Integrated Calendar

Transformer-based models have revolutionized natural language processing (NLP) and significantly improved various NLP tasks. However, many researchers make implicit assumptions about their training setups, assuming that the train and test sets are drawn from the same distribution. This assumption can limit the applicability of these models across different languages and domains.
The high cost of training state-of-the-art NLP models using various languages and domains has resulted in training them for only a subset of languages and domains, leading to a significant performance gap in excluded domains and languages. This performance gap marginalizes many individuals from accessing useful models.

This talk will address the challenges, approaches, and opportunities for democratizing NLP across different languages and domains.
Finally, we will explore future directions for making these models accessible to a broader audience.

We show that every language in NP has an Interactive Oracle Proof (IOP) with inverse polynomial soundness error and small query complexity. This achieves parameters that surpass all previously known PCPs and IOPs. Specifically, we construct an IOP with perfect completeness, soundness error 1/n, round complexity O(loglog n), proof length poly(n) over an alphabet of size O(n), and query complexity O(loglog n). This is a step forward in the quest to establish the sliding-scale conjecture for IOPs (which would additionally require query complexity O(1)).

Our main technical contribution is a emph{high-soundness small-query} proximity test for the Reed--Solomon code. We construct an IOP of proximity for Reed--Solomon codes, over a field F with evaluation domain L and degree d, with perfect completeness, soundness error (roughly) max{1-delta , O(
ho^{1/4})}$ for delta-far functions, round complexity O(loglog d), proof length O(|L|/
ho) over F, and query complexity O(loglog d)

Daniel Harari 1, Ron Rotkopf 2, Shlomit Reich-Zeliger 3, Mathumathi Krishnamohan 1, Alona Dov 1, Vladislav Volchinski 1 and Gideon Schreiber 1
1. Dept. Biomolecular Sciences, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
2. Bioinformatics Unit, The Weizmann Institute of Science
3. Dept. Immunology, The Weizmann Institute of Science

Transcriptomic analysis of tumor biopsies from metastatic melanoma patients (SKCM-TCGA) demonstrates a profound survival advantage for approximately one-third of patients who exhibit the highest levels of intratumoral type I Interferon (IFN-I) signaling (Hazard Ratio 0.36; Pr: 4E-06), these which coincide with a sharp increase in transcripts indicating infiltration of CD4-T, CD8-T, B-cells and Macrophages to the tumors. Pathway analysis furthermore demonstrates that these patients exhibit T- and B-cell activation and a Th-1 response. To test if IFN-I signaling is central to and not simply correlating with these associated factors, we employed an adeno-associated virus (AAV) delivery system, locally expressing mouse IFNβ in B16F10 cells grafted into congenic C57BL/6 mice, this a known cold tumor model particularly hard to treat. Whereas anti-PDL1 monotherapy had no response in this model, combination therapy slowed, and in some cases cleared the mice of tumors. AAV-IFNβ monotherapy alone can slow but will not cure the mice. In sharp contrast to localized IFN delivery, systemic IFN therapy showed no beneficial effects in slowing tumor growth. To examine this more deeply, we injected the mice bilaterally with B16F10 tumors, where one tumor received AAV- IFNβ and the contralateral tumor received control. Both the injected and contralateral tumors nevertheless demonstrated a large reduction in tumor size, this effect lost when repeated using IFNAR2 knockout mice. Furthermore both the IFN-treated and contralateral tumors exhibited a large increase in CD3+CD4+ and CD3+CD4- lymphocytes. We submit that enforcing localized IFN-I signaling to a tumor in melanoma can drive immune cell infiltration, with the potential to elicit a systemic immune response, and possibly even cure, particularly when used in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors.