Automated feedback generation plays a crucial role in enhancing personalized learning experiences in computer science education. Among different types of feedback, next-step hint feedback is particularly important, as it provides students with actionable steps to progress towards solving programming tasks. This study investigates how students interact with an AI-driven next-step hint system in an in-IDE learning environment. We gathered and analyzed a dataset from 34 students solving Kotlin tasks, containing detailed hint interaction logs. We applied process mining techniques and identified 16 common interaction scenarios. Semi-structured interviews with 6 students revealed strategies for managing unhelpful hints, such as adapting partial hints or modifying code to generate variations of the same hint. These findings, combined with our publicly available dataset, offer valuable opportunities for future research and provide key insights into student behavior, helping improve hint design for enhanced learning support.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is widely used to mitigate hallucinations of Large Language Models (LLMs) by leveraging external knowledge. While effective for simple queries, traditional RAG systems struggle with large-scale, unstructured corpora where information is fragmented. Recent advances incorporate knowledge graphs to capture relational structures, enabling more comprehensive retrieval for complex, multi-hop reasoning tasks. However, existing graph-based RAG (GraphRAG) methods rely on unstable and costly relation extraction for graph construction, often producing noisy graphs with incorrect or inconsistent relations that degrade retrieval quality. In this paper, we revisit the pipeline of existing GraphRAG systems and propose LinearRAG (Linear Graph-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation), an efficient framework that enables reliable graph construction and precise passage retrieval. Specifically, LinearRAG constructs a relation-free hierarchical graph, termed Tri-Graph, using only lightweight entity extraction and semantic linking, avoiding unstable relation modeling. This new paradigm of graph construction scales linearly with corpus size and incurs no extra token consumption, providing an economical and reliable indexing of the original passages. For retrieval, LinearRAG adopts a two-stage strategy: (i) relevant entity activation via local semantic bridging, followed by (ii) passage retrieval through global importance aggregation. Extensive experiments on four datasets demonstrate that LinearRAG significantly outperforms baseline models. Our code and datasets are available at https://github.com/DEEP-PolyU/LinearRAG.

We conducted three 90 - minute workshops at Talenthub Op Zuid, each with a different group of participants (total N=24, MAge =17.6, SD=1.2, see S upplement for additional details). In the first workshop, participants reviewed the prior 13 personas from Stage 1 and critiqued them for gaps in relevance. The scoping personas generated from survey and forum data gave youth stakeholders a concrete starting point for consulting as experts by experience in initial co - design activities. They challenged the realism of the scoping personas . Using fill - in - the - blank templates to guide but not restrict their persona creation (created by a youth member of the research team with design training, see Supplement), youth added contextual details to the project personas, such as daily routines, stressors, and digital habits, and brainstormed plausible backstories involving bullying, school difficulties, or parental conflict. The second workshop engaged a new participant group who expanded on previous outputs and addressed additional questions on living environment and emotional support needs, as this was suggested as relevant by youth from the prior workshop . Participants revised or created new personas b ased on their own or peers' experiences. In t he third workshop, a new group of participants again reviewed prior co - creation and outputs and further refined the personas .

At seventy-three, the former front man of Talking Heads is still asking questions about what it means to be alive. "When you step onstage, it's a very artificial situation," Byrne said. "To pretend it's not--that isn't being authentic." If you spend enough time wandering around downtown Manhattan, the odds are that you'll eventually encounter the musician David Byrne riding a bicycle. One day this past June, pedalling alongside Byrne from his apartment in Chelsea to the Governors Island ferry, I watched at least a dozen New Yorkers clock his profile, whipping around to squint, softly pinching the arm of their companion and whispering, "Was that . . . By then, Byrne was gone, a tuft of white hair whizzing toward the horizon. Spotting Byrne on two wheels has become a New York City rite of passage, like sussing out the best halal cart in midtown, or dropping something important onto the subway tracks. During the few months that Byrne and I spent together, I never saw him traverse the ...

