Effective surveillance of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) requires forecasts accounting for epidemiological patterns and contextual drivers like school calendars and weather. While classical models and recent foundation models (e.g., Chronos, TimesFM) incorporate covariates, they often lack the semantic reasoning to interpret the causal interplay between conflicting drivers. In this work, we propose a two-agent framework decoupling contextual interpretation from probabilistic forecasting. An LLM "event interpreter" processes heterogeneous signals-including school schedules, meteorological summaries, and reports-into a scalar transmission-impact signal. A neuro-symbolic core then combines this with historical case counts to produce calibrated probabilistic forecasts. We evaluate the framework on real-world HFMD datasets from Hong Kong (2023-2024) and Lishui, China (2024). Compared to traditional and foundation-model baselines, our approach achieves competitive point forecasting accuracy while providing robust 90% prediction intervals (coverage 0.85-1.00) and human-interpretable rationales. Our results suggest that structurally integrating domain knowledge through LLMs can match state-of-the-art performance while yielding context-aware forecasts that align with public health workflows. Code is available at https://github.com/jw-chae/forecast_MED .

Gradient clipping is widely used to stabilize deep network training, but its formulation as a hard, fixed threshold limits flexibility and ignores gradient distribution dynamics. We propose SPAMP (Statistical Per-layer Adaptive Modulation and Projection), a unified framework that generalizes clipping into smooth, per-layer gradient shaping. SPAMP tracks local gradient statistics, dynamically estimates thresholds, and applies power-based transformations to modulate update magnitudes in a differentiable manner. This perspective recasts clipping and warmup as dual mechanisms for controlling the effective update scale $η_t \|g_t\|$, offering a principled alternative to rigid heuristics. Extensive experiments across image and language tasks demonstrate that SPAMP improves stability, convergence, and robustness over existing methods.

While Transformer architectures have demonstrated impressive scalability across domains, they continue to face challenges in long-context reasoning, computational efficiency, and structural generalization - largely due to rigid layer stacking, dense attention, and reliance on positional encodings. We present ReSSFormer, a Recursive Sparse Structured Transformer that integrates three complementary innovations: Recurrent Reasoning & Memory Unit (R2MU) for iterative reasoning with bounded depth, Adaptive Sparse Attention Module (ASAM) for efficient and focused context selection, and Self-Organizing Encoder Structure (SOES) for position-free structure induction. ReSSFormer replaces conventional depth stacking with recurrent inference, substitutes full attention with token- and expert-level sparsity, and models latent token topology directly from content. Across language modeling, multi-hop QA, and structure-sensitive tasks, ReSSFormer consistently outperforms strong baselines under comparable FLOPs and parameter budgets, highlighting its scalability, efficiency, and structural flexibility.

Federated learning (FL) in multi-service provider (SP) ecosystems is fundamentally hampered by non-cooperative dynamics, where privacy constraints and competing interests preclude the centralized optimization of multi-SP communication and computation resources. In this paper, we introduce PAC-MCoFL, a game-theoretic multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) framework where SPs act as agents to jointly optimize client assignment, adaptive quantization, and resource allocation. Within the framework, we integrate Pareto Actor-Critic (PAC) principles with expectile regression, enabling agents to conjecture optimal joint policies to achieve Pareto-optimal equilibria while modeling heterogeneous risk profiles. To manage the high-dimensional action space, we devise a ternary Cartesian decomposition (TCAD) mechanism that facilitates fine-grained control. Further, we develop PAC-MCoFL-p, a scalable variant featuring a parameterized conjecture generator that substantially reduces computational complexity with a provably bounded error. Alongside theoretical convergence guarantees, our framework's superiority is validated through extensive simulations -- PAC-MCoFL achieves approximately 5.8% and 4.2% improvements in total reward and hypervolume indicator (HVI), respectively, over the latest MARL solutions. The results also demonstrate that our method can more effectively balance individual SP and system performance in scaled deployments and under diverse data heterogeneity.

One-step generative modeling seeks to generate high-quality data samples in a single function evaluation, significantly improving efficiency over traditional diffusion or flow-based models. In this work, we introduce Modular MeanFlow (MMF), a flexible and theoretically grounded approach for learning time-averaged velocity fields. Our method derives a family of loss functions based on a differential identity linking instantaneous and average velocities, and incorporates a gradient modulation mechanism that enables stable training without sacrificing expressiveness. We further propose a curriculum-style warmup schedule to smoothly transition from coarse supervision to fully differentiable training. The MMF formulation unifies and generalizes existing consistency-based and flow-matching methods, while avoiding expensive higher-order derivatives. Empirical results across image synthesis and trajectory modeling tasks demonstrate that MMF achieves competitive sample quality, robust convergence, and strong generalization, particularly under low-data or out-of-distribution settings.

