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University of South Dakota

Academic institutionnorthamerica · us
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Research library26linked papers
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Selected work

Representative Papers

SAGE: Surrogate-gradient Adaptation via Attention-Guided Entropy for Spiking Transformers

Aug 13, 2026

This study addresses the suboptimal training caused by fixed surrogate gradients in spiking Transformers by proposing the SAGE mechanism. SAGE quantifies uncertainty via normalized self-attention entropy to adaptively modulate surrogate gradient slopes, enabling dynamic parameter optimization with zero inference overhead. By preserving the inference model unchanged, this approach significantly enhances optimization flexibility. Experiments on CIFAR-10/100 demonstrate that SAGE consistently improves accuracy by 1–2% over fixed baselines, effectively resolving the trade-off between gradient estimation and model performance in spiking neural networks.

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Grad-CAM for Vision Transformers: A Systematic Taxonomy and Audit of Methodological Ambiguity in Explainable AI

Aug 05, 2026

This study addresses the lack of standardized implementation of Grad-CAM in Vision Transformers (ViTs), which has led to ambiguous formulations, poor reproducibility, and inconsistent interpretations. Through a systematic review of 175 relevant works, this paper proposes the first descriptive taxonomy for Grad-CAM variants tailored to ViTs, clarifying implicit assumptions and inconsistencies across critical components—namely feature token selection, gradient target specification, spatial reconstruction, and aggregation strategies. The analysis reveals that most existing studies inadequately document implementation details, demonstrating that the adaptation of Grad-CAM to ViTs is far from a trivial extension of its CNN-based counterpart. By establishing a clear and rigorous methodological framework, this work aims to enhance transparency, reproducibility, and reliability in explainable artificial intelligence for transformer-based vision models.

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Recent publications

Latest Papers

SAGE: Surrogate-gradient Adaptation via Attention-Guided Entropy for Spiking Transformers

Aug 13, 2026

This study addresses the suboptimal training caused by fixed surrogate gradients in spiking Transformers by proposing the SAGE mechanism. SAGE quantifies uncertainty via normalized self-attention entropy to adaptively modulate surrogate gradient slopes, enabling dynamic parameter optimization with zero inference overhead. By preserving the inference model unchanged, this approach significantly enhances optimization flexibility. Experiments on CIFAR-10/100 demonstrate that SAGE consistently improves accuracy by 1–2% over fixed baselines, effectively resolving the trade-off between gradient estimation and model performance in spiking neural networks.

0 citationsRead paper

Grad-CAM for Vision Transformers: A Systematic Taxonomy and Audit of Methodological Ambiguity in Explainable AI

Aug 05, 2026

This study addresses the lack of standardized implementation of Grad-CAM in Vision Transformers (ViTs), which has led to ambiguous formulations, poor reproducibility, and inconsistent interpretations. Through a systematic review of 175 relevant works, this paper proposes the first descriptive taxonomy for Grad-CAM variants tailored to ViTs, clarifying implicit assumptions and inconsistencies across critical components—namely feature token selection, gradient target specification, spatial reconstruction, and aggregation strategies. The analysis reveals that most existing studies inadequately document implementation details, demonstrating that the adaptation of Grad-CAM to ViTs is far from a trivial extension of its CNN-based counterpart. By establishing a clear and rigorous methodological framework, this work aims to enhance transparency, reproducibility, and reliability in explainable artificial intelligence for transformer-based vision models.

0 citationsRead paper