Redlands
Murmurations, Mestre--Nagao sums, and Convolutional Neural Networks for elliptic curves
Bieri, Joanna, Costa, Edgar, Deines, Alyson, Lee, Kyu-Hwan, Lowry-Duda, David, Oliver, Thomas, Qi, Yidi, Veenstra, Tamara
We apply one-dimensional convolutional neural networks to the Frobenius traces of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ and evaluate and interpret their predictive capacity. In keeping with similar experiments by Kazalicki--Vlah, Bujanović--Kazalicki--Novak, and Pozdnyakov, we observe high accuracy predictions for the analytic rank across a range of conductors. We interpret the prediction using saliency curves and explore the interesting interplay between murmurations and Mestre--Nagao sums, the details of which vary with the conductor and the (predicted) rank.
How I learned to stop worrying and love AI slop
Speaking with popular AI content creators convinces me that "slop" isn't just the internet rotting in real time, but the early draft of a new kind of pop culture. Lately, everywhere I scroll, I keep seeing the same fish-eyed CCTV view: a grainy wide shot from the corner of a living room, a driveway at night, an empty grocery store. JD Vance shows up at the doorstep in a crazy outfit. A car folds into itself like paper and drives away. A cat comes in and starts hanging out with capybaras and bears, as if in some weird modern fairy tale. This fake-surveillance look has become one of the signature flavors of what people now call AI slop. For those of us who spend time online watching short videos, slop feels inescapable: a flood of repetitive, often nonsensical AI-generated clips that washes across TikTok, Instagram, and beyond. For that, you can thank new tools like OpenAI's Sora (which exploded in popularity after launching in app form in September), Google's Veo series, and AI models built by Runway. Now anyone can make videos, with just a few taps on a screen.
Unmasking Deceptive Visuals: Benchmarking Multimodal Large Language Models on Misleading Chart Question Answering
Chen, Zixin, Song, Sicheng, Shum, Kashun, Lin, Yanna, Sheng, Rui, Qu, Huamin
Misleading chart visualizations, which intentionally manipulate data representations to support specific claims, can distort perceptions and lead to incorrect conclusions. Despite decades of research, misleading visualizations remain a widespread and pressing issue. Recent advances in multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have demonstrated strong chart comprehension capabilities, yet no existing work has systematically evaluated their ability to detect and interpret misleading charts. This paper introduces the Misleading Chart Question Answering (Misleading ChartQA) Benchmark, a large-scale multimodal dataset designed to assess MLLMs in identifying and reasoning about misleading charts. It contains over 3,000 curated examples, covering 21 types of misleaders and 10 chart types. Each example includes standardized chart code, CSV data, and multiple-choice questions with labeled explanations, validated through multi-round MLLM checks and exhausted expert human review. We benchmark 16 state-of-the-art MLLMs on our dataset, revealing their limitations in identifying visually deceptive practices. We also propose a novel pipeline that detects and localizes misleaders, enhancing MLLMs' accuracy in misleading chart interpretation. Our work establishes a foundation for advancing MLLM-driven misleading chart comprehension. We publicly release the sample dataset to support further research in this critical area.
Learning Fricke signs from Maass form Coefficients
Bieri, Joanna, Butbaia, Giorgi, Costa, Edgar, Deines, Alyson, Lee, Kyu-Hwan, Lowry-Duda, David, Oliver, Thomas, Qi, Yidi, Veenstra, Tamara
In this paper, we conduct a data-scientific investigation of Maass forms. We find that averaging the Fourier coefficients of Maass forms with the same Fricke sign reveals patterns analogous to the recently discovered "murmuration" phenomenon, and that these patterns become more pronounced when parity is incorporated as an additional feature. Approximately 43% of the forms in our dataset have an unknown Fricke sign. For the remaining forms, we employ Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) to machine learn their Fricke sign, achieving 96% (resp. 94%) accuracy for forms with even (resp. odd) parity. We apply the trained LDA model to forms with unknown Fricke signs to make predictions. The average values based on the predicted Fricke signs are computed and compared to those for forms with known signs to verify the reasonableness of the predictions. Additionally, a subset of these predictions is evaluated against heuristic guesses provided by Hejhal's algorithm, showing a match approximately 95% of the time. We also use neural networks to obtain results comparable to those from the LDA model.
Thermal and RGB Images Work Better Together in Wind Turbine Damage Detection
Svystun, Serhii, Melnychenko, Oleksandr, Radiuk, Pavlo, Savenko, Oleg, Sachenko, Anatoliy, Lysyi, Andrii
The inspection of wind turbine blades (WTBs) is crucial for ensuring their structural integrity and operational efficiency. Traditional inspection methods can be dangerous and inefficient, prompting the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that access hard-to-reach areas and capture high-resolution imagery. In this study, we address the challenge of enhancing defect detection on WTBs by integrating thermal and RGB images obtained from UAVs. We propose a multispectral image composition method that combines thermal and RGB imagery through spatial coordinate transformation, key point detection, binary descriptor creation, and weighted image overlay. Using a benchmark dataset of WTB images annotated for defects, we evaluated several state-of-the-art object detection models. Our results show that composite images significantly improve defect detection efficiency. Specifically, the YOLOv8 model's accuracy increased from 91% to 95%, precision from 89% to 94%, recall from 85% to 92%, and F1-score from 87% to 93%. The number of false positives decreased from 6 to 3, and missed defects reduced from 5 to 2. These findings demonstrate that integrating thermal and RGB imagery enhances defect detection on WTBs, contributing to improved maintenance and reliability.
