# Research Papers — 2025-10 · bundle page 204 of 217 > Full-text markdown of papers #10151–10200 of 10843 published in 2025-10, newest first. AI-readable mirrors of the full 10843-paper 2025-10 archive (50 papers per file). Canonical page: https://aipod.dev/papers/archive/2025-10/page/204 [← Previous bundle](https://aipod.dev/papers/archive/2025-10/page/203.md) [Next bundle →](https://aipod.dev/papers/archive/2025-10/page/205.md) ### PENEX: AdaBoost-Inspired Neural Network Regularization Authors: Klaus-Rudolf Kladny, Bernhard Schölkopf, Michael Muehlebach Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02107v4 AdaBoost sequentially fits so-called weak learners to minimize an exponential loss, which penalizes misclassified data points more severely than other loss functions like cross-entropy. Paradoxically, AdaBoost generalizes well in practice as the number of weak learners grows. In the present work, we introduce Penalized Exponential Loss (PENEX), a new formulation of the multi-class exponential loss that is theoretically grounded and, in contrast to the existing formulation, amenable to optimization via first-order methods, making it a practical objective for training neural networks. We demonstrate that PENEX effectively increases margins of data points, which can be translated into a generalization bound. Empirically, across computer vision and language tasks, PENEX improves neural network generalization in low-data regimes, matching and in some settings outperforming established regularizers at comparable computational cost. Our results highlight the potential of the exponential loss beyond its application in AdaBoost. --- ### When Tracking Fails: Analyzing Failure Modes of SAM2 for Point-Based Tracking in Surgical Videos Authors: Woowon Jang, Jiwon Im, Juseung Choi, Niki Rashidian, Wesley De Neve, Utku Ozbulak Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV, cs.AI arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02100v1 Video object segmentation (VOS) models such as SAM2 offer promising zero-shot tracking capabilities for surgical videos using minimal user input. Among the available input types, point-based tracking offers an efficient and low-cost alternative, yet its reliability and failure cases in complex surgical environments are not well understood. In this work, we systematically analyze the failure modes of point-based tracking in laparoscopic cholecystectomy videos. Focusing on three surgical targets, the gallbladder, grasper, and L-hook electrocautery, we compare the performance of point-based tracking with segmentation mask initialization. Our results show that point-based tracking is competitive for surgical tools but consistently underperforms for anatomical targets, where tissue similarity and ambiguous boundaries lead to failure. Through qualitative analysis, we reveal key factors influencing tracking outcomes and provide several actionable recommendations for selecting and placing tracking points to improve performance in surgical video analysis. --- ### Multiplier-free In-Memory Vector-Matrix Multiplication Using Distributed Arithmetic Authors: Felix Zeller, John Reuben, Dietmar Fey Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.AR, cs.NE arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02099v1 Vector-Matrix Multiplication (VMM) is the fundamental and frequently required computation in inference of Neural Networks (NN). Due to the large data movement required during inference, VMM can benefit greatly from in-memory computing. However, ADC/DACs required for in-memory VMM consume significant power and area. `Distributed Arithmetic (DA)', a technique in computer architecture prevalent in 1980s was used to achieve inner product or dot product of two vectors without using a hard-wired multiplier when one of the vectors is a constant. In this work, we extend the DA technique to multiply an input vector with a constant matrix. By storing the sum of the weights in memory, DA achieves VMM using shift-and-add circuits in the periphery of ReRAM memory. We verify functional and also estimate non-functional properties (latency, energy, area) by performing transistor-level simulations. Using energy-efficient sensing and fine grained pipelining, our approach achieves 4.5 x less latency and 12 x less energy than VMM performed in memory conventionally by bit slicing. Furthermore, DA completely eliminated the need for power-hungry ADCs which are the main source of area and energy consumption in the current VMM implementations in memory. --- ### Mapping Historic Urban Footprints in France: Balancing Quality, Scalability and AI Techniques Authors: Walid Rabehi, Marion Le Texier, Rémi Lemoy Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02097v2 Quantitative analysis of historical urban sprawl in France before the 1970s is hindered by the lack of nationwide digital urban footprint data. This study bridges this gap by developing a scalable deep learning pipeline to extract urban areas from the Scan Histo historical map series (1925-1950), which produces the first open-access, national-scale urban footprint dataset for this pivotal period. Our key innovation is a dual-pass U-Net approach designed to handle the high radiometric and stylistic complexity of historical maps. The first pass, trained on an initial dataset, generates a preliminary map that identifies areas of confusion, such as text and roads, to guide targeted data augmentation. The second pass uses a refined dataset and the binarized output of the first model to minimize radiometric noise, which significantly reduces false positives. Deployed on a high-performance computing cluster, our method processes 941 high-resolution tiles covering the entirety of metropolitan France. The final mosaic achieves an overall accuracy of 73%, effectively capturing diverse urban patterns while overcoming common artifacts like labels and contour lines. We openly release the code, training datasets, and the resulting nationwide urban raster to support future research in long-term urbanization dynamics. --- ### Learning Model Representations Using Publicly Available Model Hubs Authors: Damian Falk, Konstantin Schürholt, Konstantinos Tzevelekakis, Léo Meynent, Damian Borth Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02096v1 The weights of neural networks have emerged as a novel data modality, giving rise to the field of weight space learning. A central challenge in this area is that learning meaningful representations of weights typically requires large, carefully constructed collections of trained models, typically referred to as model zoos. These model zoos are often trained ad-hoc, requiring large computational resources, constraining the learned weight space representations in scale and flexibility. In this work, we drop this requirement by training a weight space learning backbone on arbitrary models downloaded from large, unstructured model repositories such as Hugging Face. Unlike curated model zoos, these repositories contain highly heterogeneous models: they vary in architecture and dataset, and are largely undocumented. To address the methodological challenges posed by such heterogeneity, we propose a new weight space backbone designed to handle unstructured model populations. We demonstrate that weight space representations trained on models from Hugging Face achieve strong performance, often outperforming backbones trained on laboratory-generated model zoos. Finally, we show that the diversity of the model weights in our training set allows our weight space model to generalize to unseen data modalities. By demonstrating that high-quality weight space representations can be learned in the wild, we show that curated model zoos are not indispensable, thereby overcoming a strong limitation currently faced by the weight space learning community. --- ### Demystifying the Roles of LLM Layers in Retrieval, Knowledge, and Reasoning Authors: Xinyuan Song, Keyu Wang, PengXiang Li, Lu Yin, Shiwei Liu Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.AI arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02091v4 Recent studies suggest that the deeper layers of Large Language Models (LLMs) contribute little to representation learning and can often be removed without significant performance loss. However, such claims are typically drawn from narrow evaluations and may overlook important aspects of model behavior. In this work, we present a systematic study of depth utilization across diverse dimensions, including evaluation protocols, task categories, and model architectures. Our analysis confirms that very deep layers are generally less effective than earlier ones, but their contributions vary substantially with the evaluation setting. Under likelihood-based metrics without generation, pruning most layers preserves performance, with only the initial few being critical. By contrast, generation-based evaluation uncovers indispensable roles for middle and deeper layers in enabling reasoning and maintaining long-range coherence. We further find that knowledge and retrieval are concentrated in shallow components, whereas reasoning accuracy relies heavily on deeper layers -- yet can be reshaped through distillation. These results highlight that depth usage in LLMs is highly heterogeneous and context-dependent, underscoring the need for task-, metric-, and model-aware perspectives in both interpreting and compressing large models. --- ### VGDM: Vision-Guided Diffusion Model for Brain Tumor Detection and Segmentation Authors: Arman Behnam Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02086v1 Accurate detection and segmentation of brain tumors from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are essential for diagnosis, treatment planning, and clinical monitoring. While convolutional architectures such as U-Net have long been the backbone of medical image segmentation, their limited capacity to capture long-range dependencies constrains performance on complex tumor structures. Recent advances in diffusion models have demonstrated strong potential for generating high-fidelity medical images and refining segmentation boundaries. In this work, we propose VGDM: Vision-Guided Diffusion Model for Brain Tumor Detection and Segmentation framework, a transformer-driven diffusion framework