Ye Wang

  • Biography

    Ye was a member of the Information Systems and Sciences Laboratory at Boston University, where he studied information-theoretically secure multiparty computation. His current research interests include information security, biometric authentication, and data privacy.

  • Recent News & Events

    •  TALK    [MERL Seminar Series 2023] Prof. Flavio Calmon presents talk titled Multiplicity in Machine Learning
      Date & Time: Tuesday, November 7, 2023; 12:00 PM
      Speaker: Flavio Calmon, Harvard University
      MERL Host: Ye Wang
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
      Abstract
      • This talk reviews the concept of predictive multiplicity in machine learning. Predictive multiplicity arises when different classifiers achieve similar average performance for a specific learning task yet produce conflicting predictions for individual samples. We discuss a metric called “Rashomon Capacity” for quantifying predictive multiplicity in multi-class classification. We also present recent findings on the multiplicity cost of differentially private training methods and group fairness interventions in machine learning.

        This talk is based on work published at ICML'20, NeurIPS'22, ACM FAccT'23, and NeurIPS'23.
    •  
    •  NEWS    MERL researchers presenting four papers and organizing the VLAR-SMART101 Workshop at ICCV 2023
      Date: October 2, 2023 - October 6, 2023
      Where: Paris/France
      MERL Contacts: Moitreya Chatterjee; Anoop Cherian; Michael J. Jones; Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Suhas Lohit; Tim K. Marks; Pedro Miraldo; Kuan-Chuan Peng; Ye Wang
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Machine Learning
      Brief
      • MERL researchers are presenting 4 papers and organizing the VLAR-SMART-101 workshop at the ICCV 2023 conference, which will be held in Paris, France October 2-6. ICCV is one of the most prestigious and competitive international conferences in computer vision. Details are provided below.

        1. Conference paper: “Steered Diffusion: A Generalized Framework for Plug-and-Play Conditional Image Synthesis,” by Nithin Gopalakrishnan Nair, Anoop Cherian, Suhas Lohit, Ye Wang, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Vishal Patel, and Tim K. Marks

        Conditional generative models typically demand large annotated training sets to achieve high-quality synthesis. As a result, there has been significant interest in plug-and-play generation, i.e., using a pre-defined model to guide the generative process. In this paper, we introduce Steered Diffusion, a generalized framework for fine-grained photorealistic zero-shot conditional image generation using a diffusion model trained for unconditional generation. The key idea is to steer the image generation of the diffusion model during inference via designing a loss using a pre-trained inverse model that characterizes the conditional task. Our model shows clear qualitative and quantitative improvements over state-of-the-art diffusion-based plug-and-play models, while adding negligible computational cost.

        2. Conference paper: "BANSAC: A dynamic BAyesian Network for adaptive SAmple Consensus," by Valter Piedade and Pedro Miraldo

        We derive a dynamic Bayesian network that updates individual data points' inlier scores while iterating RANSAC. At each iteration, we apply weighted sampling using the updated scores. Our method works with or without prior data point scorings. In addition, we use the updated inlier/outlier scoring for deriving a new stopping criterion for the RANSAC loop. Our method outperforms the baselines in accuracy while needing less computational time.

        3. Conference paper: "Robust Frame-to-Frame Camera Rotation Estimation in Crowded Scenes," by Fabien Delattre, David Dirnfeld, Phat Nguyen, Stephen Scarano, Michael J. Jones, Pedro Miraldo, and Erik Learned-Miller

        We present a novel approach to estimating camera rotation in crowded, real-world scenes captured using a handheld monocular video camera. Our method uses a novel generalization of the Hough transform on SO3 to efficiently find the camera rotation most compatible with the optical flow. Because the setting is not addressed well by other data sets, we provide a new dataset and benchmark, with high-accuracy and rigorously annotated ground truth on 17 video sequences. Our method is more accurate by almost 40 percent than the next best method.