Palantir's CEO is good with ICE and says he defends human rights. But will Israel and Trump ever go too far for him? Alex Karp and I would not seem to have much in common. I work for WIRED, which does tough reporting on Trumpworld; Karp is the CEO of Palantir, a $450 billion firm that has contracts with agencies like the CIA and ICE and worked for the Israeli military during its campaign in Gaza. I live in the East Village of New York City, and the home Karp spends the most time in is a 500-acre compound in rural New Hampshire. I was a plain old English major, and he's got a law degree and a PhD in philosophy, studying under the legendary Jürgen Habermas. I consider myself a progressive; Karp regards that stuff as "pagan religion." But we can bond over one shared status: Both of us are alumni of Central High School, a Philadelphia magnet school. I have some years on the 58-year-old executive.)

Providing high-quality feedback to Large Language Models (LLMs) on a diverse training distribution can be difficult and expensive, and providing feedback only on a narrow distribution can result in unintended generalizations. To better leverage narrow training data, we propose contrastive weight steering, a simple post-training method that edits the model parameters using weight arithmetic. We isolate a behavior direction in weight-space by subtracting the weight deltas from two small fine-tunes -- one that induces the desired behavior and another that induces its opposite -- and then add or remove this direction to modify the model's weights. We apply this technique to mitigate sycophancy and induce misalignment, and find that weight steering often generalizes further than activation steering, achieving stronger out-of-distribution behavioral control before degrading general capabilities. We also show that, in the context of task-specific fine-tuning, weight steering can partially mitigate undesired behavioral drift: it can reduce sycophancy and under-refusals introduced during fine-tuning while preserving task performance gains. Finally, we provide preliminary evidence that emergent misalignment can be detected by measuring the similarity between fine-tuning updates and an "evil" weight direction, suggesting that it may be possible to monitor the evolution of weights during training and detect rare misaligned behaviors that never manifest during training or evaluations.

Simulating human reasoning in open-ended tasks has long been a central aspiration in AI and cognitive science. While large language models now approximate human responses at scale, they remain tuned to population-level consensus, often erasing the individuality of reasoning styles and belief trajectories. To advance the vision of more human-like reasoning in machines, we introduce HugAgent (Human-Grounded Agent Benchmark), which rethinks human reasoning simulation along three dimensions: (i) from averaged to individualized reasoning, (ii) from behavioral mimicry to cognitive alignment, and (iii) from vignette-based to open-ended data. The benchmark evaluates whether a model can predict a specific person's behavioral responses and the underlying reasoning dynamics in out-of-distribution scenarios, given partial evidence of their prior views. HugAgent adopts a dual-track design: a human track that automates and scales the think-aloud method to collect ecologically valid human reasoning data, and a synthetic track for further scalability and systematic stress testing. This architecture enables low-cost, extensible expansion to new tasks and populations. Experiments with state-of-the-art language models reveal persistent adaptation gaps, positioning HugAgent as the first extensible benchmark for aligning machine reasoning with the individuality of human thought. The benchmark, along with its complete data collection pipeline and companion chatbot, is open-sourced as HugAgent (https://anonymous.4open.science/r/HugAgent) and TraceYourThinking (https://anonymous.4open.science/r/trace-your-thinking).

