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Hui Huang

Publications and source records attributed to Hui Huang.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

Graphical Principal Component Analysis of Multivariate Functional Time Series

In this paper, we consider multivariate functional time series with a two-way dependence structure: a serial dependence across time points and a graphical interaction among the multiple functions within each time point. We develop the notion of dynamic weak separability, a more general condition than those assumed in literature, and use it to characterize the two-way structure in multivariate functional time series. Based on the proposed weak separability, we develop a unified framework for functional graphical models and dynamic principal component analysis, and further extend it to optimally reconstruct signals from contaminated functional data using graphical-level information. We investigate asymptotic properties of the resulting estimators and illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach through extensive simulations. We apply our method to hourly air pollution data that were collected from a monitoring network in China.

stat.ME↗

Green's matching: an efficient approach to parameter estimation in complex dynamic systems

Parameters of differential equations are essential to characterize intrinsic behaviors of dynamic systems. Numerous methods for estimating parameters in dynamic systems are computationally and/or statistically inadequate, especially for complex systems with general-order differential operators, such as motion dynamics. This article presents Green's matching, a computationally tractable and statistically efficient two-step method, which only needs to approximate trajectories in dynamic systems but not their derivatives due to the inverse of differential operators by Green's function. This yields a statistically optimal guarantee for parameter estimation in general-order equations, a feature not shared by existing methods, and provides an efficient framework for broad statistical inferences in complex dynamic systems.

stat.ME↗

Faithful global convergence for the rescaled Consensus-Based Optimization

We analyze the Consensus-Based Optimization (CBO) algorithm with a consensus point rescaled by a small fixed parameter $κ\in (0,1)$. Under minimal assumptions on the objective function and the initial data, we establish its unconditional convergence to the global minimizer. Our results hold in the asymptotic regime where both the time--horizon $t \to \infty$ and the inverse--temperature $α\to \infty$, providing a rigorous theoretical foundation for the algorithm's global convergence. Furthermore, our findings extend to the case of multiple and non--discrete set of minimizers.

math.OC↗

Lost in Benchmarks? Rethinking Large Language Model Benchmarking with Item Response Theory

The evaluation of large language models (LLMs) via benchmarks is widespread, yet inconsistencies between different leaderboards and poor separability among top models raise concerns about their ability to accurately reflect authentic model capabilities. This paper provides a critical analysis of benchmark effectiveness, examining mainstream prominent LLM benchmarks using results from diverse models. We first propose Pseudo-Siamese Network for Item Response Theory (PSN-IRT), an enhanced Item Response Theory framework that incorporates a rich set of item parameters within an IRT-grounded architecture. PSN-IRT can be utilized for accurate and reliable estimations of item characteristics and model abilities. Based on PSN-IRT, we conduct extensive analysis on 11 LLM benchmarks comprising 41,871 items, revealing significant and varied shortcomings in their measurement quality. Furthermore, we demonstrate that leveraging PSN-IRT is able to construct smaller benchmarks while maintaining stronger alignment with human preference.

cs.CL↗

Constrained Consensus-Based Optimization and Numerical Heuristics for the Few Particle Regime

Consensus-based optimization (CBO) is a versatile multi-particle optimization method for performing nonconvex and nonsmooth global optimizations in high dimensions. Proofs of global convergence in probability have been achieved for a broad class of objective functions in unconstrained optimizations. In this work we adapt the algorithm for solving constrained optimizations on compact and unbounded domains with boundary by leveraging emerging reflective boundary conditions. In particular, we close a relevant gap in the literature by providing a global convergence proof for the many-particle regime comprehensive of convergence rates. On the one hand, for the sake of minimizing running cost, it is desirable to keep the number of particles small. On the other hand, reducing the number of particles implies a diminished capability of exploration of the algorithm. Hence numerical heuristics are needed to ensure convergence of CBO in the few-particle regime. In this work, we also significantly improve the convergence and complexity of CBO by utilizing an adaptive region control mechanism and by choosing geometry-specific random noise. In particular, by combining a hierarchical noise structure with a multigrid finite element method, we are able to compute global minimizers for a constrained $p$-Allen-Cahn problem with obstacles, a very challenging variational problem.