        4. Workshop paper: "Tensor Factorization for Leveraging Cross-Modal Knowledge in Data-Constrained Infrared Object Detection" by Manish Sharma*, Moitreya Chatterjee*, Kuan-Chuan Peng, Suhas Lohit, and Michael Jones

        While state-of-the-art object detection methods for RGB images have reached some level of maturity, the same is not true for Infrared (IR) images. The primary bottleneck towards bridging this gap is the lack of sufficient labeled training data in the IR images. Towards addressing this issue, we present TensorFact, a novel tensor decomposition method which splits the convolution kernels of a CNN into low-rank factor matrices with fewer parameters. This compressed network is first pre-trained on RGB images and then augmented with only a few parameters. This augmented network is then trained on IR images, while freezing the weights trained on RGB. This prevents it from over-fitting, allowing it to generalize better. Experiments show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art.

        5. “Vision-and-Language Algorithmic Reasoning (VLAR) Workshop and SMART-101 Challenge” by Anoop Cherian,  Kuan-Chuan Peng, Suhas Lohit, Tim K. Marks, Ram Ramrakhya, Honglu Zhou, Kevin A. Smith, Joanna Matthiesen, and Joshua B. Tenenbaum

        MERL researchers along with researchers from MIT, GeorgiaTech, Math Kangaroo USA, and Rutgers University are jointly organizing a workshop on vision-and-language algorithmic reasoning at ICCV 2023 and conducting a challenge based on the SMART-101 puzzles described in the paper: Are Deep Neural Networks SMARTer than Second Graders?. A focus of this workshop is to bring together outstanding faculty/researchers working at the intersections of vision, language, and cognition to provide their opinions on the recent breakthroughs in large language models and artificial general intelligence, as well as showcase their cutting edge research that could inspire the audience to search for the missing pieces in our quest towards solving the puzzle of artificial intelligence.

        Workshop link: https://wvlar.github.io/iccv23/
    •  

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  • Awards

    •  AWARD    MERL’s Paper on Wi-Fi Sensing Earns Top 3% Paper Recognition at ICASSP 2023, Selected as a Best Student Paper Award Finalist
      Date: June 9, 2023
      Awarded to: Cristian J. Vaca-Rubio, Pu Wang, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Ye Wang, Petros Boufounos and Petar Popovski
      MERL Contacts: Petros T. Boufounos; Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Pu (Perry) Wang; Ye Wang
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Communications, Computational Sensing, Dynamical Systems, Machine Learning, Signal Processing
      Brief
      • A MERL Paper on Wi-Fi sensing was recognized as a Top 3% Paper among all 2709 accepted papers at the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2023). Co-authored by Cristian Vaca-Rubio and Petar Popovski from Aalborg University, Denmark, and MERL researchers Pu Wang, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Ye Wang, and Petros Boufounos, the paper "MmWave Wi-Fi Trajectory Estimation with Continous-Time Neural Dynamic Learning" was also a Best Student Paper Award finalist.

        Performed during Cristian’s stay at MERL first as a visiting Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow and then as a full-time intern in 2022, this work capitalizes on standards-compliant Wi-Fi signals to perform indoor localization and sensing. The paper uses a neural dynamic learning framework to address technical issues such as low sampling rate and irregular sampling intervals.

        ICASSP, a flagship conference of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS), was hosted on the Greek island of Rhodes from June 04 to June 10, 2023. ICASSP 2023 marked the largest ICASSP in history, boasting over 4000 participants and 6128 submitted papers, out of which 2709 were accepted.
    •  
    •  AWARD    MERL Ranked 1st Place in Cross-Subject Transfer Learning Task and 4th Place Overall at the NeurIPS2021 BEETL Competition for EEG Transfer Learning.
      Date: November 11, 2021
      Awarded to: Niklas Smedemark-Margulies, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Ye Wang, Deniz Erdogmus
      MERL Contacts: Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Ye Wang
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Signal Processing, Human-Computer Interaction
      Brief
      • The MERL Signal Processing group achieved first place in the cross-subject transfer learning task and fourth place overall in the NeurIPS 2021 BEETL AI Challenge for EEG Transfer Learning. The team included Niklas Smedemark-Margulies (intern from Northeastern University), Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Ye Wang, and Prof. Deniz Erdogmus (Northeastern University). The challenge addresses two types of transfer learning tasks for EEG Biosignals: a homogeneous transfer learning task for cross-subject domain adaptation; and a heterogeneous transfer learning task for cross-data domain adaptation. There were 110+ registered teams in this competition, MERL ranked 1st in the homogeneous transfer learning task, 7th place in the heterogeneous transfer learning task, and 4th place for the combined overall score. For the homogeneous transfer learning task, MERL developed a new pre-shot learning framework based on feature disentanglement techniques for robustness against inter-subject variation to enable calibration-free brain-computer interfaces (BCI). MERL is invited to present our pre-shot learning technique at the NeurIPS 2021 workshop.
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  • Research Highlights

