arXiv subjects

Thinh Nguyen

Publications and source records attributed to Thinh Nguyen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Chi-Squared Geometry for Robust Finite-Blocklength Information and Dispersion Analysis

We develop a column-wise chi-squared geometry for discrete memoryless channels (DMCs) yielding tight, logarithm-free bounds on mutual information, channel dispersion, and finite-blocklength coding rates without evaluating logarithms of the channel matrix. The key parameter is~$\eta$---the worst-case relative deviation of a transition probability from its output marginal, which is small precisely when the channel is close to the fully noisy channel $t_{ij}=s_j$. We prove three main results: (1) a third-order ratio expansion showing $I(X;Y)/\chi^2(X;Y)\to 1/2$ as $\eta\to 0$ with an $O(\eta)$ skewness correction; (2) a two-sided dispersion equivalence bounding $V(X;Y)$ above and below by $\chi^2(X;Y)$ with explicit constants $c_{\pm}(\eta)\to 1$; and (3) a certified robust design rate $R_{\mathrm{cert}}(n,\varepsilon)$ with total certification gap $O(\eta)+O(\eta/\sqrt{n})+O(\log n/n)$. The certified bounds on $I$ and $V$ require only addition, multiplication, division, and square roots; the final rate also uses $Q^{-1}(\varepsilon)$.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

Combinatorial Capacity Bounds for the $q$-ary Deletion Channel

We study the $q$-ary deletion channel via the pattern-count scalar $N_n(x,y)$, the number of deletion subsets mapping $x\in\Sigma_q^n$ to $y\in\Sigma_q^k$, which factorizes the transition probability. Two sum identities on $N_n$ certify stochastic normalization and, under uniform input, yield an exact closed-form output entropy. These give the finite-block capacity sandwich $ (1-d)\log_2 q-h_2(d)\;\le\; C_{q,n}\;\le\;(1-d)\log_2 q. $ The exact uniform-input rate is $ \frac{1}{n}I_U(X;Y) =(1-d)\log_2 q+\frac{1}{n}H_{\mathrm{Bin}}(n,1-d)-h_2(d)+\frac{\Delta_n(d)}{n}, $ from which the simpler certified bound $ C_{q,n}\ge (1-d)\log_2 q-h_2(d)+\frac{\Delta_n(d)}{n} $ follows. The small-$d$ bound $C_q(d)\ge\log_2 q+d\log_2 d+O(d)$ follows for all $q\ge 2$. Numerical experiments at $n=3,5,10$ and $q=2,3$ confirm all bounds.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

Rate-Distortion-Classification Representation Theory for Bernoulli Sources

We study task-oriented lossy compression through the lens of rate-distortion-classification (RDC) representations. The source is Bernoulli, the distortion measure is Hamming, and the binary classification variable is coupled to the source via a binary symmetric model. Building on the one-shot common-randomness formulation, we first derive closed-form characterizations of the one-shot RDC and the dual distortion-rate-classification (DRC) tradeoffs. We then use a representation-based viewpoint and characterize the achievable distortion-classification (DC) region induced by a fixed representation by deriving its lower boundary via a linear program. Finally, we study universal encoders that must support a family of DC operating points and derive computable lower and upper bounds on the minimum asymptotic rate required for universality, thereby yielding bounds on the corresponding rate penalty. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the achievable regions and the resulting universal RDC/DRC curves.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

Perception-based Image Denoising via Generative Compression

Image denoising aims to remove noise while preserving structural details and perceptual realism, yet distortion-driven methods often produce over-smoothed reconstructions, especially under strong noise and distribution shift. This paper proposes a generative compression framework for perception-based denoising, where restoration is achieved by reconstructing from entropy-coded latent representations that enforce low-complexity structure, while generative decoders recover realistic textures via perceptual measures such as learned perceptual image patch similarity (LPIPS) loss and Wasserstein distance. Two complementary instantiations are introduced: (i) a conditional Wasserstein GAN (WGAN)-based compression denoiser that explicitly controls the rate-distortion-perception (RDP) trade-off, and (ii) a conditional diffusion-based reconstruction strategy that performs iterative denoising guided by compressed latents. We further establish non-asymptotic guarantees for the compression-based maximum-likelihood denoiser under additive Gaussian noise, including bounds on reconstruction error and decoding error probability. Experiments on synthetic and real-noise benchmarks demonstrate consistent perceptual improvements while maintaining competitive distortion performance.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2026

