The Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT) will host the 16th International Conference on Emerging Technologies for a Smarter World (CEWIT2020) virtually on November 5, 2020. The conference will center on the four major fields which are penetrating our business and personal lives: Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Computational Medicine. For more info visit: https://www.cewit.org/.  
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Meeting ID: 919 4522 7869
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Meeting ID: 919 4522 7869
Find your local number: https://stonybrook.zoom.us/u/aCvAYWkRg  
Abstract: Humans perceive the world around them by recognizing global patterns and structures such as object parts, branches, their spatial arrangement, and so on. Most deep learning models, however, take a fundamentally local approach. They process images pixel-by-pixel rather than focusing on structures as a whole. While these models indeed perform well on many tasks, the local (pixel-level) versus global (structure-level) disconnect makes them harder to interpret and control.

Topology, in a general sense, is a mathematical language for describing structure. It delineates how different parts of an image relate to one another, capturing both individual structures and their overall layout. Preserving topology enforces structural correctness and, by extension, semantic validity.

In this thesis, we investigate how topological constraints can be used to bridge the gap between local and global understanding. We use topology to inform the design of deep learning models that are explicitly structure-aware. Our thesis focuses on dense prediction tasks, which include image segmentation, uncertainty estimation, and generative modeling. First, we introduce a topological interaction module for semantic segmentation that encodes containment and exclusion constraints directly into the learning process. This preserves anatomical hierarchies and improves multi-class consistency. Next, since segmentation models can never be truly perfect, we address the need for reliable uncertainty estimation to identify error-prone regions. Unlike conventional pixel-wise uncertainty maps, which tend to be noisy and difficult to interpret, we propose reasoning at the level of structural units--branches and connections--which are more visually discernible and actionable. Finally, we leverage topology for generative modeling. We propose a topology-guided diffusion framework that can be controlled using structural attributes like object count and connectivity.

Together, these contributions establish a unified approach to topology-informed, structure-preserving dense prediction models. By integrating topological reasoning with deep networks, this thesis advances models that are not only accurate, but also structurally consistent, interpretable, and controllable. The results from this thesis have been published in ECCV, NeurIPS, and ICLR.

Speaker: Saumya Gupta

Location: New Computer Science (NCS) 120


Zoom: https://stonybrook.zoom.us/j/93643318604?pwd=kv8DagpbayzizivU29UCYItnlzlYRM.1&jst=2

Join us for an engaging panel discussion featuring researchers who participated in our inaugural AI JAM session on February 26th. Our panelists will share their firsthand experiences using large language models to tackle complex scientific problems, with a special focus on prompt engineering strategies, discussing both breakthroughs and challenges encountered during this collaborative initiative. Learn how these cutting-edge AI tools are being applied to real-world research questions and discover insights that could inform your own scientific endeavors. Attendees are encouraged to come prepared with questions about prompt engineering for the panel discussion.

Moderator: Adolfy Hoisie, Deputy Director, Computing and Data Sciences

Kevin Yager, Group Leader, AI-Accelerated Nanoscience, Center for Functional Nanomaterials
Lingda Li, Associate Computational Scientist, Systems, Architecture and Computing Technologies, Computing and Data Sciences
Liguo Wang, Director of Scientific Operations, Laboratory for BioMolecular Structure (LBMS), National Synchrotron Light Source II
Weiguo Yin, Physicist, Condensed Matter Theory, Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department

Location: CDS, Bldg. 725, Training Room

Join ZoomGov Meeting: https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1606837837?pwd=Tc0mwQqLXpDfYOIaoaurmpLD2mMlzS.1 (Meeting ID)

Passcode: 822553

Virtual Talk: Contextual Modeling for Natural Language Understanding, Generation and Grounding by Rui Zhang

Zoom link to come.

Abstract: Natural language is a fundamental form of information and communication. In both human-human and human-computer communication, people reason about the context of text and world state to understand language and produce language response. In this talk, I present 
several deep-neural-network-based systems that first understand the meaning of language grounded in various contexts where the language is used, and then generate effective language responses in different forms for information access and human-computer communication. First, 
I will introduce Speaker Interaction RNNs for addressee and response selection in multi-party conversations based on explicit representations for different discourse participants. Then, I will 
present a text summarization approach for generating email subject lines by optimizing quality scores in a reinforcement learning framework. Finally, I will show an editing-based multi-turn SQL query generation system towards intelligent natural language interfaces to databases. 

Bio: Rui Zhang is a final-year PhD student at Yale University advised by Professor Dragomir Radev. His research interest lies in various natural language processing problems in understanding, generation, and grounding. He has been working on (1) End-to-End Neural Modeling for Entities, Sentences, Documents and Multi-party Multi-turn Dialogues, (2) Text Summarization for Emails, News and Scientific Articles, (3) Cross-lingual Information Retrieval for Low-Resource Languages, (4) Context-Dependent Text-to-SQL Semantic Parsing in Human-Computer Interaction. Rui Zhang has published papers and served as Program Committee members at top-tier NLP and AI conferences including ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, AAAI and CoNLL. During his PhD, he has done research internships at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Grammarly Research and Google AI. He was a graduate student at the University of Michigan and got his Bachelor's degrees at both the University of Michigan and Shanghai Jiao Tong University from the UM-SJTU Joint Institute.