math.OC↗

Think-J: Learning to Think for Generative LLM-as-a-Judge

LLM-as-a-Judge refers to the automatic modeling of preferences for responses generated by Large Language Models (LLMs), which is of significant importance for both LLM evaluation and reward modeling. Although generative LLMs have made substantial progress in various tasks, their performance as LLM-Judge still falls short of expectations. In this work, we propose Think-J, which improves generative LLM-as-a-Judge by learning how to think. We first utilized a small amount of curated data to develop the model with initial judgment thinking capabilities. Subsequently, we optimize the judgment thinking traces based on reinforcement learning (RL). We propose two methods for judgment thinking optimization, based on offline and online RL, respectively. The offline method requires training a critic model to construct positive and negative examples for learning. The online method defines rule-based reward as feedback for optimization. Experimental results showed that our approach can significantly enhance the evaluation capability of generative LLM-Judge, surpassing both generative and classifier-based LLM-Judge without requiring extra human annotations.

cs.CL↗

SemPA: Improving Sentence Embeddings of Large Language Models through Semantic Preference Alignment

Traditional sentence embedding methods employ token-level contrastive learning on non-generative pre-trained models. Recently, there have emerged embedding methods based on generative large language models (LLMs). These methods either rely on fixed prompt templates or involve modifications to the model architecture. The former lacks further optimization of the model and results in limited performance, while the latter alters the internal computational mechanisms of the model, thereby compromising its generative capabilities. We propose SemPA, a novel approach that boosts the sentence representations while preserving the generative ability of LLMs via semantic preference alignment. We leverage sentence-level Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) to efficiently optimize LLMs on a paraphrase generation task, where the model learns to discriminate semantically equivalent sentences while preserving inherent generative capacity. Theoretically, we establish a formal connection between DPO and contrastive learning under the Plackett-Luce model framework. Empirically, experimental results on both semantic textual similarity tasks and various benchmarks for LLMs show that SemPA achieves better semantic representations without sacrificing the inherent generation capability of LLMs.

cs.CL↗

Semi-Supervised Multi-View Crowd Counting by Ranking Multi-View Fusion Models

Multi-view crowd counting has been proposed to deal with the severe occlusion issue of crowd counting in large and wide scenes. However, due to the difficulty of collecting and annotating multi-view images, the datasets for multi-view counting have a limited number of multi-view frames and scenes. To solve the problem of limited data, one approach is to collect synthetic data to bypass the annotating step, while another is to propose semi- or weakly-supervised or unsupervised methods that demand less multi-view data. In this paper, we propose two semi-supervised multi-view crowd counting frameworks by ranking the multi-view fusion models of different numbers of input views, in terms of the model predictions or the model uncertainties. Specifically, for the first method (vanilla model), we rank the multi-view fusion models' prediction results of different numbers of camera-view inputs, namely, the model's predictions with fewer camera views shall not be larger than the predictions with more camera views. For the second method, we rank the estimated model uncertainties of the multi-view fusion models with a variable number of view inputs, guided by the multi-view fusion models' prediction errors, namely, the model uncertainties with more camera views shall not be larger than those with fewer camera views. These constraints are introduced into the model training in a semi-supervised fashion for multi-view counting with limited labeled data. The experiments demonstrate the advantages of the proposed multi-view model ranking methods compared with other semi-supervised counting methods.

cs.CV↗

EmoStyle: Emotion-Driven Image Stylization

Art has long been a profound medium for expressing emotions. While existing image stylization methods effectively transform visual appearance, they often overlook the emotional impact carried by styles. To bridge this gap, we introduce Affective Image Stylization (AIS), a task that applies artistic styles to evoke specific emotions while preserving content. We present EmoStyle, a framework designed to address key challenges in AIS, including the lack of training data and the emotion-style mapping. First, we construct EmoStyleSet, a content-emotion-stylized image triplet dataset derived from ArtEmis to support AIS. We then propose an Emotion-Content Reasoner that adaptively integrates emotional cues with content to learn coherent style queries. Given the discrete nature of artistic styles, we further develop a Style Quantizer that converts continuous style features into emotion-related codebook entries. Extensive qualitative and quantitative evaluations, including user studies, demonstrate that EmoStyle enhances emotional expressiveness while maintaining content consistency. Moreover, the learned emotion-aware style dictionary is adaptable to other generative tasks, highlighting its potential for broader applications. Our work establishes a foundation for emotion-driven image stylization, expanding the creative potential of AI-generated art.

cs.CV↗

SPLICE: Part-Level 3D Shape Editing from Local Semantic Extraction to Global Neural Mixing