for brain tumor detection and segmentation. By embedding a vision transformer at the core of the diffusion process, the model leverages global contextual reasoning together with iterative denoising to enhance both volumetric accuracy and boundary precision. The transformer backbone enables more effective modeling of spatial relationships across entire MRI volumes, while diffusion refinement mitigates voxel-level errors and recovers fine-grained tumor details. This hybrid design provides a pathway toward improved robustness and scalability in neuro-oncology, moving beyond conventional U-Net baselines. Experimental validation on MRI brain tumor datasets demonstrates consistent gains in Dice similarity and Hausdorff distance, underscoring the potential of transformer-guided diffusion models to advance the state of the art in tumor segmentation. --- ### KAIROS: Unified Training for Universal Non-Autoregressive Time Series Forecasting Authors: Kuiye Ding, Fanda Fan, Zheya Wang, Hongxiao Li, Yifan Wang, Lei Wang, Chunjie Luo, Jianfeng Zhan Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG, cs.AI arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02084v2 In the World Wide Web, reliable time series forecasts provide the forward-looking signals that drive resource planning, cache placement, and anomaly response, enabling platforms to operate efficiently as user behavior and content distributions evolve. Compared with other domains, time series forecasting for Web applications requires much faster responsiveness to support real-time decision making. We present KAIROS, a non-autoregressive time series forecasting framework that directly models segment-level multi-peak distributions. Unlike autoregressive approaches, KAIROS avoids error accumulation and achieves just-in-time inference, while improving over existing non-autoregressive models that collapse to over-smoothed predictions. Trained on the large-scale corpus, KAIROS demonstrates strong zero-shot generalization on six widely used benchmarks, delivering forecasting performance comparable to state-of-the-art foundation models with similar scale, at a fraction of their inference cost. Beyond empirical results, KAIROS highlights the importance of non-autoregressive design as a scalable paradigm for foundation models in time series. --- ### Fine-Tuning Flow Matching via Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Reconstructions Authors: Zhaoyi Li, Jingtao Ding, Yong Li, Shihua Li Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02081v2 Flow Matching (FM) models achieve remarkable results in generative tasks. Building upon diffusion models, FM's simulation-free training paradigm enables simplicity and efficiency but introduces a train-inference gap: model outputs cannot be assessed during training. Moreover, the straight flow assumption suffers from some inherent limitations. To address this, we propose to fine-tune FM via Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) of reconstructions -- enabled by FM's smooth ODE formulation, unlike the stochastic differential equations (SDEs) in diffusion models. We first theoretically analyze the relationship between training loss and inference error in FM under numerical precision constraints. We then propose an easy-to-implement fine-tuning framework based on MLE of reconstructions, with flexibility for sophisticated extensions. Building on this, we incorporate a generalized artificial viscosity term that enhances flow stability and robustness, accompanied by a direct parameterization method and rigorous theoretical guarantees. Experiments demonstrate our method's effectiveness across diverse settings: a toy example provides mechanistic insights into the fine-tuning process, while large-scale evaluations on meteorological forecasting and robotic manipulation policies validate reliable performance improvements. --- ### Inferring Optical Tissue Properties from Photoplethysmography using Hybrid Amortized Inference Authors: Jens Behrmann, Maria R. Cervera, Antoine Wehenkel, Andrew C. Miller, Albert Cerussi, Pranay Jain, Vivek Venugopal, Shijie Yan, Guillermo Sapiro, Luca Pegolotti, Jörn-Henrik Jacobsen Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG, physics.bio-ph, stat.ML arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02073v1 Smart wearables enable continuous tracking of established biomarkers such as heart rate, heart rate variability, and blood oxygen saturation via photoplethysmography (PPG). Beyond these metrics, PPG waveforms contain richer physiological information, as recent deep learning (DL) studies demonstrate. However, DL models often rely on features with unclear physiological meaning, creating a tension between predictive power, clinical interpretability, and sensor design. We address this gap by introducing PPGen, a biophysical model that relates PPG signals to interpretable physiological and optical parameters. Building on PPGen, we propose hybrid amortized inference (HAI), enabling fast, robust, and scalable estimation of relevant physiological parameters from PPG signals while correcting for model misspecification. In extensive in-silico experiments, we show that HAI can accurately infer physiological parameters under diverse noise and sensor conditions. Our results illustrate a path toward PPG models that retain the fidelity needed for DL-based features while supporting clinical interpretation and informed hardware design. --- ### Spec-Gloss Surfels and Normal-Diffuse Priors for Relightable Glossy Objects Authors: Georgios Kouros, Minye Wu, Tinne Tuytelaars Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.GR, cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02069v3 Accurate reconstruction and relighting of glossy objects remains a longstanding challenge, as object shape, material properties, and illumination are inherently difficult to disentangle. Existing neural rendering approaches often rely on simplified BRDF models or parameterizations that couple diffuse and specular components, which restrict faithful material recovery and limit relighting fidelity. We propose a relightable framework that integrates a microfacet BRDF with the specular-glossiness parameterization into 2D Gaussian Splatting with deferred shading. This formulation enables more physically consistent material decomposition, while diffusion-based priors for surface normals and diffuse color guide early-stage optimization and mitigate ambiguity. A coarse-to-fine environment map optimization accelerates convergence, and negative-only environment map clipping preserves high-dynamic-range specular reflections. Extensive experiments on complex, glossy scenes demonstrate that our method achieves high-quality geometry and material reconstruction, delivering substantially more realistic and consistent relighting under novel illumination compared to existing Gaussian splatting methods. --- ### Adaptive Kernel Selection for Stein Variational Gradient Descent Authors: Moritz Melcher, Simon Weissmann, Ashia C. Wilson, Jakob Zech Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: stat.ML, cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02067v2 A central challenge in Bayesian inference is efficiently approximating posterior distributions. Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) is a popular variational inference method which transports a set of particles to approximate a target distribution. The SVGD dynamics are governed by a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) and are highly sensitive to the choice of the kernel function, which directly influences both convergence and approximation quality. The commonly used median heuristic offers a simple approach for setting kernel bandwidths but lacks flexibility and often performs poorly, particularly in high-dimensional settings. In this work, we propose an alternative strategy for adaptively choosing kernel parameters over an abstract family of kernels. Recent convergence analyses based on the kernelized Stein discrepancy (KSD) suggest that optimizing the kernel parameters by maximizing the KSD can improve performance. Building on this insight, we introduce Adaptive SVGD (Ad-SVGD), a method that alternates between updating the particles via SVGD and adaptively tuning kernel bandwidths through gradient ascent on the KSD. We provide a simplified theoretical analysis that extends existing results on minimizing the KSD for fixed kernels to our adaptive setting, showing convergence properties for the maximal KSD over our kernel class. Our empirical results further support this intuition: Ad-SVGD consistently outperforms standard heuristics in a variety of tasks. --- ### Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Streaming Full-Duplex End-to-End Spoken Dialogue Systems Authors: Siddhant Arora, Jinchuan Tian, Hayato Futami, Jiatong Shi, Yosuke Kashiwagi, Emiru Tsunoo, Shinji Watanabe Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CL, cs.SD, eess.AS arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02066v1 Most end-to-end (E2E) spoken dialogue systems (SDS) rely on voice activity detection (VAD) for turn-taking, but VAD fails to distinguish between pauses and turn completions. Duplex SDS models address this by predicting output continuously, including silence tokens, thus removing the need for explicit VAD. However, they often have complex dual-channel architecture and lag behind cascaded models in semantic reasoning. To overcome these challenges, we propose SCoT: a Streaming Chain-of-Thought (CoT) framework for Duplex SDS, alternating between processing fixed-duration user input and generating responses in a blockwise manner. Using frame-level alignments, we create intermediate targets-aligned user transcripts and system responses for each block. Experiments show that our approach produces more coherent and interpretable responses than existing duplex methods while supporting lower-latency and overlapping interactions compared to turn-by-turn systems. --- ### ReTabAD: A Benchmark for Restoring Semantic Context in Tabular Anomaly Detection Authors: Sanghyu Yoon, Dongmin Kim, Suhee Yoon, Ye Seul Sim, Seungdong Yoa, Hye-Seung Cho, Soonyoung Lee, Hankook Lee, Woohyung Lim Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.AI, cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02060v2 