Parameter Estimation of Mutual Information Maximized Channels

We study the problem of estimating a parametric discrete memoryless channel $ p(y \mid x; \boldsymbolθ) $ when the transmitter selects its input distribution $ π$ to maximize mutual information under the true parameter $ \boldsymbolθ^* $. Using only i.i.d.\ observations of the channel output, we aim to jointly estimate the capacity-achieving input distribution $ \boldsymbolπ^* $ and the true channel parameter $ \boldsymbolθ^* $. In general, recovery of $ \boldsymbolπ^* $ and $ \boldsymbolθ^* $ can be challenging. To that end, we propose two efficient algorithms based on the Blahut--Arimoto (BA) optimality conditions: (i) a bilevel fixed-point method and (ii) an augmented Lagrangian method. Empirical results demonstrate that both proposed algorithms successfully recover the true $ \boldsymbolθ^* $ and $ \boldsymbolπ^* $, whereas a naive maximum-likelihood approach that ignores the mutual-information maximization constraint fails to do so.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

RankGuardPolar Private Public Finite Length Polar Codes with Rank-Certified Leakage

We introduce \textbf{RankGuard-Polar}, a framework for safely publishing a subset of polar codeword coordinates over shared public resources. We assume a strong eavesdropper who has access to the channel input, i.e., the transmitted codeword coordinates published on a public resource access model. Working over $\mathbb F_2$ and focusing on time-shared public/private BEC uses, we show that leakage from a published index set $\mathbf{P}$ admits an exact algebraic characterization comes from an information-theoretic viewpoint, and we construct an explicit linear extractor ($R$) that identifies the leaked linear combinations. Building on this identity, we (i) give efficient procedures to compute and certify leakage for any $\mathbf{P}$, (ii) propose a practical fast algorithm with provable efficiency.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

Cross-Domain Lossy Compression via Constrained Minimum Entropy Coupling

This paper studies cross-domain lossy compression through the lens of minimum entropy coupling (MEC) with rate and classification constraints. In this setting, an encoder observes samples from a degraded source domain, while the decoder is required to generate outputs following a prescribed target distribution and to preserve information relevant to a downstream classification task. Motivated by logarithmic-loss distortion, we adopt an information-based objective that maximizes the coupling strength between the source and reconstruction, rather than minimizing a sample-wise distortion. Under common randomness, we formulate a rate-constrained MEC problem (MEC-B) and show that the intermediate representation can be removed without loss of optimality, yielding an equivalent deterministic coupling formulation. For Bernoulli sources, closed-form expressions are derived with and without classification constraints. In addition, we implement a neural restoration framework using quantization, entropy modeling, distribution matching, and classification regularization. Experiments on MNIST super-resolution and SVHN denoising show that increasing the available rate improves classification accuracy and yields more informative reconstructions.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2025

Gaia DR3 Variable White Dwarfs vetted by ZTF

The publications of Gaia DR2 and DR3 have brought major improvements in stellar astrometry and photometry, particularly regarding the description of the white dwarf sequence. Notably, Gaia DR2 enabled the detection of variability in white dwarfs based solely on averaged astrometric and photometric quantities, i.e. the astrometric 5 parameters (positions, proper motion, and parallax) and general photometry properties in the G, BP and RP bands (mean, standard deviation and number of measurements). We identify and classify variable white dwarfs using Gaia DR3 data and Zwicky Transient Facility DR23 observations. The objective is to construct a catalogue of pulsating white dwarf candidates with robust selection criteria. We define a new sample of candidate variable white dwarfs using Gaia DR3 astrometric and photometric data. We cross-match this sample with the ZTF DR23 catalogue and apply a multiband Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis to detect periodic variability. We then use the OPTICS unsupervised clustering algorithm to to group and classify the confirmed periodic stars. We identify 1423 variable white dwarfs candidates from Gaia DR3, with 864 having ZTF time series. 141 present significant periodicity. We classify these objects into known categories, including ZZ Ceti stars, GW Vir, V777 Her, and white dwarf-main sequence binaries. Our analysis yields several periodic stars, including three ZZ Ceti, 15 GW Vir, one V777 Her, and 24 WD-MS binaries. Furthermore, it reveals a significant population of potentialy variable stars, though without confirmed periodicity. Finally we publish our catalogue of candidate variable white dwarfs including variability status, periodicity, and classification information for the 864 sources with ZTF time series, 519 of them newly identified (including 83 new periodic stars).

