Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable capabilities in commonsense reasoning; however, some variations in questions can trigger incorrect responses. Do these models truly understand commonsense knowledge, or just memorize expression patterns? To investigate this question, we present the first extensive robustness evaluation of LLMs in commonsense reasoning. We introduce HellaSwag-Pro, a large-scale bilingual benchmark consisting of 11,200 cases, by designing and compiling seven types of question variants. To construct this benchmark, we propose a two-stage method to develop Chinese HellaSwag, a finely annotated dataset comprising 12,000 instances across 56 categories. We conduct extensive experiments on 41 representative LLMs, revealing that these LLMs are far from robust in commonsense reasoning. Furthermore, this robustness varies depending on the language in which the LLM is tested. This work establishes a high-quality evaluation benchmark, with extensive experiments offering valuable insights to the community in commonsense reasoning for LLMs.

Robust statistics aims to compute quantities to represent data where a fraction of it may be arbitrarily corrupted. The most essential statistic is the mean, and in recent years, there has been a flurry of theoretical advancement for efficiently estimating the mean in high dimensions on corrupted data. While several algorithms have been proposed that achieve near-optimal error, they all rely on large data size requirements as a function of dimension. In this paper, we perform an extensive experimentation over various mean estimation techniques where data size might not meet this requirement due to the highdimensional setting. For data with inliers generated from a Gaussian with known covariance, we find experimentally that several robust mean estimation techniques can practically improve upon the sample mean, with the quantum entropy scaling approach from Dong et.al.

The conversion of natural language into SQL language for querying databases (Text-to-SQL) has broad application prospects and has attracted widespread attention. At present, the mainstream Text-to-SQL methods are mainly divided into in-context learning (ICL) based methods and supervised fine-tuning (SFT) based methods. ICL-based methods can achieve relatively good results thanks to the use of the most advanced closed-source models. However, in real-world application scenarios, factors such as data privacy, SQL generation efficiency and cost need to be considered. SFT-based methods have certain advantages. At present, methods based on fine-tuning of open source models lack easy-to-implement and effective (cost-effective) baseline methods. We propose a pipeline-based method using open source model fine-tuning, referred to as BASE-SQL, which includes four components: Schema Linking, Candidate SQL Generate, SQL Revision and SQL Merge Revision. Experimental results show that BASE-SQL uses the open source model Qwen2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct, and achieves an accuracy of 67.47% on the BIRD development set and 88.9% on the Spider test set, which is significantly better than other methods using open source models, and even exceeds several methods using the GPT-4o closed-source model. At the same time, BASE-SQL is easy to implement and highly efficient (on average, only five calls to the large language model are required to generate SQL once). The code will be open sourced at https://github.com/CycloneBoy/base_sql.

The escalating challenges of managing vast sensor-generated data, particularly in audio applications, necessitate innovative solutions. Current systems face significant computational and storage demands, especially in real-time applications like gunshot detection systems (GSDS), and the proliferation of edge sensors exacerbates these issues. This paper proposes a groundbreaking approach with a near-sensor model tailored for intelligent audio-sensing frameworks. Utilizing a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) module, convolutional neural network (CNN) layers, and HyperDimensional Computing (HDC), our model excels in low-energy, rapid inference, and online learning. It is highly adaptable for efficient ASIC design implementation, offering superior energy efficiency compared to conventional embedded CPUs or GPUs, and is compatible with the trend of shrinking microphone sensor sizes. Comprehensive evaluations at both software and hardware levels underscore the model's efficacy. Software assessments through detailed ROC curve analysis revealed a delicate balance between energy conservation and quality loss, achieving up to 82.1% energy savings with only 1.39% quality loss. Hardware evaluations highlight the model's commendable energy efficiency when implemented via ASIC design, especially with the Google Edge TPU, showcasing its superiority over prevalent embedded CPUs and GPUs.