You are cordially invited to attend the biweekly Brookhaven AI Mixer (BAM). BAM includes one short talk on AI research happening at BNL, followed by an open mixer over coffee and snacks for everyone to network and discuss all things AI. The first half hour will consist of presentations that will be available via ZOOM, and the second half hour will be for in person only networking.

Join us every other Tuesday at noon in CDSD's Training Room (building 725, 2nd floor) to learn about interesting AI methods and applications, engage with potential collaborators, prepare for pending FASST funding calls, and build a community of AI for Science at BNL.

Experiencing Machine Learning in Collider-Accelerator Control System

Abstract: The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Collider-Accelerator Department (C-AD) of BNL provides the world's only high-energy polarized proton beam. It is in the unique position to study where nuclei obtain their spin. During 25 years of operation at RHIC, the C-AD controls group has developed its own control system to tune the accelerator performance, which contains millions of control points. The successful operation of this system will highly affect the machine performance. RHIC's successor, the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), will be one of the most complex scientific instruments ever built, with the capability of colliding polarized proton and electron beams. The increasing complexity of instruments will require new, sophisticated control methods/tools to tune and optimize the accelerator performance. In this talk, I will summarize some projects developed in recent years that utilize machine learning in the C-AD controls group.

Biography: Dr. Yuan Gao is an assistant scientist at the Collider-Accelerator Department (C-AD) at Brookhaven, primarily working on developing new machine learning schemes in the control group to enhance system performance. His research interests include game theory, algorithm design, anomaly detection, and simulation modeling.

Location: CDS, Bldg. 725, Training Room

Join ZoomGov Meeting: https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1604302440?pwd=0x2I95PIvbkkzIi6rA0MNnon5k2sux.1

Meeting ID: 160 430 2440
Passcode: 478223

Over the past decade, researchers in neuroscience, psychology and artificial intelligence have come together to build advanced computer models that mimic how our brain processes what we see. These models are designed to closely copy the brain's visual system, all the way to a key area called the inferior temporal cortex, which plays an important role in recognizing objects.

Because these computer models can be fully observed, scientists can use them to make detailed predictions about how the brain works -- something older, more theoretical models could not do.

Dr. James DiCarlo's work explores whether these computer digital twin models of the brain could help guide safe, non- invasive ways to infl uence brain activity. In his talk, he explains how such a model could be used to design specific patterns of light. When this carefully designed light is added to what the eye naturally sees, it can precisely influence activity in groups of neurons in the inferior temporal cortex.

Since neural activity in this visual brain area may be connected to emotional states like anxiety, this research could eventually open the door to non-invasive approaches that may benefit mental well-being in the future.

Speaker: James J. DiCarlo, MD, PhD, Peter de Florez Professor, MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Director, MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence

Location: Staller Center Main Stage

The event will be livestreamed at stonybrook.edu/live

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence for Science (AI4Sci) has become a transformative approach in modeling and understanding complex physical systems, encompassing different scales such as atomistic systems and continuum systems. In atomistic systems, AI has shown potential in accelerating simulations, optimizing molecular dynamics, and predicting material and molecular properties through data-driven approaches, enhancing computational efficiency while preserving accuracy. For continuum systems, AI provides powerful tools for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) and learning physical patterns from data, capturing intricate dynamics that govern physical and engineering processes. This work explores AI methods--particularly equivariance for neural networks and neural operators--bridging atomistic and continuum representations. We analyze the implications of incorporating symmetries to improve model robustness and learning efficiency, providing a cohesive AI- driven framework for advancing scientific discovery. The findings aim to underscore the role of AI in enhancing accuracy, applicability, scalability, interopretability, and generalization across scales, from molecular simulations to physical modeling, opening pathways for next- generation applications in computational science. Biography: Wenhan Gao is a third-year Ph.D. student in Applied Mathematics at Stony Brook University, where he works under the supervision of Professor Yi Liu. Wenhan's research focuses on equivariant neural networks, graph neural networks, and AI for partial differential equations. Wenhan's work seeks to leverage the power of symmetries to aid AI models, particularly in fields such as computer vision (image and video generation), physical simulation (modeling climate change), and computational chemistry (drug discovery). He has published papers on the aforementioned topics in leading venues like NeurIPS, Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR), and Journal of Computational Physics (JCP). He also has several preprints under review in leading venues like ICLR and CVPR. In addition to his research, Wenhan has served as a reviewer for top-tier conferences, including ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, and KDD, and as a lecturer for undergraduate and graduate courses at Stony Brook University. Wenhan was awarded the NeurIPS Travel Award and Excellence in Teaching for Fall 2023.