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2025

Bridging the Regulatory Divide: Ensuring Safety and Equity in Wearable Health Technologies

As wearable health technologies have grown more sophisticated, the distinction between "wellness" and "medical" devices has become increasingly blurred. While some features undergo formal U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review, many over-the-counter tools operate in a regulatory grey zone, leveraging health-related data and outputs without clinical validation. Further complicating the issue is the widespread repurposing of wellness devices for medical uses, which can introduce safety risks beyond the reach of current oversight. Drawing on legal analysis, case studies, and ethical considerations, we propose an approach emphasizing distributed risk, patient-centered outcomes, and iterative reform. Without a more pluralistic and evolving framework, the promise of wearable health technology risks being undermined by growing inequities, misuse, and eroded public trust.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2025

HFedATM: Hierarchical Federated Domain Generalization via Optimal Transport and Regularized Mean Aggregation

Federated Learning (FL) is a decentralized approach where multiple clients collaboratively train a shared global model without sharing their raw data. Despite its effectiveness, conventional FL faces scalability challenges due to excessive computational and communication demands placed on a single central server as the number of participating devices grows. Hierarchical Federated Learning (HFL) addresses these issues by distributing model aggregation tasks across intermediate nodes (stations), thereby enhancing system scalability and robustness against single points of failure. However, HFL still suffers from a critical yet often overlooked limitation: domain shift, where data distributions vary significantly across different clients and stations, reducing model performance on unseen target domains. While Federated Domain Generalization (FedDG) methods have emerged to improve robustness to domain shifts, their integration into HFL frameworks remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we formally introduce Hierarchical Federated Domain Generalization (HFedDG), a novel scenario designed to investigate domain shift within hierarchical architectures. Specifically, we propose HFedATM, a hierarchical aggregation method that first aligns the convolutional filters of models from different stations through Filter-wise Optimal Transport Alignment and subsequently merges aligned models using a Shrinkage-aware Regularized Mean Aggregation. Our extensive experimental evaluations demonstrate that HFedATM significantly boosts the performance of existing FedDG baselines across multiple datasets and maintains computational and communication efficiency. Moreover, theoretical analyses indicate that HFedATM achieves tighter generalization error bounds compared to standard hierarchical averaging, resulting in faster convergence and stable training behavior.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

Onboarding Without Forgetting: Hypernetwork Personalization with Data-Free Replay for Personalized Federated Learning

Federated Learning (FL) enables collaborative training across distributed clients without sharing raw data, offering strong privacy benefits. However, most methods assume all clients remain available throughout training, which is unrealistic as new clients often join over time. We study this setting, where the task and label space stay fixed but clients arrive in batches. Our analysis reveals two key challenges: updating the shared model only with new clients harms existing clients, while freezing it protects them but blocks gains from new knowledge. To capture these trade-offs, we introduce Proactive Adaptation (PA) for onboarding gains and Retroactive Improvement (RI) for changes in earlier clients without retraining. We then propose pFedDSH, which combines a central hypernetwork for personalized initialization, batch-specific binary masks for capacity preservation and allocation, and server-side data-free replay to propagate improvements without exposing client data. Experiments show that pFedDSH preserves stability for existing clients while keeping communication and adaptation costs unchanged for new clients.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

Universal Rate-Distortion-Classification Representations for Lossy Compression

In lossy compression, Wang et al. [1] recently introduced the rate-distortion-perception-classification function, which supports multi-task learning by jointly optimizing perceptual quality, classification accuracy, and reconstruction fidelity. Building on the concept of a universal encoder introduced in [2], we investigate the universal representations that enable a broad range of distortion-classification tradeoffs through a single shared encoder coupled with multiple task-specific decoders. We establish, through both theoretical analysis and numerical experiments, that for Gaussian source under mean squared error (MSE) distortion, the entire distortion-classification tradeoff region can be achieved using a single universal encoder. For general sources, we characterize the achievable region and identify conditions under which encoder reuse results in negligible distortion penalty. The experimental result on the MNIST dataset further supports our theoretical findings. We show that universal encoders can obtain distortion performance comparable to task-specific encoders. These results demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed universal framework in multi-task compression scenarios.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2025

A Theory of Universal Rate-Distortion-Classification Representations for Lossy Compression

In lossy compression, Blau and Michaeli [5] introduced the information rate-distortion-perception (RDP) function, extending traditional rate-distortion theory by incorporating perceptual quality. More recently, this framework was expanded by defining the rate-distortion-perception-classification (RDPC) function, integrating multi-task learning that jointly optimizes generative tasks such as perceptual quality and classification accuracy alongside reconstruction tasks [28]. To that end, motivated by the concept of a universal RDP encoder introduced in [34], we investigate universal representations that enable diverse distortion-classification tradeoffs through a single fixed encoder combined with multiple decoders. Specifically, theoretical analysis and numerical experiment demonstrate that for the Gaussian source under mean squared error (MSE) distortion, the entire distortion-classification tradeoff region can be achieved using one universal encoder. In addition, this paper characterizes achievable distortion-classification regions for fixed universal representations in general source distributions, identifying conditions that ensure minimal distortion penalty when reusing encoders across varying tradeoff points. Experimental results using MNIST and SVHN datasets validate our theoretical insights, showing that universal encoders can obtain distortion performance comparable to task-specific encoders, thus supporting the practicality and effectiveness of our proposed universal representations.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2025

