Text-guided sound separation supports flexible audio editing across media and assistive applications, but existing models like AudioSep are too compute-heavy for edge deployment. Neural audio codec (NAC) models such as CodecFormer and SDCodec are compute-efficient but limited to fixed-class separation. We introduce CodecSep, the first NAC-based model for on-device universal, text-driven separation. CodecSep combines DAC compression with a Transformer masker modulated by CLAP-derived FiLM parameters. Across six open-domain benchmarks under matched training/prompt protocols, \textbf{CodecSep} surpasses \textbf{AudioSep} in separation fidelity (SI-SDR) while remaining competitive in perceptual quality (ViSQOL) and matching or exceeding fixed-stem baselines (TDANet, CodecFormer, SDCodec). In code-stream deployments, it needs just 1.35~GMACs end-to-end -- approximately $54\times$ less compute ($25\times$ architecture-only) than spectrogram-domain separators like AudioSep -- while remaining fully bitstream-compatible.

The increasing labor costs in agriculture have accelerated the adoption of multi-robot systems for orchard harvesting. However, efficiently coordinating these systems is challenging due to the complex interplay between makespan and energy consumption, particularly under practical constraints like load-dependent speed variations and battery limitations. This paper defines the multi-objective agricultural multi-electrical-robot task allocation (AMERTA) problem, which systematically incorporates these often-overlooked real-world constraints. To address this problem, we propose a hybrid hierarchical route reconstruction algorithm (HRRA) that integrates several innovative mechanisms, including a hierarchical encoding structure, a dual-phase initialization method, task sequence optimizers, and specialized route reconstruction operators. Extensive experiments on 45 test instances demonstrate HRRA's superior performance against seven state-of-the-art algorithms. Statistical analysis, including the Wilcoxon signed-rank and Friedman tests, empirically validates HRRA's competitiveness and its unique ability to explore previously inaccessible regions of the solution space. In general, this research contributes to the theoretical understanding of multi-robot coordination by offering a novel problem formulation and an effective algorithm, thereby also providing practical insights for agricultural automation.

Traditional metrics of interbrain synchrony in social neuroscience typically depend on fixed, correlation-based approaches, restricting their explanatory capacity to descriptive observations. Inspired by the successful integration of geometric insights in network science, we propose leveraging discrete geometry to examine the dynamic reconfigurations in neural interactions during social exchanges. Unlike conventional synchrony approaches, our method interprets inter-brain connectivity changes through the evolving geometric structures of neural networks. This geometric framework is realized through a pipeline that identifies critical transitions in network connectivity using entropy metrics derived from curvature distributions. By doing so, we significantly enhance the capacity of hyperscanning methodologies to uncover underlying neural mechanisms in interactive social behavior.

Obstacle avoidance is a critical component of the navigation stack required for mobile robots to operate effectively in complex and unknown environments. In this research, three end-to-end Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) were trained and evaluated offline and deployed on a differential-drive mobile robot for real-time obstacle avoidance to generate low-level steering commands from synchronized color and depth images acquired by an Intel RealSense D415 RGB-D camera in diverse environments. Offline evaluation showed that the NetConEmb model achieved the best performance with a notably low MedAE of $0.58 \times 10^{-3}$ rad/s. In comparison, the lighter NetEmb architecture, which reduces the number of trainable parameters by approximately 25\% and converges faster, produced comparable results with an RMSE of $21.68 \times 10^{-3}$ rad/s, close to the $21.42 \times 10^{-3}$ rad/s obtained by NetConEmb. Real-time navigation further confirmed NetConEmb's robustness, achieving a 100\% success rate in both known and unknown environments, while NetEmb and NetGated succeeded only in navigating the known environment.

We present LiHRA, a novel dataset designed to facilitate the development of automated, learning-based, or classical risk monitoring (RM) methods for Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) scenarios. The growing prevalence of collaborative robots in industrial environments has increased the need for reliable safety systems. However, the lack of high-quality datasets that capture realistic human-robot interactions, including potentially dangerous events, slows development. LiHRA addresses this challenge by providing a comprehensive, multi-modal dataset combining 3D LiDAR point clouds, human body keypoints, and robot joint states, capturing the complete spatial and dynamic context of human-robot collaboration. This combination of modalities allows for precise tracking of human movement, robot actions, and environmental conditions, enabling accurate RM during collaborative tasks. The LiHRA dataset covers six representative HRI scenarios involving collaborative and coexistent tasks, object handovers, and surface polishing, with safe and hazardous versions of each scenario. In total, the data set includes 4,431 labeled point clouds recorded at 10 Hz, providing a rich resource for training and benchmarking classical and AI-driven RM algorithms. Finally, to demonstrate LiHRA's utility, we introduce an RM method that quantifies the risk level in each scenario over time. This method leverages contextual information, including robot states and the dynamic model of the robot. With its combination of high-resolution LiDAR data, precise human tracking, robot state data, and realistic collision events, LiHRA offers an essential foundation for future research into real-time RM and adaptive safety strategies in human-robot workspaces.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming public - sector processes worldwide, yet standardized measures rarely address the unique drivers, governance models, and cultural nuances of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This study employs a theory - driven foundation derived from an in - depth analysis of literature review and six National AI Strategies (NASs), coupled with a data - driven approach that utilizes a survey of 203 mid - and senior - level government employees and advanced statistical techniques (K - Means clustering, Principal Component Analysis, and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling). By combining policy insights with empirical evidence, the research develops and validates a novel AI Adoption Index specifically tailored to the GCC public sector. Findings indicate that robust technical infrastructure and clear policy mandates exert the strongest influence on successful AI implementations, overshadowing organizational readiness in early adoption stages. The combined model explains 70% of the variance in AI outcomes, suggesting that resource - rich environments and top - down policy directives can drive rapid but uneven technology uptake. By consolidating key dimensions (Technical Infrastructure (TI), Organizational Readiness (O R), and Governance Environment (GE)) into a single composite index, this study provides a holistic yet context - sensitive tool for benchmarking AI maturity. The index offers actionable guidance for policymakers seeking to harmonize large - scale deployments w ith ethical and regulatory standards. Beyond advancing academic discourse, these insights inform more strategic allocation of resources, cross - country cooperation, and capacity - building initiatives, thereby supporting sustained AI - driven transformation in the GCC region and beyond.