In tabular anomaly detection (AD), textual semantics often carry critical signals, as the definition of an anomaly is closely tied to domain-specific context. However, existing benchmarks provide only raw data points without semantic context, overlooking rich textual metadata such as feature descriptions and domain knowledge that experts rely on in practice. This limitation restricts research flexibility and prevents models from fully leveraging domain knowledge for detection. ReTabAD addresses this gap by restoring textual semantics to enable context-aware tabular AD research. We provide (1) 20 carefully curated tabular datasets enriched with structured textual metadata, together with implementations of state-of-the-art AD algorithms including classical, deep learning, and LLM-based approaches, and (2) a zero-shot LLM framework that leverages semantic context without task-specific training, establishing a strong baseline for future research. Furthermore, this work provides insights into the role and utility of textual metadata in AD through experiments and analysis. Results show that semantic context improves detection performance and enhances interpretability by supporting domain-aware reasoning. These findings establish ReTabAD as a benchmark for systematic exploration of context-aware AD. --- ### Adaptive Heterogeneous Mixtures of Normalising Flows for Robust Variational Inference Authors: Benjamin Wiriyapong, Oktay Karakuş, Kirill Sidorov Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG, stat.ML arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02056v1 Normalising-flow variational inference (VI) can approximate complex posteriors, yet single-flow models often behave inconsistently across qualitatively different distributions. We propose Adaptive Mixture Flow Variational Inference (AMF-VI), a heterogeneous mixture of complementary flows (MAF, RealNVP, RBIG) trained in two stages: (i) sequential expert training of individual flows, and (ii) adaptive global weight estimation via likelihood-driven updates, without per-sample gating or architectural changes. Evaluated on six canonical posterior families of banana, X-shape, two-moons, rings, a bimodal, and a five-mode mixture, AMF-VI achieves consistently lower negative log-likelihood than each single-flow baseline and delivers stable gains in transport metrics (Wasserstein-2) and maximum mean discrepancy (MDD), indicating improved robustness across shapes and modalities. The procedure is efficient and architecture-agnostic, incurring minimal overhead relative to standard flow training, and demonstrates that adaptive mixtures of diverse flows provide a reliable route to robust VI across diverse posterior families whilst preserving each expert's inductive bias. --- ### Multidata Causal Discovery for Statistical Hurricane Intensity Forecasting Authors: Saranya Ganesh S, Frederick Iat-Hin Tam, Milton S. Gomez, Marie McGraw, Mark DeMaria, Kate Musgrave, Jakob Runge, Tom Beucler Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: stat.AP, cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02050v3 Improving statistical forecasts of tropical cyclone (TC) intensity is limited by complex nonlinear interactions and difficulty in identifying relevant predictors. Conventional methods prioritize correlation or fit, often overlooking confounding variables and limiting generalizability to unseen TCs. To address this, we leverage a multidata causal discovery framework with a replicated dataset based on Statistical Hurricane Intensity Prediction Scheme (SHIPS) using ERA5 meteorological reanalysis. We conduct experiments to identify and select predictors causally linked to TC intensity changes. We then train multiple linear regression models to compare causal feature selection with correlation, random forest feature importance, and no feature selection, across five forecast lead times from 1 to 5 days (24 to 120 hours). Causal feature selection consistently outperforms on unseen test cases, especially for lead times shorter than 3 days. Top causal features include vertical shear, mid-tropospheric potential vorticity and surface moisture conditions, which are physically significant yet often underutilized in TC intensity predictions. We build an extended predictor set (SHIPS+) by adding selected features to the standard SHIPS predictors. SHIPS+ yields increased short-term predictive skill at lead times of 24, 48, and 72 hours. Adding nonlinearity using a multilayer perceptron further extends skill to longer lead times, despite our framework being purely regional and not requiring global forecast data. Operational SHIPS tests confirm that three of the six added causally discovered predictors improve forecast skill, with the largest gains at longer lead times. Our results demonstrate that causal discovery improves TC intensity prediction and pave the way toward more empirical forecasts. --- ### Mathematical Modeling and Convergence Analysis of Deep Neural Networks with Dense Layer Connectivities in Deep Learning Authors: Jinshu Huang, Haibin Su, Xue-Cheng Tai, Chunlin Wu Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02049v1 In deep learning, dense layer connectivity has become a key design principle in deep neural networks (DNNs), enabling efficient information flow and strong performance across a range of applications. In this work, we model densely connected DNNs mathematically and analyze their learning problems in the deep-layer limit. For a broad applicability, we present our analysis in a framework setting of DNNs with densely connected layers and general non-local feature transformations (with local feature transformations as special cases) within layers, which is called dense non-local (DNL) framework and includes standard DenseNets and variants as special examples. In this formulation, the densely connected networks are modeled as nonlinear integral equations, in contrast to the ordinary differential equation viewpoint commonly adopted in prior works. We study the associated training problems from an optimal control perspective and prove convergence results from the network learning problem to its continuous-time counterpart. In particular, we show the convergence of optimal values and the subsequence convergence of minimizers, using a piecewise linear extension and $Γ$-convergence analysis. Our results provide a mathematical foundation for understanding densely connected DNNs and further suggest that such architectures can offer stability of training deep models. --- ### Variational Secret Common Randomness Extraction Authors: Xinyang Li, Vlad C. Andrei, Peter J. Gu, Yiqi Chen, Ullrich J. Mönich, Holger Boche Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.IT, cs.LG, eess.SP arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02048v1 This paper studies the problem of extracting common randomness (CR) or secret keys from correlated random sources observed by two legitimate parties, Alice and Bob, through public discussion in the presence of an eavesdropper, Eve. We propose a practical two-stage CR extraction framework. In the first stage, the variational probabilistic quantization (VPQ) step is introduced, where Alice and Bob employ probabilistic neural network (NN) encoders to map their observations into discrete, nearly uniform random variables (RVs) with high agreement probability while minimizing information leakage to Eve. This is realized through a variational learning objective combined with adversarial training. In the second stage, a secure sketch using code-offset construction reconciles the encoder outputs into identical secret keys, whose secrecy is guaranteed by the VPQ objective. As a representative application, we study physical layer key (PLK) generation. Beyond the traditional methods, which rely on the channel reciprocity principle and require two-way channel probing, thus suffering from large protocol overhead and being unsuitable in high mobility scenarios, we propose a sensing-based PLK generation method for integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) systems, where paired range-angle (RA) maps measured at Alice and Bob serve as correlated sources. The idea is verified through both end-to-end simulations and real-world software-defined radio (SDR) measurements, including scenarios where Eve has partial knowledge about Bob's position. The results demonstrate the feasibility and convincing performance of both the proposed CR extraction framework and sensing-based PLK generation method. --- ### Stream RAG: Instant and Accurate Spoken Dialogue Systems with Streaming Tool Usage Authors: Siddhant Arora, Haidar Khan, Kai Sun, Xin Luna Dong, Sajal Choudhary, Seungwhan Moon, Xinyuan Zhang, Adithya Sagar, Surya Teja Appini, Kaushik Patnaik, Sanat Sharma, Shinji Watanabe et al. Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CL, cs.SD, eess.AS arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02044v1 End-to-end speech-in speech-out dialogue systems are emerging as a powerful alternative to traditional ASR-LLM-TTS pipelines, generating more natural, expressive responses with significantly lower latency. However, these systems remain prone to hallucinations due to limited factual grounding. While text-based dialogue systems address this challenge by integrating tools such as web search and knowledge graph APIs, we introduce the first approach to extend tool use directly into speech-in speech-out systems. A key challenge is that tool integration substantially increases response latency, disrupting conversational flow. To mitigate this, we propose Streaming Retrieval-Augmented Generation (Streaming RAG), a novel framework that reduces user-perceived latency by predicting tool queries in parallel with user speech, even before the user finishes speaking. Specifically, we develop a post-training pipeline that teaches the model when to issue tool calls during ongoing speech and how to generate spoken summaries that fuse audio queries with retrieved text results, thereby improving both accuracy and responsiveness. To evaluate our approach, we construct AudioCRAG, a benchmark created by converting queries from the publicly available CRAG dataset into speech form. Experimental results demonstrate that our streaming RAG approach increases QA accuracy by up to 200% relative (from 11.1% to 34.2% absolute) and further enhances user experience by reducing tool use latency by 20%. Importantly, our streaming RAG approach is modality-agnostic and can be applied equally to typed input, paving the way for more agentic, real-time AI assistants. --- ### Zero-shot Human Pose Estimation using Diffusion-based Inverse solvers Authors: Sahil Bhandary Karnoor, Romit Roy Choudhury Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV, cs.HC, cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02043v2 Pose estimation refers to tracking a human's full body posture, including their head, torso, arms, and legs. The problem is challenging in practical settings where the number of body sensors are limited. Past work has shown promising results using conditional diffusion models, where the pose prediction is conditioned on both <location, rotation> measurements from the sensors. Unfortunately, nearly all these approaches generalize poorly across users, primarly because location measurements are highly influenced by the body size of the user. In this paper, we formulate pose estimation as an inverse problem and design an algorithm capable of zero-shot generalization. Our idea utilizes a pre-trained diffusion model and conditions it on rotational measurements alone; the priors from this model are then guided by a likelihood term, derived from the measured locations. Thus, given any user, our proposed InPose method generatively estimates the highly likely sequence of poses that best explains the sparse on-body measurements. --- ### A Multicentric Dataset for Training and Benchmarking Breast Cancer Segmentation in H&E Slides Authors: Carlijn Lems, Leslie Tessier, John-Melle Bokhorst, Mart van Rijthoven, Witali Aswolinskiy, Matteo Pozzi, Natalie Klubickova, Suzanne Dintzis, Michela Campora, Maschenka Balkenhol, Peter Bult, Joey Spronck et al. Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: q-bio.QM, cs.CV, eess.IV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02037v1 Automated semantic segmentation of whole-slide images (WSIs) stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) is essential for large-scale artificial intelligence-based biomarker analysis in breast cancer. However, existing public datasets for breast cancer segmentation lack the morphological diversity needed to support model generalizability and robust biomarker validation across heterogeneous patient cohorts. We introduce BrEast cancEr hisTopathoLogy sEgmentation (BEETLE), a dataset for multiclass semantic segmentation of H&E-stained breast cancer WSIs. It consists of 587 biopsies and resections from three collaborating clinical centers and two public datasets, digitized using seven scanners, and covers all molecular subtypes and histological grades. Using diverse annotation strategies, we collected annotations across four classes - invasive epithelium, non-invasive epithelium, necrosis, and other - with particular focus on morphologies underrepresented in existing datasets, such as ductal carcinoma in situ and dispersed lobular tumor cells. The dataset's diversity and relevance to the rapidly growing field of automated biomarker quantification in breast cancer ensure its high potential for reuse. Finally, we provide a well-curated, multicentric external evaluation set to enable standardized benchmarking of breast cancer segmentation models. --- ### The Current State of AI Bias Bounties: An Overview of Existing Programmes and Research Authors: Sergej Kucenko, Nathaniel Dennler, Fengxiang He Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CY, cs.AI arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02036v1 Current bias evaluation methods rarely engage with communities impacted by AI systems. Inspired by bug bounties, bias bounties have been proposed as a reward-based method that involves communities in AI bias detection by asking users of AI systems to report biases they encounter when interacting with such systems. In the absence of a state-of-the-art review, this survey aimed to identify and analyse existing AI bias bounty programmes and to present academic literature on bias bounties. Google, Google Scholar, PhilPapers, and IEEE Xplore were searched, and five bias bounty programmes, as well as five research publications, were identified. All bias bounties were organised by U.S.-based organisations as time-limited contests, with public participation in four programmes and prize pools ranging from 7,000 to 24,000 USD. The five research publications included a report on the application of bug bounties to algorithmic harms, an article addressing Twitter's bias bounty, a proposal for bias bounties as an institutional mechanism to increase AI scrutiny, a workshop discussing bias bounties from queer perspectives, and an algorithmic framework for bias bounties. We argue that reducing the technical requirements to enter bounty programmes is important to include those without coding experience. Given the limited adoption of bias bounties, future efforts should explore the transferability of the best practices from bug bounties and examine how such programmes can be designed to be sensitive to underrepresented groups while lowering adoption barriers for organisations. --- ### SemMorph3D: Unsupervised Semantic-Aware 3D Morphing via Mesh-Guided Gaussians Authors: Mengtian Li, Yunshu Bai, Yimin Chu, Xinru Guo, Haolin Liu, Zhifeng Xie, Chaofeng Chen Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02034v2 We introduce METHODNAME, a novel framework for semantic-aware 3D shape and texture morphing directly from multi-view images. While 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) enables photorealistic rendering, its unstructured nature often leads to catastrophic geometric fragmentation during morphing. Conversely, traditional mesh-based morphing enforces structural integrity but mandates pristine input topology and struggles with complex appearances. Our method resolves this dichotomy by employing a mesh-guided strategy where a coarse, extracted base mesh acts as a flexible geometric anchor. This anchor provides the necessary topological scaffolding to guide unstructured Gaussians, successfully compensating for mesh extraction artifacts and topological limitations. Furthermore, we propose a novel dual-domain optimization strategy that leverages this hybrid representation to establish unsupervised semantic correspondence, synergizing geodesic regularizations for shape preservation with texture-aware constraints for coherent color evolution. This integrated approach ensures stable, physically plausible transformations without requiring labeled data, specialized 3D assets, or category-specific templates. On the proposed TexMorph benchmark, METHODNAME substantially outperforms prior 2D and 3D methods, yielding fully textured, topologically robust 3D morphing while reducing color consistency error (Delta E) by 22.2% and EI by 26.2%. Project page: https://baiyunshu.github.io/GAUSSIANMORPHING.github.io/ --- ### kabr-tools: Automated Framework for Multi-Species Behavioral Monitoring Authors: Jenna Kline, Maksim Kholiavchenko, Samuel Stevens, Nina van Tiel, Alison Zhong, Namrata Banerji, Alec Sheets, Sowbaranika Balasubramaniam, Isla Duporge, Matthew Thompson, Elizabeth Campolongo, Jackson Miliko et al. Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02030v2 A comprehensive understanding of animal behavior ecology depends on scalable approaches to quantify and interpret complex, multidimensional behavioral patterns. Traditional field observations are often limited in scope, time-consuming, and labor-intensive, hindering the assessment of behavioral responses across landscapes. To address this, we present kabr-tools (Kenyan Animal Behavior Recognition Tools), an open-source package for automated multi-species behavioral monitoring. This framework integrates drone-based video with machine learning systems to extract behavioral, social, and spatial metrics from wildlife footage. Our pipeline leverages object detection, tracking, and behavioral classification systems to generate key metrics, including time budgets, behavioral transitions, social interactions, habitat associations, and group composition dynamics. Compared to ground-based methods, drone-based observations significantly improved behavioral granularity, reducing visibility loss by 15% and capturing more transitions with higher accuracy and continuity. We validate kabr-tools through three case studies, analyzing 969 behavioral sequences, surpassing the capacity of traditional methods for data capture and annotation. We found that, like Plains zebras, vigilance in Grevy's zebras decreases with herd size, but, unlike Plains zebras, habitat has a negligible impact. Plains and Grevy's zebras exhibit strong behavioral inertia, with rare transitions to alert behaviors and observed spatial segregation between Grevy's zebras, Plains zebras, and giraffes in mixed-species herds. By enabling automated behavioral monitoring at scale, kabr-tools offers a powerful tool for ecosystem-wide studies, advancing conservation, biodiversity research, and ecological monitoring. --- ### LiLa-Net: Lightweight Latent LiDAR Autoencoder for 3D Point Cloud Reconstruction Authors: Mario Resino, Borja Pérez, Jaime Godoy, Abdulla Al-Kaff, Fernando García Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV, cs.AI arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02028v1 This work proposed a 3D autoencoder architecture, named LiLa-Net, which encodes efficient features from real traffic environments, employing only the LiDAR's point clouds. For this purpose, we have real semi-autonomous vehicle, equipped with Velodyne LiDAR. The system leverage skip connections concept to improve the performance without using extensive resources as the state-of-the-art architectures. Key changes include reducing the number of encoder layers and simplifying the skip connections, while still producing an efficient and representative latent space which allows to accurately reconstruct the original point cloud. Furthermore, an effective balance has been achieved between the information carried by the skip connections and the latent encoding, leading to improved reconstruction quality without compromising performance. Finally, the model demonstrates strong generalization