On Symbol Error Probability-based Beamforming in MIMO Gaussian Wiretap Channels

This paper investigates beamforming schemes designed to minimize the symbol error probability (SEP) for an authorized user while guaranteeing that the likelihood of an eavesdropper correctly recovering symbols remains below a predefined threshold. Unlike previous works that focus on maximizing secrecy capacity, our work is centered around finding an optimal beamforming vector for binary antipodal signal detection in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Gaussian wiretap channels. Finding the optimal beamforming vector in this setting is challenging. Computationally efficient algorithms such as convex techniques cannot be applied to find the optimal solution. To that end, our proposed algorithm relies on Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions and a generalized eigen-decomposition method to find the exact solution. In addition, we also develop an approximate, practical algorithm to find a good beamforming matrix when using M-ary detection schemes. Numerical results are presented to assess the performance of the proposed methods across various scenarios.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2025

Robotic Table Tennis: A Case Study into a High Speed Learning System

We present a deep-dive into a real-world robotic learning system that, in previous work, was shown to be capable of hundreds of table tennis rallies with a human and has the ability to precisely return the ball to desired targets. This system puts together a highly optimized perception subsystem, a high-speed low-latency robot controller, a simulation paradigm that can prevent damage in the real world and also train policies for zero-shot transfer, and automated real world environment resets that enable autonomous training and evaluation on physical robots. We complement a complete system description, including numerous design decisions that are typically not widely disseminated, with a collection of studies that clarify the importance of mitigating various sources of latency, accounting for training and deployment distribution shifts, robustness of the perception system, sensitivity to policy hyper-parameters, and choice of action space. A video demonstrating the components of the system and details of experimental results can be found at https://youtu.be/uFcnWjB42I0.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2025

Sequence Transferability and Task Order Selection in Continual Learning

In continual learning, understanding the properties of task sequences and their relationships to model performance is important for developing advanced algorithms with better accuracy. However, efforts in this direction remain underdeveloped despite encouraging progress in methodology development. In this work, we investigate the impacts of sequence transferability on continual learning and propose two novel measures that capture the total transferability of a task sequence, either in the forward or backward direction. Based on the empirical properties of these measures, we then develop a new method for the task order selection problem in continual learning. Our method can be shown to offer a better performance than the conventional strategy of random task selection.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2024

A District-level Ensemble Model to Enhance Dengue Prediction and Control for the Mekong Delta Region of Vietnam

The Mekong Delta Region of Vietnam faces increasing dengue risks driven by urbanization, globalization, and climate change. This study introduces a probabilistic forecasting model for predicting dengue incidence and outbreaks with one to three month lead times, integrating meteorological, sociodemographic, preventive, and epidemiological data. Seventy-two models were evaluated, and an ensemble combining top-performing spatiotemporal, supervised PCA, and semi-mechanistic hhh4 frameworks was developed. Using data from 2004-2022 for training, validation, and evaluation, the ensemble model demonstrated 69% accuracy at a 3-month horizon, outperforming a baseline model. While effective, its performance declined in years with atypical seasonality, such as 2019 and 2022. The model provides critical lead time for targeted dengue prevention and control measures, addressing a growing public health need in the region.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2024

Perception-based multiplicative noise removal using SDEs

Multiplicative noise, also known as speckle or pepper noise, commonly affects images produced by synthetic aperture radar (SAR), lasers, or optical lenses. Unlike additive noise, which typically arises from thermal processes or external factors, multiplicative noise is inherent to the system, originating from the fluctuation in diffuse reflections. These fluctuations result in multiple copies of the same signal with varying magnitudes being combined. Consequently, despeckling, or removing multiplicative noise, necessitates different techniques compared to those used for additive noise removal. In this paper, we propose a novel approach using Stochastic Differential Equations based diffusion models to address multiplicative noise. We demonstrate that multiplicative noise can be effectively modeled as a Geometric Brownian Motion process in the logarithmic domain. Utilizing the Fokker-Planck equation, we derive the corresponding reverse process for image denoising. To validate our method, we conduct extensive experiments on two different datasets, comparing our approach to both classical signal processing techniques and contemporary CNN-based noise removal models. Our results indicate that the proposed method significantly outperforms existing methods on perception-based metrics such as FID and LPIPS, while maintaining competitive performance on traditional metrics like PSNR and SSIM.

eess.IV↗