Neural implicit representations of 3D shapes have shown great potential in 3D shape editing due to their ability to model high-level semantics and continuous geometric representations. However, existing methods often suffer from limited editability, lack of part-level control, and unnatural results when modifying or rearranging shape parts. In this work, we present SPLICE, a novel part-level neural implicit representation of 3D shapes that enables intuitive, structure-aware, and high-fidelity shape editing. By encoding each shape part independently and positioning them using parameterized Gaussian ellipsoids, SPLICE effectively isolates part-specific features while discarding global context that may hinder flexible manipulation. A global attention-based decoder is then employed to integrate parts coherently, further enhanced by an attention-guiding filtering mechanism that prevents information leakage across symmetric or adjacent components. Through this architecture, SPLICE supports various part-level editing operations, including translation, rotation, scaling, deletion, duplication, and cross-shape part mixing. These operations enable users to flexibly explore design variations while preserving semantic consistency and maintaining structural plausibility. Extensive experiments demonstrate that SPLICE outperforms existing approaches both qualitatively and quantitatively across a diverse set of shape-editing tasks.

cs.GR↗

StrokeFusion: Vector Sketch Generation via Joint Stroke-UDF Encoding and Latent Sequence Diffusion

In the field of sketch generation, raster-format trained models often produce non-stroke artifacts, while vector-format trained models typically lack a holistic understanding of sketches, leading to compromised recognizability. Moreover, existing methods struggle to extract common features from similar elements (e.g., eyes of animals) appearing at varying positions across sketches. To address these challenges, we propose StrokeFusion, a two-stage framework for vector sketch generation. It contains a dual-modal sketch feature learning network that maps strokes into a high-quality latent space. This network decomposes sketches into normalized strokes and jointly encodes stroke sequences with Unsigned Distance Function (UDF) maps, representing sketches as sets of stroke feature vectors. Building upon this representation, our framework exploits a stroke-level latent diffusion model that simultaneously adjusts stroke position, scale, and trajectory during generation. This enables high-fidelity sketch generation while supporting stroke interpolation editing. Extensive experiments on the QuickDraw dataset demonstrate that our framework outperforms state-of-the-art techniques, validating its effectiveness in preserving structural integrity and semantic features. Code and models will be made publicly available upon publication.

cs.GR↗

A Reasoning Paradigm for Named Entity Recognition

Generative LLMs typically improve Named Entity Recognition (NER) performance through instruction tuning. They excel at generating entities by semantic pattern matching but lack an explicit, verifiable reasoning mechanism. This "cognitive shortcutting" leads to suboptimal performance and brittle generalization, especially in zero-shot and lowresource scenarios where reasoning from limited contextual cues is crucial. To address this issue, a reasoning framework is proposed for NER, which shifts the extraction paradigm from implicit pattern matching to explicit reasoning. This framework consists of three stages: Chain of Thought (CoT) generation, CoT tuning, and reasoning enhancement. First, a dataset annotated with NER-oriented CoTs is generated, which contain task-relevant reasoning chains. Then, they are used to tune the NER model to generate coherent rationales before deriving the final answer. Finally, a reasoning enhancement stage is implemented to optimize the reasoning process using a comprehensive reward signal. This stage ensures explicit and verifiable extractions. Experiments show that ReasoningNER demonstrates impressive cognitive ability in the NER task, achieving competitive performance. In zero-shot settings, it achieves state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance, outperforming GPT-4 by 12.3 percentage points on the F1 score. Analytical results also demonstrate its great potential to advance research in reasoningoriented information extraction. Our codes are available at https://github.com/HuiResearch/ReasoningIE.

cs.CL↗

Legal Fact Prediction: The Missing Piece in Legal Judgment Prediction

Legal judgment prediction (LJP), which enables litigants and their lawyers to forecast judgment outcomes and refine litigation strategies, has emerged as a crucial legal NLP task. Existing studies typically utilize legal facts, i.e., facts that have been established by evidence and determined by the judge, to predict the judgment. However, legal facts are often difficult to obtain in the early stages of litigation, significantly limiting the practical applicability of fact-based LJP. To address this limitation, we propose a novel legal NLP task: legal fact prediction (LFP), which takes the evidence submitted by litigants for trial as input to predict legal facts, thereby empowering fact-based LJP technologies to make predictions in the absence of ground-truth legal facts. We also propose the first benchmark dataset, LFPBench, for evaluating the LFP task. Our extensive experiments on LFPBench demonstrate the effectiveness of LFP-empowered LJP and highlight promising research directions for LFP.

cs.CL↗

StructLayoutFormer:Conditional Structured Layout Generation via Structure Serialization and Disentanglement