capabilities, successfully reconstructing objects unrelated to the original traffic environment. --- ### Zero-shot reasoning for simulating scholarly peer-review Authors: Khalid M. Saqr Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.AI, cs.ET arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02027v2 Scholarly publishing requires scalable scrutiny supported by auditable evidence. This paper presents a two-component benchmark of xPeer, the peer-review simulation engine delivered through the xPeerd.com web front-end. The operational component analyzes 352 of 500 simulation records retained under stable-task criteria across disciplines and review modes. The human-reference component releases 1,108 version-1 F1000Research manuscript records with linked human reports and applies a prespecified two-human/two-xPeer comparison. Human-review text and recommendations remained outside the generation input, and source joining occurred after xPeer outputs had been persisted. This procedure defines workflow-level review withholding; prior model exposure falls outside the recorded design. Among 802 records with exactly two human reports, 271 contained two usable xPeer reviewer fields, giving a complete-pair availability rate of 33.8%. Under deterministic extraction rules, median manuscript-level report length was 1,889 words for xPeer and 763 for humans, while median concern count was 41 and 13, respectively. xPeer reports showed higher targeting, category coverage, and executability. Human reports showed higher explicit-reasoning language, lexical manuscript attestation, taxonomy-based scientific relevance, and lower mean within-source redundancy. Cross-source lexical concern matching and recommendation agreement were low. The evidence therefore defines distinct observable review profiles and a transparent reproducibility baseline. Scientific correctness of individual concerns, autonomous editorial use, and cross-system superiority require expert adjudication and common-protocol testing. The study-level dataset and exact version-pinned reproducibility record are archived on Zenodo --- ### Style over Story: Measuring LLM Narrative Preferences via Structured Selection Authors: Donghoon Jung, Jiwoo Choi, Songeun Chae, Seohyon Jung Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CL arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02025v4 We introduce a constraint-selection-based experiment design for measuring narrative preferences of Large Language Models (LLMs). This design offers an interpretable lens on LLMs' narrative selection behavior. We developed a library of 200 narratology-grounded constraints and prompted selections from six LLMs under three different instruction types: basic, quality-focused, and creativity-focused. Findings demonstrate that models consistently prioritize Style over narrative content elements like Event, Character, and Setting. Style preferences remain stable across models and instruction types, whereas content elements show cross-model divergence and instructional sensitivity. These results suggest that LLMs have latent narrative preferences, which should inform how the NLP community evaluates and deploys models in creative domains. --- ### FairContrast: Enhancing Fairness through Contrastive learning and Customized Augmenting Methods on Tabular Data Authors: Aida Tayebi, Ali Khodabandeh Yalabadi, Mehdi Yazdani-Jahromi, Ozlem Ozmen Garibay Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02017v1 As AI systems become more embedded in everyday life, the development of fair and unbiased models becomes more critical. Considering the social impact of AI systems is not merely a technical challenge but a moral imperative. As evidenced in numerous research studies, learning fair and robust representations has proven to be a powerful approach to effectively debiasing algorithms and improving fairness while maintaining essential information for prediction tasks. Representation learning frameworks, particularly those that utilize self-supervised and contrastive learning, have demonstrated superior robustness and generalizability across various domains. Despite the growing interest in applying these approaches to tabular data, the issue of fairness in these learned representations remains underexplored. In this study, we introduce a contrastive learning framework specifically designed to address bias and learn fair representations in tabular datasets. By strategically selecting positive pair samples and employing supervised and self-supervised contrastive learning, we significantly reduce bias compared to existing state-of-the-art contrastive learning models for tabular data. Our results demonstrate the efficacy of our approach in mitigating bias with minimum trade-off in accuracy and leveraging the learned fair representations in various downstream tasks. --- ### Normality Calibration in Semi-supervised Graph Anomaly Detection Authors: Guolei Zeng, Hezhe Qiao, Guoguo Ai, Jinsong Guo, Guansong Pang Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02014v3 Graph anomaly detection (GAD) has attracted growing interest for its crucial ability to uncover irregular patterns in broad applications. Semi-supervised GAD, which assumes a subset of annotated normal nodes available during training, is among the most widely explored application settings. However, the normality learned by existing semi-supervised GAD methods is limited to the labeled normal nodes, often inclining to overfitting the given patterns. These can lead to high detection errors, such as high false positives. To overcome this limitation, we propose GraphNC , a graph normality calibration framework that leverages both labeled and unlabeled data to calibrate the normality from a teacher model (a pre-trained semi-supervised GAD model) jointly in anomaly score and node representation spaces. GraphNC includes two main components, anomaly score distribution alignment (ScoreDA) and perturbation-based normality regularization (NormReg). ScoreDA optimizes the anomaly scores of our model by aligning them with the score distribution yielded by the teacher model. Due to accurate scores in most of the normal nodes and part of the anomaly nodes in the teacher model, the score alignment effectively pulls the anomaly scores of the normal and abnormal classes toward the two ends, resulting in more separable anomaly scores. Nevertheless, there are inaccurate scores from the teacher model. To mitigate the misleading by these scores, NormReg is designed to regularize the graph normality in the representation space, making the representations of normal nodes more compact by minimizing a perturbation-guided consistency loss solely on the labeled nodes. --- ### ShapeGen3DCP: A Deep Learning Framework for Layer Shape Prediction in 3D Concrete Printing Authors: Giacomo Rizzieri, Federico Lanteri, Liberato Ferrara, Massimiliano Cremonesi Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CE, cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02009v1 This work introduces ShapeGen3DCP, a deep learning framework for fast and accurate prediction of filament cross-sectional geometry in 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP). The method is based on a neural network architecture that takes as input both material properties in the fluid state (density, yield stress, plastic viscosity) and process parameters (nozzle diameter, nozzle height, printing and flow velocities) to directly predict extruded layer shapes. To enhance generalization, some inputs are reformulated into dimensionless parameters that capture underlying physical principles. Predicted geometries are compactly represented using Fourier descriptors, which enforce smooth, closed, and symmetric profiles while reducing the prediction task to a small set of coefficients. The training dataset was synthetically generated using a well-established Particle Finite Element (PFEM) model of 3DCP, overcoming the scarcity of experimental data. Validation against diverse numerical and experimental cases shows strong agreement, confirming the framework's accuracy and reliability. This opens the way to practical uses ranging from pre-calibration of print settings, minimizing or even eliminating trial-and-error adjustments, to toolpath optimization for more advanced designs. Looking ahead, coupling the framework with simulations and sensor feedback could enable closed-loop digital twins for 3DCP, driving real-time process optimization, defect detection, and adaptive control of printing parameters. --- ### Generating Findings for Jaw Cysts in Dental Panoramic Radiographs Using a GPT-Based VLM: A Preliminary Study on Building a Two-Stage Self-Correction Loop with Structured Output (SLSO) Framework Authors: Nanaka Hosokawa, Ryo Takahashi, Tomoya Kitano, Yukihiro Iida, Chisako Muramatsu, Tatsuro Hayashi, Yuta Seino, Xiangrong Zhou, Takeshi Hara, Akitoshi Katsumata, Hiroshi Fujita Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV, cs.AI arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02001v6 Vision-language models (VLMs) such as GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) have shown potential for medical image interpretation; however, challenges remain in generating reliable radiological findings in clinical practice, as exemplified by dental pathologies. This study proposes a Self-correction Loop with Structured Output (SLSO) framework as an integrated processing methodology to enhance the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated findings for jaw cysts in dental panoramic radiographs. Dental panoramic radiographs with jaw cysts were used to implement a 10-step integrated processing framework incorporating image analysis, structured data generation, tooth number extraction, consistency checking, and iterative regeneration. The framework functioned as an external validation mechanism for GPT outputs. Performance was compared against the conventional Chain-of-Thought (CoT) method across seven evaluation items: transparency, internal structure, borders, root resorption, tooth movement, relationships with other structures, and tooth number. The SLSO framework improved output accuracy for multiple items compared to the CoT method, with the most notable improvements observed in tooth number identification, tooth movement detection, and