Massachusetts Institute of Technology

About: Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a education organization based out in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Laser. The organization has 116795 authors who have published 268000 publications receiving 18272025 citations. The organization is also known as: MIT & M.I.T..

Near-optimal hashing algorithms for approximate nearest neighbor in high dimensions

Abstract: In this article, we give an overview of efficient algorithms for the approximate and exact nearest neighbor problem. The goal is to preprocess a dataset of objects (e.g., images) so that later, given a new query object, one can quickly return the dataset object that is most similar to the query. The problem is of significant interest in a wide variety of areas.

Fluorescence intermittency in single cadmium selenide nanocrystals

Abstract: SEMICONDUCTOR nanocrystals offer the opportunity to study the evolution of bulk materials properties as the size of a system increases from the molecular scale1,2. In addition, their strongly size-dependent optical properties render them attractive candidates as tunable light absorbers and emitters in optoelectronic devices such as light-emitting diodes3,4 and quantum-dot lasers5,6, and as optical probes of biological systems7. Here we show that light emission from single fluorescing nanocrystals of cadmium selenide under continuous excitation turns on and off intermittently with a characteristic timescale of about 0.5 seconds. This intermittency is not apparent from ensemble measurements on many nanocrystals. The dependence on excitation intensity and the change in on/off times when a passivating, high-bandgap shell of zinc sulphide encapsulates the nanocrystal8,9 suggests that the abrupt turning off of luminescence is caused by photo-ionization of the nanocrystal. Thus spectroscopic measurements on single nanocrystals can reveal hitherto unknown aspects of their photophysics.

Obfuscated Gradients Give a False Sense of Security: Circumventing Defenses to Adversarial Examples

Abstract: We identify obfuscated gradients, a kind of gradient masking, as a phenomenon that leads to a false sense of security in defenses against adversarial examples. While defenses that cause obfuscated gradients appear to defeat iterative optimization-based attacks, we find defenses relying on this effect can be circumvented. We describe characteristic behaviors of defenses exhibiting the effect, and for each of the three types of obfuscated gradients we discover, we develop attack techniques to overcome it. In a case study, examining non-certified white-box-secure defenses at ICLR 2018, we find obfuscated gradients are a common occurrence, with 7 of 9 defenses relying on obfuscated gradients. Our new attacks successfully circumvent 6 completely, and 1 partially, in the original threat model each paper considers.