  • Internships with Ye

    • CI2091: Robust AI for Operational Technology Security

      MERL is seeking a highly motivated and qualified intern to work on operational technology security. The ideal candidate would have significant research experience in cybersecurity for operational technology, anomaly detection, robust machine learning, and defenses against adversarial examples. A mature understanding of modern machine learning methods, proficiency with Python, and familiarity with deep learning frameworks are expected. Candidates at or beyond the middle of their Ph.D. program are encouraged to apply. The expected duration is 3 months with flexible start dates.

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  • MERL Publications

    •  Kobori, H., Fukuchi, K., Wang, Y., "Evaluation of Information Security Risk from Training Data Inference in Federated Learning", The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, General Conference, March 2024.
      BibTeX
      • @inproceedings{Kobori2024mar,
      • author = {Kobori, Hiroko and Fukuchi, Ken and Wang, Ye},
      • title = {Evaluation of Information Security Risk from Training Data Inference in Federated Learning},
      • booktitle = {The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, General Conference},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = mar
      • }
    •  Lowy, A., Li, Z., Liu, J., Koike-Akino, T., Parsons, K., Wang, Y., "Why Does Differential Privacy with Large ε Defend Against Practical Membership Inference Attacks?", AAAI Workshop on Privacy-Preserving Artificial Intelligence, February 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-009 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Lowy2024feb2,
      • author = {Lowy, Andrew and Li, Zhuohang and Liu, Jing and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Parsons, Kieran and Wang, Ye},
      • title = {Why Does Differential Privacy with Large ε Defend Against Practical Membership Inference Attacks?},
      • booktitle = {AAAI Workshop on Privacy-Preserving Artificial Intelligence},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = feb,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-009}
      • }
    •  Liu, J., Koike-Akino, T., Wang, P., Brand, M., Wang, Y., Parsons, K., "LoDA: Low-Dimensional Adaptation of Large Language Models", Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) workshop, December 2023.
      BibTeX TR2023-150 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Liu2023dec,
      • author = {Liu, Jing and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Wang, Pu and Brand, Matthew and Wang, Ye and Parsons, Kieran},
      • title = {LoDA: Low-Dimensional Adaptation of Large Language Models},
      • booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) workshop},
      • year = 2023,
      • month = dec,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-150}
      • }
    •  Li, Z., Lowy, A., Liu, J., Koike-Akino, T., Malin, B., Parsons, K., Wang, Y., "Exploring User-level Gradient Inversion with a Diffusion Prior", International Workshop on Federated Learning in the Age of Foundation Models in Conjunction with NeurIPS, December 2023.
      BibTeX TR2023-149 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Li2023dec,
      • author = {Li, Zhuohang and Lowy, Andrew and Liu, Jing and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Malin, Bradley and Parsons, Kieran and Wang, Ye},
      • title = {Exploring User-level Gradient Inversion with a Diffusion Prior},
      • booktitle = {International Workshop on Federated Learning in the Age of Foundation Models in Conjunction with NeurIPS},
      • year = 2023,
      • month = dec,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-149}
      • }
    •  Xu, Y., Wang, B., Sakamoto, Y., Yamamoto, T., Nishimura, Y., Koike-Akino, T., Wang, Y., "Electric Machine Inverse Design with Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE)", IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), October 2023.
      BibTeX TR2023-134 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Xu2023nov,
      • author = {Xu, Yihao and Wang, Bingnan and Sakamoto, Yusuke and Yamamoto, Tatsuya and Nishimura, Yuki and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Wang, Ye},
      • title = {Electric Machine Inverse Design with Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE)},
      • booktitle = {IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE)},
      • year = 2023,
      • month = oct,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-134}
      • }
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  • Software & Data Downloads