--This Innovative Practice full paper explores how Large Language Models (LLMs) can enhance the teaching of code refactoring in software engineering courses through real-time, context-aware feedback. Refactoring improves code quality but is difficult to teach, especially with complex, real-world codebases. Traditional methods like code reviews and static analysis tools offer limited, inconsistent feedback. Our approach integrates LLM-assisted refactoring into a course project using structured prompts to help students identify and address code smells such as long methods and low cohesion. Implemented in Spring 2025 in a long-lived OSS project, the intervention is evaluated through student feedback and planned analysis of code quality improvements. Findings suggest that LLMs can bridge theoretical and practical learning, supporting a deeper understanding of maintainability and refactoring principles. Despite the importance of refactoring, teaching effective techniques remains challenging, particularly when students encounter real-world, complex codebases rather than contrived examples [2]. Students often struggle with identifying refactoring opportunities in unfamiliar code and implementing appropriate transformations that preserve functionality while enhancing quality. Open Source Software (OSS) projects offer an authentic environment for students to practice refactoring skills.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have made significant advancements in communication stability and security through techniques such as frequency hopping, signal spreading, and adaptive interference suppression. However, challenges remain in modeling spectrum competition, integrating expert knowledge, and predicting opponent behavior. To address these issues, we propose UAV-FPG (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle - Frequency Point Game), a game-theoretic environment model that simulates the dynamic interaction between interference and anti-interference strategies of opponent and ally UAVs in communication frequency bands. The model incorporates a prior expert knowledge base to optimize frequency selection and employs large language models for path planning, simulating a "strong adversary". Experimental results highlight the effectiveness of integrating the expert knowledge base and the large language model, with the latter significantly improving path planning in dynamic scenarios through iterative interactions, outperforming fixed-path strategies. UAV-FPG provides a robust platform for advancing anti-jamming strategies and intelligent decision-making in UAV communication systems.

With the rapid penetration of artificial intelligence across industries and scenarios, a key challenge in building the next-generation intelligent core lies in effectively integrating the language understanding capabilities of foundation models with domain-specific knowledge bases in complex real-world applications. This paper proposes a multimodal cognition and embodied decision-making brain system, ``Wenlu", designed to enable secure fusion of private knowledge and public models, unified processing of multimodal data such as images and speech, and closed-loop decision-making from cognition to automatic generation of hardware-level code. The system introduces a brain-inspired memory tagging and replay mechanism, seamlessly integrating user-private data, industry-specific knowledge, and general-purpose language models. It provides precise and efficient multimodal services for enterprise decision support, medical analysis, autonomous driving, robotic control, and more. Compared with existing solutions, ``Wenlu" demonstrates significant advantages in multimodal processing, privacy security, end-to-end hardware control code generation, self-learning, and sustainable updates, thus laying a solid foundation for constructing the next-generation intelligent core.

Hubin Zhao (hubin.zhao@ucl.ac.uk), and Luigi G. Occhipinti (lgo23@cam.ac.uk) Abstract At-home rehabilitation for post-stroke patients presents significant challenges, as continuous, personalized care is often limited outside clinical settings. Additionally, the absence of comprehensive solutions addressing diverse rehabilitation needs in home environments complicates recovery efforts. Here, we introduce a smart home platform that integrates wearable sensors, ambient monitoring, and large language model (LLM)-powered assistance to provide seamless health monitoring and intelligent support. The system leverages machine learning enabled plantar pressure arrays for motor recovery assessment (94% classification accuracy), a wearable eye-tracking module for cognitive evaluation, and ambient sensors for precise smart home control (100% operational success, <1 s latency). Additionally, the LLM-powered agent, Auto-Care, offers real-time interventions, such as health reminders and environmental adjustments, enhancing user satisfaction by 29%. This work establishes a fully integrated platform for long-term, personalized rehabilitation, offering new possibilities for managing chronic conditions and supporting aging populations. Stroke is the third leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting more than 101 million people [1, 2]. Post-stroke recovery is not only a prolonged process but also a resource-intensive one, imposing significant economic and caregiving burdens on families and healthcare systems--a challenge exacerbated by global aging [5]. For many patients, the home becomes a critical environment for rehabilitation, as opportunities for continuous and personalized care are limited outside of clinical settings [6].

Next Point-of-Interests (POIs) recommendation task aims to provide a dynamic ranking of POIs based on users' current check-in trajectories. The recommendation performance of this task is contingent upon a comprehensive understanding of users' personalized behavioral patterns through Location-based Social Networks (LBSNs) data. While prior studies have adeptly captured sequential patterns and transitional relationships within users' check-in trajectories, a noticeable gap persists in devising a mechanism for discerning specialized behavioral patterns during distinct time slots, such as noon, afternoon, or evening. In this paper, we introduce an innovative data structure termed the ``Mobility Tree'', tailored for hierarchically describing users' check-in records. The Mobility Tree encompasses multi-granularity time slot nodes to learn user preferences across varying temporal periods. Meanwhile, we propose the Mobility Tree Network (MTNet), a multitask framework for personalized preference learning based on Mobility Trees. We develop a four-step node interaction operation to propagate feature information from the leaf nodes to the root node. Additionally, we adopt a multitask training strategy to push the model towards learning a robust representation. The comprehensive experimental results demonstrate the superiority of MTNet over ten state-of-the-art next POI recommendation models across three real-world LBSN datasets, substantiating the efficacy of time slot preference learning facilitated by Mobility Tree.