as question-answering, medical reasoning, multi-choice questions, and medical conversations. (3) Specifically for multi-choice questions in the medical domain, we propose a novel Verification-of-Choice approach for prompting engineering, which significantly enhances the reasoning ability of LLMs. Remarkably, by combining the above approaches, our AntGLM-Med-10B model can outperform the most of LLMs on PubMedQA, including both general and medical LLMs, even when these LLMs have larger model size.

cs.CL↗

Higher index theory for spaces with an FCE-by-FCE structure

Let $(1\to N_n\to G_n\to Q_n\to 1)_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ be a sequence of extensions of finite groups. Assume that the coarse disjoint unions of $(N_n)_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$, $(G_n)_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$ and $(Q_n)_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$ have bounded geometry. The sequence $(G_n)_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ is said to have an \emph{FCE-by-FCE structure}, if the sequence $(N_n)_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ and the sequence $(Q_n)_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ admit \emph{a fibred coarse embedding} into Hilbert space. In this paper, we show that the coarse Novikov conjecture holds for spaces with an FCE-by-FCE structure.

math.KT↗

Decentralized Finance (DeFi): A Survey

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a new paradigm in the creation, distribution, and utilization of financial services via the integration of blockchain technology. Our research conducts a comprehensive introduction and meticulous classification of various DeFi applications. Beyond that, we thoroughly analyze these risks from both technical and economic perspectives, spanning multiple layers. We point out research gaps and revenues, covering technical advancements, innovative economics, and sociology and ecology optimization.

cs.CR↗

UMDFood: Vision-language models boost food composition compilation

Nutrition information is crucial in precision nutrition and the food industry. The current food composition compilation paradigm relies on laborious and experience-dependent methods. However, these methods struggle to keep up with the dynamic consumer market, resulting in delayed and incomplete nutrition data. In addition, earlier machine learning methods overlook the information in food ingredient statements or ignore the features of food images. To this end, we propose a novel vision-language model, UMDFood-VL, using front-of-package labeling and product images to accurately estimate food composition profiles. In order to empower model training, we established UMDFood-90k, the most comprehensive multimodal food database to date, containing 89,533 samples, each labeled with image and text-based ingredient descriptions and 11 nutrient annotations. UMDFood-VL achieves the macro-AUCROC up to 0.921 for fat content estimation, which is significantly higher than existing baseline methods and satisfies the practical requirements of food composition compilation. Meanwhile, up to 82.2% of selected products' estimated error between chemical analysis results and model estimation results are less than 10%. This performance sheds light on generalization towards other food and nutrition-related data compilation and catalyzation for the evolution of generative AI-based technology in other food applications that require personalization.

cs.CV↗

BDTS: Blockchain-based Data Trading System

Trading data through blockchain platforms is hard to achieve \textit{fair exchange}. Reasons come from two folds: Firstly, guaranteeing fairness between sellers and consumers is a challenging task as the deception of any participating parties is risk-free. This leads to the second issue where judging the behavior of data executors (such as cloud service providers) among distrustful parties is impractical in the context of traditional trading protocols. To fill the gaps, in this paper, we present a \underline{b}lockchain-based \underline{d}ata \underline{t}rading \underline{s}ystem, named BDTS. BDTS implements a fair-exchange protocol in which benign behaviors can get rewarded while dishonest behaviors will be punished. Our scheme requires the seller to provide consumers with the correct encryption keys for proper execution and encourage a rational data executor to behave faithfully for maximum benefits from rewards. We analyze the strategies of consumers, sellers, and dealers in the trading game and point out that everyone should be honest about their interests so that the game will reach Nash equilibrium. Evaluations prove efficiency and practicability.