root resorption assessment. In successful cases, consistently structured outputs were achieved after up to five regenerations. The framework enforced explicit negative finding descriptions and suppressed hallucinations, although accurate identification of extensive lesions spanning multiple teeth remained limited. This investigation established the feasibility of the proposed integrated processing methodology and provided a foundation for future validation studies with larger, more diverse datasets. --- ### Pure-Pass: Fine-Grained, Adaptive Masking for Dynamic Token-Mixing Routing in Lightweight Image Super-Resolution Authors: Junyu Wu, Jie Liu, Jie Tang, Gangshan Wu Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01997v2 Image Super-Resolution (SR) aims to reconstruct high-resolution images from low-resolution counterparts, but the computational complexity of deep learning-based methods often hinders practical deployment. CAMixer is the pioneering work to integrate the advantages of existing lightweight SR methods and proposes a content-aware mixer to route token mixers of varied complexities according to the difficulty of content recovery. However, several limitations remain, such as poor adaptability, coarse-grained masking and spatial inflexibility, among others. We propose Pure-Pass (PP), a pixel-level masking mechanism that identifies pure pixels and exempts them from expensive computations. PP utilizes fixed color center points to classify pixels into distinct categories, enabling fine-grained, spatially flexible masking while maintaining adaptive flexibility. Integrated into the state-of-the-art ATD-light model, PP-ATD-light achieves superior SR performance with minimal overhead, outperforming CAMixer-ATD-light in reconstruction quality and parameter efficiency when saving a similar amount of computation. --- ### LLM-Based Multi-Task Bangla Hate Speech Detection: Type, Severity, and Target Authors: Md Arid Hasan, Firoj Alam, Md Fahad Hossain, Usman Naseem, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CL arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01995v1 Online social media platforms are central to everyday communication and information seeking. While these platforms serve positive purposes, they also provide fertile ground for the spread of hate speech, offensive language, and bullying content targeting individuals, organizations, and communities. Such content undermines safety, participation, and equity online. Reliable detection systems are therefore needed, especially for low-resource languages where moderation tools are limited. In Bangla, prior work has contributed resources and models, but most are single-task (e.g., binary hate/offense) with limited coverage of multi-facet signals (type, severity, target). We address these gaps by introducing the first multi-task Bangla hate-speech dataset, BanglaMultiHate, one of the largest manually annotated corpus to date. Building on this resource, we conduct a comprehensive, controlled comparison spanning classical baselines, monolingual pretrained models, and LLMs under zero-shot prompting and LoRA fine-tuning. Our experiments assess LLM adaptability in a low-resource setting and reveal a consistent trend: although LoRA-tuned LLMs are competitive with BanglaBERT, culturally and linguistically grounded pretraining remains critical for robust performance. Together, our dataset and findings establish a stronger benchmark for developing culturally aligned moderation tools in low-resource contexts. For reproducibility, we will release the dataset and all related scripts. --- ### Clarifying Semantics of In-Context Examples for Unit Test Generation Authors: Chen Yang, Lin Yang, Ziqi Wang, Dong Wang, Jianyi Zhou, Junjie Chen Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.SE, cs.AI arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01994v1 Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have enabled promising performance in unit test generation through in-context learning (ICL). However, the quality of in-context examples significantly influences the effectiveness of generated tests-poorly structured or semantically unclear test examples often lead to suboptimal outputs. In this paper, we propose CLAST, a novel technique that systematically refines unit tests to improve their semantic clarity, thereby enhancing their utility as in-context examples. The approach decomposes complex tests into logically clearer ones and improves semantic clarity through a combination of program analysis and LLM-based rewriting. We evaluated CLAST on four open-source and three industrial projects. The results demonstrate that CLAST largely outperforms UTgen, the state-of-the-art refinement technique, in both preserving test effectiveness and enhancing semantic clarity. Specifically, CLAST fully retains the original effectiveness of unit tests, while UTgen reduces compilation success rate (CSR), pass rate (PR), test coverage (Cov), and mutation score (MS) by an average of 12.90%, 35.82%, 4.65%, and 5.07%, respectively. Over 85.33% of participants in our user study preferred the semantic clarity of CLAST-refined tests. Notably, incorporating CLAST-refined tests as examples effectively improves ICL-based unit test generation approaches such as RAGGen and TELPA, resulting in an average increase of 25.97% in CSR, 28.22% in PR, and 45.99% in Cov for generated tests, compared to incorporating UTgen-refined tests. The insights from the follow-up user study not only reinforce CLAST's potential impact in software testing practice but also illuminate avenues for future research. --- ### 4DGS-Craft: Consistent and Interactive 4D Gaussian Splatting Editing Authors: Lei Liu, Can Wang, Zhenghao Chen, Dong Xu Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01991v1 Recent advances in 4D Gaussian Splatting (4DGS) editing still face challenges with view, temporal, and non-editing region consistency, as well as with handling complex text instructions. To address these issues, we propose 4DGS-Craft, a consistent and interactive 4DGS editing framework. We first introduce a 4D-aware InstructPix2Pix model to ensure both view and temporal consistency. This model incorporates 4D VGGT geometry features extracted from the initial scene, enabling it to capture underlying 4D geometric structures during editing. We further enhance this model with a multi-view grid module that enforces consistency by iteratively refining multi-view input images while jointly optimizing the underlying 4D scene. Furthermore, we preserve the consistency of non-edited regions through a novel Gaussian selection mechanism, which identifies and optimizes only the Gaussians within the edited regions. Beyond consistency, facilitating user interaction is also crucial for effective 4DGS editing. Therefore, we design an LLM-based module for user intent understanding. This module employs a user instruction template to define atomic editing operations and leverages an LLM for reasoning. As a result, our framework can interpret user intent and decompose complex instructions into a logical sequence of atomic operations, enabling it to handle intricate user commands and further enhance editing performance. Compared to related works, our approach enables more consistent and controllable 4D scene editing. Our code will be made available upon acceptance. --- ### TriAlignXA: An Explainable Trilemma Alignment Framework for Trustworthy Agri-product Grading Authors: Jianfei Xie, Ziyang Li Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV, cs.CY arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01990v1 The 'trust deficit' in online fruit and vegetable e-commerce stems from the inability of digital transactions to provide direct sensory perception of product quality. This paper constructs a 'Trust Pyramid' model through 'dual-source verification' of consumer trust. Experiments confirm that quality is the cornerstone of trust. The study reveals an 'impossible triangle' in agricultural product grading, comprising biological characteristics, timeliness, and economic viability, highlighting the limitations of traditional absolute grading standards. To quantitatively assess this trade-off, we propose the 'Triangular Trust Index' (TTI). We redefine the role of algorithms from 'decision-makers' to 'providers of transparent decision-making bases', designing the explainable AI framework--TriAlignXA. This framework supports trustworthy online transactions within agricultural constraints through multi-objective optimization. Its core relies on three engines: the Bio-Adaptive Engine for granular quality description; the Timeliness Optimization Engine for processing efficiency; and the Economic Optimization Engine for cost control. Additionally, the "Pre-Mapping Mechanism" encodes process data into QR codes, transparently conveying quality information. Experiments on grading tasks demonstrate significantly higher accuracy than baseline models. Empirical evidence and theoretical analysis verify the framework's balancing capability in addressing the "impossible triangle". This research provides comprehensive support--from theory to practice--for building a trustworthy online produce ecosystem, establishing a critical pathway from algorithmic decision-making to consumer trust. --- ### Exploring Database Normalization Effects on SQL Generation Authors: Ryosuke Kohita Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CL arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01989v1 Schema design, particularly normalization, is a critical yet often overlooked factor in natural language to SQL (NL2SQL) systems. Most prior research evaluates models on fixed schemas, overlooking the influence of design on performance. We present the first systematic study of schema normalization's impact, evaluating eight leading large language models on synthetic and real-world datasets with varied normalization levels. We construct controlled synthetic datasets with formal normalization (1NF-3NF) and real academic paper datasets with practical schemes. Our results show that denormalized schemas offer high accuracy on simple retrieval queries, even with cost-effective models in zero-shot settings. In contrast, normalized schemas (2NF/3NF) introduce challenges such as errors in base table selection and join type prediction; however, these issues are substantially mitigated by providing few-shot examples. For aggregation queries, normalized schemas yielded better performance, mainly due to their robustness against the data duplication and NULL value issues that cause errors in denormalized schemas. These findings suggest that the optimal schema design for NL2SQL applications depends on the types of queries to be supported. Our study demonstrates the importance of considering schema design when developing NL2SQL interfaces and integrating adaptive schema selection for real-world scenarios. --- ### PepCompass: Navigating peptide embedding spaces using Riemannian Geometry Authors: Marcin Możejko, Adam Bielecki, Jurand Prądzyński, Marcin Traskowski, Antoni Janowski, Hyun-Su Lee, Marcelo Der Torossian Torres, Michał Kmicikiewicz, Paulina Szymczak, Karol Jurasz, Michał Kucharczyk, Cesar de la Fuente-Nunez et al. Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01988v5 Antimicrobial peptide discovery is challenged by the astronomical size of peptide space and the relative scarcity of active peptides. Generative models provide continuous latent "maps" of peptide space, but conventionally ignore decoder-induced geometry and rely on flat Euclidean metrics, rendering exploration and optimization distorted and inefficient. Prior manifold-based remedies assume fixed intrinsic dimensionality, which critically fails in practice for peptide data. Here, we introduce PepCompass, a geometry-aware framework for peptide exploration and optimization. At its core, we define a Union of $κ$-Stable Riemannian Manifolds $\mathbb{M}^κ$, a family of decoder-induced manifolds that captures local geometry while ensuring computational stability. We propose two local exploration methods: Second-Order Riemannian Brownian Efficient Sampling, which provides a convergent second-order approximation to Riemannian Brownian motion, and Mutation Enumeration in Tangent Space, which reinterprets tangent directions as discrete amino-acid substitutions. Combining these yields Local Enumeration Bayesian Optimization (LE-BO), an efficient algorithm for local activity optimization. Finally, we introduce Potential-minimizing Geodesic Search (PoGS), which interpolates between prototype embeddings along property-enriched geodesics, biasing discovery toward seeds, i.e. peptides with favorable activity. In-vitro validation confirms the effectiveness of PepCompass: PoGS yields four novel seeds, and subsequent optimization with LE-BO discovers 25 highly active peptides with broad-spectrum activity, including against resistant bacterial strains. These results demonstrate that geometry-informed exploration provides a powerful new paradigm for antimicrobial peptide design. --- ### Private Federated Multiclass Post-hoc Calibration Authors: Samuel Maddock, Graham Cormode, Carsten Maple Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01987v1 Calibrating machine learning models so that predicted probabilities better reflect the true outcome frequencies is crucial for reliable decision-making across many applications. In Federated Learning (FL), the goal is to train a global model on data which is distributed across multiple clients and cannot be centralized due to privacy concerns. FL is applied in key areas such as healthcare and finance where calibration is strongly required, yet federated private calibration has been largely overlooked. This work introduces the integration of post-hoc model calibration techniques within FL. Specifically, we transfer traditional centralized calibration methods such as histogram binning and temperature scaling into federated environments and define new methods to operate them under strong client heterogeneity. We study (1) a federated setting and (2) a user-level Differential Privacy (DP) setting and demonstrate how both federation and DP impacts calibration accuracy. We propose strategies to mitigate degradation commonly observed under heterogeneity and our findings highlight that our federated temperature scaling works best for DP-FL whereas our weighted binning approach is best when DP is not required. --- ### Fine-Grained GRPO for Precise Preference Alignment in Flow Models Authors: Yujie Zhou, Pengyang Ling, Jiazi Bu, Yibin Wang, Yuhang Zang, Jiaqi Wang, Li Niu, Guangtao Zhai Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG, cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01982v3 The incorporation of online reinforcement learning (RL) into diffusion and flow-based generative models has recently gained attention as a powerful paradigm for aligning model behavior with human preferences. By leveraging stochastic sampling via Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs) during the denoising phase, these models can explore a variety of denoising trajectories, enhancing the exploratory capacity of RL. However, despite their ability to discover potentially high-reward samples, current approaches often struggle to effectively align with preferences due to the sparsity and narrowness of reward feedback. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a novel framework called Granular-GRPO (G$^2$RPO), which enables fine-grained and comprehensive evaluation of sampling directions in the RL training of flow models. Specifically, we propose a Singular Stochastic Sampling mechanism that supports step-wise stochastic exploration while ensuring strong correlation between injected noise and reward signals, enabling more accurate credit assignment to each SDE perturbation. Additionally, to mitigate the bias introduced by fixed-granularity denoising, we design a Multi-Granularity Advantage Integration module that aggregates advantages computed across multiple diffusion scales, resulting in a more robust and holistic assessment of sampling trajectories. Extensive experiments on various reward models, including both in-domain and out-of-domain settings, demonstrate that our G$^2$RPO outperforms existing flow-based GRPO baselines, highlighting its effectiveness and generalization capability. --- ### ROI-GS: Interest-based Local Quality 3D Gaussian Splatting Authors: Quoc-Anh Bui, Gilles Rougeron, Géraldine Morin, Simone Gasparini Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.GR, cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01978v2 We tackle the challenge of efficiently reconstructing 3D scenes with high detail on objects of interest. Existing 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) methods allocate resources uniformly across the scene, limiting fine detail to Regions Of Interest (ROIs) and leading to inflated model size. We propose ROI-GS, an object-aware framework that enhances local details through object-guided camera selection, targeted Object training, and seamless integration of high-fidelity object of interest reconstructions into the global scene. Our method prioritizes higher resolution details on chosen objects while maintaining real-time performance. Experiments show that ROI-GS significantly improves local quality (up to 2.96 dB PSNR), while reducing overall model size by $\approx 17\%$ of baseline and achieving faster training for a scene with a single object of interest, outperforming existing methods. --- ### Taking a SEAT: Predicting Value Interpretations from Sentiment, Emotion, Argument, and Topic Annotations Authors: Adina Nicola Dobrinoiu, Ana Cristiana Marcu, Amir Homayounirad, Luciano Cavalcante Siebert, Enrico Liscio Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CL arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01976v1 Our interpretation of value concepts is shaped by our sociocultural background and lived experiences, and is thus subjective. Recognizing individual value interpretations is important for developing AI systems that can align with diverse human perspectives and avoid bias toward majority viewpoints. To this end, we investigate whether a language model can predict individual value interpretations by leveraging multi-dimensional subjective annotations as a proxy for their interpretive lens. That is, we evaluate whether providing examples of how an individual annotates Sentiment, Emotion, Argument, and Topics (SEAT dimensions) helps a language model in predicting their value interpretations. Our experiment across different zero- and few-shot settings demonstrates that providing all SEAT dimensions simultaneously yields superior performance compared to individual dimensions and a baseline where no information about the individual is provided. Furthermore, individual variations across annotators highlight the importance of accounting for the incorporation of individual subjective annotators. To the best of our knowledge, this controlled setting, although small in size, is the first attempt to go beyond demographics and investigate the impact of annotation behavior on value prediction, providing a solid foundation for future large-scale validation. --- ### Moon: A Modality Conversion-based Efficient Multivariate Time Series Anomaly Detection Authors: Yuanyuan Yao, Yuhan Shi, Lu Chen, Ziquan Fang, Yunjun Gao, Leong Hou U, Yushuai Li, Tianyi Li Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01970v1 Multivariate time series (MTS) anomaly detection identifies abnormal patterns where each timestamp contains multiple variables. Existing MTS anomaly detection methods fall into three categories: reconstruction-based, prediction-based, and classifier-based methods. However, these methods face two key challenges: (1) Unsupervised learning methods, such as reconstruction-based and prediction-based methods, rely on error thresholds, which can lead to inaccuracies; (2) Semi-supervised methods mainly model normal data and often underuse anomaly labels, limiting detection of subtle anomalies;(3) Supervised learning methods, such as classifier-based approaches, often fail to capture local relationships, incur high computational costs, and are constrained by the scarcity of labeled data. To address these limitations, we propose Moon, a supervised modality conversion-based multivariate time series anomaly detection framework. Moon enhances the efficiency and accuracy of anomaly detection while providing detailed anomaly analysis reports. First, Moon introduces a novel multivariate Markov Transition Field (MV-MTF) technique to