We investigate how machine learning models acquire the ability to compose music and how musical information is internally represented within such models. We develop a composition algorithm based on a restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM), a simple generative model capable of producing musical pieces of arbitrary length. We convert musical scores into piano-roll image representations and train the RBM in an unsupervised manner. We confirm that the trained RBM can generate new musical pieces; however, by analyzing the model's responses and internal structure, we find that the learned information is not stored in a form directly interpretable by humans. This study contributes to a better understanding of how machine learning models capable of music composition may internally represent musical structure and highlights issues related to the interpretability of generative models in creative tasks.

We present ChronoGraph, a graph-structured multivariate time series forecasting dataset built from real-world production microservices. Each node is a service that emits a multivariate stream of system-level performance metrics, capturing CPU, memory, and network usage patterns, while directed edges encode dependencies between services. The primary task is forecasting future values of these signals at the service level. In addition, ChronoGraph provides expert-annotated incident windows as anomaly labels, enabling evaluation of anomaly detection methods and assessment of forecast robustness during operational disruptions. Compared to existing benchmarks from industrial control systems or traffic and air-quality domains, ChronoGraph uniquely combines (i) multivariate time series, (ii) an explicit, machine-readable dependency graph, and (iii) anomaly labels aligned with real incidents. We report baseline results spanning forecasting models, pretrained time-series foundation models, and standard anomaly detectors. ChronoGraph offers a realistic benchmark for studying structure-aware forecasting and incident-aware evaluation in microservice systems.

Simulating the long-timescale dynamics of biomolecules is a central challenge in computational science. While enhanced sampling methods can accelerate these simulations, they rely on pre-defined collective variables that are often difficult to identify, restricting their ability to model complex switching mechanisms between metastable states. A recent generative model, LD-FPG, demonstrated that this problem could be bypassed by learning to sample the static equilibrium ensemble as all-atom deformations from a reference structure, establishing a powerful method for all-atom ensemble generation. However, while this approach successfully captures a system's probable conformations, it does not model the temporal evolution between them. We introduce the Graph Latent Dynamics Propagator (GLDP), a modular component for simulating dynamics within the learned latent space of LD-FPG. We then compare three classes of propagators: (i) score-guided Langevin dynamics, (ii) Koopman-based linear operators, and (iii) autoregressive neural networks. Within a unified encoder-propagator-decoder framework, we evaluate long-horizon stability, backbone and side-chain ensemble fidelity, and temporal kinetics via TICA. Benchmarks on systems ranging from small peptides to mixed-topology proteins and large GPCRs reveal that autoregressive neural networks deliver the most robust long rollouts and coherent physical timescales; score-guided Langevin best recovers side-chain thermodynamics when the score is well learned; and Koopman provides an interpretable, lightweight baseline that tends to damp fluctuations. These results clarify the trade-offs among propagators and offer practical guidance for latent-space simulators of all-atom protein dynamics.

Rapid post-disaster road damage assessment is critical for effective emergency response, yet traditional optimization methods suffer from excessive computational time and require domain knowledge for algorithm design, making them unsuitable for time-sensitive disaster scenarios. This study proposes an attention-based encoder-decoder model (AEDM) for rapid drone routing decision in post-disaster road damage assessment. The method employs deep reinforcement learning to determine high-quality drone assessment routes without requiring algorithmic design knowledge. A network transformation method is developed to convert link-based routing problems into equivalent node-based formulations, while a synthetic road network generation technique addresses the scarcity of large-scale training datasets. The model is trained using policy optimization with multiple optima (POMO) with multi-task learning capabilities to handle diverse parameter combinations. Experimental results demonstrate two key strengths of AEDM: it outperforms commercial solvers by 20--71\% and traditional heuristics by 23--35\% in solution quality, while achieving rapid inference (1--2 seconds) versus 100--2,000 seconds for traditional methods. The model exhibits strong generalization across varying problem scales, drone numbers, and time constraints, consistently outperforming baseline methods on unseen parameter distributions and real-world road networks. The proposed method effectively balances computational efficiency with solution quality, making it particularly suitable for time-critical disaster response applications where rapid decision-making is essential for saving lives. The source code for AEDM is publicly available at https://github.com/PJ-HTU/AEDM-for-Post-disaster-road-assessment.