  • Videos

  • MERL Issued Patents

    • Title: "Multi-Band Wi-Fi Fusion for WLAN Sensing"
      Inventors: Wang, Pu; Yu, Jianyuan; Koike-Akino, Toshiaki; Wang, Ye; Orlik, Philip V.
      Patent No.: 11,902,811
      Issue Date: Feb 13, 2024
    • Title: "Apparatus and Method for Anomaly Detection"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye; Kim, Kyeong-Jin; Wang, Xiao
      Patent No.: 11,843,623
      Issue Date: Dec 12, 2023
    • Title: "System and Method for Manipulating Two-Dimensional (2D) Images of Three-Dimensional (3D) Objects"
      Inventors: Marks, Tim; Medin, Safa; Cherian, Anoop; Wang, Ye
      Patent No.: 11,663,798
      Issue Date: May 30, 2023
    • Title: "Non-Uniform Regularization in Artificial Neural Networks for Adaptable Scaling"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye; Koike-Akino, Toshiaki
      Patent No.: 11,651,225
      Issue Date: May 16, 2023
    • Title: "Protograph Quasi-Cyclic Polar Codes and Related Low-Density Generator Matrix Family"
      Inventors: Koike-Akino, Toshiaki; Wang, Ye
      Patent No.: 11,463,114
      Issue Date: Oct 4, 2022
    • Title: "Battery Diagnostic System for Estimating Remaining useful Life (RUL) of a Battery"
      Inventors: Gorrachategui, Ivan Sanz; Pajovic, Milutin; Wang, Ye
      Patent No.: 11,346,891
      Issue Date: May 31, 2022
    • Title: "Generative Model for Inverse Design of Materials, Devices, and Structures"
      Inventors: Kojima, Keisuke; Tang, Yingheng; Koike-Akino, Toshiaki; Wang, Ye
      Patent No.: 11,251,896
      Issue Date: Feb 15, 2022
    • Title: "DATA-DRIVEN PRIVACY-PRESERVING COMMUNICATION"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye; Ishwar, Prakash; Tripathy, Ardhendu S
      Patent No.: 11,132,453
      Issue Date: Sep 28, 2021
    • Title: "Irregular Polar Code Encoding"
      Inventors: Koike-Akino, Toshiaki; Wang, Ye; Draper, Stark C.
      Patent No.: 10,862,621
      Issue Date: Dec 8, 2020
    • Title: "Method and Systems using Privacy-Preserving Analytics for Aggregate Data"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye; Raval, Nisarg Jagdishbhai; Ishwar, Prakash
      Patent No.: 10,452,865
      Issue Date: Oct 22, 2019
    • Title: "Irregular Polar Code Encoding"
      Inventors: Koike-Akino, Toshiaki; Wang, Ye; Draper, Stark C.
      Patent No.: 10,313,056
      Issue Date: Jun 4, 2019
    • Title: "Soft-Output Decoding of Codewords Encoded with Polar Code"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye; Koike-Akino, Toshiaki; Draper, Stark C.
      Patent No.: 10,312,946
      Issue Date: Jun 4, 2019
    • Title: "Method and Systems using Privacy-Preserving Analytics for Aggregate Data"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye; Hattori, Mitsuhiro; Shimizu, Rina; Hirano, Takato; Matsuda, Nori
      Patent No.: 10,216,959
      Issue Date: Feb 26, 2019
    • Title: "Privacy Preserving Statistical Analysis on Distributed Databases"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye; Lin, Bing-Rong; Rane, Shantanu D.
      Patent No.: 10,146,958
      Issue Date: Dec 4, 2018
    • Title: "Method and System for Determining Hidden States of a Machine using Privacy-Preserving Distributed Data Analytics and a Semi-trusted Server and a Third-Party"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye
      Patent No.: 9,471,810
      Issue Date: Oct 18, 2016
    • Title: "Method for Determining Hidden States of Systems using Privacy-Preserving Distributed Data Analytics"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye; Xie, Qian; Rane, Shantanu D.
      Patent No.: 9,246,978
      Issue Date: Jan 26, 2016
    • Title: "Privacy Preserving Statistical Analysis for Distributed Databases"
      Inventors: Wang, Ye; Lin, Bing-Rong; Rane, Shantanu D.
      Patent No.: 8,893,292
      Issue Date: Nov 18, 2014
    • Title: "Secure Multi-Party Computation of Normalized Sum-Type Functions"
      Inventors: Rane, Shantanu D.; Sun, Wei; Wang, Ye
      Patent No.: 8,473,537
      Issue Date: Jun 25, 2013
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