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry lead star parade at Kris Jenner's 70th birthday bash held at Jeff Bezos' $165M mansion in Beverly Hills Trumpworld fumes at Democrats' affordability'con job' as insiders rush to save sinking presidency Dark side of Danielle Bernstein: She is America's most hated influencer... but now insiders reveal claims of behavior so outrageous they'kind of respect her' for getting away with it Hollywood's hooked on a new'fountain of youth' drug. It erases wrinkles, boosts libido and stops hair loss... but has terrifying side-effects: JILLIAN MICHAELS Defiant Joe Biden goes scorched earth on Donald Trump over White House demolition: 'Who in the hell does he think he is?' Insiders reveal yet more'trauma' after star's dangerous driving and say she is'close to going nuclear'... as she falls into'very protective' arms of male friend Sordid truth about night seven ladyboys'beat up' Luigi Mangione after visit to Thai sex bar: Texts and photos revealed in tell-all The ugly gossip about Marjorie Taylor Greene swirling in DC... no wonder she's giving this'nothing to see here' performance of a lifetime: KENNEDY SNL sketch mocking Oval Office medical emergency slammed as'heartless' and'uncomfortably cringe' Flabbergasting views of New York City's next First Lady, 28, laid bare in the hipster artist's work My son tried the trendy $1 'chill pill' taken by 1.7m Americans and sold in gas stations... he never woke up. Here's what they don't tell you Jimmy Kimmel's wife'felt betrayed by Trump voting family members' after her comic husband was pulled from the air Insiders blow lid on top secret actor'blacklist' at Paramount that's tearing Hollywood apart and start naming names KELLYANNE CONWAY: This week's elections were a referendum on President Trump... but not for the reason you think TikTok star accused in $3.5 million lawsuit of stealing her husband from his ex-wife Upstate city with small-town charm is one of the best places to live in America... but it will cost you Meghan has always been a terrible actress... but watch the moment she catches Harry completely off guard. It tells you everything about what's next: MAUREEN CALLAHAN'It's not the 60+ days of Christmas!' Exasperated Brits blast John Lewis, Coca-Cola, and Argos for releasing their ads almost two months before the big day - as experts warn prolonged buildup can spark'festive burnout' This year, brands like John Lewis, Coca-Cola, and Argos have rushed to get their Christmas adverts out almost two months ahead of the big day. You might think that this would help us to get excited for Santa's arrival.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. After deciding in 2018 that she wanted to study law, Kim Kardashian has failed the California bar exam on her first attempt. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . Shapewear mogul Kim Kardashian announced Saturday that she has failed the California bar exam, seven years after embarking on her law studies.

Donald Trump wants Washington Commanders to name $3.7billion stadium after him The ugly gossip about Marjorie Taylor Greene swirling in DC... no wonder she's giving this'nothing to see here' performance of a lifetime: KENNEDY Tupac's family hid his final secret for decades. Donald Trump's new city-destroying nuclear missile'is spotted for the first time' as planespotter photographs it on hush-hush test flight The truth about Aaron Rodgers's secret'wife': Family lift the lid on the NFL's biggest mystery... and finally put to bed those swirling rumors Singer Grande shows off her 40 hand'prison' tattoos at Wicked: For Good premiere in Paris Insiders blow lid on top secret actor'blacklist' at Paramount that's tearing Hollywood apart and start naming names White House space sabotage plot EXPOSED: The truth behind the NASA war that tore Trump's inner circle in two Wild image shows how Simone Biles would look next to Olivier Rioux... after he made his college basketball debut Southern city morphs into New York's'tiny twin' as Big Apple residents flock there in droves to escape woke mayor Succession star Sarah Snook's new thriller is the best show of the year - its brings every parent's worst nightmare to life in spectacular fashion and I binged all eight episodes in one sitting Fears as Days of Our Lives is beset by string of tragedies... leaving producers desperately scrambling to save iconic show Soap icon turned ordained minister who flirted with Andy Warhol steps out in LA... can you guess who? She was an award-winning Teacher of the Year. Jeremy Renner's film partner claims he sent her explicit photos and videos to woo her then threatened the unthinkable when they fell out MORE: Scientists discover extraterrestrial relics in the first samples from moon's mysterious far side Two mysterious flashes have been spotted on the moon's surface, sparking a debate over what just struck our nearest neighbor in the solar system. Astronomer Daichi Fujii, curator of the Hiratsuka City Museum in Japan, captured the first of these bright flashes on October 30, revealing a large round dot briefly illuminating the moon's surface before disappearing.