Lichao Sun

Dr. Lichao Sun

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18045, USA

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

10Years (2017-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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10 November 2022 in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
LLLingjuan Lyu
Lingjuan Lyu
HYHan Yu
Han Yu
XMXingjun Ma
Xingjun Ma
CCChen Chen
Chen Chen
Lichao SunLichao Sun
Lichao Sun
PYPhilip S. Yu
Philip S. Yu
As data are increasingly being stored in different silos and societies becoming more aware of data privacy issues, the traditional centralized training of artificial intelligence (AI) models is facing efficiency and privacy challenges. Recently, federated learning (FL) has emerged as an alternative solution and continues to thrive in this new reality. Existing FL protocol designs have been shown to be vulnerable to adversaries within or outside of the system, compromising data privacy and system robustness. Besides training powerful global models, it is of paramount importance to design FL systems that have privacy guarantees and are resistant to different types of adversaries. In this article, we conduct a comprehensive survey on privacy and robustness in FL over the past five years. Through a concise introduction to the concept of FL and a unique taxonomy covering: 1) threat models; 2) privacy attacks and defenses; and 3) poisoning attacks and defenses, we provide an accessible review of this important topic. We highlight the intuitions, key techniques, and fundamental assumptions adopted by various attacks and defenses. Finally, we discuss promising future research directions toward robust and privacy-preserving FL, and their interplays with the multidisciplinary goals of FL.

8 April 2022 in ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
QLQian Li
Qian Li
HPHao Peng
Hao Peng
JLJianxin Li
Jianxin Li
CXCongying Xia
Congying Xia
Renyu YangRenyu Yang
Renyu Yang
LHLifang He
Lifang He
Text classification is the most fundamental and essential task in natural language processing. The last decade has seen a surge of research in this area due to the unprecedented success of deep learning. Numerous methods, datasets, and evaluation metrics have been proposed in the literature, raising the need for a comprehensive and updated survey. This paper fills the gap by reviewing the state-of-the-art approaches from 1961 to 2021, focusing on models from traditional models to deep learning. We create a taxonomy for text classification according to the text involved and the models used for feature extraction and classification. We then discuss each of these categories in detail, dealing with both the technical developments and benchmark datasets that support tests of predictions. A comprehensive comparison between different techniques, as well as identifying the pros and cons of various evaluation metrics are also provided in this survey. Finally, we conclude by summarizing key implications, future research directions, and the challenges facing the research area.

30 January 2025 in IEEE Transactions on Big Data
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
HDHaixing Dai
Haixing Dai
ZLZhengliang Liu
Zhengliang Liu
WLWenxiong Liao
Wenxiong Liao
XHXiaoke Huang
Xiaoke Huang
YCYihan Cao
Yihan Cao
Xiang LiXiang Li
Xiang Li
Text data augmentation is an effective strategy for overcoming the challenge of limited sample sizes in many natural language processing (NLP) tasks. This challenge is especially prominent in the few-shot learning (FSL) scenario, where the data in the target domain is generally much scarcer and of lowered quality. A natural and widely used strategy to mitigate such challenges is to perform data augmentation to better capture data invariance and increase the sample size. However, current text data augmentation methods either can’t ensure the correct labeling of the generated data (lacking faithfulness), or can’t ensure sufficient diversity in the generated data (lacking compactness), or both. Inspired by the recent success of large language models (LLM), especially the development of ChatGPT, we propose a text data augmentation approach based on ChatGPT (named ”AugGPT”). AugGPT rephrases each sentence in the training samples into multiple conceptually similar but semantically different samples. The augmented samples can then be used in downstream model training. Experiment results on multiple few-shot learning text classification tasks show the superior performance of the proposed AugGPT approach over state-of-the-art text data augmentation methods in terms of testing accuracy and distribution of the augmented samples.

7 August 2024 in Nature Medicine
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
PDF file
KZKai Zhang
Kai Zhang
RZRong Zhou
Rong Zhou
EAEashan Adhikarla
Eashan Adhikarla
ZYZhiling Yan
Zhiling Yan
YLYixin Liu
Yixin Liu
Lichao SunLichao Sun
Lichao Sun

6 September 2022 in IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
Lichao SunLichao Sun
Lichao Sun
YDYingtong Dou
Yingtong Dou
CYCarl Yang
Carl Yang
KZKai Zhang
Kai Zhang
JWJi Wang
Ji Wang
BLBo Li
Bo Li
Deep neural networks (DNNs) have been widely applied to various applications, including image classification, text generation, audio recognition, and graph data analysis. However, recent studies have shown that DNNs are vulnerable to adversarial attacks. Though there are several works about adversarial attack and defense strategies on domains such as images and natural language processing, it is still difficult to directly transfer the learned knowledge to graph data due to its representation structure. Given the importance of graph analysis, an increasing number of studies over the past few years have attempted to analyze the robustness of machine learning models on graph data. Nevertheless, existing research considering adversarial behaviors on graph data often focuses on specific types of attacks with certain assumptions. In addition, each work proposes its own mathematical formulation, which makes the comparison among different methods difficult. Therefore, this review is intended to provide an overall landscape of more than 100 papers on adversarial attack and defense strategies for graph data, and establish a unified formulation encompassing most graph adversarial learning models. Moreover, we also compare different graph attacks and defenses along with their contributions and limitations, as well as summarize the evaluation metrics, datasets and future trends. We hope this survey can help fill the gap in the literature and facilitate further development of this promising new field We also have created an online resource to keep track of relevant research on the basis of this survey at https://github.com/safe-graph/graph-adversarial-learning-literature .

30 May 2024 in IEEE Internet of Things Journal
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
LYLiangqi Yuan
Liangqi Yuan
ZWZiran Wang
Ziran Wang
Lichao SunLichao Sun
Lichao Sun
PYPhilip S. Yu
Philip S. Yu
CBChristopher G. Brinton
Christopher G. Brinton
Federated learning (FL) has been gaining attention for its ability to share knowledge while maintaining user data, protecting privacy, increasing learning efficiency, and reducing communication overhead. Decentralized FL (DFL) is a decentralized network architecture that eliminates the need for a central server in contrast to centralized FL (CFL). DFL enables direct communication between clients, resulting in significant savings in communication resources. In this article, a comprehensive survey and profound perspective are provided for DFL. First, a review of the methodology, challenges, and variants of CFL is conducted, laying the background of DFL. Then, a systematic and detailed perspective on DFL is introduced, including iteration order, communication protocols, network topologies, paradigm proposals, and temporal variability. Next, based on the definition of DFL, several extended variants and categorizations are proposed with state-of-the-art (SOTA) technologies. Lastly, in addition to summarizing the current challenges in the DFL, some possible solutions and future research directions are also discussed.