convert numeric time series data into image representations, capturing relationships across variables and timestamps. Since numeric data retains unique patterns that cannot be fully captured by image conversion alone, Moon employs a Multimodal-CNN to integrate numeric and image data through a feature fusion model with parameter sharing, enhancing training efficiency. Finally, a SHAP-based anomaly explainer identifies key variables contributing to anomalies, improving interpretability. Extensive experiments on six real-world MTS datasets demonstrate that Moon outperforms six state-of-the-art methods by up to 93% in efficiency, 4% in accuracy and, 10.8% in interpretation performance. --- ### Lower Bounds on Adversarial Robustness for Multiclass Classification with General Loss Functions Authors: Camilo Andrés García Trillos, Nicolás García Trillos Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.LG, math.OC, stat.ML arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01969v1 We consider adversarially robust classification in a multiclass setting under arbitrary loss functions and derive dual and barycentric reformulations of the corresponding learner-agnostic robust risk minimization problem. We provide explicit characterizations for important cases such as the cross-entropy loss, loss functions with a power form, and the quadratic loss, extending in this way available results for the 0-1 loss. These reformulations enable efficient computation of sharp lower bounds for adversarial risks and facilitate the design of robust classifiers beyond the 0-1 loss setting. Our paper uncovers interesting connections between adversarial robustness, $α$-fair packing problems, and generalized barycenter problems for arbitrary positive measures where Kullback-Leibler and Tsallis entropies are used as penalties. Our theoretical results are accompanied with illustrative numerical experiments where we obtain tighter lower bounds for adversarial risks with the cross-entropy loss function. --- ### Multi-bit Audio Watermarking Authors: Luca A. Lanzendörfer, Kyle Fearne, Florian Grötschla, Roger Wattenhofer Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.SD, cs.LG, eess.AS arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01968v1 We present Timbru, a post-hoc audio watermarking model that achieves state-of-the-art robustness and imperceptibility trade-offs without training an embedder-detector model. Given any 44.1 kHz stereo music snippet, our method performs per-audio gradient optimization to add imperceptible perturbations in the latent space of a pretrained audio VAE, guided by a combined message and perceptual loss. The watermark can then be extracted using a pretrained CLAP model. We evaluate 16-bit watermarking on MUSDB18-HQ against AudioSeal, WavMark, and SilentCipher across common filtering, noise, compression, resampling, cropping, and regeneration attacks. Our approach attains the best average bit error rates, while preserving perceptual quality, demonstrating an efficient, dataset-free path to imperceptible audio watermarking. --- ### ZK-WAGON: Imperceptible Watermark for Image Generation Models using ZK-SNARKs Authors: Aadarsh Anantha Ramakrishnan, Shubham Agarwal, Selvanayagam S, Kunwar Singh Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CR, cs.AI, cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01967v1 As image generation models grow increasingly powerful and accessible, concerns around authenticity, ownership, and misuse of synthetic media have become critical. The ability to generate lifelike images indistinguishable from real ones introduces risks such as misinformation, deepfakes, and intellectual property violations. Traditional watermarking methods either degrade image quality, are easily removed, or require access to confidential model internals - making them unsuitable for secure and scalable deployment. We are the first to introduce ZK-WAGON, a novel system for watermarking image generation models using the Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non Interactive Argument of Knowledge (ZK-SNARKs). Our approach enables verifiable proof of origin without exposing model weights, generation prompts, or any sensitive internal information. We propose Selective Layer ZK-Circuit Creation (SL-ZKCC), a method to selectively convert key layers of an image generation model into a circuit, reducing proof generation time significantly. Generated ZK-SNARK proofs are imperceptibly embedded into a generated image via Least Significant Bit (LSB) steganography. We demonstrate this system on both GAN and Diffusion models, providing a secure, model-agnostic pipeline for trustworthy AI image generation. --- ### Bias beyond Borders: Global Inequalities in AI-Generated Music Authors: Ahmet Solak, Florian Grötschla, Luca A. Lanzendörfer, Roger Wattenhofer Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.SD, cs.LG arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01963v1 While recent years have seen remarkable progress in music generation models, research on their biases across countries, languages, cultures, and musical genres remains underexplored. This gap is compounded by the lack of datasets and benchmarks that capture the global diversity of music. To address these challenges, we introduce GlobalDISCO, a large-scale dataset consisting of 73k music tracks generated by state-of-the-art commercial generative music models, along with paired links to 93k reference tracks in LAION-DISCO-12M. The dataset spans 147 languages and includes musical style prompts extracted from MusicBrainz and Wikipedia. The dataset is globally balanced, representing musical styles from artists across 79 countries and five continents. Our evaluation reveals large disparities in music quality and alignment with reference music between high-resource and low-resource regions. Furthermore, we find marked differences in model performance between mainstream and geographically niche genres, including cases where models generate music for regional genres that more closely align with the distribution of mainstream styles. --- ### Exploring Resolution-Wise Shared Attention in Hybrid Mamba-U-Nets for Improved Cross-Corpus Speech Enhancement Authors: Nikolai Lund Kühne, Jesper Jensen, Jan Østergaard, Zheng-Hua Tan Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.SD, cs.AI, eess.AS arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01958v2 Recent advances in speech enhancement have shown that models combining Mamba and attention mechanisms yield superior cross-corpus generalization performance. At the same time, integrating Mamba in a U-Net structure has yielded state-of-the-art enhancement performance, while reducing both model size and computational complexity. Inspired by these insights, we propose RWSA-MambaUNet, a novel and efficient hybrid model combining Mamba and multi-head attention in a U-Net structure for improved cross-corpus performance. Resolution-wise shared attention (RWSA) refers to layerwise attention-sharing across corresponding time- and frequency resolutions. Our best-performing RWSA-MambaUNet model achieves state-of-the-art generalization performance on two out-of-domain test sets. Notably, our smallest model surpasses all baselines on the out-of-domain DNS 2020 test set in terms of PESQ, SSNR, and ESTOI, and on the out-of-domain EARS-WHAM_v2 test set in terms of SSNR, ESTOI, and SI-SDR, while using less than half the model parameters and a fraction of the FLOPs. --- ### Patch-as-Decodable-Token: Towards Unified Multi-Modal Vision Tasks in MLLMs Authors: Yongyi Su, Haojie Zhang, Shijie Li, Nanqing Liu, Jingyi Liao, Junyi Pan, Yuan Liu, Xiaofen Xing, Chong Sun, Chen Li, Nancy F. Chen, Shuicheng Yan et al. Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01954v1 Multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have advanced rapidly in recent years. However, existing approaches for vision tasks often rely on indirect representations, such as generating coordinates as text for detection, which limits performance and prevents dense prediction tasks like segmentation. To overcome these challenges, we introduce Patch-as-Decodable Token (PaDT), a unified paradigm that enables MLLMs to directly generate both textual and diverse visual outputs. Central to PaDT are Visual Reference Tokens (VRTs), derived from visual patch embeddings of query images and interleaved seamlessly with LLM's output textual tokens. A lightweight decoder then transforms LLM's outputs into detection, segmentation, and grounding predictions. Unlike prior methods, PaDT processes VRTs independently at each forward pass and dynamically expands the embedding table, thus improving localization and differentiation among similar objects. We further tailor a training strategy for PaDT by randomly selecting VRTs for supervised fine-tuning and introducing a robust per-token cross-entropy loss. Our empirical studies across four visual perception and understanding tasks suggest PaDT consistently achieving state-of-the-art performance, even compared with significantly larger MLLM models. The code is available at https://github.com/Gorilla-Lab-SCUT/PaDT. --- ### ClustViT: Clustering-based Token Merging for Semantic Segmentation Authors: Fabio Montello, Ronja Güldenring, Lazaros Nalpantidis Published: 2025-10-02 Categories: cs.CV arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01948v2 Vision Transformers can achieve high accuracy and strong generalization across various contexts, but their practical applicability on real-world robotic systems is limited due to their quadratic attention complexity. Recent works have focused on dynamically merging tokens according to the image complexity. Token merging works well for classification but is less suited to dense prediction. We propose ClustViT, where we expand upon the Vision Transformer (ViT) backbone and address semantic segmentation. Within our architecture, a trainable Cluster module merges similar tokens along the network guided by pseudo-clusters from segmentation masks. Subsequently, a Regenerator module restores fine details for downstream heads. Our approach achieves up to 2.18x fewer GFLOPs and 1.64x faster inference on three different datasets, with comparable segmentation accuracy. Our code and models will be made publicly available. ---