cs.CR↗

Towards Web3 Applications: Easing the Access and Transition

Web3 is leading a wave of the next generation of web services that even many Web2 applications are keen to ride. However, the lack of Web3 background for Web2 developers hinders easy and effective access and transition. On the other hand, Web3 applications desire for encouragement and advertisement from conventional Web2 companies and projects due to their low market shares. In this paper, we propose a seamless transition framework that transits Web2 to Web3, named WebttCom, after exploring the connotation of Web3 and the key differences between Web2 and Web3 applications. We also provide a full-stack implementation as a use case to support the proposed framework, followed by interviews with five participants that show four positive and one natural response. We confirm that the proposed framework WebttCom addresses the defined research question, and the implementation well satisfies the framework WebttCom in terms of strong necessity, usability, and completeness based on the interview results.

cs.SE↗

How to Rationally Select Your Delegatee in PoS

This paper centers around a simple yet crucial question for everyday users: How should one choose their delegated validators within proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols, particularly in the context of Ethereum 2.0? This has been a long-overlooked gap, as existing studies have primarily focused on inter-committee (validator set) behaviors and activities, while neglecting the dynamic formation of committees, especially for individual stakeholders seeking reliable validators. Our study bridges this gap by diving into the delegation process (normal users delegate their small-value tokens to delegatees who later act as validators) before entering an actual consensus phase. We propose a Bayesian model to quantify normal users' trust in delegatees, which we further incorporate into a game-theoretical model to simulate users' reactions against a set of critical factors identified through extensive research (including 10+ staking service provider as well as 30+ PoS blockchains). Our results reveal that users tend to choose their delegatees and utilize their tokens by carefully weighing the delegation cost, the behaviors of other users, and the reputation of delegatees, ultimately reaching a Nash equilibrium. Unfortunately, the collective trend significantly increases the likelihood of token concentration on a small number of delegatees.

cs.CR↗

Cryptocurrency in the Aftermath: Unveiling the Impact of the SVB Collapse

In this paper, we explore the aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse, with a particular focus on its impact on crypto markets. We conduct a multi-dimensional investigation, which includes a factual summary, analysis of user sentiment, and examination of market performance. Based on such efforts, we uncover a somewhat counterintuitive finding: the SVB collapse did not lead to the destruction of cryptocurrencies; instead, they displayed resilience.

q-fin.GN↗

Account Abstraction, Analysed

Ethereum recently unveiled its upcoming roadmap's \textit{Splurge} phase, highlighting the integration of EIP-\hlhref{https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-3074}{4337} as a foundational standard for account abstraction (AA). AA aims to enhance user accessibility and facilitate the expansion of functionalities. Anticipatedly, the deployment of AA is poised to attract a broad spectrum of new users and ignite further innovation in DApps. In this paper, we elucidate the underlying operating mechanisms of this new concept, as well as provide a review of concurrent advancements in accounts, wallets, and standards related to its development. We step further by conducting a preliminary security evaluation to qualitatively assess the extent of security enhancements achieved through AA updates.

cs.CR↗

BRC-20: Hope or Hype

BRC-20 (short for Bitcoin Request for Comment 20) token mania was a key storyline in the middle of 2023. Setting it apart from conventional ERC-20 token standards on Ethereum, BRC-20 introduces non-fungibility to Bitcoin through an editable field in each satoshi (0.00000001 Bitcoin, the smallest unit), making them unique. In this paper, we pioneer the exploration of this concept, covering its intricate mechanisms, features, and state-of-the-art applications. By analyzing the multi-dimensional data spanning over months with factual investigations, we conservatively comment that while BRC-20 expands Bitcoin's functionality and applicability, it may still not match Ethereum's abundance of decentralized applications and similar ecosystems.

cs.CR↗

Global Solutions of the Two-Dimensional Riemann Problem with Four-Shock Interactions for the Euler Equations for Potential Flow