Group-agent reinforcement learning (GARL) is a newly arising learning scenario, where multiple reinforcement learning agents study together in a group, sharing knowledge in an asynchronous fashion. The goal is to improve the learning performance of each individual agent. Under a more general heterogeneous setting where different agents learn using different algorithms, we advance GARL by designing novel and effective group-learning mechanisms. They guide the agents on whether and how to learn from action choices from the others, and allow the agents to adopt available policy and value function models sent by another agent if they perform better. We have conducted extensive experiments on a total of 43 different Atari 2600 games to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method. After the group learning, among the 129 agents examined, 96% are able to achieve a learning speed-up, and 72% are able to learn over 100 times faster. Also, around 41% of those agents have achieved a higher accumulated reward score by learning in less than 5% of the time steps required by a single agent when learning on its own.

Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are a popular and important task for evaluating large language models (LLMs). Based on common strategies people use when answering MCQs, the process of elimination (PoE) has been proposed as an effective problem-solving method. Existing methods to the PoE generally fall into two categories: one involves having the LLM directly select the incorrect options, while the other involves scoring the options. However, both methods incur high computational costs and often perform worse than methods that directly answer the MCQs with the option IDs. To address this issue, this paper proposes a PoE based on option ID. Specifically, our method eliminates option by selecting the option ID with the lowest probability. We conduct experiments with 10 different LLMs in zero-shot settings on 7 publicly available datasets. The experimental results demonstrate that our method significantly improves the LLM's performance. Further analysis reveals that the sequential elimination strategy can effectively enhance the LLM's reasoning ability. Additionally, we find that sequential elimination is also applicable to few-shot settings and can be combined with debias methods to further improve LLM's performance.

A large number of studies rely on closed-style multiple-choice surveys to evaluate cultural alignment in Large Language Models (LLMs). In this work, we challenge this constrained evaluation paradigm and explore more realistic, unconstrained approaches. Using the World Values Survey (WVS) and Hofstede Cultural Dimensions as case studies, we demonstrate that LLMs exhibit stronger cultural alignment in less constrained settings, where responses are not forced. Additionally, we show that even minor changes, such as reordering survey choices, lead to inconsistent outputs, exposing the limitations of closed-style evaluations. Our findings advocate for more robust and flexible evaluation frameworks that focus on specific cultural proxies, encouraging more nuanced and accurate assessments of cultural alignment in LLMs.

The recent advancement of foundation models (FMs) has brought about a paradigm shift, revolutionizing various sectors worldwide. The popular optimizers used to train these models are stochastic gradient descent-based algorithms, which face inherent limitations, such as slow convergence and stringent assumptions for convergence. In particular, data heterogeneity arising from distributed settings poses significant challenges to their theoretical and numerical performance. This paper develops an algorithm, PISA ({P}reconditioned {I}nexact {S}tochastic {A}lternating Direction Method of Multipliers), which enables scalable parallel computing and supports various second-moment schemes. Grounded in rigorous theoretical guarantees, the algorithm converges under the sole assumption of Lipschitz continuity of the gradient, thereby removing the need for other conditions commonly imposed by stochastic methods. This capability enables PISA to tackle the challenge of data heterogeneity effectively. Comprehensive experimental evaluations for training or fine-tuning diverse FMs, including vision models, large language models, reinforcement learning models, generative adversarial networks, and recurrent neural networks, demonstrate its superior numerical performance compared to various state-of-the-art optimizers.

A common strategy for fact-checking long-form content generated by Large Language Models (LLMs) is extracting simple claims that can be verified independently. Since inaccurate or incomplete claims compromise fact-checking results, ensuring claim quality is critical. However, the lack of a standardized evaluation framework impedes assessment and comparison of claim extraction methods. To address this gap, we propose a framework for evaluating claim extraction in the context of fact-checking along with automated, scalable, and replicable methods for applying this framework, including novel approaches for measuring coverage and decontextualization. We also introduce Claimify, an LLM-based claim extraction method, and demonstrate that it outperforms existing methods under our evaluation framework. A key feature of Claimify is its ability to handle ambiguity and extract claims only when there is high confidence in the correct interpretation of the source text.

OpenAI o1 has shown that applying reinforcement learning to integrate reasoning steps directly during inference can significantly improve a model's reasoning capabilities. This result is exciting as the field transitions from the conventional autoregressive method of generating answers to a more deliberate approach that models the slow-thinking process through step-by-step reasoning training. Reinforcement learning plays a key role in both the model's training and decoding processes. In this article, we present a comprehensive formulation of reasoning problems and investigate the use of both model-based and model-free approaches to better support this slow-thinking framework.