VecCity: A Taxonomy-guided Library for Map Entity Representation Learning
Zhang, Wentao, Wang, Jingyuan, Yang, Yifan, U, Leong Hou
Electronic maps consist of diverse entities, such as points of interest (POIs), road networks, and land parcels, playing a vital role in applications like ITS and LBS. Map entity representation learning (MapRL) generates versatile and reusable data representations, providing essential tools for efficiently managing and utilizing map entity data. Despite the progress in MapRL, two key challenges constrain further development. First, existing research is fragmented, with models classified by the type of map entity, limiting the reusability of techniques across different tasks. Second, the lack of unified benchmarks makes systematic evaluation and comparison of models difficult. To address these challenges, we propose a novel taxonomy for MapRL that organizes models based on functional module-such as encoders, pre-training tasks, and downstream tasks-rather than by entity type. Building on this taxonomy, we present a taxonomy-driven library, VecCity, which offers easy-to-use interfaces for encoding, pre-training, fine-tuning, and evaluation. The library integrates datasets from nine cities and reproduces 21 mainstream MapRL models, establishing the first standardized benchmarks for the field. VecCity also allows users to modify and extend models through modular components, facilitating seamless experimentation. Our comprehensive experiments cover multiple types of map entities and evaluate 21 VecCity pre-built models across various downstream tasks. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of VecCity in streamlining model development and provide insights into the impact of various components on performance. By promoting modular design and reusability, VecCity offers a unified framework to advance research and innovation in MapRL. The code is available at https://github.com/Bigscity-VecCity/VecCity.
Genkii ! pivoted and planned US$10.68 million worth of exclusive benefits for new platform signups
NEW YORK - Nov. 11, 2022 - PRLog -- Many analysts forecasted that the economic conditions moving ahead might worsen and increasing number of employers may not be able to avoid permanent layoffs as a result of the series of unfortunate global events. Many are trying to strengthen their balance sheets while exploring temporary layoffs or other stopgap measures in the interest of keeping as many employees on the payroll as possible but might find it increasingly difficult to do so. With growing number of layoffs and increasing pool of people looking for jobs, it could be a challenge for private enterprises to absorb this group of talents. Employees could consider alternatives to traditional employments at the moment. Flexible and work-from-anywhere gigs could be one of the ways to keep employees sharp and up-to-date with the latest skills.
Strategic Decisions Survey, Taxonomy, and Future Directions from Artificial Intelligence Perspective
Wu, Caesar, Ramamohanarao, Kotagiri, Zhang, Rui, Bouvry, Pascal
Strategic Decision-Making is always challenging because it is inherently uncertain, ambiguous, risky, and complex. It is the art of possibility. We develop a systematic taxonomy of decision-making frames that consists of 6 bases, 18 categorical, and 54 frames. We aim to lay out the computational foundation that is possible to capture a comprehensive landscape view of a strategic problem. Compared with traditional models, it covers irrational, non-rational and rational frames c dealing with certainty, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, chaos, and ignorance.
Modeling driver's evasive behavior during safety-critical lane changes:Two-dimensional time-to-collision and deep reinforcement learning
Guo, Hongyu, Xie, Kun, Keyvan-Ekbatani, Mehdi
Lane changes are complex driving behaviors and frequently involve safety-critical situations. This study aims to develop a lane-change-related evasive behavior model, which can facilitate the development of safety-aware traffic simulations and predictive collision avoidance systems. Large-scale connected vehicle data from the Safety Pilot Model Deployment (SPMD) program were used for this study. A new surrogate safety measure, two-dimensional time-to-collision (2D-TTC), was proposed to identify the safety-critical situations during lane changes. The validity of 2D-TTC was confirmed by showing a high correlation between the detected conflict risks and the archived crashes. A deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) algorithm, which could learn the sequential decision-making process over continuous action spaces, was used to model the evasive behaviors in the identified safety-critical situations. The results showed the superiority of the proposed model in replicating both the longitudinal and lateral evasive behaviors.
Inside the rise of police department real-time crime centers
In 2021, it might be simpler to ask what can't be mapped. Just as Google and social media have enabled each of us to reach into the figurative diaries and desk drawers of anyone we might be curious about, law enforcement agencies today have access to powerful new engines of data processing and association. Ogden is hardly the tip of the spear: police agencies in major cities are already using facial recognition to identify suspects--sometimes falsely--and deploying predictive policing to define patrol routes. "That's not happening here," Ogden's current police chief, Eric Young, told me. "We don't have any kind of machine intelligence."