We present a rigorous approach and related techniques to construct global solutions of the 2-D Riemann problem with four-shock interactions for the Euler equations for potential flow. With the introduction of three critical angles: the vacuum critical angle from the compatibility conditions, the detachment angle, and the sonic angle, we clarify all configurations of the Riemann solutions for the interactions of two-forward and two-backward shocks, including the subsonic-subsonic reflection configuration that has not emerged in previous results. To achieve this, we first identify the three critical angles that determine the configurations, whose existence and uniqueness follow from our rigorous proof of the strict monotonicity of the steady detachment and sonic angles for 2-D steady potential flow with respect to the Mach number of the upstream state. Then we reformulate the 2-D Riemann problem into the shock reflection-diffraction problem with respect to a symmetric line, along with two independent incident angles and two sonic boundaries varying with the choice of incident angles. With these, the problem can be further reformulated as a free boundary problem for a second-order quasilinear equation of mixed elliptic-hyperbolic type. The difficulties arise from the degenerate ellipticity of the nonlinear equation near the sonic boundaries, the nonlinearity of the free boundary condition, the singularity of the solution near the corners of the domain, and the geometric properties of the free boundary. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first rigorous result for the 2-D Riemann problem with four-shock interactions for the Euler equations. The approach and techniques developed for the Riemann problem for four-wave interactions should be useful for solving other 2-D Riemann problems for more general Euler equations and related nonlinear hyperbolic systems of conservation laws.

math.AP↗

An Empirical Study on Snapshot DAOs

Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is an organization constructed by automatically executed rules such as via smart contracts, holding features of the permissionless committee, transparent proposals, and fair contribution by stakeholders. As of Nov 2022, DAO has impacted over \$11.2B market caps. However, there are no substantial studies focused on this emerging field. To fill the gap, we start from the ground truth by empirically studying the breadth and depth of the DAO markets in mainstream public chain ecosystems in this paper. We dive into the most widely adoptable DAO launchpad, \textit{Snapshot}, which covers 95\% in the wild DAO projects for data collection and analysis. By integrating extensive enrolled DAOs and corresponding data measurements, we explore statistical data from Snapshot and try to demystify its undiscovered truths by delivering a series of summarised insights. We also present DAO status, patterns, distribution, and trends. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study putting concentration on DAO spaces.

cs.CR↗

Proposal of a free-space-to-chip pipeline for transporting single atoms

A free-space-to-chip pipeline is proposed to efficiently transport single atoms from a magneto-optical trap to an on-chip evanescent field trap. Due to the reflection of the dipole laser on the chip surface, the conventional conveyor belt approach can only transport atoms close to the chip surface but with a distance of about one wavelength, which prevents efficient interaction between the atom and the on-chip waveguide devices. Here, based on a two-layer photonic chip architecture, a diffraction beam of the integrated grating with an incident angle of the Brewster angle is utilized to realize free-space-to-chip atom pipeline. Numerical simulation verified that the reflection of the dipole laser is suppressed and that the atoms can be brought to the chip surface with a distance of only 100nm. Therefore, the pipeline allows a smooth transport of atoms from free space to the evanescent field trap of waveguides and promises a reliable atom source for a hybrid photonic-atom chip.

physics.optics↗

CiaoSR: Continuous Implicit Attention-in-Attention Network for Arbitrary-Scale Image Super-Resolution

Learning continuous image representations is recently gaining popularity for image super-resolution (SR) because of its ability to reconstruct high-resolution images with arbitrary scales from low-resolution inputs. Existing methods mostly ensemble nearby features to predict the new pixel at any queried coordinate in the SR image. Such a local ensemble suffers from some limitations: i) it has no learnable parameters and it neglects the similarity of the visual features; ii) it has a limited receptive field and cannot ensemble relevant features in a large field which are important in an image. To address these issues, this paper proposes a continuous implicit attention-in-attention network, called CiaoSR. We explicitly design an implicit attention network to learn the ensemble weights for the nearby local features. Furthermore, we embed a scale-aware attention in this implicit attention network to exploit additional non-local information. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate CiaoSR significantly outperforms the existing single image SR methods with the same backbone. In addition, CiaoSR also achieves the state-of-the-art performance on the arbitrary-scale SR task. The effectiveness of the method is also demonstrated on the real-world SR setting. More importantly, CiaoSR can be flexibly integrated into any backbone to improve the SR performance.

cs.CV↗