Structured layouts are preferable in many 2D visual contents (\eg, GUIs, webpages) since the structural information allows convenient layout editing. Computational frameworks can help create structured layouts but require heavy labor input. Existing data-driven approaches are effective in automatically generating fixed layouts but fail to produce layout structures. We present StructLayoutFormer, a novel Transformer-based approach for conditional structured layout generation. We use a structure serialization scheme to represent structured layouts as sequences. To better control the structures of generated layouts, we disentangle the structural information from the element placements. Our approach is the first data-driven approach that achieves conditional structured layout generation and produces realistic layout structures explicitly. We compare our approach with existing data-driven layout generation approaches by including post-processing for structure extraction. Extensive experiments have shown that our approach exceeds these baselines in conditional structured layout generation. We also demonstrate that our approach is effective in extracting and transferring layout structures. The code is publicly available at %\href{https://github.com/Teagrus/StructLayoutFormer} {https://github.com/Teagrus/StructLayoutFormer}.

cs.GR↗

View Transformation Robustness for Multi-View 3D Object Reconstruction with Reconstruction Error-Guided View Selection

View transformation robustness (VTR) is critical for deep-learning-based multi-view 3D object reconstruction models, which indicates the methods' stability under inputs with various view transformations. However, existing research seldom focused on view transformation robustness in multi-view 3D object reconstruction. One direct way to improve the models' VTR is to produce data with more view transformations and add them to model training. Recent progress on large vision models, particularly Stable Diffusion models, has provided great potential for generating 3D models or synthesizing novel view images with only a single image input. Directly deploying these models at inference consumes heavy computation resources and their robustness to view transformations is not guaranteed either. To fully utilize the power of Stable Diffusion models without extra inference computation burdens, we propose to generate novel views with Stable Diffusion models for better view transformation robustness. Instead of synthesizing random views, we propose a reconstruction error-guided view selection method, which considers the reconstruction errors' spatial distribution of the 3D predictions and chooses the views that could cover the reconstruction errors as much as possible. The methods are trained and tested on sets with large view transformations to validate the 3D reconstruction models' robustness to view transformations. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method can outperform state-of-the-art 3D reconstruction methods and other view transformation robustness comparison methods. Code is available at: https://github.com/zqyq/VTR.

cs.CV↗

Swarming models with specular boundary condition and environmental noise

We investigate a general class of models for swarming/self-collective behaviour in domains with boundaries. The model is expressed as a stochastic system of interacting particles subject to both reflecting boundary condition and common environmental noise. We rigorously derive its corresponding macroscopic mean-field equation, which is a new type of stochastic partial differential equation due to the presence of common noise. The approach relies on a compactness argument, in which we first establish the tightness of the empirical measures associated with the particle system and then demonstrate that the time marginal of the limit measure is a solution to the mean-field equation.

math.PR↗

DiffTex: Differentiable Texturing for Architectural Proxy Models

Simplified proxy models are commonly used to represent architectural structures, reducing storage requirements and enabling real-time rendering. However, the geometric simplifications inherent in proxies result in a loss of fine color and geometric details, making it essential for textures to compensate for the loss. Preserving the rich texture information from the original dense architectural reconstructions remains a daunting task, particularly when working with unordered RGB photographs. We propose an automated method for generating realistic texture maps for architectural proxy models at the texel level from an unordered collection of registered photographs. Our approach establishes correspondences between texels on a UV map and pixels in the input images, with each texel's color computed as a weighted blend of associated pixel values. Using differentiable rendering, we optimize blending parameters to ensure photometric and perspective consistency, while maintaining seamless texture coherence. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our method across diverse architectural models and varying photographic conditions, enabling the creation of high-quality textures that preserve visual fidelity and structural detail.

cs.GR↗

Aerial Path Planning for Urban Geometry and Texture Co-Capture

Recent advances in image acquisition and scene reconstruction have enabled the generation of high-quality structural urban scene geometry, given sufficient site information. However, current capture techniques often overlook the crucial importance of texture quality, resulting in noticeable visual artifacts in the textured models. In this work, we introduce the urban geometry and texture co-capture problem under limited prior knowledge before a site visit. The only inputs are a 2D building contour map of the target area and a safe flying altitude above the buildings. We propose an innovative aerial path planning framework designed to co-capture images for reconstructing both structured geometry and high-fidelity textures. To evaluate and guide view planning, we introduce a comprehensive texture quality assessment system, including two novel metrics tailored for building facades. Firstly, our method generates high-quality vertical dipping views and horizontal planar views to effectively capture both geometric and textural details. A multi-objective optimization strategy is then proposed to jointly maximize texture fidelity, improve geometric accuracy, and minimize the cost associated with aerial views. Furthermore, we present a sequential path planning algorithm that accounts for texture consistency during image capture. Extensive experiments on large-scale synthetic and real-world urban datasets demonstrate that our approach effectively produces image sets suitable for concurrent geometric and texture reconstruction, enabling the creation of realistic, textured scene proxies at low operational cost.

cs.GR↗