Games and puzzles play important pedagogical roles in STEM learning. New AI algorithms that can solve complex problems offer opportunities for scaffolded instruction in puzzle solving. This paper presents the ALLURE system, which uses an AI algorithm (Deep CubeA) to guide students in solving a common first step of the Rubik's Cube (i.e., the white cross). Using data from a pilot study we present preliminary findings about students' behaviors in the system, how these behaviors are associated with STEM skills - including spatial reasoning, critical thinking and algorithmic thinking. We discuss how data from ALLURE can be used in future educational data mining to understand how students benefit from AI assistance and collaboration when solving complex problems.

This is the accepted manuscript version. The final published version will appear in College & Research Libraries, November 2026. AI Literacy in UAE Libraries: Assessing Competencies, Training Needs, and Ethical Considerations for the Digital Age Zafar Imam Khan, Learning Resources Manager, Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Email: zafarimamkhan@gmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000 - 0003 - 2081 - 0951 Abstract The study explores the current state of artificial intelligence (AI) literacy levels among library professionals employing a quantitative approach consisting of 92 surveys of LIS professionals in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Findings of the study reveal ed the presence of strong cognitive competencies, while there were gaps observed in behavioral and normative competencies, especially related to AI biases, AI - powered learning, and ethical considerations. There was a disconnect observed between the perceiv ed importance of AI skills and the effectiveness of the current training programs. Introduction Generative AI has created massive disruption in all sectors, such as manufacturing, services, agriculture, medicine, and education, and has transformed a range of operations and services. Libraries are transforming and gearing up to harness the power of AI, which can enhance efficiency, accessibility, and personalization of services; thereby reshaping the traditional library landscape. This transformation has been observed in several of the traditional library services as AI is automating routine tasks such as cataloguing and classification of collections, and enhancing search functionalities and information retrieval, thereby creating a much more accurate and organized library system while librarians have more time to focus on intellectually stimulating act ivities (Preethi, 2024). There is a race to integrate AI into library services at a global level, and this has presented both opportunities and challenges in terms of AI literacy among library professionals. AI literacy involves understanding of AI tools, their applications, and ethical considerations surrounding their use.

We propose a structure to represent the social fabric of a group. We call it the `cohesion network' of the group. It can be seen as a graph whose vertices are strict subgroups and whose edges indicate a prescribed `pro-social behaviour' from one subgroup towards another. In social psychology, pro-social behaviours are building blocks of full-blown cooperation, which we assimilate here with `group cohesiveness'. We then define a formal framework to study cohesive group agency. To do so, we simply instantiate pro-social behaviour with the more specific relation of `successful assistance' between acting entities in a group. The relations of assistance within a group at the moment of agency constitute the social fabric of the cohesive group agency. We build our logical theory upon the logic of agency "bringing-it-about". We obtain a family of logics of cohesive group agency, one for every class of cohesion networks.

Late interaction retrieval methods, pioneered by ColBERT, have emerged as a powerful alternative to single-vector neural IR. By leveraging fine-grained, token-level representations, they have been demonstrated to deliver strong generalisation and robustness, particularly in out-of-domain settings. They have recently been shown to be particularly well-suited for novel use cases, such as reasoning-based or cross-modality retrieval. At the same time, these models pose significant challenges of efficiency, usability, and integrations into fully fledged systems; as well as the natural difficulties encountered while researching novel application domains. Recent years have seen rapid advances across many of these areas, but research efforts remain fragmented across communities and frequently exclude practitioners. The purpose of this workshop is to create an environment where all aspects of late interaction can be discussed, with a focus on early research explorations, real-world outcomes, and negative or puzzling results to be freely shared and discussed. The aim of LIR is to provide a highly-interactive environment for researchers from various backgrounds and practitioners to freely discuss their experience, fostering further collaboration.

Efficient instruction tuning aims to enhance the ultimate performance of large language models (LLMs) trained on a given instruction dataset. Curriculum learning as a typical data organization strategy has shown preliminary effectiveness in instruction tuning. However, current curriculum tuning methods suffer from the curriculum rigidity, since they rely solely on static heuristic difficulty metrics. These methods fail to adapt to the evolving capabilities of models during training, resulting in a fixed and potentially sub-optimal learning trajectory. To address the issue, Competence-Aware Multi-Perspective cUrriculum inStruction tuning framework termed CAMPUS is proposed. CAMPUS offers several advantages: (1) Dynamic selection for sub-curriculum. (2) Competency-aware adjustment to the curriculum schedule. (3) Multiple difficulty-based scheduling. Extensive experiments prove the superior performance of CAMPUS, compared to other state-of-the-art baselines for efficient instruction tuning.

In this position paper, we argue that human baselines in foundation model evaluations must be more rigorous and more transparent to enable meaningful comparisons of human vs. AI performance, and we provide recommendations and a reporting checklist towards this end. Human performance baselines are vital for the machine learning community, downstream users, and policymakers to interpret AI evaluations. Models are often claimed to achieve "super-human" performance, but existing baselining methods are neither sufficiently rigorous nor sufficiently well-documented to robustly measure and assess performance differences. Based on a meta-review of the measurement theory and AI evaluation literatures, we derive a framework with recommendations for designing, executing, and reporting human baselines. We synthesize our recommendations into a checklist that we use to systematically review 115 human baselines (studies) in foundation model evaluations and thus identify shortcomings in existing baselining methods; our checklist can also assist researchers in conducting human baselines and reporting results. We hope our work can advance more rigorous AI evaluation practices that can better serve both the research community and policymakers. Data is available at: https://github.com/kevinlwei/human-baselines

The AIoT-Based Smart Education System integrates Artificial Intelligence and IoT to address persistent challenges in contemporary classrooms: attendance fraud, lack of personalization, student disengagement, and inefficient resource use. The unified platform combines four core modules: (1) a dual-factor authentication system leveraging RFID-based ID scans and WiFi verification for secure, fraud-resistant attendance; (2) an AI-powered assistant that provides real-time, context-aware support and dynamic quiz generation based on instructor-supplied materials; (3) automated test generators to streamline adaptive assessment and reduce administrative overhead; and (4) the EcoSmart Campus module, which autonomously regulates classroom lighting, air quality, and temperature using IoT sensors and actuators. Simulated evaluations demonstrate the system's effectiveness in delivering robust real-time monitoring, fostering inclusive engagement, preventing fraudulent practices, and supporting operational scalability. Collectively, the AIoT-Based Smart Education System offers a secure, adaptive, and efficient learning environment, providing a scalable blueprint for future educational innovation and improved student outcomes through the synergistic application of artificial intelligence and IoT technologies.

Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are the primary medium for human-computer interaction, yet automating GUI interactions remains challenging due to the complexity of visual elements, dynamic environments, and the need for multi-step reasoning. Existing methods based on vision-language models (VLMs) often suffer from limited resolution, domain mismatch, and insufficient sequential decisionmaking capability. To address these issues, we propose Mano, a robust GUI agent built upon a multi-modal foundation model pre-trained on extensive web and computer system data. Our approach integrates a novel simulated environment for high-fidelity data generation, a three-stage training pipeline (supervised fine-tuning, offline reinforcement learning, and online reinforcement learning), and a verification module for error recovery. Mano demonstrates state-of-the-art performance on multiple GUI benchmarks, including Mind2Web and OSWorld, achieving significant improvements in success rate and operational accuracy. Our work provides new insights into the effective integration of reinforcement learning with VLMs for practical GUI agent deployment, highlighting the importance of domain-specific data, iterative training, and holistic reward design.

Reinforcement learning (RL) has proven effective for fine-tuning large language models (LLMs), significantly enhancing their reasoning abilities in domains such as mathematics and code generation. A crucial factor influencing RL fine-tuning success is the training curriculum: the order in which training problems are presented. While random curricula serve as common baselines, they remain suboptimal; manually designed curricula often rely heavily on heuristics, and online filtering methods can be computationally prohibitive. To address these limitations, we propose Self-Evolving Curriculum (SEC), an automatic curriculum learning method that learns a curriculum policy concurrently with the RL fine-tuning process. Our approach formulates curriculum selection as a non-stationary Multi-Armed Bandit problem, treating each problem category (e.g., difficulty level or problem type) as an individual arm. We leverage the absolute advantage from policy gradient methods as a proxy measure for immediate learning gain. At each training step, the curriculum policy selects categories to maximize this reward signal and is updated using the TD(0) method. Across three distinct reasoning domains: planning, inductive reasoning, and mathematics, our experiments demonstrate that SEC significantly improves models' reasoning capabilities, enabling better generalization to harder, out-of-distribution test problems. Additionally, our approach achieves better skill balance when fine-tuning simultaneously on multiple reasoning domains. These findings highlight SEC as a promising strategy for RL fine-tuning of LLMs.

Deep learning has achieved remarkable success across a wide range of tasks, but its models often suffer from instability and vulnerability: small changes to the input may drastically affect predictions, while optimization can be hindered by sharp loss landscapes. This thesis addresses these issues through the unifying perspective of sensitivity analysis, which examines how neural networks respond to perturbations at both the input and parameter levels. We study Lipschitz networks as a principled way to constrain sensitivity to input perturbations, thereby improving generalization, adversarial robustness, and training stability. To complement this architectural approach, we introduce regularization techniques based on the curvature of the loss function, promoting smoother optimization landscapes and reducing sensitivity to parameter variations. Randomized smoothing is also explored as a probabilistic method for enhancing robustness at decision boundaries. By combining these perspectives, we develop a unified framework where Lipschitz continuity, randomized smoothing, and curvature regularization interact to address fundamental challenges in stability. The thesis contributes both theoretical analysis and practical methodologies, including efficient spectral norm computation, novel Lipschitz-constrained layers, and improved certification procedures.